at last
at last. the bubble that’s been hovering around me like a second skin the past few months keeping me from penetrating life: my life, an imaginary life — finally burst. i picked up alice sebold’s the lovely bones, a book i’ve been avoiding. i don’t do hype. i don’t do murder. but i read that first chapter and i felt absolutely smacked. hurled across the room and smacked. i hunkered down and read that entire book in a day and a half. if a book that tackles something so grotesque and repulsive can be beautiful, it is. sebold is poetry itself. somehow getting inside those characters helped me open something inside myself. i looked up from the last page and saw my husband and my son and i thought, this is good. what i have, here, right now, is good. at last.
atonement
i rarely seem to jump on book-bandwagons these days. maybe it’s the same reason i don’t watch the news or don’t seem to care whether obama or hillary wins the democratic nomination. but for some inexplicable reason (i liked the cover…?), i read atonement by ian mcewan. i’m going to agree with all those people that make the new york times bestseller list: this is a well-written book that will drive you into the ground. i haven’t read a novel this graphic in a long time. (if you stick to those russians you hear a heck of a lot more about the endless steppe than you do about sex.) and, i’m proud (?) to tell you all that this is supposed to be a book full of “twists” and i knew (not even guessed, but knew) every single twist from about page 100. i think it’s because i’m such an astute reader. (and not because i could never guess who done it in an agatha christie.)
the enchanted april
i hope the enchanted april enchanted your own april. here’s our guest host sarajane’s take on the book.
Filed under book trail, classic, fiction | Comments (4)I was totally enchanted by Enchanted April. I found myself completely taken in by the delicious descriptions on every page of this delightful novel. It was almost magic how quickly I felt totally transplanted into this warm, fragrant world of San Salvatore. It was not hard to picture myself among the ladies as they discovered the beauty of the Castle and themselves. Von Arnim’s writing is witty and charming both in her characters and descriptions. I am amazed that she wrote the book in a little over five months. I feel like each of the four main characters where given adequate attention and development as they bloom into lovely women.
The wall flower Mrs. Wilkins blossoms into Lotty who is full of life, love and friendship. Mrs. Arbuthnot the reserved, ashamed, and repressed charity worker blooms into Rose the passionate bosom filled lover. Then there is Lady Caroline the pent up girl who can’t catch her breath discovers that she has all along been Srcap “a spoilt, a sour, a suspicious and selfish spinster.” Hiding underneath the name of Droitwiche and underneath the beautiful skin and voice she is after all just a lonely girl who is afraid that someone will discover that she too is vulnerable. We can’t forget Mrs. Fisher who begins to burgeon and feels that at any moment she “might crop out all green,” and actually make new friends. Each one of these charters speaks to me in their old and new states.
Lotty, after living with Mr. Wilkins for so many years actually began to feel that she was of no value. After realizing that other people placed value in his wife Mr. Wilkins began also to treat her with affection. “The more he treated her as though she were really very nice, the more Lotty expanded and became really very nice, and the more he affected in his turn, became really very nice himself.” This principle seems to really exist in relationships. People act the way they are treated. Do we not become the kind of people that others think us to be? It is a circle that continues for good or bad. As we see with Rose, the more Mr. Briggs thought Rose charming the more charming she became.
The book illustrates that the true test in a relationship is to be able to throw justice out the window as Lotty realizes when she says,“At home I wouldn’t love Mellersh unless he loved me back, exactly as much, absolute fairness. And as he didn’t, neither did I…” This book speaks out about relationships and having trust in others. Can there be love without trust? How did these women bloom into such loving people? Was it the influence of the atmosphere at the castle or was it the influence they had on one another? What are your thoughts? Feelings? Insights? Likes and dislikes about the novel?
This novel is rich with beautiful setting and blooming characters. I enjoyed being transported, after all “everybody needs a holiday.”
fieldwork
i picked fieldwork by mischa berlinski on the recommendation of my local independent bookseller. (since that’s how i found the history of love, it didn’t even occur to me that i wouldn’t utterly fall for this book too.)
it’s an interesting premise: mischa berlinski (and we could spend the rest of the afternoon discussing the implications of a novelist naming his fictional protagonist after himself), while in thailand with his girlfriend, stumbles on this improbable murder story. an anthropologist shoots a Christian missionary.
at first i was riveted. the descriptive and accurate look into the lives of these missionaries had me dog-earing pages and desperately scrambling for pens to jot down my half-baked thoughts. somehow this berlinski guy had found a way to describe missionary life that was so bang on.
since i’m currently trying to rewrite my own missionary experience, i was frustrated and inspired by the way berlinski was able to capture the missionary mindset: the missionaries remained people–he gave a picture of their life that didn’t turn them into psychotic proselytizing machines.
and then. there are these random random tangents. mischa’s girlfriend (the fictional mischa, not the author) is nothing more than a prop. she is the typical stock female character and only exists to give mischa an excuse to be in thailand.
the way berlinski approached the book is utterly beyond me. it’s divided into sections: telling the story from every possible perspective. if you ask me, it would have been much more readable if he had simply told the story without involving his fictional self or his fictional girlfriend.
i’m not sure how to sum this experience up. obviously, the prose is brilliant, the research is impeccable. the story is complicated and interesting. should the few annoyances skew my overall perception? probably not. but they are.
you read it. tell me what you think.
Filed under fiction | Comment (0)the no. 1 ladies detective agency
it’s a testament to my mind-blearing life lately, but i haven’t been reading much. i can’t hold any words in my head. (i even gave up sucker-punching my way through jonthan norrell and mr strange because it just wasn’t assuaging my bb-gunned soul.) desperate, i picked up this tiny little african surprise at the library.
people have been recommending this book to me for months. but i avoided it. sure, i had my nancy drew phase, my agatha christie phase, my (gasp, keep this hush-hush) robin cook phase, but i haven’t been too interested in detective series in years.
to my utter surprise, i loved this book. the prose style is simple: you won’t find this novel turning your notion of humanity upside-down. but our protagonist, precious, is just that. the details of african life alone make this book worth your afternoon.
it’s a straightforward, tightly written, easy little jaunt. take it with you to the beach this summer. (and take me with you to the beach this summer or i might be due for an ice pick frontal lobotomy.)
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