Detailed plot, great main character, and very McEwan in that the narrative tension is so heavy and coiled and unusual that the book reads like a thrilDetailed plot, great main character, and very McEwan in that the narrative tension is so heavy and coiled and unusual that the book reads like a thriller or mystery while still being truly a work of literary fiction.
It's about Serena the spy, but also about secrets, love, how literature is written, and how literature is appreciated and criticized. It's just the right length and ends the right way. McEwan is so good at shattering my pretenses without any over-the-top plotting to force it....more
A brutally sad story, beautifully written and carefully embedded in its historical, social and cultural contexts. The story itself (plot, characters, A brutally sad story, beautifully written and carefully embedded in its historical, social and cultural contexts. The story itself (plot, characters, style) is nearly flawless. The prose is tight, there's no melodrama and we're deep in Elwood's perspective without being buried there. The message is also clear. Whitehead gets us thinking, not only about the evils of the past, but about the ways that looking the other way in the face of discrimination can lead to horrific tragedies....more
Not at all what I expected. This isn't really about the titular man in the box, but rather about a 13-year-old who is coming to terms with identity, sNot at all what I expected. This isn't really about the titular man in the box, but rather about a 13-year-old who is coming to terms with identity, sex, love and approaching adulthood. He lives in a tiny town in Austria that while impacted by WW2 (there is a Jewish man in a box in his barn, after all) is actually so small and obscure that the impacts are relatively few. There are food shortages, a few young soldiers who bunk with families in the community, and a young man who returns from the war wounded. But above all there is Niki, his love and sexual desire for his blind best friend Sigi (among others) and the stories about love and sometimes sex they hear from Dr. Weiss, the man in the box.
I know many reviews of this book found the lack of putting the story in its historical context to be its weakness. And maybe it was. But it also felt realistic in a way, that a young teen would only know or think as much about the national political context as he's forced to. That said, it is odd that adult Niki who is telling the story doesn't layer in that context. We hear only young Niki's perspective.
Niki is carefully never gendered in the book, though all the signs are there that he is at least assigned male at birth. The way his father brings him into business situations make this clear, but the author adds lots of confounding elements (ex. Niki spends lots of time alone with Sigi, a young girl, including up in her bedroom). There is also the mysterious moment that Sigi touches Niki between his legs and the language is purposefully obfuscating: "Then Sigi touches me between my legs, the tenderest touch in the tenderest spot... And with the tips of her fingers, Sigi sweetly ravishes my certain, fallow world." While sort of interesting, there is no conclusion or meaning made of this theme. What was the point?
Another deeper theme the author picked up but ultimately set down unchanged was the idea of whether Niki's family is saving Dr. Weiss or imprisoning him. ("Save? Is that what we're doing? Or are we killing him in the slowest way?")
One interesting quote from Gregor, a young adult who returns from the war wounded: "I admit I liked to blow things up. It's very exciting. It's like being a little boy with not only permission but encouragement to be as bad as you please. You can be so bad. You can be bad until you make yourself sick if you want. But you never imagine that day will come. You never imagine that one day you might be the one to get blown up."...more
An incredibly fun read. It's a full-throated parody of the early 1900s bucolic novels, but it's also a feminist novel that experiments with speculativAn incredibly fun read. It's a full-throated parody of the early 1900s bucolic novels, but it's also a feminist novel that experiments with speculative elements, plays with the intersection of gender and power, and alludes to literary masterpieces by the Brontes and Jane Austen. This is why it stands the test of time.
Gibbons' style is the book's best feature for me (characters are a close second). Her writing is very visual and it's easy to picture so many moments. Adam with his "liddle mop" around his neck, Elfine in her creature-of-the-woods cape, the 200 photos of Seth with little black curtains on them,etc....more
Especially interesting reading after the COVID-19 pandemic (this was written before). I like the interplay of art/creative expression with pure survivEspecially interesting reading after the COVID-19 pandemic (this was written before). I like the interplay of art/creative expression with pure survival and defense. I also like the variety of characters and the jumps back and forth in time (pre- and post- Georgia flu in each of their lives). The weaving is masterful and the characters are fun to follow and root for if not always fully rounded.
The plot is relatively fast-paced and not perfect - there are a few forced moments where you can see the author putting together a few pieces that don't quite fit.
There are many low-stakes mysteries throughout and all these threads are neatly tied up by the end, but ultimately the ending is open-ended and hopeful. A good choice....more
I struggled with this one. I'll still try the second in the trilogy and hope I develop a deeper resonance with the characters. It's a claustrophobic sI struggled with this one. I'll still try the second in the trilogy and hope I develop a deeper resonance with the characters. It's a claustrophobic story that immerses you in an intense, hyper-controlled culture and an even more intense, hyper-controlled family. And the characters fell too flat for me to make up for that. Plus there's little spark to the style - it's plot-forward, chronological and just generally straightforward.
I couldn't breath and stretch with the words and ideas as I read. I kept wanting to put it down....more
A fantastic YA novel that doesn't shy away from tough subjects or real life situations and behavior. The characters, however, are flatter than they woA fantastic YA novel that doesn't shy away from tough subjects or real life situations and behavior. The characters, however, are flatter than they would be in an adult novel. The sharpest barbs of their failures, motives and mistakes are cut off.
Alexie also states his writerly goals and themes quite clearly - another sign of a YA novel. I can't fault him for it but I don't enjoy it.
I'm glad to have read this given its importance in modern literature - but I know I would have enjoyed it much more if it were around when I was 14 or so....more
Not my favorite reading experience, and maybe best left to obscurity. I was engaged at the start, and at the end, but the whole middle leans toward suNot my favorite reading experience, and maybe best left to obscurity. I was engaged at the start, and at the end, but the whole middle leans toward suspense/mystery and I found it tedious. Especially since it was pretty clear what was going to happen.
I did enjoy the crises of conscience and moments of self-illumination that happened for several characters towards the end. Spoilers below (can I spoil an obscure 1872 novel?).
As Augusta learns more and more about her husband's past and secrets, she learns more and more about herself - her feelings, her flaws, her temptations. Redmayne has similar moments: with Mrs. Bush when he realizes his moping and isolation may make people assume the worst, and with the chaplain when he realizes that he may not have killed Hubert if he had remembered the flowers on Grace's grave....more
This was just the right length (short) and I love that the author set this in a (nearly) post-human world, without telling us how or why the world gotThis was just the right length (short) and I love that the author set this in a (nearly) post-human world, without telling us how or why the world got that way. There's no preaching, so gnashing of teeth. And there doesn't need to be because as a reader I know how all too real this future feels.
Most of the book is calm, careful description of survival tasks (felling the right tree, shaping a bow, hunting a deer, smoking fish, tanning a hide, sewing shoes, building fire, and many more). We see it all when the girl is learning from her dad and it's packed with feeling because of their relationship. Then we see it all again when it's just the girl but it's all packed with emotion because we know what she had, and lost. I didn't mind the bear, and the puma - is it a dream or delusion of grief? I chose to suspend disbelief because my heart didn't want the girl to be alone.
I read The Vaster Wilds last year which echoes The Bear in theme (girl doing survival tasks) and place, though it's set in a completely different time. The books both start to culminate in a similar way - we suddenly find our girl an old woman, having lived a solitary life. But The Vaster Wilds makes meaning of this fate by questioning it, retracting it. The Bear makes meaning of this fate by letting it stand and closing the loop with the bear. I'm not sure either is perfect - one feels like it tries to hard to wring philosophy out of the story, and the other is too feel-good, too simple. But I like the comparison....more
Not an easy read, but a compelling one. The language is lovely, the characters are real, the senses of place (Oakland) and culture (Native American) aNot an easy read, but a compelling one. The language is lovely, the characters are real, the senses of place (Oakland) and culture (Native American) are palpable. I enjoyed the interconnections between the stories and the way the perspective shifts become faster and more frenetic as the climax arrives. It's an incredibly tragic climax, but Orange does an excellent job of giving us the deeper why for the decisions his characters make - the sociocultural why that goes back generations....more
The book opens with several epigraphs and the one that speaks to the story most is from Annie Dillard: "The sea pronounces something, over and over, iThe book opens with several epigraphs and the one that speaks to the story most is from Annie Dillard: "The sea pronounces something, over and over, in a hoarse whisper; I cannot quite make it out."
At the surface, this is the story of Declan O'Donnell. He sets out from Oregon on a boat, alone, planning to head west forever. He's escaping to silence, to the ocean he loves, to be away from the mess and noise of land and people. As he goes, though, he gathers other people who are lost, alone, often silenced.
Silence is a theme - silence as a prison (Pippa especially) and silence as protection. Hearing is also a theme, including hearing souls and hearing animals.
And speech/language is a theme too - everything has a language of its own whether people can hear it or not. Pippa, while silent, can hear the souls of the creatures around her, and can send her soul out to them, even deep in the ocean below. The ocean has a voice, the boat too. And there's attention paid to the different names things and people have in these different languages. Even one character's long beard speaks a language through objects woven into it.
I was especially struck by this line: "We are verbs in noun packages." And also by the idea that the problem with civilization is that when people can do anything, they do nothing.
While the themes feel rich and are frequently invoked and manipulated, I didn't find a whole lot of meaning to make from them. Perhaps it wasn't the right timing for me to read this, but the ideas of silence, hearing, language, friendship felt like laundry tumbling in a dryer. When the cycle ends, everything is in a specific position, sure. But there's no meaning behind it. There's no point to examining it as a whole. The ocean is a jumble too - but the ocean has currents, tides, patterns of movement that lead somewhere.
Below the straightforward story level, this book was more laundry than ocean - I could spot a really beautiful blouse or a favorite sock here and there in the mix, but it's a bit random and unmoored. This made the moments of magical realism (animals speaking, Pippa's recovery) feel zany and unjustified....more
"A life without grief is no life at all. But regret is a prison. Some part of you which you deeply value lies forever impaled at a crossroads you can "A life without grief is no life at all. But regret is a prison. Some part of you which you deeply value lies forever impaled at a crossroads you can no longer find and never forget."
This quote reads darker than the novel as a whole feels (with it's beautiful prose, strong characters, quick clip pace, and quiet low-drama reveals). But to me it's a bit of an anchor.
Bobby is trapped in his past, in his grief, yet remaking his life over and over. As a race care driver, a salvage diver, in a rustic cabin for a Montana winter, in a lighthouse in Spain. Episodes come out of order, each with a mystery that has no follow-up and each with a strong emotion (joy, fear, sadness) that is unfeelable for Bobby. He is very much frozen.
This takes the darkness and tension out of the telling in a way that astounded me. Because the novel doesn't become flat. Instead it's this illumination of how unreal reality is when you scrutinize it hard enough. Physics and math all boil down to philosophy and speculation at their leading edge.
"History is belief."
"...in the end you really cant know. You cant get hold of the world. You can only draw a picture."
Bobby's story is broken up by Alice/Alicia's conversations with her hallucinations, mainly "the thalidomide Kid" who puns, teases, and terrorizes her without ever quite being scary or mean. I can't wait to read Stella Maris and fill in more of Alice/Alicia's story....more
The best historical fiction I've read in a long time. I love the literary bent and the focus on Agnes's side of the story.
The writing is also both beaThe best historical fiction I've read in a long time. I love the literary bent and the focus on Agnes's side of the story.
The writing is also both beautiful and effective. Every description came alive, every character was clearly drawn, and so many scenes were palpable. Agnes and her future husband's meeting in the apple storage shed was particularly memorable to me....more
Irene and Clare are both Black and both "able to pass" as white. Irene does occasionally, so she can go to a whites-only business or something along tIrene and Clare are both Black and both "able to pass" as white. Irene does occasionally, so she can go to a whites-only business or something along those lines. For Clare though, it's her life. Her racist white husband doesn't know she's Black. We see the whole story through Irene's eyes and perspective, knowing only what she knows and thinks.
Larsen builds tension throughout the novel. We start to see how Clare is manipulative, but deftly so. She seems annoying but harmless. We never see her do anything worse than persist and insist, but she is able to control people around her this way.
Irene struggles to choose how to defend herself and her race as both become all tied up in either defending or hurting Clare. Irene's inner thoughts are interesting here, especially as she starts to suspect Clare is having an affair.
The end is a well-done shock with a lot of moral ambivalence. The reader is left to wonder whether Clare ever actually did anything wrong. And whether Irene did too....more
The story is intense and triggering reading, but has its moments of triumph to round it out. The characters are larger than life, which isn't my thingThe story is intense and triggering reading, but has its moments of triumph to round it out. The characters are larger than life, which isn't my thing but if you like vivid and symbolic characters, they are very much here.
What really worked for me was that this book is masterfully and playfully structured. Each chapter title is a simple noun (gold, salt, mud, meat, wind...) that features in the chapter, both physically and symbolically. And the chapter titles repeat, twice, thrice, or more. The way we understand these nouns, as part of life as a Chinese immigrant in the frontier west but also what they represent in the stories of Lucy and her family, twists and changes.
On top of this deceptively simple word-work, the story moves back and forth in time and has near-magical elements that leave the reader wondering how much Lucy, as our narrator, is missing or misunderstanding.
The novel also has an immersive sense of place - the wind, the dust, the mud, the gold fever, the racism, the abuse, the sibling connection - it's all palpable. Even with so many dark and tragic scenes, this is still somehow a story of adventure and the search for belonging. ...more
Really fantastic stories about what makes a place home, strong (but realistically imperfect) women, mixed race identities, surviving poverty and violeReally fantastic stories about what makes a place home, strong (but realistically imperfect) women, mixed race identities, surviving poverty and violence, and what it means to make your own way in the world in the face of a friend or sister or other foil who sees life very differently.
I was hooked on every story, but my favorite two were Ghost Sickness, and Tomi....more
I'm a little broken after reading this. The story is full of tragedy and darkness, but there's so much sympathy here for the characters, even in the fI'm a little broken after reading this. The story is full of tragedy and darkness, but there's so much sympathy here for the characters, even in the face of little mercy. Bone and her family do the best they can with what they know and have. It's often harmful, but mostly not meant so, with the clear exception of Daddy Glen.
The culture around the Boatwrights is pretty ugly - hatred of others, violence, desperate lack of resources and support, no attention to mental health, racism, etc. I wanted to scream at how the doctor and cop treat Bone towards the end of the novel. Not because it's poorly done or didn't feel real. It's the opposite, which makes it all the more frustrating and terrifying.
Dorothy Allison pulls no punches in this book. There is brutal, graphic violence. But she handles it deftly and manages to avoid any sense of voyeurism. Bone, Raylene, and even Anney are left their dignity....more
It's the early 1600s, in the wilderness of what is now North America. Our girl is running for her life, first escaping but then running becomes her liIt's the early 1600s, in the wilderness of what is now North America. Our girl is running for her life, first escaping but then running becomes her life. She started on the verge of starvation and never leaves that verge, plus using some intelligence, some luck and a lot of sheer force of will to survive weather, wounds, freezing cold, wild animals, a near-fatal knock on the head, and more.
The novel takes place over a few weeks, but we gradually see glimpses of her past. She's loved fiercely, throughout a life of fear and sadness and very little choice.
While little changes (she's running, surviving) a lot happens. Groff details everything from the taste and texture of the grubs she eats, to the itch of the lice in her groin, to the light-flashing pain of her throbbing concussion. We are with her.
What happens mostly though is that her thoughts about the world and her people (the english) and god go through changes. She moves through a wandering philosophical thought-scape. At the start god is a light inside her she clings to. Then god is an individual creation, no bigger than each person who creates. Then god is gone - there's nothing to cling to. And in the end, inside that nothing, she finds something pure and universal.
I was interested in both sides of the story. The detailed actions and body functions of the girl were fascinatingly told - both visceral and mundane at once. This was all really well written. On the other side, her thoughts and impressions, I wished for a bit more subtlety. But it's a tiny complaint. The girl is losing her mind as her body fails, and her confusion and swirl of thought comes to more and more frequent precise and illuminating peaks. A few quotations capturing some of those peaks below:
"The last time she saw stars so brights as these, so bold, was upon the boat in the very center of the ocean, and she lay back and felt herself upon those endless waters beneath the yet vaster sky and so awash with immensity that she found herself infinitesimal. But now she sensed the earth under her in its spin and knew herself to be a piece of it, necessary and large enough."
"Naming, she understood, made things more visible... her fellow englishmen believed they were naming this place and this people for the first time, and how it conferred upon them dominion here in this place, although, she was now surprised at her thought, surely the people of this place had their own names for things. But one name takes precedence over another, and so the wheel of power turned."
"The men of her own country had always felt this nothing deep within them; they felt it twist and strain at the center of them, and they believed the sensation to be eternity. They grew up twisted inside around this nothing... and so twisted, they became terrible and frightened and loud and hungry. It gave them a need to set their boots upon everything they saw."
"And this thought made her shake, for if the gospel was changeable between species, then god was not immoveable. Then god was changeable according to the body god spoke through. And [ministers] were only speaking the part of god that they themselves could glimpse. And this truth was only as small as they themselves were small."
"They will dominate until there is nothing left, then they will eat themselves."
"She had once believed that in the deepest reaches of everything was a nothing where men had planted god; but now she knew that deeper within that nothing was something else, something made of light and heat. It was this light and heat that endured, that was everlasting. At the center was not nothing, no. Out of the light and the heat all goodness poured."...more
There are an awful lot of caricatures of women here. There's beautiful and perfectly good (Gemma) and there's beautiful and perfectly evil (Maria) andThere are an awful lot of caricatures of women here. There's beautiful and perfectly good (Gemma) and there's beautiful and perfectly evil (Maria) and no one less than perfect or beautiful to be found. No one of importance, anyway.
Our main character Dmitri is a pawn to his impulses all throughout the story, and gets his comeuppance. The story moves along briskly and is interesting enough. But did the women have to be so flat? Did we have to compare Maria to a wild animal?
In part, it's the times - this was published in 1872. (But so was George Eliot's Middlemarch, so my expectations for women characters aren't outrageous.) Gemma can't be good without being shackled by society, and she does manage to find a good life (or at least, so we're told). And Maria can't be free without being evil. She finds a way to own her life and make her own choices, ahead of her time. The sense seems to be that she's an evil witch. But maybe the men around her are just stupid....more
The story itself and the sense of place (a cherry farm in western Michigan) here are excellent.
The characters are decent, but the way the story is toThe story itself and the sense of place (a cherry farm in western Michigan) here are excellent.
The characters are decent, but the way the story is told stifled them a bit. Everyone is seen through the eyes of Lara - we see her daughters and husband through her in the present story line, and we see Peter Duke, Pallace, Sebastian and the others through her in the past story line. Because Lara is telling a story about the past with the benefit of hindsight, we're never truly able to be in the moment with the characters in her past, including herself. Lara has edited, deepened her understanding, rationalized, etc. - this is a narrative choice I can respect, but I'm not sure it was the right choice.
In the present, the daughters feel like foils for their mom's story - they react in different ways and ask different questions, serving more to tease out details than to be people in their own right.
Similar to State of Wonder, Patchett makes what I consider pretty clunky narrative choices throughout her telling. She hides details to build suspense for the reader in ways that are nonsensical in the story. The biggest example is (view spoiler)[that Nelson is Joe. (hide spoiler)] It wouldn't make sense to hide that detail from her daughters or herself as she tells her story, because all of them know it already. I wish that Patchett would rely less on trying to build suspense and have a big reveal, because she's an excellent writer and doesn't need to cling so tightly to her very-blatant puppet strings....more
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