An undemanding, pleasant read about a divorced couple who reunite over the few days around their 33-year-old daughter’s wedding. This is a kind of faiAn undemanding, pleasant read about a divorced couple who reunite over the few days around their 33-year-old daughter’s wedding. This is a kind of fairytale for grownups, with a not entirely sympathetic narrator (the rigid, rather chilly ex-wife). Do men like the warm-hearted, patient but boundary-deficient ex-husband actually exist? I’m doubtful, but I was willing to suspend my disbelief for the time it took me to read this short novel....more
People suffer. They live, they have hope, they even have love, and they still suffer. Everyone does. Those who think they’ve not suffered are lying2.5
People suffer. They live, they have hope, they even have love, and they still suffer. Everyone does. Those who think they’ve not suffered are lying to themselves.
Love comes in so many different forms, but it is always love.
I’m ambivalent about Elizabeth Strout’s fiction. I read her earliest novel Amy and Isabelle years ago, when it was first published. In recent years, I’ve read her two volumes of connected stories about Olive Kitteridge. I had some niggles, but generally liked these books. Those about Lucy Barton were another story. I’m afraid I found them sentimental—at times, bordering on maudlin. And perhaps that’s the source of my trouble with this novel: Lucy. She figures prominently in this book and is mostly presented in such a tiresomely hagiographic light—so willing to listen, empathetic, intuitive, innocent, childlike, and full of joy (but also melancholy and loneliness)—that I became increasingly exasperated. She’s not really the main character per se; Bob Burgess is, but he’s essentially the male equivalent of Lucy: a kind, sensitive, long-suffering man with a history of childhood trauma. (For most of his life, he’s been burdened by the knowledge that he may have been responsible for his father’s untimely death.)
Tell Me Everything revolves around Bob’s friendship (which burgeons into romantic love) for Lucy, by whom he feels deeply and satisfyingly understood. (I can’t tell you how relieved I was when, in the last fifth of the book, this idealized pair finally had a spat. It was a long time coming. Too long. (view spoiler)[As it happens, Bob is also relieved. Intoxicating as it may initially be, romantic love really can become a burden. (hide spoiler)]) The book is also about Bob’s legal work on a murder case in rural Maine and his befriending of the suspect, Matthew Beach (view spoiler)[a strange 59-year-old who paints remarkably accomplished nudes of women in various stages of pregnancy. One of Beach’s works ends up on a wall in Bob’s house. Really? This fairly conventional, unassuming man—who’s never heard of Solzhenitsyn but is apparently sophisticated enough to recognize first-rate artistic talent—displays a nude in a prominent position in his home? Hmm. I think not. (hide spoiler)] Members of Bob’s family figure in the story—his first wife, Pam Carlson, who’s become an alcoholic; his older brother, Jim, whose wife dies; and his nephew, Larry, who has a life-threatening accident. The book also details Lucy’s implausible meeting up with Olive Kitteridge—courtesy of Bob, who knows both of them—so that the two can hear each other’s stories of “unrecorded lives.� Yes, Olive and Lucy form a friendship too.
Strout’s big themes concern love (romantic and other), loneliness, the essential unknowability and brokenness of all of us, and the need for connection. The latter, Strout makes clear, can never be more than imperfect, given the impossibility of understanding others and even ourselves. While reading this novel, I often thought of the epigraph to E.M. Forster’s Howard’s End: “Only connect�. But Strout is not Forster, and while the value of personal relationships may be her focus here, Forster’s subtlety and nuance are lacking. Strout has also chosen a strange authorial voice: the first person plural “we�. Who is this “we� and why did Strout adopt this point of view, writing like some sort of sovereign of the world of fiction? I don’t know but suspect it has something to do with her sense that she’s conveying “truths� known to many. This and her clunky, entirely unnecessary practice of telling the reader what to think or prioritize—e.g., “It should be noted�; “the real point here is. . .�; “as we have said, Bob was not a reflective fellow�; “Oh, Poor Pam! Seriously, you should feel sorry for her.”—and her gauche announcements of plot transitions, supporting evidence, and reminders to the reader (in the manner of a high school essay-writer)—“Two weeks after Lucy visited Olive Kitteridge, this happened:�; “Here is what had been happening to Pam:� ; “Here is an example:� ; As we mentioned earlier . . .”—irritated me.
I was able to complete the book—it’s undemanding and very readable, and I do believe Strout asks good questions about our lives and makes some worthy observations about personal relationships. Having said that, I do not think this is great literature. It tends towards sentimentality. (view spoiler)[Bob’s friendship with Matthew Beach, who’s suspected of killing his elderly mother, is a case in point. Bob, who provides legal representation for Matthew, discloses personal details of his own traumatic history to the younger man and even lets Matthew use a locator app on his cell phone, so he can track Bob’s whereabouts. How appropriate is this? He links Matthew up with a therapist. Growing in confidence and self knowledge, the once reclusive man ultimately manages to have a romantic relationship with a woman. I found all of this pretty hard to believe. My sense is that readers were supposed to buy it because Bob is such a good man. (hide spoiler)] I’ll refrain from discussing the melodrama.
I wish an editor had reined Strout in—i. e., requested that she do away with the “royal we� narration, cut a few of the deep “connections�, and turn down the emotional volume. As is so often the case, less would have been more. It’s my view that with a judicious trimming, a mediocre book might have become a good one.
Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for a free advanced reading copy....more
Eleven-year-old Anthea’s parents drowned in a sailing accident six months ago. Their bodies were never recovered. She is now living with her same-agedEleven-year-old Anthea’s parents drowned in a sailing accident six months ago. Their bodies were never recovered. She is now living with her same-aged cousin Flora and Flora’s liberal, noisy, and disorderly family, the Wakefields, who have a sort of back-to-the-land project going: a vegetable garden, chickens, and pigs. The family lives in the house that belonged to her and Anthea’s deceased grandfather, “Old Lionel�. Everyone says the dwelling is haunted. The old man’s portrait hangs in the hall and his spirit drifts about the place, making clear that he disapproves of his son’s—Flora’s dad’s—desultory attempts at renovation. Lionel Junior has stripped the panels from the walls of “the big room,� exposing all the wires and pipes, and there’s a huge hole in the wall between Anthea’s and Flora’s bedroom. Anthea feels as though she has no private space here.
The story opens with Anthea’s reporting a strange dream at breakfast one morning. In this dream, she emerged from a crack in the earth in a high, windy place. The world she found herself in—and, indeed finds herself in repeatedly on subsequent nights—is linked with the old picture cards found in the spare room. As children, Grandfather and his younger brother (“dead Henry�) used to view these cards with a stereoscope (an old-fashioned device which merged two photos of the same scene or object, providing a sense of depth and solidity.) It doesn’t take very long for Anthea to realize that the dream world she is entering is based on these cards. Dead Henry (who seemingly did not live into adulthood) created and mapped this world, known as “Viridian�. He and his older brother appear to have played some sort of imaginative game in which they travelled there, using special names—“Griff� for Henry and “Leo� for Lionel.
Forsaken for years by his brother, who obsessively guards the house instead of travelling with him as promised, Griff has now settled on Anthea as a companion. In her he recognizes the loneliness and desire for space that he craved as a child. He wants her to make the long journey with him to the dragon-shaped island in the inland sea. For her part, she believes she might find her parents there.
Initially, Anthea’s nightly trips into this vast realm are mysterious and exhilarating. However, as she begins to be assimilated into her new family, she has reservations about Griff, Viridian, and their destination. (I kept envisioning Swiss artist Arnold Böcklin’s eerie 1883 painting The Island of the Dead [] and wonder if Mahy may have had it in mind when writing this novel.) The path to the sea that holds the island eventually becomes treacherous, and an ominous dark cloud follows the children. Recognizing Anthea’s increasing doubts about continuing with him, Griff becomes desperate and threatening. I have to say that even as an adult reader, I found him frightening. (I’m familiar with Mahy’s skill in evoking such moods, having read her wonderful novel The Haunting, which kept me up late into the night the first time I encountered it.) The story’s conclusion involves Anthea’s cousin coming through for her in an unexpected way.
While Dangerous Spaces is billed as children’s literature, it is really a very sophisticated and rather abstract psychological novel. I cannot imagine that it would have much appeal to most older children. There are no details about Henry/Griff’s early death, his sense (while living) that there was no space for him—that he was crowded out by his older brother. The reader is also left in the dark about Old Lionel’s sadness and why his spirit will not leave the house. What is actually holding him there? A great deal must be inferred and much—too much, I think� of the book operates on a symbolic, psychological level. Descriptions are intricate and require careful reading and strong mental visualizing capacities in the reader. Since so much of Dangerous Spaces involves the dream world, the story quite naturally lends itself to Jungian interpretation.
While this is an interesting novel with some marvellous writing,I cannot in the end recommend it for anyone but diehard Mahy fans....more
Zero patience for this author. Zero. Maybe I’m just too old, but I doubt I would like her work even if I were younger. I can’t stand her characters—whZero patience for this author. Zero. Maybe I’m just too old, but I doubt I would like her work even if I were younger. I can’t stand her characters—who are depressing and uninteresting with ugly lives� and her fragmentary writing style isn’t my bag either. I see no beauty or wisdom in the work.
I truly don’t get the to-do about Rooney. I’ve tried three of her novels and have never succeeded in getting very far in a single one. I understood that Intermezzo was supposed to be different. It wasn’t—for me, at least. Aversion therapy has not been successful....more
I read most of the first section, “Jane�, and could not tolerate the ostentatious, trying-too-hard-to-be-clever prose. Writing should serve a story, nI read most of the first section, “Jane�, and could not tolerate the ostentatious, trying-too-hard-to-be-clever prose. Writing should serve a story, not showily detract from it. Not for me. Glad to abandon this. Yet again I am glad libraries exist and books can be borrowed and returned guilt-free, no money lost....more
I read a few chapters and found this mind-numbingly dull. Neither the characters nor the premise engaged me in the least. Third person present-tense wI read a few chapters and found this mind-numbingly dull. Neither the characters nor the premise engaged me in the least. Third person present-tense writing is acceptable but flat. A lot of mundane detail to work through. It felt like so much padding.
One character’s pulling a dandelion out of the ground in anger immediately struck me as false and just silly. Has the author pulled any dandelions recently? It’s an effortful task, and the roots don’t come out easily, even if you’re angry. ...more
“I remember how desperately I had to cling to the story of my happy marriage. It took effort. It felt so good to stop lying.�
Unpleasan2.5 rounded down
“I remember how desperately I had to cling to the story of my happy marriage. It took effort. It felt so good to stop lying.�
Unpleasant and increasingly oppressive as the pages are turned, this novel (which reads more like a misery memoir) highlights the degree to which one woman sacrificially binds herself to cultural expectations and narratives—fairytales—about marriage. Jane, a writer, documents her fourteen-year relationship with would-be filmmaker/photographer/entrepreneur John, a narcissistic boor and loser. She willfully overlooks the multiple glaring warning signs—the selfishness and immaturity—that make him a far from suitable partner for anyone. The reader then gets a play-by-play of his ongoing insensitivity, irresponsibility, inattentiveness, laziness, carelessness, sense of entitlement, poor judgement, reactivity, enviousness, fragile ego, predilection for late nights (drinking, video games, flirting), sulkiness, arrogance, disdain, contempt, etc. etc. You name a negative, you’ve got it in John, the ultimate “piece of work.�
However (and importantly) instead of fleeing and self-correcting as a functional, basically reasonable, emotionally attuned individual would, Jane persists in her disastrous, toxic marriage. (Whether this is due to a history of mental health issues, some inner sense of being defective, is never totally clear.) She tallies up innumerable reasons for resentment and tells herself endless lies to justify her staying, displaying a degree of contempt for John that rivals his for her. She has a child with him. (Thank God she resists the impulse to have a second.) More than once she comments on how “lucky� she is. Yes, really. She is as much to blame for the mess she’s in as her nightmare of a husband.
People are not reasonable. I get that. I got that long before reading this. So what, exactly, is the point of this book? It appears to be autobiographical fiction. I guess the author was . . . hmm . . . “working it out.�
Manguso’s prose is generally strong. In terms of tone, there’s a lot of bitterness here, of course. There’s also sardonic humour. The language is not infrequently raw, coarse, and ugly. (view spoiler)[Do we really need to know about her bowel movements? And forget the euphemism “making love� or the plainer “having sex.� You won’t find those here. (hide spoiler)]
Is this is a great, valuable, or illuminating novel? I don’t think so. Reading the first long section, “Liars,� is an experience akin to rubbernecking on a highway. As for the final “Afterward� section—in which the narrator grieves her lost time and comes to terms with the schmaltzy fantasy she bought into—although it’s twice as short as the first, it felt two times as long. At least the narrator does figure out why she married: “Early on, maybe five years in, John had said, Are you only with me because I’m dark and handsome? and I’d said, I’ve left darker and handsomer, which had been true. But I saw now that it had also been a dodge. Even then, I’d known I was drawn mainly to his body.� She also understands the reasons she remained. Among them: “I’d simply told myself that I was wrong. That’s why I’d stayed. I was stubborn. I’d refused to admit I’d been wrong about him. [. . .] I thought a better man might leave me.�
All of it seems pretty obvious to me: talented women continue to throw away years of their lives for the sake of having a mate and fulfilling some weird fantasy about marriage. They do so by lying to themselves about themselves, about the man they’ve elected to be with, and about the mess they’ve got themselves into. However, contrary to the narrator’s insistence that women are coerced “by an entire civilization,� I believe they often do have agency; they simply refuse to exercise it and to take responsibility.
I know why I started this novel—I’d heard about Manguso and was interested in trying her work—but I’m not sure why I bothered to finish it. Maybe I wanted to know just what it would take for the main character to come to her senses. (view spoiler)[Unfortunately, as is so often the case, it is only after she’s learned of this sorry excuse for a man’s lengthy affair with a married high-school friend. It is his outright rejection of the narrator, his decision to leave her, that finally does the trick. “John’s betrayal,� she observes, “was a gift. My last bits of romantic silliness, all burned away.� (hide spoiler)] It’s a sad state of affairs that years of psychotherapy afforded her so little insight and so few tools for extricating herself from an awful mess....more
Though technically competent, this book didn’t deliver for me. Murrin skilfully juggles multiple points of view, and he’s got a workable enough (if soThough technically competent, this book didn’t deliver for me. Murrin skilfully juggles multiple points of view, and he’s got a workable enough (if somewhat predictable) plot, which focuses on three unsatisfactory Irish marriages (before divorce was legal in the republic). For me, the big problem was the characters: stereotypical men . . . and two women at the novel’s centre, Izzy and Colette, who are bland, uninteresting, lacking in emotional depth and ultimately unconvincing. While I think Murrin is a promising writer, I was mostly bored by this novel. Hence the low rating. Nothing delighted, surprised, or stimulated me here, and I expect I’ll forget the whole thing in short order.
A landmark work this may be, literary fiction it certainly is not. I’m also doubtful about its being representative of the lesbian experience in generA landmark work this may be, literary fiction it certainly is not. I’m also doubtful about its being representative of the lesbian experience in general. This was an absolute grind to read. I would have quickly abandoned it had my reading buddy not urged me on. The novel has not aged well. The prose is generally poor. Religion is heavily present; angst and melodrama even more so. The central character is intolerably self-absorbed. I did not buy the protagonist’s late-Victorian landed-class parents� naming her “Stephen� simply because they’d been so set on having a son. That no one would find this at all odd was even harder to credit. I agree with Jeanette Winterson on this one: it reads like a misery memoir. I got through it, but only just . . . I am still recovering....more
This novel—set in Rome, London, and (to a lesser extent) the south of France, mostly in the first part of the twentieth century—concerns Constanza, a This novel—set in Rome, London, and (to a lesser extent) the south of France, mostly in the first part of the twentieth century—concerns Constanza, a beautiful free-spirited, sexually liberal woman. Born sometime in the 1890s, she’s the daughter of a New England heiress, Anna Howland, and Rico, an Italian prince. Constanza’s life isn’t exactly exotic, but it’s hardly conventional. It’s not an upbringing that most of Bedford’s readers would have personal experience of, and while not entirely in line with “the lives of the rich and famous�, it certainly borders on it, or is perhaps a smaller Roman version.
Initially, I thought Bedford was interested in exploring some of the same themes as Henry James, specifically the clash of American romanticism and idealism with Old World realism and pragmatism. Constanza’s mother’s fortune was likely a large part of her appeal to Prince Rico, whose financial resources were in decline and whose grand palazzo was falling into disrepair. Bedford does examine cultural difference to some extent, but her real focus seems to be on marital infidelity.
Rico, it turns out, has a long-standing extramarital relationship with Giulia, the wife of a marchese. Anna finds out, is wounded, enraged, and repulsed. She leaves her young son Giorgio behind and flees with her daughter to London. (She can do this because her money has all been protected by her American solicitors.) Rico, his aristocratic family, and their extensive social circle cannot understand Anna’s reaction, her prudishness, and dramatics. Friends side with him. Bedford would have us believe that infidelity is widespread and tolerated in Roman society. Even teenage Constanza, who follows in her father’s footsteps and is sexually precocious, is aware of her father’s liaison with Giulia. She thinks nothing of it, and can’t believe that this would be the reason her mother has taken her away and barred her from seeing her father. Anna refuses to clarify the nature of her husband’s crime, and for a time Constanza thinks his offence must be a financial one.
The large central section of the novel focuses on Anna and Constanza’s life in London. Anna nurses a depression while Constanza sows her wild oats in the manner typical of a young man, restlessly entering and exiting many sexual relationships. And so it goes until she makes the acquaintance of Simon Herbert, a loquacious and entertaining young man. His presence brings joy into the life of the apathetic, defeated Anna. It’s at this point—in my opinion, at least—that Bedford’s novel goes off the rails and turns into a semi-ridiculous soap opera. Constanza acts in a way that is inconsistent with her free-spirited, independent, and mostly selfish orientation. (view spoiler)[ To please her mother, she agrees to marry Simon, though he’s not her type and she’s not in love with him. His awareness of her lack of feeling for him eventually erodes the marriage. Both end up having affairs. (hide spoiler)] I found the whole thing implausible and silly.
I enjoyed aspects of Bedford’s novel but feel that it misses the mark overall. Characterization is not a strong point. I believe I was at some disadvantage reading this, as I know almost nothing about Italian history, culture, and politics—all of which figure in the book. There’s lots of Italian language content, not all of which I could guess the meaning of by using context clues alone. I sought online translation. I also found Bedford’s style a little odd. I wasn’t confident I was making the correct inferences when I read dialogue between characters. For example, when Rico’s infidelity comes to light, he tells Anna that she “cannot have it both ways.� Can’t have what both ways? (He could be suggesting that she can’t deny him a mistress when she herself is not interested in/is not willing to engage in a sexual relationship with him.) Here and elsewhere, however, it wasn’t always clear to me what characters wanted to communicate.
Initially an interesting novel and engaging enough to complete, A Favourite of the Gods ultimately did not fully deliver for me. It is, in my view, a lesser novel....more
Apparently set in the 1990s, this novel offers a glimpse into the life of the partner of an RCMP constable. It focuses on Julia Carey, a former dramatApparently set in the 1990s, this novel offers a glimpse into the life of the partner of an RCMP constable. It focuses on Julia Carey, a former dramaturge who moves from Saskatchewan with her significant—taciturn—other, Hardy, to Medway, a town north of Edmonton in rural Alberta. Previously a sports journalist, Hardy has recently undergone training with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. We’re told his father had been a member of the force, but it’s not at all clear why Hardy, an older recruit, decided to make such a drastic career change.
When the couple first move to Medway, they quickly learn of a young constable’s suicide a few years before. Then, not too far into Hardy’s posting, a fellow he trained with at the Academy in Regina comes to stay with him and Julia for a two-week stress leave. Soon enough it becomes evident that police work is taking a toll on Hardy as well. He becomes, “opaque, exhausted, often impatient, or just bleak in mind,� increasingly visited by “dark moods and irritability,� and eventually incapacitated by PTSD. The novel is a first-person account of Julia’s perceptions and experiences.
During her early days in Medway, Julia fills in for a month at The Observer, the town’s local paper, when Catherine, its editor, takes her annual summer holiday. Julia herself will end up becoming the paper’s editor after Catherine has moved on. However, the initial connection with the editor is a valuable one. Having lived in Medway her whole life, this woman has her finger on the pulse of the town and can fill the newcomer in on local happenings, criminal and otherwise. It’s the only way Julia is able to learn about the difficult cases tight-lipped Hardy has been working on—cases that are obviously causing him significant distress and marked changes in behaviour. When her stint at the paper is up, Julia is briefly employed as a substitute teacher at the local high school. Lacking certification, she’s paid a pittance for emotionally draining work. Nevertheless, it offers her further insight into the community. Not long after that, having reconciled herself to infertility, she’s surprised to learn she’s pregnant. Hardy’s response to the news is not the anticipated joyous one. His only remark: He won’t be able to quit his job. No, he won’t, and it costs all of them, as the novel will show.
Overall, THE OBSERVER is a meandering and modest book. Yes, there is information about the lives of first responders; however, the novel is also replete with mundane details of rural and domestic life (barbecues and get-togethers and the names of everyone in attendance) as well as plentiful gossipy information about the lives of locals (including the young widow of the constable who committed suicide, a beekeeper, and Johnny Mair, a volatile and often violent drunk, who is perpetually in trouble with the law). The novel has a very large cast of characters, most only superficially sketched. It’s hard to keep their identities straight. There’s also an overabundance of insignificant events reported on in consistently pedestrian prose. Rather than be given carte blanche to itemize seemingly every single happening, the author should have been taken in hand by her editor and advised to describe only the few most telling incidents.
In the end, I can’t recommend this novel. To me it read like an uninspired memoir or a tidied-up, emotionally flat personal journal—significant for the writer, maybe, but much less so for the reader. I was mostly very, very bored. I made it to the end, but just barely. To be clear: the book isn’t terrible. It’s accessible, and it does offer insight into what life is like for the wives and partners of first responders. The problem is that the whole thing just goes on far too long. Less would really have been so much more....more
I requested an advance review copy of this book because I’d read and enjoyed Vu’s first novel, Palawan Story. Although I saw that the author’s writingI requested an advance review copy of this book because I’d read and enjoyed Vu’s first novel, Palawan Story. Although I saw that the author’s writing had certainly matured since her earlier effort, the content of this new work of fiction did not engage me in the least. I was not interested in reading about a schoolteacher-father preying on his 16-year-old student (which reads like pornography), and I was even less taken with the story of the teenage protagonist’s sexual liaison with a stinking, eagle-tattooed American soldier in 1970s Saigon. The author was a great deal more interested in providing a play-by-play of these characters� antics than I was in reading about them. Unwilling to invest more time in this slow-moving, sex-focused story with its dull, superficial characters, I abandoned the book with relief at page 61. I had already settled into irreversible resentment after having read only a portion, and Vu had provided me with no reasons to plod through a few hundred pages more. A disappointment....more
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