“Adults deal in moral ambiguity. Never hurting people or getting hurt is impossible if you’re living an honest life.�
This is a challenging book to rev“Adults deal in moral ambiguity. Never hurting people or getting hurt is impossible if you’re living an honest life.�
This is a challenging book to review. Not because it was difficult to read. Mainly because my enjoyment of it had more to do with how I approached it than anything else. If I look at it from the standpoint of a novel (which it is), I’d expect some excellent character development and a compelling story arc. Personally, I couldn’t claim this to excel on those merits alone. Instead, I approached this as what I like to call an “ideas� book, much like I did Rachel Cusk’s Outline. Don’t get me wrong, however. I’m not comparing Cusk with Ada Calhoun. Come to think of it, Miranda July’s book All Fours comes to mind as well. July and Calhoun are both dealing with middle-aged, married women that balance thriving careers with motherhood. The marriages are pretty successful, at least as far as these women can tell when compared to how they view other marriages. Both novels examine what happens when these women explore their needs and desires. July’s book did it better, but this one was pretty damn interesting to me as well. The narrator’s friend best encapsulates the question at the heart of this novel:
“You have to ask: If this was my last year alive, how would I want to spend it? If I had thirty years? If you’re saying ‘Things are good enough � why should I blow them up?� The answer is because ‘good enough� should not be the goal,� she said. “We didn’t work this hard� � by “we� I sensed she meant women � “to be fine.�
This is a first-person narrative and the voice of the protagonist kept me well engaged. You might find this a bit pretentious, as she throws around quotes from other writers and philosophers like your local Rotary Club throws candy at parade-goers. They just keep coming. Yet, I found myself highlighting the hell out of this. Marilynn Robinson, Michel de Montaigne, Graham Greene, Rabindranath Tagore, and Ortega y Gasset were a just a few of those I flagged in my copy (Robinson and Greene being the only ones I’ve personally read). Sometimes, while being clever, she also made me smile a bit.
“I wanted to send word to my generational cohort: Don’t we make our own cages? When we rattle the bars don’t we often find that they are made of cardboard? That we’ve cut them out for ourselves with X-ACTO knives? Look! We are free! We have nothing to lose but our PTA membership!�
What happens when you find that deep connection? What do you do about a marriage that is plodding along ‘just fine�? Our narrator tries to answer those questions. What she concludes, well, you’d have to read this to find out. In the meantime, I’m super curious about Calhoun’s non-fiction work.
“So what does a true happy ending look like? I think it’s always a surprise.�...more
“We’re lucky whenever given the chance to make a choice, with all that life can throw our way.�
This novel caught my attention when I walked by it on t“We’re lucky whenever given the chance to make a choice, with all that life can throw our way.�
This novel caught my attention when I walked by it on the library shelf. I’m surprised I even noticed it. The cover is pretty dull and the slim spine was nearly gobbled up by the books on either side of it. It was the title that drew my eye to it. I’m desperate for something to soothe the chaos in my mind and hoped this might do the trick. The story alternates between the voice of Benny Finn, recently returned from a tour of duty in Vietnam, and Sister Clare, a novice preparing to take her vows in a nearby abbey. There are some nuggets of wisdom that can easily be applied to the here and now, despite this being set in the early 1970s.
“One thing my mother always says, though: you have to live. No matter what, you live somehow. It used to surprise me, the way she’d say that� she didn’t mean you shouldn’t care about the terrible things in the world, the blindness and corruption, the wars, just that in spite of it, you do have to get up mornings and pull on your boots, walk across the ice to your classes, get a cup of coffee, visit your Aunt Irene in the hospital, avoid getting your girlfriend pregnant.�
In a nutshell, this is a story about unrequited love, grief and loneliness. Benny falls for someone he cannot have. He suffers from the trauma of something deeply disturbing he witnessed during the Vietnam War. Sister Clare questions her decision to give up those things she longs for most, swimming, writing and the touch of another, to serve the Catholic Church. Both find solace on the grounds of the abbey. Friendship too can be a form of love and a source of healing. The writing is very good but the whole wasn’t necessarily as cohesive as I would have liked. I admired the pretty little bows but only liked rather than loved the package overall. It needed a little more oomph to make a bigger impact on me. Having said that, I’d read this author again with the hope that something a bit meatier will deliver even more of what I’m looking for as a reader.
“No grand thoughts or phrases can do away with this loneliness at the heart of the world.� ...more
“As the summer dries out and the pink glow off the western glaciers of Mount Baker disappears earlier and earlier, I begin to feel like a spiritual de“As the summer dries out and the pink glow off the western glaciers of Mount Baker disappears earlier and earlier, I begin to feel like a spiritual delinquent, holding up a long-planned reunion of body and soul.�
This book is the perfect combination of travel writing, history and nature, all wrapped in adept and often lovely prose with a dose of humor as the bow set firmly on top. If The Good Rain was a novel rather than a work of non-fiction, I’d say author and journalist Timothy Egan deftly presented the reader with a powerful dose of man versus nature conflict. Egan has a wish to fulfill from the start. I’ll let him explain it to you himself, so you can get a feel for the tone of his writing:
“All summer long Grandpa remains in the basement, two pounds of cremated ash in a plain cardboard cylinder. I can’t get used to the idea of this odorless beige powder as the guy who taught me how to land brook trout with a hand-tied fly, the son of a Montana mineral chaser, the teller of campfire tales about hiding from the Jesuits with his schoolboy chum, a jug-eared kid named Bing Crosby.�
“I will take a year� from Oregon desert to green-smothered rain forest, from storm-battered ocean edge to the inland waters, from the new cities of the Northwest to the homesteads of the Columbia Plateau, to see what a century can produce from scratch, and maybe� come to some understanding of why Grandpa belonged in the wellspring of the White River, as do I.�
I traipsed with Egan across the Pacific Northwest, more specifically through Oregon, Washington and parts of British Columbia. I spent time in the temperate rainforest, the volcanic mountain ranges, the Columbia River gorge, and the Pacific coast. He touches on a lot of the history from the indigenous peoples to the first white settlers to the timber and salmon fishing industries. He caused me to add a trip to the San Juan Islands to my list when I finally make it to this region of the world. I learned a bit about the plight of the sea otter and the orca, the pleasures of wine and apples, and the harnessing of the powers of the mighty rivers. As per usual, when man plants himself in the natural world, we begin to see the demise of some of our most abundant resources.
I wish I had more time to dive into the particulars of Timothy Egan’s knowledgeable discourse, but I find that commodity lacking these days. Suffice to say that I highly recommend this book to anyone looking to learn more about the Pacific Northwest. With that said, keep in mind that this was published in 1990. I’m hoping a lot of advances in the protection of those endangered resources will have been put in place since that time. I’ll be on the lookout for more recent works concerning the region in the future. Any suggestions are welcome! I’ll leave you with some of the highlights of my reading with the goal of enticement.
“But he (John Muir) would most likely disapprove of the odd distinction the camp named after him has gained: it is the site of the world’s most expensive outhouse, a $50,000 solar shitter which uses high-altitude ultraviolet rays to cook and compost climbers� waste.�
“Before the dams, some chinook would swim as far inland as the Continental Divide, deep in Idaho, Montana and British Columbia, before committing the final act of fornication, a very proper squirt before death. Like British sex, it is dignified and oddly ritualistic, following a strict set of biological rules, most of which seem to make sense at first glance.�
“Most of my life, I’ve stared out at The Brothers from Seattle � a two-breasted beauty that seems to sweep up from the very surface of Puget Sound. From the city, the tips turn pastel in sunset and then dark in silhouette, a very theatrical mountain, almost a custom fit of Winthrop’s description of a peak that, viewed from a seat in civilization, stirs the soul.�
“It was the British, the apostles of rose gardens and high tea, who nicknamed this place “England of the Pacific,� and sent boatloads of pipe-smoking, tweed-wearing, Queen-loving, tea-drinking gentlemen here to settle it. Unlike the American settlers, who brought bibles and guns to their new land, the British immigrants were urged to arrive with cricket bats, carriage harnesses and a library of the classics.�
“Full moon over Puget Sound, the last one of summer. Look at the sky, all full of doubt. The light is gone from the back side of Mount Rainier, leaving a coned cutout on the horizon.�
“Any doubts that the land is alive and in command of all that lives atop its surface are removed by the view to the south. Still smoking and stuffed with debris, Mount St. Helens, the youngest of all Cascade volcanoes, looks like an ashtray after an all-night party. Denuded, it nonetheless pulses with new life as the dome inside the crater rebuilds.�
“My past is imprinted on me, a tattoo of sensory dimensions, released by a breath of fog-dampened air or the sight of a leaf of faded color. So it is with the Pacific salmon, who are guided home by the smells from their juvenile days.�...more
“I first saw one of our inner fish on a snowy July afternoon while studying 375-million-year-old rocks on Ellesmere Island, at a latitude about 80 deg“I first saw one of our inner fish on a snowy July afternoon while studying 375-million-year-old rocks on Ellesmere Island, at a latitude about 80 degrees north.�
I first saw this book on the non-fiction shelf at a used bookshop in Trumansburg, New York, about twenty miles north of Ithaca. I didn’t buy it for myself, but rather for my daughter who is studying evolutionary biology in Toronto. I hoped she’d be as excited to receive it as I was to give it to her! And she was. She didn’t pick it up right away, but at one point during her last semester, she called me to say one of her professors had recommended the book. So, I can now pretend that I knew exactly what I was doing when I snatched it from that shelf! She took her copy with her, so I decided to borrow one from the library. It might be more basic information for someone like my daughter who is already immersed in the topic, but for a layman like me it was informative and fun to read!
“Our example will show us one of the great transitions in the history of life: the invasion of land by fish. For billions of years, all life lived only in water. Then, as of about 365 million years ago, creatures also inhabited land� A whole new kind of body had to arise. At first glance, the divide between the two environments appears almost unbridgeable. But everything changes when we look at the evidence; what looks impossible actually happened.�
Paleontologist and professor of anatomy Neil Shubin goes on to show us this evidence. I’m not going into any of those details, mainly because I don’t have the time or the energy, but I will say that he writes in a conversational, light-hearted tone at times. It’s obvious he’s quite passionate about his subject, and his enthusiasm was infectious. That’s not to say that his writing wasn’t scholarly, because, in my amateur opinion, it certainly was educational. He provides a list of primary and secondary sources at the end of the book. I wouldn’t expect anything less. Recommended to those that are curious about science and evolution!
“One of the joys of science is that, on occasion, we see a pattern that reveals the order in what initially seems chaotic. A jumble becomes part of a simple plan, and you feel you are seeing right through something to find its essence.� ...more
“When the water drains from the marshes, and little by little the yellow sands appear, rippling and hard and firm, it seems to my foolish fancy, as I “When the water drains from the marshes, and little by little the yellow sands appear, rippling and hard and firm, it seems to my foolish fancy, as I lie here, that I too go seaward with the tide, and all my old hidden dreams that I thought buried for all time are bare and naked to the day, just as the shells and the stones are on the sands.�
It seems to me that Daphne du Maurier can do no wrong. As of today, I have read nine of her works, including seven novels and two collections of short stories. Five of these I’ve awarded the illustrious five stars, and the rest a notable four stars. I love her writing to pieces. Like a schoolgirl being asked to prom, I become unreasonably giddy just at the thought of picking up one of her books!
Confession: For a brief moment, I was skeptical about picking up The King’s General. At first glance, it seemed to be classified more heavily towards historical fiction, rather than the Gothic mystery which I find so alluring in du Maurier’s hands. All those fears were wiped out when I read the very first page. Yes, this is historical fiction; it takes place during the English Civil War with the supporters of Charles I, the Royalists, pit against the Parliamentarians. However, it’s much more than that � it’s a mystery, a tragedy and a romance. The Gothic element is clearly there, complete with a sprawling mansion, secret passages, and the whisperings of a ghost. And the icing on an already scrumptious cake � the setting is Cornwall!
Honor Harris and Richard Grenville meet when Honor is eighteen and Richard ten years her senior. Both are passionate and headstrong and there is an instant chemistry between the two. But this is du Maurier, and romance in her hands is not of the sweet, saccharine variety. Their love is cursed from the start, although never truly extinguished. Honor Harris tells us their story, looking back after a period of years.
“I will say for Richard what he never said for himself, and I will show how, despite his bitter faults and failings, it was possible for a woman to love him with all her heart, and mind, and body and I that woman.�
Richard is indeed a flawed hero, if we can in fact call him a hero. He’s courageous, brazen, and loyal to those that have earned his admiration and trust. He is also bitter and vengeful, and his morals slide into that slippery gray area. Honor is most certainly the heroine of the novel, and du Maurier’s use of the first person narration here is extremely effective. The reader can understand her very intimately � what drives her devotion to Richard and how her pride has affected the lives of others. She’s intelligent and perceptive and many of her kinfolk look to her for advice and security. Her faithful servant Matty is her constant ally and I would go so far as to call her something of a heroine in her own right.
A drama like this one naturally has to have a villain as well. Who is this villain, you wonder? Well, du Maurier doesn’t necessarily make this completely evident either. This seems to be a trademark of her work � the ambiguous nature of some of the characters that leave the reader with many questions long after finishing the last page (think My Cousin Rachel.) On the surface, she’s written Gartred, Richard’s bewitching sister, as what should be the obvious villainess. You’ll have to decide for yourself if she fits neatly into this label or not. When Honor describes Gartred to the reader, she does so with the perfect analogy. I couldn’t help but think of those blood-red rhododendrons that greet the second Mrs. de Winter upon her arrival to Manderley!
“There was one flower, an orchid, that grew alone; it was the color of pale ivory, with one little vein of crimson running through the petals. The scent filled the house, honeyed, and sickly sweet. It was the loveliest flower I had ever seen. I stretched out my hand to stroke the soft velvet sheen, and swiftly my uncle pulled me by the shoulder. ‘Don’t touch it, child. The stem is poisonous.’�
I could go on talking for ages about the excellent characterization, the breathtaking scenery, the trademark mysterious atmosphere, the clever foreshadowing, and the remarkable writing that I have found in this and all of du Maurier’s work. I should also mention that I learned so much more than I could have imagined about the English Civil War and in particular, the battles that were fought on Cornish ground. When I finished, however, I realized that I hadn’t been put through some grueling history lesson, but rather an enthralling account of what it would have been like for both the soldiers and the civilians during this time. It’s as if du Maurier wielded her inventive pen and waved her magical wand � by the end not only had I been swept away by the people and their hopes and dreams, their fears and insecurities, and their passions, but I had also been enlightened on a period of history that I knew little about. This is another clear favorite!
“Time heals all wounds, say the complacent, but I think it is not so much time that does it as determination of the spirit. And the spirit can often turn to devil in the darkness.�
Merged review:
“When the water drains from the marshes, and little by little the yellow sands appear, rippling and hard and firm, it seems to my foolish fancy, as I lie here, that I too go seaward with the tide, and all my old hidden dreams that I thought buried for all time are bare and naked to the day, just as the shells and the stones are on the sands.�
It seems to me that Daphne du Maurier can do no wrong. As of today, I have read nine of her works, including seven novels and two collections of short stories. Five of these I’ve awarded the illustrious five stars, and the rest a notable four stars. I love her writing to pieces. Like a schoolgirl being asked to prom, I become unreasonably giddy just at the thought of picking up one of her books!
Confession: For a brief moment, I was skeptical about picking up The King’s General. At first glance, it seemed to be classified more heavily towards historical fiction, rather than the Gothic mystery which I find so alluring in du Maurier’s hands. All those fears were wiped out when I read the very first page. Yes, this is historical fiction; it takes place during the English Civil War with the supporters of Charles I, the Royalists, pit against the Parliamentarians. However, it’s much more than that � it’s a mystery, a tragedy and a romance. The Gothic element is clearly there, complete with a sprawling mansion, secret passages, and the whisperings of a ghost. And the icing on an already scrumptious cake � the setting is Cornwall!
Honor Harris and Richard Grenville meet when Honor is eighteen and Richard ten years her senior. Both are passionate and headstrong and there is an instant chemistry between the two. But this is du Maurier, and romance in her hands is not of the sweet, saccharine variety. Their love is cursed from the start, although never truly extinguished. Honor Harris tells us their story, looking back after a period of years.
“I will say for Richard what he never said for himself, and I will show how, despite his bitter faults and failings, it was possible for a woman to love him with all her heart, and mind, and body and I that woman.�
Richard is indeed a flawed hero, if we can in fact call him a hero. He’s courageous, brazen, and loyal to those that have earned his admiration and trust. He is also bitter and vengeful, and his morals slide into that slippery gray area. Honor is most certainly the heroine of the novel, and du Maurier’s use of the first person narration here is extremely effective. The reader can understand her very intimately � what drives her devotion to Richard and how her pride has affected the lives of others. She’s intelligent and perceptive and many of her kinfolk look to her for advice and security. Her faithful servant Matty is her constant ally and I would go so far as to call her something of a heroine in her own right.
A drama like this one naturally has to have a villain as well. Who is this villain, you wonder? Well, du Maurier doesn’t necessarily make this completely evident either. This seems to be a trademark of her work � the ambiguous nature of some of the characters that leave the reader with many questions long after finishing the last page (think My Cousin Rachel.) On the surface, she’s written Gartred, Richard’s bewitching sister, as what should be the obvious villainess. You’ll have to decide for yourself if she fits neatly into this label or not. When Honor describes Gartred to the reader, she does so with the perfect analogy. I couldn’t help but think of those blood-red rhododendrons that greet the second Mrs. de Winter upon her arrival to Manderley!
“There was one flower, an orchid, that grew alone; it was the color of pale ivory, with one little vein of crimson running through the petals. The scent filled the house, honeyed, and sickly sweet. It was the loveliest flower I had ever seen. I stretched out my hand to stroke the soft velvet sheen, and swiftly my uncle pulled me by the shoulder. ‘Don’t touch it, child. The stem is poisonous.’�
I could go on talking for ages about the excellent characterization, the breathtaking scenery, the trademark mysterious atmosphere, the clever foreshadowing, and the remarkable writing that I have found in this and all of du Maurier’s work. I should also mention that I learned so much more than I could have imagined about the English Civil War and in particular, the battles that were fought on Cornish ground. When I finished, however, I realized that I hadn’t been put through some grueling history lesson, but rather an enthralling account of what it would have been like for both the soldiers and the civilians during this time. It’s as if du Maurier wielded her inventive pen and waved her magical wand � by the end not only had I been swept away by the people and their hopes and dreams, their fears and insecurities, and their passions, but I had also been enlightened on a period of history that I knew little about. This is another clear favorite!
“Time heals all wounds, say the complacent, but I think it is not so much time that does it as determination of the spirit. And the spirit can often turn to devil in the darkness.�...more
“The mind is in a dayless freak zone, surfing earth’s hurtling horizon. Day is here, and then they see night come upon them like the shadow of a cloud“The mind is in a dayless freak zone, surfing earth’s hurtling horizon. Day is here, and then they see night come upon them like the shadow of a cloud racing over a wheat field. Forty-five minutes later here comes day again, stampeding across the Pacific. Nothing is what they thought it was.�
This beautifully written novel about six men and women orbiting earth for nine months confirmed how I feel daily � that conflicting sense that in the grand scheme of things, I matter not at all and also very much. If you’re looking for a space adventure filled with tension, science and action, then this book won’t satisfy you on those terms. What Samantha Harvey has penned is cerebral and contemplative. Despite the speed at which these characters orbit earth (sixteen orbits in one day), the pace of the book is quite slow. It’s a slim book that made me slow down my reading so I could reflect on my own thoughts, my own purpose. The reverence held by these astronauts and cosmonauts for the earth is palpable and sublimely illustrated through Harvey’s prose. It sometimes veers towards the sensual, which I liked.
“You could never really comprehend the stars, but the earth you could know in the way you know another person, in the way he came quite studiedly and determinedly to know his wife. With a yearning that’s hungry and selfish. He wishes to know it, inch by inch.�
We spend a small amount of time with each of these characters. We view the mundaneness of their daily orbiting lives. We learn of the effects of microgravity on their bodies, the psychological effects of viewing their home planet from above and the infinite vastness of outer space from their spacecraft windows. Their backgrounds are revealed to us. We catch glimpses of their relationships on earth, how they are coping with being away from family. We understand a bit about their relationships with one another. Harvey doesn’t preach to the reader about the existence or non-existence of a God or some higher being. She does show us, however, through a couple of her characters at least, how views differ about the idea of creation.
“She’d point out of the port and starboard windows where the darkness is endless and ferocious. Where solar systems and galaxies are violently scattered� Look, she’d say. What made that but some heedless hurling beautiful force? And he would point� and he would say: what made that but some heedful hurling beautiful force? Is that all the difference there is between their views, then � a bit of heed?... The difference seems both trivial and insurmountable.�
Despite the obvious limitations and costs, perhaps if every single person on this planet (or maybe our world leaders for a start) could be launched into space for a several month orbit of the earth, more people would come away realizing the hubris of their vanities, desires and greed. The reliance on one another for survival and companionship, despite nationalities and belief systems, might convince a few of them, at least, that this is in essence, all about humanity. Man-made borders do not exist from space, and to survive on this planet governed by the violent forces of nature, this planet that is just a minuscule part, a tiny “dot� existing within an entire universe, one might truly grasp the truth that this is not an “us versus them� scenario. We might realize this on an intellectual level, but for some reason it seems to stay in the head and not truly felt. I suppose experience is the best teacher.
“You’ll see no countries, just a rolling indivisible globe which knows no possibility of separation, yet alone war. And you’ll feel yourself pulled in two directions at once. Exhilaration, anxiety, rapture, depression, tenderness, anger, hope, despair. Because of course you know that war abounds and that borders are something that people will kill and die for.�
I truly admired this book for the way it made me think. Not that these are completely original ideas. I’ve thought about our tiny planet in the grand scheme of things. I’ve considered my own place and purpose and usefulness plenty of times. Having this kind of reminder and absorbing the beauty of Samantha Harvey’s writing craft doesn’t hurt though. One thing I felt lacking was a fully realized connection to any of the characters. Harvey managed to convey her ideas through them effectively, yet I found them to be simply that � vehicles for these ideas. Ideas that I fully respect and agree with, but just the same I would have loved this even more had I been shown more depth of her characters. Perhaps the length of the novel had something to do with this. In only 200 pages, one can’t share the intellectual ideas and develop six main characters to the extent that I crave. That’s not a criticism but a personal preference. I still highly recommend this novel to anyone that loves to meditate about his or her place on this planet. Or anyone that thinks they are above all that � but those vain creatures won’t touch a book like this with a ten-foot pole!
“And in time we come to see that not only are we on the sidelines of the universe but that it’s of a universe of sidelines, that there is no centre, just a giddy mass of waltzing things, and that perhaps the entirety of our understanding consists of an elaborate and ever-evolving knowledge of our own extraneousness, a bashing away of mankind’s ego by the instruments of scientific enquiry until it is, that ego, a shattered edifice that lets light through.�...more
I fell hard for Kevin Wilson’s Now Is Not the Time to Panic. It’s hard to believe two years have gone by since I somewhat embarrassingly ran 3.5 stars
I fell hard for Kevin Wilson’s Now Is Not the Time to Panic. It’s hard to believe two years have gone by since I somewhat embarrassingly ran around gushing about that novel to anyone that would sit long enough to listen. I promised myself I’d read his backlist straightaway. Here I am, late as usual, but having finished one of those at last. Baby, You’re Gonna Be Mine is a book of short stories. I loved the title and the cover � I’m not going to lie. That’s why I picked it up before Nothing to See Here which would probably have been a better choice overall. Not that this was bad! It was unique! The writing is well-crafted and sometimes witty and often dark. Honestly though, I had trouble remembering some of the stories one week after finishing this. I guess that’s the problem with short stories at times. Or, I’ll be honest again, the trouble lies with me lately.
The first story immediately caught my attention when I read this:
“It was almost midnight when my girlfriend got a call from her sister, who had been arrested for taking a kebab skewer at a cookout and stabbing her husband.�
Don’t be fooled, however. It’s not a crime story. It’s more of a domestic tale about a guy and his girlfriend temporarily taking charge of the kids in this dysfunctional family. The narrator of this story struggles between wanting to help his girlfriend with her sister’s kids and wishing to flee. And then there’s the thought that when he has his own kids, it won’t be anything like this messed up situation. Sound familiar?! Of course, our own offspring will be sweet, compliant angels and our marriages like a fairy-tale.
“The deeper you get into this shit, the more you realize that nobody is keeping anyone else from fucking things up.�
A couple of the stories were unsettling. “Wildfire Johnny� was a completely different take on the genie in a bottle sort of tale. I haven’t read Stephen King in years, but it had his vibe, in my inexpert opinion. Some of the selections are about the relationships between adult children and a parent. “A Signal to the Faithful� is about the companionship between a young boy and a Catholic priest. There was an element that was deeply disturbing to me, but not in the way one might assume.
“Edwin knew how to pretend. It was one of the few things he was good at doing, to imagine a world and then take up residence there. To have someone else enter into that same world seemed a gift, or, it being so late at night, a dream.�
The final story was filled with tension and melancholy. In the end it left me confused and troubled. I found that to be a masterful finish to the collection now that I think about it. Kevin Wilson is an author I’ve got on my radar for sure.
“You could live with a mistake only if you made it once.� ...more
Rachel Kushner � I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance! This is so good, guys! I picked up a discarded copy of The Flamethrowers a few months agoRachel Kushner � I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance! This is so good, guys! I picked up a discarded copy of The Flamethrowers a few months ago (why the hell was it discarded, I now ask myself!), but hadn’t yet read it. Then this one passed through my hands, and I couldn’t resist � the title, the cover, and the jacket blurb hooked me. The first page had me checking it out and bringing it home.
“Neanderthals were prone to depression, he said. He said they were prone to addiction, too, and especially smoking.�
“I used to smoke, perhaps on account of some percentage of Neanderthal in my lineage, although I’ll never know what percentage, not wanting my DNA in any database.�
If weird little things like that make you snicker too, then we just might get along. I’m not really explaining the point of the Neanderthals here though. See, Sadie has been sent by some shadowy private sector group to infiltrate an organization of rural activists, the Moulinards, in the region to find proof of sabotage and further plans of possible subversions. Bruno Lacombe, through email communications, is a mentor to the group. Sadie, in turn, has access to these communications. Bruno Lacombe is thoroughly immersed, perhaps obsessed is a better term, with the Neanderthals and the ancient way of life. He blames Homo sapiens for the mess we are in. Lately, it’s not too hard to get on board with his way of thinking.
“The use of fire for harm instead of good seems to have taken hold, suspiciously, and damningly, just as the Neanderthals began to disappear and Homo sapiens rose up, an interglacial bully who shaped the world we’re stuck with.�
Another word about Sadie. She doesn’t give a shit about anyone, except for Sadie. And that’s what makes her such a fantastic character. I mean, we all care, arguably in varying degrees, for our fellow humans. But don’t you sometimes wish � admit it! � that you could care just a little bit less?! Okay, perhaps I’d just like to be Sadie for a day. Or two. She’s the sort of person you might also run into in a Marcy Dermansky or Ottessa Moshfegh novel, minus the undercover agent skills. She has no background that we know of, besides some previous undercover work. She has no friends or loved ones � except for those she feigns an interest in. Sex is used to get what she needs � usually more information. She’s messy, she has “conventional� looks, she likes her beer a bit too much perhaps, and she’s irreverent.
“I try to be respectful of other women’s shortcomings. The dumb luck of good looks is akin to the fact that it may very well rain on the sea in times of drought, and will not rain where it is needed, on a farmer’s crops: grace is random, dumb and random and even a bit violent, in giving to the one who already has rather a lot, and taking from the one who has been denied, who doesn’t have a pot to piss in.�
We learn a bit more about Sadie through her very remote connection to Bruno. She gets closer to him by reading his thoughts on mankind and the stars and the underground world of caves. Her preoccupation with Bruno’s emails allows us to see under her skin, if that’s even possible. I, for one, caught a glimpse of a beating heart.
As an aside, I pay little attention to prize nominees, or winners for that matter. I hadn’t been aware this was on the Booker longlist when I brought it home. And it’s a complete coincidence that I’m writing this right after the shortlist was announced! In fact, I was mid-review when I scrolled through Instagram and saw the post. Read this. It’s intelligent, invigorating, funny, and refreshingly different from the usual reading fare.
“Coincidence is a term you choose for the good work it does to cover what some part of you knows, but a part that cannot be allowed to speak. The coincidence, as an explanation for things that are mysteriously aligned, is hiding what is not a coincidence and is instead a plot.�...more
“Love is forever a mystery; it is rooted deep in still greater mysteries, and the attractions and repulsions even of friendship are as inflexible as l“Love is forever a mystery; it is rooted deep in still greater mysteries, and the attractions and repulsions even of friendship are as inflexible as law can make them.�
With only 32 ratings and 13 reviews, this is an obscure book, even on an avid reader’s site like this! I suspect it would be virtually impossible to run into anyone in the “wild� that has heard of it. How did I come across it then? Well, I thank the Backlisted podcast for this one. In this episode, Noreen Masud, author of A Flat Place, joined the cast to discuss Sarah Orne Jewett’s self-proclaimed best work. I would have skipped right past this one except that I’ve read Jewett before. I adored The Country of the Pointed Firs and its idyllic Maine setting a few years ago. Noreen Masud and the Backlisted cast managed to fully entice me to pick this up only a few days after listening to their engaging banter. It’s not the first time I’ve been wholly satisfied by their witty and charming exchanges. But what about the book? Well, it’s damn good! I was lured from the start.
“One August afternoon the people who drove along the east road of a pleasant Sussex County town were much interested in the appearance of a young man who was hard at work before a slender easel near the wayside� they inspected with some contempt the bit of scenery which was honored with so much attention. This was in no way remarkable. They saw a familiar row of willows and a foreground of pasture, broken here and there by gray rocks, while beyond a tide river the marshes seemed to stretch away to the end of the world.�
If you’re already bored with this bit of description, then this novel isn’t for you. There’s more of that throughout. If it grabs you as it did me, well� there’s more of that throughout! The setting here is the Great Salt Marsh in Massachusetts during the late nineteenth century. When Dick Dale, a young artist from New York City, shows up to paint a bit of their landscape, the inhabitants of a small rural community are equally suspicious and fascinated. When an injury causes Dick to spend a spell in the home of the Owens family, those members get a glimpse of life outside their own little world. The patriarch of the family, Israel Owens, is taken by the young man due to his resemblance to his deceased son. Mother Owens, who is not quite satisfied with the life of a farmer’s wife, looks upon Dick as a possible partner and way for her daughter Doris to start a new life in the manner Mrs. Owens would have liked for herself.
“The mother’s heart grew heavy as she pictured her only child growing faded and changed year after year, tired and worried more and more with the hard round and petty responsibility. Doris had it in her to grow beyond it all, as she herself had once; to do something else and something better; to be somebody, as she told herself with pathetic disappointment. Men folks were slow at understanding how a woman felt about such dull doings and lack of entertainment, the long winters and the endless, busy days of summer.�
Then there is Doris, the beautiful, unassuming young woman who already has a potential prospect in a local man, Dan Lester. The two have known each other since they were children. Dan and the entire town expect the two will eventually wed. Until the arrival of Dick Dale, Doris never imagined any other future. She gets a glimpse of a world wholly unlike the one she knows and understands. At first, I assumed Dick Dale to be the protagonist of the novel. Instead, I suspect it is Doris that Sarah Orne Jewett wanted us to examine most closely. She is the one that will need to deal with conflict and growth. She will need to determine what to do when faced with the choice of the known versus unknown. Rural versus city. New money prospects versus old money. Class and opportunity of course, too. Dick Dale’s view of the small community is intriguing as well. He’s charmed by the place, but then makes little changes he presumes will make the Owens home “better�, for example. He also makes assumptions about where a woman like Doris would best be suited, what her future should look like. I like the way Jewett uses Dick’s paintings in parallel with how he changes his view on people and place. We often “see� people the way we would like to. Are we able to change that picture in our minds as we learn more about a person? Are we able to discern their growth or do we choose to ignore it?
“Doris had seemed younger than her years, and had painted herself upon his consciousness in pale colors, and faint, though always perfectly defined, outlines. But his old knowledge of her seemed now as the enthusiasm and eagerness of a first sketch does to the dignity and fine assertion of a finished picture.�
I won’t tell you how the story ends, but I found it to be equally progressive yet faithful to the truth of those times. I can’t say I agree wholeheartedly with Jewett’s own opinion as this being her best work, as I enjoyed my time with The Country of the Pointed Firs more. However, I certainly can see where she would think this to be her most important work in terms of social class and opportunities for women. I won’t disagree with that point at all! Sara Orne Jewett was a fascinating woman in her own right, and I might read up on her a bit more in the future.
“She felt as if she were on the verge of a greater sea, which might prove either wonderful happiness or bitter misery…�...more
“There is who we want to be and there is who we are. As we get older the former gives way to the latter, and maybe this is who I am now, someone bette“There is who we want to be and there is who we are. As we get older the former gives way to the latter, and maybe this is who I am now, someone better off by themselves. Not happier, but better off. Not an introvert, just an extrovert who had lost the knack.�
Marnie, divorced, and Michael, estranged from his wife, are middle-aged, lonely, and thrown together on a walking holiday. There are a few others along for the hike, but they quickly drop off leaving Marnie and Michael alone. Some entertaining and thoughtful banter ensues between the two. There are reflections on relationships and the ideas and expectations surrounding having children versus not having them.
“No one wants to be defined by the thing you don’t have, whether it’s a kid or a partner, and people are obsessed, especially people in a relationship.�
It’s an old, worn-out question, but I can’t help but ask why people need to get their noses in the business and choices of others? Perhaps it’s preferable to a long, hard look at oneself. Don’t we have bigger issues on the table to deal with these days? Sigh. I guess we’re all experts at something these days. Or judges. Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about a quote from one of my favorite books, Fair and Tender Ladies: "I have made my bed and I wish everybody would let me lie in it."
I enjoyed this, my first David Nicholls novel. I’d love to find a sturdy, reliable pair of walking shoes and hit the trails. In fact, doing something like this is on my bucket list. I haven’t formulated exactly where or when, but it’s on the horizon. I like what Michael has to offer the reader about solitude and the outdoors. I’d have to agree. Still, it would be nice to make such a walk with a like-minded individual. I don’t want to be too much inside my own head, after all.
“At home he was merely lonely. Stepping outside transformed loneliness to solitude, a far more dignified state because it was his choice.�
I’m going to look at what else Nicholls has to offer. This was not so light and fluffy that I didn’t have to think at all, but it also didn’t require deep concentration � something I seem to be lacking these days. I’d recommend it!...more
Our library community lost a ray of brightness with the passing of a lovely woman, coworker and friend earlier this week. She was full of humor and coOur library community lost a ray of brightness with the passing of a lovely woman, coworker and friend earlier this week. She was full of humor and compassion and had a love for children that was so genuine that I for one wished to be a child all over again. She would lighten your day with greetings like “Hello, Beautiful� and her laughter would ring out at the silliest of jokes and shenanigans. Her passion for books, especially children’s books, was infectious. She was known to read parts of her favorites out loud to us grownups, and it was a joy to relive that little piece of youth every now and then when a day might not have gotten off to the greatest start. I’d walked past this children’s chapter book sitting on the holds shelf with her name on it for a few days and was curious to find out what she would think of it. I’d read an adult novel by Anne Michaels titled Fugitive Pieces several years ago, and the beauty of Michaels� writing has stayed with me. When we received the sad news that our dear friend had unexpectedly passed, I couldn’t resist checking this out for myself. I needed to see what she had been looking forward to. She would have adored this whimsical little novel!
“Some adventures are so small, you hardly know they’ve happened� Other adventures are so big and last so long, you might forget they are adventures at all � like growing up. And some adventures are just the right size � fitting into a single, magical day. And these are the sort of adventures Miss Petitfour had.�
The reader is whisked away on Miss Petitfour’s favorite tea party tablecloth along with her sixteen cats. The kitties have both grand and clever names like Grigorovitch and Moutarde and Captain Catkin. They have all sorts of adventures and run into bits of trouble, but with luck and cunning and teamwork on their side, things turn out just right � with some surprises along the way! I love the little messages tucked inside this book, and I’m sure Miss Jenny, as we so fondly called our friend, would too!
“Sometimes things work out differently than you expect, and sometimes that’s when the best things happen. And sometimes a jumble straightens everything out in the end.�
“Sometimes a story depends on finding something � a key to a secret door, a magic ring, a hidden passageway. Sometimes you have to look down to find it (like your slipper under the bed) and sometimes you have to look up to find it (like a balloon caught in a tree) and sometimes, if you’re really lucky, what you’re looking for, finds you.�
Sweet lady, I hope your soul rests easy and is whisked away on its own little adventure to find exactly what it’s been looking for....more
“Oh, to be able to give shape to such experiences, to make them live after their death . . . I get all excited when I hear people talk about their liv“Oh, to be able to give shape to such experiences, to make them live after their death . . . I get all excited when I hear people talk about their lives, about things that have happened to them, even the simplest events. I feel that in the telling they have greater significance than they had in real life.�
Reading, too, can make real life seem a lot more absorbing, can’t it?! We have all read those books that surprise us by capturing the most insignificant little events and injecting them with such meaning and expansiveness. This novel by Margarita Liberaki features a main character, Katarina, who learns something about the significance of those things we don’t quite understand as children. The setting is mid to late 1940s Greece. As the title suggests, it takes place across three summers in the lives of three sisters: Maria, Katarina and Infanta. Yes, I’ve read another coming-of-age novel. There’s something about summertime and the rush of vacations and hectic life events that makes coming-of-age books very comforting to me. The sisters couldn’t be more different from one another, as is common with siblings, and I delighted in learning a bit about each of them. From the start, Liberaki hints at those differences.
“That summer we bought big straw hats. Maria’s had cherries around the rim, Infanta’s had forget-me-nots, and mine had poppies as red as fire. When we lay in the hayfield wearing them, the sky, the wildflowers, and the three of us all melted into one.�
As the one summer progresses into the next, the sisters fall in love with different young men and each reacts to these new experiences in their individual ways. Profound ways really, if you think about how love might shape a young woman’s life choices in the mid-twentieth century.
“I’m not like Maria. I wouldn’t let a boy touch me just to pass the time. Maybe I’ll find someone who will watch the daisies blooming in the field with me, who will cut me a branch of the first autumn berries and bring it to me with the leaves still damp. Or maybe I’ll set out to see the world alone.�
Liberaki handles it all with a light touch and this is exactly what I needed. The point of view is primarily Katarina’s, and she imagine the lives of those others around her as well: her divorced parents, her neighbors, her sisters, the men in their lives, and the absent maternal Grandmother who left her own children at an early age to pursue love and adventure. When we don’t really know something about another, we come up with our own versions of what goes on inside their heads, don’t we? Katarina, as a young woman, naturally does the same. She figures some things out along the way and others remain a mystery, only to be understood later in life.
“Only years later would I realize how much my love for my mother was like a lover’s: the stubbornness, the moments of hatred, and the limitless tenderness afterwards. And how my love for my father was the love of mankind.�
I read this while on my own little idyllic adventure and it fit just right. There’s not as much depth as I typically demand from my reading experiences, but that’s not always needed, is it? It was perfect for me and my relaxed spirit. I’m quite certain that I could identify with Katarina, and wished for a time I could return to. I’d not only look at things differently, but act on them differently as well. Ah, sweet nostalgia- you’re a blessing and a curse!
3.5 stars rounded up to 4 because it was the perfect book at the perfect time!
“Summer is almost over. Like a day when it’s almost over, the late afternoon just before dusk. The shadows in the garden have changed, even the shadow of the house is different, more beautiful this season, longer and thinner.�...more
“I’m not armed with some higher knowledge or a greater sense of purpose, nor do I possess a highly evolved set of survival skills, or harbor superhuma“I’m not armed with some higher knowledge or a greater sense of purpose, nor do I possess a highly evolved set of survival skills, or harbor superhuman abilities to hang tough in terrible conditions. I am just Ken Smith, a man who prefers to do things his own way.�
I picked up this book because of my curiosity about a man living off the grid. I picked it up for what I hoped would be some stunning nature bits. What I took away from it the most was a deep admiration for an unapologetic man living the life that brought him the greatest joy and peace. Quite honestly, I’d always assumed that hermits were persons that didn’t care for other humans. I’m sure that can be the case, but there are people living in society that feel that way, too. Ken Smith, however, did enjoy human company � albeit probably select human company. He just preferred to live without the demands and burdens of an ordinary life.
“� the biggest killers in the Western world are the symptoms of our own perpetual boredom and dissatisfaction with life’s mundane direction. A slow death through the grinding monotony of a routine that does us absolutely no favors.�
After living a regular workaday life as a young man, Ken had an accident that doctors predicted would leave him with permanent disabilities. Instead, he proved them wrong by his determination to learn to walk, read and write all over again. At the age of thirty-one, he planned a 2,000 mile trek through Canada and the Yukon and portions of the Rocky Mountains. It was here that he had his greatest inspiration, as well as his own admiration for people living simpler yet hospitable lives.
“For me, my adventures in Canada and America were the most transformative of my life. They hauled my existence out of the Derbyshire gray and into the Technicolor. I was alive and profoundly inspired.�
“I was always humbled by the generosity of the people who lived in some of those extreme outposts, especially the Indigenous Inuit.�
What I found interesting, probably due to my ignorance, is that a hermit might work a job outside of the rigorous demands of living in the wilderness. Well, Ken Smith did anyway. After his return from Canada he eventually landed in the Scottish Highlands, building a cabin in a remote location near the shores of Loch Treig. He worked as a ghillie for seventeen years on the Corrour Estate. If you’re not sure what that is (I wasn’t), in a nutshell he acted as a fishing and hunting guide for the estate’s guests. At first I thought that didn’t seem in character with a man who wanted to live off the grid, but then Ken helped me understand his role. And even hermits need some cash for supplies they can’t obtain on their own. Ken was more than just a “servant� of the guests, however. He explains the greater mission:
“The ghillie should be a real steward and scholar of the land. Good ghillies will have a firm instinct for the rhythms of the natural world too� the ghillie plays a vital role in habitat restoration and management for the betterment of the estate’s biodiversity as a whole.�
There’s a lot of interesting stuff in here, including Ken’s passion for brewing wine with anything from fruits to coffee to horseradish. (If you’re a friend, he’s saved you gallons upon gallons to celebrate his life at a party after his death!) He made me laugh with his hatred for midges and ticks and other pesky summertime insects. He has a love/hate relationship with the pine martens. And he also suffers heartbreaking setbacks.
When it comes to stories like this, I still pay attention to the quality of the writing. I can’t help myself. I have to say it was solid writing. Ken wrote this in conjunction with Will Millard, a magazine and newspaper writer and fellow natural world lover. However, I felt the first part of the book to be slightly drier � perhaps his remembrance of the early days was a bit hazier? As the book advanced to his days along Loch Treig, the writing was infused with more warmth and passion. Perhaps because he’d finally found his place. Also, interspersed throughout are diary entries that I thought were very fine bits of writing indeed. I believe Ken Smith, on his own and in the moment, was able to put in words his most heartfelt, lovely thoughts. In any case, by the end of this book I felt like a close friend rooting for the best outcome in Ken’s now older age with all of the health issues that often accompany that stage of life.
Apparently, there was a documentary of his life prior to the writing of this book. In fact, Will Millard was inspired by this documentary to contact Ken and get this book written. I watched the trailer for the BAFTA-winning film The Hermit of Treig and even shed a little tear. Geez, and I haven’t even watched the actual film yet! In any case, I bet I’ll be finding a way to get an invite to that big party in the woods by the end. He’s warmed my heart with his humility, sincerity, and kindness. His simple message rings so true in today’s divisive and often unsympathetic, inhospitable world. It should be obvious, but sadly it's not.
“You shouldn’t feel self-conscious about saying a few kind words to the things that grow in your garden. You shouldn’t feel self-conscious about saying kind words to anything.� ...more
“Life, she understands, is a collapsing down, a succession of memories held not in sequence but together, occurring and recurring all at once.�
After f“Life, she understands, is a collapsing down, a succession of memories held not in sequence but together, occurring and recurring all at once.�
After falling head over heels for Armfield’s Our Wives Under the Sea a little while back, I was totally stoked for the release of this novel. I’m sorry to say, I feel a bit disappointed this time around. Maybe my expectations were too high, but I couldn’t quite muster up the same level of enthusiasm for it! As far as the prose, on a sentence level this was equally masterful. The story itself is what left me feeling kind of enervated. A bit limp. Maybe it was all that rain and dreariness that did it. After all, the book is set during a dystopian world where rain dominates everything.
“It rains constantly and the fact of the rain, of the rain’s whole great impending somethingness, runs parallel to the day-to-day of work and sleep and lottery tickets, of yoga challenges, of buying fruit and paying taxes, of mopping floors and taking drugs on weekends and reading books and wondering what to do on dates. It’s exhausting, as it always was, to live with such a breadth of things to take up one’s attention � exhausting, the way there can be too much world, even in its final stages. Exhausting, to be so busy and so bored with no time left for either.�
See what I mean about the writing � yes! It's the stuff about memory (like that first quote above) and family and sisterhood that jazzed me up the most. The gist of this story is that three sisters are left to deal with the death of their father. And the three sisters aren’t all too warm and fuzzy � with one another or with the reader. And good ole pop wasn’t exactly the poster boy for fatherhood either. That’s okay though. I didn’t mind that part. Family dynamics always intrigue me. Armfield alternates points of view between Irene, Isla and Agnes. Oh, even the City has a little voice interspersed here and there. I liked that quite a lot. There’s an underlying current of something eerie, and the rain adds to that feeling. I did like the interplay between distorted memory and distorted view due to that excess of water. Even the people seem to have transformed due to the constant deluge.
“Irene often feels she can detect a certain amphibious quality in the people with whom she shares transportation, shares offices, shares the ingrown cramp of city space.�
Throughout the entirety of the novel, I was expecting this to go somewhere and knock me for a loop. Instead, my kneejerk reaction at the end was “Oh, come on. Really?!� Well, I can’t tell you why. It might be just your thing, but it wasn’t mine. I was a bit relieved when it was all over. Enough of that rain! I happily basked in a small patch of sunlight that managed to creep through the picture window in the living room. It’s warming my back on this frigid, snowy day as I type this review, too. Read Our Wives Under the Sea if you want the perfect introduction to Julia Armfield!
Here are a few of my favorite quotes, because like I said, many of her sentences captivated me!
“How, she wondered, was one supposed to grieve an absence when that absence was familiar? What, she wondered, was grief without a clear departure to regret?�
“The first time you lose a parent, a part of you gets trapped there, trapped less in the moment of grief than in the knowledge of the end of childhood, the inevitable dwindling of the days.�
“Sisterhood, she thinks, is a trap. You all get stuck in certain roles forever.�
“The problem with love, of course, is that it frequently asks too much of unlovable people. It can be hard,on even the best of days, to compel oneself to be selfless and patient and undemanding or even halfway reasonable when one is not given to any of those behaviors. But these are nonetheless the qualities that love demands.�
“Love, it seems, is bizarre in its moment of realization, too blatant to speak aloud.�
“At what point, she wanted to say, do we stop being the direct product of our parents? At what point does it start being our fault?� ...more
I finished reading this incredibly poignant novel more than two weeks ago. I’ve not had the time to sit and write a review. Life has gotten in the wayI finished reading this incredibly poignant novel more than two weeks ago. I’ve not had the time to sit and write a review. Life has gotten in the way. Some of it fortuitous, some of it rather tough. I sat down to look over my highlights this morning and found them difficult to sift through. I felt a bit melancholy in the process. I guess that’s a testament to the quality of writing, this lingering effect on me. Mother-daughter relationships � it can’t get much more fraught than that, at least from my own personal perspective. But my strength lies in having come to terms with that, so I’m not going to give this more mental space today. Susie Boyt, the author of this novel, expresses my feelings perfectly through her main character, Ruth:
“There is so much in life that doesn’t matter, so many things that hold you back, hem you in and throw you off the scent of what’s important.�
Ruth had a challenging childhood. Her father’s desertion, her mother’s heartache. Then Ruth has a child, Eleanor, and puts her whole heart into it. It’s hard to know the right balance between too much caring and too little. Can we fault anyone for that? Most of us simply do what we think best, based on our own past experiences. There’s no finger-pointing there. It’s fruitless. Eleanor ends up with a drug addiction. She eventually has her own child, Lily. Ruth steps in and raises Lily as her own. The relationship between them is touching. But I couldn’t help but wonder how all of this would shape Lily in the future. I could see Lily, even as a child, being the one responsible for healing. That’s often a great burden on a child, too. Ruth recognizes this.
“There was an idea that having Lily compensated me in various ways for losing Eleanor� But if Lily thought it was her job to patch me up, I would have doubly failed.�
Recognizing such pitfalls doesn’t mean that we won’t unwittingly step into them though, does it? This book pointed that out to me in a very thought-provoking, unsentimental way. The prose is literary, on the verge of distancing the reader from its characters. But not quite. For me, it was just the right amount of closeness versus distance to make it all very palpable. So much so that I’ve been reflecting on it a lot these past couple of weeks. It’s become a part of me. I’m in awe of Susie Boyt’s skill. She caught me off guard! The ending sections were phenomenal and evidence of the strength that women’s solidarity through times of grief can bring to the table.
Thanks to Antoinette for pointing me towards this novel. Cheers, my friend!
“Sometimes in life you have to let your heart and bones off the hook of yourself.�
“Life was exceedingly vulnerable, I realized. The flesh, the organs, bones, breaths passing before my eyes all held within them the potential to snap,“Life was exceedingly vulnerable, I realized. The flesh, the organs, bones, breaths passing before my eyes all held within them the potential to snap, to cease � so easily, and by a single decision.�
I can’t think of any better way to describe this book than to say it was haunting. Both the surreal and the disturbing images are right there in front of me still, whether my eyes are open or closed. It’s odd, but as I sit here I realize that I can’t quite picture Kyungha, the narrator, or Inseon, her friend. Yet everything else is so vivid. Perhaps Kyungha and Inseon are a bit otherworldly. Part of a dream. One that the reader finds herself inside of. Kyungha is also unsure of that blurred line between reality and dream, or maybe nightmare would be a better word for it.
“In the sudden lull, I feel as if I’ve opened the door to a dream within a dream and stepped inside.�
“I say quietly, Dreams are terrifying things. No � they’re humiliating. They reveal things about you that you weren’t even aware of…�
After an injury lands her in the hospital, Inseon makes a request of Kyungha. She asks her to travel to her home on the island of Jeju to feed and water her bird, Ama, before it is too late. Kyungha makes her way there amid a snowstorm. At this point, the snow plays a major role in the story, both in a literal and figurative way. The story alternates between the present moment when Kyungha is at Inseon’s home and in the past. A horror that is a deeply disturbing part of Korean history is slowly revealed in a very personal way. The images mix and mingle with the present time. The crimes and injustices of the past are wound tightly with the here and now. They become a part of us, whether we want them to or not.
“Snow had an unreality to it. Was this because of its pace or its beauty? There was an accompanying clarity to snow as well, especially slow, drifting snow. What was and wasn’t important were made distinct. Certain facts became chillingly apparent. Pain, for one.�
We Do Not Part is simultaneously a story of a loving friendship and the chilling aftereffects of the unspeakable acts that humans are capable of doing to one another. Let’s not ignore the fact that these actions happened in recent history. We most certainly are not immune to committing such violence now. As much as it might seem easier to keep one’s head in the sand, we can’t afford to do so. History tells us this repeatedly.
This is my second Han Kang novel and I’ve no doubt she’s well deserving of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Her prose soars and her subject matter is relevant, highly compelling and deeply revealing of human nature in its various forms � both the good and the evil. I felt a little less grounded while reading this novel compared to my experience with The Vegetarian. Yet, it’s an important book and one that I can highly recommend.
“How does one endure it? Without a fire raging in one’s chest. Without a you to return to and embrace.�...more
“You can’t stay married to someone forever just because they climb out of your attic one afternoon.�
I thought this would be the perfect book to read t“You can’t stay married to someone forever just because they climb out of your attic one afternoon.�
I thought this would be the perfect book to read the week leading up to a big wedding. It was my sister’s wedding, her first after being independent and unattached for decades. I wanted something light and funny; I was too distracted for anything too weighty. A young woman comes home from a friend’s hen party one night to find that she now has a husband. She doesn’t have any idea who he is. When she sends him up to the attic for something or another, a different husband descends. And so the plot goes. One husband after another. Liz Taylor had nothing on Lauren. I’m not even talking about a baker's dozen. Her husband tally would make your head spin.
“He seems like a husband she can live with for a while.�
Some husbands remain for a couple of days, or even more. Some for just several seconds before being sent back. Did this entertain me? Sometimes. Did I learn anything? No. Did I laugh? Yes. I kept waiting for the moment when the plot would propel a bit more forward. I reached a point when I thought this was finally going somewhere. It really didn’t. Still, I had some laughs and it kept me occupied while I decided whether or not to wear shapewear under my bridesmaid dress. Hosiery or bare legs? Which sneakers to pack for the hours after the pointed-toe heels became unbearable? While ranting about the fact I was too damn old to be a bridesmaid! Mostly, the story was anchored for me by those passages that were funny. So, I’ll make this easy and share a few of them.
Lauren is usually just a slightly different version of her former self with each new husband. Sometimes she surprises herself:
“It’s looking suspiciously like she’s taken up hiking.�
On marital sex:
“� the whole thing is done in not much more than ten minutes. Gosh. Married life, she thinks.�
Special requests:
“Surely if she’d invented him, she’d have invented someone better at cleaning?�
Vows, what vows?:
“� what she needs is not a husband for better and worse but rather a husband for next Saturday.�
Regarding weddings:
“It must be nice to be that sure of anything, to risk the mistake, to have the big party."
Childrearing:
“Parenting is easy! At least if you never have to make any decisions whose ramifications will last for longer than a week!�
Don't worry guys, this isn't a piece of feminist writing - this could just as easily have been titled The Wives with a different MC. This doesn’t come with a recommendation attached, but I’m not sorry that I read it. Read it by the pool or at the beach. Maybe not at your sister’s wedding reception. ...more
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