**spoiler alert** Walker is a good writer, and for the most part she draws her characters well. Nevertheless, I found the themes and message of the bo...more**spoiler alert** Walker is a good writer, and for the most part she draws her characters well. Nevertheless, I found the themes and message of the book to be ultimately unconvincing and sometimes off-putting, from its pantheistic overtones to its over-emphasis on the value of sexuality. In The Color Purple, homosexual experimentation is healing; wife sharing is to be seen through a relative lens (hey, it has its good points), and even rapists and wife beaters ultimately turn out just fine in the end. The unconvincing "conversion" of Cecie's husband is probably necessitated by the pantheistic attitude that permeates the book. If God is in everything, nothing and no one can truly be evil--yet it's hard to explain the horrifying misery Walker's created in this novel with a pantheistic apologetic--so the change of character is convenient. (less)
I expected this book to be yet one more tale about the stereotypical, evil white man, but it was much more complex than that. Paredes at least dabbles...moreI expected this book to be yet one more tale about the stereotypical, evil white man, but it was much more complex than that. Paredes at least dabbles in both sides of the issue, and he does a fine job of describing the dual personality that can develop in a Mexican-American due to competing cultural forces. The ending of the novel does seem abrupt--largely because it is short and unexpected, but I think this abruptness helps to create a rather powerful and shocking irony. Nevertheless, I am unable to appreciate the intense anti-assimilation message that prevails (despite the occasional complexities introduced), and I can't help but think it is immoral to force people to remain in cultural molds or to label them traitors when they desire to assimilate. One more note: Paredes draws a fine portrait of childhood and youth, which is what really makes the book readable. He seems to have a special talent in this area.
Not normally a reader of contemporary literary fiction, I was hesitant to tackle The Namesake. It was, however, recommended by multiple friends. Findi...moreNot normally a reader of contemporary literary fiction, I was hesitant to tackle The Namesake. It was, however, recommended by multiple friends. Finding it to be written in present tense, something I normally detest in fiction, I hesitated once again. After a page or two, I ceased to notice and became lost in the story of one Indian family's struggle to assimilate to America, of generational differences, and of a young man's desire to pull away from his heritage and then back again.
I was impressed by the way the author was able to make me sympathize with each of the main characters (except Gogol's wife, whom I could not seem to care about), even though each held very different views on assimilation. I was also awed by the way in which she could use normal, every day details—of childhood, school life, travel, etc.—to define characters and elicit my emotions. Simple, ordinary details that would normally seem dull to me had me at times nearly crying, and I don't know how she did it. I think it is the cumulated effect of the characters she has crafted that allows these individual moments to impact me as a reader.
The book, like so much modern literary fiction, is at times overwhelmingly depressing, but with a note of hope at the end.
You don't have to be an immigrant to relate to the book, however, because the author also captures beautifully the tug of war between generations, the bittersweet pain of letting go of your children and watching them find their own way in life. (less)
I read this many years ago as a teenager, before it was as well known as it is today, and then I read it again in college. Readers often expect imperi...moreI read this many years ago as a teenager, before it was as well known as it is today, and then I read it again in college. Readers often expect imperialism to be dealt with in black and white. Either the author desires to see native ways preserved and consequently views any imperial attempts as immoral and threatening, or he's a Kipling-style "white man's burden" devotee who believes non-European cultures ought to be improved by supervision from their European "superiors." Yet Things Fall Apart is a novel that complicates both of those simplistic views. In it, a desire to preserve the native way of life coexists with an urge to admit improvements to it. A tension inevitably arises from the juxtaposition of these two goals. In Things Fall Apart, this tension courses through every page, and it is part of what makes the book so fascinating.
Achebe seems to despise the tendency to simplify complex human life. The events that occur in Things Fall Apart signify the destruction of an entire way of life, an obliteration of the ties that bind a people together. Yet it is not that Achebe unconditionally embraces the culture of the Ibo people. He makes the reader feel for Okonkwo's father, whose failure by Ibo standards is the source of Okonkwo's severity, and for his son, Nwoye, who does not fit into the strictly ordered masculine warrior society.
I appreciated, especially, Achebe's nuanced portrayl of both the positive and negative aspects of missionary activity. When the missionaries come to Nigeria, the church provides a haven for the discontent: for the woman who can not bear to leave her twins to die, for the outcasts who are shunned by the community, and for Nwoye, who can only fit into Ibo society by denying himself. I was moved by Achebe's depiction of how Christianity provides a place for the outcast: the hymn they sing about brothers "who sat in darkness and in fear seemed to answer a vague and persistent question that haunted [Nwoye's] young soul--the question of the twins crying in the bush and the question of Ikemefuna who was killed. He felt a relief within as the hymn poured into his parched soul."
Yet by providing an outlet for the discontent, the church begins to unravel the ties that bind the Ibo people together. Although the church gives dignity to the outcast and the misunderstood, the second missionary who comes fails to restrain his converts from injuring the dignity of other Ibos. Achebe makes us sympathize with Nwoye's dissatisfaction and acknowledges that Ibo culture was imperfect, but through Okonkwo he also shows us what was lost when the Ibos failed to preserve their culture from the onslaught of the Europeans. What was lost, Achebe has said elsewhere, was DIGNITY, "and it is this that they must now regain. The worst thing that can happen to any people is the loss of their dignity and self-respect. The writer's duty is to help them regain it by showing in human terms what happened to them." Achebe succeeds brilliantly. He painfully and tragically depicts the tragedy that can result when the only way of life a man has ever known begins to crumble. (less)
This was undoubtedly a depressing book, but it made a very strong impression on me at the time I read it. Greene's is definitely not a teddy-bear Jesu...moreThis was undoubtedly a depressing book, but it made a very strong impression on me at the time I read it. Greene's is definitely not a teddy-bear Jesus Christianity. This is not a book whose plot line (it's a crime novel) has stuck in my memory, but it's impact – the feeling it invoked -- has.
I'm not sure what to make of Greene's meaning or intentions much of the time, but he paints very vividly a life trapped in sin and resistant to the grace of God. The one scene that stuck with me most was of Pinkie resisting the Holy Ghost as it tries to violently break in upon him: "He withstood it, with all the bitter force of the school bench, the cement playground, the St. Pancras waiting room, Dallow's and Judy's secret lust...If the glass broke, if it got in, God knows what it would do. He had a sense of huge havoc - the confession, the penance and the sacrament - and awful distraction . . ."
What Greene is doing in this book, really, is showing how vibrant a world of GOOD and EVIL (a world that requires religious belief to enter) is compared to the bland world of social right and wrong. In a sense, he seems to be arguing that it is better to "be a sinner and sin strongly" than to be absent altogether from that world of good and evil, and thus be absent from the real world of God. The book is a social critique of the distortions of religion (including commercialization), but it is also a social critique of the shallowness of social (as opposed to religious) morality. We see the shallow "rightness" of a figure like Ida, whose public conscience lacks private depth, whose vapid new ageism lacks poetry, whose sex lacks power (it's "a little bit of fun"). The bourgeois Idas of the world say there are things the religious Roses don't know, and the Roses say: 'There's things you don't know.' . . . a God wept in a garden and cried out upon a cross; Molly Carther went to everlasting fire." How paltry Greene makes Ida's world seem in the face of all that.
I once read an article in which the author noted that there are many "varieties" of spirit, and that Protestants, unlike Catholics, just don't know how to address that variety of spirit that cannot be moved by a ra-ra Jesus attitude, but which is instead moved by the darkness of the Christian story; although a Protestant myself, I felt I could actually understand just what he meant by that. Greene, I think, understands that "variety" of spirit. He hits where it hurts, and then leaves you alone with the ache, and perhaps, if you've a certain variety of spirit, the ache does its good work…
On the other hand, although Greene paints sin and resistance to grace extremely well, what is so disturbing and depressing about this book, and what made it ultimately a book I did not like (even while I loved it), is that we never really get to see grace successfully at work. Christian existentialism is simply no match for redemption. (less)
I've given up on this at page 100. It is quite dull (except for occasional flashes of genius, especially in the way he describes domesticity). I have...moreI've given up on this at page 100. It is quite dull (except for occasional flashes of genius, especially in the way he describes domesticity). I have not been able to generate any sympathy for the overly melodramatic (at times downright maudilin) protagonist. In the Time of Cholera is billed as a great romance, but so far "love," as depicted from the point of view of the main character, not only in his own life but in the way he views the lives and loves of others, is infatuation at best, unhealthy obsession or masochism at worst. (He speaks of how it is only love -- and not fear -- that can motivate three women to allow themselves to be subservient to and abused by one man, for instance.)
I've plodded on through the rather slow-paced story, and I have noticed moment of great depth, moments of unique humor, and some moving scenes and phrases, but, on the whole, I am not yet captured by the story, and I am not likely to press on. My favorite part of the book has been, towards the beginning, the writer portrayed the marriage of Dr. Urbino and his wife, especially the feud over the soap. The doctor's death scene was masterfully done. In fact, I think this relationship, with its domestic squabbles, it's grudging tenderness, and its final dying throes of regret, actually came closer to depicting what "love" means than does the main character's relationship with the heroine. For love is a shared life with and a commitment to someone you come to know truly, intimately, in all their mundane frailty. It is not mooning over someone who is largely a figment of your imagination and obsessing about your supposed love between bouts of meaningless fornication. (less)
For the Love of Freedom pits a journalist against a politician, and then pits that same politician against himself. When political journalist Chip Hal...moreFor the Love of Freedom pits a journalist against a politician, and then pits that same politician against himself. When political journalist Chip Halick unearths a secret about the popular new governor Colin Rierdon, the politician will have to contradict his own professed code of conduct if he is to prevent his past from being unveiled. I found Rierdon's secret to be intensely predictable, but this is not a suspense or mystery novel, so such predictability hardly mars the work.
The novel's dialogue occasionally seems unrealistic when characters speak like talking heads reading from a written script. Despite these flaws, the author's writing style is generally impressive. D.J. Vallone is erudite without being pretentious, and his prose flows well. In this tangled web of politics, the reader is asked to wrestle with ideas involving ethics, law, religion, and constitutional intent. Although I disagree with many of the ideas presented in the novel, I feel they are fairly well-incorporated into the story. There are times when the narrator's introspection tends to slow down the plot and unnecessarily keep the reader from the story, but for the most part, the philosophical speculation is interesting and integral to the tale. Although far from preachy, the novel does not always convey its ideas with nuance. The story is occasionally painted with some broad strokes of black and white. For example, Rierdon is at first presented as an all-too-typical representative of the dread "religious right" (a term used by journalists, and likewise by our narrator, as though it represented the actual name of an organization or political party). Early on the narrator refers to Rierdon's "uncompromising brand of religious-fascism," and the governor is portrayed to the reader amidst a sea of sweeping terms like "unreasoning zeal," "ultra narrow," "bible thumping," and religious "programming." Indeed, the author's overall portrayal of evangelical Christians is highly stereotypical. Evangelical Christians are explained to the reader by a liberal Christian friend of the narrator, who, while certainly not painting them as entirely heartless, yet misunderstands them in a number of ways. The author also introduces a character, a minister of a non-denominational Bible church, who says his church has no programs to help the poor and will only help them if they come to his church. This attitude and practice is so far removed from that of real-life, evangelical, non-denominational Christians as to make the reader speculate that perhaps the author is relying heavily on anti-evangelical caricatures.
This is not to say that Colin Rierdon is created an absolute bogeyman. Indeed, the narrator eventually comes to reconsider his view of Rierdon and to recognize the governor's virtues, not just his flaws. In the end, Colin is portrayed as "doing the right thing," which is to say he does the liberal thing. (After all, how else can a conservative Christian be redeemed?) That's a simplification, of course, but the character, liberated by the fact that he thinks he has "nothing left to lose," publicly moves towards a more liberal (and his true heart-felt) stance on a particular issue.
I do not mean to imply that the book is merely a liberal polemic. It is considerably more complex than that. Indeed, the narrator even entertains and presents a few ideas that are traditionally regarded as conservative. His dealing with the abortion issue is not entirely one-sided, and he takes seriously the opposing view. (less)
This is a well written book, with unique characters, and it was a "good read," but I don't think I can say I actually liked it. A Prayer for Owen Mean...moreThis is a well written book, with unique characters, and it was a "good read," but I don't think I can say I actually liked it. A Prayer for Owen Meany, despite the narrator's insistence that the Resurrection is the heart of Christianity, presents a joyless Christianity. Christ said, "I have come to give you life, and to give it more abundantly," yet no Christian in this story seems to have an "abundant" life.
I noticed that all of the characters who are representatives of Christianity, even Owen Meany, seem to have one thing in common: their Christianity is a Christianity without joy. There is the narrator, who is isolated, lonely, judgmental, and bitter, constantly condemning the Pharisees; there is the minister whose faith is dry, whose belief is purely academic, whose family is portrayed as dead inside; there are the parents who are burdened by the weight of superstition and live an almost ghostly existence. Even the hero's Christianity, the Christianity that is the narrator's ideal, the Christianity of Owen Meany, is ultimately a Christianity without joy. Owen has faith in God, but he is resigned, even bordering on fatalistic; he may arguably be content, but to me he seems to utterly lack joy. Like the narrator, he spends a great deal of his life judging others, and he is described as difficult to live with; at times he even seems miserable. The narrator (or Owen?) says: "watch out for people who call themselves religious; make sure you know what they mean—make sure they know they mean!" Does the narrator know what he means by "religious"? Does Owen Meany?
The narrator delights in railing against those he deems to be false Christians. He takes little pity on others for their lack of faith, though he himself wrestles with doubt; he has no mercy for politicians forced to make hard choices in a fallen world beset by sin. He spends a good part of the book raging with polemics against Americans, America, and Ronald Reagan, as well as against evangelical Christians. His best friend and hero Owen Meany would agree: "What's wrong with…them is that they're so sure they're right." But so too is Owen Meany "so sure" he's right, so too is the narrator; and with that assurance they condemn those who are not as they are.
The narrator does admit that his "lack of forgiveness" is the least Christian thing about him, and yet he does not seem to strive to do anything about it. For me, the lonely, isolated, embittered narrator is an uncomfortable reminder of how easy it is for any one of us to waste our lives in washing the outside of the cup and in pointing fingers of censure, instead of simply getting on with the business of living and loving and praying and serving and laughing. A Prayer for Owen Meany shows us a Christianity of mystery, of blood, of fate, and of miracles, but never a Christianity of joy. (less)
This is a moving, haunting, and occasionally ambiguous novel that is ultimately about the value of sacred discontent. At first it may seem as if the m...moreThis is a moving, haunting, and occasionally ambiguous novel that is ultimately about the value of sacred discontent. At first it may seem as if the message is that religion is an opiate of the people, soothing them and comforting them and preventing them from confronting the naked evil of the world, but that is not the thrust of the novel. The characters in Potok's story reminded me that if religion is a crutch, it is far from the only one. Potok made me recall Herman Wouk's assertion that "speaking of crutches--Freud can be a crutch, Marx can be a crutch, rationalism can be a crutch, and atheism can be two canes and a pair of iron braces. We none of us have all the answers, nor are we likely to have. But in the country of the halt, the man who is surest he has no limp may be the worst-crippled."
Potok shows the reader that we are living "in the country of the halt," and that if we don't realize we are limping and allow ourselves a crutch, we will remain permanently broken. But he also shows us that being religious should not mean being complacent, and that our discontent with the world is a sign that we were made for something more. And here I am reminded of what Richard John Nuehaus wrote in his meditation Death on a Friday Afternoon, and this I think sums up the message I felt was subtly and emotionally painted for me by Potok's book:
"For paradise we long. For perfection we were made. We don't know what it would look like or feel like, but we must settle for nothing less. This longing is the source of the hunger and dissatisfaction that mark our lives; it drives our ambition…This longing makes our loves and friendships possible, and so very unsatisfactory. The hunger is for nothing less than paradise, nothing less than perfect communion with the Absolute—with the Good, the True, the Beautiful—communion with the perfectly One in whom all the fragments of our scattered existence come together at last and forever. We must not stifle this longing. It is a holy dissatisfaction. Such dissatisfaction is not a sickness to be healed, but the seed of a promise to be fulfilled…The only death to fear is the death of settling for something less."
The end fell a little flat for me (was that partially the point?). And there were times when the narrator simply was not believable as an eight to ten year old girl. There were some slight sterotypes in his portrayls of devout Christians and orthodox Jews, but Potok did clearly try to find some balance there. Nearly five stars, but not quite. (less)
I stopped reading this about half way through. Although it is somewhat well written, with a unique narrative style in the form of a monologue delivere...moreI stopped reading this about half way through. Although it is somewhat well written, with a unique narrative style in the form of a monologue delivered to a mysterious stranger, I just couldn't stomach it. It seems aimed at trying to make the reader understand and sympathize with someone who can live in the U.S. for years, benefit from its educational and professional opportunities, but still delight when the nation is violently attacked and deeply wounded. Americans are portrayed in stereotype after stereotype, some of which find their basis in reality and some of which I found to be quite far off. One recurring objection seems to be rooted in distaste for what amounts to the fact that America is, relatively speaking, the closest thing to a classless society the world has to offer (of course, it is not this to which the speaker directly objects, but it is this fact that underlies many of the things to which he does object). A book like this may also tend to reinforce the beliefs of some Americans that many immigrants from Muslim countries are just "faking it" with regard to tolerance and assimilation while secretly delighting in America's wounds and hoping for the country's eventual destruction. Is the educated, well-dressed, Pakistani immigrant business man (as in this book) really, secretly smiling when he thinks of the World Trade Towers coming down? I'm not entirely sure what the goal of this book is, but either reinforcing the stereotypes and grudges of self-loathing Americans, or reinforcing the fears of jingoistic ones, may be the effect. (less)
As a heads up to Kindle owners, the publisher has recently lowered the price of this book to $2.99 (previously $9.99). If it's the softcover you're af...moreAs a heads up to Kindle owners, the publisher has recently lowered the price of this book to $2.99 (previously $9.99). If it's the softcover you're after, you can buy it directly from the publisher's website for 45% off. (less)
The protagonist of this short story cycle is hardly loveable; she’s a difficult character to like, but Olive Kitteridge provides a realistic glimpse i...moreThe protagonist of this short story cycle is hardly loveable; she’s a difficult character to like, but Olive Kitteridge provides a realistic glimpse into the psyche of a woman who lives with untreated depression. The other characters who join the collection provide portraits of intense loneliness that may prove either cathartic (or painfully real) for anyone who has had even an inkling of such an experience. Betrayal (from both the perspective of the betrayer and the betrayed), mental illness, the common pain of being disappointed by the distance of one’s grown children, mid-life crises…Elizabeth Strout seems to have her finger on the pulse of ordinary human suffering. The effect of the book is heavy, and despite a note of hope, it is ultimately unsettling. The stories and characters, however, are well crafted, and I often found myself underlining a particularly impressionable turn of phrase. There were no stories that bored me, none I felt the need to skip or skim through. This “novel in stories” held my attention and moved my emotions from beginning to end. (less)
I’m not sure why I read this entire, relentlessly depressing book, but I did. At about page 250, I thought, “Isn’t this over by now? I’m ready for thi...moreI’m not sure why I read this entire, relentlessly depressing book, but I did. At about page 250, I thought, “Isn’t this over by now? I’m ready for this to be over.” And yet I kept reading, gaining and losing interest intermittently, until I reached the predictable, overtly sentimental close that didn’t compensate for the hundreds of pages of intricately detailed (and often contrived) human pain. Though the book was emotionally real in parts, its events and characters were largely unbelievable. It was simply over the top. I suppose, however, it was well written, or I wouldn’t have read it all.
There’s been a great deal of gushing over the fact that, despite being a man, Wally Lamb has managed to write a book from the point of view of a woman. I don’t really feel qualified to remark on his success (or lack thereof) in this regard, because, although a woman myself, I have been told on more than one occasion that I “think like a man,” whatever that means, but, as far as I can tell, it means I prefer discussions of politics and theology to discussions of shopping and home décor, which perhaps tells you something about the prima facie assumptions that lead people to pat men on the back for being able to penetrate the psyches of women. I don’t know if Wally Lamb accurately captures “the woman’s psyche,” because, you see, he’s not writing about “women,” but about a particular woman who suffers continuous abuse at the hands of person after person, year after year; who time and time again encounters an array of idiosyncratic people who hardly exist outside of Oprah Book Club selections; who manages to accomplish--or find herself the fortuitous recipient of--the highly unlikely on more than one occasion; and who finds life-affirming meaning in whales. Maybe I could have at least related to that last part…that is, when I was a 3rd grade girl. (less)
Outside of children’s literature (where it works perfectly well), I can’t really wrap my head around the concept of a dog narrating a novel. Consequen...moreOutside of children’s literature (where it works perfectly well), I can’t really wrap my head around the concept of a dog narrating a novel. Consequently, it took me quite awhile to adjust to this book, for the story to feel natural. And there is some over-the-top writing. I think it may have the worst sex scene of any I have yet read, but, on the other hand, the scene is partly excused for having been observed and recounted from the point of view of a dog, so it can’t really rival the awfulness of the scene in Very Valentine. Despite these failings, I had to give the book three stars after all; I have to admit “I like it,” because, once I got into it, I really got into it. It held my attention; I read it quickly; I cared about the main characters (the dog and his man), and I was even, at times, quite moved. I admit to skimming quite a bit about race car driving…yes, I know it was all a grand, extended metaphor for life, but I got that idea even with skimming. The novel was, after all, rather lacking in subtlety. And it wasn’t particularly realistic either (and I don’t just mean because it was narrated by a dog). Nevertheless, I do find myself concluding, “I liked it.” (less)
This book was very easy to read, generally entertaining, and occasionally funny (in the dark comedy sense). The narration was a bit off (it’s supposed...moreThis book was very easy to read, generally entertaining, and occasionally funny (in the dark comedy sense). The narration was a bit off (it’s supposed to be first person, but the narrator sometimes seems randomly omniscient, claiming to know the feelings and thoughts of third parties). The plot and characters were thoroughly unbelievable; none of the characters were sympathetic, and the author kept interrupting the dialogue with parentheses to show how individual words were pronounced (look how they said it in their funny Ukrainian accent!).
Aside from offering an intriguing title, I didn’t understand the point of the short history of tractors in Ukrainian, which was being written by the father and was inserted throughout the story in italics. I kept expecting some profound connection to the human condition to come from the history. Instead, it felt as tedious as the shipbuilding textbook portions of Moby Dick, so I eventually started skimming anything in italics.
One thing that bothered me was the sudden insertion of the author’s political views into dialogue. At least, I think it was the author’s views. At times, it was hard for me to tell whether the author was satirizing socialism or promoting it. There was one scene when I thought: “Ah, what a clever commentary on the difference between socialists and conservatives: the daughter whose memory focuses on receiving money from a stranger grows up to be a socialist, while the daughter whose memory focuses on the stranger herself, a fur-coat-cloaked woman who actually made enough of herself to be able to afford to have money to spare, grows up to be a conservative. How subtle, showing how conservatism really leads to helping the poor more than socialism does…” But then later the author is inserting a treatise on how horrible capitalism has been for the Ukraine and how beautiful Swedish-style socialism is into the mouth of one of the characters. To make this insertion even more cumbersome, the speech is put into the mouth of a character who speaks only Ukrainian, and so it must be translated into English by the narrator, whose Ukrainian has apparently improved since earlier in the book when her Ukrainian supposedly wasn’t good enough for her to understand the same man.
So I guess I misread the author’s intention in that passage about the fur-coated, money-giving lady, and I also guess the narrator (Nadia) is not supposed to be perceived as an absolute stereotype of a naïve liberal (which is the flimsy way her character appeared to me; I could not imagine she was meant to be taken seriously). Perhaps Nadia was meant to be viewed as an optimistic and impassioned woman whose hope can change the world. Or something like that. Either the author is masterfully and intentionally ambiguous, or she’s just not very good at conveying her ideology. I’m guessing it’s the latter. Or is it? Surely we can’t be meant to take seriously a narrator who says things like: “Father is in love with both of them:” (i.e. the crazy, big-chested, a-third- his-age Ukrainian woman he marries and her first husband) “he is in love with the life-beat of love itself. I can understand the fascination, because I share it, too.” (Where’s my spoon when I really need to gag myself?) Vera wasn’t likeable, but she was the only character who made sense to me, that is, the only one who was moderately believable.
The book was a good enough read with which to pass the time, and I don’t regret entertaining myself with it. And I WAS entertained, all of these criticisms notwithstanding. Yet I can’t imagine why it should be thought worthy of any literary prize. I suppose it’s meant to be a reflection on grand themes, such as growing old, or how history haunts us, or reconciliation, or redemption, or the evils of capitalism, or some such…but it’s really more like watching that Michael Douglas / Kathleen Turner 80’s movie The War of the Roses. It would have been better, I think, if the author had aimed for a straight up dark comedy and had not attempted to insert any pretentions of depth. Still, any book I can read in three days without getting bored is well worth three stars. There must have been SOMETHING about it that grabbed and held my attention. I regret I can’t pinpoint what that something was…but there was something. (less)
This is a powerful novelette that exposes the spiritual degradation of collectivism, a fascinating dystopian tale that left me appreciating liberty an...moreThis is a powerful novelette that exposes the spiritual degradation of collectivism, a fascinating dystopian tale that left me appreciating liberty and the Western spirit of individualism and feeling even more wary than usual about the reach of the state into so many areas of human life. Although Rand’s writing can at times seem melodramatic, here it suits the fable fairly well; it is sparse and pointed and the use of only the second and third person pronouns throughout the work communicates the author’s criticism of collectivism forcefully. While the events and outcome of the book are predictable, this was not a deterrent to my pleasure in reading it because I expect this of a philosophical novel. I give it four stars instead of five because, while I think Ayn Rand does an excellent job of exposing the spiritual dangers of collectivism, she does so by falling into an opposite error: she does not offer a mere defense of the value of the individual and of his rights, but instead replaces worship of the collective with worship of the self and refuses to acknowledge any spiritual danger in this other idolatry.
Despite all the problems I, as a Christian, have with Ayn Rand’s atheistic strong-man-worshiping philosophy, I still believe she depicts the spiritual wrongs of collectivism more pointedly and powerfully than any other writer I have encountered. Anthem reminds me in some ways of Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm and even more so of Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s Harrison Bergeron, but none of these, despite being written by writers with a greater command of the craft of storytelling than Ayn Rand, were as raw and powerful to me as either Anthem or The Fountainhead. I think there is a great deal of truth mixed with the falsehoods in Ayn Rand’s philosophy; though her views are extreme, perhaps this hyperbole is necessary to make hauntingly clear the dangers of allowing one’s self to be sublimated to the collective, of conforming too easily, with too little thought and too little struggle. (less)
**spoiler alert** I needed something to listen to on my commute, and I saw this on the library shelf, read the vague blurb, and knew nothing more abou...more**spoiler alert** I needed something to listen to on my commute, and I saw this on the library shelf, read the vague blurb, and knew nothing more about it until I began listening. I’m not sure why I listened as long as I did (between 1/3 to ½ of the book), but I gave up. There were multiple reasons.
It had that first person present narration that seems to be so popular these days. It always takes me several pages to get used to that, but it took me much longer than usual this time. Then there’s the switching of POV per section between the three main characters. I don’t mind multiple POVs in a third-person novel, but I don’t like them in first person novels for some reason. If I’m in the first person, then I want to stick with one person.
Then there was fact that I found the voices the reader did on the CD to be very annoying. The CD also has songs periodically which are just, frankly speaking, awful. I started skipping those, despite the admonition that I should listen because they reflect what Zoe is thinking and feeling. Actually, that made them worse, because Zoe annoyed me. I found her unrelatable, self-absorbed, and unsympathetic, at least in so far as I read. She also ends up acting in a way that is entirely unbelievable to me given her personal history up to that point. (i.e. "Sure, I’ve lived as heterosexual woman all my life and never before questioned my sexuality, but this girl likes the same mixed tape as me!") Which leads me to the preachiness of the novel – the author is obviously more concerned with message that with believability.
The first section that was narrated by Max was actually the most interesting to me. The author does manage to make Max’s initial conversion just a wee bit believable, but her portrayal of evangelicals in general lacks depth and nuance. There’s lots of scissors being taken to cardboard for the Christians in this novel.
I think I can guess, without having gotten past the point where Vanessa and Zoe first get together, that Zoe is going to want implant one of her and Max's embryos in Vanessa and Max will oppose it - so if I'm right, I can also call the novel predictable as well. I'm slightly curious as to how things will turn out, but I just can't listen on because I don't think I can wade through all of the moralism. It's just too much. I like philosophy-rich stories, but when the story and characters become nothing more than a vehicle for the message, I struggle to plow on. Thus…it has made its way to my abandoned shelf. (less)
This novel made me want more than it delivered. It was an easy read (and by that I certainly don’t mean light, but that I was able to read it quickly...moreThis novel made me want more than it delivered. It was an easy read (and by that I certainly don’t mean light, but that I was able to read it quickly and that it largely held my interest throughout). The novel moved me emotionally, which is something I like to have happen when I read. The alternate third person / first person point of view was different and to my surprise it worked well enough.
The ending of the novel felt rushed, as if something was missing or as if there should have been a twist that didn’t materialize. The author’s style of using short, choppy fragments and repeated questions wore on me after a while. I didn’t much notice it for the first 100 pages, but then I couldn’t stop noticing it for quite some time, before it finally became less distracting again. For a while, it felt like this – “I’m being dramatic. So dramatic. Endlessly dramatic. Do you feel the drama? Such drama. And such pain. Such sad, serious pain. Feel it. Do you? How about now?” If you think I’m exaggerating wildly, let me quote an actual passage at random: “Avenue de la Gare. Hordes of Jews. And one day, there was a noise. An awful noise. My parents used to live a distance from the camp. But still we heard it. A roar that went through the entire town. Went on all day. I heard my parents talking to the neighbors. They were saying that the mothers had been separated form the children, back at the camp. What for?” Now, this is someone talking in dialogue, but both narrators (the third person and the first person) do not infrequently fall into this style as well, and it just gets tedious after a time.
I didn’t get why Sarah was just referred to as “the girl” for so long until her name was revealed. One would expect her name to mean something, for it to be connected to an already known agent, if it was being kept secret in the narrative, but there was no real purpose for this initial secretiveness that I could see, and thus “the girl,” “the girl,” “the girl,” just became annoying in time.
None of the Jews in this book seem to have any real sense of their Jewishness. It’s just – oh, why do people hate the Jews? I don’t know. How awful that they hate the Jews. Who knows why? Isn’t this bad? Very, very bad. There’s no practice here, no religion, no tradition, no history even, other than the history of the roundup; there’s a surprising lack of Jewish identity for a book presumably about Jewish suffering. But that’s not really what it’s about, I suppose. It's really more of a book about gentile guilt, but I don’t think it was particularly effective that way either. The book made me feel, but it didn’t make me feel guilty. Maybe if I were French it would have, but I get the impression from this novel that French people are too busy committing adultery and drinking wine when they should be working to worry about gentile guilt.
In short – I don’t regret reading this novel at all, but I feel somewhat ambivalent about it. I think it will leave an emotional impression for a while, and then it will be utterly gone from my mind in a year. (less)
**spoiler alert** I found this to be a thought-provoking book. It highlighted just how complex are the factors that contribute to the dissolution of a...more**spoiler alert** I found this to be a thought-provoking book. It highlighted just how complex are the factors that contribute to the dissolution of a marriage, how easy it is to become caught up in the fixation on the negative, how terribly difficult it is to forgive ("[Forgivenss] was such a lovely, generous idea when it wasn't linked to something awful that needed forgiving."), and how the pain we experience forms our characters ("It wasn't just that her memories of the last ten years were back. It was that her true self, as formed by those ten years, was back. As seductive as it might have been to erase the grief and pain of the last ten years, it was also a lie."). The pain we experience forms our characters, and this books asks—what if we really could forget that pain?
But we can't forget it, except in a fantasy like this novel; that pain has left its mark, and only time can ease it, allowing a new character to form yet again—at best, we can achieve a balance, but how do we even do that? Alice is able to do it only with a sudden loss and recovery of memory, but it makes one think about achieving that difficult balance of perspective in real life. ("Now it seemed like she could twist the lens of her life and see it from two entirely different perspectives. The perspective of her younger….sillier innocent self. And the older, wiser, more cynical and sensible self.")
What most impressed me about this book is that I think it "gets" marriage in a way most fiction doesn't. Marriage isn't about the rightness of the match itself, or about the quality of the person we marry, but about the *time in*, and the willingness to *put* that time in. "It was never so much that Dominick was wrong for her and that Nick was right. She may have had a perfectly happy life with Dominick. But Nick was Nick…They could look at an old photo together and travel back in time to the same place…" Marriage cannot be simply put asunder, because of the tangled threads ("How strange [divorce] was. Wouldn't it be a lot less messy if everyone just stayed with the people they married in the first place?"). Time binds: "Each memory, good and bad, was another invisible thread that bound them together, even when they were foolishly thinking they could lead separate lives." It's not a romantic view of marriage, but nor is it a cynical one, and it seems to me a very true one. There is actually something quite beautiful in it: "Early love is exciting and exhilarating…Anyone can love like that. But love after three children, after separation and a near-divorce, after you've hurt each other and forgiven each other, bored each other and surprised each other, after you've seen the worst and the best—well, that sort of love is ineffable. It deserves its own word."
I could have done without the Frannie subplot and Mr. Mustache which seemed to be inserted solely to add spacing to the main storyline, and I found Elisabeth writing to her psychologist to be an odd an unbelievable narrative device (as were Frannie's letters to a long dead fiancé), and of course as many have pointed out, amnesia doesn't work like that. But when I put these quibbles aside, and suspend my disbelief, I found the book very well worth reading. (less)
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