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What Members Thought
A clunky retelling of Lear. Only at the very end do you get a touch of Lear's darkness, but it's not enough to save the novel. One of the most overrated novels I've ever read. I think this book won some awards, and might have been an Oprah Book before there were Oprah Books. A classic example of why some awards and book club favorites are not to be trusted. Come to think of it, I've only read one great novel by Smiley, The Greenlanders. And that book is unlike anything else she's done.
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Despite its many positive reviews, I do not think this is Smiley's best. She misses the sense of engagement and community that is much more for people of these Iowa farms than just a nice setting for a remake of King Lear. The dilemmas ring true, but the solutions seem contrived. No Iowa farm family sends a kid off to boarding school, no matter what the home life is like. Also, no Iowa farm family lives in such splendid isolation from neighbors and extended family. An entertaining book, but much
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King Lear in the Midwest with an early 1990's repressed memory of abuse theme bought Jane Smiley a Pulitzer. Today, it feels a little dated and the overwhelming sense I had after finishing the book was the story was sold out to the politically charged theme of the moment. Lear lingers because of the tragedy. While a good number of characters are maimed and killed off by Smiley, the deaths seem to lack the sense of the tragic in Shakespeare's original.
As a modern remake it plays well, but in the ...more
As a modern remake it plays well, but in the ...more
I wanted to read this after seeing the movie. I never realized (until the book jacket told me so) that this is a modern day "King Lear." I do remember the book being intense and very good.
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Sep 05, 2009
Laura
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May 29, 2011
SandyC
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Oct 20, 2011
MichelleCH
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Dec 04, 2011
Laura
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Feb 07, 2013
Kim DeCina
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Jan 20, 2016
Christi
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Dec 25, 2016
Stacy
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Dec 02, 2018
Elaine Kasteler
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