From the Bookshelf of Constant Reader…

Evidence of Things Unseen

Marianne Wiggins

Start date: February 15, 2009

Discussion: Reading List

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Reading List

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What Members Thought

Oct 18, 2007 Ruth rated it really liked it

The first thing I noticed in this book was Wiggen’s use of poetic language. Beautiful. But in the beginning of the book at least, it was too much for me. Like too many plums in the pudding, too much sauce on the pasta. Tasty gems need a matrix to shine against. When it’s all chocolate chips and no cookie it can become cloying. The writing, lovely as it was, slowed me down because it kept bringing attention to itself. I love gorgeous writing, but when I’m reading a novel I don’t want to keep stop The first thing I noticed in this book was Wiggen’s use of poetic language. Beautiful. But in the beginning of the book at least, it was too much for me. Like too many plums in the pudding, too much sauce on the pasta. Tasty gems need a matrix to shine against. When it’s all chocolate chips and no cookie it can become cloying. The writing, lovely as it was, slowed me down because it kept bringing attention to itself. I love gorgeous writing, but when I’m reading a novel I don’t want to keep stopping to admire the view at every step of the path. But as I got into the book I either stopped noticing the pearls so much, or she used them more judiciously and it was smooth sailing from there on.

It did, however, take a long time before I really cared about Fos and Opal. There were times when I was just slogging along without much emotional involvement. I wonder if that was because Fos and Opal were so inarticulate, so turned in upon themselves, that I felt as if they were unknowable.

I kept stopping to ponder the world in which Fos and Opal lived. They were a little older than I am, a little younger than my parents, so many of the events in the book were things that happened in my lifetime. In a way it was like being a kid again, lying on my stomach in the living room in LA, reading about the TVA and the bomb in Life Magazine.

I will say right here, since nobody else has mentioned it, that Wiggins’ use of dialect put me off. A cadence, a slight tinge here and there, would have been enough to make us aware of Opal’s and Fos’s speech patterns. Did she need to write things like “whatcha gonna do” phonetically like that? Listen to any bunch of American English speakers in an informal situation and they’ll talk like that, too. So I can’t see the necessity of writing their speech the way Wiggins did. I realize she wanted us to know how isolated and uneducated these two were, but just a touch would have done it. Overloading the dialect sounds condescending---Li’l Abner and Mammy Yokum.

This is beginning to sound like I didn’t like the book. I did. But these are the reasons it didn’t get 5 stars from me.

I loved the sense of wonder at the natural world, especially the theme of light carried through the book—stars, phosphorescence, x-rays, electricity, radiation, photography. Did you know that photographers are often referred to as “keepers of the light?”
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Oct 17, 2007 Melissa rated it it was amazing

Shelves: all-time-favorites, gifts, constant-reader, macreads

This book came to me as the gift of a dear friend. A story of love, regret, how people (mis)understand each other, and how lives interconnect, often invisibly. The setting is mid-century Tennessee, with glances back and forward. Many passages of beautiful description. One of my all-time favorites.

The novel takes two ordinary people and propels their story forward by the working of several interwoven themes: Fos’s fascination with light and science, Opal’s journey of change and self-discovery, en This book came to me as the gift of a dear friend. A story of love, regret, how people (mis)understand each other, and how lives interconnect, often invisibly. The setting is mid-century Tennessee, with glances back and forward. Many passages of beautiful description. One of my all-time favorites.

The novel takes two ordinary people and propels their story forward by the working of several interwoven themes: Fos’s fascination with light and science, Opal’s journey of change and self-discovery, encounters with the night sky and with bodies of water, and ultimately the mysterious forces of invisible connection that operate on the people and events. The story sparkles throughout with what reviewers aptly call ‘luminous’ and ‘poetic’ language, the author’s beautiful descriptions of both place and character.

The first time I read the book I found the references to Melville and the frequent incursion of scientific topics rather distracting; eventually I realized that the characters’ discussions of Moby-Dick and the ways in which Fos mused on bioluminescence or the mysteries of X-rays or 'the curve of binding energy' added depth and forged stronger connections across the various parts of the book.

The central character of the river seems at first a placid place of refuge and fellowship, where friendships deepen, before its latent destructiveness comes more fully into view. The novel’s central story, while planted firmly in central Tennessee, is flanked and bound up by significant moments on the coasts of Carolina and California. Beginnings and endings are marked by the annual Perseid shower of falling stars.

The heart of the book lies in its heartrending love story. We see clearly what Fos and Opal experience and value in each other. The day they meet and fumble into love unfurls in comic dialogue and tender touch, lightly echoed in their last embrace. Their relationship develops through a series of ordinary and remarkable circumstances, as they master the photography business and later acquire a failing farm and an unexpected child. Catastrophe and betrayal come from the failures of family and friends, yet even more from the terrible success of Fos’s beloved science, whose ‘progress’ unleashes on them its silent violence. What is unseen both binds and destroys.
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Feb 14, 2009 Katy rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction

Just finished this wonderful novel, a satisfying life interrupter, and welcome change from the economic and political books I have been immersed in lately. The story and characters are not that remarkable, but what really set this book apart for me was the writing and perception of Marianne Wiggins who conveys a vitality and an intensity that makes one care very much about her characters. I definitely recommend this fine novel.

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Mar 26, 2009 Michelle rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, constant-reader

Everything about this book is so beautiful, but so sad. The writing is like poetry and the storyline is just challenging enoough. All the characters are complex and really make you think about their thoughts and decisions. The relationship between the two main characters is incredibly romantic, as is the ending of the book. Finally, being the science geek that I am, I loved how the author made science such an important component of the novel in such an unobtrusive manner. This would be worth a r ...more

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Dec 13, 2007 Kecia rated it really liked it

Shelves: nba-short-list, usa

You can't think about this book without the word poetry coming to mind. This is a this a beautiful, well crafted journey through the 20th century as experienced by the most uncommon, common folk.

Poetry and prose. Fish hearts. Human hearts. Atomic bombs. Electricity. X-Rays. Falling stars. Friendship. Whales. Family. War. Water. Effervescence. Phosphorus. Fos. Flash. Ray. Opal. Pearl Harbour. Pearl. Karo. Glass. Parenthood. Friendship. Radiation. Infinite chance. Chance.

Love.

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