Archive for the 'Book Reviews' Category

Review: Mrs Lieutenant

Published 1 Month, 2 Weeks ago in Book Reviews and reading. 1 Comment

A couple of weeks ago I received a google alert for Elgin, Illinois. I get them several times a week, and usually read them, then delete them. This one, however, I not only read and saved, but I took action that I don’t regret.

The alert was about an author, Phyllis Zimbler Miller, who grew up in Elgin. I’d not heard of the author, but found her on a site I’d been to before, The Author’s Den.  I sent her a message, telling her I was pleased to see that Elgin produced talented people and that I’d also grown up there. I also found her on twitter and found her weblogs. In fact, this woman is all over the Internet.

I added her to my twitter feed and we exchanged a couple of twits and messages on The Author’s Den. She offered to send me her book to read and review here. I accepted, so here we are.

I have to admit, when I looked at the cover of the book and read the blurb on the back, I was a little worried that I was not going to like it. After all, I was a knee-jerk anti-war teenager (and am a more thoughtful anti-war middle-aged woman). Why on earth would the story of four vastly different women who happened to be married to budding army Lieutenants in the 1970’s interest me in the slightest?

I was mistaken. Mrs. Lieutenant was an interesting read. It kept my interest and I came away from it more enlightened about life of military folk during the Viet Nam war. The book has romance, drama, drama, sex, and conflict. I cared about the characters and hated a couple of them. What more could I ask for?

The premise of the book is that four young women from different US cultures are thrown together for a couple of months on a military base while their husbands complete some needed training. Although backgrounds and pasts differ, their futures seem to all hold at least one near-definite: the possibility of their husband’s going to, and possibly dying, in Viet Nam.

Sharon Gold, the main character, is a Jewish anti-war protester from Chicago, Illinois. Donna is a Puerto Rican married to an “Anglo”. Kim is a white woman from South Carolina who doesn’t like Jews, Puerto Ricans or Blacks. Wendy is a sheltered Black woman from South Carolina.

While I believed the tension between Kim and the other women, I had a hard time understanding the tension that Sharon felt. Maybe I’m too young to remember tension between Jews and non-Jews, or perhaps I’ve lived in a community with a lot of Jewish culture for so long. Although, I do admit to not knowing anyone Jewish in my hometown until I got to high school, but it never seemed to be an issue — in fact I might have known them, just didn’t know they were Jewish.

I think this book might even appeal more to women that lived that life — even if they lived it during other wars, or during times of peace (have we actually had those?)

While Ms Zimbler Miller’s writing style occasionally felt awkward (possibly because she was writing in language of the 1970s), there were some spots of brilliant writing:

“Don’t lie to me. I know you were with a man.”

Jim’s face flushes with the ugliest shade of purple she’s ever seen. His eyes will pop out of his face any minute, landing at her feet and rolling away, becoming marbles for Squeaky to chase.

She sinks to the floor as her knees fold under her. “I swear Jim, I swear on my sister’s life, that I was home all day alone. That I was not with another man today, or ever before, or ever in the future.” The tears plop onto her hands.

He stides down the hall. In a moment he’s back.

He has the gun!

“I’ll kill you if you’re ever with another man. I promise you, Kim, I’ll kill you.”

So, as I told Ms Zimbler Miller in my first message — it’s great to see that Elgin, Illinois produced people with her talent. She spent time at the very same library I did as a young child — perhaps we read the same books.

I’m sending this book to my Aunt Ginny, who went to high school with Ms Zimbler Miller. I think she’ll even get more out of it than I did.

Review: Life Among the Savages

Published 3 Months, 2 Weeks ago in Book Reviews, Uncategorized, books and reading. 5 Comments

Before Erma Bombeck and Jean Kerr wrote about life as housewives and stay-at-home-mothers in the 1950’s, Shirley Jackson had already published her account.

You’ve probably read, or at least heard of Shirley Jackson, but you might not remember where or how. Think back to your high school English classes. Remember reading The Lottery? If that doesn’t ring a bell, perhaps you are a fan of horror films. If so, you might have seen the 1963 film, The Haunting or its mediocre 1999 remake, both based on her novel, The Haunting of Hill House.

While Ms Jackson is more widely known for her Gothic horror stories, she’s likely the creator of the humorous housewife/mother sub-genre of literature.

In Life Among the Savages, Jackson tells us about raising her three children, Laurie, Jannie and Sally. It’s told with humor and not a little self-deprecation. Ms Jackson was matter-of-fact about not being the perfect stereotypical 1950’s housewife:

Our house is old, and noisy, and full. When we moved into it we had two children and about five thousand books; I expect that when we finally overflow and move out again we will have perhaps twenty children and easily half a million books; we also own assorted beds and tables and chairs and rocking horses and lamps and doll dresses and ship models and paint brushes and literally thousands of socks. This is the way of life my husband and I have fallen into, inadvertently, as though we had fallen into a well and decided that since there was no way out we might as well stay there and set up a chair and a desk and a light of some kind; even though this is our way of life, and the only one we know, it is occasionally bewildering, and perhaps even inexplicable to the sort of person who does not have that swift, accurate conviction that he is going to step on a broken celluloid doll in the dark. I cannot think of a preferable way of life, except one without children and without books, going on soundlessly in an apartment hotel where they do the cleaning for you and send up your meals and all you have to do is lie on a couch and–as I say, I cannot think of a preferable way of life, but then I had to make a good many compromises.

I look around sometimes at the paraphernalia of our living–sandwich bags, typewriters, little wheels off things and marvel at the complexities of civilization with which we surround ourselves; would we be pleased, I wonder, at a wholesale elimination of these things, so that we were reduced only to necessities (coffeepot, typewriters, the essential little wheels off things) and then–this happening usually int he springtime–I begin throwing things away, and it turns out that although we can live agreeably without the little wheels off things, new little wheels turn up almost immediately. This is, I suspect, progress. They can make little wheels, if not faster than they can fall off things, at least faster than I can throw them away.

Life Among the Savages begins when Ms Jackson, her husband Stanley and their two children live in New York and decide to move to Vermont, where Stanley (Hyman)has a job at a local college. It describes their house hunt in a small town in Vermont.

One nice thing was, there were lots and lots of houses available. We heard this from a lady named Mrs. Black, a motherly old body who lived in a nearby large town, but who knew, as she herself pointed out, every house and every family in the state. She took us to visit a house which she called the Bassington House, and which would have been perfect for us and our books and our children, if there had been any plumbing.

“Wouldn’t take much to put in plumbing,” Mrs. Black told us. “Put in plumbing, you got a real nice house there.”

My husband shifted nervously in the snow, “You see,” he said, “that brings up the question of…well…money.”

Mrs. Black shrugged. “How much would plumbing cost?” she demanded. “You put in maybe twelve, fifteen hundred dollars, you got a real nice home.”

“Now look, if we had fifteen hundred dollars we could give an apartment superintendent–” my husband began, but I cut in quickly, you must remember, Mrs. Black, we want to rent.”

“Rent, did you?” said Mrs. Black, as though this proved at last that we were mere fly-by-nights, lookers at houses for the pleasure of it. “Well, if I was you folks, small children and all, well, I‘d buy.”

While Jackson’s other works are more widely acclaimed and on some “the best of” lists, Life Among the Savages is a well-told and funny slice of life tale. Some critics call it forgettable. I disagree and like reading about this side of a woman whose tales of darkness have fascinated me for years.

It seems to have been written before the darkness that ended up plaguing her took over. It’s readable and funny. While Jackson’s mental illness may have contributed to her genius and spawned some of the last century’s best horror tales, she was a good writer anyway and Life Among the Savages proves it.

One thing of which to be aware, however — this book didn’t age well. While I was able to laugh at many of the vignettes without really thinking, some made me chuckle with reservation. Remember this was written in the late 1940s and 1950’s. Back then people drank more. People smoked more. Even pregnant women smoked. And probably drank too, without thinking about how it was harming their unborn children. Shirley Jackson was a very heavy smoker and she wrote about smoking cigarettes a lot. While cooking; while reading; while waiting for labor pains to begin in her fourth pregnancy. In fact this book is, in some ways, a direct opposite of some of the mommy blogs I’ve been reading lately — yet similar in some ways. Current expectant moms wouldn’t think of writing about lighting a cigarette while pregnant, but they do write self-deprecating vignettes about their day-to-day life. I suppose the women who are writing the blogs about motherhood (the ones who do it well) are the current Erma Bombecks, Jean Kerrs, even Shirley Jacksons. The times have changed–technology, medicine, child-rearing; but maybe more has stayed the same.

Hmm, that might make a good Masters Thesis.

Review: Digging to America

Published 3 Months, 3 Weeks ago in Book Reviews. Closed

Digging to America -- Ann Tyler [Cross-posted on Revish]

I don’t remember the title of the first book I read in which nothing happened, but I remember being surprised that 1) Nothing happened and 2) I enjoyed it. It may very well have been an Anne Tyler book.

In Anne Tyler’s latest book, Digging to America, nothing happens. Well, that’s not entirely true. What I mean is nothing but life happens. There is no mystery, no great climax, no real plot to speak of. And that’s ok. Anne Tyler’s gift is not necessarily plot heavy books, but books with intricate character studies.

I’ve been an Anne Tyler fan since I read Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant back in the 1980’s and have read 15 of her 17 novels. Although I didn’t realize it until today, all of Ms Tyler’s books are mostly character studies, and therefore it is the characters I mostly remember from her novels. I loved the way Ms Tyler wrote about quirky characters and I often joked that my in-laws would make great characters in an Anne Tyler novel.

Digging to America is about two very different families that meet at an airport while waiting to meet their adopted daughters from Korea. The story revolves around the two families through the next five years: their evolving friendship, occasional bitterness, a loss, a romance and not a little misunderstanding.

Brad and Bitsy Donaldson are well-meaning, politically correct suburbanites. Sami and Ziba Yazdan are Iranian-Americans, adapting to American culture, while occasionally shaking their heads at Americans’ behaviors. Each family has extended families whose characters are as colorful as anyone in real life.

The book alternates between the two families’ points of view, each chapter providing a different character to speak, so the reader gets to be “in the head” of several characters in the novel.

If you are looking for a book with an intricate plot, I’d pass this one by, but if you want a cozy book in which the characters are highly developed, give Digging to America a go.

Review: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Published 6 Months, 3 Weeks ago in Book Reviews and reading. 0 Comments

While Christmas shopping I came upon a book with an interesting title and cover in the teen section of Barnes and Noble. Reading the description on the back intrigued me so much I felt I had to buy the book and read it. Here is what the back cover says:

If you start to read this book, you will go on a journey with a nine-year-old by named Bruno. (Although this isn’t a book for nine-year-olds.) And sooner or later you will arrive with Bruno at a fence.

Fences like this exist all over the world. We hope you never have to encounter one.

The Boy in the Striped PajamasBecause the book cover illustration was a simple striped pattern of sky blue and a paler shade of sky blue and a fence was mentioned, I assumed the book was about the Holocaust. I also assumed it was about a concentration camp. I also assumed the main character, mentioned in the title was a Jewish boy in the camp.

I was partially correct. The book is about the Holocaust. And a concentration camp. And there is a Jewish boy in it, but he is not the main character mentioned in the title. Instead he is the son of the Nazi who runs the concentration camp.

When I realized that the book was about the son of a Nazi who runs the concentration camp I thought to myself, “What a brilliant idea! I wonder how the author, John Boyne, is going to carry this off — especially since this was a book found in the teen section of Barnes and Noble and not in the adult section of Barnes and Noble.

How John Boyne carries it off is interesting indeed. But not interesting in a good way, really. He writes the book in a voice that becomes kind of annoying after a while. If you’ve ever read any picture books that repeat themselves over and over, you might understand what I mean by annoying after a while. In fact if this review is annoying you right now, you’ll understand what I mean by annoying after a while. I think this is a writing rhetoric called repetition. Repetition is good when you are first learning how to read and repetition is good when you really want to hammer a point home. Repetition is not good when you are using it to make a nine-year-old boy sound unbelievably naive.

Boyne seems confused about who he wrote this book for. According to Boyne himself, when he handed it to his editor he said he thought he’d written a children’s book. The voice seems to agree with that, because it is repetitive and the language is deceptively simple. However the text on the back of the book warns that the book is not for nine-year-olds. The subject matter of the book — Nazis, concentration camps, the Holocaust — is not subject matter I’d want my young children to learn about quite yet.

Because the book was in the teen section of Barnes and Noble, one would think it an appropriate book for teens — and yes, I think that the subject matter of the book– Nazis, concentration camps, the Holocaust — is subject matter my teens could handle. After all, they’ve both read Number the Stars. My daughter has also read a number of other books about the Holocaust including The Devil’s Arithmetic (my personal favorite) and Night. However this book, with its repetition and simple language might put off teens that attempt to read it. I’m pretty sure my son would be put off by the repetition and simple language, however my daughter might not be put off by the repetition and simple language because she’s an aspiring writer and understands the use of voice to convey a certain feeling in a book.

It is obvious that Boyne was using the repetition and simple language to create a voice of innocence and naivety. If this book were about anything other than the son of the Nazi who runs a death camp during the Holocaust, then the use of that voice would have been believable, but I could not get over the fact that the children in the story spent a year living at the camp and neither knew what was going on.

Another thing about the book that annoyed me was Bruno’s consistent mispronunciation of two words. He called Auschwitz “Out-With” throughout the entire book (thinking the former occupants were told to “get out”), even when told the correct pronunciation by his sister. He also said “Fury” for Führer. I kept on thinking, they speak German, not English and I’d bet the German words for “out with” and “fury” are not the same as in English. (Ok, I was wrong about “out with”. According to AltaVista’s Babelfish, the German for “out with” is aus mit. But the German word for “fury” is Wut.)

But do I recommend this book? Even though it is repetitive, carries an unbelievably innocent voice and has characters who are much more naive than they should be for their ages and situations? Yes. The basic idea is really very interesting and thought provoking. That I’ve spent the last few days dissecting it verbally, mentally and in writing is proof that it affected me more than I want to admit. Yes, I recommend it with the caveat that the reader suspend belief (about the character’s innocence) for a while and just get into the lyrical sound of the words. I recommend it to teenagers and adults, but not to anyone younger than, 12.

Review: A Door Near Here

Published 9 Months ago in Book Reviews and reading. 0 Comments

A Door Near HereAnyone who knows me well knows that C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia was a huge factor in the person I’ve become. I cannot say I’ll read them again, but when I read them in my mid-teens I was somehow different aftwards.

I remember devouring anything that was in any way associated with the Narnia stories and now still get a small thill out of mentions of the Wardrobe or Aslan like when I saw a car with ASLAN on the license plate outside Barnes and Noble a few weeks ago. Or when I remember the time I ate dinner off a table with a pedistal made out of the packing crate in which the Wardrobe travelled to Wheaton College.

Back when I was frequenting the bulletin boards on a forum discussing the Narnia movies I heard mention of a book about a girl who looked for the door to Narnia. I found it on Amazon and put it on my wishlist, expecting to know when I should buy it. I eventually broke down and purchased it about a month ago, and began reading it last week.

The book, A Door Near Here, is not the light fiction/fantasy I was expecting. It is a very heavy story about alcoholism that resulted in child neglect. It is about four siblings who stuck together and survived a very nasty part of their lives.

Katherine, the eldest sibling has a lot on her plate. Besides being only 15 years old, and all that that entails, she has been responsible for ther younger siblings for several years while her alcoholic mother worked long hours and dated promiscously. After losing her job, Katherine’s mother drank more and spent much of her time, intoxicated, in her bedroom, leaving her four children to fend for themselves.

When the story opens, Katherine’s main concern, apart from feeding the family from an empty larder, is her youngest sibling, Alisa who has developed a strange attraction to the woods behind her school. Alisa believes that a door to Narnia lies beyond the fence, in the forbidden woods. She also believes that if she finds the door she can bring back a magical cure for her mother.

Katherine thinks that Alisa is losing her mind and tries to disuade her from looking for the door and believing in Narnia and Aslan. Katherine’s religion teacher is no help because he seems to be meddling in her life and encouraging Alisa to belive in Narnia.

This story, although it ends on a positive note, is not a happy one. It doesn’t have the magic of Bridge to Terribithia, another book that elicits images of Narnia. The book kept me interested. The writing was never clumsy or stilted. The characters were compelling enough - not perfect, any of them. The jacket of A Door Near Here explains that the book was the author’s Masters Thesis. It is certainly the most interesting Master’s Thesis I’ve read.

Review: The Thirteenth Tale

Published 1 Year, 5 Months ago in Book Reviews and reading. 0 Comments

The Thirteenth TaleIn sixth grade my friend, Eugenia, introduced me to the genre of Gothic novel. I’d fill a grocery bag full of them at the library, take them home, devour them in a week, then return to the library the following Saturday, hungry for more.

By the time I discovered the Brontës, I’d read most of the contemporary Gothic novels at the library and decided to go to the source. I’d just returned from a visit to Bronte country and was embarrassed to admit that I’d never read any of their works. So my sophomore year in college I read Wuthering Heights in 15-minute increments before I began my homework each day.

I finally grew out of Gothic novels and moved on to other genres. But when I heard about The Thirteenth Tale, I had to buy it. I had no option. I had to read it.

The Thirteenth Tale sat on my bookshelf for months waiting to be read. It wasn’t quiet about it either. It whispered to me each time I passed. “Read me. Read me.” Because I had other things to read first, I was not able to abide by its request. Until last weekend…

“It’s my profession. I’m a storyteller,” Vida Winter explains when defending the numerous lies she’s previously told about her past.

Her real past, the truth, as told to Margaret Lea, proves to be the best story of them all, filled with characters so rich, so colorful they could have stepped out of novels written by the Brontë sisters, Wilkie Collins or George Elliot. Set in the same Yorkshire moors that inspired the Brontë sisters, Vida Winter’s life story reads like a real Gothic mystery.

When Margaret Lea, the daughter of an antiquarian bookstore owner, discovers she had a twin sister who died at their birth she understands her feelings of aloneness. She comforts herself with the unwanted books of her father’s bookshop – her only companions other than her protective father and distant mother. When the famous author, Vida Winter, approaches Margaret to write her biography, Margaret is not so sure, but visits Ms Winter in her Yorkshire home. As Vida Winter reveals her story to Margaret, both Margaret and the reader are immersed in an unforgettable tale spanning three generations.

Isabelle Angelfield was odd.

Isabelle Angelfield was born during a rainstorm.

It is impossible to know whether or not these facts are connected. But when, two and a half decades later, Isablle left home for the second time, people in the village looked back and remembered the endlessness of the rain on the day of her birth. Some remembered as if it was yesterday that the doctor was late, delayed by the floods caused by the river having burst its banks. Others recalled beyond the shadow of a doubt that the cord had been wrapped round the baby’s neck, almost strangling her before she could be born. Yes, it was a difficult birth, all right, for on the stroke of six, just as the baby was born, the doctor rang the bell, hadn’t the mother passed away, out of this world and into the next? So if the weather had been fine, and the doctor had been earlier and if the cord had not deprived the baby of oxygen, and if the mother had not died…

And if, and if, and if. Such thinking is pointless. Isabelle was as Isabelle was, and that is all there is to say about the matter.

If you are a fan of gothic novels, this book is a must. Even if you’ve never read a Gothic novel, you should still check this book out. It is a can’t-put-it down/stay-up-all-night kind of read.

Review: The Awakening

Published 1 Year, 5 Months ago in Book Reviews. 0 Comments

In 1994 shortly after the birth of my second child I took a class for renewal of my teaching certificate. The class was on women in education and focused on women in literature. It was an eye opening class for me, and I was exposed to a number of woman writers such as Virginia Woolf, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Kate Chopin.When my book group was looking for a different kind of novel to read than we’d been reading, someone suggested Kate Chopin’s The Awakening. I immediately agreed with this choice mostly because this book stood, unread, on my bookshelf, but also because I liked what little I’d already read by Chopin.

After publication, this book was banned, was unsuccessful and severely criticized for its subject matter.

The Awakening is a story about 28 year-old Edna Pontellier who, while on vacation with her two young children and husband, finds she is dissatisfiled with her life. She admits to not feeling as close to her children as she knows she’s supposed to feel. Her closest female friend, Adèle Ratignolle, is a model wife and mother, which makes the contrast between Edna and what society expects even more pronounced. When young Robert Lebrun pays attention to Edna during the vacation, she falls in love with him, and apparently he falls in love with Edna. Alarmed, Adèle worrys that Edna will harm her children:

Edna had once told Madame Ratignolle that she would never sacrifice herself for her children, or for any one. Then had followed a rather heated argument; the two women did not appear to understand each other or to be talking the same language. Edna tried to appease her friend, to explain.

“I would give up the unessential; I would give my money, I would give my life for my children; but I wouldn’t give myself. I can’t make it more clear; it’s only something which I am beginning to comprehend, which is revealing itself to me.”

“I don’t know what you would call the essential, or what you mean by the unessential,” said Madame Ratignolle, cheerfully; “but a woman who would give her life for her children could do no more than that - your Bible tells you so. I’m sure I couldn’t do more than that.”

“Oh, yes you could!” laughed Edna.

When Edna returns to New Orleans she becomes restless and disregards her “duties” to the point of sending her children to her in-laws and moving into a smaller home when her husband is away.

I’m glad I finally read this book, but reading it on the heels of Lady Chatterly’s Lover was a bad idea. I became tired of reading about wealthy young women dissatisfied with their lives.

This book would be a great companion to Charlotte Perkins Gilman’sThe Yellow Wallpaper and Henrik Isben’s A Dolls House for a discussion about Victorian era marriages told with a feminist slant. I believe it is on some high school book lists. I’m not sure it belongs there. I think one must be older, and perhaps even married with children to really understand the ideas behind this story. It is only a tiny novel, but it took me a while to read because I found the language difficult to wade through and I was not charmed by any of the characters.

Review: In the Time of the Butterflies

Published 1 Year, 5 Months ago in Book Reviews and reading. 0 Comments

In the Time of the Butterflies
by Julia Alvarezbutterflies.jpg
Note: Already posted on Revish - but until Revish goes public, I’m going to cross post my reviews here.

When my book group chose In the Time of the Butterflies for our January book I was not pleased. I didn’t want to read a fictional account of revolutionaries, especially knowing how it would end. I felt I needed a light and uplifting book during the dark days of winter, rather than a book that told of life under a brutal dictator. I gave in, however, and checked the book (and tapes) out of the local public library. While I didn’t find In the Time of the Butterflies a light read, it was, in its own way, uplifting.

It took me longer than the allotted time to read this book; I even cheated by listening to the book on tape during long drives or while doing chores in the kitchen interspersed with reading the book during wrestling matches or before bed at night. I cannot say I ever really got into the book until the last 100 pages or so.

The book begins as Dedé, the only remaining Mirabal sister, readies herself to meet yet another interviewer intent on knowing about the Butterflies thirty-four years after their deaths. Dedés thoughts begin at what she considers year zero, and the book takes off from there, each of the sisters voices contributing to the lyrical narrative: Minerva, the beautiful rebellious one, Patria, the religious one, Maria Theresa, the baby, and Dedé, the one who survived. Each sister tells part of the story of their introduction into the ways of revolutionaries and their life in prison and under home arrest.

As a postscript to the book the author, Julia Alvarez, tells of her own family’s flight from the Dominican Republic and her fascination with the Mirabal sisters. She explains her reasons for writing the book and emphasizes it is a fictionalized account of the lives of these sisters. I wish this had been a forward instead of a postscript. As I read the book I thought it was, more or less, a biography, and discovering that it was a work of fiction made it fall a little flat for me. However, the list of people to whom Ms Alvarez spoke is impressive, and lends more credibility to the story than she gives herself credit for.

I ended up liking the book more than I’d expected I would. I learned a number of things about the time and place in history. For example, it was interesting to note that the revolutionaries in the book were jubilant when Fidel Castro overthrew Cuba. It didn’t surprise me, once I thought about it, but it was interesting nonetheless.

Despite Ms Alvarez’s wish that this book “…will bring acquaintance of [the Mirabal] sisters to English-speaking readers…” I think that some pre-knowledge of the time in history would have been beneficial to me. I might have been more willing to spend more time getting to know the protagonists and less time stalling. But then, works of fiction don’t come with prerequisites, do they?

Notes kept during reading:

[January 28, 2007] I didn’t choose to read this book, it was chosen for me by the members of my book group. I probably would not have read it, left to my own volition. I’m not sorry I’m reading it however, it is well written and I’m learning about a piece of world history about which I knew nothing.

Because I decided, late in the game, to read this book, I picked it up along with the taped version. I’m enjoying listening to it more than I’m enjoying reading it because the women who read the book on tape have such delightful voices.

Although our book group discussion has already taken place, I’m planning on finishing this book while awaiting delivery of the next book group book.

[January 28, 2007]
I discovered something interesting last night when I was reading this book. I’d been listening to it on tape and not actually reading it, but last night chose to read in bed (one of my favorite things to do). I couldn’t remember where I’d stopped listening so re-read a number of pages. I enjoyed the story until I got to the part I had not heard on tape - then I grew weary of it. It could have been because I was tired. I hope so. It would suck if I suddenly didn’t like to read anymore!

Review: The Time Traveler’s Wife

Published 1 Year, 6 Months ago in Book Reviews. 0 Comments

The Time Traveler’s WifeAs a longtime time-travel book fan I have read many books with some sort of time-travel. The first book I read that dealt with this subject was called The Thyme Garden by Edward Eager where children went into a garden and crushed thyme between their fingers and traveled elsewhere in time. I recently re-read it, and discovered the author wrote a number of other time-travel books for children. While not really “time travel”, I loved the Narnia series where the children traveled to a different place. Another book I enjoyed was Andre Norton’s Dragon Magic in which people were able to time travel where they wanted. Secretly, my favorite romantic movie is “Somewhere in Time” and I have even written a short story or two involving time-travel.

I purchased The Time Traveler’s Wife a few months ago after briefly hearing about it and thinking the title and cover of the book were intriguing. I suggested it as a possible read for my book group, but another book was chosen. Then an online group to which I belong suggested reading it, and I joined in. My real life book group is still not interested. Pity.

Henry first meets Clare at the Newberry Library in Chicago when Henry is 28 and Clare is 20. However Clare first meets Henry when she is 6 and he is 36. Henry has a disorder that he suspects is a bit like a seizure disorder, except instead of having a seizure, he is transported backwards and forwards in time, ending up naked where ever he lands.

In this book Henry may not change events, although he is forced to witness some tragedies time and time again, he is always helpless to change the outcome.

This book is breathtakingly beautiful and heartbreakingly sad. However it is uplifting and I am envious of the love these two characters have for each other. The author writes it in such a way that the time-travel part of the story is believable.

I had a slightly difficult time with the ending, not the very ending, but what happened to Henry in the year before the book ended. The book was like a pleasant ride on a mild roller coaster, and suddenly it became, for a while, a jarring walk through an evil carnival fun house.

One last thing I liked about the book was the fact that many place names were real. I recently spoke to someone who said that she even went to some of the concerts mentioned in the book.

It is hard to believe that this is Audrey Niffenegger’s first book. It is nearly perfect in every detail. I read an interview with the author that suggested she wrote the book in a different order than in which it was published.

I got the title first, and played around with it for quite a long time, slowly evolving the characters in my head. I wrote the end before anything else, and then began to write scenes as they occurred to me. TTW was written in a completely different order than the one it finally took. I understood early on that it would be organized in three sections, and that the basic unit was the scene, not the chapter. It has a rather chaotic feel to it, especially at the beginning, and that is deliberate-there is a slow piecing together, a gradual accumulation of story, that mimics the experience of the characters. I made a lot of notes about the characters. I had two timelines to help me stay organized, but no outline of the plot. (Audrey Niffenegger interviewed by Mark Flanagan. Full interview available here.)

I sincerely hope this will not be Niffenegger’s last novel.

Rumor has it that Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston have purchased the rights to the novel and are going to star in it. Not who I pictured at all. I can possibly see Pitt as Henry, but Aniston is too much that Friend’s character to me.