Showing posts with label Grief. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Grief. Show all posts
Friday, 15 March 2013
Book #23 We Bought A Zoo by Benjamin Mee
We Bought A Zoo
Length Of Time In Possession : 1 year
I bought 'We Bought A Zoo' after seeing the 2011 film adaptation by Cameron Crowe starring Matt Damon. Inevitably whenever I see a film adaptation first my thoughts on the book end up becoming a cross comparison of the two.
When Mee's family realised that Dartmoor Zoo was for sale, their curiosity led them to enquire as a collective into purchasing it. After jumping through many hoops, they acquired the park, and 'We Bought A Zoo' chronicles the period between buying a run down zoo and preparing it for visitors.
In the midst of this, Mee's wife Katherine became terminally ill with cancer, and so the book also covers the emotional issues regarding illness and death occurring at an incredibly busy time in their lives.
The thing is, when they made the film, they transplanted it to America, which feels like a betrayal of a very British story. As well as this, the 'Benjamin Mee' in the film is already widowed when the film begins, and his mother who lived on the site with them does not feature.
To erase these pivotal figures from the narrative, as well as the process of the loss of Katherine feels again like a betrayal of the Mee's story.
Aside from the changes the film has made, the memoir is a very likeable, touching, easy read, with a unique against the odds story to tell, marking it out from other grief or project building memoirs for sale.
Verdict 8/10
Destination : Ebook storage
Saturday, 9 June 2012
Book #57 The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Steadman
The Light Between Oceans
The Light Between Oceans is a post WW1 Australian set novel about Tom Sherbourne who having been demobbed gets a job as a lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock. Soon after he marries and he and his wife come to love their isolated idyll. Their paradise becomes tainted by their inability to have children and following her third miscarriage Isabel is cracking under the strain of the grief, when one night a boat is shipwrecked on their shores..... it contains a dead man and a newborn baby. Believing God has answered their prayers Isabel persuades Tom not to report the wreck and they pass the child off as their own.
But though he loves the child, the actions wrack Tom with guilt for years to come.....
This novel is a stunning debut on the part of M.L Steadman and covers such a range of emotions and reactions. Guilt, grief, sacrifice, morality, love, marriage, parenthood, loss, time, change, duty, truth. Above all it is achingly human, and provokes the same dilemma in its reader as in its protagonist.
I am quite a cynic these days, and on top of that a well read one, so it isn't that often that I find a novel with the capacity to move me to tears, but this novel did. Its location is atmospheric and beautifully drawn, the sea and the windswept isolation of the island; even with the unusual parameters of the storyline the novel feels gutwrenchingly real, of a place and time and characters who existed as opposed to an entirely fictitious prospect.
Enormously moving and brilliantly told. I won't forget this book in a hurry nor the emotions that rose within me as I read it. A quality piece of writing and a quality novel, I hugely recommend you purchase this book. 10/10
The Light Between Oceans is a post WW1 Australian set novel about Tom Sherbourne who having been demobbed gets a job as a lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock. Soon after he marries and he and his wife come to love their isolated idyll. Their paradise becomes tainted by their inability to have children and following her third miscarriage Isabel is cracking under the strain of the grief, when one night a boat is shipwrecked on their shores..... it contains a dead man and a newborn baby. Believing God has answered their prayers Isabel persuades Tom not to report the wreck and they pass the child off as their own.
But though he loves the child, the actions wrack Tom with guilt for years to come.....
This novel is a stunning debut on the part of M.L Steadman and covers such a range of emotions and reactions. Guilt, grief, sacrifice, morality, love, marriage, parenthood, loss, time, change, duty, truth. Above all it is achingly human, and provokes the same dilemma in its reader as in its protagonist.
I am quite a cynic these days, and on top of that a well read one, so it isn't that often that I find a novel with the capacity to move me to tears, but this novel did. Its location is atmospheric and beautifully drawn, the sea and the windswept isolation of the island; even with the unusual parameters of the storyline the novel feels gutwrenchingly real, of a place and time and characters who existed as opposed to an entirely fictitious prospect.
Enormously moving and brilliantly told. I won't forget this book in a hurry nor the emotions that rose within me as I read it. A quality piece of writing and a quality novel, I hugely recommend you purchase this book. 10/10
Book #52 Every Contact Leaves A Trace by Elanor Dymott
Every Contact Leaves A Trace
Every Contact Leaves A Trace is the story of Alex Petersen and his wife Rachel Cardadine who are Oxford graduates. One evening they attend a dinner at their former college at the invitation of a tutor but when Rachel goes walking alone, she is suddenly murdered, leaving Alex at a loss to know what happened.
Despite beginning with a murder, barely nothing happens throughout this book, a man muses on the sudden death of his wife and gets a new outlook on her past via her affectionate poetry tutor. The smell of elitism and snobbery wafts off the page and none of the characters are particularly likeable. Widower Alex Petersen is terminally dull whilst Godmother Evie is laughably pantomime.
As the truth about what happened to Rachel finally emerges the book becomes entirely ludicrous. The motivation for and execution of her murder is ridiculous; overblown in its utter absurdity, and there is a total absence of believability. In reference to Evie it again lacks all credulity that she would cut Rachel off for her extremely minor in the relative face of it youthful transgressions or indeed be so close to inhuman in her lack of compassion to both widower Alex and god-daughter Rachel whilst living. More importantly until Alex begins to be filled in on the background and some semblance of truth emerges, this book, is I hate to say it, extremely boring or at least it was to me. Dull as dishwater I was both skimming and page counting willing it to just end already. 3/10
Every Contact Leaves A Trace is the story of Alex Petersen and his wife Rachel Cardadine who are Oxford graduates. One evening they attend a dinner at their former college at the invitation of a tutor but when Rachel goes walking alone, she is suddenly murdered, leaving Alex at a loss to know what happened.
Despite beginning with a murder, barely nothing happens throughout this book, a man muses on the sudden death of his wife and gets a new outlook on her past via her affectionate poetry tutor. The smell of elitism and snobbery wafts off the page and none of the characters are particularly likeable. Widower Alex Petersen is terminally dull whilst Godmother Evie is laughably pantomime.
As the truth about what happened to Rachel finally emerges the book becomes entirely ludicrous. The motivation for and execution of her murder is ridiculous; overblown in its utter absurdity, and there is a total absence of believability. In reference to Evie it again lacks all credulity that she would cut Rachel off for her extremely minor in the relative face of it youthful transgressions or indeed be so close to inhuman in her lack of compassion to both widower Alex and god-daughter Rachel whilst living. More importantly until Alex begins to be filled in on the background and some semblance of truth emerges, this book, is I hate to say it, extremely boring or at least it was to me. Dull as dishwater I was both skimming and page counting willing it to just end already. 3/10
Monday, 2 April 2012
Book #34 The Descendants by Kaui Hart Hemmings
The Descendants
The Descendants was recently turned into a George Clooney film weighed down with nominations for awards. I missed it at the cinema and have yet to see it though I'm rather glad I didn't because I came to the book fresh.
The Descendants is about Matt King whose wife Joannie is in a coma following a boat accident. As hope for her dwindles, Matt realises he must become the sole parent of their daughters Alex and Scottie. With this realisation comes a second realisation, having been an indifferent uninterested passive father all their lives, he does not know them at all. He doesn't know who they are, he doesn't even know what food they like. There is a great moment of pathos in the book where Matt King hopes they won't ask him what he loves about them because he has no idea what to say.
When Alex drops the bombshell upon him that Joannie was having an affair, in search of some kind of purpose Matt takes his girls on a road trip to track down her lover so he too can say goodbye.
The Descendants is a really good book about fatherhood and parenthood and the things we pass down to the next generation. Though his family comes with a unique ancestral history, Matt King comes to realise that all he has given his girls is a story and he has never given of himself. It's a rites of passage book for a father, and provides some lovely psychological insights into the confusion and dismay of King, as well as some great emotional truths about preparing for the coming of death.
Often it is witty, but a lot of times there is sadness underneath the humour. It's well crafted too, but, even with these things, it doesn't really 'Wow' as a book, it falls short. It's worth reading but I won't be treasuring it as a beloved classic, be purchasing it for others or reading twice 8/10
The Descendants was recently turned into a George Clooney film weighed down with nominations for awards. I missed it at the cinema and have yet to see it though I'm rather glad I didn't because I came to the book fresh.
The Descendants is about Matt King whose wife Joannie is in a coma following a boat accident. As hope for her dwindles, Matt realises he must become the sole parent of their daughters Alex and Scottie. With this realisation comes a second realisation, having been an indifferent uninterested passive father all their lives, he does not know them at all. He doesn't know who they are, he doesn't even know what food they like. There is a great moment of pathos in the book where Matt King hopes they won't ask him what he loves about them because he has no idea what to say.
When Alex drops the bombshell upon him that Joannie was having an affair, in search of some kind of purpose Matt takes his girls on a road trip to track down her lover so he too can say goodbye.
The Descendants is a really good book about fatherhood and parenthood and the things we pass down to the next generation. Though his family comes with a unique ancestral history, Matt King comes to realise that all he has given his girls is a story and he has never given of himself. It's a rites of passage book for a father, and provides some lovely psychological insights into the confusion and dismay of King, as well as some great emotional truths about preparing for the coming of death.
Often it is witty, but a lot of times there is sadness underneath the humour. It's well crafted too, but, even with these things, it doesn't really 'Wow' as a book, it falls short. It's worth reading but I won't be treasuring it as a beloved classic, be purchasing it for others or reading twice 8/10
Saturday, 25 February 2012
Book #20 Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close has recently been released as a film to fairly damning reviews with respected reviewer Mark Kermode referring to it as 'Extremely Long and Incredibly Crass', I didn't really have plans to see it for this reason, but it was on offer so I picked the book up. The usual book first policy.
Oskar Schell, our nine year old protagonist has a narrative voice fairly similar to that used in The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night Time by Mark Haddon. Oskar is incredibly intelligent but not socially skilled, with interactions that hint at Asperger's Syndrome.
Oskar is a troubled child whose father to whom he was incredibly close died in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, with Oskar still experiencing significant trauma in relation to that death two years later.
The second narrative concerns Thomas Schell Snr, Oskar's absent, and mute, grandfather who following the trauma of surviving being bombed in the Dresden attack of World War 2, slowly lost the ability to speak. His narrative mainly consists of letters to Oscar's father, letters he never mailed, and the short sentences he uses to communicate with others by writing them down on a pad.
Oskar discovers a key inside a vase, with a note saying Black written in red ink and from there sets out on a mission to find out what his fathers last message to him was.
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is an enormously moving novel, I spent most of it feeling that feeling you get just before you cry, yet not quite crying. It is so desperately sad in so many ways, engaging, compelling, well written I think it is a beautiful, beautiful piece of literature, about trauma, grief and loss, but about life too.
Yet, as I read the novel, and the different ways it is laid out from pictures of locks, to buildings to backs of heads, to pages which are blank or have one sentence, it seemed to me that the novel was inherently unsuited to film and shouldn't have been touched. Because I enjoyed this book so much, I am going to avoid the film at all costs, mainly because it's critical reception has been that bad. I do not want to see a book which touched me deeply and is probably residing as my number one book of 2012 so far be butchered or destroyed.
Don't let the bad reputation around this film put you off, do read this book, a portrait of what it must be to be a 9/11 relative so accurately believable that I literally ached. 10/10
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close has recently been released as a film to fairly damning reviews with respected reviewer Mark Kermode referring to it as 'Extremely Long and Incredibly Crass', I didn't really have plans to see it for this reason, but it was on offer so I picked the book up. The usual book first policy.
Oskar Schell, our nine year old protagonist has a narrative voice fairly similar to that used in The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night Time by Mark Haddon. Oskar is incredibly intelligent but not socially skilled, with interactions that hint at Asperger's Syndrome.
Oskar is a troubled child whose father to whom he was incredibly close died in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, with Oskar still experiencing significant trauma in relation to that death two years later.
The second narrative concerns Thomas Schell Snr, Oskar's absent, and mute, grandfather who following the trauma of surviving being bombed in the Dresden attack of World War 2, slowly lost the ability to speak. His narrative mainly consists of letters to Oscar's father, letters he never mailed, and the short sentences he uses to communicate with others by writing them down on a pad.
Oskar discovers a key inside a vase, with a note saying Black written in red ink and from there sets out on a mission to find out what his fathers last message to him was.
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is an enormously moving novel, I spent most of it feeling that feeling you get just before you cry, yet not quite crying. It is so desperately sad in so many ways, engaging, compelling, well written I think it is a beautiful, beautiful piece of literature, about trauma, grief and loss, but about life too.
Yet, as I read the novel, and the different ways it is laid out from pictures of locks, to buildings to backs of heads, to pages which are blank or have one sentence, it seemed to me that the novel was inherently unsuited to film and shouldn't have been touched. Because I enjoyed this book so much, I am going to avoid the film at all costs, mainly because it's critical reception has been that bad. I do not want to see a book which touched me deeply and is probably residing as my number one book of 2012 so far be butchered or destroyed.
Don't let the bad reputation around this film put you off, do read this book, a portrait of what it must be to be a 9/11 relative so accurately believable that I literally ached. 10/10
Sunday, 28 August 2011
Book #72 Legend Of A Suicide by David Vann
Legend Of A Suicide
I'd read a lot of buzz about Legend Of A Suicide prior to reading it, and then fell across it in a second hand bookshop in Camden last weekend. I have a belief in the synchronicity of chance, and, for a book that you intend to read to appear in a second hand shop you happen to visit, makes it seem like its "there for you". Like you're supposed to read it somehow.
There's a lot to be said about 'Legend Of A Suicide'. Not really a novel, more 4 vignettes with a novella in the middle, it is initially difficult to engage with, and is definitely an experiment in form and storytelling, even at the end Roy and his father Jim maintain a kind of impenetrable mystique as characters. The bulk of the story concerns Roy going to live with his father in a remote corner of Alaska, in a kind of survivalist scenario whereby they live self-sufficiently without contact with the outside world. The beating heart of this story is the crushing weight of responsibility and burden of guilt on Roy, who suddenly finds himself pretty much a caretaker to his increasingly unstable and unpredictable father. The prose has good descriptive passages bleak, stark, conveying well the oppressive solitude of their location and forced togetherness. It reminded me both of Paul Theroux's Mosquito Coast and Barbara Kingsolver's Poisonwood Bible, two other novels concerning fathers who drag their children into ill advised and dangerous territory to suit their own ideals and needs. The scene in which Roy's father begins to relate intimate details of his sex life to his child makes you squirm for the terrible predicament Roy has been placed in and wonder why on earth his mother let him go there.
I don't want to spoil anything for anyone who might read the book after reading this review and so I can only say, that after I had presumed I knew exactly where this novel was taking me in all respects I had my mind officially blown by this novel in the middle third. What really makes this novel an experience is the knowledge that David Vann's father committed suicide in real life, and as you read this fictionalized story you realize you are reading Vann's "dark night of the soul" laid bare. It is incredibly courageous of him to bring this story to paper, was no doubt hugely difficult to write and whilst doubtless cathartic he has allowed every person who reads this to truly see the inner workings of his psychological reaction, not through fact, "this is what happened and this is how I felt" but subtly, through fictionalised prose. It is no Dave Pelzer or similar story of "my terrible childhood" which populate the shelves of every supermarket. You grieve and ache for Vann, because you realise through your own thought process without being instructed why he is telling you this other story, the place that it has come from within him. It's art, really.
Which isn't to say it is flawless, there are ways that I feel it let itself down, it could be dull in parts and its really all about the middle third with the writing either side lacking the same quality or punch, though the end has some nice lines. It is however totally worth reading for the excellent Sukkwan Island section which has so much to say about so many important things, fatherhood, despair, revenge, legacy, psychology and anger and is both an important addition to literature on the topic and through its experimental style to literature as a whole. 9/10
I'd read a lot of buzz about Legend Of A Suicide prior to reading it, and then fell across it in a second hand bookshop in Camden last weekend. I have a belief in the synchronicity of chance, and, for a book that you intend to read to appear in a second hand shop you happen to visit, makes it seem like its "there for you". Like you're supposed to read it somehow.
There's a lot to be said about 'Legend Of A Suicide'. Not really a novel, more 4 vignettes with a novella in the middle, it is initially difficult to engage with, and is definitely an experiment in form and storytelling, even at the end Roy and his father Jim maintain a kind of impenetrable mystique as characters. The bulk of the story concerns Roy going to live with his father in a remote corner of Alaska, in a kind of survivalist scenario whereby they live self-sufficiently without contact with the outside world. The beating heart of this story is the crushing weight of responsibility and burden of guilt on Roy, who suddenly finds himself pretty much a caretaker to his increasingly unstable and unpredictable father. The prose has good descriptive passages bleak, stark, conveying well the oppressive solitude of their location and forced togetherness. It reminded me both of Paul Theroux's Mosquito Coast and Barbara Kingsolver's Poisonwood Bible, two other novels concerning fathers who drag their children into ill advised and dangerous territory to suit their own ideals and needs. The scene in which Roy's father begins to relate intimate details of his sex life to his child makes you squirm for the terrible predicament Roy has been placed in and wonder why on earth his mother let him go there.
I don't want to spoil anything for anyone who might read the book after reading this review and so I can only say, that after I had presumed I knew exactly where this novel was taking me in all respects I had my mind officially blown by this novel in the middle third. What really makes this novel an experience is the knowledge that David Vann's father committed suicide in real life, and as you read this fictionalized story you realize you are reading Vann's "dark night of the soul" laid bare. It is incredibly courageous of him to bring this story to paper, was no doubt hugely difficult to write and whilst doubtless cathartic he has allowed every person who reads this to truly see the inner workings of his psychological reaction, not through fact, "this is what happened and this is how I felt" but subtly, through fictionalised prose. It is no Dave Pelzer or similar story of "my terrible childhood" which populate the shelves of every supermarket. You grieve and ache for Vann, because you realise through your own thought process without being instructed why he is telling you this other story, the place that it has come from within him. It's art, really.
Which isn't to say it is flawless, there are ways that I feel it let itself down, it could be dull in parts and its really all about the middle third with the writing either side lacking the same quality or punch, though the end has some nice lines. It is however totally worth reading for the excellent Sukkwan Island section which has so much to say about so many important things, fatherhood, despair, revenge, legacy, psychology and anger and is both an important addition to literature on the topic and through its experimental style to literature as a whole. 9/10
Sunday, 8 May 2011
Book #32 A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
A Monster Calls
The genesis for the latest novel from Patrick Ness came from some notes left behind by the late author Siobhan Dowd. Patrick was asked if he wanted to take her idea and complete it and he did so deciding to "Run with it. Make trouble." We should all be glad he did.
The books protagonist is Conor O'Malley, a 13 year old boy whose mother is suffering from cancer. His best friend Lily spread the news around his class making him a target for bullying, and now he is fighting a stress war on two fronts at home and at school. He has been having a recurrent nightmare and is then visited repeatedly by a monster at night transformed from a yew tree in the back garden
The book reminded me initially of both 'A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickens and 'The Savage' by David Almond, the latter dealing with similar themes. As it progresses the novel comes entirely into its own and makes itself extraordinary.
There was so much about the book I felt was true. I loved the depiction of Harry, the bully, intelligent enough to realise that ignoring someone and pretending they don't exist is a far worse torment than punches or insults. I experienced that in my own youth, any teenage girl can tell you how effective it is. I remember at its height trying to make myself invisible, making sure I didn't put my hand up for questions I knew the answer to, hiding in loos in between lessons. Conor's experience was very real to me. Thinking of it me trying to make myself invisible was ridiculous as I was anything but inconspicuous.
I have read opinion online that this book is 'too scary' for young people. The people who say this are wrong and have a rosy tinted view of what childhood ought to be without sight of what childhood often is. Children in 2011 are far more worldly wise than we would give them credit for, and some have experienced far worse things than a children's book could ever depict. I, for one, think it's admirable to find a young adult book that isn't overly saccharine and sanitized with clean, smiley resolution. They are becoming more and more rare as publishers take less risks. Certainly if it helps any child deal with issues of death and grief and others to understand that experience that can only be a positive thing, and particularly if they find elements of their own story reflected within.
A particular favourite part of this book for me was the monsters stories, neither black nor white, characters with both good and bad in them. I think too often with children or young adults simplistic thinking is encouraged, exact definitions of what and indeed who is right and wrong rather than viewing the world as it exists in multiple shades of grey.
I have to say that this book made me cry. It is the first book since 'Home' by Marilynne Robinson to do so and therefore it is in good company. It didn't just make me shed a few moved tears either, but it made me actually cry proper noisy tears that made me cover my face with my hands. My grandmother, who was much beloved by me died of cancer when I was 21 and there was a certain moment when I identified with the emotions of Conor so much that it took me straight back to her bedside and made me relive certain experiences. This book deals with the truths of grieving in a way that Didion's 'Year Of Magical Thinking' does not come close to reaching.
I have only one criticism and it is of one word used only once in the novel. That word is 'spaz' quite possibly my least favourite word in the history of the English Language. I don't criticise its inclusion from a standpoint of 'political correctness gone mad' but because that word was the bane of my childhood and youth. I was hypersensitive to it because i have cerebral palsy. Whenever I hear or see it it's a bit like getting slapped. My own feeling about the word spaz is a personal thing but its also not very nice. I hear it hardly ever now among young people and thought it had died a death, becoming a relic of the Eighties replaced by other insult words most notably 'gay.' I'm not saying that's a great development either though. I heard it a lot recently on the Channel 4 series 'The Inbetweeners' too. It has left me questioning whether it is being written in as an insult in today's writing because it was the main insult of the school era of the 70's/80's in which today's adult writers attended school. Therefore being one they remember rather than a reflection of current school yard banter today. I do hope its the latter and the world has moved on, but maybe it hasn't, which is a shame. If it's a genuine reflection of 2011 insults then that's a separate issue relating to novels reflecting realism but I have to say I question it.
With that one and distinctly personal criticism aside, I think 'A Monster Calls' is a wonderful book and any book with the power to move someone in the way it did me has to be extraordinary. The way in which it poses interesting moral questions at young people leading to the revelation that it does is something special. In a recent email to a friend I suggested she read Patrick Ness and called him 'probably the best writer of young adult fiction writing today' This book does nothing but back this assertion up. 9.5/10
(.5 off for spaz)
The genesis for the latest novel from Patrick Ness came from some notes left behind by the late author Siobhan Dowd. Patrick was asked if he wanted to take her idea and complete it and he did so deciding to "Run with it. Make trouble." We should all be glad he did.
The books protagonist is Conor O'Malley, a 13 year old boy whose mother is suffering from cancer. His best friend Lily spread the news around his class making him a target for bullying, and now he is fighting a stress war on two fronts at home and at school. He has been having a recurrent nightmare and is then visited repeatedly by a monster at night transformed from a yew tree in the back garden
The book reminded me initially of both 'A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickens and 'The Savage' by David Almond, the latter dealing with similar themes. As it progresses the novel comes entirely into its own and makes itself extraordinary.
There was so much about the book I felt was true. I loved the depiction of Harry, the bully, intelligent enough to realise that ignoring someone and pretending they don't exist is a far worse torment than punches or insults. I experienced that in my own youth, any teenage girl can tell you how effective it is. I remember at its height trying to make myself invisible, making sure I didn't put my hand up for questions I knew the answer to, hiding in loos in between lessons. Conor's experience was very real to me. Thinking of it me trying to make myself invisible was ridiculous as I was anything but inconspicuous.
I have read opinion online that this book is 'too scary' for young people. The people who say this are wrong and have a rosy tinted view of what childhood ought to be without sight of what childhood often is. Children in 2011 are far more worldly wise than we would give them credit for, and some have experienced far worse things than a children's book could ever depict. I, for one, think it's admirable to find a young adult book that isn't overly saccharine and sanitized with clean, smiley resolution. They are becoming more and more rare as publishers take less risks. Certainly if it helps any child deal with issues of death and grief and others to understand that experience that can only be a positive thing, and particularly if they find elements of their own story reflected within.
A particular favourite part of this book for me was the monsters stories, neither black nor white, characters with both good and bad in them. I think too often with children or young adults simplistic thinking is encouraged, exact definitions of what and indeed who is right and wrong rather than viewing the world as it exists in multiple shades of grey.
I have to say that this book made me cry. It is the first book since 'Home' by Marilynne Robinson to do so and therefore it is in good company. It didn't just make me shed a few moved tears either, but it made me actually cry proper noisy tears that made me cover my face with my hands. My grandmother, who was much beloved by me died of cancer when I was 21 and there was a certain moment when I identified with the emotions of Conor so much that it took me straight back to her bedside and made me relive certain experiences. This book deals with the truths of grieving in a way that Didion's 'Year Of Magical Thinking' does not come close to reaching.
I have only one criticism and it is of one word used only once in the novel. That word is 'spaz' quite possibly my least favourite word in the history of the English Language. I don't criticise its inclusion from a standpoint of 'political correctness gone mad' but because that word was the bane of my childhood and youth. I was hypersensitive to it because i have cerebral palsy. Whenever I hear or see it it's a bit like getting slapped. My own feeling about the word spaz is a personal thing but its also not very nice. I hear it hardly ever now among young people and thought it had died a death, becoming a relic of the Eighties replaced by other insult words most notably 'gay.' I'm not saying that's a great development either though. I heard it a lot recently on the Channel 4 series 'The Inbetweeners' too. It has left me questioning whether it is being written in as an insult in today's writing because it was the main insult of the school era of the 70's/80's in which today's adult writers attended school. Therefore being one they remember rather than a reflection of current school yard banter today. I do hope its the latter and the world has moved on, but maybe it hasn't, which is a shame. If it's a genuine reflection of 2011 insults then that's a separate issue relating to novels reflecting realism but I have to say I question it.
With that one and distinctly personal criticism aside, I think 'A Monster Calls' is a wonderful book and any book with the power to move someone in the way it did me has to be extraordinary. The way in which it poses interesting moral questions at young people leading to the revelation that it does is something special. In a recent email to a friend I suggested she read Patrick Ness and called him 'probably the best writer of young adult fiction writing today' This book does nothing but back this assertion up. 9.5/10
(.5 off for spaz)
Tuesday, 3 May 2011
Book #29 The Year Of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
The Year Of Magical Thinking
This book for me was a first. I read it and when I had finished I had utterly no idea how on earth to review it, because of the juxtaposition between the sensitive subject matter and my reaction to it. I had a sense that in criticising this book in any way, I was somehow a bad person, but as a review, I still have to be honest about what I thought of it.
The book is Didion's account of the first year following her husbands death, after he suffers a heart attack at home the day before New Years Eve. Throughout the following year their daughter Quintana suffers several episodes of ill health, and in fact also died shortly before the books' publication, though Didion chose not to update her manuscript to reflect this.
Didion and her husband John Gregory Dunne were both writers and so I guess I expected something special here, I at least expected her thinking to be magical given the title, her words on the experience of grief to be moving and perhaps inspiring. But...........
It's cold. The whole book, it's very remote and detached. It's short, and repetitive, filled with quotes from other people's work on the nature of grief and lines from other people's poems, which if removed would leave only anecdotes that would be of interest to family members and the same stories repeated more than once.
It is like a collection of jumbled extracts from a diary, there is no cohesive narrative, and it is not what I expected: an insightful poetic reflection on the nature of death and loss, more a list of facts, an essay. It is much more essay than memoir.
It feels terrible to say that a book by a woman about the death of her husband is a bad book, but it is, and she even comes across badly as a person, showing off her contacts and lifestyle. At some point she writes that having when she read the memoir of D.H Lawrence's widow she felt she was morbid and self pitying, and you certainly can't accuse Didion of that.She doesn't even seem to experience the known stages of grief.
When thinking about how I would review this book I found a review on Amazon by A.Ross which said
"No doubt I am being churlish to some degree for criticizing Didion's portrayal of her experience. It's her life, her tragedy, and she certainly has every right to represent it however she would like to. However, placing it in the commercial realm makes it subject to comment, and my own feeling is that its simply not a very good book. That said, there are glimpses here and there of sharp writing and analysis which makes me think I might like one of her past collections of essays. Still, I can't imagine anyone going through the loss of a loved one would find this book helpful or illuminating in any way"
and I cannot help but concur.
You are left with the feeling that if this were the writing of an ordinary widow with an ordinary husband it would never have been printed, and the reason that it was is because Didion and Dunne were respected on the literary scene and those around the literary scene would be interested in their story because of who they were. This genuinely does feel like something of limited interest to friends and family and not something which would resonate with widows and those grieving everywhere, a lesson in how to love, lose and live on.
Not a year of magical thinking, a year of banal repetitive thinking. But I still feel guilty for criticising it given that it's about a man dying etc.. 4/10
This book for me was a first. I read it and when I had finished I had utterly no idea how on earth to review it, because of the juxtaposition between the sensitive subject matter and my reaction to it. I had a sense that in criticising this book in any way, I was somehow a bad person, but as a review, I still have to be honest about what I thought of it.
The book is Didion's account of the first year following her husbands death, after he suffers a heart attack at home the day before New Years Eve. Throughout the following year their daughter Quintana suffers several episodes of ill health, and in fact also died shortly before the books' publication, though Didion chose not to update her manuscript to reflect this.
Didion and her husband John Gregory Dunne were both writers and so I guess I expected something special here, I at least expected her thinking to be magical given the title, her words on the experience of grief to be moving and perhaps inspiring. But...........
It's cold. The whole book, it's very remote and detached. It's short, and repetitive, filled with quotes from other people's work on the nature of grief and lines from other people's poems, which if removed would leave only anecdotes that would be of interest to family members and the same stories repeated more than once.
It is like a collection of jumbled extracts from a diary, there is no cohesive narrative, and it is not what I expected: an insightful poetic reflection on the nature of death and loss, more a list of facts, an essay. It is much more essay than memoir.
It feels terrible to say that a book by a woman about the death of her husband is a bad book, but it is, and she even comes across badly as a person, showing off her contacts and lifestyle. At some point she writes that having when she read the memoir of D.H Lawrence's widow she felt she was morbid and self pitying, and you certainly can't accuse Didion of that.She doesn't even seem to experience the known stages of grief.
When thinking about how I would review this book I found a review on Amazon by A.Ross which said
"No doubt I am being churlish to some degree for criticizing Didion's portrayal of her experience. It's her life, her tragedy, and she certainly has every right to represent it however she would like to. However, placing it in the commercial realm makes it subject to comment, and my own feeling is that its simply not a very good book. That said, there are glimpses here and there of sharp writing and analysis which makes me think I might like one of her past collections of essays. Still, I can't imagine anyone going through the loss of a loved one would find this book helpful or illuminating in any way"
and I cannot help but concur.
You are left with the feeling that if this were the writing of an ordinary widow with an ordinary husband it would never have been printed, and the reason that it was is because Didion and Dunne were respected on the literary scene and those around the literary scene would be interested in their story because of who they were. This genuinely does feel like something of limited interest to friends and family and not something which would resonate with widows and those grieving everywhere, a lesson in how to love, lose and live on.
Not a year of magical thinking, a year of banal repetitive thinking. But I still feel guilty for criticising it given that it's about a man dying etc.. 4/10
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