I first heard about Olive because of Julie. And while this isn't the sort of book that would have usually jumped at me (no sentient mushrooms, existenI first heard about Olive because of Julie. And while this isn't the sort of book that would have usually jumped at me (no sentient mushrooms, existentialism or bombastic event involving dark handsome strangers, feh!), I trust Julie's taste almost implicitly - so when a copy of "Olive Kitteridge" winked at me from the shelf of Cheap Thrills (oh my god, do I miss my tiny, cramped, amazing used bookstore!), I just grabbed it. Julie said it was good.
Julie was right.
I've known women very much like Olive: smart, practical and sarcastic but tactless, struggling quietly with mental illness and keeping a stiff upper lip. I try very hard not to be an Olive, to stay softer than the women I grew up around, who were all sharp edges and narrowed eyes. I try to remember that just like Olive, they thought it was the best way to handle things.
Olive lives in a little town in Maine, and while she is not the focus of every short story in this book, she always has a part to play and a word to say. Sometimes, her very unique brand of tough love is exactly what those around her need. Sometimes, she should stick a sock in her mouth. At the end of the day, she's simply doing the best she can with what she has. She would say that she doesn't suffer fools; some would say that she is judgemental - even if it is fueled by a desire to help and be there. I loved that she is not at the center of every story, because it does a wonderful job showing that you are not the same person to the different people you know. You are an angel to some and a tormentor to others, no matter what you do. Olive is the ultimate anti-Mary Sue.
The magic of this novel-in-vignettes is that pretty much anyone can relate to it. It is so deeply human, so empathic that it will touch a nerve no matter who you are. The need for intimacy, the fear of death, the longing for it, the pull of love against the push of convention, the impression that one is simply not "one of those people" (you know, the ones who make everything seem effortless and simple while you are bumbling about life like a bull in a china shop). You've felt those things. I have. You will love and be annoyed with Olive the same way you love and are annoyed with yourself.
The timing of my reading this probably influenced how it hit me: because of the pandemic, it's unlikely we'll be able to go see my in-laws before the Christmas holidays, and I realized I miss them terribly (even if I can't get my father-in-law to eat vegetables and it drives me insane). They live in a small town in Western New York, that has a lot in common with Crosby, Maine (with Lake Ontario as a stand-in for the Atlantic): slightly quirky people who have a deep ocean of life under the surface that I will never know about... because no one talks about anything. And yeah, I'm pretty sure they make fun of my yoga and oat milk when I'm not there... I love them anyway.
A compassionate, seemingly quiet and unassuming novel that moved me very deeply....more
What a strange a beautiful little book this is. From the day Wang Lung goes to claim a servant girl as his wife, to help him toil away in his small paWhat a strange a beautiful little book this is. From the day Wang Lung goes to claim a servant girl as his wife, to help him toil away in his small parcel of land, all the way to his death as a prosperous land-owner, we follow him in the tradition of the greatest classics that make the ordinary life sound extraordinary.
The tone of the prose, while beautiful, is also a strong clue that Buck’s parents worked as missionaries, because it reads almost like the Bible. Characters are hardly ever referred to by name, their function and place in Wang’s life are more important than their identity, so there are the wife, the eldest son, and so on. It’s fine for a while, but it can get a little irritating, and there’s something very ominous about it, which always hints of the next disaster Wang and his family will have to face. Reading a few reviews, I see that I am not the only one who was strongly reminded of Steinbeck while reading “The Good Earth”, especially “The Grapes of Wrath” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), as a lot of themes and events overlap: drought, starvation, forced migration, the necessity of family bonds to survive. Unlike in Steinbeck's famous book, Wang’s luck eventually turns, but not necessarily for the right reasons, and it does not bring him the peace he so desires.
While I did not like Wang’s character much, I appreciated that he is far from unidimensional: he is a human full of contradictions, pulled between his traditional values and feelings that do not always follow those traditions. Of course his sexism is egregious, and the fact that he turns precisely into the kind of rich old man he despised on the first page is a cruel irony of fate – but it is also completely believable.
I would be curious to read more of Buck’s work; she was a very talented writer with a keen eye for human nature, and an ability to capture the simple fact that people are essentially the same, no matter how far you go....more
Mr. Whitehead doesn’t waste anytime hitting his readers with a dizzying one-two punch combo: I had barely read three or four pages of this book that IMr. Whitehead doesn’t waste anytime hitting his readers with a dizzying one-two punch combo: I had barely read three or four pages of this book that I already felt the tension, the urgency and the sense of menace that follows Cora through her journey towards freedom.
After witnessing one more senseless beating of a fellow slave at the hands of a sadistic white master, Cora decides to follow in her mother’s footsteps and run from the plantation where she was born to the north, where she hopes to be sheltered by the abolitionist movement. A man named Caesar has heard that there is a station of the fabled underground railroad as far south as Georgia, and while Cora and he manages to make it to the train, a slave-catcher named Ridgeway is hot on their heels, still reeling from having been unable to catch Cora’s mother, Mabel, when she ran away years before. His thirst for revenge will push him to chase Cora across America as she tries to overcome the many surreal hurdles that stand between her and freedom.
This can’t have been an easy book to write. And honestly, it wasn’t always pleasant to read either – nor should it be. The descriptions the violence inflicted upon the slaves are graphic, and dropped almost casually in the text: I often found myself wincing as I followed Cora down the very dangerous road that I hoped would lead her to a place where she could finally be safe. As she moved further and further away from the plantations, things sometimes get better, but better doesn’t necessarily mean good. The atrocities are not limited to the corporeal punishment and sexual violence Cora has to endure: being a “living exhibit” in a museum, being subjected to medical experiments and so-called studies, etc. – things that most people can’t seem to understand are humiliating and degrading, even if they are not physically damaging.
If the unpleasant factor had been limited to the subject matter, that would have been one thing: beautiful novels have been written about unpleasant truth, but I soon had to admit to myself that I simply did not like the writing. The prose often felt a bit rushed, stiff or unpolished: I’d have to re-read some sentence a couple of times to make sure I knew who we were talking about and what was going on. While I appreciate that Whitehead did not try to soften his story with ornate prose, it could occasionally get a bit frustrating when he sped through a paragraph a bit too fast. Maybe because I read this novel right after a James Baldwin book, but I kept comparing the two writing styles, and, needless to say, that I find Mr. Baldwin’s prose to be so much better. I found very little atmosphere in the pages of “The Underground Railroad”, and while plenty of horrifying details about the treatment endured by the characters were provided, precious little else was described in a way that made me feel like I could immerse myself in the story. The characters did not feel very developed, I never felt like I knew them beyond their bid for the Free States.
Fortunately, there are enough insightful and beautifully phrased moments in this book to keep it at a 3-star level, but overall, this was just not that good a read. It's a shame really, because while the idea of the railroad as a literal railroad is great, and the story of people like Cora should be told loud and clear, the less than impressive writing made it feel like a bit of a drag…...more
My first Michael Chabon novel turned out to be a very good, very entertaining and moving read. I confess that I cracked4 and a half stars, rounded up.
My first Michael Chabon novel turned out to be a very good, very entertaining and moving read. I confess that I cracked it open with some trepidation, as the reviews for this one are really all over the place, and I had no idea which side of the fence I'd fall on about it...
In the late 1930s, Josef Kavalier is smuggled out of Czechoslovakia by his prestidigitation teacher just before his entire family is rounded up and relocated to a Prague ghetto. Circuitously, he makes his way to Brooklyn, where his cousin Sam Klayman lives with his mother and grandmother. It seems at first that the two young men have nothing in common, but Sam quickly realizes his cousin is an amazing artist, and that his talent could lead to them making a great career with this new media, the comic book. The novel follows their career, but also Joe's (as he is now known) attempts to help his family, Sam's identity crisis, and the story of the woman who will play a huge part in both of their lives, the lovely Rosa Saks.
While it doesn't hurt to know a thing or two about the history of comic books to enjoy this novel, it is also by no means a requirement: Chabon distills his clear adoration for the media in such a way that makes the birth of the modern superhero interesting, informative and thought-provoking. He uses this story to explore topics like family and identity, but in surprisingly fresh ways. What is family when those you love are a world away, how are you supposed to define yourself when you are something you don't even have a word for, how many times can you escape before you realize that you keep running into yourself everywhere you go?
Chabon's prose is clean and fluid, but also quite clever: some readers clearly find him a little too clever, but I didn't feel that way. That's how someone writes when they are passionate about a topic and can't wait to share it with others. I did find the book a touch too long, but it kept taking me to very unexpected places and I never really felt it drag, so I am happy to round up my 4 and a half stars to a 5. A really great book that made me quite curious to read more from Michael Chabon!...more
I discovered Philip Roth last summer, when I picked up a used copy of "The Human Stain" and proceeded to have my mind completely blown by both the stoI discovered Philip Roth last summer, when I picked up a used copy of "The Human Stain" and proceeded to have my mind completely blown by both the story and Roth's incredible writing. I wasn't sure what to expect when I decided to dive into "American Pastoral": when you fall in love with a book and pursue the author's other works, you always run the risk of being severely disapointed - and people seem to either love or hate this book with a suprising passion…
I'm happy to report that I was not disapointed in the least: a quarter of the way in and I already felt like I had been kicked in the teeth (in the best possible way) by the story of Seymour "The Swede" Levov. Roth's ability to create vivid characters and put their thoughts and feelings on the page never ceases to impress me: I really feel like I am in their heads, and when said characters have a story as devastating as that of the Levov family, it is an incredible reading experience. I put the book down dizzy, my head reeling with images and ideas, and I love when that happens.
Roth explores the idea that people are never what they appear to be on the surface: with great compassion, he digs at an All-American family man, his former beauty queen wife and their stuttering daughter, turning them inside out to show us that nothing is as it seems, that the American Dream might have been an optical illusion all along, that perfection is an unbearable burden that can't be kept up indefinitely.
The literal explosion of the Swede's ideals, when his out-of-control daughter commits a horrific act of violence, and his disillusionment are detailed with heartbreaking precision. What do you do when everything you have ever hold sacred and believed to be good and true disintergrates around you, no matter what you do? How do you pick up the pieces and go on, how do you make sense of the surreal failure that your dream world has so unexpectedly turned into? Roth explores the power of choices, how we can trace back so many things to that one fork in the road where were decided to turn right instead of left, the moment in time from which a huge series of events cascaded.
The Swede's compulsion to always be what other people want him to be and to live a life he feels to be the highest ideal of American lives can seem naive, but it also comes from a truly earnest place: there is not an ounce of malicious intent in this upright man, and he cannot understand it in others. His incapacity to conceive that the rest of the world doesn't mean as well as he does is his Achilles' heel, and his daughter - who is nuts, but more lucid than him - uses it to make him aware of his blindness.
I found myself wondering how I would have reacted, had I been Merry's age, sitting in front of the television and watching a monk set himself on fire because nothing else he could do would carry the weight of his protest against the powerlessness imposed on his people. It is only too realistic to suppose that a sensitive and intelligent child can look at this horrific image of a gentle monk burning himself to death and be forever changed by that event. I abhor violence, and I don't think I would have been pushed into the kind of radical revolutionary tactics that attracted Merry, but I know the home-life disatisfaction, and I know how the anger and frustration that comes from that can burn inside someone until they don't know how to react except by lashing out. Obviously, Merry's reaction to her father's denial and passivity is compeltely disproportionate, but it is not impossible to imagine.
I can see how Roth's writing is not for everyone: he is long-winded, and just as I had experienced with "The Human Stain", his rhythm took a few pages to get used to. But once my brain got in the right gear, I breezed through the pages maniacally. When the narrative becomes the rambling stream-of-consciousness of the character he is exploring, it can be hard to follow, especially if you were never perticularly interested in the glove manufacturing business or Miss America pageants. Believe me, those are things that are as far from my reality as one can imagine, but I was completely enthralled despite my not giving a hoot about high school football culture. I think the only thing I can hold against this book was that it ended too soon for me: I wanted to know more about how the Swede decided to rebuild himself, which we know he did, but Roth skips over that part of the story entirely. But overall, it is a moving and hard-hitting read that I enthusiastically recommend to everyone.
That being said, I can't really recommend the movie, which tries very hard to incorporate every important aspect of the story, but fails to convey the emotional weight of Roth's writing. I'm beginning to think his work might be un-adaptable for the silver screen, as I was just as disapointed with the movie version of "The Human Stain"…...more
Oh, Edith Wharton. I wonder if she ever thought that her stories would still ring so true almost a hundred years later… Not just because of the classiOh, Edith Wharton. I wonder if she ever thought that her stories would still ring so true almost a hundred years later… Not just because of the classic love-triangle situation, but also the concern with appearances and reputations and the grand show that people put on for others to watch and judge.
The character development in this book is simply amazing. One is tempted to judge and pigeonhole these people, but the more you read, the more they reveal themselves to be much more complicated and interesting than they appeared at first. I do confess to a small book-crush on Newland (not because of Daniel Day-Lewis’ interpretation, though that is totally worth checking out), who is tragically stuck between two ways of thinking: the old-school one that he was brought up in, and the more modern one, which is right around the corner but not quite acceptable yet for someone of his station. He doesn't want to ruffle any feathers, but he is noticing with increasing annoyance that some of the customs held up by his social circles simply don't make sense anymore. His struggle is so vividly depicted that you end up just as torn as he is and by the end of the book, you just want the guy to be happy.
The sharp, witty writing that jabs so cleverly at the shallowness of the lives of the New York upper crust is another very strong point of this novel. Edith Wharton shows us the gorgeous, highly polished surface of society and scratches at it mercilessly, but she somehow avoids being condescending. Her long descriptions of furniture and priceless china is not there to mock so much as it is there to show us what these people cared about, and how ultimately silly it. I admire her restraint and the complete absence of meanness in her prose.
Ellen Olenska is one of the most wonderfully drawn characters I have encountered in a long time. Her strength of character, her need for independence, her yearning for happiness: all these things stunted by the conventions of the society she returned to, looking for comfort and support. Her story is really tragic: the bad marriage, the straight-laced relatives who can’t understand why she wants a divorce, the man she knows she cannot have because she refuses to hurt her cousin or to be someone’s mistress. Ellen wants to be first fiddle and she will not settle for less, even if that means giving up the man she loves. I admired her, but I also felt incredible sorrow for her.
This is one of my favorite books, and I warmly recommend it to everyone. If you have already read it, give it another go: I find out new delightful details and meanings every time I pick it up....more
I don’t know how to feel about this book. One the one hand, it’s an entertaining and rather gripping read, that I gulped down in about three days, andI don’t know how to feel about this book. One the one hand, it’s an entertaining and rather gripping read, that I gulped down in about three days, and the family saga mixed with the history of the last few years of Trujillo’s regime in the Dominican Republic makes for a very interesting story. On the other hand, while I loved and had endless sympathy for Lola, and found the section about Beli’s teenage years fascinating (and horrifying), I simply couldn’t warm up to the so-called protagonist.
“The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” is the story of a family cursed with the fukù of mad love, from the mother’s affair with a pimp under Trujillo’s thumb to Oscar’s ill-fated unrequited feelings towards, well, a lot of girls who friendzone him because he is overweight and geeky. This story is narrated by the colorful Yunior, a friend of Oscar’s, who put all the pieces of this story together after its tragically inevitable denouement. Yunior is almost as nerdy as Oscar, but he hides it better – though not when he writes, as the story is very liberally sprinkled with sci-fi and fantasy references, especially “Lord of the Rings”. I wasn’t really bothered by the Spanish words and sentences, or the Dominican slang – most of it could be deciphered with context, and the rest was easily googled.
While Oscar is far from a bad guy, what ruins him, much more so than his weight or intellectual interest, is his self-pity and his refusal to actually make any kind of changes to his life. His stewing in passive self-loathing is to blame for his misery, and maybe it’s because I’ve known quite a few people like that, who refused to work on changing even the simplest things in their lives and simply carried on being miserable and blaming the whole world for it, but I just don’t have patience for it anymore, in real life or on the page, apparently.
If the book had been just about Beli, I might have liked it better, but then, I read “The Feast of the Goat” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) earlier this year, and that’s basically what that book was about, only written much more skillfully, and has more nuanced and interesting characters (it was nagging at me, so I checked and the main character of Vargas Llosa’s book is named Uriana Cabral, and Beli’s full name is Belicia Cabral; are you kidding me, Mr. Diaz?).
I re-read it to make sure I had not “read it wrong” a few years back, but alas, I am still in the minority of people who will never quite get what the fuss about this novel is....more
Loading...
