Now I'll have to add a re-reading of Jane Eyre to my list. Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys, is an imagined prequel to Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre that focuses on the life of the mysterious Bertha Rochester, the madwoman in the attic.
To get everyone up to date, so to speak: Jane Eyre is an orphan turned governess who makes good by being gainfully employed at Mr. Rochester's estate Thornfield. She eventually tames the tempestuous Mr. Rochester who falls in love with her, but yet fails to mention his insane first wife who lives in the attic and haunts the place after dark. British novelist Jean Rhys was obviously fascinated by the mad Bertha and set out to create her back story--Bronte provides very little information about Bertha, much of it relayed through the gossip of minor characters. Who was she? Where was she from? Why did she go mad? Why did Mr. Rochester imprison her in the attic?
Wide Sargasso Sea is Rhys's answer to those questions. It is the story of Antoinette Cosway--Mr. Rochester later insists on calling her Bertha, against her wishes--a young woman growing up in the West Indies in the decades following the emancipation of slaves in the British Colonies. Trapped in the social expectations of the times, Antoinette's fate is determined for her by a step-brother who essentially "sells" her into marriage with Mr. Rochester, a younger son of British aristocracy who must marry well in order to live in the manner to which he is accustomed. Mr. Rochester is misinformed about Antoinette's family and its history of madness; once he discovers this, his initial attraction to his "foreign" bride is undermined and he becomes coldly dismissive of her. Antoinette is unable to process what is happening to her and begins losing her grasp on reality, which was unreliable, at best, through most of her life.
Except for the very end, Wide Sargasso Sea is set in the Caribbean. Jean Rhys spent most of her childhood there, and so is able to render the sights, sounds, and scents of the islands vividly for the reader. There is a dreaminess to the writing that evokes and maintains a Gothic mood of mystery to the story. Rhys is clearly interested in creating a story for the haunting Bertha, who makes a very brief appearance in the lengthy Jane Eyre, but she is surprisingly non-judgmental of Mr. Rochester in her novel. It would have been easy to cast him as a villain...he is, in a sense, but she also portrays him as just as trapped in his place in society as Antoinette is. Neither one of them is without great flaws, and their inability to see each other honestly and without judgment is the cause of their downfall.
Rhys had to portray Rochester as at least slightly sympathetic; otherwise, her novel would never succeed in being balanced with Bronte's treatment of Rochester in her novel. Her chief motivation, however, is to give Antoinette/Bertha a voice, and she does so in a compelling way.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
This is an epic novel in the best sense of the word. Middlesex follows the Stephanides family from their roots in a Greek community in rural Turkey to Detroit, Michigan. And while the novel is a wonderful portrait of the Greek-American immigrant experience in the United States, what makes it unique among other novels that focus on the evolution of one family is its protagonist and narrator, Cal.
Cal, as an adult, is writing his family history, not only so he can capture it before "it's too late", but also so he can trace the his own genetic history. To follow one rogue gene that made its way through his family line down to him. This is the gene that made a girl who, for the first fourteen years of her life, was known as Calliope into the man now known as Cal. How Cal came to be this way, why no one, even Cal, suspected the truth until adolescence, and the impact this discovery had on his sense of self is intertwined with the larger story of the family as a whole. A family story as governed by its secrets as it is by love.
Jeffrey Eugenides is a supremely talented story teller. The background research of the elements of the Greek immigrant experience, the science behind gender identity and heredity, and the psychology of identity is impressive. But even more important than this foundation of knowledge is what Eugenides does with it. The characters, and there are many, are beautifully developed and written in such a sympathetic way that, flaws and all, the reader can't help but feel affection for them. Cal is a humane and complex and generous narrator who is struggling with the ultimate problem of identity and Eugenides' portrayal of him is simply amazing; it is completely believable.
And that's not to mention the descriptions of the landscapes, from the beautiful hills of Turkey to the burning city of Smyrna, from the city of Detroit in its glory days to its smoking neighborhoods after the race riots of the 60's. With a great eye for detail, Eugenides makes every scene a visual one easily imagined by the reader. Add humor to the details and the great character development and Middlesex is the whole package, everything a good epic story promises: tragedy and comedy rolled into one.
Cal, as an adult, is writing his family history, not only so he can capture it before "it's too late", but also so he can trace the his own genetic history. To follow one rogue gene that made its way through his family line down to him. This is the gene that made a girl who, for the first fourteen years of her life, was known as Calliope into the man now known as Cal. How Cal came to be this way, why no one, even Cal, suspected the truth until adolescence, and the impact this discovery had on his sense of self is intertwined with the larger story of the family as a whole. A family story as governed by its secrets as it is by love.
Jeffrey Eugenides is a supremely talented story teller. The background research of the elements of the Greek immigrant experience, the science behind gender identity and heredity, and the psychology of identity is impressive. But even more important than this foundation of knowledge is what Eugenides does with it. The characters, and there are many, are beautifully developed and written in such a sympathetic way that, flaws and all, the reader can't help but feel affection for them. Cal is a humane and complex and generous narrator who is struggling with the ultimate problem of identity and Eugenides' portrayal of him is simply amazing; it is completely believable.
And that's not to mention the descriptions of the landscapes, from the beautiful hills of Turkey to the burning city of Smyrna, from the city of Detroit in its glory days to its smoking neighborhoods after the race riots of the 60's. With a great eye for detail, Eugenides makes every scene a visual one easily imagined by the reader. Add humor to the details and the great character development and Middlesex is the whole package, everything a good epic story promises: tragedy and comedy rolled into one.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Harriet Tubman: Imagining a Life by Beverly Lowry
The key element of the title of Lowry's book, Harriet Tubman: Imagining a Life, is the word "imagining". Lowry, who is a novelist, not a biographer, is very clear throughout the book that her work is not a definitive biography of Tubmen. It relys on other biographies for source material, and though Beverly Lowry obviously did a great deal of research on Harriet Tubman herself, her goal is to use this information to show readers how things might have been for Tubman during her life time. Her experience as a novelist allows her to present scenes and to develop historical figures as characters with perhaps more freedom than a typical biographer would. In that regard, Lowry's book might appeal a great deal to readers who don't normally pick up biographies.
Harriet Tubman is one of America's most well known historical icons, but after reading Lowry's book, I realized just how little I knew about Tubman's accomplishments. She first escaped from slavery, alone, when she was 27 years old and returned to Maryland at least 13 times to rescue family members and other slaves who had heard about her and asked for her aid. She was completely illiterate, as most slaves were, but she realized early on how to market herself and her story to wealthy abolitionists in the North to fund her rescue efforts and to develop relief programs to aid newly freed slaves. She single handedly supported her extended family and other misfortunate people between her trips to the South by taking on any work she could find. She was a scout, spy, and nurse in South Carolina during the Civil War and was the first American woman to actually plan and lead troops into battle--resulting in freeing 750 slaves. For all her efforts, Harriet Tubman was widely recognized by the Abolitionist community for her heroism and widely praised as a valuable asset to the Union troops during the war, but she and her family still lived in poverty for her entire life.
Lowry's biography is very readable and allows readers the opportunity to see Harriet Tubman not only as the historical figure she is, but also as a flesh and blood person who accidentally became the savior of hundreds of enslaved people. The fictionalized elements of the book allow for this, but at the same time make me wonder what is missing here that might be found in a more traditionally researched biography. I'm in luck there, because apparently, after decades of Tubman biographies written only for the children's market, there are at least four adult biographies of Tubman that have been published in the last few years to good critical reviews. I'll take a break from the amazing Ms. Tubman for now, but at least one of those new biographies will be added to my must-read-someday-when-I-have-time list.
Harriet Tubman is one of America's most well known historical icons, but after reading Lowry's book, I realized just how little I knew about Tubman's accomplishments. She first escaped from slavery, alone, when she was 27 years old and returned to Maryland at least 13 times to rescue family members and other slaves who had heard about her and asked for her aid. She was completely illiterate, as most slaves were, but she realized early on how to market herself and her story to wealthy abolitionists in the North to fund her rescue efforts and to develop relief programs to aid newly freed slaves. She single handedly supported her extended family and other misfortunate people between her trips to the South by taking on any work she could find. She was a scout, spy, and nurse in South Carolina during the Civil War and was the first American woman to actually plan and lead troops into battle--resulting in freeing 750 slaves. For all her efforts, Harriet Tubman was widely recognized by the Abolitionist community for her heroism and widely praised as a valuable asset to the Union troops during the war, but she and her family still lived in poverty for her entire life.
Lowry's biography is very readable and allows readers the opportunity to see Harriet Tubman not only as the historical figure she is, but also as a flesh and blood person who accidentally became the savior of hundreds of enslaved people. The fictionalized elements of the book allow for this, but at the same time make me wonder what is missing here that might be found in a more traditionally researched biography. I'm in luck there, because apparently, after decades of Tubman biographies written only for the children's market, there are at least four adult biographies of Tubman that have been published in the last few years to good critical reviews. I'll take a break from the amazing Ms. Tubman for now, but at least one of those new biographies will be added to my must-read-someday-when-I-have-time list.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald
I first became familiar with Betty MacDonald through her children's books about the magical Mrs. Piggle Wiggle to whom desperate parents turn for help in curing their children of some of the terrible ills of childhood like selfishness, picky eating, refusal to take a bath, and so on. (I highly recommend them.) It wasn't until recently that I realized that MacDonald had ever written adult books. And not only that, but her books for adults were incredibly popular during their time. To her wider audience, MacDonald was more popular for The Egg and I than for her Mrs. Piggle Wiggle books. It sold over 1 million copies its first year in print.
The Egg and I was first published in 1945 and is an extremely funny memoir of MacDonald's life as the wife of a chicken farmer on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state. MacDonald and her husband bought a neglected farm in the foothills of the Olympic mountains well before it was "citified" and logged and hooked up to the grid. They literally worked from dawn to dusk renovating it and turning it into a successful chicken ranch. They had no running water, no electricity, no contact with the larger outside world, aside from run-ins with wacky neighbors, threatening wildlife, and rain, rain, rain. Although a reader can easily imagine how terrible an experience this probably was a great deal of the time for MacDonald, who didn't realize what she was getting herself into, she depicts her life on the chicken ranch with great warmth and humor.
Readers in 2008 might be discomfited by her depictions of her Native American neighbors, but it's best not to allow her obvious fear of them to color our enjoyment of the book as a whole. This brings up a subject that could be a complicated blog post on its own, but I think it is important, when reading books from another era, to acknowledge how the sensibilities of the past are quite different from the sensibilities of the present. While not condoning the prejudices or biases of the writer, we can understand these writers to be products of their times and move forward from there.
I thorougly enjoyed the picture Betty MacDonald offered of the Olympic Peninsula and its people during the time she spent there. Even today the Peninsula is rather wild and sparsely inhabited, but compared to MacDonald's time, it is very, very tame. I love to imagine the forests that had not yet been logged very heavily and the large populations of bear, wolves, and other wildlife that still roamed the mountains. And I can't help but admire the doggedness with which MacDonald tried to make her difficult life on the farm in the wilderness work out the best that she could. I'm looking forward to reading more of her autobiographical books for adults...there are three more, but no more about chickens, and that's okay by me.
The Egg and I was first published in 1945 and is an extremely funny memoir of MacDonald's life as the wife of a chicken farmer on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state. MacDonald and her husband bought a neglected farm in the foothills of the Olympic mountains well before it was "citified" and logged and hooked up to the grid. They literally worked from dawn to dusk renovating it and turning it into a successful chicken ranch. They had no running water, no electricity, no contact with the larger outside world, aside from run-ins with wacky neighbors, threatening wildlife, and rain, rain, rain. Although a reader can easily imagine how terrible an experience this probably was a great deal of the time for MacDonald, who didn't realize what she was getting herself into, she depicts her life on the chicken ranch with great warmth and humor.
Readers in 2008 might be discomfited by her depictions of her Native American neighbors, but it's best not to allow her obvious fear of them to color our enjoyment of the book as a whole. This brings up a subject that could be a complicated blog post on its own, but I think it is important, when reading books from another era, to acknowledge how the sensibilities of the past are quite different from the sensibilities of the present. While not condoning the prejudices or biases of the writer, we can understand these writers to be products of their times and move forward from there.
I thorougly enjoyed the picture Betty MacDonald offered of the Olympic Peninsula and its people during the time she spent there. Even today the Peninsula is rather wild and sparsely inhabited, but compared to MacDonald's time, it is very, very tame. I love to imagine the forests that had not yet been logged very heavily and the large populations of bear, wolves, and other wildlife that still roamed the mountains. And I can't help but admire the doggedness with which MacDonald tried to make her difficult life on the farm in the wilderness work out the best that she could. I'm looking forward to reading more of her autobiographical books for adults...there are three more, but no more about chickens, and that's okay by me.
Monday, July 14, 2008
The Open Door by Elizabeth Maguire
The Open Door by Elizabeth Maguire is a fictionalized memoir of Constance Fenimore Cooper, one of the most prolific American novelists and essayists of the 19th century. While Constance Fenimore Cooper, despite her popularity during her own time, is all but forgotten in the 21st century, the subject of her "memoir", novelist Henry James and his works, are still studied in high schools and colleges across the country.
That fact alone underscores the key theme in the novel. In her "memoir" of her friendship with Henry James, Cooper argues that though the female writer/artist has the same concerns, desires, creative spirit, and talents as the male writer of her time, social constraints and expectations of women posed sometimes insurmountable obstacles to fully achieving not only recognition for their achievements, but also sometimes prevented them from having the opportunity to do the work in the first place.
19th century literature is rife with real life stories of women writers that mirror Constance Fenimore Cooper's life. When looked at as a whole, it is clear that the women who succeeded as writers during this time--despite the odds--had to have great courage, resourcefulness, and often an unconventional lifestyle in order to write in the first place and to be published at all.
Fenimore Cooper, herself, though she supported her family for many years by writing essays and serialized novels for Harper's, felt that only through avoiding marriage and by supporting herself while living abroad could she truly have freedom to write. Her real life friendship with James is well documented through secondary sources, but even now is subject to much speculation about its true nature because both Cooper and James destroyed their voluminous correspondence. Maguire imagines their relationship to be a friendship of artistic equals who found great joy in discussing their art, but at the same time they were unequal on an emotional level and the friendship is full of contradictions and misunderstandings as a result.
As with all good historical fiction, The Open Door shows its readers a slice of life during another era, but it does so in a manner that also brings to mind larger questions we might ask of our own times. And this novel certainly makes us curious about the writing of a woman that time seems to have forgotten.
That fact alone underscores the key theme in the novel. In her "memoir" of her friendship with Henry James, Cooper argues that though the female writer/artist has the same concerns, desires, creative spirit, and talents as the male writer of her time, social constraints and expectations of women posed sometimes insurmountable obstacles to fully achieving not only recognition for their achievements, but also sometimes prevented them from having the opportunity to do the work in the first place.
19th century literature is rife with real life stories of women writers that mirror Constance Fenimore Cooper's life. When looked at as a whole, it is clear that the women who succeeded as writers during this time--despite the odds--had to have great courage, resourcefulness, and often an unconventional lifestyle in order to write in the first place and to be published at all.
Fenimore Cooper, herself, though she supported her family for many years by writing essays and serialized novels for Harper's, felt that only through avoiding marriage and by supporting herself while living abroad could she truly have freedom to write. Her real life friendship with James is well documented through secondary sources, but even now is subject to much speculation about its true nature because both Cooper and James destroyed their voluminous correspondence. Maguire imagines their relationship to be a friendship of artistic equals who found great joy in discussing their art, but at the same time they were unequal on an emotional level and the friendship is full of contradictions and misunderstandings as a result.
As with all good historical fiction, The Open Door shows its readers a slice of life during another era, but it does so in a manner that also brings to mind larger questions we might ask of our own times. And this novel certainly makes us curious about the writing of a woman that time seems to have forgotten.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Spotlight on India
There is something about a novel set in India.... Here is a short list of wonderful novels that are either written by Indian writers, take place in India, have an Indian character, or a mix of all three.
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
The God of Small Things by Ahrundahti Roy
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Shiva Dances by Bharti Kirchner
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
The God of Small Things by Ahrundahti Roy
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Shiva Dances by Bharti Kirchner
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Gluttony
The problem with a book blog is that it makes me even more anxious to get reading—as if I needed motivation. Each entry sparks ideas about another. Every writer I bring up reminds me of the books he or she has written that I have not yet read. A biography or novel about a historical figure is chock full of references to other books or people or ideas that I want to get to next. When I go back to refer to books I haven’t read for a while, I’m tempted to open them up again so I can re-read them. My library holds list is long, and when I get an e-mail that there are holds waiting for me, I often have to admit that there is no way I can actually find time for the stack of 4 or 5 novels that have all come in at once.
It’s like being in a restaurant and having all the elements of the meal arrive at once. Instead of a salad course, entrée, dessert, and espresso, every bit if it is dessert. Very rich dessert.
It’s like being in a restaurant and having all the elements of the meal arrive at once. Instead of a salad course, entrée, dessert, and espresso, every bit if it is dessert. Very rich dessert.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Envisioning America
A few years ago, a friend asked me which book has had the most influence on my life. It's a tough question, but didn't take long for me to surprise her with my answer: The Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. This series of children's novels about Laura Ingalls Wilder's life with her pioneering family in the late 18oo's has had a lasting affect on my life even though I read them for the first time many decades ago. Part of the pull of this series, other than a most charming, independent, and resourceful heroine, is the portrait of early America that comes alive in its pages.
This Independence Day weekend seemed an appropriate time to focus on novels that, through the incredible research and imaginations of their authors, offer the reader a glimpse of what America might have been like in the early days of its settlement: the vast breadth of the landscapes, the wildness and danger of unexplored territories, and the complicated relationships among the people who loved it.
The Little House Series by Laura Ingalls Wilder
These novels are a joy to read at any age, but reading them as adults allows for so much more perspective on how courageous and resourceful and dedicated pioneers like the Ingalls family were to risk everything, including their lives, to have land to call their own. Each book is a short education in the daily rituals, traditions, housekeeping, and subsistence farming of the times. And Wilder describes landscapes and all aspects of nature as only one who has seen it herself can.
Thirteen Moons and Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
Thirteen Moons is the story of Will Cooper, an orphan and bound boy, who is sent west to the Indian territories in the Southern Appalachians to run a trading post. Cooper becomes intimately intertwined in the lives of the Cherokee tribe who adopt him and works tirelessly on their behalf to spare them from "the removal" ordered by the American government.
Cold Mountain takes place in the latter days of the Civil War. Inman, a wounded, southern soldier gone AWOL, tries to make his way home from the front lines to Cold Mountain and the woman he left behind.
Frazier has a remarkable talent for rendering the landscape of these novels in such a vivid way that the reader can practically see them. He also describes the daily lives, customs, work, and wardrobe of his characters, from the poorest Cherokee family to President Andrew Jackson, in details only possible through painstaking research. His characters are compelling and complex. He's just a great story teller.
The Living by Annie Dillard
This novel documents the settlement of the Pacific Northwest, in particular Whatcom County and the town of Bellingham, Washington. It traces the westward journey of several homesteading families as they travel to the recently opened Northwest. We learn of their hopes for the new land, the agonies and tragedies that beset them as they traveled, and what met them when they finally made it to the Pacific. Dillard's writing is more spare than Frazier's, but it rings just as true and, like his, offers a clearsighted glimpse of what the times and landscape were like during the era she writes about.
Ahab's Wife or, The Star Gazer by Sena Jeter Naslund
An epic that is hard to put down. Ahab's Wife is the story of Una Spenser, a 19th century woman who, in the course of her lifetime, escapes from a life with a violent father in Kentucky, lives with a freethinking family in Nantucket, runs away to sea disguised as a boy, survives adventure after adventure, and, indeed, eventually marries Ahab, the famous whale-obsessed captain of Melville's Moby Dick. Peopled with historical figures as well as a few characters from American literature, Ahab's Wife is a very long novel that is so good time just melts away as you read it. And, as with the other authors listed, Naslund has a gift of evoking the times and the landscape of both the mainland and the sea with extraordinary vision.
Cloudsplitter by Russell Banks
A fictionalized account of the life of Abolitionist John Brown narrated by his son Owen, the only survivor of the ill fated raid on Harper's Ferry West Virginia. Many historians believe Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry hastened the inevitable start of the Civil War. This is a very complex novel, and a long one, but it is absolutely compelling in its portrait of the controversial John Brown, its details about the era, and the questions it raises about the morality of espousing A Cause to the point of committing heinous acts (in Brown's case, murder) in support of it. As one review of Cloudsplitter put it, "This is the story of a rural family's wrenching transformation from anti-slavery agitators into political terrorists, and finally, tragically into martyrs."
This Independence Day weekend seemed an appropriate time to focus on novels that, through the incredible research and imaginations of their authors, offer the reader a glimpse of what America might have been like in the early days of its settlement: the vast breadth of the landscapes, the wildness and danger of unexplored territories, and the complicated relationships among the people who loved it.
The Little House Series by Laura Ingalls Wilder
These novels are a joy to read at any age, but reading them as adults allows for so much more perspective on how courageous and resourceful and dedicated pioneers like the Ingalls family were to risk everything, including their lives, to have land to call their own. Each book is a short education in the daily rituals, traditions, housekeeping, and subsistence farming of the times. And Wilder describes landscapes and all aspects of nature as only one who has seen it herself can.
Thirteen Moons and Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
Thirteen Moons is the story of Will Cooper, an orphan and bound boy, who is sent west to the Indian territories in the Southern Appalachians to run a trading post. Cooper becomes intimately intertwined in the lives of the Cherokee tribe who adopt him and works tirelessly on their behalf to spare them from "the removal" ordered by the American government.
Cold Mountain takes place in the latter days of the Civil War. Inman, a wounded, southern soldier gone AWOL, tries to make his way home from the front lines to Cold Mountain and the woman he left behind.
Frazier has a remarkable talent for rendering the landscape of these novels in such a vivid way that the reader can practically see them. He also describes the daily lives, customs, work, and wardrobe of his characters, from the poorest Cherokee family to President Andrew Jackson, in details only possible through painstaking research. His characters are compelling and complex. He's just a great story teller.
The Living by Annie Dillard
This novel documents the settlement of the Pacific Northwest, in particular Whatcom County and the town of Bellingham, Washington. It traces the westward journey of several homesteading families as they travel to the recently opened Northwest. We learn of their hopes for the new land, the agonies and tragedies that beset them as they traveled, and what met them when they finally made it to the Pacific. Dillard's writing is more spare than Frazier's, but it rings just as true and, like his, offers a clearsighted glimpse of what the times and landscape were like during the era she writes about.
Ahab's Wife or, The Star Gazer by Sena Jeter Naslund
An epic that is hard to put down. Ahab's Wife is the story of Una Spenser, a 19th century woman who, in the course of her lifetime, escapes from a life with a violent father in Kentucky, lives with a freethinking family in Nantucket, runs away to sea disguised as a boy, survives adventure after adventure, and, indeed, eventually marries Ahab, the famous whale-obsessed captain of Melville's Moby Dick. Peopled with historical figures as well as a few characters from American literature, Ahab's Wife is a very long novel that is so good time just melts away as you read it. And, as with the other authors listed, Naslund has a gift of evoking the times and the landscape of both the mainland and the sea with extraordinary vision.
Cloudsplitter by Russell Banks
A fictionalized account of the life of Abolitionist John Brown narrated by his son Owen, the only survivor of the ill fated raid on Harper's Ferry West Virginia. Many historians believe Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry hastened the inevitable start of the Civil War. This is a very complex novel, and a long one, but it is absolutely compelling in its portrait of the controversial John Brown, its details about the era, and the questions it raises about the morality of espousing A Cause to the point of committing heinous acts (in Brown's case, murder) in support of it. As one review of Cloudsplitter put it, "This is the story of a rural family's wrenching transformation from anti-slavery agitators into political terrorists, and finally, tragically into martyrs."
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Spotlight on Ian McEwan
This is a short list of McEwan's novels, but even from my brief familiarity with his books it is clear that Ian McEwan is a master. What struck me most in these novels is how this writer is able to take a single moment or short episode and develop it into a complex and multi-layered story. This moment/episode forms the motivation for his characters' actions, some of which have a devastating effect upon the rest of their lives.
Atonement -- I highly recommend reading this before seeing the film...better yet, read the book and skip the film. (Like the film of the English Patient, it is visually gorgeous but flattens out the story way too much.)
Amsterdam
On Chesil Beach
These last two novels, especially Amsterdam, are very slim and make quick reading, but you'll be thinking about them long after you've put the books down.
Atonement -- I highly recommend reading this before seeing the film...better yet, read the book and skip the film. (Like the film of the English Patient, it is visually gorgeous but flattens out the story way too much.)
Amsterdam
On Chesil Beach
These last two novels, especially Amsterdam, are very slim and make quick reading, but you'll be thinking about them long after you've put the books down.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)