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3.86 AVERAGE
3.86 AVERAGE
Reading this while traveling in Mexico is top-tier.
Ugh, maybe 3.5 stars? I just don't understand how a book that has Frida Kahlo and Trotsky as fairly main characters can be so... dull? It was beautifully written but I kind of lost the will halfway through.
Great depth
Loved this book. Slow start but I persevered only to realise that was one of the biggest themes in the book. If you love historical fiction you'll love this. If you love art, politics, human form and history mixed up saucily this is for sure for you.
Loved this book. Slow start but I persevered only to realise that was one of the biggest themes in the book. If you love historical fiction you'll love this. If you love art, politics, human form and history mixed up saucily this is for sure for you.
4.75 stars. A boy growing up in Mexico and a man being held down in the US. I really loved this book. I love Soli/Shepherd and delighted spending time in his world. The Red Scare section made me so angry! I loved the first half more than the second but felt it was a really clever use of different types of text. Just like Soli had a life of two halves, so did the book. While it was quite a long book, I loved the little details, like Violet's country bumpkin family and the cats, which don't really add to the story, but add to the atmosphere. The writing is gorgeous.
Gangly, blue-eyed Harrison Shepherd is "an orphan with two living parents": a Spanish mother who can't remember his birthday and drags him across Mexico each time she finds a new benefactor and an American accountant father who never calls.
His schooling is sporadic, but he revels in imagination, savors books, and writes compulsively in a notebook. He stumbles across a job as a plasterer, and since it's better than living with his mother, he stays, becoming plasterer, cook, and life-long friend to famous artists and political activists Diego Rivera and Frido Kahlo as well as exiled communists Lev and Natalya Trotsky.
Harrison will learn about friendship, betrayal, and people who would would die for a cause. He seeks for a place to call home while trying to understand his need to write and describe the world around him.
Rated PG for some language and sexual encounters (written with great restraint). This book had a lot of mature themes and is definitely intended for adult readers. This is the book club book for July (chosen by Cynthia Newman).
=============Book Club Discussion Thoughts=============
*I loved the first chapter. The writing is beautiful, descriptive, alive. The writing style reminds me of Willa Cather's writing style. The rest of the book is in a letter/diary format. It was well done for the format and I can understand why Kingsolver went that way, but I missed the writing style of the first chapter.
*I also loved the details: the Spanish mixed into the story, the lessons on how to mix bread, the descriptions of the scenes, news clippings, the narrator's first experience with a drive-in restaurant. I could see and smell and taste the people and places described in the book.
*The historical information. Kingsolver said she was fanatical about staying true to the historical figures and events. I learned a lot from reading this book.
*One review I read commented it didn't have any heart to it, you didn't really come to love the main characters and care about them the way you do in most novels. I agree with that, but I thought it was done intentionally. Kingsolver included the people and the dialogue to entertain and it did - but I don't think she was trying to make us love a main character as much as she was trying to get the reader to see the big picture she painted and think critically about the themes and history she presented.
*Here are a list of themes/thoughts I found in the novel:
-people being nervous about having things written down: Salome, Frida, Harrison's roommate
-The most interesting thing about a person is the thing you don't know.
-God speaks for the silent man.
-Growing old: Salome's theory of life divided into thirds.
-Power/corruption of the press: some newspapers lie all the time, others tell the truth on the little things so they'll be believed when they lie about the big ones
-Ethics of the American government - the gasing/attack of the Bonus Army, the treatment of Trotsky, the alliance with Stalin during World War II, the internment of Japanese and others into camps, and the communism witch hunt afterward
-Betrayal: Frida's betrayal of Harrison, Salome's betrayal of her lovers always seeking someone better, the Riveras many affairs, Jacsons betrayal of Trotsky, Lenin's betrayal of Trotsky
-Race relations and the difference between America and Mexico, Salome's disdain of the the native people
-What makes an artist or a writer? If someone has a compulsion or write or paint can you stop them?
Some quotes I'd marked:
(pg 23) "She'd solved the mathematical problem of age sixteen by saying she was twenty. At twenty-four she'd said the same thing again, balancing the equation."
(pg 40) "Mi'jo, Leandro said. Your mother can't even remember the day she gave you birth. If an orphan boy is going to have any luck, he will have to make it himself.
"What kind of an orphan has two living parents? You said everyone has family even if they are ghosts. Or forget your birthday.
(pg 94) "It's a strange way. Being a servant, making a bad wage, that is no puzzle. All the richest men in Mexico were once lifted from the cradle by servants. But they all drink from the same water jar that fills the master's glass, and they use the same chamber pot, still warm from the piss of the patron. In Mexico nobody ever thought to keep those streams flowing separately."
(pg 109) "A gas bomb costs more than a hundred loaves of bread."
(pg 222) "Everyone should get dirt on his hands each day. Doctors, intellectuals. Politicians, most of all. How can we presume to uplift the life of the working man, if we don't respect his work?"
(pg 318 "At the first interview she laid her failings at my feet, or would have except she hasn't any. Does not smoke cigarettes, take strong drink, go to church or gamble. Has worked for the city, the army, and most daunting of all, the Asheville Woman's Club. Thirty years as a widow. She doubts being married would have been much different."
I found this interview with the author that I want to remember for our book discussion: http://www.faber.co.uk/article/2009/11/barbara-kingsolver-on-lacuna/
His schooling is sporadic, but he revels in imagination, savors books, and writes compulsively in a notebook. He stumbles across a job as a plasterer, and since it's better than living with his mother, he stays, becoming plasterer, cook, and life-long friend to famous artists and political activists Diego Rivera and Frido Kahlo as well as exiled communists Lev and Natalya Trotsky.
Harrison will learn about friendship, betrayal, and people who would would die for a cause. He seeks for a place to call home while trying to understand his need to write and describe the world around him.
Rated PG for some language and sexual encounters (written with great restraint). This book had a lot of mature themes and is definitely intended for adult readers. This is the book club book for July (chosen by Cynthia Newman).
=============Book Club Discussion Thoughts=============
*I loved the first chapter. The writing is beautiful, descriptive, alive. The writing style reminds me of Willa Cather's writing style. The rest of the book is in a letter/diary format. It was well done for the format and I can understand why Kingsolver went that way, but I missed the writing style of the first chapter.
*I also loved the details: the Spanish mixed into the story, the lessons on how to mix bread, the descriptions of the scenes, news clippings, the narrator's first experience with a drive-in restaurant. I could see and smell and taste the people and places described in the book.
*The historical information. Kingsolver said she was fanatical about staying true to the historical figures and events. I learned a lot from reading this book.
*One review I read commented it didn't have any heart to it, you didn't really come to love the main characters and care about them the way you do in most novels. I agree with that, but I thought it was done intentionally. Kingsolver included the people and the dialogue to entertain and it did - but I don't think she was trying to make us love a main character as much as she was trying to get the reader to see the big picture she painted and think critically about the themes and history she presented.
*Here are a list of themes/thoughts I found in the novel:
-people being nervous about having things written down: Salome, Frida, Harrison's roommate
-The most interesting thing about a person is the thing you don't know.
-God speaks for the silent man.
-Growing old: Salome's theory of life divided into thirds.
-Power/corruption of the press: some newspapers lie all the time, others tell the truth on the little things so they'll be believed when they lie about the big ones
-Ethics of the American government - the gasing/attack of the Bonus Army, the treatment of Trotsky, the alliance with Stalin during World War II, the internment of Japanese and others into camps, and the communism witch hunt afterward
-Betrayal: Frida's betrayal of Harrison, Salome's betrayal of her lovers always seeking someone better, the Riveras many affairs, Jacsons betrayal of Trotsky, Lenin's betrayal of Trotsky
-Race relations and the difference between America and Mexico, Salome's disdain of the the native people
-What makes an artist or a writer? If someone has a compulsion or write or paint can you stop them?
Some quotes I'd marked:
(pg 23) "She'd solved the mathematical problem of age sixteen by saying she was twenty. At twenty-four she'd said the same thing again, balancing the equation."
(pg 40) "Mi'jo, Leandro said. Your mother can't even remember the day she gave you birth. If an orphan boy is going to have any luck, he will have to make it himself.
"What kind of an orphan has two living parents? You said everyone has family even if they are ghosts. Or forget your birthday.
(pg 94) "It's a strange way. Being a servant, making a bad wage, that is no puzzle. All the richest men in Mexico were once lifted from the cradle by servants. But they all drink from the same water jar that fills the master's glass, and they use the same chamber pot, still warm from the piss of the patron. In Mexico nobody ever thought to keep those streams flowing separately."
(pg 109) "A gas bomb costs more than a hundred loaves of bread."
(pg 222) "Everyone should get dirt on his hands each day. Doctors, intellectuals. Politicians, most of all. How can we presume to uplift the life of the working man, if we don't respect his work?"
(pg 318 "At the first interview she laid her failings at my feet, or would have except she hasn't any. Does not smoke cigarettes, take strong drink, go to church or gamble. Has worked for the city, the army, and most daunting of all, the Asheville Woman's Club. Thirty years as a widow. She doubts being married would have been much different."
I found this interview with the author that I want to remember for our book discussion: http://www.faber.co.uk/article/2009/11/barbara-kingsolver-on-lacuna/
another amazing story from Barbara Kingsolver. I couldn't put this one down!
What a disappointment after enjoying her other books. I guess I have different tastes than those who gave her " critical acclaim ".
This book has some terrific parts and was at times hard to put down. The scenes with Frida Kahlo were, of course, 100% interesting. Other times, however, the story plodded along, interrupted by news clippings and repeated descriptions of characters' idiosyncrasies. In the end, I wish I could have read an abridged version.
The passages related to Trotsky's hiding out in Mexico and his surprise assassination would be useful in a unit on Orwell's [b:Animal Farm|7613|Animal Farm|George Orwell|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1312498229s/7613.jpg|2207778].
The passages related to Trotsky's hiding out in Mexico and his surprise assassination would be useful in a unit on Orwell's [b:Animal Farm|7613|Animal Farm|George Orwell|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1312498229s/7613.jpg|2207778].
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Kingsolver does such an amazing job of blending fiction and reality. I feel more educated on history and politics with every book of hers I read without feeling like I’ve had to sacrifice any enjoyment of the book. This felt like a timely read to understand how the political events of today have been years in the making.