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3.86 AVERAGE
3.86 AVERAGE
I thoroughly enjoyed the Poisonwood Bible and thought this Kingsolver offering sounded interesting. I was not disappointed. I really enjoy her style of writing and found her "message" in this work to be very compelling. I look forward to reading more of her novels.
I absolutely love Barbara Kingsolver's writing style. This book's presence mimics that of the poisonwood bible in its attention to details, its decade stretching story line, and its beautiful use of language and imagery. A long, but very graceful read :)
Stylistically speaking I consider Barbara Kingsolver a great writer. I was amazed by her writing style in "The Lacuna", the ability to weave missing and recovered journal entries into a compelling novel. That said, I did not find this as compelling of a novel as her previous books, especially "The Poisonwood Bible".
I would recommend brushing up on Mexican history, especially Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo's lives and their communist ideas. This book did make me want to go out and read about Trotsky, Kahlo and Rivera as well as the McCarthy era.
It's worth a read but can be a bit slow at times. Read it at a leisure pace and enjoy Kingsolvers elegant writing style.
I would recommend brushing up on Mexican history, especially Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo's lives and their communist ideas. This book did make me want to go out and read about Trotsky, Kahlo and Rivera as well as the McCarthy era.
It's worth a read but can be a bit slow at times. Read it at a leisure pace and enjoy Kingsolvers elegant writing style.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
adventurous
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
adventurous
emotional
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I absolutely loved this book. It made me laugh on almost every page, yet it was at times educational, sometimes scary as hell, and sometimes delightfully surprising. The writing is beautiful. I listened to the book, and sometimes I'd have to stop the CD and repeat a particular nice passage. Kingsolver is the author and reader, and she is wonderful. Since the book takes place in Washington, D.C., Mexico and North Carolina, she has to do all those accents plus Russian. Amazing!
What really makes the book different in my view is it's complexity. It works on many different levels. First, the main character, Harrison Shepard, is an author in the book, so you always have this, "Is this autobiographical?" question going. For example, how will the book end? Kingsolver teases the reader by having characters in the book give Shepard advice on how readers like books to end. Will Kingsolver take this advice herself? What about Shepard's books, passages of what appear in the book? What are the philosophic underpinnings? Does Kingsolver share them? Then, secondly, there is another layer on top of this, in which the pages we are reading are supposedly assembled by Shepard's secretary from his not-meant-to-be-published diary pages and letters. But these pages are always getting destroyed or censored, so there's always the question, "But how can we be reading this?" Thirdly, the book is richly historical and Kingsolver makes little attempt at political objectivity. Mary says her husband is a respected historian, so Kingsolver's research is probably very thorough. Can this story be true on any level? I am ashamed to admit that history is not one of my strong subjects, so this book was a real eye opener. Could this have been our country in 1950?
Lastly, the book has really colorful characters that you really care about. Plus, despite the geographic span of the book, Kingsolver gets the dialects exactly right. Here is the North Carolinian secretary's advice to our hero who is in a funk: "Mr. Shepard, what do you fear will happen? You cannot stop a bad thought from coming into your head. But you need not pull up a chair and bide it sit down!" (Good advice, too!)
Here's another passage, in a letter from Shepard to an ailing friend: "It's no good to hear you're a wreck. It's like the season's last tomato that sat in a bowl in the kitchen this week and when sliced, collapsed into a limp bag of foul juice."
Historical fiction at its best!
What really makes the book different in my view is it's complexity. It works on many different levels. First, the main character, Harrison Shepard, is an author in the book, so you always have this, "Is this autobiographical?" question going. For example, how will the book end? Kingsolver teases the reader by having characters in the book give Shepard advice on how readers like books to end. Will Kingsolver take this advice herself? What about Shepard's books, passages of what appear in the book? What are the philosophic underpinnings? Does Kingsolver share them? Then, secondly, there is another layer on top of this, in which the pages we are reading are supposedly assembled by Shepard's secretary from his not-meant-to-be-published diary pages and letters. But these pages are always getting destroyed or censored, so there's always the question, "But how can we be reading this?" Thirdly, the book is richly historical and Kingsolver makes little attempt at political objectivity. Mary says her husband is a respected historian, so Kingsolver's research is probably very thorough. Can this story be true on any level? I am ashamed to admit that history is not one of my strong subjects, so this book was a real eye opener. Could this have been our country in 1950?
Lastly, the book has really colorful characters that you really care about. Plus, despite the geographic span of the book, Kingsolver gets the dialects exactly right. Here is the North Carolinian secretary's advice to our hero who is in a funk: "Mr. Shepard, what do you fear will happen? You cannot stop a bad thought from coming into your head. But you need not pull up a chair and bide it sit down!" (Good advice, too!)
Here's another passage, in a letter from Shepard to an ailing friend: "It's no good to hear you're a wreck. It's like the season's last tomato that sat in a bowl in the kitchen this week and when sliced, collapsed into a limp bag of foul juice."
Historical fiction at its best!
So many things to this book its hard to explain. Take Holden Caldwell, but make him Mexican-American, unfit for army service for personal reasons, and follow him through his life where he works for Frida, Diego Rivera, and Trotsky while he lives in Mexico. Then, when he moves to America, he becomes a successful author and the inevitable happens during the McCarthy years. Throw in a believable look at the way reporters can skew the truth in order to sell papers, and this is a glimpse of the many subjects of this book. Not a book to read for a relaxing time, but definitely worth your time.
The title of this book sums up how I felt about it. I loved the beginning and the end. The middle felt like a lacuna. All of the news articles were tedious. It is historical fiction, but the device of using a fictional diary and filling in subject matter with dry news articles didn’t work for me. I loved it when the writing was actually from the point of view of one of the characters and not a list of historical facts.
The ending… without spoilers… made me so angry. In a sense it repeated a trauma the main character suffered earlier in his life which caused him immense pain and this repetition was done with a plan and intention and to someone he cares about.
In summary: this book tells you things, it doesn’t show them, and it feels like a lecture a lot of the time. And then it ends with trauma packaged as hope.
The ending… without spoilers… made me so angry. In a sense it repeated a trauma the main character suffered earlier in his life which caused him immense pain and this repetition was done with a plan and intention and to someone he cares about.
In summary: this book tells you things, it doesn’t show them, and it feels like a lecture a lot of the time. And then it ends with trauma packaged as hope.