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3.78 AVERAGE
3.78 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
reflective
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
emotional
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:
Yes
Really liked the book even though it was a little difficult keeping the character’s stories straight.
inspiring
reflective
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:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
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:
Yes
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
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:
Complicated
‘The Cemetery of Untold Stories’ by Julia Alvarez is a wonderful novel, not simply a wonderful literary novel. It is a rarity not often seen today, being a character-driven literary novel full of heart, smiles, and tears. It is not the usual literary masterpiece published in the last few decades consisting of only pyrotechnical creativity designed to be awarded by some literary committee or honed writing techniques while getting an MFA. However, there are a LOT of characters, members of two families, involved in ‘parenting’ stories/characters on many levels (creation by marrying, sibling opinions, everyone messaging whatever the narrative to absolve or forgive or understand, not least the invisible author playing creator), and we are obliged to pick up and drop the continuing threads of their stories throughout the novel.
I have copied the book blurb:
”Literary icon Julia Alvarez returns with an inventive and emotional novel about storytelling itself that will be an instant classic.
Alma Cruz, the celebrated writer at the heart of The Cemetery of Untold Stories , doesn’t want to end up like her friend, a novelist who fought so long and hard to finish a book that it threatened her sanity. So when Alma inherits a small plot of land in the Dominican Republic, her homeland, she has the beautiful idea of turning it into a place to bury her untold stories—literally. She creates a graveyard for the manuscript drafts and revisions, and the characters whose lives she tried and failed to bring to life and who still haunt her.
Alma wants her characters to rest in peace. But they have other ideas, and the cemetery becomes a mysterious sanctuary for their true narratives. Filomena, a local woman hired as the groundskeeper, becomes a sympathetic listener as Alma’s characters unspool their secret tales. Among them: Bienvenida, the abandoned second wife of dictator Rafael Trujillo, consigned to oblivion by history, and Manuel Cruz, a doctor who fought in the Dominican underground and escaped to the United States.
The characters defy their author: they talk back to her and talk to one another behind her back, rewriting and revising themselves. The Cemetery of Untold Stories asks: Whose stories get to be told, and whose buried? Finally, Alma finds the meaning she and her characters yearn for in the everlasting vitality of stories.
Readers of Isabel Allende’s Violeta and Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead will devour Alvarez’s extraordinary new novel about beauty and authenticity that reminds us the stories of our lives are never truly finished, even at the end.”
I wish the last few pages had been placed up at the front of the novel, though. They added clarity to the author’s intention and point of view besides being beautiful to read. To me, sometimes the narrative was a little muddy. Some of the characters are ‘real’ narrators, but others are speaking from their graves. These graves are not where actual people are buried, though. Alma Cruz, having become perhaps too old to finish new books, but not so old as to stop being haunted by the characters still in her head, buried the ashes of her notes outlining ideas for characters and plots, and all of her unfinished manuscripts. Her imagined characters based on real life historical figures as well as on living family members ‘talk’ to us throughout the novel, gentle readers. Are they really talking, telling us the story of their lives that Alma started but did not finish? In any case, I was moved to tears and understanding nods and to being confounded by some of the choices made.
The one quote from the book which most spoke to me:
”Turns out he has a talent for stealth, perfected over the years, a handicap of living in the world of story, becoming this or that character with the turn of a page, breaking and entering others’ lives. He once had a therapist who suggested that it was time that he leave those strategies behind. Find out who he really is. But how would he know what a true self is without a story to put the idea in him?”
Stories are teaching moments, not only an unburdening of the teller’s conscience or a need to be heard and understood fully. Because I know this, I have rarely been a tl;dr person.
I have always had difficulty in deciphering any author’s initial introduction of magical realism. Magical realism sometimes is about cultural myths that have crossed the boundary of imagination or the past to arrive into the real world. Sometimes magical realism is about ‘real’ characters being haunted by visions that are in their mind, and only in their mind, telling us more eventually about the character’s inner state than what is actually happening. Imagined (often multi-dimensional - the invisible author imagining the characters imagining stuff) or not, magical realism scenes sometimes serve to inspire characters, or give insight or direction. In this case, it is about the shaping of personal narratives for oneself without an intervention by author, reader or another character or death. The requirement of everyone is ‘listen’.
The author revealed in an interview she took the action of burying her unfinished stories for real! Hmmm.
There are beautiful sentences and ‘aha!’ insights everywhere in the novel, either about relationships or about telling stories. The telling of stories insights I immediately understood. I had more difficulty with those about family. My family being not a close one, I set about the business of self-preservation over any yearning or rage for what would never be. I cannot grok those women who never give up on abusive or emotionally distant men whether they be fathers or husbands. I must believe though, because of the many stories I have read and heard, my choosing to believe actions speak louder than words in relationships is rare.
I have copied the book blurb:
”Literary icon Julia Alvarez returns with an inventive and emotional novel about storytelling itself that will be an instant classic.
Alma Cruz, the celebrated writer at the heart of The Cemetery of Untold Stories , doesn’t want to end up like her friend, a novelist who fought so long and hard to finish a book that it threatened her sanity. So when Alma inherits a small plot of land in the Dominican Republic, her homeland, she has the beautiful idea of turning it into a place to bury her untold stories—literally. She creates a graveyard for the manuscript drafts and revisions, and the characters whose lives she tried and failed to bring to life and who still haunt her.
Alma wants her characters to rest in peace. But they have other ideas, and the cemetery becomes a mysterious sanctuary for their true narratives. Filomena, a local woman hired as the groundskeeper, becomes a sympathetic listener as Alma’s characters unspool their secret tales. Among them: Bienvenida, the abandoned second wife of dictator Rafael Trujillo, consigned to oblivion by history, and Manuel Cruz, a doctor who fought in the Dominican underground and escaped to the United States.
The characters defy their author: they talk back to her and talk to one another behind her back, rewriting and revising themselves. The Cemetery of Untold Stories asks: Whose stories get to be told, and whose buried? Finally, Alma finds the meaning she and her characters yearn for in the everlasting vitality of stories.
Readers of Isabel Allende’s Violeta and Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead will devour Alvarez’s extraordinary new novel about beauty and authenticity that reminds us the stories of our lives are never truly finished, even at the end.”
I wish the last few pages had been placed up at the front of the novel, though. They added clarity to the author’s intention and point of view besides being beautiful to read. To me, sometimes the narrative was a little muddy. Some of the characters are ‘real’ narrators, but others are speaking from their graves. These graves are not where actual people are buried, though. Alma Cruz, having become perhaps too old to finish new books, but not so old as to stop being haunted by the characters still in her head, buried the ashes of her notes outlining ideas for characters and plots, and all of her unfinished manuscripts. Her imagined characters based on real life historical figures as well as on living family members ‘talk’ to us throughout the novel, gentle readers. Are they really talking, telling us the story of their lives that Alma started but did not finish? In any case, I was moved to tears and understanding nods and to being confounded by some of the choices made.
The one quote from the book which most spoke to me:
”Turns out he has a talent for stealth, perfected over the years, a handicap of living in the world of story, becoming this or that character with the turn of a page, breaking and entering others’ lives. He once had a therapist who suggested that it was time that he leave those strategies behind. Find out who he really is. But how would he know what a true self is without a story to put the idea in him?”
Stories are teaching moments, not only an unburdening of the teller’s conscience or a need to be heard and understood fully. Because I know this, I have rarely been a tl;dr person.
I have always had difficulty in deciphering any author’s initial introduction of magical realism. Magical realism sometimes is about cultural myths that have crossed the boundary of imagination or the past to arrive into the real world. Sometimes magical realism is about ‘real’ characters being haunted by visions that are in their mind, and only in their mind, telling us more eventually about the character’s inner state than what is actually happening. Imagined (often multi-dimensional - the invisible author imagining the characters imagining stuff) or not, magical realism scenes sometimes serve to inspire characters, or give insight or direction. In this case, it is about the shaping of personal narratives for oneself without an intervention by author, reader or another character or death. The requirement of everyone is ‘listen’.
The author revealed in an interview she took the action of burying her unfinished stories for real! Hmmm.
There are beautiful sentences and ‘aha!’ insights everywhere in the novel, either about relationships or about telling stories. The telling of stories insights I immediately understood. I had more difficulty with those about family. My family being not a close one, I set about the business of self-preservation over any yearning or rage for what would never be. I cannot grok those women who never give up on abusive or emotionally distant men whether they be fathers or husbands. I must believe though, because of the many stories I have read and heard, my choosing to believe actions speak louder than words in relationships is rare.
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
We are all haunted by the stories the that we haven't told and those stories deserve to be recognition whether they are laid to rest, never to be told to anyone, or shared with someone who will be still and hear us. And often the quietest people contain the most, and best, stories. We have to take care of the places around us but it is also important to just sit and hear.
This book was my first 5 star read of the year. While I've always been just fine with magical realism, this novel captured me more than any other of the genre that I've read for some reason, perhaps because it's a story about stories. I borrowed it from the library but will DEFINITELY be purchasing a copy of my own so I can reread at my leisure.
<<SPOILERS>>
When an author moves back to the Dominican Republic her family fled when she was a young child her sisters and friends are concerned about her safety (and frankly state of mind), especially when she requests an unwanted plot of land as they are splitting up their inheritance following their father's death. A mysterious building project begins and it is eventually unveiled that she is building a cemetery and a small home for herself there amongst the monuments. However, rather than being a cemetery for humans or even pets (the neighbors in the barrio say that rich people do this), our unnamed author is building a cemetery for stories, the ideas she had but could never write down and the stories that have never been shared. With the help of a visual artist friend she puts in beautiful monuments and creates a place of reflection, half garden/art gallery, half place to share. The only catch is that the gates remained closed and entrance is only granted by passing a single question test: "Tell me a story".
The neighbors try telling her various tales, small pieces of news from the neighborhood and the like; the first to gain entrance, the only for a long time, is a quiet woman who keeps to herself and does not speak aside from exchanges necessary to daily living. Eventually she becomes the groundskeeper whose main job is visiting the graves and listening. As she does, she discovers that both she and the author can hear the graves telling their stories and the stories go from whispers in the wind to the voices of ghosts, getting stronger and more embodied as they are shared. Eventually the cemetery is opened to the neighborhood and becomes a place for community, especially the disenfranchised, with the ghosts looking out for the living.
This book was my first 5 star read of the year. While I've always been just fine with magical realism, this novel captured me more than any other of the genre that I've read for some reason, perhaps because it's a story about stories. I borrowed it from the library but will DEFINITELY be purchasing a copy of my own so I can reread at my leisure.
<<SPOILERS>>
When an author moves back to the Dominican Republic her family fled when she was a young child her sisters and friends are concerned about her safety (and frankly state of mind), especially when she requests an unwanted plot of land as they are splitting up their inheritance following their father's death. A mysterious building project begins and it is eventually unveiled that she is building a cemetery and a small home for herself there amongst the monuments. However, rather than being a cemetery for humans or even pets (the neighbors in the barrio say that rich people do this), our unnamed author is building a cemetery for stories, the ideas she had but could never write down and the stories that have never been shared. With the help of a visual artist friend she puts in beautiful monuments and creates a place of reflection, half garden/art gallery, half place to share. The only catch is that the gates remained closed and entrance is only granted by passing a single question test: "Tell me a story".
The neighbors try telling her various tales, small pieces of news from the neighborhood and the like; the first to gain entrance, the only for a long time, is a quiet woman who keeps to herself and does not speak aside from exchanges necessary to daily living. Eventually she becomes the groundskeeper whose main job is visiting the graves and listening. As she does, she discovers that both she and the author can hear the graves telling their stories and the stories go from whispers in the wind to the voices of ghosts, getting stronger and more embodied as they are shared. Eventually the cemetery is opened to the neighborhood and becomes a place for community, especially the disenfranchised, with the ghosts looking out for the living.