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3.86 AVERAGE
3.86 AVERAGE
Other thoughts/reviews:
The Blue Bookcase: http://thebluebookcase.blogspot.be/2012/09/review-sophies-choice-by-william-styron.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+TheBlueBookcase+%28The+Blue+Bookcase%29
eBook.nl (in Dutch): http://www.ebook.nl/store/sophies-keuze-p-207913.html
word&film: http://www.wordandfilm.com/2014/08/from-vault-sophies-choice-william-styron/
The Blue Bookcase: http://thebluebookcase.blogspot.be/2012/09/review-sophies-choice-by-william-styron.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+TheBlueBookcase+%28The+Blue+Bookcase%29
eBook.nl (in Dutch): http://www.ebook.nl/store/sophies-keuze-p-207913.html
word&film: http://www.wordandfilm.com/2014/08/from-vault-sophies-choice-william-styron/
This is a hard read. I remember when both the book and movie were released. I saw the movie but never read the book until now. It brilliantly shows us the brutality of war and racism. Did I say this is a hard read? None the less, I'm glad I read it.
This was a hard book for me to rate, because one part of the story (Sophie's history), I was totally intrigued by and it kept me guessing and really grabbed me. The "present" part of the story was really boring for me. I didn't really care about the Nathen/Stingo/Sophie drama and just wanted to skip to the parts about Sophie's past.
The thing that kept annoying me though was just how over-written the whole book was. It was like he was trying to hard to write a "great" novel and just lost touch with what it was he was doing. He was writing really emotional things in this really distant way and it made it hard for me to connect with the characters even through really tough stuff.
I also felt like he just took on too many issues. It felt like he wanted to fit everything he'd ever really cared about into one book. I wish he had picked a couple of topics and stuck with those and done them well.
Maybe I went into this with too high expectations, but I was disappointed.
The thing that kept annoying me though was just how over-written the whole book was. It was like he was trying to hard to write a "great" novel and just lost touch with what it was he was doing. He was writing really emotional things in this really distant way and it made it hard for me to connect with the characters even through really tough stuff.
I also felt like he just took on too many issues. It felt like he wanted to fit everything he'd ever really cared about into one book. I wish he had picked a couple of topics and stuck with those and done them well.
Maybe I went into this with too high expectations, but I was disappointed.
The first word that comes to mind to describe this book is raunchy - lots of foul language and sexual encounters. I had guessed what Sophie's choice was before I started reading, so there was no real mystery for me. Several times the author would set up a scene only to say that you had to understand another event in order to fully grasp what was happening, then in the midst of that scene would delve into another. By the time he went through several back stories, I had forgotten what the original scene was. SPOILER (It's pretty sad when you go down so many rabbit holes that you forget two people were about to commit suicide!)
I feel guilty clicking on the READ button as I bought it as an audio book and didn't realize it was abridged. Most audio books I hear are about 15 hours long. This abridged version was 3!!!! they cut out so much of the book I completely lost the magic of the author:(
I was already into the story line when I realized (my bad) so I couldn't stop myself from listening to the end.
I will have to read the book in a few years because I think I missed a good one this time. The story line was so powerful.
SIDE NOTE: why would anyone abridge a book?!?!?!?! Why would you make it shorter? Wouldn't you miss so much of the authors true intentions to the readers????
I was already into the story line when I realized (my bad) so I couldn't stop myself from listening to the end.
I will have to read the book in a few years because I think I missed a good one this time. The story line was so powerful.
SIDE NOTE: why would anyone abridge a book?!?!?!?! Why would you make it shorter? Wouldn't you miss so much of the authors true intentions to the readers????
This book is about so much more than the actual choice Sophie must make. It's wild in its slightly unhinged jumping and jolting narrative, and is steeped thick in research of the Second World War. I found it fascinating how close the author placed himself to the narrator Stingo, including references to other books he wrote, and was a little surprised by how dominant a theme sex was. My one discomfort with the book that left me scratching my head more than anything was But I would recommend this book to many, as much for the other storylines as the one everyone already knows about...
Spoiler
how Sophie's pivotal children weren't mentioned until close to the revelation of what her soul-shaking choice would have to be. At first no children were mentioned in flashbacks, then only one, and finally the second child popped up just in time. I sense this was deliberate but it didn't help me see her as a mother, which would then maybe distanced hers and my emotions from the key heart-shattering event.
The year is 1947 and Stingo, the narrator of Sophie's Choice by William Styron, is a 22 year-old Southerner who has moved North to pursue his writing. Recently without a job, he moves to Brooklyn into Yettie Zimmerman's housing complex, also dubbed "The Pink Palace". Here he meets Nathan, a so-called research biologist at Pfizer, and Sophie, a Polish Catholic who had managed to survive the cruelties of Auschwitz. And from here the book feels like a character study of Sophie, as we jump between stories from the current time of Nathan and Sophie's tumultuous relationship, to stories pre-concentration camps, to stories during her time in the concentration camps. This is made even more complex as Sophie divulges in the lies she had previously told and seemingly becomes more unraveled in character as she share more information. Peeling back all these layers, we finally learn of the decision that Sophie has made that which has haunted her since the beginning of our story. This is closely followed by a second choice which will forever haunt our narrator.
As convoluted as Sophie is, reading this book was equally convoluted as William Styron throws in large sections of real events and names that blurred the line of non-fiction and fiction in this book. There were also times when the book felt long winded and I wished for him to get to the point, but I do have say that I had absolutely no inkling of what Sophie's Choice was alluding to until it was spelt out for me.
As convoluted as Sophie is, reading this book was equally convoluted as William Styron throws in large sections of real events and names that blurred the line of non-fiction and fiction in this book. There were also times when the book felt long winded and I wished for him to get to the point, but I do have say that I had absolutely no inkling of what Sophie's Choice was alluding to until it was spelt out for me.
The characters are pretty outrageous here - Stingo is the only believable one. He's as pretentious as any other early-20s know-it-all I ever knew in college. That said, I was still sucked into the plot, and enjoyed that this was more than a Holocaust story. The novel dives deeply into the psychological and social aftermath for Sophie, and that's what gives this book its edge.
I have no idea why this book is considered a classic. It has to be one of my least favorite books I have ever read. I saw it through to the end because I hoped that it got better, but it did not. The beginning was alright and I was interested to see what it built up to, but by the end was so tired of it that I couldn't bring myself to care about any of the revelations or drama. The sentences ran on and on and there was far too much time spent describing things that added nothing to the characters or the plot. I felt nothing for the characters or their stories except for hatred by the end for the main character. It could have been easily 300 pages shorter, which may have made it more interesting.