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joycet 's review for:
The Versions of Us
by Laura Barnett
This book is not as hard as folks say it is to keep track of. There are 3 versions of their lives. But this is really the story of Eva and Jim and some of the ways their lives change when they make relationship decisions. Barnett was able to keep the characters fairly consistent in light of different circumstances. There are questions about whether they are right for each other, what might have happened if life had turned out differently, subtle changes do and don't affect them. The children are different in each version, but the folks of their generation or the previous generation remain constant. I thought that was interesting. She created a meditation on who we are and how our environment affects us, when we do the same things and when we dodge a bullet because something was just different enough. How we can be the same parents and some children are fine and some are not. How regardless of what we do, some things keep turning out the same way. I really liked Eva, I didn't have much patience for Jim, but I think that's my personality and certainly not a flaw of the author either way. I cared about all these people across all their lives, which I think is pretty interesting too.
I think the age at which you encounter this book will affect what you think of this book. Several people say they wanted something to "happen". I found that baffling because I think this was more about looking at key times in the lives of these central characters and saying "based on what was happening they went a certain way, because of that, where were they at this point, and then that point." This was a book about characters, not a plot book with action. This was a meditation on character, on who people are. As someone approaching 50, with more than one marriage, and a husband who is older and also more than one marriage, he and I have discussed how we could have met sooner, how our lives would have changed, how our situations might have been different. We have asked the questions of ourselves that these books have asked. Did we take the right risks? Did we see the impact of the choices we had for what they were? Where did an impulsive decision change the road? We think our lives are these linear solid things but they are not. They are a collection of moments with a thread of some identity weaving through them. We create a narrative around them and we can change the narrative over time as our perspective shifts. This was a literary play on that.
I think the age at which you encounter this book will affect what you think of this book. Several people say they wanted something to "happen". I found that baffling because I think this was more about looking at key times in the lives of these central characters and saying "based on what was happening they went a certain way, because of that, where were they at this point, and then that point." This was a book about characters, not a plot book with action. This was a meditation on character, on who people are. As someone approaching 50, with more than one marriage, and a husband who is older and also more than one marriage, he and I have discussed how we could have met sooner, how our lives would have changed, how our situations might have been different. We have asked the questions of ourselves that these books have asked. Did we take the right risks? Did we see the impact of the choices we had for what they were? Where did an impulsive decision change the road? We think our lives are these linear solid things but they are not. They are a collection of moments with a thread of some identity weaving through them. We create a narrative around them and we can change the narrative over time as our perspective shifts. This was a literary play on that.