Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By & by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep & know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow’s springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
–Gerard Manley Hopkins
Grief is such an individual, totally consuming, and heart-wrenching experience — especially when the death is by a young person or is totally unexpected. This book explores the grief process very well. Margaret and Nico are teenage sisters. While Nico generally seeks out her parent’s approval, Margaret is a little on the wild side. However, that is not what gets her killed. Margaret has a heart problem and ends up drowning in the lake near their home.
The story is told from Nico’s point of view, and about her struggle to get through each day, each month, each year. She worries about her own health and about how her parents are coping with her sister’s death. She’s concerned for her sister’s boyfriend and how he’s dealing with it. She even endures those around her who try to make her into parts of Margaret instead of herself.
Finally, the story ends with an adult Nico writing about how she and her family have recovered from their grief over the years. Although — as anyone knows who has been through it — you never really get over the death of someone close to you.
There was nobody else — there never could be anybody else for me but you. I’ve loved you ever since that day you broke your slate over my head in school.
I’m so glad I’m finally getting around to reading this series. I enjoyed the first two Anne books, and this one was no exception. This one is about Anne’s college years, her relationship with her friends Priscilla and Philippa, and also about her beaux Gilbert and Royal.
Spoilers ahead, but it probably doesn’t matter as most of you have already read the book anyway…
Of course, how could she choose anyone BUT Gilbert? I do wonder why it took her so long to realize that. Besides their relationship, I enjoyed reading about Patty’s Place, Davy’s further development, and all the other girls’ drama. I do think I enjoyed Anne of Avonlea just a bit more than this one, but I still fell in love with Anne of the Island as well. I probably won’t get to the others in the series until next year, but I’ve enjoyed these first three books tremendously.
What a wonderful book! I enjoyed Anne of Green Gables, but I absolutely adored Anne of Avonlea. Now a schoolteacher, Anne is much admired by her students. I loved the sweet descriptions of Anne’s pupils. I enjoyed meeting the new cast of characters as well: Mr. Harrison and his parrot, Miss Lavender and her lovely stone house, the twins Davy and Dora, and the motherless Paul Irving. I anxiously await Anne of the Island.
I listened to the CD read by Barbara Caruso. What an excellent narrator. I wouldn’t hesitate at all to listen to one of her audiobooks again.
Perhaps, after all, romance did not come into one’s life with pomp and blare, like a gay knight riding down; perhaps it crept to one’s side like an old friend through quiet ways; perhaps it revealed itself in seeming prose, until some sudden shaft of illumination flung athwart its pages betrayed the rhythm and the music, perhaps. . . perhaps. . .love unfolded naturally out of a beautiful friendship, as a golden-hearted rose slipping from its green sheath.
Then the veil dropped again; but the Anne who walked up the dark lane was not quite the same Anne who had driven gaily down it the evening before. The page of girlhood had been turned, as by an unseen finger, and the page of womanhood was before her with all its charm and mystery, its pain and gladness.
Hmmm, well, I happened to get this book from the library on the Saturday before the Booker Prize was announced “just in case.” When The White Tiger was revealed as the winner, I was really surprised. Not only did it have the longest odds to win, but I had recently read The Secret Scripture and not-so-secretly hoped it would win. In fact, the committee admitted these two were the main contenders and that the decision was not unanimous.
To be honest, I kind of groaned when I heard Adiga’s book was the winner. I don’t have a love affair at all with the Booker prize winners that I’ve read, so I was a little skeptical that I would enjoy this one. But, being the trooper that I am, I thought I’d give it at least 40 or so pages to see if it could capture my interest.
Surprise, surprise; it did. Not only is it a scathing indictment against India’s treatment of its poorest citizens, it also manages to be a clever black comedy. This is exactly what the prize committee chairman revealed as the reason behind its decision. So which book did I like better, The White Tiger or The Secret Scripture? It’s really comparing apples to oranges. They’re just not the same type of book at all. They both are worthy social commentaries on the authors’ home countries, but just written in a totally different style. While Sebastian Barry’s prose is lyrical, Adiga’s is biting (and comical). They both work spectacularly, just in different ways. I can definitely see why the committee had a difficult decision on its hands, and either one would have been a winner in my book.
How does it fare against the other Booker Prize winners? Well, I definitely enjoyed it more than some of the other winners I’ve read, including:
Starred Reviews: Publisher’s Weekly, Booklist, Library Journal, and Kirkus
2008, 240 pp.
It’s rare that a book gets starred reviews from all four major review publications. Was this book that good; does it really deserve that much attention? Yes, absolutely. I really, really loved it; so much, in fact, that I held off reading the last 20 pages or so for two days because I didn’t want it to be over.
Psychoanalyst Leo Liebenstein thinks his wife Rema has disappeared. Not only that, but he believes she has been replaced by a simulcrum, someone who looks and acts (almost) exactly like her. Meanwhile, Harvey, one of Leo’s mental patients (who believes he has the ability to control the weather) is also missing. Not buying in to the simulcrum’s Rema-like performance, Leo goes to the ends of the earth to Buenos Aires and Patagonia to try to uncover the truth of what has happened to his wife.
I’ll be the first to admit that although I enjoyed this book tremendously, it won’t be to everyone’s tastes. It’s very quirky, very eccentric, but also intelligent and extremely funny. Much of what I found humorous in the novel was due to the fact that I went to Argentina in April, so I was able to get many of the inside jokes about dog poop in the streets, maté tea, Alpha Wh*re Rays, and many other references to Argentinian life. The author had been in South America for a year working on public health issues, so her writing comes from first hand experience in the region. There were, of course, also references to the (not so funny) “Disappeared.”
This is Rivka Galchen’s first novel, and I definitely will be anxiously awaiting whatever she comes up with next. Oh, and if her literary career doesn’t work out (I have no doubt that it will), she can always fall back on her MD that she received from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
Ugh. I thought this was about a teen boy surfing in Australia. I wanted it to be about a teen boy surfing in Australia. And it was, for about 150 pages, then it goes off into a weird and extreme area that I will not mention here. I feel ripped off because I enjoyed the first 3/4 of the book, but then to have to be subjected to…blech.
Pikelet and Loonie are two teenage boys obsessed with surfing. They meet up with Sando, a guy in his mid 30′s who coaches them in the sport and sometimes encourages them to go a little too far with it. Sando’s wife, Eva, was an extreme skier but now has a blown knee. Consequently, she’s bitter because her husband still gets to do what he loves and because he’s not spending any time with her. Breath is about pushing everything in life to the extreme to see how far one can go.
I’m giving it 2 stars because Tim Winton is a good writer and I enjoyed all but the last fourth (which totally ruined the whole thing for me.)
Here’s an example of a passage I did enjoy:
I will always remember my first wave that morning. The smells of paraffin wax and brine and peppy scrub. The way the swell rose beneath me like a body drawing in air. How the wave drew me forward and I sprang to my feet, skating with the wind of momentum in my ears. I leant across the wall of upstanding water and the board came with me as though it was part of my body and mind. The blur of spray. The billion shards of light. I remember the solitary watching figure on the beach and the flash of Loonie’s smile as I flew by; I was intoxicated. And though I’ve lived to be an old man with my own share of happiness for all the mess I made, I still judge every joyous moment, every victory and revelation against those few seconds of living.
by Anne Enright
by Kiran Desai
by John Banville
by Margaret Atwood
Atmospheric Disturbances
Ugh. I thought this was about a teen boy surfing in Australia. I wanted it to be about a teen boy surfing in Australia. And it was, for about 150 pages, then it goes off into a weird and extreme area that I will not mention here. I feel ripped off because I enjoyed the first 3/4 of the book, but then to have to be subjected to…blech.
