I wanted to like this book. I liked its literary bias. There were humorous moments and some clever concepts. But basically I really didn't like it. Partly this would be because I don't like science fiction, only occasionally tolerate time travel books, and have only a passing interest in alternative universe concepts. This of course was all that and then some...but I don't think done very well. It seemed cluttered and the pacing seem to hiccup between slow and fast.
I was confused for a long time as to what timeframe the book was in. Once I finally figured out that it was taking place in England somewhere in the 1990s or so...I realized that we were dealing with a completely different concept of what is going on in the world and what has gone on...essentially almost a parallel universe . Very little made sense to me.
I couldn't figure out how in a world where they can time travel and clone dodos and other extinct animals why people are using slow moving dirrigibles to fly around England. If the world was so advanced then why are they still fighting a fairly conventional war in the Crimea.
And why in heavens name are they still fighting over the crimea. And why is Russia still a monarchy. whatever has been going on assumes no soviet union, no rise of communisn? Why? And why would we still be fighting over the crimean peninsula...in today's world it is of no value.
all these things really spoiled the book for me. I think if she had placed the story somewhere in the future and hadn't distorted previous known history that I might have liked the book. I did like the dodos, plock, plock. Although, once was enough.
The whole bookworm idea...was kind of cute...and provided an interesting concept (to be able to enter a book)...this was oddly the part of the book that worked best for me. The whole way she "influences" the content of Jane Eyre. Although if the reader had never read Jane Eyre...much of the cleverness of this bit would be lost.
And I didn't buy the romance with the old boyfriend. Its been 10 years...there is a lot of water under the bridge...and then pow...they are back together to tidy up the end of the book. hmmm.
At least it was short!
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
The Next Book is...
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde - "Filled with clever wordplay, literary allusion and bibliowit, The Eyre Affair combines elements of Monty Python, Harry Potter, Stephen Hawking and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But its quirky charm is all its own." ~ The Wall Street Journal
How can you NOT want to read this after a review like that!?
How can you NOT want to read this after a review like that!?
Monday, November 10, 2008
Ahab's Wife
I have to admit that at first I just could not get into this book at all. I did not like the plot and actually contemplated not reading the book at all and just looking up information online on Sparknotes or something like that. However, once I got about 50 pages in, it started to get more interesting and then I was able to decide that I liked the book. I won't say that it is a favorite or even one that I would want to read again, but I was able to find it interesting and ultimately read through it all.
I grew to like the character of Una, and like you both have mentioned, I liked how she tells us that she started her story when she did so that she wouldn't get too stressed about knowing they were coming. Una had a difficult life, but I was able to empathize with her many times and liked the way she thought much of the time. I enjoyed the characters of Kit & Giles, though I was ultimately saddened by their fates. Neither handled the way their lives changed very well and they both dealt with it in very different ways than Una. She was able to take the challenging situations that life dealt her and grow stronger and more whole from them, rather than crumbling in the face of difficulty and choosing death or madness like Giles & Kit.
Though the cannibalism and intimate relationship alluded to between Kit & Giles was bothersome, I did not have the same aversion to it that Kelly mentions. I think that both situations make a lot of sense for their settings. Though I in no way condone it, I can see why many sailors would resort to physical relationships when out at sea for often years at a time. It was similar to ways that their women dealt with that loss of physical relationship with the "He's at home".
In regards to the cannibalism, though gruesome, without it Una, Kit & Giles would not have survived...and ultimately, because of this being in her past, Una was able to feel more of a kinship with Ahab and he with her. "It may well be that in the heart of man there is a goodness that is divine...but that is only half. The other hald is the Betrayer, the Liar, the Murderer, the Fornicator, the Cannibal, the Prince of Darkness. And I know, by thunder, that I have kinship there. It's that half of me that wants to be called brother...'Brother' I said. 'Do you call me brother, Una? You do not know me.' 'I have said what I have said...'"
Though she was not pleased that she had resorted to eating her fellow man, Una was able to see it for the necessity that it was and move on with her life. "What had happened was terrible beyond anything I could have imagined, and yet...and yet...I had lived." It bound her together with Kit & Giles in a way that kept them close, and also ultimately drove them apart. She mentions once ""I did not want to see in their eyes the reflection of what we had done together." But later she mentions this - "We three had become...a firm knot...Our loyalty to each other firmed us against the world of other men and nature...Having survived, our spirits demanded that which we granted to the other but could not grant ourselves...We would come to want, entangled again, from each other the love that we could not grant ourselves...that what I am, disgraced or blessed, came from what I was, goes to what I yet may be."
She did feel the need to share it with a few select people which seemed to give her some peace and forgiveness for the choices she had made. When she shared with Charlotte, the response was "I'm glad...whatever it took to bring you here and alive. I'm glad, Una Sparrow. And I will never tell." And when she shared with David "'I am a cannibal...in the strictest sense of the word.' 'How?' "At sea. In an open boat.' 'I forgive you'...'and I you'" She mentions soon after this "How many time, I asked myself, must I tell and be forgiven?...How was it the heart decided whom to tell?...Yet sometimes, as with Charlotte and David, my soul would have shriveled if I had not confessed. And to Ahab? Ah, he knew. He knew without having to be told."
I feel like this story gives more sensitivity and likeability to the character of Ahab. Though I have never read Moby Dick and really do not intend to ever read it, I feel like this side of the story was much more intriguing and well-rounded. After Ahab lost his leg..."how angrily he trod his world!...Anger, it seemed, was his only antidote to despair." Though he loved Una, she could not compete with his need to kill that whale and Una knew this desire would steal Ahab from her at least mentally, if not physically.
The night she stared at the stars and realized Ahab was gone, she says..."And yet I could not weep. This knowing - too quiet for tears...an inland sea...contained...a wide, quiet pool of unverifiable knowing." "In the dark of the moon, the heavens aglitter with stars, I gradually made my peace, lived through and beyond a slow grieving." Later after she knows for certain that Ahab is gone, she "wept into the sand for my Theseus, slain by the beast, because he could not find his way out of the labyrinth of revenge." I also liked how Ishmael became Una's last love and that they mentioned both of them writing their stories, but from different perspectives.
I very much enjoyed Una's time at the lighthouse with her relatives. It helped to know her history and how it shaped her for the future. I also loved her relationship with her mother and was saddened when she died. Her relatives made an impact on who Una became, though she was her own person, regardless of what others thought she should be. She mentions at the beginning, in regard to her aunt and mother "I later came to think that they both knew the foolishness of the world, to which Agatha remained unyielding while my mother, less certain that any view could be absolute, responded with pliant accommodation...I rather regretted that I did not myself have a sister who was a friend and with whom I could compare myself, the better to understand both my singularity and our commonality."
I also want to share a few quotes that I liked which did not necessarily fit into any of the topics that I mentioned above.
"People are always composed of a combination of the real and the abstract...we make each other up." (Kit)
"Is our life determined for us, or do we choose? Some of both. Some of both - the answer came clean and simple to my mind." (Una)
"I have ever feard the weathervane in me. Sometimes I point toward Independence, isolation. Sometimes I rotate - my back to Independence - and I need and want my friends, my family, with a force like a gale...I do not count myself fickle, for I have much loyalty in me, but I am changeable." (Una)
"Sometimes I like the public space...It's where the most private things can be said, confidentially." (Charlotte)
"I was not entirely pure, and to this day I feel some guilt and discomfort over that issue. But human beings are morally complex, women as well as men, and I must live with that." (Una)
"As a girl rebelling against my father's dogma, I had scoffed at Job for accepting God's consolation of a new wife and new children. But I, most Joblike, when Giles was dead, embraced Kit, and when Kit conveyed that he was not coming back, it was the messenger himself, Ahab, whom I immediately loved. If Mother and Liberty were gone, then here was Susan to unburden me of love. Not to be loved but to love lightened my load of grief and gave value and direction to my life." (Una)
"Where we choose to be, where we choose to be - we have that power to determine our lives. We cannot reel time backward or forward, but we can take ourselves to the place that defines our being." (Una)
I grew to like the character of Una, and like you both have mentioned, I liked how she tells us that she started her story when she did so that she wouldn't get too stressed about knowing they were coming. Una had a difficult life, but I was able to empathize with her many times and liked the way she thought much of the time. I enjoyed the characters of Kit & Giles, though I was ultimately saddened by their fates. Neither handled the way their lives changed very well and they both dealt with it in very different ways than Una. She was able to take the challenging situations that life dealt her and grow stronger and more whole from them, rather than crumbling in the face of difficulty and choosing death or madness like Giles & Kit.
Though the cannibalism and intimate relationship alluded to between Kit & Giles was bothersome, I did not have the same aversion to it that Kelly mentions. I think that both situations make a lot of sense for their settings. Though I in no way condone it, I can see why many sailors would resort to physical relationships when out at sea for often years at a time. It was similar to ways that their women dealt with that loss of physical relationship with the "He's at home".
In regards to the cannibalism, though gruesome, without it Una, Kit & Giles would not have survived...and ultimately, because of this being in her past, Una was able to feel more of a kinship with Ahab and he with her. "It may well be that in the heart of man there is a goodness that is divine...but that is only half. The other hald is the Betrayer, the Liar, the Murderer, the Fornicator, the Cannibal, the Prince of Darkness. And I know, by thunder, that I have kinship there. It's that half of me that wants to be called brother...'Brother' I said. 'Do you call me brother, Una? You do not know me.' 'I have said what I have said...'"
Though she was not pleased that she had resorted to eating her fellow man, Una was able to see it for the necessity that it was and move on with her life. "What had happened was terrible beyond anything I could have imagined, and yet...and yet...I had lived." It bound her together with Kit & Giles in a way that kept them close, and also ultimately drove them apart. She mentions once ""I did not want to see in their eyes the reflection of what we had done together." But later she mentions this - "We three had become...a firm knot...Our loyalty to each other firmed us against the world of other men and nature...Having survived, our spirits demanded that which we granted to the other but could not grant ourselves...We would come to want, entangled again, from each other the love that we could not grant ourselves...that what I am, disgraced or blessed, came from what I was, goes to what I yet may be."
She did feel the need to share it with a few select people which seemed to give her some peace and forgiveness for the choices she had made. When she shared with Charlotte, the response was "I'm glad...whatever it took to bring you here and alive. I'm glad, Una Sparrow. And I will never tell." And when she shared with David "'I am a cannibal...in the strictest sense of the word.' 'How?' "At sea. In an open boat.' 'I forgive you'...'and I you'" She mentions soon after this "How many time, I asked myself, must I tell and be forgiven?...How was it the heart decided whom to tell?...Yet sometimes, as with Charlotte and David, my soul would have shriveled if I had not confessed. And to Ahab? Ah, he knew. He knew without having to be told."
I feel like this story gives more sensitivity and likeability to the character of Ahab. Though I have never read Moby Dick and really do not intend to ever read it, I feel like this side of the story was much more intriguing and well-rounded. After Ahab lost his leg..."how angrily he trod his world!...Anger, it seemed, was his only antidote to despair." Though he loved Una, she could not compete with his need to kill that whale and Una knew this desire would steal Ahab from her at least mentally, if not physically.
The night she stared at the stars and realized Ahab was gone, she says..."And yet I could not weep. This knowing - too quiet for tears...an inland sea...contained...a wide, quiet pool of unverifiable knowing." "In the dark of the moon, the heavens aglitter with stars, I gradually made my peace, lived through and beyond a slow grieving." Later after she knows for certain that Ahab is gone, she "wept into the sand for my Theseus, slain by the beast, because he could not find his way out of the labyrinth of revenge." I also liked how Ishmael became Una's last love and that they mentioned both of them writing their stories, but from different perspectives.
I very much enjoyed Una's time at the lighthouse with her relatives. It helped to know her history and how it shaped her for the future. I also loved her relationship with her mother and was saddened when she died. Her relatives made an impact on who Una became, though she was her own person, regardless of what others thought she should be. She mentions at the beginning, in regard to her aunt and mother "I later came to think that they both knew the foolishness of the world, to which Agatha remained unyielding while my mother, less certain that any view could be absolute, responded with pliant accommodation...I rather regretted that I did not myself have a sister who was a friend and with whom I could compare myself, the better to understand both my singularity and our commonality."
I also want to share a few quotes that I liked which did not necessarily fit into any of the topics that I mentioned above.
"People are always composed of a combination of the real and the abstract...we make each other up." (Kit)
"Is our life determined for us, or do we choose? Some of both. Some of both - the answer came clean and simple to my mind." (Una)
"I have ever feard the weathervane in me. Sometimes I point toward Independence, isolation. Sometimes I rotate - my back to Independence - and I need and want my friends, my family, with a force like a gale...I do not count myself fickle, for I have much loyalty in me, but I am changeable." (Una)
"Sometimes I like the public space...It's where the most private things can be said, confidentially." (Charlotte)
"I was not entirely pure, and to this day I feel some guilt and discomfort over that issue. But human beings are morally complex, women as well as men, and I must live with that." (Una)
"As a girl rebelling against my father's dogma, I had scoffed at Job for accepting God's consolation of a new wife and new children. But I, most Joblike, when Giles was dead, embraced Kit, and when Kit conveyed that he was not coming back, it was the messenger himself, Ahab, whom I immediately loved. If Mother and Liberty were gone, then here was Susan to unburden me of love. Not to be loved but to love lightened my load of grief and gave value and direction to my life." (Una)
"Where we choose to be, where we choose to be - we have that power to determine our lives. We cannot reel time backward or forward, but we can take ourselves to the place that defines our being." (Una)
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Ahab's Wife
I flew through the first half of this book – absolutely loved it. When the story took what I call the “icky twist”, I started to lose interest, though I did finish with an overall good opinion. I realize that, in order to be the kind of person to attract and meld with Ahab, Una needed to have dealt with some tough things, but the whole cannibalism thing wasn’t my cup of tea, nor were the issues that Kit and Giles dealt with afterwards. I thought it was completely unnecessary to allude to an intimate encounter between the two of them. Like I said, icky! I was glad when Kit ran away and Una could finally be with someone who matched her perfectly.
I love all the descriptions of color – they’re so rich. “The fragile colors of dawn” In fact, all of the authors descriptions seem full.
The situation between Una and her father was terrible and most of her recollections of him were very sad, but one thing she talked about stuck with me and is something I’d like to remember for myself! The golden gloves – pretending to put on the golden rule “Do unto others as you” (one hand) “would have them to do” (second hand) “unto you” (wrist buttons) as gloves. “Whenever you do wrong, Una, the gloves come off. You must then say the verse again and put them on with new resolve.”
The author put so many allusions (cynical!) to the Bible, Christian beliefs and random religious thoughts throughout the story, I can’t hardly begin to mention them all, but here’s one that I thought memorable:
After Una first climbed the Lighthouse: “From that moment, my appreciation of the Lighthouse changed from reverence for its imposing presence, as we below moved around it, to affection. It admitted me to its interior. With the work of my own legs, it elevated me. I shared the splendor of its view. Knowing the structure from the inside, I loved it and counted it more friend and father.”
Another quote: “Home? she chuckled. “I have made my home wherever I am. … And I advise you to do the same.” Una takes this advice to heart and does find a way to make her home wherever she is. Similar to the quote/idea that you liked, Aunt Annette!
The story went back and forth in time quite a bit, but it all comes together into a coherent picture. I like that the author lets us know why Una tells her story in the order that she does – her most painful moments first. I like that pretty much all the ends are tied up – we get to find out what happens to Susan, David, Una’s neighbors; and we can see pretty much how Kit turns out. And I love how the book ends, bringing Una and Ishmael together; a neat tie to Melville’s story (which she does throughout the book, of course). I’ve never read Moby Dick, but this story almost makes me want to – not quite, though, because I even lost interest in the excerpts at the beginning!
I love all the descriptions of color – they’re so rich. “The fragile colors of dawn” In fact, all of the authors descriptions seem full.
The situation between Una and her father was terrible and most of her recollections of him were very sad, but one thing she talked about stuck with me and is something I’d like to remember for myself! The golden gloves – pretending to put on the golden rule “Do unto others as you” (one hand) “would have them to do” (second hand) “unto you” (wrist buttons) as gloves. “Whenever you do wrong, Una, the gloves come off. You must then say the verse again and put them on with new resolve.”
The author put so many allusions (cynical!) to the Bible, Christian beliefs and random religious thoughts throughout the story, I can’t hardly begin to mention them all, but here’s one that I thought memorable:
After Una first climbed the Lighthouse: “From that moment, my appreciation of the Lighthouse changed from reverence for its imposing presence, as we below moved around it, to affection. It admitted me to its interior. With the work of my own legs, it elevated me. I shared the splendor of its view. Knowing the structure from the inside, I loved it and counted it more friend and father.”
Another quote: “Home? she chuckled. “I have made my home wherever I am. … And I advise you to do the same.” Una takes this advice to heart and does find a way to make her home wherever she is. Similar to the quote/idea that you liked, Aunt Annette!
The story went back and forth in time quite a bit, but it all comes together into a coherent picture. I like that the author lets us know why Una tells her story in the order that she does – her most painful moments first. I like that pretty much all the ends are tied up – we get to find out what happens to Susan, David, Una’s neighbors; and we can see pretty much how Kit turns out. And I love how the book ends, bringing Una and Ishmael together; a neat tie to Melville’s story (which she does throughout the book, of course). I’ve never read Moby Dick, but this story almost makes me want to – not quite, though, because I even lost interest in the excerpts at the beginning!
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Annette's Review (from Saigon)
Hi Keri and Kelly. Here are my thoughts on the book. I finished it a few weeks ago (started it on the plane over hear) and I've decided to leave it in the hotel's "library" because its so big and heavy (and I need the space/weight for souvenir/gifts). so I need to do my review now, while I still have the book.
I loved the book and found it fascinating. I did think there were a few sections of the book that could have easily been trimmed (I found myself skimming those sections which was unusual for the book) but they were only occasional and didn't spoil the book for me.
By far my favorite sentence out of the whole book was when Una says "I live the life that is before me". I can so relate to that thought and plan to incorporate it into my "signature" for my email. And it says everything about how Una faced her life despite its ups and downs and unexpected turns.
I thought the book was very ambitious covering so much ground...literally kentucky to nantucket and figuatively: slavery to religions to whaling. The book could have run aground (using a nautical analogy) but it managed to "stay afloat" and mostly did so in an interesting and intriguing manner. Ultimately it was about the strong and the weak for me. those people who "live the life that is before them" and those who fight it or run from it or refuse to acknowledge it.
I found much of the author's writing to be wonderfully vivid and descriptive. Early on in the book I loved her description of the ice on the river (that Susan was crossing) when she says that "it seemd to me that Susan was walking on clouds in a black sky". Her descriptions of the lighthouse and its island were wonderful...I could almost smell the damp stone when she described it.
I liked her descriptions of nantucket. We've spent time on Cape Cod and nantucket today seems like a small isolated island out past Cape Cod occupied by summer people and "loners". It takes 2 hours to get to by ferry. And if Cape Cod seems laid back it seems that nantucket is on the edge of the earth. However. I realize that in the days of ships before trains and planes that the towns along the "edge of the earth"...the harbors were where it was all happening. And that Nantucket was an important port between Long Island and Boston. so its interesting to think of all the different churches, philsophies, and lecturers that inhabited and were debated in what today is a very sleepy town. However what is the same is that Nantucket people (as with much of Cape Cod) are fiercely independent...I can see where that came from.
I thought her description of the whale ship tragedy and resulting cannibalism and the further resulting "secrets" was really well handled. She covered the range of emotions and reactions. I liked that Una was practical about it and didn't let that tragedy make the remainder of her life a tragedy as it did Kit's.
And I liked the clever twist at the end...with her meeting and marrying "Ishmael"...and their writing each of their own books...this one and...of course...Moby Dick.
I know I haven't covered all of the book here...her relationship with Susan, her father, and her relationship with Ahab. but I'll let you two write first...and then maybe I will add some more.
One relationship and story line that I thought didn't add much to the book and perhaps bogged it down was her friendship with the woman in Boston, Margaret Fuller. And all the related story lines of her going to concord and running into Nathaniel Hawthorne, etc. Although somewhat interesting I thought it was a ltitle contrived and did not advance the true story very much.
Bottom line. I would have liked to have known Una...I admire her as a woman and respect her as a human being. It was nice to spend time with her.
I loved the book and found it fascinating. I did think there were a few sections of the book that could have easily been trimmed (I found myself skimming those sections which was unusual for the book) but they were only occasional and didn't spoil the book for me.
By far my favorite sentence out of the whole book was when Una says "I live the life that is before me". I can so relate to that thought and plan to incorporate it into my "signature" for my email. And it says everything about how Una faced her life despite its ups and downs and unexpected turns.
I thought the book was very ambitious covering so much ground...literally kentucky to nantucket and figuatively: slavery to religions to whaling. The book could have run aground (using a nautical analogy) but it managed to "stay afloat" and mostly did so in an interesting and intriguing manner. Ultimately it was about the strong and the weak for me. those people who "live the life that is before them" and those who fight it or run from it or refuse to acknowledge it.
I found much of the author's writing to be wonderfully vivid and descriptive. Early on in the book I loved her description of the ice on the river (that Susan was crossing) when she says that "it seemd to me that Susan was walking on clouds in a black sky". Her descriptions of the lighthouse and its island were wonderful...I could almost smell the damp stone when she described it.
I liked her descriptions of nantucket. We've spent time on Cape Cod and nantucket today seems like a small isolated island out past Cape Cod occupied by summer people and "loners". It takes 2 hours to get to by ferry. And if Cape Cod seems laid back it seems that nantucket is on the edge of the earth. However. I realize that in the days of ships before trains and planes that the towns along the "edge of the earth"...the harbors were where it was all happening. And that Nantucket was an important port between Long Island and Boston. so its interesting to think of all the different churches, philsophies, and lecturers that inhabited and were debated in what today is a very sleepy town. However what is the same is that Nantucket people (as with much of Cape Cod) are fiercely independent...I can see where that came from.
I thought her description of the whale ship tragedy and resulting cannibalism and the further resulting "secrets" was really well handled. She covered the range of emotions and reactions. I liked that Una was practical about it and didn't let that tragedy make the remainder of her life a tragedy as it did Kit's.
And I liked the clever twist at the end...with her meeting and marrying "Ishmael"...and their writing each of their own books...this one and...of course...Moby Dick.
I know I haven't covered all of the book here...her relationship with Susan, her father, and her relationship with Ahab. but I'll let you two write first...and then maybe I will add some more.
One relationship and story line that I thought didn't add much to the book and perhaps bogged it down was her friendship with the woman in Boston, Margaret Fuller. And all the related story lines of her going to concord and running into Nathaniel Hawthorne, etc. Although somewhat interesting I thought it was a ltitle contrived and did not advance the true story very much.
Bottom line. I would have liked to have known Una...I admire her as a woman and respect her as a human being. It was nice to spend time with her.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
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