This book by Ian McEwan was good but it pales in comparison to
Atonement and
Saturday, which would both be in my top ten favorite books ever. The pacing was hard for me, I felt like I was trudging through thick weedy water. It might be the subject matter, a couple whose toddler daughter is abducted and how they cope, or not, with her loss. It just strikes too close to home and there were parts of the book where I would get very confused as to whether it was real or imagined. Maybe it was the author's way of showing the overwhelming emotions that can debilitate a person when struck with such a loss but I was just very confused at times, when I usually don't have a problem with reading comprehension. Oh well.
Atonement and
Saturday were written after this so I can just hope McEwan's writing will keep getting better with age, I guess I should check out
On Chesil Beach to see if my hope is in fact true.
I bought a copy of
Cookie magazine a month or so ago and that magazine is probably called cookie because if you buy all the stuff they suggest on their glossy slick pages, you will have enough money left to feed a family of four one cookie for the rest of the month. It is crazy rife with conspicuous consumption. Very pretty looking but who, aside from the supermodels and the other beautiful people on the cover every month, could afford it?! That gripe aside, I was drawn to the magazine by the column
on my nightstand by Ayelet Waldman. Her choices and the reasoning behind her choices seemed incredibly insightful, plus she had a great story by Lorrie Moore on her list, whom I love, so I figured we might have similiar tastes with fiction, after all she is married to Michael Chabon, who's one of my favorite writers. So I decided to start with
The Fifth Child because I'm all for creepy and it sounded very creepy and interesting. Oh my, this book was way too creepy for me. After finishing the book, that's really more of a novella it's a short quick read, I wanted to take a shower and scrub myself down I felt so dirty and bad. I know that's a very strange reaction to have to a book but it left me feeling horrible and not with any redemptive uplift to that horror, the way a tragic romance, like
Atonement, will leave you so sad but at the same time mesmerized by the beauty of the story. Nope, this story just repelled me. The writing is fine but the subject matter was too much for me. And I disagree that the family is incredibly happy until the fifth child. They are strapped for money from the start; with every pregnancy, and they come in quick succession, Harriet gets more worn out and wan, needing to rely on her mother more frequently, and David must take on more work in order to make ends meet. There's darkness from the very start of this book but it becomes an all out horror story as soon as Harriet is pregnant with the fifth child and, somehow, gets more horrific once he's born. The only other book that I've read that I had a similiar reaction to was
The Butcher Boy. It's another scrub away the sins after reading.
This book by Ian McEwan was good but it pales in comparison to Atonement and Saturday, which would both be in my top ten favorite books ever. The pacing was hard for me, I felt like I was trudging through thick weedy water. It might be the subject matter, a couple whose toddler daughter is abducted and how they cope, or not, with her loss. It just strikes too close to home and there were parts of the book where I would get very confused as to whether it was real or imagined. Maybe it was the author's way of showing the overwhelming emotions that can debilitate a person when struck with such a loss but I was just very confused at times, when I usually don't have a problem with reading comprehension. Oh well. Atonement and Saturday were written after this so I can just hope McEwan's writing will keep getting better with age, I guess I should check out On Chesil Beach to see if my hope is in fact true.
I bought a copy of Cookie magazine a month or so ago and that magazine is probably called cookie because if you buy all the stuff they suggest on their glossy slick pages, you will have enough money left to feed a family of four one cookie for the rest of the month. It is crazy rife with conspicuous consumption. Very pretty looking but who, aside from the supermodels and the other beautiful people on the cover every month, could afford it?! That gripe aside, I was drawn to the magazine by the column on my nightstand by Ayelet Waldman. Her choices and the reasoning behind her choices seemed incredibly insightful, plus she had a great story by Lorrie Moore on her list, whom I love, so I figured we might have similiar tastes with fiction, after all she is married to Michael Chabon, who's one of my favorite writers. So I decided to start with The Fifth Child because I'm all for creepy and it sounded very creepy and interesting. Oh my, this book was way too creepy for me. After finishing the book, that's really more of a novella it's a short quick read, I wanted to take a shower and scrub myself down I felt so dirty and bad. I know that's a very strange reaction to have to a book but it left me feeling horrible and not with any redemptive uplift to that horror, the way a tragic romance, like Atonement, will leave you so sad but at the same time mesmerized by the beauty of the story. Nope, this story just repelled me. The writing is fine but the subject matter was too much for me. And I disagree that the family is incredibly happy until the fifth child. They are strapped for money from the start; with every pregnancy, and they come in quick succession, Harriet gets more worn out and wan, needing to rely on her mother more frequently, and David must take on more work in order to make ends meet. There's darkness from the very start of this book but it becomes an all out horror story as soon as Harriet is pregnant with the fifth child and, somehow, gets more horrific once he's born. The only other book that I've read that I had a similiar reaction to was The Butcher Boy. It's another scrub away the sins after reading.
2 comments:
thanks for the good book reviews!
although i will be avoiding both of those..
have you ever read any tim winton books? he is my favourite author.
i always wonder how a man can be so in touch with feelings(womens feelings)and express them so well.
i hope that did not sound sexist in any way..it is just such a wonder
i read an amazing review of tim winton's new book, breath, in the wall st journal. it doesn't come out here until the 27th of may but i'm very interested in reading it once it comes out.
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