Looking Back - The Hours

 Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

The Hours by Michael Cunningham

1998

Fiction

Finished on April 17, 2002

Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that became a motion picture starring Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, and Nicole Kidman, directed by Stephen Daldry from a screenplay by David Hare.

In The Hours, Michael Cunningham, widely praised as one of the most gifted writers of his generation, draws inventively on the life and work of Virginia Woolf to tell the story of a group of contemporary characters struggling with the conflicting claims of love and inheritance, hope and despair. The narrative of Woolf's last days before her suicide early in World War II counterpoints the fictional stories of Samuel, a famous poet whose life has been shadowed by his talented and troubled mother, and his lifelong friend Clarissa, who strives to forge a balanced and rewarding life in spite of the demands of friends, lovers, and family.

Passionate, profound, and deeply moving, this is Cunningham's most remarkable achievement to date.

My Original Thoughts (2002):

Very imaginative and enjoyable. Much easier to read than Mrs. Dalloway, but I'm glad I read that or I would have missed too much in The Hours. A surprise ending, although I should have known! "...the story of three women: Clarissa Vaughan, who one New York morning goes about planning a party in honor of a beloved friend; Laura Brown, who in a 1950s Los Angeles suburb slowly begins to feel the constraints of a perfect family and home; and Virginia Woolf, recuperating with her husband in a London suburb, and beginning to write Mrs. Dalloway." "Seamless transitions. Clarissa's day mirrors Mrs. Dalloway's... with, however, an appropriate degree of modern beveling..." Did you know that The Hours was Virginia Woolf's working title for Mrs. Dalloway?

My Current Thoughts:

I feel as if I've written about The Hours and Mrs. Dalloway more than once on this blog. I'd completely forgotten that I'd re-read The Hours just last year! (Reviewed here.) I doubt I'll read Mrs. Dalloway again, but I am looking forward to making time to watch the film version of The Hours. 

Olive Kitteridge - Reread

 

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

Fiction

2008

Finished on March 22, 2025

Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

At times stern, at other times patient, at times perceptive, at other times in sad denial, Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher, deplores the changes in her little town of Crosby, Maine, and in the world at large, but she doesn’t always recognize the changes in those around her: a lounge musician haunted by a past romance; a former student who has lost the will to live; Olive’s own adult child, who feels tyrannized by her irrational sensitivities; and her husband, Henry, who finds his loyalty to his marriage both a blessing and a curse.

As the townspeople grapple with their own problems, mild and dire, Olive is brought to a deeper understanding of herself and her life—sometimes painfully, but always with ruthless honesty. Olive Kitteridge offers profound insights into the human condition—its conflicts, its tragedies and joys, and the endurance it requires.

It's been a little over a decade since I read Olive Kitteridge, so my second time felt almost like reading a new book. Over the years, I had forgotten a lot of the details of the stories in which Olive is not the main focus, but the overall premise of the book was etched in my mind after watching the miniseries (starring Frances McDormand). The bleak vignettes, and Olive's unlikeable character, make for a melancholic read, but I grew to like Olive and was left with a sense of hope as I read the final pages.

My earlier review of Olive Kitteridge can be found here. I gave the book a slightly higher rating in 2014, but not by much.

The Hours

 

The Hours by Michael Cunningham

Fiction

1998

Finished on May 29, 2024

Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that became a motion picture starring Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, and Nicole Kidman, directed by Stephen Daldry from a screenplay by David Hare.

Passionate, profound, and deeply moving, The Hours is the story of three women: Clarissa Vaughan, who one New York morning goes about planning a party in honor of a beloved friend; Laura Brown, who in a 1950s Los Angeles suburb slowly begins to feel the constraints of a perfect family and home; and Virginia Woolf, recuperating with her husband in a London suburb, and beginning to write Mrs. Dalloway. By the end of the novel, the stories have intertwined, and finally come together in an act of subtle and haunting grace, demonstrating Michael Cunningham's deep empathy for his characters as well as the extraordinary resonance of his prose. 

After reading Michael Cunningham's latest novel (Day) this past March, I was inspired to pick up my copy of The Hours (which I read in 2002) and give it a second reading. It was as enjoyable as the first time I read it, and I was just as surprised with the twist at the end of the novel as I was the first time around! I'm now eager to re-read Mrs Dalloway and re-watch the movie adaptation of The Hours, which as I recall was outstanding. I am also, once again, motivated to start reading The Measure of Life: Virginia Woolf's Last Years by Herbert Marder, which has languished on my shelves since 2007! 

Demon Copperhead

 

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

Fiction

2022

Finished on April 12, 2024

Rating: 5/5 (Outstanding!)

Publisher's Blurb:

Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.

Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can't imagine leaving behind.

I received an ARC of Demon Copperhead in 2022. The size of Barbara Kingsolver's latest novel, as well as the subject matter, made me hesitant to pick it up. I loaned the book to my mom, who told me she hated it. I loaned it to my husband, who gave up after reading a dozen or so chapters. So, it continued to languish on my nightstand, in spite of my affection for Kingsolver's books. I have read all of her novels (with the exception of The Lacuna), and many are on my list for re-reading (Flight Behavior, The Poisonwood Bible, Pigs in Heaven), so why was I so reticent to start this particular book? I'm sure I would have eventually picked it up, but when my book club selected it for our June discussion, that was nudge I needed. Realizing that it would take me a couple of weeks to read, I decided to start before our RV trip to California, knowing I would have several days of uninterrupted reading once we were on the road. Little did I know that this book would consume my waking thoughts and dreams for the next two weeks. 

I love that Kingsolver tells this tale exclusively from Demon's point of view. I quickly came to care about this resilient young boy, heartbroken over the terrible cards that were dealt to him, his mother, and many of the folks in his life. The situations that claim Demon's innocence, as well as the fragmented sentences which make up the early dialogue in the novel, held me in thrall. With each new turn of events, I couldn't help but wonder if life would ever improve for Demon. Even when it looked like he had finally found a good family situation, I worried about the other shoe falling, forcing him back out on his own, struggling to survive the cruelties of society.

I know this must be a difficult (if not impossible) read for anyone touched by the opioid crisis, and I have to admit that there were times when I didn't think I could continue reading. But Kingsolver's prose, while at times perhaps heavy-handed, never felt didactic or gratuitous. She has written an engrossing and important story, which is not merely entertainment, but rather sheds light on a serious societal problem. For this reason, the Pulitzer Prize is well-deserved. I'm eager to hear how others in my book club felt about the book and anticipate a thought-provoking discussion.

I hadn't considered reading David Copperfield before picking up Demon Copperhead, but now I'm curious to give the former a read in order to find the connections between the two stories. I'm also interested in watching Dopesick, which I understand to be an excellent series.

Passages of note:

I made my peace with the place, but never went a day without feeling around for things that weren't there, the way your tongue pushes into the holes where you've lost teeth. I don't just mean cows, or trees, it runs deeper. Weather, for instance. Air, the way it smells from having living things breathing into it, grass and trees and I don't know what, creatures of the soil. Sounds I missed most of all. There was noise, but nothing behind it. I couldn't get used to the blankness where there should have been bird gossip morning and evening, crickets at night, the buzz saw of cicadas in August. A rooster always sounding off somewhere, even dead in the middle of Jonesville. It's like the movie background music. Notice it or don't but if the volume goes out, the movie has no heart. I'd oftentimes have to stop and ask myself what season it was. I never realized what was holding me to my place on the planet of earth: that soundtrack. That, and leaf colors and what's blooming in the roadside ditches this week, wild sweet peas or purple ironweed or goldenrod. And stars. A sky as dark as sleep, not this hazy pinkish business, I'm saying blind man's black. For a lot of us, that's medicine. Required for the daily reboot. (Demon's thoughts on living in a city.)

and

"Certain pitiful souls around here see whiteness as their last asset that hasn’t been totaled or repossessed."

and

“It’s not something to fix,” he said. “It means strong. Outside of all expectation.” I looked at him. He looked at me. His hands were on his desk with the fingers touching, a tiny cage with air inside. Black hands. The knuckles almost blue-black. Silver wedding ring. He said, “You know, sometimes you hear about these miracles, where a car gets completely mangled in a wreck. But then the driver walks out of it alive? I’m saying you are that driver.”

An affecting and memorable coming-of-age tale which I doubt will ever leave me. Highly recommend!

Novelists like Kingsolver have a particular knack for making us empathize with lives that may bear little resemblance to our own. ~ Salon

Spoiler Alert: 

I was pleased with the hopeful ending...

The Nickel Boys

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
Fiction
2019 Doubleday
Finished on June 15, 2020
Rating: 3/5 (Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

Winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

As the Civil Rights movement begins to reach the black enclave of Frenchtown in segregated Tallahassee, Elwood Curtis takes the words of Dr. Martin Luther King to heart: He is “as good as anyone.” Abandoned by his parents, but kept on the straight and narrow by his grandmother, Elwood is a high school senior about to start classes at a local college. But for a black boy in the Jim Crow South of the early 1960s, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy the future. Elwood is sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, whose mission statement says it provides “physical, intellectual and moral training” so the delinquent boys in their charge can become “honorable and honest men.”

In reality, the Nickel Academy is a grotesque chamber of horrors. Stunned to find himself in such a vicious environment, Elwood tries to hold onto Dr. King’s ringing assertion “Throw us in jail and we will still love you.” His friend Turner thinks Elwood is worse than naive, that the world is crooked, and that the only way to survive is to scheme and avoid trouble.

The tension between Elwood’s ideals and Turner’s skepticism leads to a decision with repercussions that will echo down the decades. Formed in the crucible of the evils Jim Crow wrought, the boys’ fates will be determined by what they endured at the Nickel Academy.

The book is based on the real story of a reform school in Florida that operated for one hundred and eleven years and warped the lives of thousands of children.

I received a copy of The Nickel Boys for my birthday and decided to add it to my stack of books for this year's 20 Books of Summer reading challenge. Colson Whitehead's previous novel, The Underground Railroad, has been on my radar since it was first published, but I hadn't heard much about this newer release, which is based on the real story of the Dozier School in Florida. 

The hardcover edition is just over 200 pages and a fast reader could finish it in one sitting. I'm not terribly quick, but the first half was so compelling, I zipped through the book in two days. Whitehead's detailed descriptions of the brutal treatment of the boys (both Black and white) in his fictionalized juvenile reformatory are not for the faint of heart. I felt a great sense of foreboding as I read, and noticed that I was holding my breath as I turned the pages. The second half of the book jumps back and forth between past and present, which I found somewhat disruptive and confusing, but once I finished the book, I understood Whitehead's reasoning for that format and applaud him for the startling conclusion. This is a tough, but important book, and while I'm not sorry I read it, it's not one that I enjoyed.

Looking Back - The Color Purple

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Fiction
1982 Washington Square Press
Finished on March 8, 1996
Rating: 5/5 (Superb!)
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 1983
National Book Award for Fiction 1983




Publisher's Blurb:

Published to unprecedented acclaim, The Color Purple established Alice Walker as a major voice in modern fiction. This is the story of two sisters—one a missionary in Africa and the other a child wife living in the South—who sustain their loyalty to and trust in each other across time, distance, and silence. Beautifully imagined and deeply compassionate, this classic novel of American literature is rich with passion, pain, inspiration, and an indomitable love of life.

My Original Notes:

Superb! I couldn't put it down. Saw the movie when it first came out (1984) and liked it. Some of it [the book] made me think of Beloved by Toni Morrison. I rented the video to watch again, since it's been 12 years. Highly recommend!

My Current Thoughts:

Well, I thought I still had a copy of this book, but I can't locate it anywhere, so maybe I decided it wasn't one I was going to read again. Actually, I think I did read it a second time, but it must have been prior to the creation of this blog. I sure don’t remember much about this book, though, and only have a vague recollection of the movie.

I haven't read anything else by Alice Walker, but I'm open to recommendations.

Looking Back - Beloved

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

Beloved by Toni Morrison
Fiction
1987 Plume
Finished in February 1996
Rating: 5/5 (Outstanding!)
Pulitzer Prize Winner (1988)





Publisher's Blurb:

Sethe. Proud and beautiful, she escaped from slavery but is haunted by its heritage. She must deal with this haunted life on every level, from the fires of the flesh to the heartbreaking challenges to the spirit. Set in rural Ohio several years after the Civil War, this profoundly affecting chronicle of slavery and its aftermath is Toni Morrison's greatest novel, a dazzling achievement, and the most spellbinding reading experience of the decade.

My Original Notes:

Excellent! Very powerful. I read it in less than a week. It started off a little bit confusing. The setting or time period jumped around, as well as the narrator. Once I got in a few chapters, I could understand what was going on a little better. Lots of symbolism. Another story about ghosts. [We had just read The Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan.] I found the book to be a real eye-opener about the treatment of slaves before and after the Civil War. I'm anxious to read more of Morrison's works!

My Current Thoughts:

Beloved is another novel that my small book group read and discussed back in 1996. I remember how much this book affected me, with Morrison's powerful prose and storytelling, and I can still picture many of the scenes, even after the passage of twenty years. I have read (and attempted to read) other books by Toni Morrison, but after one failed attempt I decided she is an author I no longer wish to read. However, I could be convinced to re-read Beloved, especially for another book club discussion. Highly recommend and believe it should be required reading for all.

Have you read this Pulitzer Prize winner? What is your favorite Morrison book?

Olive Kitteridge

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
Fiction
2008 Random House
Finished on November 26, 2014
Rating: 4.5/5 (Terrific!)
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize




Publisher’s Blurb:

At times stern, at other times patient, at times perceptive, at other times in sad denial, Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher, deplores the changes in her little town of Crosby, Maine, and in the world at large, but she doesn’t always recognize the changes in those around her: a lounge musician haunted by a past romance; a former student who has lost the will to live; Olive’s own adult child, who feels tyrannized by her irrational sensitivities; and her husband, Henry, who finds his loyalty to his marriage both a blessing and a curse.

As the townspeople grapple with their own problems, mild and dire, Olive is brought to a deeper understanding of herself and her life—sometimes painfully, but always with ruthless honesty. Olive Kitteridge offers profound insights into the human condition—its conflicts, its tragedies and joys, and the endurance it requires.

A few years ago, I tried to listen the audio version of Olive Kitteridge, but I was so bored, I quickly gave it up. I was disappointed that such a popular book had left me cold and disinterested, but I had a print edition on my shelf that I just wasn’t ready to get rid of. I really did want to give it another chance after hearing so many of my trusted friends rave about it. When I saw the preview for the HBO mini-series, starring Frances McDormand, I knew it was time to give it another try.

Elizabeth Strout’s collection of 13 stories is set in Maine, centered loosely around Olive Kitteridge. Each vignette is filled with an overwhelming sense of melancholy, as the individual characters struggle with their own challenges in life, and by the end of the fourth chapter, I was beginning to wonder if I wanted to continue reading. I’m so glad I did, as this book turned out to be one of my favorite reads of 2014!

I fell in love with Strout’s writing, re-reading passages two or three times in one sitting, the characters and setting coming alive on the page, so vivid in my mind's eye that I hope the movie lives up to my expectations.

On Morning Drives:

For many years Henry Kitteridge was a pharmacist in the next town over, driving every morning on snowy roads, or rainy roads, or summertime roads, when the wild raspberries shot their new growth in brambles along the last section of town before he turned off to where the wider road led to the pharmacy. Retired now, he still wakes early and remembers how mornings used to be his favorite, as though the world were his secret, tires rumbling softly beneath him and the light emerging through the early fog, the brief sight of the bay off to his right, then the pines, tall and slender, and almost always he rode with the window partly open because he loved the smell of the pines and the heavy salt air, and in the winter he loved the smell of the cold.

I didn’t care for Olive when she was first introduced in the stories, but she began to grow on me and I found myself feeling sympathetic toward her and her disappointments in life, in spite of her brash, outspoken personality. This woman has no filter!

On Hope:

And then as the little plane climbed higher and Olive saw spread out below them fields of bright and tender green in this morning sun, farther out the coastline, the ocean shiny and almost flat, tiny white wakes behind a few lobster boats—then Olive felt something she had not expected to feel again: a sudden surging of greediness for life. She leaned forward, peering out the window: sweet pale clouds, the sky as blue as your hat, the new green of the fields, the broad expanse of water—seen from up here it all appeared wondrous, amazing. She remembered what hope was, and this was it. That inner churning that moves you forward, plows you through life the way the boats below plowed the shiny water, the way the plane was plowing forward to a place new, and where she was needed. She had been asked to be part of her son’s life.

Final Thoughts:

This is one of those books that makes me wish I were in a book club! Olive Kitteridge is a complex and unforgettable (and, at times, highly unlikeable) character, and yet I fell in love with her and this lovely book. As soon as I can watch the mini-series, I plan to re-read the book.

The Goldfinch

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
Fiction
2013 Hachette Audio
Reader: David Pittu
Finished on October 9, 2014
Rating:3.5/5 (Good)




Publisher’s Blurb:

Composed with the skills of a master, The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present-day America and a drama of enthralling force and acuity.

It begins with a boy. Theo Decker, a thirteen-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don’t know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his longing for his mother, he clings to the one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the criminal underworld.

As an adult, Theo moves silkily between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty labyrinth of an antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love—and his talisman, the painting, places him at the center of a narrowing, even more dangerous circle.

The Goldfinch is a novel of striking narrative energy and power. It combines unforgettably vivid characters, mesmerizing language, and breathtaking suspense, while plumbing with a philosopher’s calm the deepest mysteries of love, identity, and art. It is a beautiful, stay-up-all-night-and-tell-all-your-friends triumph, an old-fashioned story of loss and obsession, survival and self-invention, and the ruthless machinations of fate.

I’m not even going to try to discuss the literary merit (or lack thereof) of this novel, as there are numerous articles available on the Internet that debate both sides of this argument. I, however, am not a critic, nor am I a literary scholar. When I select book to read, I either trust an author’s past history with books I’ve previously read or I rely on word-of-mouth, whether from fellow bloggers, co-workers, friends or relatives. I look forward to each new book, hopeful that I will be both entertained and enlightened.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, The Goldfinch is THE most talked about novel of 2014. Weighing in at 771 pages, it was not up for debate as to whether I would read the print version or listen to the audio. I do most of my reading in bed, so the weight alone was enough to convince me to listen rather than read. This format is always a nice way to pass the time at work before the store opens, but, honestly, Theo’s internal monologue went on and on and on! The beginning of the novel is very compelling and I couldn’t wait to find an opportunity to listen to another chapter, but unfortunately the pacing is uneven and the book began to feel like a slog (albeit a nonetheless compelling train wreck of a slog) by the midpoint. Tartt is quite a storyteller, though, and I remained curious, anxious to see how it would all play out in the end for Theo. Plus, David Pittu is an excellent reader (with a great Russian accent), so I stuck with it and finished the novel in just under six weeks. It’s a good thing I didn’t choose to read the ebook edition, as I am pretty sure I wouldn’t have had the patience to see it to the very end. With that said, the story and characters are embedded in my memory, as is the case with most of the audiobooks I’ve experienced. Will they remain? That is yet to be seen.

Final Thoughts:

Masterful? Perhaps to some. Immense? Without a doubt. Worthwhile? Debatable. Lyrical? No. (If you’re looking for a lyrical work of literature, once again I highly recommend All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.) Regrettable? I’m not sorry I read The Goldfinch (as a bookseller, it’s always good to be knowledgeable about the bestsellers, particularly during the holiday madness season), but I doubt it’s one about which I’ll gush to a tentative customer.

How about you? Have you read this chunkster? Do I dare try The Secret History, which has been languishing on my shelves for years?

Delights & Shadows

Delights & Shadows by Ted Kooser
Poetry
Finished 4/16/07
Rating: 2.5/5 Average
2005 Winner Pulitzer Prize for Poetry





Another collection of poems by local Nebraskan poet (and former U.S. Poet Laureate) Ted Kooser. This one was a little better than Weather Central, but just barely. There were a few poems that I liked, but overall, nothing terribly special to this reader.

A Happy Birthday

This evening, I sat by an open window
and read till the light was gone and the book
was no more than a part of the darkness.
I could easily have switched on a lamp,
but I wanted to ride this day down into night,
to sit alone and smooth the unreadable page
with the pale gray ghost of my hand.

Tectonics

In only a few months
there begin to be fissures
in what we remember,
and within a year or two,
the facts break apart
one from another
and slowly begin to shift
and turn, grinding,
pushing up over each other
until their shapes
have been changed
and the past has become
a new world.
And after many years,
even a love affair,
one lush green island
all to itself,
perfectly detailed
with even a candle
softly lighting a smile,
may slide under the waves
like Atlantis,
scarcely rippling the heart.

I do so want to like this poet and will continue to read more of his works.

The Road

***Update: 2007 Pulitzer Prize Winner for Fiction***

The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Fiction
Finished on 3/27/07
Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)





“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
~ Albert Einstein


Book Description:

A searing, postapocalyptic [sic] novel destined to become Cormac McCarthy’s masterpiece.

A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.

The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, “each the other’s world entire,” are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.


This is not a cheerful book. It is probably the grimmest book I’ve ever read. And one of the most difficult to review. When I finished reading the final page, I quickly decided I didn’t like the book. It was overwhelmingly bleak and depressing (and far too plausible). Yet, in the days following, my thoughts returned to the story, sifting through the psychological detritus that continued to linger, debating structure and style with my husband (who read and loved the novel), and ultimately changing my view and final rating.

As we discussed the book, I told my husband that part of my initial distaste was simply due to its depressing nature. However, The Book Thief was also sad and depressing and bleak, and yet it’s one of my favorite books. I’m not sure why I’ve changed my opinion, but I’ve come to the conclusion that The Road is a beautifully crafted story, rich in texture and depth, and one that deserves a second reading. Perhaps I was too preoccupied trying to sort out all the missing plot points (What caused the nuclear war? Which coastline were they traveling toward? What are their names?!), none of which are of great importance after all, as the story represents every man, every child, and every nation.

This is a fairly short novel, easily read in a day or two. The dialogue is quite sparse, as though the boy and his father were conserving all their strength just to put one foot in front of the other, not expending any extra energy toward conversation. Perhaps the brevity of their discussions is symbolic of the stark, barren environment. Or, maybe, after traveling together for several years in such desolate surroundings, it was no longer necessary to communicate in a sophisticated language. While anthropologists and linguists believe that language has evolved from primitive grunts and gestures into a powerful and sophisticated tool, McCarthy presents a bleak vision in which that evolution has now been reversed: The journey down the ruined road mirrors -- and is mirrored by -- the characters' linguistic descent; it's a narrative lacking in complex dialogue, one in which mumbles, nods, and one-word utterances are all that is needed and perhaps all that the characters can manage. McCarthy forces us to consider the painful likelihood that, when the world finally blinks out, the last remaining man will simply grunt and moan as the end comes, because that is the only response of which he is capable.

I don't have any quotes to include here (the narrative is so tight, every passage is a spoiler), but I'd like to share the following review by one of my favorite authors, Dennis Lehane:

Cormac McCarthy sets his new novel, The Road, in a post-apocalyptic blight of gray skies that drizzle ash, a world in which all matter of wildlife is extinct, starvation is not only prevalent but nearly all-encompassing, and marauding bands of cannibals roam the environment with pieces of human flesh stuck between their teeth. If this sounds oppressive and dispiriting, it is. McCarthy may have just set to paper the definitive vision of the world after nuclear war, and in this recent age of relentless saber-rattling by the global powers, it's not much of a leap to feel his vision could be not far off the mark nor, sadly, right around the corner. Stealing across this horrific (and that's the only word for it) landscape are an unnamed man and his emaciated son, a boy probably around the age of ten. It is the love the father feels for his son, a love as deep and acute as his grief, that could surprise readers of McCarthy's previous work. McCarthy's Gnostic impressions of mankind have left very little place for love. In fact that greatest love affair in any of his novels, I would argue, occurs between the Billy Parham and the wolf in The Crossing. But here the love of a desperate father for his sickly son transcends all else. McCarthy has always written about the battle between light and darkness; the darkness usually comprises 99.9% of the world, while any illumination is the weak shaft thrown by a penlight running low on batteries. In The Road, those batteries are almost out--the entire world is, quite literally, dying--so the final affirmation of hope in the novel's closing pages is all the more shocking and maybe all the more enduring as the boy takes all of his father's (and McCarthy's) rage at the hopeless folly of man and lays it down, lifting up, in its place, the oddest of all things: faith.

This is a book I’d like to own and read again. I guess that B&N employee discount will come in handy after all.

Middlesex

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Contemporary Fiction
Finished on 2/16/07
Rating: 4.5/5 (Terrific!)
Chunkster Challenge #2



I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974. Specialized readers may have come across me in Dr. Peter Luce’s study, “Gender Identity in 5-Alpha-Reductase Pseudohermaphrodites,” published in the Journal of Pediatric Endocrinology in 1975. Or maybe you’ve seen my photograph in chapter sixteen of the now sadly outdated Genetics and Heredity. That’s me on page 578, standing naked beside a height chart with a black box covering my eyes.

My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driver’s license (from the Federal Republic of Germany) records my first name simply as Cal. I’m a former field hockey goalie, long-standing member of the Save-the-Manatee Foundation, rare attendant at the Greek Orthodox liturgy, and, for most of my adult life, an employee of the U.S. State Department. Like Tiresias, I was first one thing and then another. I’ve been ridiculed by classmates,, guinea-pigged by doctors, palpated by specialists, and researched by the March of Dimes. A redheaded girl from Grosse Point fell in love with me, not knowing what I was. (Her brother liked me, too.) An army tank led me into urban battle once; a swimming pool turned me into myth; I’ve left my body in order to occupy others – and all this happened before I turned sixteen.

And so begins Jeffrey Eugenides’ epic saga (and winner of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize).

Wow. What an extraordinary book. I was captivated from the opening pages and hated when it came to an end. This is a coming-of-age story like nothing you've ever read. Vividly composed of multiple storylines with numerous characters, seamlessly crafted and narrated in an incredibly plausible manner, I continually stopped and wondered how much could be autobiographical; it reads like a beautiful memoir.

I’m not sure what I expected when I began reading, but I do know I was surprised it was so entertaining and mesmerizing. I loved the back-story centered around Calliope’s grandparents and how they met and came to immigrate to America. I loved all the historical details sprinkled throughout the narrative: silk farming, the Greco-Turkish War, the burning of Smyrna in 1922, Detroit during Prohibition, the Nation of Islam and W.D. Fard, and the Detroit Riots in 1967. I found this particular passage quite provocative and wondered if Eugenides had experienced it first-hand (he, too, was born in 1960 and grew up in Detroit):

To live in America, until recently, meant to be far from war. Wars happened in Southeast Asian jungles. They happened in Middle Eastern deserts. They happened, as the old song has it, over there. But then why, peeking out the dormer window, did I see, on the morning after our second night in the attic, a tank rolling by our front lawn? A green army tank, all alone in the long shadows of the morning, its enormous treads clanking against the asphalt. An armor-plated military vehicle encountering no greater obstacle than a lost roller skate. The tank rolled past the affluent homes, the gables and turrets, the porte cocheres. It stopped briefly at the stop sign. The gun turret looked both ways, like a driver’s ed student, and then the tank went on its way.

Another passage that helped set the scene of that particular period in history:

Of all my childhood memories, none has the magic, the pure dreaminess, of the night we heard a honk outside our house and looked out the window to see that a spaceship had landed in our driveway.

It had set down noiselessly next to my mother’s station wagon. The front lights flashed. The back end gave off a red glow. For thirty seconds nothing more happened. But then finally the window of the spaceship slowly retracted to reveal, instead of a Martian inside, Milton. He had shaved off his beard.

‘Get your mother,’ he called, smiling. ‘We’re going for a little ride.’

Not a spaceship then, but close: a 1967 Cadillac Fleetwood, as intergalactic a car as Detroit ever produced. (The moon shot was only a year away.) …

There has been lively discussion among fellow lit-bloggers regarding the merit of overzealous hype (deserved or undeserved) of recent book releases, leading me to consider my response to Jeffrey Eugenides' second novel. I knew absolutely nothing about Middlesex or its author prior to picking up the book early this month. I can’t even remember what prompted me to purchase it, but I’m sure it was based on someone’s glowing review (most likely a friend’s, since I rarely read book reviews prior to reading the book). I’m only vaguely familiar with Eugenides’ debut novel, The Virgin Suicides, but haven’t gotten around to reading it, nor have I seen the movie. (You can be sure I’ll do both now.) Middlesex was published in 2002, so whatever rave reviews followed its initial release slipped under my radar. Perhaps that's a good thing. Would I have found more enjoyment in The Thirteenth Tale had I waited until 2011 to read it? Perhaps. On the other hand, what about The Book Thief? Disregarding the hype, would I have simply forgotten to buy a copy and missed out on one of the best books ever? I’d like to believe that the quality of a great book lies simply in the author’s ability to educate and entertain. Whatever the case may be, I’m thrilled to have finally read Middlesex, as it did just that. This is so much more than a novel about genetic mutation. It's a marvelous, epic tale that shouldn't be missed.

Pulitzer Prize Winners

Several months ago I came across a list of the Pulitzer Prize winners and was shocked that I'd read so many of the winning novels. As luck would have it, I've read exactly 13 from the list.

1. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (1921) - Loved it

2. The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck (1932) - Loved it

3. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (1940) - Loved it

4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1961) - Loved it

5. The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty (1973) - Ho-hum

6. The Color Purple by Alice Walker (1983) - Very good

7. Beloved by Toni Morrison (1988) - Very good

8. A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley (1992) - Quite good

9. The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields (1995) - OK

10. The Hours by Michael Cunningham (1999) - Loved it

11. Empire Falls by Richard Russo (2002) - Very good

12. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (2003) - Loved it (review to follow)

13. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller (1949) - (drama category) - OK

Anyone care to make any predictions for this year's winner (in fiction)?

From the official Pulitzer Prize website:

2007 Pulitzer Prizewinners and Nominated Finalists will be announced on Monday, April 16, 2007 at 3:00 p.m. Eastern daylight time. The announcement will be posted online at 3:15 p.m. Finalists are not announced in advance.