General Fiction Archives - Page 4 of 17

Ordinary People

by Judith Guest

This was a re-read for me. A while back I decided I should read a handful of books in my permanent collection that I feel dubious about. If it turns out I don\’t care for them anymore, this becomes an easy way to cull. Last time I read this book I must\’ve been in high school.

I remembered some of it, but most of the nuances and details had been forgotten- or had simply gone unnoticed by me at the time. I did remember it was about this kid struggling after the death of his older brother, how awkward family friends were about it, how unspoken most of the emotional burden he faced daily, how his parents were drifting apart under the strain.

I\’d forgotten that part of it is told from the father\’s viewpoint, but the mother is always described in third person. She seems cold, sometimes indifferent, accuses the dad of being overly concerned and too involved with his now-only son. The kid- Conrad- is repeating his junior year of high school while all his friends are now seniors. He became severely depressed after loosing his brother- in what sounds like a very frightening, traumatic incident (when it\’s finally revealed at the end of the story) made a suicide attempt, and spent time in a mental institution. Very little is described of that, but what is firmly shows how old this book is- the diagnosis is clear yet he\’s given no medication although several times a teacher or friend of the parents asks if he\’d been put on tranqilizers. Nope, there\’s just mention that he received shock treatment, and when he comes home it\’s left up to him to take initiative to call a psychologist and go to appointments of his own accord. I found that surprising, honestly.

What did feel very real and relevant no matter what the timeframe of this story- was how people struggled to know how to relate to Conrad now that he\’s home again. Things are the same- but also very different. Friends are awkward. He tries to meet and talk with a girl he knew in the hospital- there were quite good friends there- and that doesn\’t end well. He tries daily to beat down the anxiety in his head, to find the motivation to do normal everyday tasks, to focus in school. The therapist is odd and eccentric, but aside from that very good at his job as far as I could tell. I remembered from this part of the book the dramatic scenes when Conrad went in there upset and there was a lot of yelling- but during this read I noticed all the moments of careful guidance, of sound advice that wasn\’t too preachy, of how he helped Conrad figure out what he wanted to do and how to build himself up again as it were. And finally, in the end, to actually face the emotional turmoil he\’d shoved down inside surrounding the incident with his brother. There\’s also some very nice parts about him facing down kids at school who are unkind, standing up for himself when he realizes being on a sports team isn\’t what he wants, finding a few new friends and even getting brave enough to ask out a girl he admires.

It doesn\’t have a perfect, happy ending. It\’s a normal family with some heartbreaking difficulties, and they don\’t come through it all in one piece. Some things are better, some are not. The realism of that is what makes this book such a strong read. (I was terribly bored with all the mention of golf, though). Liked this book much better than I expected to; turns out I\’m keeping it.

Rating: 3/5 263 pages, 1976

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Current Reads, General Fiction, Re-reads

A Pigeon and a Boy

by Meir Shalev

I didn\’t realize this when I first picked it up (at the Book Thing), but it\’s a love story. Two love stories actually- past and present which have an almost too tidy connection, but also confused me at first keeping straight who was who. Doesn\’t help that the narrator sometimes addresses his mother in second person, other times referring to her in third. Not just in the same chapter or paragraph, but often in the same sentence. This is also a war story, and pigeons have a key role, because several of the main characters work in pigeon lofts. Two of them start as young people, boy and girl in different cities, sending love notes to each other via the birds (even though they\’re only supposed to carry official messages). I did like the parts about the pigeons and how they are kept, the symbolism quite strong as a lot of this story is also about home. What makes a home, what holds you there, what draws you back when you\’ve been away. And a large part is also about one character (present day) having an old house remodeled to suit his tastes exactly. Some parts were interesting and others bored me a lot and then a key event occurs which seemed so implausible (plus the pigeons start talking to people- and this is not a talking animal story- maybe they were delusional?) that I really had difficulty finishing the book at all. Well, it certainly was a romantic idea, but kind of ridiculous too. I did not like the ending. Characters did things that seemed really unlike them, made no sense, and even angered me. This one\’s not staying in my collection.

Rating: 2/5 311 pages, 2007

Tags: 2/5- Just Okay, Animals Fiction, Current Reads, General Fiction

The Snow Child

by Eowyn Ivey

Suprised at how much I liked this novel, which is kind of like a modern fairy tale, haunting and grittily real at the same time. Tender and harsh, it is the story of an older couple who make a new start homesteading in Alaska. They have long been childless, and one day playfully make a small figure out of snow. The next morning the snow has been scattered, the scarf and mitten they’d placed on it missing, and a single set of footsteps leading away. Then a thin, strange girl starts to show up near their cabin- flighty and shy yet fierce and wild. She apparently lives alone in the woods. Concerned for her well-being, the couple tries to draw her into their lives, while their friendly neighbors are frankly skeptical of her existence, wondering if the middle-aged wife has symptoms of cabin fever. Years pass with the girl coming and going when the first snow falls, disappearing all summer. Until finally one day the neighbors’ son, a young man who’s been helping out at the homestead, spies her in the forest and realizes there is some truth to the crazy tales. The story isn’t just about this wild mystery child, it’s also about their struggle to live in the remote wilderness, the toll it takes on the couple’s relationship, and what turns to bring them together again. How they come to depend on the neighbors, and help each other out when times are hard. How the wild animals circle in the dark trees, admired for their beauty or hunted for their pelts and meat, but always with their own secret lives just offstage. It’s an intriguing story that I enjoyed very much, in spite of some frustration that there’s no clear answer at the end, with a broad streak of sadness through it all.

Rating: 4/5

391 pages, 2012

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Page 247
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Don’t Be Afraid of the Dork

Tags: 4/5- Great Book, Current Reads, General Fiction, Nature, Speculative Fiction

The Folded Leaf

by William Maxwell

I finished this book a few days ago, but hadn\’t had time to write yet. It\’s a very slow, quiet novel with lots of subtle undercurrents. The Folded Leaf is a story of friendship, two high school boys who have nothing in common- Spud is athletic, outgoing and quick of temper; Lymie is an introvert- lacking physical strength but keeps to intellectual pursuits. They meet when Spud saves Lymie from drowning in a pool. The two unlikely boys strike up a friendship, Lymie often spending time in Spud\’s home, enjoying the comforts his own seems to lack (it\’s just him and his father after his mother died). Then the boys go off to college, and their friendship gradually starts to fray. Spud gets involved in all the normal things college kids do- parties, fraternities, sports (boxing). Lymie tags along, kind of idolizing his friend. They room together. They befriend a few girls. Spud mistakes Lymie\’s casual affection for Sally as something more- and in jealous suspicion starts to distance himself from Lymie, without of course explaining anything. It seems that the only person Lymie really loves is Spud- although he could never say so- so this breaks his heart. Desperately he starts questioning all the assurances he had built up in his mind before, leading to an unhappy crisis.

This book is really good at depicting the inner mind- how Lymie daydreams and invents reasons for people\’s reactions in his head, how he frightens himself with speculation and turning small insignificant things into giant obstacles sometimes. But all the background material- closely described places, family members, interactions between the adults- parents and professors around them- felt rather dull to me. Sometimes it added to the feel of place- this is all set in the 20\’s or 30\’s I gather- but other times it didn\’t really seem to add anything. It\’s got a lot of similarities to A Separate Peace, which I find I like better, and for a book with university atmosphere I also prefer Tam Lin (although that one has a realm of fantasy so I can\’t really compare them). I guess you could say this is very much a book about ordinary people, the closeness these kids had growing up, and what happened when they got out on their own, how some misunderstandings made it unravel. And as a silly side note, they sure seem to eat a lot of malted milkshakes!

Rating: 3/5 274 pages, 1945

more opinions:
A Work in Progress
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Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Current Reads, General Fiction, Re-reads

Where the Crawdads Sing

by Delia Owens

Kya is known as the Marsh Girl. Abandoned by her dysfunctional family in a shack by the water on the North Carolina coastline, she pretty much lives alone after her drunken father never returns one day. She survives digging mussels and catching fish, gathering eggs from the small flock her mother left behind and tending a scanty garden. Wanders the wetlands and communes with nature. Truant officer tries to make her attend school but she adroitly evades people in the marsh. One compassionate black family- very poor themselves- takes pity on her and pays her for the meager catch she offers to sell or exchange for gas (for the boat), gives her clothing and a few supplies. So she does get a little help from the community, but otherwise is very isolated. Most of the townspeople mock or shun her when she does venture into town. Then a boy Tate she occasionally ran into while boating as kids, starts to visit more often as a teenager and teaches her to read. Starts to open up her world- and her heart- until he leaves suddenly for college. Kya is of course hurt at feeling abandoned all over again, but also aches for companionship now- so when she catches the eye of a popular guy in town, lets herself get drawn into a different kind of relationship . . . Years later- this part told in alternating chapters- the popular guy Chase, is found dead under a fire tower in the marsh. Kya becomes the primary suspect for his murder. The final chapters wind up with a courtroom drama- not my favorite kind of story but those scenes weren’t as dull to read as I expected.

I liked most of this book- especially the nature writing and Kya’s connection with the marsh wildlife- but I also had some issues with it that spoiled my enjoyment. Some aspects of the story just did not make a lot of sense or felt unrealistic. I couldn’t believe how fast she learned how to read, and how easily she lost her lowcountry accent. For all of Kya’s isolation, she picked up complex skills and cultural expressions very quickly. (Reminded me of how Ayla in Clan of the Cave Bear turned out to be this kind of super woman- teaching herself so many difficult skills while living completely alone). I could have just gone along with that, but there was a point in the middle of the story where she had an argument with Tate during a brief visit he made after college. Things she said in that argument, words thrown in Tate’s face- didn’t sound like the kind of things an isolated, wild, self-taught girl would say. Having never even attended school, having never dated anyone else, having no social context outside of selling mussels and occasionally going to the small convenience store, what would she know about relationships and breakups? From reading a few romance novels? Also after being deserted by her mother and all her older siblings when she was less than ten years old, I would have expected her to have a lot more difficulty confronting or recognizing her own emotions about things. A lot of the conversations she had with the few people close to her, later in the book, looking back on what happened in her early childhood seemed awfully simplistic, and too insightful and levelheaded for someone who had gone through that kind of early trauma. It just didn’t feel real. A lot of the dialog likewise felt awkward to me and the romantic parts of the story trite. Which ended up making it overall a dissatisfying read.

This book actually reminded me a lot of Girl of the Limberlost– it has a similar basic premise- wild girl who spends time alone in nature, becomes something of an expert on local fauna, falls in love with a man later on who is intrigued by her innocence and differences. But I also thought a lot of Lady on the Beach– there’s a story about a woman living in poverty on the edge of the water, surviving partly off the land- and it’s far more realistic about the miseries and struggle that come along with that.

Rating: 3/5

370 pages, 2018

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Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Current Reads, General Fiction, Nature

Leaves on Frozen Ground

by Dave Carty

A small family living on the edge of the forest. They have an apple orchard, own a few rental properties and the father also works in construction. The kid loves to roam the woods alone- which his mother worries constantly about. The boy simply loves the outdoors and practicing survival skills his father taught him; when they get two border collies he joyfully goes out on long walks accompanied by one or both. I liked the depiction of the dogs- seemed very true to type. The lives of the couple- not so much. Lots of conversations about struggling finances and the economy, the mom\’s worries about her son and the father\’s dismissal of that. Their very different ways of seeing things. Eventually a few crises happen- problems at work, a bear in the apple orchard, the death of one dog- that slowly starts to unravel the family. Unfortunately I didn\’t care much about them as individual characters and I\’m not interested in baseball, so the father and son passion for that did nothing for me. I got tired of mention of the wife\’s prettiness that turned the wrong heads, the husband\’s muscles and workouts. Every now and then there was a little detail that felt out of place and kinda knocked me out of the story. There is some lovely descriptive writing of the landscape and the weather, but somehow even the kid\’s forays into the woods left me uninterested. While the characters and situation felt very realistic, something about the narrative style just fell really flat for me. I knew something very sad or critical would happen to this family in the end, and it did. I read about their dissolution with the same detachment. Surprisingly, I liked the ending well enough- the few final pages had a very satisfying moment. But the way it was told- just not my type.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher, in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 2/5 225 pages, 2019

Tags: 2/5- Just Okay, Animals Fiction, Current Reads, General Fiction

White Dog Fell From the Sky

by Eleanor Morse

It\’s the 1970\’s and South Africa is deep under apartheid. One of the main characters, Isaac, witnesses the death of his activist friend- shoved in front of a train by members of the South African Defense Force- and flees the country, terrified the repercussions of his presence at the scene will cost him his life. He is smuggled across the border into Botswana and finds the relative peace there surreal. He finds work as a gardener for a white woman, even though he has no experience (was previously a medical student) but an old man who works at another household gives him some tips. Later he\’s left in charge of the house when the woman goes on a research trip to the Okavango Delta- and when she returns he\’s suddenly gone missing. Alice has been facing the disintegration of her marriage, is feeling unsettled from an unplanned tryst she had with a colleague on the trip, and is baffled at Isaac\’s unexplained absence- she hadn\’t known him long but it\’s very out of character. Especially because the white dog who had attached herself to him is still at the house, half-starved, waiting his return. Although acquaintances around her caution Alice to forget Isaac and not get involved, she can\’t let it be and tries to find out what happened to him. Meanwhile her new love interest has also gotten himself into trouble, returning alone to take personal action against what he sees as an outrageous atrocity- the stock fence put up to supposedly prevent hoof and mouth disease from spreading to cattle, blocking a migration route and causing thousands of wild animals to die of thirst. This man\’s impulsive actions, spurred by anger, reminded me of Mark Owens– probably not coincidentally, as the debacle of the fence was actually discovered by the Owenses when they were in the Kalahari. The details of Alice\’s ex-pat life was like Rules of the Wild, but more serious here. I didn\’t find her story quite as interesting as Isaac\’s, and the romance in the middle of everything seemed a bit- unrealistic? but not enough so to bother me. It was a slow one for me to get into, but once I did I found this story, these lives weaving together in subtle ways that gradually intertwine stronger, very compelling. Part of the story takes place in a Jo\’burg prison- it is atrocious and horrific, but thankfully there are not too many details of the suffering, more about how it affected someone very long-term. Honestly, I don\’t often get emotional reading a book but this one moved me to tears at least twice. There\’s also parts in it about the native San people, which I liked very much- I kind of wish there had been more about them. The heat is consistently oppressive and palpable, the landscape very real in all its emptiness, wildness and fierce kind of beauty. I would definitely like to read more by this author.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 4/5 368 pages, 2013

Tags: 4/5- Great Book, Current Reads, General Fiction

Collected Short Stories

Vol. 4
by W. Somerset Maugham

Thirty short stories. Surprisingly, I found Maughum\’s short stories really satisfying- they didn\’t leave me wishing a whole lot more or feeling adrift, like I usually do after reading short pieces.

Most of these stories take place in Malaya, during British rule, and are about Europeans stationed there, their wives and sometimes families. Several are situated in a nearby Asian countries, a few in America or England. They are all quite astute with character development and really intriguing, in spite of being so brief (a page or two, up to twenty in some cases). Sometimes it took me a while to get into the tale- often the crux of the subject is approached in a roundabout way- the narrator telling how he met a certain person, got a certain impression, had curiosity piqued, found out so much more later, here\’s the whole story wrapped up then, etc. They are about scandals, folks who have certain oddities, or get into troublesome situations by chance, or who do astonishing things that no one expected. Maugham himself said (in the intro) that he liked to write about people who were strange or got themselves into unusual circumstances, being more interesting than the majority who led quiet, ordinary lives. A lot are about women or men unfaithful to each other- some hiding it all their lives. Stories about men in different situations and how they struggled to get along with odious characters they had to work with. Quite a number grouped together about men in a French penal colony (reminded me immediately of Papillon). One quite unlike the others- more fairy-tale like in tone, about a princess with a wild nightingale she tamed, that her sisters convinced her to lock up in a cage . . . My favorite was the last one, about a young man who loved natural history and was sent to a remote place to work in a museum, went out into the jungle to find specimens, got into a pickle when his superior\’s wife began flirting with him. I did smile a lot when I ran into characters that loved books, in these pages. They stood out to me.

I wonder if most of these stories are based on real people or incidents the author heard about- it certainly sounds like he traveled about talking to and observing people, and then wrote based on that; I\’ve heard tell it\’s more or less embellished fact. I borrowed this book from my brother-in-law while on holiday- it\’s the fourth volume of a complete collection of Maugham\’s short stories- someday I\’d like to read all the others.

Rating: 4/5 464 pages, 1951

Tags: 4/5- Great Book, Current Reads, General Fiction, Short Stories

The Bean Trees

by Barbara Kingsolver

I have finally read Kingsolver\’s first book. It\’s my third try- twice before- years apart- I attempted and just couldn\’t get into it. Must have been the mood. It\’s a good story with some heartwarming and heartwrenching themes, but not as finely written as her later novels so I doubt this one will ever be a favorite of mine. However I am glad I read it.

Its main character, Taylor Greer, is young when the novel begins, relieved that she managed to finish highschool without winding up pregnant like so many other girls, and her only plan is to escape rural Kentucky and see some of the world. She drives west in a barely-functional car and finds out pretty darn quick that people can be miserable and meanspirited anywhere you go. Seeming by chance- being in the wrong (or right) place at the wrong time she winds up with a young Cherokee child foisted on her, and not knowing what to do, keeps driving until finally she winds up in Arizona. Where she tentatively puts down roots, finds a roommate, patches together friendships and some turn out to be strong enough to call family in the end. She ends up working at a used tire shop owned by a woman, and becomes close to a Guatemalan couple looking for a safe haven. There\’s a lot in here about abuse, child neglect and mistreatment, drunkenness, poverty and misery, immigrants on the run, etc. But it\’s all about the goodness and strength of human nature in overcoming those things. In reaching out to others, giving helping hands, making sacrifices, lending time to heal. Not told in quite enough depth and detail for me, but moving nonetheless. Tackles a lot of difficult subjects and comes out hopeful. I liked more of it than I expected to.

The tone of it all reminded me somewhat of She\’s Come Undone, but the lovely metaphors with plants (at the end of the novel) very much a Kingsolver thing.

Rating: 3/5 323 pages, 1988

more opinions:
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Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Current Reads, General Fiction

The Winter Garden

by Johanna Verweerd
translated by Helen Richardson-Hewitt

I picked this one up at a free book exchange, because I thought it was about a garden. Well, there\’s a garden in it, but it\’s really part of the background. The main character, a lonely sombre woman called Ika, works for a landscape designer, she\’s planning a garden for a greenhouse setting, with careful selections to bloom in the dull, cold months. But not much of this is mentioned beyond her at the drawing board, and although there are suggestions at how important the small garden at her childhood home was to her, it\’s not a large part of the story, either. Most of it is about relationships- the strained, cold, unloving relationship Ika had with her parents (while her younger sister was cheerful and beloved). The narrative moves often between past and present, showing how Ika feels now and how memories arise of her miserable childhood. She had finally escaped her family\’s unloving environment, leaving home to work for a landscaper and rent her own small place, but now returns home over a decade later upon learning that her mother is very ill, probably dying. There\’s awkward quiet moments caring for her bedridden mother, brief conversations with her sister and some neighbors, the village doctor, the teacher from her old school- all slowly piecing together her past. Why it was so painful and unhappy. Why she still feels burdened by those feelings. It wasn\’t until the very last pages that the dark secret of her childhood finally came to light- and the answer wasn\’t shocking, or very satisfying either. I really wish there had been more to the story about her slowly growing hope in the new life of young plants as she cared for the garden, but this seemed to be more a metaphor stuck in, for the unfolding hope in her heart that she could build a new life for herself. Mostly it is stilted and understated, full of unexplained resentments and quiet suffering. I suppose a lot of the stiff feeling could be because I read a translated text, but perhaps it is just this author\’s style, as well- understatement, things told and not much shown. I just – didn\’t really get a strong feeling for most of it.

Also, it\’s a book with religious themes. It really didn\’t detract from the story for me, but it didn\’t add a lot either- I suppose because phrases and quoted scriptures which seemed to have a lot of weight and meaning for the characters- just didn\’t for me. I felt like there was a depth of intent there, which I wasn\’t picking up on. I failed to really grasp the more current relationships, either- the new friendship Ika had with her employer, the warmth she felt meeting her sister\’s husband and her nephew for the first time- it was all stated, not really felt. At least by this reader.

Rating: 2/5 269 pages, 1995

Tags: 2/5- Just Okay, Current Reads, General Fiction

Tag: General Fiction

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