Close to Home and Far Away

As I started reading Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah, I was quick to criticize.  The story began with a woman, Meredith, who works with her father in their family business (just like me!), who lives 1/4 mile from her parents (my parents just moved, so they are at least a mile from me now), whose sister has a more glamorous life (duh!) and who is married with two children (ditto).  It is true - there are authors who develop fuller characters than Hannah and who are more convincing with their dialogue.  But some of my initial resistance to Winter Garden may have been more about how closely Meredith's life mirrors mine, and the challenges that she faces, which I could have to face in the (hopefully distant) future.

Winter Garden is actually two stories, one in the modern day, and one in the form of a fairy tale that may touch on some facts from a character's past.  In this sense, it is not unlike Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield, but it reads more like something by Jodi Picoult.   The fairy tale is amazing.  I kept promising myself that I would only read to the end of the chapter, then I would go to bed.  But if the next chapter started with or continued part of the fairy tale, I couldn't stop reading.  The ending was a little predictable, but still a welcome resolution.

The fairy tale, while not at first giving dates, soon reveals itself to be the story of a family's struggle to survive the siege of Leningrad.  The Seige of Leningrad lasted from September of 1941 through January of 1944, during which period over a million civilians from Leningrad died. A million.  If you've read other posts, you know that the stories of the civilians of World War II is my favorite genre, and this one fits right in. 

The modern day tale is a story of learning about family members who you thought you knew.  To say that it is about communication within a family is way too simplistic in this case, but it absolutely is about that too.  Some of the blurbs I read about the book mentioned it being about how it is not possible to know one's self until one knows one's mother.  In this case, the daughters do know their mother in the sense that she raised them and they have regular contact with her, but they don't know her thoughts, motives or regrets. 

I never would have read this book if it hadn't been picked for The Friends Book Group.  This is reason #32 why I love book groups - discovering a great book that would have otherwise been missed.

Next up:  The Furies - Book 4 in the Kent Family Chronicles by John Jakes.  I've been putting this one off for a long time, since I wasn't too excited to pick up the story where Book 3 left off - with a 10 year old girl who had already been raped, kidnapped, sold to Indians, and was now married.  But, like Meredith, I will face some challenges to get to know my family better as well.  It will all make more sense soon.

Still Listening to:  The Red Queen by Philippa Gregory - I'm loving it!  No surprise there.

The Girl

Shocking but true:  The girl in this photo is not me.  But I sort of wish it was.  I'm just not all that in touch with my black thigh highs side. I am in touch with my Murakami side, however.

I first saw this photo when my friend, Jim, told all of his FB friends about a blog that we should stop not reading.  Yes, you got it right, I should stop not reading that blog.  The blog gives a photo credit to www.seacreatures.com, which I guess I should do too.  Here is one of the postings that Jim didn't intend for me to read, but which I really loved.  I am not sure if I should interpret it as a love letter to a girl named Margaret, or as a fishing lure cast out to find a Margaret replacement.  Either way, I'm fine with it. 

I just finished reading After Dark by Haruki Murakami, and I am still in love with the author.  After Dark is a departure from the other books that I have read by Murakami, in that he has changed  his narative form, and instead writes this book almost as a screenplay.  From a lessor author, this may not have gotten published, as one could interpret Murakami's scene setting descriptions as shorthanded laziness.  However, with Murakami, a reader understands that the author truly knows how to set a scene, and that he must be experimenting with just telling the reader what they are seeing straight out, as a new technique.

After Dark is the ideal book for a New York to LA flight (hint to Margaret), as I think that one could read it from start to finish in that time.  It is short, concise, and meaningful.  It is the story of one night in Tokyo, as seen through the eyes of several different characters.  One of the things that I loved about Kafka on the Shore, also by Murakami, was that it told me about a part of Japan that I had never realized existed.  An area with trees and cabins and forgotten libraries.  In my mind, when I think of Japan, I envision action and many people living in a small area.   Bright lights at night time.  After Dark explores that latter part of Japan,and leaves the reader wanting to know more.  I have put Norwegian Wood back on my TBR list.

Next up:  Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah

Still Listening to:  The Red Queen by Philippa Gregory

Two Junes and Several Other Months

I am feeling so uninspired by Three Junes by Julia Glass that I don't even want to write about it.  I've never said that before. 

Three Junes is a set of three stories with overlapping characters.  The best developed story is that of Fenno, a gay man living in New York.  The other stories feature Paul, who is Fenno's father, and Fern, who is a woman who spent brief periods of time with both Paul and Fenno.  There were many ends left hanging, which I don't mind if I care enough about the plot that I create my own endings for them. That was not the case here.

One of the most annoying aspects of this book for me is that I can't identify the three Junes.  The book's premise is that it is the story of three different characters experiencing three different months of June, over a period of about a decade.  Paul and Fern's Junes are clear, but Fenno's story spans several years, and as many deaths.  Maybe if I had read the book in paper form instead of listening to it, the chapter headings would have identified a certain June as the time when Fenno is experiencing the story, with the rest being his reflection on earlier times.  That would be contrived at best, and if I can't tell that by listening to the unabridged version of the story on CD, then it didn't really work. 

Please don't worry about Julia Glass.  She won't starve just because I don't like her book.  I am clearly in the minority.  Three Junes won the National Book Award for Fiction in 2002.  I have read several National Book Award winners, and to compare Three Junes  to a few of the others, I would say that it is not as powerful as The Shipping News by E. Annie Prulx, not as enjoyable as Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann, and not as memorable as The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen.  This is not the first time that I have disagreed with the National Book Award, however, and while the presenters may not care, we will have to agree to disagree again in this case.

Next up on CD:  The Red Queen by Philippa Gregory

Still reading:  After Dark by Haruki Murakami