The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

Genre: Fiction
Publisher, Year: Knopf, 2011
Other Works: England, England and Arthur & George
Flags: Moderate language, Explicit references
Rating: A+, or Must Read Now!
Challenge: 100 Books
Premise: Prompted by a curious package, an older man reflects back on his life and some events of his youth that may turn out to be very different than he remembers.

I got this book for Christmas last year, with a nice little gift certificate tucked in the front cover. I always get nervous when I buy a book that I haven’t read before (even though this one was technically purchased for me). Yes, it’s true—I will go and buy a book after I’ve read it from the library. That way, I spend wisely! Anyway, this one turned out to be not worth the nerves at all. It was a beautiful masterpiece, in my opinion, and completely deserving of the Booker prize. That being said, and as much as youth is discussed in this book, I would not recommend this one for younger readers.

The book opens with a group of boys, Tony being our narrator, in high school, debating ideas and philosophy. One boy, Adrian, is clearly the intellectual superior, which makes him the most popular of the group. His comments are always surprising, and yet somehow, spot on. As the boys grow up and go off the college, they grow apart, but each one tries to maintain a friendship with Adrian, Tony included. Tony experiences new things in school, the most important of which is that he gets his first girlfriend. When these two worlds collide, it will set in motion a series of events that will end in tragedy, which will come back to haunt him in his later years, revealing new information that will grip Tony with the realization that things have not always been what they seemed, that perhaps even he is not the person he thought he was.

[Disclaimer: I’m not going to talk about the actual plot points of this book because I feel you have to read them as Barnes intended. There’s an itching temptation to give away too much. And I hope that will be enough to entice you read it yourself!]

I think this book starts out sort of ordinarily pretentious. Those opening pages resemble what some have related to Dead Poets Society, and I have to admit that they did conjure up those images: standing on desks, clapping in a circle, ripping out pages, opening young minds. But it soon takes a turn, and by the end, I could see how every paragraph, every sentence was meticulously chosen—every moment a meaning. Not a word was wasted. And meaning poured forth, like a river of truth.

I love Barnes’s thoughts on the young and the old. The audacity of youth: the innocence, the dreams, the freedom. And that is juxtaposed against the reality of old age: the ordinariness of life, when dreams fall away and the everyday takes shape. He calls it comfortable, peaceable. Tony chose the peaceable way, but in the end, did he choose comfort over fulfilling his potential? Or did he really never have a lot of potential in the first place?

When we are young, we want to believe we are special; we want to believe we are good. When we think back on our memories, we see ourselves in the critical light of the time. We don’t analyze our actions and decisions with the wisdom that age brings, nor are we in any way unbiased. And Tony gets to experience the unpleasantness of questioning himself, after all those years. Here he says of youth: “What you fail to do is look ahead, and then imagine yourself looking back from that future point. Learning the new emotions that time brings. Discovering, for example, that as the witnesses to your life diminish, there is less corroboration, and therefore less certainty, as to what you are or have been.”

And yet, time marches on. It continues forward no matter what our regrets or fears. Whatever we have done with our lives, ordinary or extraordinary or rash, it is done. One event follows another, and each domino falls. And all those events are gathered in to produce a person’s character. The problem is, that the discrepancy between what I think my character entails and what others do, can be vastly different. And as time goes on, as we’ve established it inevitably will, those memories get hazy and misshapen. How can we really be sure of anything? Even something as personal as ourselves? Our own lives? Who we are.

I am going to go so far as to say that this book is genius. It’s a short read but so packed with meaning, I am still reeling from it. I know it will merit rereads in the future and continue to become only that more valuable to me. Oh, and the other thing: I loved it. I absolutely loved it.

Back to Classics Challenge

Join the challenge here.
Ends: December 31, 2011.
Challenge: 9 books from different categories

1. 19th Century - Villette by Charlotte Bronte
2. 20th Century - 1984 by George Orwell
3. Reread - Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
4. Play - Something Shakespeare, undecided
5. Mystery/Horror/Crime - The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
6. Romance - Love in the Time of Cholera by G.G. Marquez
7. Translation - The Iliad by Homer
8. Award Winner - All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
9. Fictional or Foreign Country -

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

Genre: Historical fiction
Publisher, Year: Random House, 2005
Other Works: Shanghai Girls, Dreams of Joy
Flags: Adult themes, tenuous references
Rating: A+, or Must Read Now!
Challenge: 100 Books, Historical Fiction
Premise: Two girls grow into women and confront the difficulties of life together in nineteenth century China.

I first heard of Lisa See when Shanghai Girls came out. The cover was beautiful, and I'd always planned on reading one of her books at some point but had yet to get around to it. My awesome book club struck again in that one of our members made me finally make good on my intentions with Snow Flower and the Secret Fan.

Lily and Snow Flower were born in the same month, have the same number of siblings, and had their feet bound on the same day. All of their characters match, and so they become laotong, or old sames. Together they learn many things that women need to know: how to sew and cook and clean, how to be a proper wife, and the importance of bearing sons to carry on the next generation. They pass messages back and forth and record important details about their lives on a fan in their secret women's language, nu shu. And eventually, as women, they will support one another through the most difficult of hardships. In other words, they are as close as two people can be. Until one day, a fatal mistake leaves them both heartsick and alone, cut off from each other.

I simply loved this book. I think the success of Lisa See's writing is equal parts history and narrative. That she is an expert researcher cannot be denied. It comes through on every page as the details and hardships of nineteenth century China unfold. She paints a picture in your mind, so vivid I was completely enveloped by it. In the morning, as I ate breakfast, I thought of congee. As I went through my day, I thought of the stifling confines of the women's chamber. When I did my laundry, I thought about making and intricately embroidering an entire wardrobe. And never far from my mind were the many freedoms that were withheld from women of that period.

But beyond that, See created faces to go with those truths--that way of life that so many knew. The foot binding scene was incredibly haunting, almost too horrible to read, not because of the torturous nature of the practice, although that comes through, but because it was happening to Lily--a girl who loved to run and be outside. A little girl, trying to please her mother and accept her future but still a child. When Snow Flower and Lily meet and begin sharing everything with each other, I allowed myself a sigh of relief because now they would each have love in their lives, a way to be lifted. But a terrible foreboding was always present, a black cloud over the small happinesses afforded Lily and Snowflower. For Lily tells us in the opening paragraphs of the novel that she did not value the greatest love in her life, that she pays the consequences of regret in her old age.

Really, I think this story is about the complexity of love. Love can be a great motivator for good, but can also cause the greatest of sorrows. In a culture where relationships were unduly strained, where feelings were suppressed, Snow Flower and Lily found a way to love each other as women, as equals. And yet, as that relationship endured and situations changed, that love was tested and did not always hold true. Jealousy and pride are as ugly as love is beautiful, and when they creep in, they can, in a short time, eat away at a lifetime of trust.

No matter what women of the period were subjected to, foot binding, a low marriage, an abusive husband, etc., it would definitely be a mistake to assume that those things meant that they had no power. Just because their power wasn't explicit doesn't mean it didn't exist. As much as men were considered to be superior, women's influence was felt everywhere, and they found ways to express it--through their secret writings, in the rearing of their children, in their acceptance of their fates.

I finished this book with the feeling of quiet resignation that becomes Lily as an old woman, sitting quietly, waiting to enter the next world. Hers is a life of abundance, yet some missteps haunt her year after year. We all make those mistakes in life, if we are lucky we can correct them. But often, we are unlucky, and instead we cringe and wring our hands at those memories, wishing we could go back for just a moment and act with greater thoughtfulness. In the end, this story sits in my mind like a Chinese proverb, a cautionary tale. A reminder to cherish, to be grateful, to live without regret.

Historical Fiction Challenge

Join the challenge here
Ends: December 31, 2012
Challenge Level: Daring & Curious (5 books)
Challenge: Read and discuss historical fiction, each month.

1. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
2. The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi
3.
4.
5.

Follow Friday: Best Book

Well, as I am not the kind to read a lot of books in one month (well . . . sometimes), I will just focus on the best book I've read this month. (Which, this month, happens NOT to be the ONLY book I've read.) Just a few nights ago, I finished Julian Barnes's The Sense of an Ending. It won the Booker Prize last year, and for good reason. (Review forthcoming.) It's quite a short little thing, but don't let that fool you. Gems on every page. My poor little red pen (or green colored pencil, as it were) was overworked. Do you ever get that weird feeling sometimes like you are underlining more than you are NOT underlining? Well, I had to, otherwise I might not remember some of the best lines . . .

This book gets you thinking, really thinking. About what you've done with your life and what it's meant, and if it's meant something to you and another thing to someone else, and yet another thing to a third person, and how all those dominoes line up and fall down. And then where does that leave you? And where does it leave all those other people? And then these questions (and still others) swirl around and around in your head for days until you get disoriented and decide to read the book again from the start. In other words? An amazing novel--you ought to read it. And now I better stop before I have nothing more to say in my aforementioned forthcoming review. =)

Happy hopping!


parajunkee

Linger by Maggie Stiefvater

Genre: Young adult fantasy
Publisher, Year: Scholastic, 2010
Other Works: Shiver
Flags: Teen angst, Tenuous references
Rating: B-, or Not Sorry I Read It
Premise: Another girl meets another wolf. Plus, the continuation of the first girl and her wolf's life together. Then, things start to get sticky.

I read this book awhile ago, so I hope I can do it justice. For me, it wasn’t as good as the first in the series, but still held my attention.

Grace and Sam have happily found a way to be together. Sam has stopped shifting, which is great because he can be with Grace always, but at the same time, an entire part of his life that has in many ways been important to him, is now gone. However, he is still connected to his wolfish past, although not physically, because there are now new wolves that need to learn the tricks of the trade. Enter egotistical, terribly good-looking, spasmodic Cole St. Clair—former rock star turned depressive wolf. And although everyone has a hard time working with him, he proves to be the one person who can provide an important solution to a life-threatening problem that no one has yet encountered.

I just couldn’t get as connected to the characters (ie. Sam) as I could in the first book. Grace was always a bit lacking for me, and she seemed to turn it around a little bit. I didn’t find her spineless in this book, and maybe it was the influence of her earlier experiences that made her grow up a little. I think Stiefvater was faced with a common problem when it comes to sequels, and that is that the ending of the previous story was so perfectly tied up that the characters don’t have much to do but go through their very normal existence together. When the new conflicts crop up, the story’s momentum began to rise, and with it, my hopes.

However, this book also introduces two new narrators, one character that we’ve met before, Isabel, the other a new werewolf, Cole. I have to say that I didn’t enjoy being in either of their heads. Maybe I’m just the type of person who doesn’t get Isabel, but she seems a cookie cutter “poor little rich girl” type, and Cole, I’m sorry to say, seemed simply her male equivalent. And that fact meant that I found everything about their interactions a complete bore. The split narration in the first book was difficult enough, to double that, I think, was asking too much.

I was disappointed that this book also lacked a certain feel that the first did so well. Sam and Grace were haunted by the onset of winter. That cold weather was almost a third main character—a sort of ghostly presence that was always lurking, waiting to pounce. It gave the book an appealing creepiness that I felt was deficient in the continuation of the story. As the temperature rose and fell, so did my anxiety. I felt that sense of urgency was missing.

With all that said, Linger still held my attention, and there were plenty of bright spots of suspense that kept me turning pages. Though I wish the story would have been more concise, once I came to the conclusion, I was satisfied and happy to have spent the time. I will definitely be checking out the final installment.

The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

Genre: Historical fiction, young adult
Publisher, Year: Houghton Mifflin, 1958
Other Works: The Bronze Bow
Flags: Teen angst
Rating: A+, or Must Read Now!
Premise: A young girl undertakes a long journey to live with her relatives in a Puritan town in newly settled Connecticut. As she struggles to fit in, she finds a true friend in an unlikely place--a friendship that may cost her dearly in ways she doesn't understand.

This is a childhood favorite of many, but I'd never had the opportunity to read it. Unfortunately, the books my teachers picked in 6th and 7th grade were forgettable, since I truly have little recollection of what we read in class. I wish I'd had the foresight to read Speare back then, but I was too busy with The Face on the Milk Carton.

I first encountered Speare in college. We read The Bronze Bow in my children's lit class. It was excellent, and there were many times that I passed by The Witch of Blackbird Pond in the Newberry winners section of the library and thought, I should read that, but then never got around to it. I'm so glad I finally pulled the trigger.

After the death of her grandfather, Kat braves a journey from Barbados, where she was brought up, to a faraway colony in Connecticut, where her mother's sister lives. Her aunt married a Puritan and adopted that lifestyle--one which Kat has had little exposure. Her fancy dresses and numerous belongings have no place in the austere simplicity of her new home. Kat has a hard time adjusting to life in Connecticut, but then she finds solace in an unlikely friendship with an old lady. However, this friendship, one that is supremely important to her, makes waves in her community, sparking a conflict that will rise to immense proportions.

I loved Kat--she's spunky, she's passionate, and although she often makes mistakes in her new home, she's intelligent and caring. She's not frivolous. She is a perfect foil to those with whom she must learn to live, and she grows up quickly as she faces each conflict. Speare shows a detailed and, from what I know, an accurate depictation of what life must have been like then--from the scarcity of resources to the tumultuous political atmosphere to the mob mentality that fear incites.

This book is full of lively characters, wending there way through the mire of life, through prejudice, through freedom of thought and speech, through the duty one has to family and friends and how that can sometimes lead to impossible situations and decisions that are often difficult. This is one I'll be saving on my shelf to read with my daughter one day. And maybe I'll get it down a time or two, just to revisit a wonderful story.

The Original Edward

My husband's Valentine's gift to me, which viewing experience was enhanced by several pieces of dark chocolate. Excellent casting (Jane isn't too ugly, Rochester isn't too morose), excellent screenplay, excellent costumes. Probably one of the best adaptations I've ever seen, although, admittedly, I must be one of the last people to have seen it, considering it came out last year.

It was so good, I felt almost as caught up in the story as I did the first time I read it.  I even pulled down my old copy from the bookshelf and read my favorite parts again--a ritual which is long overdue. Such pain, such bliss . . . there's nothing like it.

Here Be Dragons by Sharon Kay Penman

Genre: Historical fiction
Publisher, Year: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1985
Other Works: The Sunne in Splendor
Flags: Moderate language, Adult themes, Explicit references
Rating: A, or Great Read
Challenge: 100 Books
Premise: A King's daughter is married to a neighboring country's Prince as a token of peace. However, new family ties prove difficult when conflicts arise.

First off, it took me six months to finish Here Be Dragons. You read me right. It feels decievingly light, small enough to fit in a handbag. Although it couldn't be construed as a "light" read—all you have to do is flip through to realize that it's quite substantial—this book reads heavy.

Penman chronicles the lives of Llewelyn the Great of Wales and King John of England. These two leaders connect themselves through the marriage of John's illegitamite daughter, Joanna, to the much older Welsh Prince. She lives with Lewelyn and learns the customs and ways of the Welsh. Family ties are strained however, as Lewelyn's existing children try to accept his new wife and when English interests conflict with Welsh ones, leaving Joanna caught in the middle.

Penman's extensive research of her chosen topic could not be better demonstrated. She could never be accused of not being thorough. This skill has pros and cons, however, because it makes some sections read more like a history text than a novel. But, after awhile—because you'll have the time—Penman's storytelling style becomes more comfortable. The first onslaught of names and titles causes disorientation, but then it becomes more of a parade of people, gently making their way in the background, and only the most important and memorable characters stand out. They make themselves known; there's no need to "keep track."

What I love about Here Be Dragons is similar to why I love Tracy Chevalier—an author who takes a piece of artwork, together with a few loose facts, and lets the imagination run riot. Penman does the same thing with a list of names and dates. She takes what history provides and adds motivations, political ambitions, loyalties, love. And the result is a plethora of amazing characters and carefully entangled relationships. She leads us through the spectrum of emotions: the contended bliss of a happy marriage to the endless despair of betrayal to the urgent violence of war to the heartbreaking frustration of disappointment. And I have to say that I don't know that I've ever felt so enveloped in a new world as I did in this book. I've been sucked into books before, but never have a felt so at home there, so informed. As if it were natural for me to be there, watching the events unfold.

This is not a story of a couple incidents, tied together by a few main characters. This story is a saga. And really, when you try to boil it down (if that's even possible), Here Be Dragons is about the tested and tried love between Llewelyn and Joanna. A love that thrives in the cracks of the concrete, flourishing under impossible circumstances, nurished only because neither will accept failure. Fraught with hardship, they find a way, and in their determination, a hope for the future is born. Although, in the end, I suppose the same could be said of Llewelyn and his fierce loyalty to the land, Gywnedd, to his people—in a way, he was wed to her, too.

This book is one of those that you could never sit down and read hour upon hour, although I wouldn't call it one that was easy to put down. More because of its sheer density. It's one that had to be digested in sections. It requires time to ponder. Just “one more chapter” before bed will find you reading in the wee small hours. For me, it was absolutely worth the commitment, and I am looking forward to tackling the other two books in the trilogy—sometime soon.

Vocab Workshop: Diurnal

Learn English--that's my goal. =)

From: The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
"Perhaps, too, something in the languor and softness of her usually haughtily erect form, her diurnal broad-shouldered definiteness, kept my own eyes open."

{di·ur·nal} \dī-ˈər-nəl\ (adj) - (1)a : recurring every day, b : having a daily cycle; (2)a : of, relating to, or occurring in the daytime, b : active chiefly in the daytime, c : opening during the day and closing at night.
— di·ur·nal·ly adverb

I am more of a nocturnal night owl, rather than a diurnal creature.
Cleaning is among my many diurnal tasks.

Are they great sentences? Eh. But they are true!

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Vizzini: HE DIDN'T FALL? INCONCEIVABLE.
~
Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.