The Third Angel
The Third Angel by Alice Hoffman
I’ve had Alice Hoffman in the back of my mind as an author I wanted to check out ever since I saw the movie Practical Magic, which is based on her novel of the same name. I actually meant to start out with Practical Magic, because I just love that story, but I guess it just became one of those many books that I mean to read and then never quite get around to reading. Mum had an advance reading copy of The Third Angel lying around the house, so I borrowed it from her at her recommendation.
The novel tells the stories of three women all in love with men who are somehow wrong for them. As the book unfolds, it becomes apparent that these women are interconnected in surprising ways. Their individual stories build on each other and form the pieces of another, larger story that involves all of them. The book works backwards in time, beginning with Maddy Heller’s experiences when she stays at the Lion Park Hotel for her sister’s wedding in 1999. The novel then deals with a significant event in Frieda Lewis’s life when she worked as a chambermaid in the Lion Park Hotel in London in the mid ’60s. Finally, the book takes us back to twelve-year-old Lucy Green’s trip to the Lion Park Hotel in 1952, where she witnesses a tragedy that will influence the lives of both Maddy and Frieda when they come to the hotel.
I had some trouble getting into the novel at first, mostly because I wasn’t all that engaged with Maddy’s story. I wasn’t sure what to make of the elements of magic and the supernatural events that were running through the story, either, because at the outset the book appears to be simply realistic fiction. Once I got to Frieda’s section of the book, I got really immersed in the story, and accepted the magical elements without trying to figure out their exact role in the story. I actually grew to really enjoy the magical element of her work. Furthermore, I loved that there was a fairy tale called The Heron’s Wife that figured in some important way in each story. Overall, I found that the three individual stories fit together extremely well, with each story leaving a trail of clues for the subsequent tale.
Everything was yellow in the park. When it rained, leaves came swirling down. When it was sunny everything looked golden. Frieda Lewis was nineteen and had been working for four months at the Lion Park Hotel in Knightsbridge. Her favourite rooms to clean were teh ones on the seventh floor. From there, she could look out the windows in the back and see the little courtyard park with its stone lion. From the front rooms, she could see the tops of the trees in Hyde Park. Once she climbed onto the ledge and stood there for a moment, above the traffic and the fumes, mesmerized by the movement of the trees and the clouds in the sky.
Twilight
Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
I’d been meaning to read this one for some time now, since I was feeling out of the YA loop. Then, one of my friends started raving about it, and there was finally a copy available at the library, and that was that.
I was immediately and thoroughly drawn into the book. I was completely absorbed by it, and couldn’t seem to read it quickly enough. In fact, I’m sure that I only skimmed some bits of it in an effort to find out what would happen all the faster.
I finished it quite some time ago and returned it to the library as there were holds on it, so I don’t have too much to say about it (which is really why I should write entries for books immediately upon finishing them) but I’m definitely interested to read the rest of the series. Reading this book recalled memories of reading when I was much younger.
“How old are you?”
“Seventeen.”
“How long have you been seventeen?”
Written on the Body
Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson
I haven’t entirely made up my mind about this book. I decided to read it because a couple of the girls I was friends with in one of my English classes last Fall raved about it. I can see why they love it, and I can also see why I could love it, but I’m not sure if I even like it all that much. Perhaps this is one of those instances when seeing the value in something is quite different from enjoying it. I think I could really benefit from a solid treatment of it in class, or at least some discussion on it.
The book details the romantic relationship that develops between the unnamed, gender-ambiguous narrator and a beautiful married woman named Louise. The main thing that stood out to me when I first started reading was the precise and beautiful writing. This carried me through approximately the first third of the book, and then I started feeling bored and irritated.
I think that part of what bothered me about the book was that it seemed much more a statement, argument, or commentary on society than an actual story. It’s not that I think that novels should be only about character and plot, but I don’t think that those elements should get thrown into the backseat while political agenda hops into the driver’s side and takes off. I like a little more subtlety, the interweaving of all the different elements that make up a story.
Because I felt that the characters weren’t developed very fully, I felt uncomfortable reading the details of their romantic relationship. I’ve never encountered this before. Often, I identify with at least one of the characters, or, failing that, I feel that I’ve been invited to read, to learn about their lives. Reading this book made me feel like an intruder, like I was reading someone else’s embarrassingly personal diary without permission.
The other result of the flat characters for me was that I just didn’t care about them. There isn’t much of a plot to speak of, so if you don’t care about what happens to the characters, that’s pretty much all there is. Besides the fantastic writing, of course.
I feel that I might have just been in the wrong frame of mind for the book. I can’t summarize my opinion into a recommendation this time because I’m still undecided. I do have a suspicion that this will be one of those books that stays with me. Maybe I’ll re-read this in a few years and decide then.
Articulacy of fingers, the language of the deaf and dumb, signing on the body longing. Who taught you to write in blood on my back? Who taught you to use your hands as branding irons? You have scored your name into my shoulders, referenced me with your mark. The pads of your fingers have become printing blocks, you tap a message on to my skin, tap meaning into my body. Your morse code interferes with my heart beat. I had a steady heart beat before I met you, I relied on it, it had seen active service and grown strong. Now you alter its pace with your own rhythm, you play upon me, drumming me taut.
White Oleander
White Oleander by Janet Fitch
Once I had finished Cloud Atlas, I had no idea what to read next. I often find it really difficult to follow up a fantastic book. I’m never sure if it would be better to raise the stakes by reading something that I know can compete with the quality of the book I just finished, or if I should just read something short and fun that I don’t have high expectations for. Sometimes, I wonder if I would have liked perfectly okay or even solidly good books better if I hadn’t read them on the tail of excellent ones.
This time I decided to re-read an old favourite. I’d been thinking about the protagonist of the novel, Astrid, for some time, so I decided just to go for it. I was a bit hesitant to re-read this one though, just because it spoke to me so deeply the first time I read it. Re-reading can be disappointing, and I really didn’t want to ruin my memories of the book.
As it turns out, I wasn’t disappointed at all. There’s something about this book that catches hold of me, and just doesn’t let go. It’s the story, but also the prose. Fitch’s writing style is like reading a 450-page prose-poem. When I was reading the book I found myself savouring every word like a morsel of delicious food, letting them melt on my tongue. I felt that Fitch chose each of her words with the care a fine jeweller would take when selecting precious stones for a necklace.
The Santa Anas blew in hot from the desert, shriveling the last of the spring grass into whiskers of pale straw. Only the oleanders thrived, their delicate poisonous blooms, their dagger green leaves. We could not sleep in the hot dry nights, my mother and I. I woke up at midnight to find her bed empty. I climbed to the roof, and easily spotted her blond hair like a white flame in the light of the three-quarter moon.
Cloud Atlas
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
I don’t entirely know how to begin to describe Cloud Atlas, but I feel that a brief consideration of its structure is essential to understanding the uniqueness of the book. I understand it in terms of a metaphor that came to mind while I was reading. Imagine a set of Russian nesting dolls that have been taken apart. The dolls have been taken apart in such away that the only intact doll is the centre one; the others remain in halves. To reassemble the set so that all the smaller dolls are inside the largest, you nest all the bottom halves of the dolls inside each other, then place the intact doll in the very centre, and then add the top halves from smallest to largest.
There are six interconnected stories in Cloud Atlas that are presented in precisely this manner. Mitchell begins five stories, tells the entirety of the sixth, and then resumes the first five in reverse order (12345654321). The stories are connected to each other, but each happens to a different character, is set in a different time period, and belongs to a different literary genre. This is where David Mitchell’s talents as a writer comes out, because each he handles each shift in the novel with skill and mastery. Each story has its own distinct tone to it, but fits in perfectly with the others.
One of my favourite details was the way that Mitchell altered his language to suit the time period and focalizing character of each story. Not to give too much away, but two of the stories are set in the future, and Mitchell alters the language of these stories to reflect and emphasize the setting. I found it interesting that in one of these stories, spelling and grammar was simplified in a way that Webster might have approved of, but Mitchell still retained the subjunctive mood.
This is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time (and I’ve read lots of good ones lately!). I really recommend reading this one, and untangling the mystery of the stories.
I watched clouds awobbly from the floor o’ that kayak. Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies, an’ tho’ a cloud’s shape nor hue nor size don’t stay the same, it’s still a cloud an’ so is a soul. Who can say where the cloud’s blowed from or who the soul’ll be ‘morrow? Only Somni the east an’ the west an’ the compass an’ the atlas, yay, only the atlas o’clouds.
Bridget Jones
Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding
Re-reading this was completely inspired by a Bridget Jones movie night plus chips and pickle dip (which, I’m pretty sure, is the only correct way to watch Bridget Jones). Can it be true – I think I actually prefer the movie to the book!
Interesting fact: when I read the diary in the ninth grade, I remember that all the records of her weight were meaningless to me as the measurements were all given in stones. In the copy I read this time, her weight is recorded in pounds. Was this changed for the American reprint?
“That is just such crap,” I slurred. “How dare you be so fraudulently flirtatious, cowardly, and dysfunctional? I am not interested in emotional fuckwittage. Good-bye.”
It was great. You should have seen his face. But now I am home I am sunk into gloom. I may have been right, but my reward, I know, will be to end up all alone, half-eaten by an Alsatian.
Emma
Emma by Jane Austen
Sometimes I’m just in the mood for some Austen. (This mood is characterised of course by a desire for wit, outspoken heroines, and neat, clean, unambiguous endings.) I picked up Emma because I felt like re-reading Northanger Abbey but Mum was reading my copy. Besides, I’d never read Emma and am working my way through all of Austen’s novels. Now I just have Persuasion left. (It and Emma were the only ones that weren’t assigned in school!)
I had a bit of trouble getting into it at first, but once I did I found it absolutely hilarious. Emma herself was just too much for me in her complete inability to understand the realities of a situation. The best part about this is that Austen makes it perfectly clear to the reader what is going on, so you get all the smug benefits of dramatic irony. Also the dialogue is fantastic. A couple of specific things struck me when I was reading the book:
1. Whoever it was who said that Austen is embarrassing to read because her novels centre around money was absolutely correct. (How I wish I could find that exact quotation again!) I should elaborate and say that I don’t find Austen’s discussion of money embarrassing, but I do find it significant that it is such a prominent feature in her books, especially in relation to marriage. I noticed it more in this book than in her others, but maybe that’s just because I was paying more attention to it.
2. I kept thinking about the Facebook group I came across called “Reading Jane Austen gave me unrealistic expectations about love.” I know that there are obviously major differences in the way that relationships work today compared to how they worked 200 years ago in high society, but the whole courtship game really stood out to me in an uncomfortable way because I kept thinking about it in light of today. Do people really still have expectations about love based on Jane Austen novels? I honestly can’t imagine being disappointed that my love life doesn’t play out like an Austen novel (and this is no way intended as an insult to my delightful first cousins).
Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable house and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her….The real evils indeed of Emma’s situation were the power of having rather too much her own way, and a disposition to think a little too well of herself; these were the disadvantages which threatened alloy to her many enjoyments. The danger, however, was at present so unperceived, that they did not by any means rank as misfortunes with her.
The Thirteenth Tale
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
I have to admit to being drawn to this book entirely because of its cover. Something about it really appealed to me, but when I picked up up in the bookstore I was a little put off because it was labelled as a “Heather’s Pick” and I rather dislike reading anything Heather or Oprah or anyone, really, has picked out for everyone to read (I guess I’m a bit of a snob). But I decided to get over my snobbery and read it.
The book follows the story of a young woman named Margaret, who receives a letter from the popular writer Vida Winter asking her to write her biography. This is unusual because Winter has spent her whole public life as a writer clouding her past in mystery, and now she wants to reveal the truth. As one commentator points out on the back of the book, Winter’s life story is “reminiscent of such spellbinding classics as Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and Rebecca.” It is also described as “a love letter to reading,” which is a description I can only agree with.
My favourite thing about this book was the way that Setterfield created the perfect atmosphere for a gothic novel. (I have a bit of a soft spot for gothic novels, especially ones written during the Victorian period.) I would recommend the book based on her talent to create mood alone. Of course, the plot is also completely absorbing and well tied together, as well as just weird enough to be interesting without being over the top.
All children mythologize their birth. It is a universal trait. You want to know someone? Heart, mind, and soul? Ask him to tell you about when he was born. What you get won’t be the truth: it will be a story. And nothing is more telling than a story.
Atonement
Atonement by Ian McEwan
I have decided to begin this blog with my thoughts on Atonement. Although it is has now been a few weeks since I finished the novel, it seems like the appropriate place to begin this record of books because it is one that has lingered with me after I finished the last page.
The first half of the novel deals with the events that take place at the Tallis family home on the hottest day of summer in 1935. These events are described through the perspectives of various different characters, who all come to different conclusions about the significance of these events because none of them understand them in the same way. (Because of this narrative technique, I found the novel to be highly reminiscent of Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs. Dalloway.) The way that McEwan reveals what happened on that hot summer’s day is where the suspense of the novel lies, because as you look at the same occurrence through the eyes of different people, you get closer to the truth of what happened. Or do you? Part of what I loved about the novel was the way it deals with the issues of truth and reality because it demonstrates that all we know is shaped by our perceptions.
Part II then jumps ahead five years to 1940 to examine the effects of the now 18-year-old Briony Tallis’s misunderstanding of what she saw on that summer’s day, and the crime she commits because of it. I found this to be a rather jarring leap into the future because of the accompanying shift in style; however, I adored the meta-fictional commentary McEwan employed with this change in style.
I think that this novel has quickly become one of my very favourites, and in addition is one I wish I had written myself.
It was thought, perception, sensations that interested her, the conscious mind as a river through time, and how to represent its onward roll, as well as all the tributaries that would swell it, and the obstacles that would divert it. If only she could reproduce the clarity of the light of a summer’s morning, the sensations of a child standing at a window, the curve and dip of a swallow’s flight over water. The novel of the future would be unlike anything in the past. She had read Virginia Woolf’s The Waves three times and thought that a great transformation was being worked in human nature itself, and that only fiction, a new kind of fiction, could capture the essence of the change. To enter a mind and show it at work, or being worked on, and to do it within a symmetrical design – this would be an artistic triumph.
