Jeanette Winterson’s beautiful and magnificently descriptive, impressionistic novel tells two interconnected stories from two different periods over a hundred years apart, each of them asking who we are as humans, what is our connection to the past, and what makes our lives worth living. On its most modern level, it is the story of Silver, born in 1959, “part precious metal, part pirate.” An orphan, Silver now lives with Pew, an old, blind lighthousekeeper, on an island in northwest Scotland. The lighthouse, we learn through Pew’s stories, was built by Robert Stevenson, father of Robert Louis Stevenson, who “escaped” the family business. In 1878, however, Robert Louis Stevenson visited the light and was fascinated by the story of Babel Dark, a local preacher, who became the inspiration for Mr. Hyde in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and whose story represents the second of the story lines. A rich novel which the reader will want to read slowly to savor, Lighthousekeeping marks a welcome return of Winterson to the compressed, poetic style of her earlier novels. (One of my Favorites for 2005)
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In Wintering, her debut novel, Kate Moses recreates the heart, soul, and psyche of Sylvia Plath, a feat that is so extraordinary and so realistic in its execution that it is difficult to know where to start in describing it. In preparation for this novel, Moses did as much research as many doctoral candidates do, reading virtually every piece of Plath’s writing, both public and private, and most, if not all, of the resource material about Plath — her journals and letters, comments by contemporaries, letters to and from her mother, her daily calendars, audio recordings, biographies, manuscripts, notes by Ted Hughes, and even her baby book. So completely did she distill this material that the reader of the novel feels as if she or he is actually entering the mind of Plath, a Plath who is speaking and reminiscing, conjuring up events, aching, dreaming, and hoping. Astonishingly, Moses achieves this without ever deviating from a third person narrative and without ever speaking as Plath herself.
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Focusing on the attempts of a group of young people, both white and Native American, to save some starving horses owned by the most powerful man in Twisted Tree, South Dakota, Meyers creates much more than a coming-of-age story here, delving into the essence of life itself, while keeping his style unpretentious and his plot lines simple. The stories the characters hear from their parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles connect the various themes, unite the characters, and show the overlaps between cultures as all these young people grow and learn. The young characters learn that underlying all stories are dreams, some living and some destroyed, some emanating from higher powers and some coming from within. Featuring characters with whom the reader identifies, this full, richly developed novel stretches our imagination, challenges our thinking, and keeps us totally entertained every step of the way. (My favorite novel of 2005)
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Posted in Coming-of-age, India, Literary on Jan 14th, 2011
Writing with wit and perception, Kiran Desai creates an elegant and thoughtful study of families, the losses each member must confront alone, and the lies each tells to make memories of the past more palatable. Sai Mistry is a young girl whose education at an Indian convent school comes to an end in the mid-1980s, when she is orphaned and sent to live with her grandfather, a judge who does not want her and who offers no solace. Living in a large, decaying house, her grandfather considers himself more British than Indian, far superior to hard-working but poverty-stricken people like his cook, Nandu, whose hopes for a better life for his son Biju are the driving force in his life. As Desai explores the aspirations of Sai and Biju, the hopes and expectations of their families, and their disconnections with their roots, she also creates vivid pictures of the friends and relatives who surround them, evoking vibrant images of a broad cross-section of society and revealing the social and political history of India. (On my Favorites list for 2006)
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Posted in Historical, Literary, US Regional on Jan 14th, 2011
When homesteader Leo Biedermann arrives in the plains of South Dakota in January,1882, during the most severe weather the area has seen in years, he immediately sets about building his house and barn, stocking the farm with cattle and horses, and planning his crops. The other homesteaders are astonished at his fortitude in the face of blizzards and bitterly cold weather, and though he is not friendly, they help him out when he needs machinery or a helping hand, and wish him well. When the first crops are harvested at the end of Biedermann’s first summer, Biedermann has managed to bring in the largest crop of all. Told through the journal of Gerhardt Praeger, a long-term settler with seven sons to help him on his farm, the narrative of Biedermann and his relationships with the other homesteaders unfolds. First published in 2007, this novel already feels like a classic, with its elegant and formal prose, its universal themes, its focus on a unique time and place, its broad vision of humanity with all its glories and faults, and its lack of artifice and sentimentality. Life is often harsh, but nowhere is life harsher than here in the lives of these Dakota homesteaders. (On my Favorites list for 2007)
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