Title: Moon Tiger
Author: Penelope Lively
Date: 1987
Booker Prize Winner (1987)
Nearing the end of her illustrious life, Claudia Hampton decides that her final work as a historian should be to write the history of the entire world. While she may not achieve this lofty goal, Claudia succeeds in providing the history of her own life. Lively uses her narrator's profession to great advantage, and the novel is comprised of Claudia's ruminations on her past told in the first person, as well as glimpses of her experiences told in third person. Her philosophies about history--which permit both anachronisms and fictionalization--dictate the manner in which her life story unfolds. Claudia informs us, "I've always thought a kaleidoscopic view might be an interesting heresy. Shake the tube and see what comes out. Chronology irritates me." Her other assessment, that she is "a myriad Claudias who spin and mix and part like sparks of sunlight on water," also provides the framework for which the story will be told, and is representative of the poetic tone Lively uses throughout the novel.
The majority of the novel recounts Claudia's experiences as a journalist in Egypt during World War II, where she engages in a fondly-remembered romance with a soldier named Tom. With the exception of the unusually close bond she shares with her brother Gorden, most of the other events and interactions in Claudia's life--however exciting and life-altering--pale in comparison to her love for Tom. Her relationship with her daughter, Lisa, is strained, probably because two of Claudia's most admirable traits--professional ambition and wanderlust--result in frequent absences from the child's life. Although her relationship with Jasper, Lisa's father, is amicable and provides one of the few constants in Claudia's life, it lacks the intensity she feels with Tom. As her life draws to an end, Claudia considers the separateness of the past and present, while not discounting the former's everlasting influence.
While the temporal and narrative shifts are initially confusing, they work well within the greater concept of the novel, and it is interesting to watch Claudia's life unfold from the "kaleidoscopic" view. Occasionally, a scene narrated by Claudia will then be told in the third person, with slightly different details, adhering to the notion that history is never free of fiction. Lively's narrator is witty and amusing, albeit distant and abrasive to those around her. She's seldom apologetic or regretful which, strangely, seems to make her more likable. Claudia does not try to drive people away for the sake of being icy or vindictive, it is simply part of her nature to give precedence to her own pursuits. (As I was reading, Katharine Hepburn came to mind. Claudia would have been right at home in Hepburn's repertoire of unconventional, fiercely independent wartime heroines.)
Title: Feather Man
Author: Rhyll McMaster
US Release Date: September 1, 2008
Rhyll McMaster's first novel is the turbulent coming of age story of Sooky, a young girl who lives in Brisbane, Australia at the start of her narration. Not long into the novel, she recounts an instance of sexual abuse at the hands of her adult neighbor, family friend, and amateur chicken farmer, Lionel, which sets the tone for the types of unhealthy and abusive relationships she will encounter throughout her life. Sooky's quarrelsome parents are blind to the instances of abuse, and as their interaction with their daughter increasingly consists of ignoring or berating her, Lionel's abuse morphs into welcome attention in the young girl's mind. When Sooky intimates that she "suffered people-burnout at an early age," it is not difficult to see why.
As she matures and eventually relocates to England in hopes of becoming a professional artist, Sooky struggles in nearly all of her relationships, particularly those that include men. Although she is often the victim in such relationships, Sooky's sympathetic situation does not absolve her from perpetuating unhealthy alliances. She comes to believe that "simple pleasures are for inferior people," and seems determined to break ties with any benevolent figure in her life. After encountering no shortage of narcissistic, manipulative characters, Sooky herself has acquired these traits and manages to shun seemingly successful relationships while pining over Lionel's equally troublesome son, Redmond.
Although Sooky is plagued by an inordinate number of volatile, abusive situations, McMaster imbues the novel with a dry humor that can induce actual laughter despite the largely bleak subject matter. It is occasionally difficult to sympathize with Sooky, and her decisions can be frustrating, but she is an intelligent, reflective character who is self-deprecating and witty. While she may be guilty of some of the behavior she abhors in others, Sooky's actions are often a painful reminder of the abuse she endured. Early in the story, McMaster writes that Lionel robbed Sooky of the "mundane, unexamined happiness of ordinary life," and despite her faults, one hopes that Sooky, having mastered the art of examining her life, finds some inkling of happiness even when she doubts that she wants it for herself.
Title: Three Bags Full: A Sheep Detective Story
Author: Leonie Swann
US Date: 2008
When shepherd George Glenn is found in his field with a spade driven through his body, the sheep he leaves behind take it upon themselves to solve the murder. The victim's habit of reading to his flock has rendered the animals unusually intelligent, and each sheep contributes his or her own talent as they observe the villagers of Glennkill in hopes of uncovering the mystery. The best detectives in the flock appear to be the brilliant Miss Maple, smart enough to avoid the trivial "Smartest Sheep in Glennkill" contest, the bold black ram Othello, and the all-remembering (and all-eating) Mopple the Whale. As the sheep piece together clues and debate motives, they find that there's no shortage of suspects: "Bible-thumping Beth" paid George frequent visits, George's wife Kate was unhappy, the neighboring shepherd Gabriel has a strange flock of non-fleecy sheep, and the flock's favorite human to place under suspicion, Ham the Butcher, always smells of "screams, pain, and blood."
The novel can be cute and gentle but also darkly humorous, and even though the author has fun with the genre, there are serious elements to the story. Swann strikes a balance between making her furry protagonists intelligent and human enough to have emotional depth while still allowing them to maintain a sheep-y, childlike view of the world. A ram has a point after all, when he notes that death caused by blood-inducing injuries is "All perfectly natural," and no sheep is above ogling aromatic vegetables. While the novel is primarily a mystery, these particular sheep are also rather philosophical and will, for instance, pass their time pondering the "cloud sheep" in the sky, wondering what one does to become a "cloud sheep." Othello in particular is a very introspective ram, having lived through the horrors of a circus and the exoticism of residing in a zoo. The sheep's personalities are treated with as much care as those of any human characters, and the fate of the shepherd-less flock becomes as central to the story as the identity of the murderer.
The novel is not a fast-paced mystery, but taking time to graze among the sheep as they wax philosophic about the advantages and downfalls of being part of a flock, whether it's comprised of sheep or humans, is just as rewarding as their moments of amateur sleuthing.
Each weekend I'm going to try to watch the movie adaptation of a book I've read and compare the two in a not-so-formal way. If I'm feeling particularly ambitious, I'll try to read the book and watch the film in the same week. We'll see how it goes . . .
I loved Susanna Kaysen's memoir when I read it last fall. I seldom remember specific lines from the books I read, but there are moments that, cliché as it is, will stay with me forever.
Even though I've been meaning to see the movie since it first came out, I hadn't done so until yesterday. Despite anticipating the viewing for nearly a decade, and even with a slew of actresses who I thought were quite good in their roles, I was disappointed. Certain characters are given larger roles, some become less significant, and quite a few of the scenes never occur in the memoir. While these added scenes are more dramatic and action-packed than comparable moments in the book, they aren't as effective. I didn't expect the film adhere to to the book perfectly, but there is something subtle about Kaysen's memoir that ultimately makes a greater impact. In the movie, the bond between the girls in the hospital never feels as developed or believable as it does in Kaysen's account, and of course, in the film, it's harder to know exactly what is going through the character's mind. However biased her view may be, Kaysen describes her mental state and reaction to being institutionalized with a clarity and poignancy that is lost in the film.
One thing I did enjoy about the film, however, is the way it handles the anachronistic nature of Kaysen's memoir. Since Kaysen feels as though she can't always tell the past from the present, the film makers use the idea of Kaysen's thoughts drifting to an earlier time to their benefit. Kaysen will be in a doctor's office or in her bedroom until something triggers her memory and the scene will change to an event that occurred prior to the time line of the film.
If the book didn't exist, I might have a more favorable view of the movie. And even though Kaysen herself has said that memoirs shouldn't be taken as fact--that the author can be very manipulative in what he or she discloses--it bothered me that Kaysen's name was used for the main character when the movie was so drastically different from her own account. If you're going to put the name of an actual person in your movie that's based on her memoir, at least make some attempt to represent her telling of the story.
I thought I was just being cranky until I came across this article where Kaysen says she doesn't like the film either. She's kind of an authority on the subject matter . . .
Title: The Story of Forgetting
Author: Stefan Merrill Block
Date: 2008
Stefan Merrill Block's debut novel, The Story of Forgetting, ambitiously explores the effect familial Alzheimer's has on one Texan family, revealing both the burdens and freedoms that result from the memory-devouring disease. The novel is a conglomeration of fictional narrative, fable, scientific fact, and historical fiction.
When teenager Seth's mother is diagnosed with familial Alzheimer's, a form of the disease which will take her memory and her life much earlier than usual, he is determined to trace his family's roots in order to uncover all he can about his maternal relatives and the disease they carry. With little information about her past, Seth searches for other sufferers of the rare genetic malady--all of whom are related to each other, however distantly--in hopes of finding a close relative. The only other lead in his ancestral investigation is the stories his mother told of Isidora, a fictional land where the inhabitants have no memory. Armed with a list of names and the memory of his mother's stories, Seth searches Texas for anyone who may know about his family's past.
At the same time as Seth's journey unfolds, we are told Abel's story. An elderly man, Abel has little left but the memories of his life during occasionally happier and always less lonely times. Living in the only home he has known, reminders of the past are both a plague and a comfort. But his quiet life, which has gone unaltered for decades, is threatened when a new neighborhood of high-end homes is planned to be built on his land.
In between the chapters about Seth and Abel, Block tells the the fictitious, often humorous tale of the first carriers of the familial Alzheimer's gene--Seth's English ancestors--and how they found their way to America. Also interspersed throughout the novel are the fairy tale-like stories of Isidora and a bit of true scientific information about the disease. The intertwining of different stories is mostly successful, and Block's two main characters have believable, distinct voices. The chapters that focus on both the fictional and factual history of the disease occasionally feel superfluous, but even when it is not always clear how they connect to the larger story, the chapters are enjoyable to read.
Despite the grave subject of the novel, there are times when the story almost feels lighthearted, and perhaps because Block can write beautifully about everything from the Texas landscape to the bewildering effect Alzheimer's has on the mind, the novel is not as grim as I expected. Although Alzheimer's is a painful, frightening disease, and its shattering effect on everyone it influences is evident throughout the novel, Block also addresses the pain that comes with remembering the past too well. While the title of the novel is The Story of Forgetting, in the end, it does not feel as though the novel is about what people forget (or wish to forget) so much as it is about what remains a part of you despite a deteriorating mind or a troubled past.
Title: Moon Tiger
