I’m not really sure why I do this to myself. I called my friend who works in a used bookshop and asked her to pick me out a couple of books. She asked what I wanted and the only thing I could tell her was that I wanted something evil. One should never leave an opening that big for trouble. Especially since one of the two books she picked for me was a romance novel.
Sleep Tight by Laura Marie Altom… Bah! What an evil book. Occasionally I like to read a Harlequin, get it out of my system which is a throw back to the days when I lived at home. My mother had a closet full of those books and I never had to pay for a single one of them. My aunts provided the crack and for some reason, my mother collected them, even though she didn’t read them all that much. And me, who will read anything with words on it, read a bunch of them. I really don’t think that was a very good idea to expose a young mind to such questionable material.
Anyhow, back to the evil book. First we have a down-on-her-luck Tooth Fairy who pretends to be a hired Bugoslavian princess to make some extra cash. Next, we have a budding Boogeyman who thinks his mother is being conned by this faux-princess and kidnaps her to his in-the-middle-of-nowhere rustic family farm. The farm is so rustic, it doesn’t have indoor plumbing. (I am so not making any of this up.) The first half of the book is spent with them bickering and fighting and of course, the fighting of the sexual tension. Not to mention, she is an exceptional homemaker and completely turns the little rundown home into something nice and homey while he is out plowing the fields the old fashioned way. (Metaphor? Who’s to say.) So basically, the first half of the book causes a little bit of eye rolling but it is holding pretty close to the general formula. (And for the record, I have no problems with the formula. It is loved by millions for a reason.)
And then wham, I was completely taken by surprise when it turns into an interesting fantasy novel. Yeah, I know, stupid me. Tooth fairy, boogeyman; you would think that would be enough to tip me off. As our hero is being taken over more and more by his dark side, he forces himself to pull away from his innocent angel, the symbol of goodness and light in the world. He cannot allow the bad voice in his head to hurt her. The angst dripping off these pages is enough to give Angel pause and gawd, how I love angst. (Not really sure why cause I can’t imagine putting up with it in real life.)
And then secrets are revealed about him and then about her and you are not really sure what is going to happen and the world could come to an end because of the evil lord of the Underworld and... And what does the author do? Wave a magic wand so I freaking hate the ending. She killed it. Why couldn’t she write a real fantasy novel that allowed her have a messy ending? That allowed her to create something with real meaning? Nope. That is why this book is evil and my friend had no idea when she passed it off to me. It looked innocent but it was so very, very deceiving.
The second book holding to the theme of evil was Adultery for Adults and yep, I bought that one too. Not that I have any plans to go in that direction but I’m exceedingly interested in finding out what advice someone might have for the adulterer in the 1960’s.
Sunday, November 27, 2005
Friday, November 11, 2005
A Complicated Kindess by Miriam Toews
Bah!
Bah, I say!
I really have nothing to say about this one … other than a little bit that has vexed me. So to get to that part, I'll have to write enough of a bridge to get us to where we can legitimately talk about me. 'Cause you see, it is all about me. This whole exercise, just me.
Anywho … A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews is about this poor Canadian girl, Nomi, growing up in a Mennonite community that gives new meaning to the word repression. It is the type of community that if you do something that upsets the elders, you could find yourself shunned. Basically, you become a ghost, no one can talk to you, can't even eat at the same table as a shunned family member. Nomi's sister and mother left when she was younger and it is only her and her father left to struggle out a life together. You can't blame her for not being all that motivated with her schoolwork when the only future you see for yourself is at the chicken processing plant.
Every character is depressed or unhappy in some form or another. Not a happy story in the lot of them. That didn't make me all that motivated to read this one very fast because it was way too easy to get sucked into the world of the walking despondent. I didn't completely hate it but was glad when it was over. It was sort of like Catcher in the Rye but without the happy ending.
Now we can talk about me and the vexing. You see, I finished the book last weekend and then went to work and told a coworker. (Yep, this is another book club selection.) We started talking about it and I mentioned the ending and how it was sad about ________. I won't give it away here in case you haven't read it. But then, apparently, even if you had read it, you don't see that either. So now, we start taking a poll and it turns out that I'm the only one to get this impression out of the turn of events. (One woman even patted me on the shoulder and said, "Figures you would find the morbid angle." But thanked me for making the book more interesting for her.)
Now I'm starting to think I'm just crazy, which could be true or a potential side effect of this book. I don't know. If you have read it please email me so I can get your take on it. This could be another case of me reading into something that really isn't there or it really did happen and I'm not so nuts.
Bah!
Bah, I say!
I really have nothing to say about this one … other than a little bit that has vexed me. So to get to that part, I'll have to write enough of a bridge to get us to where we can legitimately talk about me. 'Cause you see, it is all about me. This whole exercise, just me.
Anywho … A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews is about this poor Canadian girl, Nomi, growing up in a Mennonite community that gives new meaning to the word repression. It is the type of community that if you do something that upsets the elders, you could find yourself shunned. Basically, you become a ghost, no one can talk to you, can't even eat at the same table as a shunned family member. Nomi's sister and mother left when she was younger and it is only her and her father left to struggle out a life together. You can't blame her for not being all that motivated with her schoolwork when the only future you see for yourself is at the chicken processing plant.
Every character is depressed or unhappy in some form or another. Not a happy story in the lot of them. That didn't make me all that motivated to read this one very fast because it was way too easy to get sucked into the world of the walking despondent. I didn't completely hate it but was glad when it was over. It was sort of like Catcher in the Rye but without the happy ending.
Now we can talk about me and the vexing. You see, I finished the book last weekend and then went to work and told a coworker. (Yep, this is another book club selection.) We started talking about it and I mentioned the ending and how it was sad about ________. I won't give it away here in case you haven't read it. But then, apparently, even if you had read it, you don't see that either. So now, we start taking a poll and it turns out that I'm the only one to get this impression out of the turn of events. (One woman even patted me on the shoulder and said, "Figures you would find the morbid angle." But thanked me for making the book more interesting for her.)
Now I'm starting to think I'm just crazy, which could be true or a potential side effect of this book. I don't know. If you have read it please email me so I can get your take on it. This could be another case of me reading into something that really isn't there or it really did happen and I'm not so nuts.
Bah!
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