This book was odd. I found it interesting, but the characters weren't conventionally likeable and it was deeply strange. Also deeply moving. I would call reading it a positive experience, but it wasn't a favorite.
Here are some other opinions if mine is too namby-pamby.
That being said, the last hundred pages or so - when everything looks like it is spinning out of control and you wonder how Irving is going to make sense of the whole thing - are brilliant!
I absolutely loved two other books by Irving - The World According to Garp and A Widow For One Year. I have read a couple others which did nothing for me. And I hear Cider House Rules is wonderful as well and someday I will give it a go I am sure.
And this book allows for some lovely recommendations of books that it seems like I am the only person who has ever read. For books about wee people, try Maybe the Moon by Armisted Maupin and Little Little by M. E. Kerr. A wonderful book about the Vietnam era and student life/draft resistance The First Few Friends by Marilyn Singer is interesting. And the book that started it all for garden variety small town weirdness - Peyton Place by Grace Metalious. Okay - lots of people have read Peyton Place, but not lately!
And so there it is - I am as smart as a future junior. Only the senior books to go and I still have a week and a half before school starts! (If the truth be known, I am still writing about the books I read when I was away. I am nearly halfway through the senior books - right now - but I have to write about them in the order I read them or, um, the universe will explode or something really bad will happen or I'll have to wash my hands over and over... What can I say? I like order.)
Please disregard that last paragraph.
No comments:
Post a Comment