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Book 10 (2015) Fugitive Pieces***** by Anne Michaels

This was an e-book read on the road in the Balkans.  A very appropriate reinforcement of the echoes of WW2 and the Holocaust I found everywhere.

This is a story, set in Poland, Greece, and Canada, is about Jacob Beer, a child who survived and was saved by a Greek geologist, and the impact of being a survivor on them, their friends, wives, and their descendants to the present time.

Michaels is a poetic writer meaning you never quite know what is going on and you hope it all comes together by the end.  I am not a fan of this technique but the writing is heart-stopping and the story unforgettable.  

Book 7 (2015) Half Broke Horses: a True-life Novel *** by Jeannette Walls

Another stunning book by Jeannette Walls who also wrote The Glass Castle.   Both are must reads.

This one is about her grandmother, a very strong and unusual woman, written in the first person by Walls.  Her style as again very rigorous and powerful, suitable for the horrific stories of grit and determination.   

One of my personal takes was the contrast of poverty and hardship and deprivation with the comparative luxuries they had, compared to my own upbringing. I had to fight the feeling of "this doesn't ring true", making me mistrust my opinion that my experience was not typical or my memory defective.   For example, having horses was a rare luxury in my upbringing.

Book 5 (2015) House of Mirth **** by Edith Wharton

I read this for a UBC course and found it most entertaining.  Hilarious writing, although Ira Nadel thinks Wharton overwrites (compared to Virginia Woolf). Apparently, there is controversy over whether Wharton says the heroine committed suicide on purpose or accidentally.   And a new letter to Wharton's doctor can be taken either way.  Other contemporary books by friends of Wharton's (e.g. Daisy Miller) had heroine's committing suicide at the end.  It was a serialized book and the ending was not written when the serials started, so perhaps that accounts for the ending, and accounts for the arguably overwritten last two chapters.   All a little too reminiscent of high school literature course nitpicking on novels that are essentially unrealistic entertainment with an overlay of meaning and allegory.

Book 4 (2015) Bringing Up Bebe * by Pamela Druckerman

Sigh, not original and not convincing --- American in awe of French parenting, trying to imitate but not really getting it.  Lots of similar books written, including a Canadian from Vancouver.  Always the same --- the do not really believe it can be done and don't really believe it is better, but mostly they are far too lazy, undisciplined and unprincipled to get it. Also, they cannot and do not want to live like this, so they sabotage themselves and the kids at every turn.  It's not just forcing your kids to eat food they don't like.  It is much deeper way of looking at life --- how to be good and really enjoy and make the best of life.  Thank god I was raised the "old-fashioned" or European way, and take it for granted, instead of a monumental/impossible change.

Book 3 (2015) Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal **** by Jeanette Winterson

Memoir autobiographical, great writer, Lesbian + adoption themes --- very well done.  

One of the greatquote: "That here might be a level we can reach above the ordinary conflict is a seductive one. Jung argued that a conflict can never be resolved on the level at which it arises --- at that level there is only a winner and a loser, not a reconciliation. The conflict must be got above --- like seeing a storm from higher ground."   

Ethel Wilson developed this theme in Swamp Angel (see review on this blog) where the heroine works for a couple in a fishing camp in northern BC, just the 3 of them and the guests.  The heroine is most capable and manages and does everything, which makes the wife jealous, so she attacks, and the heroine realizes she needs make the situation work to further her higher goals, and because there is no escape so she does.  The wife continues to make things worse for herself as she is stuck in the conflict of the moment --- her personal immediate emotional need causes her to lose sight of the bigger picture.  

This plays out in life all the time too --- travelling with tour groups in which most make it work, with effort, positive input, overlooking quirks foibles insults, participating, and just enjoying, while others make sure that there displeasure is known on petty things, and only talk if and when they feel like it, etc.  Also, neighbours who have a gripe which to them is more important than the long term benefits of cordial and helpful relationships.

Book 2 (2015) The Corrections ** by Jonathan Franzen

At first I liked it better than his first book, Freedom, for his writing about the older couple (funny but not original) and their adult children, but toward the middle it got boring as the characters ran around frantically as though in a pointless movie, and then toward the detiorated into a mess.  Good history of Lithuania? I couldn't be bothered to read carefully.

See review of Freedom on this blog.