i saw this in a bookstore and even seeing 800 pages wasn't enough to dissuade me from wanting to read iti saw this in a bookstore and even seeing 800 pages wasn't enough to dissuade me from wanting to read it...more
this is my first shirley hazzard novel after having read her collected stories, but i still came away with basically the same thought:
when hazzard is this is my first shirley hazzard novel after having read her collected stories, but i still came away with basically the same thought:
when hazzard is at her best, she's brilliantly capturing these kind of unspoken, purely human moments of everyday life. this had a lot of that. her writing is so great that you almost wish she didn't have to deal with pesky things like "characters that you feel are real" or "plots that aren't mostly made up of things being mysterious."
i recommend this book, and i thought there were moments of true greatness in it, but it was not for me an enjoyable read.
it says a lot about how well hazzard writes that i will probably reread this to check if that's on me.
bottom line: what a talent!
------------------- tbr review
there's something about old-fashioned books about sisters falling in love
(thanks to the publisher for the audiobook e-arc)...more
there's something about an author's last uncompleted novel.
there was a lot of good old-fashioned cleverness to this book, of the kind that reminds youthere's something about an author's last uncompleted novel.
there was a lot of good old-fashioned cleverness to this book, of the kind that reminds you of 9th grade english class discussions at 7:35 am that were like pulling teeth. the adam and eve motif, the slow transition from nameless characters to named and back. but then there's also weird stuff.
it's a little strange to read this story, which is about gender dysphoria and polyamory and sexuality, in 2024, when all of that is stuff we know about now. reading hemingway writing about it is almost like when your grandpa describes a character he likes in a tv show using extremely outdated language and you're like, "aw, pop pop! it's nice that you're trying but also please never say that again."
except for hundreds of pages.
bottom line: it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
(3.5 / thanks to the publisher for the copy)...more
this is another installment of project long classics, in which i read intimidating paragons of literature in small biwelcome to...THE ENCHANTED APRIL.
this is another installment of project long classics, in which i read intimidating paragons of literature in small bits over the course of a month in order to make them less scary, but really so i can keep buying penguin clothbounds and make puns.
in this case, this book is not long, nor is there a penguin clothbound edition of it (update: YES THERE IS NEVER MIND ABOUT EVERYTHING), nor is my title a pun (it's mild wordplay at best). but i want to read this book, so we're doing it anyway.
CHAPTER ONE i love books about seasons, i love short and under-read classics, i love nyrb editions, i love reading about people traveling to italy, i love when women cast off their burdens like the extra in mamma mia who throws her bundle of sticks away during dancing queen. this seems like a recipe for success.
CHAPTER TWO you do not need to convince me that it is the god-given right of woman to go on a girls' trip to the mediterranean. but if you did, i'd be sold. this lady is sad as hell!
CHAPTER THREE they want these girls paying the equivalent of six thousand american dollars for a month in this washed up castle...i'm sick rn. death to landlords.
CHAPTER FOUR "Also things happen so awkwardly. It really is astonishing, how awkwardly they happen." my worldview summed up.
CHAPTER FIVE we are in a medieval italian castle and our main characters are kissing. enchanting!
CHAPTER SIX i fear i may never want this book or this april or this book about april to end.
CHAPTER SEVEN well, i do wish that mrs. fisher and lady caroline were more of a vibe. but i guess we can't be a group of best friends from day 1.
CHAPTER EIGHT i am trying really hard to be annoyed by lady caroline but it might be impossible. who could hate a hot girl who wants to be left alone to think depressing thoughts?
CHAPTER NINE i can't say i'm having the same problem with mrs. fisher. only a truly evil person could hate pasta.
CHAPTER TEN "Well, let her be peculiar if she likes. A woman with her looks can be any damned thing she pleases." i have never been more jealous of a statement made behind someone's back in my life.
CHAPTER ELEVEN wait...why are we inviting men on the girls' trip??! this is like when your one friend keeps bringing her boring boyfriend to dinner. i expected more from my ladies.
CHAPTER TWELVE i feel i am being prevented purposefully from fully loving any of these characters. i want to appreciate mrs wilkins and her power of mundane prophecy, but she just invited her stupid husband. i want to love lady caroline, a perpetually irritated hot girl with the nickname "scrap," but she keeps snapping at everybody. mrs fisher is pure evil and mrs arbuthnot is too quiet and secretive. we're halfway through! let's get it together!
CHAPTER THIRTEEN you guys are bumming me out! LIVE A LITTLE!
CHAPTER FOURTEEN this guy hasn't even been here 15 minutes and he's already blown up the stove and harassed the guests and tried to pick up a client for his law office while in just a towel. this is why i said no husbands.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN all of the characters may be charmed by this man but i refuse to be.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN still refuse to be enchanted by the a-man-is-present situation, but i can admit it's nice that everyone is getting along and there are flowers everywhere.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN i'm exactly like all of the characters in this book. i'm trying to be grumpy because i didn't expect men to be imported into us here, and yet i can't resist how wonderful everything is. san salvatore makes even the downest of debbies more cheerful, and it looks like it's working on my hateful self too.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN well, it turns out i spoke from the belief that the exact thing i made up and wanted to happen was in fact happening and therefore i would be happy forever. now it seems like actually i did simply make it up. more to come.
CHAPTER NINETEEN i should never question my instincts. the men in this book, as in life, are nothing but annoyances.
CHAPTER TWENTY i do not want briggs for lady caroline! i want briggs for mrs arbuthnot! i don't care that she's a mrs! and this is only truer now that i see her husband is pure evil!
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE i see now what's happening here. we are taking a month in the land of NO CONSEQUENCES!!!
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO oh, gosh. what right does this book have to up and end like that?!
OVERALL i did not quite get what i expected from this book — a group of four very different but unhappy women going on a spontaneous trip to italy to find themselves and become best friends — but i did get a pretty good alternative, which is those four becoming happy in their current circumstances (namely finding love with their annoying husbands).
i thought every single man in this book was a hindrance to my good time (and also just a weaker character than their counterparts), but i still enjoyed this immensely and feel personally injured by having finished it. rating: 4...more
it has one of the best beginnings i've ever read, and it has one of the best endings i've ever read, and all of i need this book injected in my veins.
it has one of the best beginnings i've ever read, and it has one of the best endings i've ever read, and all of the middle parts are pretty damn good too.
its explorations of family, of naming, of the permanently unhealed wound of slavery, of gender and power, and of love are unforgettable.
i hate reviewing books i love at the best of times, and for this one in particular there is just no way i can do it justice.
bottom line: please, for the love of yourself, read it....more
just kidding. that is not a problem i'm looking to solve.
morrison never holds your hand and walks you throughhelp, i can't stop reading toni morrison!
just kidding. that is not a problem i'm looking to solve.
morrison never holds your hand and walks you through it, even though sometimes you (read: i) wish she would.
this finale in the beloved trilogy has so much to say about violence and oppression, but still i somehow wish it said more.
we follow the residents of a town and of a convent as we crawl toward the act of violence that ends the life they know, but i was jarred by the act and how quickly and confusingly it was over. the writing didn't seem like the same standard i've come to know, and the ending was a strange abrupt where are they now while the credits rolled.
the vibes were off.
bottom line: my least favorite toni morrison, and i still liked it.
groundbreaking feminist literary classics is like my family.
i expected more of an Anarchist Feminist vibe from this one, and instead what i got was kigroundbreaking feminist literary classics is like my family.
i expected more of an Anarchist Feminist vibe from this one, and instead what i got was kind of a grown-up version of the kind of island of the blue dolphins / boxcar children type kiddie survivalist classics i used to buy three for a dollar from my library booksale with, like, quarters i'd scrounged up from couch cushions.
who knows where kids acquire money, is what i'm saying.
that was a fun ride in and of itself, minus the fact that it had the kind of devastating ending that should make it infamous everywhere around the world. i'm not even of the opinion that animals in books are all that great, or that their deaths are the most upsetting of any character type.
until now, i guess.
sorry for the spoiler? but i'm actually sparing you unexpected suffering. so never mind. you're welcome. welcome to my version of does the dog die dot com.
anyway. in addition to all that, this is a pretty striking exploration of the role of humans in the world, and it made me wish all of us were dead except for maybe one lady who can help the cows and pet cats.
that's my new political perspective. also i'm calling not it.
the background: i have decided to become a genius.
to accomplish this, i'm going to work my way through the collecmy becoming-a-genius project, part 28!
the background: i have decided to become a genius.
to accomplish this, i'm going to work my way through the collected stories of various authors, reading + reviewing 1 story every day until i get bored / lose every single follower / am struck down by a vengeful deity.
we're approaching the third anniversary of my commencement of this project and also i have not undertaken an installment of it in several months, so this is an exciting event.
DAY 1: JOHN REDDING GOES TO SEA this had the unique unbelievably depressing / know-it-all combo of an old-timey fairytale. i for one think unrelated tragedy cannot be blamed on some guy's wife being like "if you wanted to leave and travel everywhere solo style you probably shouldn't have married me." rating: 2.5
DAY 2: THE CONVERSION OF SAM eek. another very moral and didactic one.
which i guess i should have guessed from the title. rating: 2.5
DAY 3: A BIT OF OUR HARLEM feeling: hopeful. this story is all of 2 pages long and it seems like there's no way there'll be time to preach a lesson at all.
never mind. it managed. rating: 3
DAY 4: DRENCHED IN LIGHT this one was...interesting.
i love a free-spirited lowkey annoying kid as much as the next person but i don't know about the happily ever after being a potential adoption from a significantly more annoying white family. rating: 3
DAY 5: SPUNK if we have to get all Big Lesson, this is the way to do it. i'll take murderous ghosts and vengeance and gossip any day. rating: 3.5
DAY 6: MAGNOLIA FLOWER i have to say this is just not the collection i expected after their eyes were watching god at all.
this one is giving disney princess. rating: 3
DAY 7: BLACK DEATH now THIS is what i'm talking about. if we're going to cast aspersions on those who sin, at least give me some sort of dark magic sorcerer to do the punishing! rating: 3.5
DAY 8: THE BONE OF CONTENTION this one was amusing. i will give it that. rating: 3.5
DAY 9: MUTTSY well this one was just depressing. the conversion of sam without the conversion part. rating: 2.5
DAY 10: SWEAT this story contains the insult "she don't look like a thing but a hunk of liver with hair on it," and therefore i stand with it in support for all my days.
it's also a very well-deserved act of Womanly Vengeance, so that helps. rating: 3.5
DAY 11: UNDER THE BRIDGE the lesson of this story is that if you marry a much younger woman your hot son gets to fall in love with her and you can't even get that mad. rating: 3
DAY 12: POSSUM OR PIG? not a question i've had occasion to ask very often.
call me crazy, but i am not loving these stories with strange morals involving slaves "wronging" white people. stealing a pig seems pretty low on the crime scale when compared with enslavement. rating: 2.5
DAY 13: THE EATONVILLE ANTHOLOGY this was the florida equivalent of olive kitteredge. just a bunch of sad people living unhappy lives in a small town. enjoy. rating: 3
DAY 14: THE BOOK OF HARLEM a lot of these stories have been biblical in a variety of ways.
this one chose "language and format." rating: 3
DAY 15: THE BOOK OF HARLEM oh good. it's almost exactly the same as yesterday. down to the title. rating: 2.5
DAY 16: THE BACK ROOM fun little dorian gray situation here. if dorian gray could be told in 10 pages or less. rating: 3
DAY 17: MONKEY JUNK we're having fun with biblical formatting again. rating: 3
DAY 18: THE COUNTRY IN THE WOMAN i do think that the appropriate response to seeing your husband on his fourth side piece is to slow-walk toward them with an axe like a horror movie serial killer.
the punishment fits the crime. rating: 3.5
DAY 19: THE GILDED SIX-BITS another moral. gosh these are depressing. rating: 3
DAY 20: SHE-ROCK biblical formatting alert.
this contains a truly astonishing phrase (a beverage called "coon-dick") which i was so titillated by i immediately had to google and the only results i received were about raccoon penises. so now i feel like i got pranked by zora neale hurston on a decades-long delay. rating: 2.5
DAY 21: THE FIRE AND THE CLOUD i have to say, i thought a story about a talking lizard would have a little more going on. rating: 2.5
OVERALL i was really excited to read this collection, but unfortunately not many of these felt like they came from the author of their eyes were watching god, a book i loved. these stories had sparkling moments of brilliance and ones i truly enjoyed and some that just weren't my cup of tea. it was a lot more moralistic than i expected.
it's neither a good nor bad book for me, and therefore in the exact middle it goes. rating: 2.5...more
