2nd Chapter, part 2....wheresthehamster's book

[Jas]

.

im so sorry but i couldnt finish the book, i tried reading it but i couldnt get into the story sorry again!!!

I really found this hard to read, too.

It was beautifully written, but the huge amounts of spoken word was very difficult for me to interpret (not helped by me reading it in a bad Jamaican accent, which I know was not right) and put me off the story.

I am glad I made it to the end (eventually). The last few chapters were quite gripping, and I did appreciate the story.

It was only at the very end that I started to like Janie, and to be interested in what happened to her.

I find phonetically written dialect quite hard work too-- it reminds of something Ian Rankin once said, that when he gave his (Scots-speaking) father a book written in Scots his father gave it back to him saying he couldn't read it as it was all written in gibberish.

I did really enjoy this though--it's hard for me to read stuff that's as descriptive as this right now as I'm reading in five or ten minute snatches between demands from the screamers but they both miraculously napped simultaneously for a couple of hours on Sunday so I could get stuck in. I agree with Jas that Janie is kind of unfathomable for much of the book but I love that the tone of the book is somehow upbeat despite the hardships she endures. Even Teacake's death doesn't diminish the time she had with him and her insouciant return to her hometown shows that she isn't broken by it, nor is it the book's way of moralistically 'punishing' her for following her desires.

I loved this, read it in a day (in bed with flu) loved the description of the hurricane especially

I was probably in the wrong frame of mind when i picked this up.HAd a sense that it might be something that I should read but really found the dialect too much like hard work - was having a busy tiime at work 'should try harder' but didn't want to work that hard at a book at that time. I put it down and picked up something light and so now am more receptive but about to post it on!

I really enjoyed this book - I was not put off at all with the dialect. It is deinately something I would never have picked to read, so well done wheresthehamster to send this book round!

I really think that this book was ahead of its time when it was written, and gives a wonderful insight into life back then. There are some notes at the end of the book, which are interesting, and suggest that the way Janie describes herself changes from 3rd to 1st person, which I did not detect. I can imagine the porch sitters doing all that gossiping, and how they describe some things are fabulously graphic - having been tongueless, earless, eyeless conveniences all day long! You can just see it!

Great book