I've completely fallen off the thread because RL keeps getting in the way of both reading and posting. Here's a quick round up of my latest books.
12. Youth: The Copenhagen Trilogy 2 – Tove Ditlevsen
The teenage years. Tove leaves school and begins a right of passage common to many of us comprising of dull jobs, valiant attempts to establish a social life and tentative yet disappointing encounters with the opposite sex. She struggles to break away from home and build a life of her own away from her parents, with limited success. She continues to write poetry and starts to seek out kindred souls to help her realize her dream of publishing her work.
Meanwhile, as her new landlady proudly hangs Hitler’s picture on the wall, Ditlevsen reminds us that Europe is moving into a new, horrible era, and that everything is about to change forever.
For me, this is perfect balance of a very personal story set to a backdrop of epic world events – understated, funny, sad and thought provoking.
13. Motherwell – Deborah Orr
I was really looking forward to this one, but unfortunately I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would.
Deborah Orr looks back at her childhood in 1960’s Motherwell and reflects on how it has shaped her as an adult. Very sad. Many truly horrible things happen to her. Her parents are not always the kind and loving beings we all expect our parents to be. She talks a lot about narcissism, which jarred a little and veered into telling rather than showing IMHO.
Reading this book as both a mother and a daughter I felt she judged her parents a little harshly; they made many mistakes but were also products of their own flawed upbringing and also of the era they lived in. It made me really think about how we’ve moved on as a society, and how (I hope) my 12 year old DD will not face the same rampant misogyny Deborah Orr did as a young adult.
Overall, a thought provoking read but too unremitting for me. Needed a bit more light to balance the shade.
14. The Nickel Boys – Colson Whitehead
This book was set by a reading group I belong to. I probably wouldn’t have chosen it myself as I was somewhat underwhelmed by The Underground Railroad. The setting is a boys’ reform school in 1960s Florida, the main protagonists are Elwood and Turner, two young men trying to survive the harsh regime.
I liked this much better than The Underground Railroad. The structure of the novel works really well and it has a satisfying and clever conclusion. The claustrophobic, segregated society of 1960’s Florida is well described. However, there’s something about Whitehead’s style that stopped me feeling truly close and involved with the characters, even though I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was. His very long, descriptive sentences? Is it too literary for me? Too many characters, so I couldn’t get to know them properly? Given the emotive subject matter, I wanted to feel more than I did. I admired this book very much, but sadly as with The Underground Railroad there was an invisible barrier in my head which stopped me from properly connecting with it.