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Category Archives: Fiction
Einstein’s Dreams
Einstein’s Dreams by Alan Lightman was mentioned in Introvert Power. I read it in a day, but it will haunt me for much longer than that. But… what do I mean by “a day” and “longer”? After reading this little book, it’s impossible to use time references without a heightened awareness that my concept of … Continue reading
Posted in Fiction
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Charlotte Sometimes
This haunting novel is classified as a children’s book, though to my mind it seems more like an adult book with child characters. Although it’s poetic and truthful in its depiction of character and psychology, its storyline is intriguing, and for many it’s considered a modern classic, it’s not a book I recommend. First, the … Continue reading
Home
Marilynne Robinson’s Home revisits the events of her novel Gilead from a different vantage point. Glory Boughton, daughter of Presbyterian minister Robert Boughton, has returned home to care for him in his last days. She serves as the narrative center of this reflection on her family’s life, and on her brother Jack’s return to the … Continue reading
Posted in Novels
5 Comments
So Long, See You Tomorrow
I finished this book last night, turned off the light, and lay numbly in bed for a few minutes. “What a depressing book,” I muttered. “Why did you read it then?” asked my husband (who I thought was already asleep). It is, above all, heartbreaking. Yet it’s also perfectly crafted — truthful, spare, lyrical, ruthless … Continue reading
Posted in Novels
3 Comments
Housekeeping
In Moby Dick, there’s a long passage of meditation on the whiteness of the whale. Melville launches into a highly symbolic and metaphysical discussion of the concept of whiteness, and we’re left with a lasting impression of our smallness and impermanence in the vast sea of existence. Untangle Melville’s prose, giving him a voice less … Continue reading
Posted in Novels
9 Comments
Heart of Darkness
This is one classic I was never assigned in my voyage through academia. Having recently read Barbara Kingsolver’s Poisonwood Bible, I decided now would be a good time to continue the focus on the Belgian Congo with a plunge into Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. I found that it’s not really about the Belgian Congo … Continue reading
The Poisonwood Bible
There are currently 1,545 reviews of this novel already listed at Amazon. What can I possibly add? Nothing. Yet I’ve just had my own personal experience of the book nonetheless. I blog partly to come to terms with reading experiences, and after such a weighty, sprawling, powerful novel as this, I feel the need to … Continue reading
People of the Book
I wanted to give a sense of the people of the book, the different hands that had made it, used it, protected it. I wanted it to be a gripping narrative, even suspenseful. So I wrote and rewrote certain sections of historical background to use as seasoning between discussion of technical issues… So explains Hanna … Continue reading
Posted in Novels
7 Comments
March
Last year, I was dazzled by Geraldine Brooks’ Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague. “How do people write books like this?” I wondered. “How can someone research such a seemingly unpromising subject so thoroughly — and then make it sing in a work of fiction?” March is a book I had mixed feelings … Continue reading
A Girl of the Limberlost
A Girl of the Limberlost is sort of an early twentieth-century Cinderella story. Published in 1909, the novel is written by noted Indiana naturalist Gene Stratton Porter. The book tells the story of Elnora Comstock, a neglected country girl whose mother has been embittered by the loss of her husband quite early in their marriage. … Continue reading
