May Book Reviews

When You Are Engulfed in Flames, David Sedaris
This was another D.I. book! My sister introduced me to David Sedaris several years ago, and he has also been a regular contributor on NPR. He writes mostly of his own life experiences, somehow putting a twist in the telling of every day events to make them hilarious. This book was as funny as anything else I've ever seen from him. If you are going to read this book based on this review, then let me just warn you (Nancy's mom, are you reading this?) about some explicit content. Some chapters have it, some don't. My favorite chapter was the last one, called "The Smoking Section". It chronicles Sedaris's quest to stop smoking and his several month-long trip to Japan with his partner. He has a gift of telling about mundane experiences in a way that makes them seem hysterical. I loved the way he contrasted Japanese culture with Western culture, and especially the English translations he observed. A thoroughly funny book, just watch out for some of the explicit content if you aren't wanting to be exposed to that!


The Wednesday Letters, Jason F. Wright
Yet again, D.I. This one I didn't feel quite as lucky to find once I read it. Yes, it was heartfelt, blah blah blah. It was about a family in rural Southern Virginia who owned an inn and raised their three children there, and about the things that drove them apart and ultimately brought them back together. Anyone smell predictability? The book opens one night near the end of the story, and then flashes back through time to tell the story of the parents' marriage and their life together raising their family through weekly letters that the husband, Jack, wrote to the wife, Laurel. In the opening scene, Jack and Laurel both die within 20 minutes of each other (I'm not spoiling, it's written on the blurb on the jacket), which forces the children to reunite for their parents' funeral. In doing so, they find boxes and boxes of letters that Jack has written to Laurel over the years. As they read through the letters, they discover a *gasp* FAMILY SECRET that threatens to destroy what they know and love...

Okay, so the story was fine, it was just predictable. The characters were okay, but also predictable and not that well-developed, in my opinion. The writing was trite, and the setting and supporting characters were just a little too convenient. I know lots of people love books like this, that tell a good wholesome family story, but it was just a little too much for me. If you read it and disagree, feel free to tell me what you thought.


Atonement, Ian McEwan
I have wanted to read this book since I saw the movie previews a few years ago. They just made the story look so interesting! I still haven't seen the movie, but I managed to read the book. It begins with a young girl, Briony Tallis, living at her family's manor in England in 1935. I liked the development of the character of Briony. The reader was allowed into her 13-year-old mind to experience her thoughts and feelings, and it sets the stage for what happens next. One hot summer day, Briony witnesses several encounters involving her older sister, 23-year-old Cecilia, and Robbie Turner, their housekeeper's son and the family's longtime friend. As a budding young writer, Briony has an active imagination and attempts to incorporate events around her into her storytelling. She fancies herself somewhat of a heroine in her stories, and this spills over into her own life, setting off a disastrous chain of events that affects the lives of nearly everyone in her family when she can't separate her imagination from reality and unwittingly implicates someone in a grave crime they did not commit. The story leaves off after the events of this day and picks up again ten years later, in 1945 and the middle of World War II. Briony is now a nurse working in a hospital that takes care of wounded and dying soldiers. She realizes, with adult perspective, what really happened that day in her childhood and she attempts to repair the situation and make amends with those she has hurt. The story then leaves off again and picks up in 1999, when Briony meets with family members for her 77th birthday celebration.

I have to admit, I didn't love it as much as I hoped I would. After watching the previews and reading the book's jacket blurb, I had hoped for a more emotionally charged and fleshed out story. The book jacket says how the author has never "worked with so large a canvas", spanning dates from the 1930s to the present, and how it is his greatest masterpiece. I guess I just had a little bit higher expectations based on what I had seen and heard. The characters were wonderful, I enjoyed their development and getting to know them. The story telling was also wonderful, and in these senses it was a masterpiece. I guess I was just hoping for more - more insight into what life was like for the characters during these time periods, I felt that they were each too short and disconnected. I also hoped to find out more about how the problems were resolved - I suppose this was left hanging on purpose to allow the reader to come to their own conclusions. I guess I was expecting too much. I really did enjoy the book, it was just not what I expected. I would still recommend it.


Of Love and Other Demons, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
This was an interesting book. I had previously read "Love in the Time of Cholera" by the same author and really enjoyed it, so I picked up this little story at the library a few weeks ago. I really enjoy Marquez's writing style. He has a way of wording things that I really like. Of course, it is translated from Spanish, so who knows if it is exactly as the author intended it. At the same time, however, I think it is impressive that a translator could get the author's meaning across so eloquently. This book was the story of a family that was part of the decaying noble class in 18th century Colombia (I think - ? I guess it never really says exactly where the book takes place but Marquez is from Colombia and the other book I read was set there, and this setting seemed similar). Don Ygnacio de Alfaro y Duenas is the father of this family, and he is described as a funereal, effeminate man, as pale as a lily because the bats drained his blood while he slept." Bernarda, his estranged wife, loves no one, even her family members, as she pines for a slave that she fell in love with long ago during her days as a merchant in the slave trade. Their daughter, Sierva Maria, is completely neglected by both parents and raised by the household slaves in their African traditions. The girl is bitten by a rabid dog on her twelfth birthday and begins to exhibit bizarre behavior. Or rather, her parents begin noticing her regular behavior when they pay attention to her for the first time. Ygnacio realizes that he actually loves his daughter, and seeks help from the local Catholic bishop, and also a local Jewish doctor, considered to be a heretic. Sierva Maria is eventually deposited by her father into a convent of Clarissan nuns, where she is kept in a prison cell. The bishop finally turns the girl's care over to his protege, Cayetano Delaura, who begins visiting the girl daily. He eventually falls in love with her, and a tragic chain of events is set in motion, including exorcism of the demons believed to be possessing the young girl, and the subsequent deaths of most of the main characters. This time I was expecting tragedy, and I was fine with it in this book. It seemed in keeping with Marquez's writing style. So does a grown man falling in love, or having a physical relationship, with a young girl. This has happened in both of his books that I have read so far. I don't know if this was cultually and morally acceptable in 18th and 19th century South America, or just something the author adds for interest, but it is a little disturbing according to today's standards. Still, an interesting look at the culture of the time and the interplay of science and religion in the society. And at only 147 pages, definitely worth a read.