Monthly Archives: February 2010

February 26, 2010 · 11:35 pm

Come, Thou Tortoise: A lot of good

There is a lot to love about Come, Thou Tortoise. The plot, for one, unfolds so sweetly, so sensitively and with such care for the first person narrator, Audrey. Audrey herself is a bit much. In fact my only complaint about the novel is her narrative voice. Much like The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, Audrey’s narrative voice is at first engaging and certainly memorable, but soon comes to be irksome – far too many short sentences, far too many. Her playful musings (and puns) do at times distract, and I found myself waiting through the first 3/4 of the novel for whatever cognitive ailment she has to be revealed. How can a grown woman not realize mice do not live twenty years? And really, really not realize?

That said, there are some really beautiful plot moments. Details, descriptions, dialogue that capture the imagination. The small town setting in Newfoundland is perfect (as is the scene when Audrey is surprised that her pilot has heard of St.John’s). The characters are rich and delightful. The voice of the tortoise is (perhaps surprisingly) exactly what I think a tortoise might sound like: altogether thoughtful. Sad narrative, yes, but sad in a way that feels neither insincere, nor urgently pressing towards a resolution in happiness. A sadness that is allowed to just be sad with the full knowledge that these characters care so much for one another that the sadness might just be bearable, and for the reader, Oddly enjoyable.

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February 22, 2010 · 11:59 pm

Her Fearful Symmetry: Premature Climax

I really loved A Time Traveller’s Wife. I really want to love Her Fearful Symmetry. And for most of the first half I was completely on board. I enjoy a good mystery, I appreciate a London setting and a fancy flat with loads of expendable income. As always, I appreciate good characterization – and the twins, Robert, and particularly Martin, are likable. Likable but not quite fully realized. The characteristics of each – Valentina as “mouse,” Julia as “bossy,” Martin as “OCD-ey” evolve, but without any justification for why such changes take place except that it is expedient for the plot.

In fact, all of the novel works towards advancing the plot and reaching the climax, at the expense of character development, consistency and motivation. While I appreciate that Neiffenegger takes bold and creative ideas and puts them to work in ways that allow the reader to suspend belief, unlike TTW, here the suspension of belief is only temporary, and the “magical” elements quickly become tedious and without logic, which is all the more disappointing given the success of TTW in sustaining believable unbelievability. Which is to say, the plot is engaging for the first 2/3rds of the text, and then becomes something to be completed if only to find out how the wildly loose ends might come together.

So a novel to be enjoyed for the fast-paced plot and the intensely readable early sections; a novel to be avoided if one values character development or consistency.

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February 19, 2010 · 11:36 pm

Salt Fish Girl: Borderline

Larissa Lai’s second novel, Salt Fish Girl, combines history and fantasy in an involving speculative fiction. Without revealing too much about the plot, the perspectives of the two protagonists, the 2040s Miranda and 1800s Nu Wa, are interwoven in an exploration of sexual desire, genetic modification, immigration and family responsibility.

The strength of the novel comes from its richly imagined future scenes. So much so that the speculative future reads as a much more compelling and realized time than the historical one (when one might expect depth in detail through research). The future protagonist, Miranda, also controls a stronger narrative voice and sense of character motivation and development.

The chapters set in the past are not disappointing, but rely too heavily on magic realism, without sufficient grounding in either time or place (something the future chapters do quite well). Further, these sections lack – with the exception of the meeting of Salt Fish Girl – concrete plot experiences, and so ‘float’ in a wishy-washy space of over-stated symbolism.

The symbolism is my chief complaint. Lai needs to trust her reader to interpret and analyze the text. As it is, the combination of an abundance of heavy handed symbolic references and (purposefully?) ambiguous mythic references  leave the reader at one and the same time frustrated with the emphatic symbolism and confused by the seemingly inexplicable plot events.

That said, the time changes and the Miranda plot are engaging and as a consequence the book reads quickly and for the most part, enjoyably – if you can get past the symbol saturation and occasionally disorienting plot elements.

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February 19, 2010 · 11:20 pm

Gorgeous Lies: Neither gorgeous, nor mysterious

Martha McPhee’s Gorgeous Lies served as my “bus book” for the last month. It is terrible. Really, really, bad awful. I would have stopped reading it, but it fit so well in my backpack and I only had to stomach a few pages at a time.

The novel follow the “wacky” Fury family – a new age blended family – as the patriarch Anton dies of pancreatic cancer. There’s the suggestion that there is some big secret lingering at the heart of his life that will either be revealed on his death-bed or in the book he’d been working on before his death. Turns out it’s no secret at all, the narrator lets us know early on that he’s been having sex with his stepdaughter(s).

The plot is terrible, but more frustrating and impossibly distracting is the writing. Awkward transitions, incredibly banal metaphors, clumsy dialogue, weak attempts at poetic description.

Turns out the book is a sequel – something the back cover does a good job of avoiding – which might explain some of the plot failings, but certainly does not account for the formulaic writing. Future bus books will be chosen based on more than size.

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