Showing posts with label wake up calls. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wake up calls. Show all posts

The Sweetest Dream: A Novel Review

The Sweetest Dream: A Novel
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The Sweetest Dream: A Novel ReviewDoris Lessings's 24th novel, "The Sweetest Dream" concerns itself with people from whom we never seem to find escape, even if we want to...family members.
This is a book that many people may not like. It's fairly long, not divided into chapters and, for the most part, lacks a plot. Rather than plot, Lessing chooses to concentrate of the needs of family members instead...immediate family members and extended family members. This is a book filled with "issues" and each character seems to have his or her opinion on each and every one of them. If the book seems too long, consider this: the pages are filled with so much dialogue during the discussion of these "issues" that they (the pages) simply fly by. It really doesn't take long to read "The Sweetest Dream."
I wouldn't say that this book is "about" anyone in particular, although its heart and soul is Frances Lennox a British actress and writer, who, at a very young age, made the mistake of marrying Johnny, a devout communist. Although she attempted to correct that mistake, she seems to only become mired even more deeply in Johnny's troubled life and times.
Frances and her two teenaged boys are at home much of the time while Johnny cavorts in various parts of the world. He only seems to light long enough to deposit yet another person on Frances' doorstep for her to take care of. (The latest being Johnny's current wife.) Frances finally finds a little peace and solace in the home of Johnny's widowed mother, Julia. This is a house filled with misfits: Frances' and Johnny's sons' friends and Sylvia, the troubled, anorxic daughter of Johnny's current wife. Although Frances dreams of the theatre, the need for cash seems to trap her in the world of journalism instead. Meantime, she's become the "family" caretaker and caregiver, much to Julia's distress.
Why doesn't Frances tell the selfish and self-centered Johnny when to quit? After all, his own mother thinks he's a cad, a brute, a loser. Frances, though, just keeps on lavishing love while her dreams of the theatre and a real man by her side seem to be slipping away. To find out whether they really do or not, you'll have to read the book.
While "The Sweetest Dream" is a very well-written novel with a premise that seems to have all the requirements, as I read, I realized that something was missing from the narrative. It is passion, fire. The characters seem almost defeated from the start. While believable, they are somewhat flat. I think Lessing needed to delve more deeply into their hearts and souls. It is only in the book's final development that Lessing really lets us care. And no, it isn't too late.
In the final analysis, however, "The Sweetest Dream," though a little flat, is still a wonderful book and one any fan of Doris Lessing absolutely should not miss.The Sweetest Dream: A Novel Overview

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The Country Girls Trilogy and Epilogue Review

The Country Girls Trilogy and Epilogue
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The Country Girls Trilogy and Epilogue ReviewI bought this book preparatory to a month in Ireland, as a mental/political exercise (aware of former banning). I couldn't put it down, and got three hours or less sleep for three nights in a row. I foisted it on my mom with warnings not to begin it on a weeknight, she got hooked on a Tuesday and went downhill too. We talked for days about how tightly written it was, how clean, spare, descriptive, full of foreshadowing, and painful to any woman who knows what it is to be centally disappointed by a man. Yet the book never whines, it never pushes itself sobbing on your shoulder. It sits in dignity with sadness.
Very quietly and methodically tragic, in the Irish way that says you do not whine about tragedy, you do not make fuss of it, you just simply pray a bit and go on. What makes the book so very valuable and unusual is that it applies the Irish knack for storytelling and forthright 'un-tragic' tragedy to women's lives and women's stories. It is both an Irish book full of water and woodsmoke, and a women's book in all its painful honesty and revelatory grace.
Please read.The Country Girls Trilogy and Epilogue OverviewThe Country Girls Trilogy and Epilogue is an absolutely engaging saga that is, thematically, about opposites - opposite dispositions and opposite views of life, the survivor versus the ungovernable romantic. It charts unflinchingly the pattern of life, for women, from the high spirits of youth to the chill of middle age, from hope to despair. It is both painful and hilarious.

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The Country Girls Review

The Country Girls
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The Country Girls ReviewCaithleen Brady and Bridget(Baba)Brennan are friends in a poor rural area in Ireland. Written in the first person by Caithleen we see through her eyes a poignant portrayal of friendship, family, first love and disappointment. Edna O'Brien writes in what could only be described as a haunting manner. A gentle coming of age story which follows the girls through the death of Caithleen's mother, the shiftlessness of her father, a scholarship to a convent and their expulsion. The gentleness of Caithleen is a foil to the bright sharpness of Baba, who manages to mislead Caithleen against her better judgement; though she is her friend and anything they do they do together. There are numerous wonderful unique characters: the endearing Hickey, Baba's parents, Joanna the German boarding house proprietess and the enigmatic Mr Gentleman (though that is not his real name - he has a difficult French name so the neighbours changed it to Mr Gentleman). "The Girl With The Green Eyes" continues the adventures of Caithleen and Baba and is as good as "The Country Girls"The Country Girls OverviewMeet Kate and Baba, two young Irish country girls who have spent their childhood together. As they leave the safety of their convent school in search of life and love in the big city, they struggle to maintain their somewhat tumultuous relationship. Kate, dreamy and romantic, yearns for true love, while Baba just wants to experience the life of a single girl. Although they set out to conquer the world together, as their lives take unexpected turns, Kate and Baba must ultimately learn to find their own way."It's a difficult trip, this coming of age . . . O'Brien tells it with love and outrage, compassion and contempt." (Los Angeles Times Book Review)"A treasure . . . powerful . . . intelligent . . . ironic." (The New York Times Book Review)

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