At Weddings and Wakes

At Weddings and Wakes by Alice McDermott
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A quiet book about childhood memories and the romance of an aunt who used to be a nun. It is layered with memories, the exceptions standing out to create the narrative. It is a story about the ordinary challenges of families, marriage, religion. McDermott is a genius in highlighting the small stories and giving meaning and beauty to them.

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Unfortunate.  The word alone could elicit a knowing sigh whenever her name was mentioned, although it seemed to the youngest child, who had given her her loyalty, that it implied something the other sisters lacked, and that was a fortune that might have been found.

An antidote of green.

The city, it sometimes seemed to the children, was full of ancient, buried things struggling to resurface.

And then she suddenly stood, the three children now dizzy enough to be the crumbs tumbling from her apron.

Golden Age

Golden Age by Jane Smiley
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this installment the least of the Last Hundred Years Saga. Perhaps the family sprawl was just too big to really connect with any one character. But also there seemed to be less family loyalty and support and more backbiting, sniping, secrets, and manipulating. The background of politics and climate change that has been present throughout becomes part of the central issues, and none of it is encouraging--the fruitlessness of trying to right wrongs seems to pervade. I also thought it was interesting (weird?) that Smiley would have this novel of history morph into speculative fiction at the end, and write about years that haven't happened when the novel was written. The good news is the future is not quite as bleak as she fortold, but it did make the novel seem gloomy.

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Early Warning

 

Early Warning by Jane Smiley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

We continue with the Langdon saga. The original Langdon children have all married and start having children of their own. The expanding family requires a bit more brain power to keep track of since it may be several years before we revisit some characters. Frank turns out to be a terrible father and his wife is actually worse. Lillian and Arthur seem like the dream family but no one escapes tragedy, though each experiences good things too. Don't expect any great drama--this is a story about the small dramedys of daily life. There is a nice twist at the end which keeps the story from being too monotonous.

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Some Luck

 

Some Luck by Jane Smiley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The story of the Langdons through time--each chapter is another year. Each year has vignettes from various members of the family--not all members represented each year. This snapshot setting works for the most part and I felt like I got a good sense of most of the characters. Frank was surely my favorite, as I think he is supposed to be--the eldest son with a charismatic personality who doesn't have an easy life but regardless has things go his way. You also get a sense of the roots of the farming culture, which a large portion of Americans come from. Entertaining enough that I wanted to continue the series.

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There were so many things Rosanna could have been besides a farm wife, she thought.  But it was not a source of regret--it was a source of pride.

Great Circle

Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

We follow the history of Marian Graves, a fictional air pilot, from her conception to her daring trip to circle the globe. We also get some insight into Hadley who is cast to play the part of Marian in a film based on a novel, based on a journal. Perhaps this was the best part of the novel--seeing how iterations of a person's life condensed, picked apart, seen through artist's lenses can make the result an actual fiction. Shipstead did a great job of making the characters come alive--not only Marian and Hadley but Marian's twin Jaimie and her friend Caleb as well. I bought into their circumstances and choices, regardless of how unconventional, or cliche. Almost. The only reason this wasn't 5 stars is that I never grasped why Marian decided to circle the globe--that decision just didn't track. Still a great read.

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The world unfurls and unfurls, and there is always more.  A line, a circle, is insufficient.  I look forward, and there is the horizon.  I look back.  Horizon.  What is past is lost.  I am already lost to my future.

I thought about how the medium of music is time, how if time stopped, a painting would exist unchanged but music would vanish, like a wave without an ocean.

The best you can hope for is that time will have hardened around someone's memory, preserving a void in their shape. 

One thing I learned is that you don't just love a person, you love a vision of your life with them.

To Jamie, the war so far had been like the sun, relentless and undeniable but not to be looked at directly.

Even in this most hostile place, the sun and sky must return.

They rub at their cheeks and noses and toes, endure the pain of returning to life.

A return to the world as it was is impossible; the only choice to make a new world.  But making a new world seems dreary and exhausting.

The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Who

 

The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I'd heard so many great things about this novel that I think it would be a little surprising if I wasn't a little underwhelmed. I appreciate the writing style--even if the Spanglish made it tough to completely understand--it worked better if I just let the words wash over me instead of trying to parse the words out. The footnotes were also well-used to tell us the actual history of the DR and Trujillo. It's an everyday story with fantastic elements and while I didn't connect with any of the characters, and it was a sad story full of violence and cruelty, it did have enough hopefulness and compassion to make it worth it. If I didn't connect with the characters, it helped me have an appreciation for the history of the DR.

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Tress of the Emerald Sea

Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I am of the opinion that fantasy books are great because they can represent things in slightly different ways than how our world works, and thus lets us identify and learn from the strange. To a large extent this book does that--learning how to overcome difficulties, teamwork, loyalty, how trials change us (hopefully for the better). The narration, was cute, if a little too twee at times and it was obviously in homage to The Princess Bride (although if you are going to imitate, it better be as good or better than the original, and it wasn't). But my main problem was the randomness of some of the elements of the story. Why did Tress collect cups? Why was the ocean spores? (And how did the water cycle even work then?) I feel like these are significant elements of the story, but they didn't contribute to the larger story; they weren't symbolic; they were just seemed randomly put in there for wierdness factors. Overall, it was an entertaining story with some unexpected and welcome twists.

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Heroism is often the seemingly spontaneous result of a lifetime of preparation.

people are as fluid as time is.

In the land where everyone screams, everyone is also slightly deaf.

The very journey she'd taken to find what she wanted had transformed her into a person who could no longer enjoy that victory.