How Much of These Hills Is Gold

 

How Much of These Hills Is Gold by C Pam Zhang
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Probably 3.5 but rounded up because lyrical writing and a unique point of view. The novel opens on two Chinese-American orphans in gold rush California, trying to survive. The story sprawls out to how their parents got there and what their life was like. Its an exploration of how we are defined and define ourselves--gender, race, and status are explored. Setting the novel so far in the past helps us to question the validity of these social markers. For me it was an uneven book: the writing was so lyrical it felt like a big narrative poem, which worked in many instances, but in others, a more straightforward approach would have been better. There were also varying viewpoints that shifts the reader's perception of different characters--characters morph and change depending on the circumstances and motivations. The overlying message is that a person is more than what they appear to be, there is a truth and a history that must be mined, to take things at face-value is to be deceived (fools gold, if you will.).

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A Separation

A Separation by Katie Kitamura
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is an exploration of ideas surrounding a circumstances rather than a straightforward story. And that's what I liked about it. In what ways do we separate ourselves from others? Is it possible to completely cut ourselves off? How does the separation affect new and old relationships? Does a legal document make you more or less separate? Does death? It reminded me a lot of The Infatuations by Javier Marías and weirdly both referred to Colonel Chabert by Balzac. Anyway, a good read for thinking.

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they no longer went away....It was only on the shores of infidelity that they achieved a little privacy, a little inner life, it was only in the domain of their faithlessness that they became, once again, strangers to their wives, capable of anything.

romance is not something that a couple can be expected to conjure by themselves, you and another, the two of you together, not just once but again and again, love in general is fortified by its context, nourished by the gaze of others.

People were capable of living their lives in a state of permanent disappointment, there were plenty of people who did not marry the person they hoped to marry, much less live the life they hoped to live, other people invented new dreams to replace the old ones, finding fresh reasons for discontent.

You need to have a great deal of sadness inside you in order to mourn for other people, and not only yourself.

there was a small but definite wedge pushing between the person I was and the person I was purporting to be

A child is born and for the rest of his or her life the mother will love the child, without the child doing anything in particular to earn it.  But the love of a wife has to be earned, to be won in the first place and then kept.

grief, which concerns itself not with the dead, but with those who are left behind.  An act of consignment occurs: the dead became fixed, their internal lives were no longer the fathomless and unsolvable mystery they might have once been, on some level their secrets no longer of interest.

In this way, I thought, we make ghosts of the dead.

The House at the Edge of Night

 

<The House at the Edge of Night by Catherine Banner
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

If you are not a fan of magical realism, the comparison to Isabel Allende might deter you. Don't. This is the book to read if you question the place of magical realism in literature. It is an argument for choosing the unexplained over explication, enchantment over absoluteness, faith over fear. Most of the "magical" things that happen can be explained in a pedestrian sort of way: the caves cry at night for the dead vs. the wind blowing through the rocks create a mournful sound. Both explanations are presented--which will you choose to believe? Set on a Mediterranean island, it is a modern myth complete with heroes , villains, and legends. A beautiful story with memorable characters in a magical place.

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Still Lives

 

Still Lives by Maria Hummel
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A fairly good thriller with the added contemplations about the business of art and the violence perpetrated against women, both of which were explored with new angles. There were some story-lines/ relationships I wished were more deeply examined but the plot line mostly held up. I enjoyed the narration by the protagonist as she tries to exonerate her ex. An enjoyable beach read.

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