Grace Williams Says It Loud by Emma Henderson (Jill)

Grace Williams Says It Loud

By Emma Henderson

Grace Williams was born with mental and physical deformities, which were compounded when she was stricken with polio at the age of six. By the time she's 11, her doctors convinced her parents to turn Grace over to a mental institution, and it's there that Grace meets the love of her life, Daniel, who sees through her disabilities. Their story is at the center of Emma Henderson's Grace Williams Says It Loud.

Grace proves to be a delightful narrator - cunning, observant and witty. Through her words, we learn how institutions treated their patients during the 1950's. In fact, the scenes that depict the name-calling, condescension and physical abuse were hard to read, even with talented Grace at the helm. These horrific scenes were juxtaposed with Grace and Daniel's friendship and love - a beacon of light in the storm. You could tell the two found solace through each other.

While the characters were complex and interesting, I was not as enamored with Grace Williams Says It Loud as many other readers. However, I can't pinpoint why. Somewhere in the middle of this story, it lost steam for me, and I skimmed some of the remaining pages. Not enough action? Tired of the institutionalized treatments? I am not sure. In any case, I still recommend Grace Williams Says It Loud and encourage you to read other reviews to get a feel for the book. Grace deserves a large audience, indeed. (  )

The Memory of Love - Wendy's Review

And when he wakes from dreaming of her, is it not the same for him? The hollowness in his chest, the tense yearning, the loneliness he braces against every morning until he can immerse himself in work and forget. Not love. Something else, something with a power that endures. Not love, but a memory of love. – from The Memory of Love, page 185 -

Sierra Leone is filled with survivors of a brutal civil war – people who are moving through the remains of their lives, traumatized by loss.

Kai is a young surgeon working in the capital hospital and struggling with his own memories of a lost love and an incident he has buried deep within his heart. Elias Cole is an old man, dying in a hospital bed, and wanting to unburden himself of terrible choices he made, to re-write his own history and spin his story to his own advantage. Adrian is a British psychologist who has left his wife and daughter to come to Africa and help survivors to recover emotionally.

Bound together by their own secrets, desires and one woman, these three men’s lives will become interwoven in ways none of them could ever have anticipated.

Immersed in the novel are the stories of not just the characters, but of a whole country changed by war. Aminatta Forna explores the resilience of the human spirit, the fine line between truth and lies, betrayal, and the ethereal power of love in a novel which spans nearly two decades.

People are blotting out what happened, fiddling with the truth, creating their own version of events to fill in the blanks. A version of the truth which puts them in a good light, that wipes out whatever they did or failed to do and makes certain none of them will be blamed. – from The Memory of Love, page 351 -

Forna constructs her novel with three distinct narratives which move the reader back and forth from present time to when Sierra Leone was embroiled in civil war. The voice of Elias Cole is the echo behind the other stories. Here is a man who begins his narrative with his attraction to a married woman, but whose story changes as the reader begins to see the character through the eyes of others. Driven, competitive, and willing to do anything to advance his career, Elias is a man who represents the quiet support behind the scenes which allows evil to propagate.

Adrian is a complex character – a man who is searching for something greater. He loves his child in England, but has grown distant from his wife. He is drawn to the people of Africa and wants to understand their torments. The last thing he expects to find, however, is love.

How does a man whose task in life is to map the emotions, their origins and their end, how does such a man believe in love? – from The Memory of Love, page 362 -

It was Kai, however, who I was most drawn to in this novel of loss. A young and gifted surgeon, a man whose job was to put back together the physically shattered lives of his patients, but whose own life was emotionally fragmented. My heart ached for Kai. I wanted to know what had happened to him…and Forna waits until the end of the novel to fully reveal his story. It is Kai’s character who brings the novel full circle, who links all the characters together.

Close at hand a dog adds its voice to those of the others. Kai thinks of the day and the journey he now has before him. He does not lack the courage for it. No. Rather it was the courage to stay that had failed him. – from The Memory of Love, page 287 -

The Memory of Love is a quiet novel which reveals the people of post-war Sierra Leone: a boy whose father was murdered, a man rebuilding his body and dreaming of marriage, a woman ready to reclaim her son born of a rape, a community strengthened by its collective memories and cultural ties. Forna’s writing is graceful, introspective, and beautifully rendered.

The Memory of Love is a novel for those readers who enjoy literary fiction and works which examine African culture. It is a book about survival and the power of love to heal us.

Highly Recommended.

Laura's Review - Great House

Great House is an unusual novel that makes considerable demands of the reader. The book is made up of four loosely connected stories, but I didn't pick up on that at first. Part I has four chapters -- the first part of each story -- and felt disjointed, like four unfinished, disconnected works with weak character development. At the close of Part I, I was enormously frustrated. I broke one of my cardinal rules and read some reviews of this book. They inspired me to continue reading, and I'm glad I did. I finished the first story in Part II and was flooded with emotion. The same thing happened with the second, third, and fourth stories. And suddenly the book made sense, and I was reminded of a quote I'd flagged early on:

There are moments when a kind of clarity comes over you, and suddenly you can see through walls to another dimension that you'd forgotten or chosen to ignore in order to continue living with the various illusions that make life, particularly life with other people, possible. (p. 14)

I found myself warming to the characters which include a writer telling her life story, an older man reflecting on his relationship with his adult son, a man who discovers a secret his wife kept from him for years, and the adult children of an antiques dealer. Woven through Great House are themes of exile, loss, and betrayal, all in a Jewish context. It was fascinating, and I kept flagging quotes like this:

What is the point of a religion that turns its back on the subject of what happens when life ends? Having been denied an answer -- having been denied an answer while at the same time being cursed as a people who for thousands of years have aroused in others a murderous hate -- the Jew has no choice but to live with death every day. To live with it, to set up his house in its shadow, and never to discuss its terms. (p. 175)

Towards the end I could see how Nicole Krauss was building a kind of metaphor for the Jewish experience:

if every Jewish memory were put together, every last holy fragment joined up again as one, the House would be built again, said Weisz, or rather a memory of the House so perfect that it would be, in essence, the original itself. Perhaps that is what they mean when they speak of the Messiah: a perfect assemblage of the infinite parts of the Jewish memory. (p. 279)

Well as I said, this book does make demands of the reader. I'm not even sure I understood it all, but I felt rewarded in the end.



Cross-posted from my blog

Laura's Review - The Memory of Love

The Memory of Love takes place shortly after Sierra Leone's Civil War (1991-99). Adrian, a British psychologist, has returned to the country following an initial short volunteer experience. He's left his wife and daughter at home in the hopes of making a difference, helping the people of Sierra Leone recover from trauma. His methods are viewed skeptically at first, but eventually he begins to have a positive impact on his patients. Kai is a brilliant young surgeon working in the same hospital, and haunted by war trauma and lost love:

And when he wakes from dreaming of her, is it not the same for him? The hollowness in his chest, the tense yearning, the loneliness he braces against every morning until he can immerse himself in work and forget. Not love. Something else, something with a power that endures. Not love, but a memory of love. (p. 185)

Kai is still in love with Nenebah, a woman who left him some time ago. He also misses his best friend Tejani, who left the country to practice medicine in the US. Kai toys with the idea of joining him, and takes steps necessary for immigration, but is clearly ambivalent about leaving other loved ones behind in Sierra Leone.

In Sierra Leone, silence rules the day: the war is simply not discussed; personal stress is suppressed, as if it's all a big secret. Most of Adrian's cases suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, having witnessed horrific violence during the war that they have been unable to deal with on an emotional and psychological level. And then there is Elias, the patient who on the surface appears the most "normal." Elias checks himself into the hospital, knowing he is near the end of his life. He has a compelling need to unload his personal story on someone, and Adrian begins meeting with him. Elias worked at the university, first as a lecturer and ultimately as dean. While his personal circumstances kept him away from most of the violence, he and other academics were arrested under suspicion of some vaguely described wrongdoing. Elias describes his response to this event, and its impact on important people in his life, in a matter-of-fact way but gradually Adrian realizes there's much more to Elias' story.

Aminatta Forna uses patient stories, gradually revealed through Adrian's therapy, to help the reader imagine the war's events. She also builds a web of people which I found fascinating. Kai and Adrian's lives intersect first on a professional level and later in deeply personal ways. The connections between people and events unfold slowly, and for me each revelation was very emotional. This is especially true of Elias; when his "sins of omission" are revealed, his real character becomes known, as does a connection that binds him with both Adrian and Kai. The ending was especially wrenching and yet somehow, just right.

This is a superb book; I was transfixed and couldn't put it down.




Cross-posted from my blog

Great House by Nicole Krauss (Jill)

Great House
By Nicole Krauss
Completed July 7, 2011

"...Every Jewish soul is built around a house that burned in that fire, so vast that we can, each one of us, only recall the tiniest fragment: a pattern on the wall, a knot in the wood of a door, a memory of how light fell across the floor. But if every Jewish memory were put together, every last holy fragment joined up again as one, the House would be built again..." (page 279)

Great House isn't about a house per se. Rather, it's the story of people with a deep and tormented history - who individually represent a sliver of their collective past, but together, form a congruous whole. In this story, a desk is the connecting theme - an assuming piece of furniture that began in the office of a Jewish man in Budapest and made its way around the world, touching and affecting the lives of many people.

In this story, we meet a writer who lives in New York, an antiques dealer and his family from Jerusalem, a retired prosecutor and his son from Israel and a British couple. With one exception, the desk spends time with each person - often carrying good luck but painful memories too. As the story progressed, you follow the journey of the desk and the people who sat at it. In time, you see the other connections between each one.

Nicole Krauss is a gifted storyteller who is not afraid to take her readers on a journey that can be complicated and arduous. Indeed, Great House is not the easiest book to read with its swirling storylines and flowery language. It requires concentration as you learn about these characters whose lives are separate but connected. Each story could stand alone, but when placed together, they evoke a deeper meaning.

Great House will probably be revered by fans of literary fiction. It would make a compelling book for discussion, especially if led by the right moderator. In the end, I am glad I took the time to read this book - and sure that I will be thinking about this story for a long time. ( )

Room by Emma Donoghue (Jill)

Room
By Emma Donoghue
Completed June 21, 2011

This book has been well reviewed and analyzed by literary critics and book bloggers alike. It's a hard book to summarize because I don't want to give away too much of the plot. So, for this review, I will just share some thoughts on this story:

1) Room is narrated by a five-year-old boy who only knows an 11x11-foot room as his home. He doesn't understand that rain falls from the sky, that cars stay in their lane and that bees can sting you. All the things we understand to be true in our lives would be new experiences to a boy who never spent a day outside. Donoghue did a good job writing about these new experiences - and coming up with all the "little things" that seem to be common knowledge, but not for a boy who lived in seclusion.

2) The American media's treatment of Jack and his mother's story was spot on. Their insistence to not grant this family any privacy reminded me of true media coverage in other heart-wrenching stories. Equally compelling (and so aligned with what happens) is how the media digs at the story from all angles in an attempt to "outscoop" each other. There is little regard for what's best for Jack or his mother.

3) This book was a real page turner. During one section of the book, I did not move from my seat. I was worried that something bad was going to happen, and the suspense was jarring. Few books have that effect on me.

This isn't my typical review, but I hope reading it helps persuade you to give Room a try. It's a compelling, provocative book that makes you think about your life and what you would do in a similar situation. It's worthy of its literary accolades, and I predict that it would make a good movie with the right director and actors. What do you think? ( )

Want to win a copy of Room? This book and others will be part of the Orange July book giveaways. Click here to learn more.