Primo Levi’s memoir The Reawakening begins where his Survival in Auschwitz ended. It’s the last days of the WWII, and Levi is trying to stay alive in what passes for a hospital or sick bay in concentration camp. Levi, who committed suicide in 1987, was an Italian Jewish writer and a chemist. He was arrested in as a part of the Italian resistance in 1943, and to escape being shot as a partisan, he confessed to being Jewish, and after a short interment in Italy, […]
the Reader
I read several “popcorn” books this month and wanted to read something with a bit more substance; the Reader had been on my ‘to-read’ list since I purchased it at a book fair in August. Michael falls ill on his way home from school and is rescued by Frau Schmitz, after his recovery he goes to thank her and they begin a sexual relationship. During their affair 15-year-old Michael reads his school books to thirty-something Hanna, it’s part of their ritual: bath, sex, reading. They […]
A Tale for the Time Being
A Tale for the Time Being is a novel about Zen Buddhism, quantum physics, writers and readers, writer’s block and reader’s block, hate and love. It moves fluidly through the past and present and involves some dynamic and admirable female protagonists. Small wonder it was nominated for the 2013 Man Booker Prize (and should have won instead of The Luminaries). The narration moves back and forth between Ruth, a present-day middle-aged writer living on a remote island off the coast of British Columbia, and Nao, […]
What happened to Harriet De Luce?
Wow, that wasn’t what I was expecting AT ALL. In a good way. For me, this is the best of the series. So, fair warning, this review will be chock-a-block full of spoilers, so stay away, far far away if you don’t want to get spoiled all to hell. Usually, I try not to put spoilers (at least, ones involving twists and resolutions of the plot) in my reviews, but in this case, it’s impossible to say what I want to say without talking about […]
The Golden Notebook: A Novel by Doris Lessing
There is a part of me that feels brazen and shameless for daring to write reviews of literary classics. Who am I to judge Tolstoy’s War and Peace, for example (which I did for Cannonball Read 5)? The Golden Notebook is another such a book, but it is also one of those novels that I have wanted to read because it appears on so many “must read” lists, particularly among feminists. So I will boldly proceed with this review in the hope that I do […]
The Golden Hour
The main problem is the narrator and main character, Giovanna. While early in the book, Giovanna tries to convince the reader that she is brave and courageous because of that one time she carried a hawk, at no point do her actions in 1943-45 ever make her seem any of those things. Instead she comes off as spoiled, self-centered, stupid, unrealistic, dumb and flighty. Now some of those things could be okay in a main character, especially since Wurtele uses Giovanna as a character that […]