We’ve both been busy, but rest assured we are still reading…
We have both been super busy with all sorts of stuff but we will have our reviews up shortly for persepolis and have begun reading Extremely Loud and Close by Jonathan Safran Foer (Everything is Illuminated).
The Virgin Suicides
One of the biggest issues that I’ve had with our book club is that both books we’ve chosen are by authors I’ve already read. I read “Dry” and “Running With Scissors” before we started “A Wolf at the Table”. I read “Middlesex” before “The Virgin Suicides”. This is a problem because I am expecting things out of each author that I would not expect out of reading a new author. In a sense, I felt somewhat of a connection with the books (the two we’ve read) before I even knew the subject matter, solely for the fact of knowing other books by the same author. With that said, I was unsure of what to think about “The Virgin Suicides” because I absolutely adored “Middlesex”. It is one of my favorite books of all time.
However, I am so incredibly happy to say I was not let down in the least. “The Virgin Suicides” is unique in the sense that even just hearing the title, the reader knows the ending. This differs from most books, in the sense that the reader is not searching for what-happens; they’re searching for how-does-it-happen. Aside from the unique plot set up, this book had beautiful language and style. Eugenides has a very delicate and charming way of writing about the girls’ lives, but also hauntingly real. I think my good friend, Joe B, summed it up nicely, “I have no idea what its like to be a teenage girl. But, I felt like, if anything, ‘The Virgin Suicides’ gave me a sliver of an understanding.”
-LC
A little while after me and Lindsay started dating she insisted that I read Middlesex ( For its descriptions of Detroit, etc )…This brought us to a realization that neither of us had read The Virgin Suicides…( Jeffery Eugenides wrote both titles). Virgin Suicides was made popular by the movie which was directed by Sofia Coppola, (daughter of Francis Ford Coppola) and came out the year I graduated high school (99). The fact that she chose this book to make her debute sparked some interest in me. I began reading it and felt a sense of optimism in the narration, but as I continued reading I sort of lost hope in the story and its unknown narrator. This, though depressing as it sounds, it’s probably a good quality for this book to possess. A narrated book on a household full of girls eventually killing themselves is most definately a solemn affair. You are charged, once reading, with a sense of urgency to determine why these girls killed themselves and how. The facts are laid out, exhibits are made, opinions are shared by the neighbors and townsfolk. And throughout all this you still feel like you don’t know these girls, no more or no less than anyone on their block. They are this sort of ephemeral creation brought to the light only by the narration, and an oddity in the small town and neighborhood they exist in…their light only shining because it will soon be put out.
-ML
A Wolf At The Table
“If you pondered some things, even for an instant, they might become real”
- Augustus Burroughs
With his new memoir, Burroughs was able to conjur up the darkness that consumed his childhood and manifested itself through the actions of his father. Upon first glance, Chip Kidd’s cover design eludes the lurking evil, and hints at the severity of the title, and once you begin reading you see how this simple design gives away so much of the emotive qualities of Burroughs memories.
Burroughs breaks into his childhood memories in the same fashion that most childhood memories are conjured up: Scattered thoughts, and recollections brought upon by various sources. He starts off jumping around semi-sporatically, going from memory to memory, painting the pictures of his youth; most importantly: His livid, psoriasis plaqued father, his unstable abused mother, and his adolescent abnormal brother. As the reader comes to know each of these characters, the story begins to gain traction, and they begin to remember what it was like to see their father and hug him after work.They begin to remember what it was like to hold their family close to them and a warmth grows within the reader… This warmth soon changes, with the stark realization that this book is filled with the exact opposite feeling that you are experiencing: Evil.
Burroughs has crafted a very cold, damp impression of his childhod, which continually pushes the reader to recollect and reconsider their own father/child dynamic. A Wolf at the Table recalls Burroughs youth in such a way that it is successful both for its ability to retain and express the details that make for good story-writing, but also because this story tells about a very trying time that the author went through. He will no doubt be recognized for his other memoir: Running with Scissors, but he will hardly be overlooked for his ability to masterfully tell the story of his fathers lack of heart.
-ML
Unsure of a follow up memoir to “Running with Scissors” and “Dry” I
felt a little hesitant for yet another memoir from Auguesten
Burroughs. Although he always delivers clean and precise writing,
this memoir felt pushed, unnatural. The initial memories of a
scattered childhood, where his father is nothing but a dark shadow,
reveal the deeper struggle of the awkward father-child relationship
that is a reality for young Auguesten. Along with the initial
memories, the torso of this book showed devotion from the author. The
ending, to which I found most of my disappointment, felt very
rhythmic, timed—as if the reader was lead to suspect a largely
different ending. When the true nature of his father is revealed, we
find out he is not unlike a large number of fathers: not what we
hoped—just like this book.
-LC
