I am probably the last person on earth to have read this novel. The buzz surrounding it has been massive and sustained ever since it was released. It's one of those books that has been responsible for so many adults turning to YA books as recent reading trends would indicate. Everyone I know who has read it absolutely raves about it. And perhaps all of this combined to raise my expectations to insupportable levels but I just didn't love this book. I found it simplistic and didn't find myself wowed to my great disappointment.
Set at some unspecified time in the future, in the place where the US (and possibly Canada and Mexico) used to exist, this teenaged dystopian novel weds the current fascination with reality tv and brutal, to-the-death competition. Every year The Capitol chooses by lottery a boy and a girl to represent each of the remaining 12 Districts (District 13 is apparently a wasteland after their unadvisable rebellion against The Capitol) in the Hunger Games. The idea is that these kids will fight to the death, leaving only one standing and reminding the Districts of the futility and high cost of further rebellion. To the winner and to the District from which the contestant comes will accrue many accolades and perks. Katniss is from District 12, one of the poorest districts, a place that has known famine and desperation almost its entire existence. Her father was killed in a mine explosion when she was small and she has turned to hunting illegally to help her mother and sweet-natured younger sister survive. When her sister Prim's name is during the reaping as the female tribute to the Games, Katniss volunteers to take her place. The male tribute from District 12 is Peeta, the baker's son who once upon a time saved Katniss from starving and who has long had feelings for her.
And so the two presumed sacrificial teens (District 12 almost never produces a winner) head to The Capitol to take part in the pomp and gore of the pre-Games and Game themselves. Their handlers present them spectacularly and market them as a love story, hopefully earning them sponsors who will help them during the Games with potentially lifesaving gifts. And then Katniss and Peeta must face the murderous intent of the other competitors, all of whom are in the fight of their lives, killing or being killed. As they hunt each other down, alliances are formed and broken, survival skills are tested, and inner strength is made manifest.
The characters, aside from Katniss and Peeta, are mere sketches and very few of the other tributes are ever even mentioned by name or distinguished in any way. The handlers and previous District 12 winner are all given a few tantalizing comments but those hints of interest are never elaborated on (and a friend said that they are not followed up on in the following two books either) and so their motivations remain in shadow. Although the premise is that the tributes have to fight to the death, Katniss is saved from having to kill anyone she cares about and in fact, is given a mercy killing to perform, exempting her from most of the moral quandry that she seems to suffer anyway. I didn't find her a particularly likable character and her connection with Peeta seems almost entirely selfish. The political situation which has given rise to the Hunger Games remains a question as if it is enough to know that the situation exists without knowing anything else. However, that makes is rather hard to know what exactly it is that Katniss and Peeta are fighting against besides generalized inequality. Although this is but the first of a trilogy, I don't have any great burning desire to find out what happens to Katniss and Peeta as they continue to battle The Capitol as they surely must. I thoroughly liked Collin's younger reader series starting with Gregor the Overlander and found it far more original and intriguing than this one although countless numbers of folks disagree (including my entire bookclub).
Tamara Goodwin is a spoiled rotten, selfish, boy and clothing obsessed brat of a teenager. She's also just had her world rocked off its axis. Her father committed suicide and left a mountain of debts that mean she and her mother have to go live in the back of beyond with her Uncle Arthur and Aunt Rosaleen, whom Tamara has dubbed the Deliverance Duo. Cut off from her friends, shopping, her enormous house, and elaborate expectations, Tamara is determined not to make the best of things. Even worse, her mother is retreating into grief and sleep, leaving Tamara at the overbearing and obsessive mercy of Aunt Rosaleen.
In an effort to escape the claustrophobic feel of the house and her ever-watchful aunt, Tamara starts to explore the local castle's ruins (of much more recent vintage than she thinks), befriends a nun who lives nearby, meets some local teenagers, and flirts with the mobile library driver, on whose bus she discovers a blank book that starts to reveal to her, in her own handwriting no less, her own near future. The book is a diary and each entry is dated the day she is reading it but it is written as if it has already happened. What she does with this knowledge and the ways in which she is able (or not) to change the outcome drives the plot for the most part.
I found it incredibly hard to care about Tamara. She was such a snotty, whiny, mopey character and was fairly stagnant throughout the book, only gaining a little clarity about others at the extreme end of the book. Unfortunately, for me, that was too little too late. My good opinion once lost... The rising tension and slight gothic air made the book more interesting but many of the secrets Tamara discovered were so heavily foreshadowed (sign-posted?) that they were not a surprise when they were revealed taking away the impact they should have had. The actual book of tomorrow as a plot device sort of petered out only to reappear later and that felt more sloppy than intentional. Ultimately I was disappointed in the book, having expected something much different from the jacket copy but I suspect that Ahern's many fans will overlook the weaknesses here and thoroughly enjoy this slightly fantastical bit of chick lit.
Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy of this book for review.
Ragtime is called one of the best books of its time. It was apparently a trailblazer in terms of the way the novel has evolved. It is included on the lists of 1001 books that will make you a well read person. Obviously I missed something substantial here because it didn't impress me, draw me in, or engage me in any real sort of way. In actuality, I found it to be rather a mess. Then again, my critical facilities may be going haywire or, conversely, it could be an emperor has no clothes kind of situation here. I know which scenario I think it is. Draw your own conclusions.
This historical fiction novel is a pastiche. Ostensibly following several very different characters, Doctorow has woven real historical figures and actual events from the turn of the 20th century (right up until the eve of WWI) into his narrative. A plethora of characters is introduced and then seemingly dismissed in the early stages of the novel, only to reappear on the page later, making coincidental connections with each other. The almost vignette like narratives highlight the major ideas and enthusiasms of the time: Coalhouse Walker's quest for justice highlights rampant racism, Houdini's acts underline the public's fascination with death defying escapes and their interest in the occult, Father's trip to the North Pole emphasizes the way in which exploration still captured the imagination, the trial of Harry Thaw chronicles the birth of the celebrity culture through his actress wife Evelyn Nesbit's role in Stanford White's murder, the pow-wow between Henry Ford and J. P. Morgan showcases the rising industrialization and mechanisation of the time, and so on. Perhaps there's just entirely too much going on in the novel, too many characters, too many themes, and a superficiality to both.
The combination of fictional and real characters resulted in a short-shift approach to both and I found myself lacking sympathy for anyone. Late in the book when one character finally reappears, I just didn't care. And the coincidental intersections of the characters, real or imagined felt too contrived and intentional. This was, of course, a fascinating time period with so much nascent but I felt as if Doctorow had just missed the mark in depicting it. Having read it, I am that much closer to being "well-read" but I'm not any closer to understanding why.
It is no secret that math has never been "my thing." My children regularly struggle through their math homework without asking me for help. They make disparaging comments about my lack of mathematical ability. What I don't think they understand is that for a very long time, I did quite well in math (geometry beat the confidence right out of me but that's a story for another time). It wasn't so much that I didn't "get" it, I just didn't love it. Numbers have always been quite far down on my list of enjoyable things to ponder. And yet this slight novel about a former math professor who, after suffering a traumatic brain injury, can only hold things in his memory for 80 minutes and the unschooled housekeeper who assumes the care of the man and the cleaning of his small cottage is incredibly fascinating both on the human (character) level and in terms of the math concepts the professor explains to the housekeeper and her small son.
The professor is a mathematical genius and a gifted teacher who lives alone in a small cottage on the grounds of his sister-in-law's house. After a car accident in 1975, he has been unable to retain anything in his memory for more than eighty minutes. The suits he wears flutter with pinned notes reminding him of important things in his life. The most important note, which he wakes to every morning, is that his memory only lasts eighty minutes. Many housekeepers have come and gone in his life until the unnamed housekeeper of the title. She must reintroduce herself to the professor every morning offering him numerical tidbits from her life (her birthdate, her phone number, etc.) to help ground him in the immutable, eternal solidity of numbers even while everything else in his life seems new and confusing on a daily basis.
As the housekeeper settles into her own routine, she introduces her ten year old son, nicknamed Root by the professor because of his head's resemblence to the square root sign, into the small cottage. Root's presence pleases and energizes the professor, who takes to teaching both the housekeeper and Root about the beauty he sees in numbers. He explains prime numbers, amicable numbers, and difficult equations. His explanations are elegant and interesting and strike a cord with the housekeeper, who pushes further on her own. The three of them listen to baseball games, the game a statistician's dream. The housekeeper, the professor, and Root form friendships based on mutual interests and genuine caring despite the professor's inability to remember the other two from day to day.
The story itself is quiet, gentle, and lovely. The writing is carefully meticulous and yet elegant in the way that a complicated mathematical proof would be distilled to its simplest rendering. The theme of time and the fleetingness of memory contrast nicely with the eternal strength of numbers and friendship. There are no pyrotechnics here, just the simple beauty of a well-written, enchanting story. Like the concept the professor explains to the housekeper one day, this novel is easily summed up as amicable.
I do love Angela Thirkell's work, her imagined county of Barsetshire and the residents thereof. This is one of the first books in the extensive series to be set during World War II and as such it captures the feel of the early days of the war, at least as it was seen from rural village England. In this installment of the story, Rose Birkett finally gets married to the relief of her family who figured they'd have the care of her selfishly flighty self forever. Other village girls take up wartime efforts, working in local hospitals and caring for evacuee children while settling into engagements with the men so soon to be leaving. There's no muss, no fuss about the courtships or indeed the characters themselves.
Thirkell is an ace at portraying the British stiff upper lip so evident in times of stress and she pokes fun at many of her characters, having them lament the lack of good patients at the hospital and thrill at the thought of catastrophic injuries. She presents the London children in all their dirt and coarseness but makes it evident that the ladies of the village have no intention of facing reality in their dealings with the urchins. As the series reader has come to expect, Thirkell's biting wit is just as evident in this war time novel as it is in previous novels. Her characters are a delight with whom to spend time and the reader is easily engrossed in their daily lives. Thirkell is, as always, a writer of domestic fiction par excellence. A reading experience to savour, I look forward to the rest of the series, especially since this book in particular ends with a terrible cloud hanging over it (and enough information to know the outcome despite its perceived ambiguity). If you're not yet reading Thirkell's delightful books, why ever not?
