The Beginner's Goodbye by Anne Tyler

The Beginner's Goodbye by Anne Tyler


My rating: 5 of 5 stars


The Beginner's Goodbye is a short but wonderful look at loss, coping and moving on. The novel is structured as a series of flashbacks about the marriage of Aaron and Dorothy Wolcott intermingled with scenes of Aaron trying to cope with Dorothy's sudden death. The book is about loss and that is the way it is described for potential readers, but like all of Anne Tyler's books the characters are complicated and there are more things going on beneath the surface.

What I found most interesting about The Beginner's Goodbye was the way Tyler shows how those of us who have partners become different people because of the individuals with whom we've chosen to share our lives. Aaron loved Dorothy and was devastated when an accident took her away from him. She visits him after death and we readers are never quite certain if the ghost of Dorothy is real or not. But what we do know is that his love (or guilt) is strong enough to bring her back. We also know that Aaron was quick tempered and irritable while he was with her. It was one of their small fights that had sent Dorothy to the sunroom where she was when the tree fell on their house.

Tyler gave Aaron a handicap. It is one that he can deal with (He even plays Raquette Ball), but it is one he was teased about while he was growing up and one that has always left him with a sense of inferiority. Some readers think this handicap is the reason for Aaron's irritating nature. I agree with that, but indirectly. I think his handicap is the reason he needed someone like Dorothy, but I think it was his marriage that caused him to become so testy. I think he outgrew his need for Dorothy and that's why the marriage stopped working.

The Beginner's Goodbye is a short book, but a powerful one. I listened to the audio version and felt it was read very well.




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Steve Lindahl - author of Motherless Soul

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins


My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Catching Fire is the second novel in Suzanne Collins' trilogy. I've noticed that the middle books in other trilogies have a tendency to advance the plot only sightly and to have no ending. True to form this book left me hanging, but I'm pleased to say my other expectation was proven wrong. Catching Fire has Katniss and most everyone around her expanding their views on what is important in life. She unexpectedly returns to the arena, but this time there is less of a sense of each tribute fighting for his or herself. The Capitol was always the clear villain, but this time it seems that most of the participants understand that fact. And Katniss, instead of begrudgingly accepting the fact that she will have to be the last one standing, is prepared to sacrifice her own life. The sentiment behind her “poison berry” tact in book one has taken hold.

The pacing of the writing is excellent once again. The fight scenes give the reader a sense that we're watching super heroes, but not to the extent that the book loses its sense of reality. However, the problems in the arena have shifted for the most part to struggles against disasters the Capitol has prepared rather than struggles against other tributes.

The politics of the book have shifted somewhat as well. In The Hunger Games the people of the districts are kept in place by an elaborate economic system that funnels most of the money to the Capitol. The tesserae is the clearest example of this. Here the poor people trade chances that their children will be chosen to fight in the arena for food to feed their families. But in Catching Fire that system is starting to fail and more emphasis has been placed on the “peace keepers,” who are brutal, sadistic soldiers. The government officials are less like wall street brokers and more like ruthless dictators (although I believe the concept that the two are similar is at the heart of both plots).

Suzanne Collins seamlessly switches back and forth between the problems of an unfair world and the problems of a young girl trying to understand her own emotions, creating a book that is appropriate for all ages. Once again her writing grabs the reader and doesn't let go. I'm looking forward to the third book.

Steve Lindahl - author of Motherless Soul




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The Third Angel by Alice Hoffman

The Third Angel by Alice Hoffman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Alice Hoffman was recommended by a friend. I read The River King and enjoyed it, so I decided to try another of her novels. I chose The Third Angel because it had the highest rating among the Hoffman novels that were available through the NC digital library. I didn't like it as much as The River King but still feel it is an excellent book. Perhaps my fondness for The River King is due to the fact that it was the first of Hoffman's books I read.

Hoffman writes about love, but not in a way that carries me into a standard, predictable story. She makes me think and she weaves supernatural aspects into her plots in a way that makes them as realistic as the rest of her plot lines. In The Third Angel she speaks about the angel of life, the angel of death, and a third angel: “The one who walked among us, who sometimes lay sick in bed, begging for human compassion.” This third angel comes to us readers in a few forms throughout the story including a blue heron, who is a character in a children's novel written by Allie, one of the characters in the first part of the book, and a ghost that haunts “The Lion Park Hotel,” an English inn that is the setting for much of the book.

The Third Angel is written in three parts. The first part is the story of two sisters, Maddy and Allie, who have a complicated relationship based on love and jealousy. The next two parts go back in time to cover the stories of Frieda, Allie's mother-in-law and of Lucy, Allie and Maddy's mother. All the stories are about relationships these women experienced that didn't work out the way they'd hoped. I liked the choice Hoffman made to have each part of the novel step back a little further in time.

There were times when the characters in this story made choices that I cringed over, especially Maddy in the first part who betrays her sister in a way that was particularly cruel. Hoffman clearly wanted me to forgive Maddy, but I had more trouble doing that than Allie did. I imagine other readers felt the same. In the second part Frieda gives something of her talent to a man who doesn't deserve her sacrifice and in the third part Lucy, who is a young girl at the time of her story, attempts to help a couple get together and has to deal with the consequences.

The Third Angel is a story about the complications of life. I recommend it for people who want a book that makes them think.

Steve Lindahl, author of Motherless Soul




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The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry

The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Secret Scripture was a book club selection for the Constant Reader group on Goodreads. It was the first time I've followed their lead in choosing a novel and I will certainly look to their list for more. Sebastian Barry's use of language is beautiful.

The story tells about the protestant/catholic conflict in Ireland during the early 20th century, a setting I don't know much about. The destructive effect of the conflict on the life of Roseanne McNulty is powerful, but she handles her situation with grace and strength. Roseanne's character is the aspect of this book that impressed me the most. Although the story centers around the catholic church, the human failings of bigotry and arrogance are universal enough to leave the reader with a sense that these are still problems in our world. Religion provides an excuse for destructive action, but the source of the problems are in our nature.

There were some plot devices and coincidences that were unbelievable toward the end, but they weren't enough to diminish the overall quality of the book. The story is told by Roseanne, a 100 year old patient who has spent most of her life in an asylum. Her words are written in a hidden testimony that is discovered by a doctor who is evaluating all the patients to determine if they should be moved to a new facility that will replace their current building. The doctor's own story is told through his reflections and has its own tragedy, not as powerful as Roseanne's but still interesting.

I listened to the audio version of this book with Wanda McCaddon reading and thought she did a wonderful job. It took me a little time to get used to her Irish accent, but after that I thought her reading was as beautiful as any I've heard.

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Life of Pi by Yann Martel

Life of Pi by Yann Martel
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I wasn't a fan of the film Cast Away. I like stories where the characters interact and Tom Hanks spent too much time alone in that film. So Life of Pie is a novel I might not have picked on my own. It's about a young Indian man who is the sole survivor of a shipwreck and ends up sharing a lifeboat with Richard Parker, a Bengal Tiger. It was a choice for my book club and I'm thankful for that. It is a fascinating read.

Of course, there is time spent on the basics of survival. Pi (the young man's full name is Piscine Molitor Patel) spends 277 days in the small boat, so he needs to set up rain catchers and floating stills to capture fresh water and he has to discover a way to catch fish and turtles for a food source. He has to provide for his own needs as well as those of his formidable companion. But he also spends time reflecting on his past life with his family- zoo keepers in India. The entire story is set up with Pi as an old man looking back on his life, so technically these reflections are within a larger reminiscence. What was important to me was that much of the book is about Pi's concept of the relationships of people with animals and with God. Yann Martel does not directly compare our role to God to the role of zoo animals to zoo keepers, but enough time is spent on those subjects to draw our own conclusions.

The book contains graphic violence at times because it draws an honest picture of nature's food chain, but one of its greatest strengths is the relationship between Pi and Richard Parker. Pi has to assert his dominance or he will be eaten. It is fascinating to follow the way he chooses to do that.

I loved two things about this book: its originality and Martel's simple, yet profound, concept of God. I won't reveal any of my conclusions in this review because to do so would spoil aspects of the book. But I will say it made me think.

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Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Water For Elephants is a love story set in a depression era circus run by a brutal man (Uncle Al) and his equally brutal managerie boss (August). It is full of action, intrigue, lies, and deception. This portion of the book starts fast and keeps on going.

The circus story is written as a reflection on the life of the main character who is 90 (or 93) and living in an assisted living facility. The plot keeps moving back and forth between young Jacob in the twentieth century and old Jacob in the twenty-first century. The scenes in the home are as sensitive as the rest of the novel is intense. The format reminded me of The Notebook. Jacob is as much in love with the woman he once knew as Noah was in Spark's book, but in this case Marlena has died instead of suffering from Alzheimer’s and Jacob is alone.

I loved the friendships that developed in this story, both the ones between people and the ones between animals and people. Jacob was self-centered when it came to the woman he loved, a fact that ultimately cost him his two best friends. But that's how love works and it's what gives the novel authenticity. He wasn't as brave as he should have been when it came to his relationship with Rosie, the elephant, but ultimately he took care of her.

Sometimes Uncle Al wouldn't pay his workers, but they stayed with him because the depression had left them penniless. I was left with a good picture of life in a traveling circus and with life during the depression. But it was the love story that kept me turning the pages and that's timeless.

August, Marlena's husband, died during an act of violence that seemed justified. He was a character I had come to hate during my reading. I'm sure most of the other readers did as well, at least the animal lovers.

It has been more than a year since I saw the film, but I believe it was consistent with the book in most places. The differences seemed small to me. For example, Marlena was supposed to be dark haired in the print version, but I kept picturing her as the blonde Reese Witherspoon.


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People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks is a fascinating novel centered around The Sarajevo Haggadah. The Haggadah is a jewish text that, according to Wikipedia, “sets forth the order of the Passover Seder.” During Passover it is common to read from the Haggadah as “a fulfillment of the Scriptural commandment to each Jew to 'tell your son' of the Jewish liberation from slavery in Egypt as described in the Book of Exodus in the Torah.” The Sarajevo Haggadah is an ancient copy of this sacred text that has been insured for a value of 700 million dollars. It is currently owned by the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Sarajevo Haggadah is beautifully illustrated and that fact has caused historians to rethink their belief that, in Brooks's words, “...the commandment in Exodus 'Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or likeness of any thing' had suppressed figurative art by medieval Jews.”

Geraldine Brooks has created fictional stories that parallel the real history of this tremendous book. Her characters live their lives around the book in Spain during the Inquisition, among a small group of freedom fighters resisting the Nazis during World War II, in Muslim homes, and in the Bosnian War.

One of the aspects of People of the Book that impressed me the most was way the people of different faiths interacted throughout the book. There was bigotry, murder, and rape, but also, at other times, trust and compassion. The scenes at various points in our world's history were always rendered in an intricate and believable fashion.

Hannah, an expert in the conservation of medieval manuscripts, is the novel's main character. Her work is fascinating, but so is her relationship with Dr. Ozren Karaman, the chief librarian of the National Museum and with her own mother, whose distance while raising her has crippled Hannah's emotions. The novel is as much about the “People” as it is about the “Book.”

Anyone interested in history, especially religious history, should read this book.

Steve Lindahl Author of Motherless Soul.

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