Year End Blurb

Holy crap, did I only read four* goddam books in all of 2016?! 

An all time low since I started this blog.

This has got to end!

 

*Update July 30, 2021: total is actually FIVE books because I had to retroactively add High-Rise!

5. My Brilliant Friend

By Elena Ferrante

This was a gift from my SIL from the Xmas before last  (she gave copies to both myself and her mom, she loved the books so much).  I'm glad she did because I don't think I would've caught on to Ferrante until much later.  

I had started reading MBF in April and finally finished it.  It wasn't because I didn't like it, rather it was something I couldn't read in big gulps.  Even though I took little sips here and there for the past several months, it was an immersive reading experience. 

That being said, since I was slow to move on this book, my SIL got the rest of the quartet to her Mom this past Xmas.  So at least I'll get to borrow the rest when I'm ready!

4. Into the Forest

By Jean Hegland 

Writing a retroactive review during my 2025 sabbatical.  Thinking of putting this book in the trade pile as I didn’t really connect with it.  There was a bit of a trend to revisit YA post-apocalyptic/dystopian fiction that was published before The Hunger Games mainstreamed the entire genre, ie. The Giver, Z for Zachariah, How I Live Now...

 

I think I ordered a copy of Into the Forest shortly after I heard Patricia Rozema had directed the film adaptation, which came out in 2015.  I wanted to read the novel first since the premise sounded like something in my wheelhouse, a coming-of-age story set in Northern California with an apocalyptic backdrop.  A lot of my memories are mixed with imagery from the movie, which was a fairly faithful adaptation.

 

Nell and Eve are teenage sisters living with their hermit dad in the Redwood forest.  They’re still coping after their mother’s death and their contact with the outside world is sporadic, so it takes them a while to realize that civilization has collapsed.  Like The Road and Ice, the reasons are vague, so you know the author is aiming for character-driven speculative fiction, so I’m expecting some heavy themes.  Weeks and months pass by and the family is left without internet, telephone, electricity, mail or gas.  A gruesome accident befalls the father when he’s chain-sawing logs and the sisters are left to fend for themselves.  Eve spends inordinate amounts of time dancing to a metronome, while her younger sister Nell forages for food and does practical things to stay alive.

 

I think Hegland was attempting to portray how two isolated teenagers would adapt after societal collapse.  Before the troubles came, Eve dreamed of becoming a ballet dancer, while Nell was a shy and reserved kid who yearned for companionship and a sense of belonging.  As orphans, Eve copes by escaping into dance, while Nell is the one who levels up and looks after them both.  She has an opportunity to make a risky journey to Boston with a boy she likes but she changes her mind when she realizes she needs to take care of Eve.  At some point, Eve gets raped while Nell was out foraging.  There’s a somewhat controversial section when Nell comforts a traumatized Eve and they become physically intimate with Nell helping Eve climax.  The sisters don’t become lovers, it’s more to show how much Nell loves her sister that she’s willing to help Eve reclaim her sexuality.  They're able to replace an act of violence with an act of pure love.  Eve later decides to keep the baby.

 

After a severe storm, the house is in danger of collapsing, so the sisters take refuge in a hollowed out tree stump that once served as their playhouse.  Eve gives birth to a boy and the sisters decide to set fire to their house so that people will think they perished in the flames.  They then set off into the woods with the baby and that’s how the story ends.

 

I totally got what Hegland was trying to achieve and generally liked how it was written.  I just didn’t connect with the narrative nor the characters.  I think I was holding onto the book in case my daughter ever wanted to read it, but I don’t think she’ll connect with it either. 

 

3. High-Rise

 By J.G. Ballard

2. Call of the Wild

By Jack London

I saw this charming Puffin Classics hardbound at the BMV in Toronto.  I think it was only $5 (why I love love love BMV).  There were other titles, like The Little Princess (in pink) and Robin Hood (in green), but The Call of the Wild (1903) was the one I wanted to read.

What can I say that is new about this well-loved classic?  It lived up to the hype.

1. Tipping the Velvet

By Sarah Waters 

Another great Victorian romp by the talented Sarah Waters, but it didn't blow my mind like Fingersmith.  

Tipping the Velvet (1998) was Waters' debut novel and Fingersmith (2002) was her third and last novel set in the Victorian period.  So I need to find her second novel, Affinity.  I feel that the quality of her work had gone down since Fingersmith (which I count as an all-time favourite), as The Night Watch was rather meh.