Book Review: BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, by Annie Proulx

In true Thea form, I've been putting off watching the movie Brokeback Mountain until I've had a chance to read the story. Once it was brought to my attention that the story was by one of my favorite authors (Annie Proulx) and the movie screenplay by another (Larry McMurtry), and that the movie starred one of my favorite actors (Jake Gyllenhaal), I was sold. And I was very curious to see what all the fuss was about.

BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN is a short story, but it is so intense and so weighty that it does not sacrifice impact for the sake of brevity, not in the least. In fact, I was so emotionally involved with the characters (who were, let's face it, quite emotionally involved with each other) by the end of thirty pages that I could've sworn I'd been reading for much, much longer. Proulx is just that brilliant.

And her writing? Whew. Beautiful. Just right. Does justice to a tough topic. Simultaneously tender and aggressive.

And one of the things I love most about Annie Proulx? Well. I get a bit tetchy when a book is obviously written by a woman--in the extreme, think fluff novels where the main character is savvy and sassy in her slingback heels, juggling careers and boyfriends and so on--or obviously written by a man (with the exception of the marvellous Dashiell Hammett--I do really like him, gunslingers, trashy dames, and all). The books that I love best are generally written by authors who can write a complete and convincing character of the opposite sex and do them justice: think Flaubert, and his notorious Madame Bovary. Or Zadie Smith and her old war buddies in White Teeth. I weary sometimes of seeing women authors write primarily about women, or men write primarily of men (I love Barbara Kingsolver, but she is a bit guilty of this; with a few exceptions, so is Ian McEwan. Atonement is just such an exception).

And so I am delighted when I encounter a woman author who writes convincingly of not just men, but of cowhands, of solitary widowers hitting midlife in a bad way; of generations upon generations of homesteaders, bartenders, immigrants and tradesmen. Also, she writes some fascinating women. She's just good, and in her hands, the story of Jack Twist and Ennis del Mar is given wonderful, if rough, treatment.

Now I have no excuse. I really must see the movie.

RATING: 3

Book Review: SATURDAY, by Ian McEwan

I really wanted this book to knock my socks off. I did. But the only thing worse than admitting that it didn't is realizing that it might have, had I been in a slightly different frame of mind when I read SATURDAY.

To sum up my dissatisfaction, the first two-thirds of the book is slow. Bear in mind that the entire book takes place on one Saturday in February, so I should have been warned. Also, I've read tons of McEwan's novels, so I should have been prepared for his thoughtful pacing (the first half of Atonement only takes a single evening, after all)--but I don't think I was in the mood for a book that chugs along at low speed. Example (paraphrased): Henry turns away from the window and ponders, for roughly five pages, several interesting events that occurred in the past week. He turns toward the window once more and spends approximately two pages contemplating how old he's beginning to feel. He then brushes the curtain pensively and grows anxious over the state of the world; he reflects, for the rest of the chapter, on the coming war.

That sort of thing. Which, usually, is fine. But I just wasn't into Henry Perowne enough for this to float my particular boat. Briony Tallis I loved (from Atonement). I could spend five-hundred more pages inside her head, writing plays and swatting at nettles, but Perowne, no matter how fascinating the neurosurgery bits were (really, really fascinating--I loved those), I just couldn't slog along at thought-speed with him.

So the first two-thirds dragged. But once it got going, it really got going, and I loved seeing the whole Perowne family together, in any circumstances, and I adored Perowne's interactions with both Daisy and Theo, but especially with Daisy. I loved that there was a blues-guitarist kid named Theo in the book, because I am naturally drawn toward characters whose names, however vaguely, resemble mine, and I am also drawn toward blues guitarists. I loved all the complicated choices McEwan draws Perowne into making, and how real and clear all his little details are, as always, and I also love McEwan for his knack of picking fascinating professions for his characters and then planting all kinds of interesting and related information in the story to accompany, and thicken, the plot.

Ultimately, I wish I'd saved SATURDAY for a weekend when I was craving McEwan and perfectly in the mood for a slow build to a huge finish, rather than rushing into it when I was more in the mood for snappy plot twists and witty dialogue. His books deserve to be dwelled on and never rushed through. I feel a bit like I wrecked this for myself.

Ah, well.

RATING: 3

Book Review: THE INNOCENT, by Ian McEwan

You know what? I had this really awesome review written up about THE INNOCENT--I mean, awesome, probably the best review I've written in a long while--and I went on and on about how McEwan has these details and these characters and these sneaky little plot twists, and I was so proud of my review, I really was. I was just fine-tuning it, and then Safari "unexpectedly quit."

I felt like crying, I really did.

I tried retyping it from memory, but it was long and glorious and unrecoverable, and so instead I'll say this:

In every McEwan novel I've read, there comes a moment, maybe halfway through, maybe at the beginning, where everything just changes, and an unpredicable something occurs, and the rest of the novel deals with the fall-out from that one event, as the characters struggle through the consequences of whatever choices they made in that moment.

While reading THE INNOCENT, I was curled up into a tense little ball on my couch, just waiting for it, but having no idea what "it" might be. "It" came. Hoo doggie.

RATING: 4

Book Review: AMSTERDAM, by Ian McEwan

Having read a couple of McEwan's other novels (Atonement and Enduring Love) and, having absolutely loved them, Booker-prize-winning AMSTERDAM came as a bit of a disappointment. Forty-pages into it, I still hadn't quite determined the relationship between the two main characters, Clive Linley and Vernon Halliday. Clive, a successful composer who is finishing a commissioned symphony to mark the end of the millenium, and Vernon, editor of the Judge, both loved Molly Lane, and meet in the very first scene at Molly's funeral.

Sounds promising, yes?

What I've noticed about McEwan is his tendency to take characters you love and put them in terrible situations where, in a very real, very heartbreaking way, they tend to make bad choices (sort of "What happens if he doesn't save the small drowning child?" scenarios). He never misses an opportunity to let a character behave as a biased and self-preserving person (i.e. most people) would. Misunderstanding and wrong-doings abound, and in that sense, McEwan's novels are hard to read--challenging--but the writing is flawless, the characters incredibly rich, and the actions, the reasoning and the justifications of his characters all too believable.

But AMSTERDAM was lacking that intrigue somehow. The characters weren't terribly interesting--perhaps they were a little too true to real life--and by the end of the book I was rather disheartened. I kept holding out for a twist ending, something to tie it all together in a wholly unexpected way, but nothing came. The story fell out exactly like I'd thought it would--and hoped it wouldn't. There were some nice moments when McEwan described Linley's symphony--the rigors of composing, the delicate hum of notes before Clive put them on paper...

It's possible that I missed something in AMSTERDAM--McEwan does sometimes have sneaky endings--but he has many other novels to read. I recommend them.

RATING: 2