Due to the votes and most everyone I have spoken with, the Mandatory Meeting will be this Sunday Jan 9th @ KC's place for the monthly bookclub meeting.
Any Comments, Questions, or Concerns? Post, call, or text
Room: With a five-year old narrator.Room tells the story of a the five-year old boy and his mother as they try to cope and grow in a room that seems to shrink further as they continue to age. More saccharine than it is Sartre, Room aims for the heartstrings and plucks them all. It's a dreadful story, but imbued with such tenderness and hope that any sort of reader will surely empathize with Room's inhabitants.
William Trevor: A Short-Story Master's Life Work
The lead-off tale here is called "The Piano Tuner's Wives," and the tidy first paragraph supplies the plot in miniature: "Violet married the piano tuner when he was a young man. Belle married him when he was old." Belle, the 59-year-old second wife, was once the town beauty, "smart in her clothes," who, decades before, was cast over by the piano tuner for her rival, Violet. Now Violet is in her grave and Belle is in the marriage bed, and yet Violet still haunts their lives. Because the piano tuner is blind, he had relied for decades on his first wife to be his eyes, so Belle literally hears her dead predecessor constantly speaking through her husband's descriptions of the physical world. In the brilliant climax of the tale, Belle vindictively decides that if she can't banish her predecessor, she'll just banish the world Violet once inhabited.
Ok Ok, here's a review.
ReplyDeleteRoom: With a five-year old narrator.Room tells the story of a the five-year old boy and his mother as they try to cope and grow in a room that seems to shrink further as they continue to age. More saccharine than it is Sartre, Room aims for the heartstrings and plucks them all. It's a dreadful story, but imbued with such tenderness and hope that any sort of reader will surely empathize with Room's inhabitants.
William Trevor: A Short-Story Master's Life Work
The lead-off tale here is called "The Piano Tuner's Wives," and the tidy first paragraph supplies the plot in miniature: "Violet married the piano tuner when he was a young man. Belle married him when he was old." Belle, the 59-year-old second wife, was once the town beauty, "smart in her clothes," who, decades before, was cast over by the piano tuner for her rival, Violet. Now Violet is in her grave and Belle is in the marriage bed, and yet Violet still haunts their lives. Because the piano tuner is blind, he had relied for decades on his first wife to be his eyes, so Belle literally hears her dead predecessor constantly speaking through her husband's descriptions of the physical world. In the brilliant climax of the tale, Belle vindictively decides that if she can't banish her predecessor, she'll just banish the world Violet once inhabited.