My month of strange books continues, causing bewilderment and the global question, "What did the author want to say? And since all the volume of bewilderment did not fit into the review, I will fill the tape with a review.
This time the book came to me from the Book Club of Moscow Bookaholics (come and discuss!). The synopsis promised a family epic, somehow tied to an old house, half a century of history and all that, and in my soul conceived a timid hope that under the cover would be a family saga… I passionately like this, and, of course, started reading.
Ann Ptratchet moved to Nashville, Tennessee when she was six, where she continues to live. Patchett said she loves her home in Nashville with her doctor husband and dog. If asked if she could go any place, that place would always be home. "Home is …the stable window that opens out into the imagination."
The plot twist, without thinking too much, was taken from "Cinderella. Well, really, what the hell. A classic. Daddy, quite a wealthy man living in this very beautiful house called "Dutch", after his wife left him with two children, he found a new wife, and the children, respectively, a stepmother. The stepmother, as usual, did not like his children, but she was very fond of the house and daddy's income. And when daddy died unexpectedly, she took the house from the poor orphans. And she took away Daddy's company. We'll leave it off the record how it happened that she couldn't get the house for the children, one of whom was a minor, or get the stepmother to give her some money for living expenses, but the boys weren't left out in the cold. Maeve, the eldest daughter, was working by this time, and there was an education fund for the minor, Danny. So that the money would not go to his stepmother's children from his first marriage, the orphans began to actively spend the fund. The boy graduated from the most expensive private school in America and Columbia University. In general, he tried, studied as long as possible and as expensive as possible. Not bad for me, no one was poor, no scraps in the garbage cans. Danny went to school, started a family, bought a house for himself and his sister, all right. Live and let live. But no.
The author goes all Chekhov on. And begins "The Cherry Orchard". Home! Our sweet home! The house we lost! The children suffer and suffer. And when they grow up, they also suffer and suffer. To agonize and suffer even more, they come to the house almost once a month, and parked in the car outside, watch the front door. They smoke and have conversations, reminiscing about the past. They do this at age 20, and at 30, and at 50. Moreover, since there is no character development, and they always talk the same way, often it is not even clear how old they are at that moment and why in the hell are they sitting in the car at home again? Some kind of endless déjà vu. You read and want something to happen, if they had blown up the stupid house, for example, or burned, but at least would have knocked on the door and ran away, by golly, and that's more fun.
Not only that, there's a whole crowd of past-lovers, Danny and Maeve are joined by a former babysitter, a cook, and a maid who used to work in the house. And they all like to get together at the cafe and discuss for the hundredth time over a cup of coffee what a good home it was and what a wonderful mother the children had. Here, too, let's not go into why a woman who abandoned her two children and went to India to help the poor, is declared a saint, why everyone loves her and misses her. I somehow wasn't convinced by the author, but the characters like it - so be it.
"Don't you get tired of your own intoxication with the past?" the protagonist's wife once asked. At this point I gave her a standing ovation. Finally, at least one sober person in the book was found. But to expand on this thought the author did not, and again - in the car, discussing, sitting, smoking. But at least there were some glimmers of normalcy in the characters. They realized that something was wrong: "The longer we pestilate our hatred, the more we will tear ourselves away from life." "We turned our unhappiness into a god and worshipped it." At least people are getting the message, that's bread and butter.
In the end - I still do not understand what readers like so much in this book, because the reviews - all positive. Unbelievable plastic characters, problems sucked out of thin air, talentless ending ... Yes, and I do not believe that there are people who are so fixated on the past and the lost item. Even if it is a beautiful mansion. They should be worried that they spent their lives overflowing from nothing to nothing, and they are sighing about their lost home. Well, they should at least sigh in a more dramatic way. Otherwise, they live their lives, and then - bam! And again, this plastic suffering about the house. Or maybe I'm just so unfeeling, and not capable of feeling such a tender passion for real estate? In general, the author and I do not understand each other.
And the family saga never happened there, although there were opportunities. After all, you could have a storyline of the former owners, grandparents, and the same stepmother, for example. And the book would have stopped being so flat and boring. But no. About all this is literally a couple of paragraphs in the text. So I'll shove the book in the item "First acquaintance with the author" and hope that it will be the last.
This article was sponsored by Simona Serban
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