Archive for April 26th, 2008
Saturday, April 26th, 2008Weekly Geeks - Week of April 26, 2008
This week is the first week of Dewey’s Weekly Geeks - she is still looking for someone to make a button if any of you are good with that kind of thing.
The challenge this week is: Discover New Blogs Week
- Look through the list of blogs for the participants of Weekly Geeks; find five that are new to you. If you can’t, find as many new blogs as possible and then some you don’t read super regularly.
- Visit those new blogs and leave a comment.
- By Friday (May 2nd) write a post in your blog featuring those new blogs you visited.
- Go back to the post about this week, and leave a link to your blog post.
I discovered that a lot of my blogging friends are doing this fun weekly event! But, I also found some new blogs which I’ve now added to my Google Reader (oh dear!).
Adventures in Reading has some great literary and art links … and this blogger knows how to write an interesting article. I will definitely be visiting again.
Amateur de Livre’s Weblog is a well designed, fun blog to browse. I discovered a meme, of sorts, which lists the top 106 books most marked ‘unread’ on Library Thing. I think I’ll have to do this one!
Everyday Reads (lightheaded takes on books and comic, lovely or otherwise!) is mostly dedicated to reading, and the design and conversational tone drew me right in.
Kay’s Bookshelf appealed to me immediately. She’s a software developer and it shows on her well organized blog. I love the way Kay lists her authors down the left side of the page with links to her reviews.
The Curvature is: “A feminist perspective on politics and culture.” I was immediately intrigued. I don’t consider myself a rabid feminist, but I have a rabid interest in women’s issues. I was raised to be a strong woman, and so the idea of asserting myself is well ingrained! I also am watching the American political scene very closely. Could America actually elect a woman as President? I hope so, but I’ve learned not to be overly optimistic when it comes to things like this. Anyway, The Curvature, is a cutting edge blog - one that doesn’t mince words. I like it.
Saturday, April 26th, 2008The World Below - Book Review
But what lasts, after all? What stays the same through the generations? Boundaries shift, refugees die or flee with what they can carry, the waters slowly fill in behind the dams, and what was once there is lost forever, except in dreams and memories. - From The World Below, page 268-
Sue Miller’s 7th novel - The World Below - begins in Maine in the early part of the twentieth century with Georgia Rice. Georgia’s mother has recently died from cancer, and Georgia - being the eldest child of three siblings - steps into the role of caring for her father and younger brother and sister. But an unexpected diagnosis of tuberculosis sends her to a sanitarium which will change her life in unexpected ways.
Fast forward to the present day where the reader is introduced to Georgia’s 50-something year old granddaughter, Catherine Hubbard who has returned to her grandparent’s home to start over again after a recent divorce. Catherine discovers her grandmother’s diaries, and begins to piece together Georgia’s life.
What I felt, I think, as I read and reread the diaries, was that I was somehow coming to know her, to understand what her deeper thoughts were under the quotidian of the surface. What I felt was that understanding these slender books would somehow let me piece together too what lay under the later loving surface of my grandparents’ lives together. -From The World Below, page 123-
She discovers her own life has paralleled her grandmother’s in inexplicable ways. We learn (through flash backs) that Catherine’s mother, mentally ill and fragile, dies when Catherine is only a teenager, and Catherine briefly goes to live with her grandparents - who are now living in Vermont. During this time in her life, she senses a deep undercurrent of old resentments and misunderstandings which lie beneath the surface of her grandparent’s marriage. Later, as an adult, Catherine starts her own family … and suffers through two painful divorces, leaving her to wonder what her future will bring.
The World Below is a multi-layered, non-linear novel which slips back and forth between the generations. It is a novel about the subtle power struggles within a marriage, the loss of childhood innocence, the re-discovery of self as one moves through the years, and the tenuous hold we have on the past.
I must admit to the novel being slow going for me and a little confusing (with all the flash backs and change in point of view) at the start; but as I made my way through Georgia and Catherine’s lives, their stories began to interest me, and I was slowly pulled into the story. Miller writes with great depth and understanding of her characters - who are filled with the human flaws we all share. Her writing is honest and searing, forcing the reader to examine her own life while sharing the lives of the characters. I have enjoyed Miller’s previous books, and this was no exception.
Recommended; 