Evening (Vintage Contemporaries) by Susan Minot
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Book Reviews of Evening (Vintage Contemporaries)
Book Review: A Different Writing Style
Summary: 5 Stars
Be warned before you read this book that the style of writing is very stream-of-consciousness. If you can't handle run on sentences and lack of punctuation, this book isn't for you. If you can get past that, which I admit took me a couple of chapters, you'll enjoy this book. Evening is the story of a woman on her deathbed recollecting a weekend 40 years ago and how she fell in love. Interpersed between this main story are ramblings about the other events in her life--her marriages, her childhood and her children. The story is told through her hazy consciousness as she is under heavy sedation during her illness. However, I felt that the way the story was told was very poignant and very much as people actually think and remember events. It may seem hazy to some, but it lends a dreamlike quality to the book and I found myself seeing the things she saw and the excitement/joy/sadness/confusion she must have felt. I liked that the author doesn't have to spell everything out for the reader, but takes the reader on the emotional journey of the character. This is very unlike any other book I have read, but I did enjoy it and found that the punctuation (or lack of) didn't get in the way after I got used to it.Book Review: It's so wonderful to give five stars and really, truly mean it...
Summary: 5 Stars
This novel is a masterpiece - in the tradition of Virginia Woolf. My favorite line in the book is: "He was me." It sent shivers up my spine. That's just how a person feels when utterly in love: as if the other is a second self. I know, because I've been married to a man I feel that way about for twenty years - I got lucky, for sure. The minute I saw him, I knew. Just as Ann does in this wonderful, tragic story. The thing is, true love is always tragic - even if you "get" the one you love, because at some point, you always lose the one you love, always. As Mother Theresa said, "Love hurts." In this book, the heroine has to release her lover forever; she can never claim him openly as her own. However - and here's the irony that is proven in this book: one never loses true love. It's always there, perhaps buried in memory, to be taken out and held up as a shining beacon when one needs it most, as Ann does, dying. I hope I always know and cherish that truth. This jewel of a book will help, when life tests me.Book Review: You must be of a certain age to understand this book
Summary: 5 Stars
Susan Minot's "Evening" is like no other book I have every read. It is full of beautiful prose, lovely poetry. As I read about Ann's lost youth, I felt an overwhelming sadness of loss, and also a great emotional happiness, thinking about my own youth.
I am guessing that those who gave the book low reviews are young. You must be "of a certain age" to connect with this book. I content you must be old enough to have grown children, to remember another simpler era of your youth, and to have fond and not-so-fond memories of special people who came into and out of your life. I'm close to 60 and found Ann's age (65) unnerving, as I thought of my own mortality.
There are books that touch us because we are close to them, and some that we're not ready to read yet. For those who didn't like the book, wait a few years and try again.
Book Review: Mythology of Love
Summary: 5 Stars
I read this book years ago in a writing class. At the time, the novel impacted me. Yes, none of the people in the book were "heroic". However, they were very real in their frailty. HELLO-- people fall in love or lust with not the "best" people. Ann being a women of her generation-and frankly many women of our generation- have difficulty separating Love/Lust.
Recently I read an interview with the author and her commnents I found interesting. She felt that the character of Ann most likely went through her life not concentrating on the brief encounter with Harris. Minnot created the character of Harris to be quite imperfect-- the love that could never be. We allcreate our own mythof who we are.
Book Review: Literary love story
Summary: 5 Stars
Well, I loved this book and can't understand the people who said they couldn't finish it. I read it in two days and couldn't put it down. No, the narrator doesn't always use proper punctuation - it's called "stream of consciousness," people. Ever heard of Faulkner or Toni Morrison? The narrator is wavering in and out of a morphine haze so it's quite fitting that the book is not always lucid. I was so interested in the story that I had no problem keeping the characters and times straight. In the end, it raises all the big questions about the nature of love without leaving the reader with such easy answers.