Evening (Vintage Contemporaries) by Susan Minot
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Book Reviews of Evening (Vintage Contemporaries)
Book Review: A lovely story, but not a love story
Summary: 4 Stars
This is an unusual book because of its successful use of prose to carry the story forward, and the prose helped create the free floating atmosphere of Ann's dreams and memory. But I thought that Ann's love for Harris was so one sided and instead of opening her up to life, rather froze her emotionally to that time and place and distancing her from those who were closest to her, as her children, her friends. I felt so very sad for Ann.Book Review: Evening
Summary: 4 Stars
I found this to be an poignant story of a dying woman who reflects on the loves and losses in her life. The point of view changes to include her childrens' perspectives as well.
I look forward to seeing how the film portrays the events in the book.
Book Review: Flowing and literary
Summary: 4 Stars
Beautiful writing. A fluid stream of consciousness. Memories of momentous and fleeting love. Haunting.Book Review: The Movie Is Better! Go see the Movie!
Summary: 3 Stars
I never heard of this book before but caught the movie with Toni Collette, Vanessa Redgrave, Meryl Streep and Glenn Close with Claire Danes playing the lead. The movie was a fantastic ensemble piece, beautifully made. I left it thinking, "What a well acted and well crafted movie - like a very good play." (I thoroughly enjoyed Michael Cunningham's novel, "The Hours", and the movie made of that, too). I then bought this book because I liked the movie, and was surprised to realize that the movie (which screenplay was written by Cunningham) actually only bears 60% resemblance to the book. Cunningham used the same ideas, but dropped a lot of the characters and made it a very lean plot with a definite theme and a powerful message. The negative book reviews on Amazon are true - the book just doesn't deliver - it is a bit too maudlin, Danielle Steele-ish, and although I have no problems with the stream-of-consciousness writing style, the themes and ideas are just not convincing compared to the movie. It is utterly amazing what Cunnnigham has done - go see the movie, give it a chance. While "The Hours" the movie was about the attraction of death, "Evening" the movie is about the attraction of life. Back to back, the two films make really nice bookends for Cunningham's talent.Book Review: Maybe 2 1/2 stars?
Summary: 3 Stars
Ok, I read the whole book and still cannot decide if I liked it or not. It is very different. I didn't find the lack of puntuation to take totally away from the story, but it made it a bit hard to read sometimes. There would be a page and a half of Ann's rambling, disjointed thoughts all running together that got to be a bit much. And it is strange how she focused on a love affair gone bad at this critical point in her life. It appears she was never really happy because she based eveything in her life on this one event and nothing measured up. There really wasn't a conclusion, just an end. If you are looking for unusual, this may be the book for you. If you are looking for a good, solid story to get lost in, skip it.