Exquisite. Immediately after finishing this, it went on my to-reread list.
It's the first person story of Rosemary who is examining the events of her childhood and her memories of it. Rosemary's quirks are that she uses big words and while she is naturally talkative, has been silenced. There are good reasons for these traits and they are used to good effect. I loved the vocabulary of this novel (eliding, Melpomene, gamesome, psychomanteum, hypnopompic) and that it's filled with memorable, beautiful, poignant and funny phrases.
Writers, read this for: Structure — The story alternates between 1979, the protagonist's childhood, and 1996, her college years. Veracity — The time period and experience of reflecting on childhood family life from the college environment has been carefully, thoughtfully created. It felt truthful and accurately portrayed.
Notable: I heard the author read from this novel as a work in progress in 2011 (at WisCon 35, a feminist science-fiction convention) and had been looking forward to it since then. I pre-ordered this novel and it exceeded my expectations.
Also recommended: Karen Joy Fowler's collection What I Didn't See: Stories and The Jane Austen Book Club. Fowler will likely be my personal "author of the year" when I reflect on 2013 because of this and I just read The Jane Austen Book Club.
Pairs well with: Pat Murphy's story "Rachel in Love," and Carol Emshwiller's novel Carmen Dog.
Quotes:
"Let's just say that my father was kind to animals unless it was in the interest of science to be otherwise. He would never have run over a cat if there was nothing to be learned by doing so." "I didn't want a world in which I had to choose between blind human babies and tortured monkey ones. To be frank, that's the sort of choice I expect science to protect me from, not give me."
"What did they do to her in that cage? Whatever it was, it happened because no woman had stopped it. The women who should have stood with Fern...none of us had helped. Instead we had exiled her to a place completely devoid of female solidarity."
"Empathy is also a natural human behavior...we access our own experiences with pain and extend them to the current sufferer. We're nice that way."
"The world runs...on the fuel of this endless, fathomless misery. People know it, but they don't mind what they don't see. Make them look and they mind, but you're the one they hate, because you're the one that made them look."
"The spell can only be broken by the people. They must come to see how beautiful she is. They must storm the prison and demand her release. The spell will be broken only when the people rise up. So rise up already.
It's the first person story of Rosemary who is examining the events of her childhood and her memories of it. Rosemary's quirks are that she uses big words and while she is naturally talkative, has been silenced. There are good reasons for these traits and they are used to good effect. I loved the vocabulary of this novel (eliding, Melpomene, gamesome, psychomanteum, hypnopompic) and that it's filled with memorable, beautiful, poignant and funny phrases.
Writers, read this for: Structure — The story alternates between 1979, the protagonist's childhood, and 1996, her college years. Veracity — The time period and experience of reflecting on childhood family life from the college environment has been carefully, thoughtfully created. It felt truthful and accurately portrayed.
Notable: I heard the author read from this novel as a work in progress in 2011 (at WisCon 35, a feminist science-fiction convention) and had been looking forward to it since then. I pre-ordered this novel and it exceeded my expectations.
Also recommended: Karen Joy Fowler's collection What I Didn't See: Stories and The Jane Austen Book Club. Fowler will likely be my personal "author of the year" when I reflect on 2013 because of this and I just read The Jane Austen Book Club.
Pairs well with: Pat Murphy's story "Rachel in Love," and Carol Emshwiller's novel Carmen Dog.
Quotes:
"Let's just say that my father was kind to animals unless it was in the interest of science to be otherwise. He would never have run over a cat if there was nothing to be learned by doing so." "I didn't want a world in which I had to choose between blind human babies and tortured monkey ones. To be frank, that's the sort of choice I expect science to protect me from, not give me."
"What did they do to her in that cage? Whatever it was, it happened because no woman had stopped it. The women who should have stood with Fern...none of us had helped. Instead we had exiled her to a place completely devoid of female solidarity."
"Empathy is also a natural human behavior...we access our own experiences with pain and extend them to the current sufferer. We're nice that way."
"The world runs...on the fuel of this endless, fathomless misery. People know it, but they don't mind what they don't see. Make them look and they mind, but you're the one they hate, because you're the one that made them look."
"The spell can only be broken by the people. They must come to see how beautiful she is. They must storm the prison and demand her release. The spell will be broken only when the people rise up. So rise up already.
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