I got caught up on reading these last two weeks and I worked my way to finishing two fiction novels. We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates is the other. And turned out, these two books are closely related in terms of the plot and the unit of characters - which is family. I will do the other review for the other book in the next post.
Fascinating and incredibly destructive like a tempest.That is what this book is all about.
The story is uniquely simple. The family owns a thousand acres of farm land somewhere in Iowa and the father, knowing that he's aging, decides to divide this property among his three daughters Ginny, Rose and Caroline. Then Larry, the father started to act strange even towards his daughters. Ginny and Rose are the goody-girls who appeased their father constantly because they want their copious share of the the thousand acres. However, the youngest, Caroline has this recalcitrant nature summed up by her objection to her father's despotic commands, runs away someplace else. Well then people started dying and leaving halfway of the story which was kinda boring and all of the sudden, revelations started springing in and this is where the truth unfolds and hits you. Something is really wrong. The father has been sexually abusing his two eldest daughters for a very long time!
Jane Smiley is an extraordinary writer. She has a superb writing style and dramatic exposition techniques. Only a writer who practiced her profession for years can do well like this. The thing is Jane Smiley has the magic in her words to make every single scenario so real into our minds it is as if we're living it. Many scholars (including the author herself ) have compared A Thousand Acres to Shakespeare’s tragedy King Lear in their comparable themes of love, darkness, and greed; their analogous characters and in the implication of incest.
The novel has so much depth you could get lost in the woods of drama and conniving bitches. The characters are complex yet reliable that they appear so believable. The story touches the themes, patriarchal tyranny and oppression of the younger members of the family, revenge, pride, financial downfall, survival, greed, connivance, deception...I mean a lot of things. This is the kind of book which probes into your emotions and modestly neglects the intellect. Don't get me wrong, undeniably though, the strength of most divine literary work lies in the ways of the heart than the mind.
Fascinating and incredibly destructive like a tempest.That is what this book is all about.
The story is uniquely simple. The family owns a thousand acres of farm land somewhere in Iowa and the father, knowing that he's aging, decides to divide this property among his three daughters Ginny, Rose and Caroline. Then Larry, the father started to act strange even towards his daughters. Ginny and Rose are the goody-girls who appeased their father constantly because they want their copious share of the the thousand acres. However, the youngest, Caroline has this recalcitrant nature summed up by her objection to her father's despotic commands, runs away someplace else. Well then people started dying and leaving halfway of the story which was kinda boring and all of the sudden, revelations started springing in and this is where the truth unfolds and hits you. Something is really wrong. The father has been sexually abusing his two eldest daughters for a very long time!
Jane Smiley is an extraordinary writer. She has a superb writing style and dramatic exposition techniques. Only a writer who practiced her profession for years can do well like this. The thing is Jane Smiley has the magic in her words to make every single scenario so real into our minds it is as if we're living it. Many scholars (including the author herself ) have compared A Thousand Acres to Shakespeare’s tragedy King Lear in their comparable themes of love, darkness, and greed; their analogous characters and in the implication of incest.
The novel has so much depth you could get lost in the woods of drama and conniving bitches. The characters are complex yet reliable that they appear so believable. The story touches the themes, patriarchal tyranny and oppression of the younger members of the family, revenge, pride, financial downfall, survival, greed, connivance, deception...I mean a lot of things. This is the kind of book which probes into your emotions and modestly neglects the intellect. Don't get me wrong, undeniably though, the strength of most divine literary work lies in the ways of the heart than the mind.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Leave me a comment.