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Watership Down Review

When I went off for my first semester of college my father gave me $100 with which to buy textbooks, which certainly dates me. After buying everything for my classes I had enough money left over to buy a hard cover copy of "Watership Down" by Richard Adams for $6.95, which for people who love books is certainly a great way of representing the ravages of inflation over the years. I decided to read a chapter of "Watership Down" each night before going to bed, thereby marking the beginning of my obsession with reading a chapter of something each day that has nothing to do with school. When my dorm roommate became as hooked on the story as much as I was he and I would read chapters aloud. Fifty days I got to the book's epilogue with the same sort of sadness that it was all over that I experienced getting to the end of the "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy.
Living in the Sandleford Warren with its Chief Rabbit and Owsla maintaining a comfortable social order, Hazel and his little brother Fiver are content enough. But Fiver has the gift of prophecy, and when he warns that the warren has to be abandoned right away or they are all going to die, Hazel and a small circle of friends believe him and leave despite the fact that have no idea where they are going. Fiver envisions a great high place where they can be happy and safe, but there are a series of imposing obstacles to overcome, from not only humans and predators, but other wild rabbits as well. Consequently the basic story of "Watership Down" is the ancient quest for home, although in this case it is a new home that represents a wild rabbit's idea of utopia.
The greatness of "Watership Down" rests on the sense of realism that Adams brings to his story wild rabbits. Adams studied Lapine life in R. M. Lockley's "The Private Life of the Rabbit" in order to keep his rabbits real. But beyond the way rabbits live in nature Adams provides them with a history and a culture, represented not only in the stories they tell of El-ahrairah (the Prince with a Thousand Enemies), but their beliefs in Frith the lord sun, and their simple games such as bob-stones. When confronted with sticky situations they are able to use their ingenuity to come up with surprising solutions that are still within the realm of possibility for real rabbits. I always liked the way Hazel, Blackberry and the others have to work out these puzzles, straining for a leap of intuition and cognitive insight that seems just beyond the reach of their relatively simple minds. So while these rabbits are capable of doing more than others of their kind, Adams keeps their efforts remarkable rather than magical.
We also pick up a few choice words from the language of the rabbits (e.g., "silflay" is to go above ground to feed, "homba is a fox), which ends up paying off with one of my favorite moments in the book when Bigway utters a simple but effective curse. The lesson of the story is clearly that bigger does not mean better, for Hazel is neither the strongest nor the smartest of the rabbits that he leads, but he had the best qualities of leadership. Each of the rabbits that join Hazel on the quest to find Watership Down and build a new life there offers something to the ground, and the distinctive personalities that Adams creates for each of them adds to the novel as well.
Of all the books that I have that I like to pick up from time to time and read again my favorite parts, "Watership Down" is the oldest. As a children's story is it simply one that is too good for most children, but without the deep allegorical elements that afflict so many other great children's stories. Perhaps that is why this novel has become so beloved, because it speaks to the child in all of us and the simple virtues that we all want the world to embody. Having read the book again from start to finish, I was not surprised to find that it is still as good as I thought it was when I first read it many years ago.

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Dreams of Joy: A Novel (Random House Large Print) Review

"Dreams of Joy" by Lisa See continues the story of sisters Pearl and May, and of Joy, the daughter they share. The story began in "Shanghai Girls" which I very recently read, so the story was fresh in my mind. Pearl and May were once rich and pampered young women who modeled for an artist who painted calendars and ads in 1930s China. The story of how the sisters came to America in the 1930s was riveting and I wasn't ready for their tale to end, so I was happy to learn that Lisa See was already at work on a sequel and "Dreams of Joy" is it.
Told in alternating first-person narratives by Joy and Pearl, we first meet nineteen year old Joy, who recently discovered a huge secret about her past and decides to go to the People's Republic of China to find her birth father and to help Chairman Mao's Communist cause. Pearl is hot on her trail to China, returning to places once familiar now quite changed. The alternating points of view are an effective way to show how both idealistic, Joy, and cynical Pearl, adjust to their new environments. At first, Joys is quite enamored with the new Communist ideal of sharing and equality. Pearl, on the other hand, can easily see the cracks, fissures and hypocrisies in the new regime.
As Mao's "Great Leap Forward" begins to bring famine and death, the novel includes descriptions of suffering as horrible as any zombie movie I've ever seen. These passages are shattering and difficult to read. But the novel is also full of fascinating bits of arcane information, such as that the Maoists thought that bras were oppressive and confiscated them. Also, that returning Chinese scientists had to sign a confession admitting that the Chinese moon was larger than the American moon.
I expect this newest Lisa See novel will be quite popular. See has written several interesting and bestselling historical novels and certainly fans of "Shanghai Girls" will be avid to read this sequel. See does not disappoint.

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The Girl Who Fell from the Sky Review

Rachel, the daughter of a Danish woman and African American G.I., grew up in Germany. With her light brown skin and blue eyes, Rachel did not see herself as anything but her parents' child. When tragedy strikes her family after moving to America, Rachel moves in with her paternal grandmother. In Portland, Rachel feels alienated from her family and schoolmates, unable to fit into categories of white or black, and she struggles with memories of her mother. Although told mostly from Rachel's point of view, the novel also follows Rachel's father, her mother's boss, and a young boy who witnessed the family tragedy as Rachel attempts to discover who she is beyond others' labels.
Durrow has created a unique story that combines a young woman's search for identity with a family's history of shame and secrets. The novel begins with Rachel narrating her move to Portland and is told in stark, simple prose. In Portland, Rachel becomes acutely aware of her lack of belonging. She is "light-skinned-ed;" she "talk[s]" white" and can't help but judge her grandmother for her lack of formal English. She fails to fall into pre-established categories.
Meanwhile, pieces of Rachel's parents' history are filled in. Both parents are filled with shame for their inability to protect their children, although their shame comes from different sources. Rachel's mother exemplifies a woman unable to to accept or actively reject that many Americans do not see her children as her own and see them only as a skin color.
The detachment of the first part of the novel distanced me as a reader and felt slow, but as Rachel grew, I grew closer to her and her story. The tragedy piles on thick at times, but the second half of the novel touchingly covers the nuances of Rachel's development: her feelings for her aunt's fiance Drew, her conflicts with her judgmental but well-meaning grandmother, and her relationship with a liberal white college boy. The novel skillfully explores the complexities of racial identity and relationships today.

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60% Off Discounts: Lowest Price Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain Review

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Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain Review

As the previous reviewer has pretty much summarised the entire book (!) I'll just say that this is an honest, moving and well written account of a dark time in Portia's life. It was hard to read how she brought herself close to death, keeping herself on a tiny allowance of calories and strenuous exercise (in high heels at times). I know Hollywood expects women to be thin, but I was saddened to read her accounts of costume fittings - where she was humiliated for being anything other than 'stick thin'.
I loved the story about meeting Ellen in 2001 at a concert, when Ellen invited her over to her house along with other guests. Portia thought she was just being polite, but it turned out that Ellen had only invited the other people over so she would have the excuse of a party to invite Portia. So Ellen was stuck with having to entertain all those people that night!
I think coming out as a lesbian in Hollywood is still a risky move (how many others are there? not many) and Portia is an inspiration to other women who are coming to terms with their sexuality and trying to live their life honestly. Well done Portia, from a fellow Aussie :)

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The Postmistress Review

In 1940, the lives of three women could not be more different as war rages in Europe. Iris James, postmistress of Franklin, Massachusetts, believes in order and details. She takes great pride in her work. All communications in the town come through her. The whole system works because of the neat efficient system and the trust. She keeps all the secrets of the residents, but one day, she breaks with everything she has ever believed, slipping a letter into her pocket. Emma Trask, wife of the town's doctor Will Fitch, listens to all the radio broadcasts from London with her husband. When a tragedy provokes a change in her husband and a determination to go over to Europe, Emma guards herself against the tides of war raging across a distant ocean. In London, Frankie Bard, works with Edward R. Murrow. Frankie listens to Murrow's story advice, yet her spirit chafes against the all the strictures and protocol imposed on her. Feisty, fearless and somewhat brash, she wants to get out the truth and stir her listeners to action. In 1941, Frankie rides the trains out of Germany, reporting on the war, listening to the voices of the so-called refugees. As she sees the war unfolding from a different perspective, her whole idea about the story itself changes.
In THE POSTMISTRESS, Sarah Blake looks at World War II through the eyes of three distinct women all connected through means of private and public media. In many ways, THE POSTMISTRESS itself follows Frankie's conception of a news story as story and herein lies the beauty of the novel. Sarah Blake's novel does not follow the traditional concepts of a novel. THE POSTMISTRESS tells the story of World War II through the edges, in the lives of the three women and the events of their lives, often events that even seem unrelated to the larger scene playing out in the world. Indeed, the emotional impact of the story builds as Frankie stops trying to tell the truth of the war and listens to the voices of those around her. The "truth" of the war often emerges in the edges, in those stories told and unspoken by the press and even the characters to some extent. Although Sarah Blake draws on the history and historical figures of the times, THE POSTMISTRESS is not a historical novel filled with date and details from the history books. The reader will not find all the horrific details of the Holocaust or the London Blitz and yet, in telling the story through the edges of war scene, THE POSTMISTRESS allows the reader's imagination to enter the story. With the copious amount of World War II history and fiction published, readers undoubtedly are more than familiar with the main story of the War, and yet, THE POSTMISTRESS brings a freshness to the story. For this reader, THE POSTMISTRESS, is one of the first to tell the story of the trains from a viewpoint that truly engages imagination and emotion in both the details of individuals, sometimes even the characters for whom only a name and place is known, who might have experienced the events. Like Frankie's approach to the story, less is sometimes more. Equally, the conflicts and struggles of Emma Fitch and Iris James bring a whole other emotional dimension and texture to the story.
THE POSTMISTRESS is a wonderful blend of popular women's fiction and literary fiction. The novel gains more emotional power and intellectual interest as it progresses. The first part reads more like light women's fiction as the author introduces the three women whose lives will touch one another's. Frankie's development, however, guides the heart of the story, developing the lens through which the richness of the other characters emerges. The beginning of the story actually gains more relevance and emotional depth in hindsight, as Frankie's less traditional concept of a news story begins to cast the novel itself within a different framework. THE POSTMISTRESS is a story of women's lives, of life, death and love during WWII, and by end, a story about the art of storytelling itself.

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