@pateacher wrote:
@LoriLori wrote:
@pateacher @Lilysmom
I did read "Defending Jacob" and I wouldn't have but people here were raving about it. I loved it. Ironically I never guess the ending of anything but I guess this one. It didn't detract from my pleasure and it wasn't confirmed til the end anyway, It's an easy read and I flew through it.
I wouldn't compare it to "We Need to Talk About Kevin," which is a literary masterpiece as opposed to a terrific read. Shriver is writes complex literary prose at which she's a master and it's not an easy read -- it's actually a tough read, do you agree? -- but fascinating, remarkable and a must-read because of the relevance.
Two fantastic books, top of their genres, just IMO very different.
@LoriLori
I am confused about your comments here. I merely posted that I was affected by Defending Jacob. I did not comment on We Need to Talk About Kevin, nor did I compare the two books.
When I think of a tough read, I think of authors in the line Dickens, Dostoyevsky, Eliot. When I think of masterpieces, I think of the literary works by these authors that retained their relevance over the years through universal themes and conflicts. Steinbeck, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald also wrote masterpieces. These authors would not fall into your category of tough reads. Their writing is direct and precise. Still, their works have withstood the test of time
I do respect your opinion of Shriver's book. I just don't think your post had any relevance to my comment on Defending Jacob.
Well, I'm confused about your confusion. There were three in the conversation, I won't call the other person out but her name is there. She's the one who brought up the connections and I totally get why. My mistake was @ 'ing you. So soirry.
As far as the rest of what you're talking about, I don't know what you're talking about. What on earth does what YOU think is a tough read have to do with MY opinion of a tough read?
(By the way Dickens was a popular author of his time, never considered a tough read, printed in magazines).
The more polite and sensible way would have been to ask me why I consider it a tough read, not lecture me on your idea of literary masterpieces.
Someone else nailed it and I will quote her separately too.
Fifty-nine forty-six? (who knows yet) people were shot today in a mall. Gun violence with assault weapons is as relevant now as it was when Shriver wrote the book.
School shootings are happening over and over and over.
"We Need to Talk About Kevin" is an intense and detailed look at someone who went to school to kill his classmates in a planned attack. It follows him from birth and his mother. He's in prison at the beginning. She's a pariah in her hometown. He's...well, the reader can decide whether he's sick or evil or both.
The mother blames herself as mothers do. She's not like the Colombine mothers. She feels responsible. She spends her free time going over every single thing in his life she might have done wrong.
There are nonfiction books about each separate school shooting but this novel is a very deep dive only possible in fiction. If there are humans in school here in 100 years in my opinion they will be assigned to read it to understand the history of school violence in America because hopefully it will have been eradicated.
So besides her literary talent the incredible treatment of a vital subject matter make it a masterpiece.
Dickens was a court reporter which caused him to see quite a bit and he was naturally very observant. He was a popular writer, wriitingf simple prose which was serialized in magazines. He captured a snapshot of a time period and that's why you call his work masterpieces. I was never taught Dickens in Honors English or college.
Shriver is an extraordinary literary talent, closer to Proust than Dickens (not his equal, no one is, but then he's not taught either except in grad courses in college; he's too complex). She has taken on important social issues and school shootings is right up there and she did it in a way that makes it very tough to read (see next post) and also because of her incredible, careful prose and plotting, a masterpiece.
She has also taken on obesity, the consequences of world debt, cjhildhod hunger and other issues that if there are humans in a hundred years it's not a stretch to think will be studied in schools as a snapshot of what life was like in our lifetimes.
Blogs & Forums
