THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY
Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
I have seen this novel a couple of times at my favorite secondhand
bookstore, but what finally made me buy a copy were the recommendations
from members of The Historical Fiction Group at Shelfari.
Trying
to rebuild their lives after the Second World War, writer Juliet Ashton
receives a letter from farmer Dawsey Adams, who lives on the island of
Guernsey in the English Channel, asking her to recommend a book seller
who would send him Charles Lamb's works. Thus begins the correspondence
between Juliet and the other members of The Guernsey Literary and Potato
Peel Society, and other characters that inhabit Juliet's life in London
and Dawsey's life in Guernsey.
I finished the book in an
afternoon, stopping near the end for a cup of tea and a tuna sandwich (I
dislike cucumbers) to savor the book longer. I was charmed by Guernsey
and its people. Each character's personality comes across in the letters
he or she writes, making me mourn the disappearing art of
letter-writing in this age of the internet. I especially empathize with
Juliet, who at the age of 32 has mostly resigned herself to living a
solitary life with her writing and her books, breaking off her
engagement with a man who would dare empty her bookshelves and pack her
books in boxes.
The story wanders, although Juliet remains the
center, but that's how life happens; one can't impose order on it.
Still, the novel affirms the fact that sometimes it is not the book that
matters, but the company of people who enjoy books and reading as much
as one does.
Rating:
THE FAULT IN OUR STARS
John Green
Have you ever read a book you had difficulty trying to tell other people
about, because you feel that your words are inadequate to describe what
the book meant to you, and you're afraid that your attempt might
diminish its meaning, and afraid you would not be understood? "The Fault
in Our Stars" is such a book. To say that it is about a girl with
cancer who falls in love with a boy who also has cancer, and their
experience living with cancer, is a simplification; It cannot convey the
depths of a life aware of its nearing death, and its impact not only on
the way that life is lived but also its impact on the lives around it.
I
would recommend this book not only to people who have cancer or people
who know people who have cancer, but also people who have a long-term
illness and those who know them, and people who have had experience with
death, which is all of us.
Rating:
THE THIRTEENTH TALE
Diane Setterfield
At the heart of this tale is the question, “Who is Vida Winter?” To say
more would be to lose the magic of storytelling. Let Ms. Setterfield and
Ms. Winter captivate you with a story of the past, a story of love and
pain and secrets.
Rating:
PERFUME: The Story of a Murderer
Patrick Suskind
Jean-Baptiste Grenouille was born with a gift – an extraordinary sense
of smell. This enables him to become the greatest, if unrecognized,
perfumer in eighteenth-century France. Yet Grenouille was born without a
smell of his own that would mark him as human. Thus he sought to create
the perfect scent that would make men and women fall on his feet and
worship him – a scent made from virgins on the brink of womanhood.
Patrick
Suskind successfully evokes the atmosphere of eighteenth-century Paris
by describing the stench of its streets littered with refuse and the
odor of its thousands of humans living in close quarters, and he
contrasts these with fragrances from the city’s perfumeries that
intrigue the reader’s nose – roses and orange blossoms and jasmine and
storax… In the middle he places the young Grenouille, eager to
experience and catalog in his mind all smells, good and bad, in
existence.
Later Grenouille turns this passion into the creation
of the perfect scent, regardless of the means needed to achieve it. In
doing so he seeks affirmation of his identity and acceptance from the
people who in the past ignored him at best and used him for their own
ends at worst. He realizes, too late, that his hatred for the same
people has surpassed his need for their acceptance, and his success
becomes worthless.
Instead of hatred or revulsion, one feels pity
for Grenouille and the circumstances that shaped him into what he is.
And one is left with a question – Does the need to please the self
ultimately stem from the need to please others?
Rating:
I have seen this novel a couple of times at my favorite secondhand
bookstore, but what finally made me buy a copy were the recommendations
from members of The Historical Fiction Group at Shelfari.
