Customer Reviews

A Big Storm Knocked It Over

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Love is a subject that has been tackled by everyone who ever grabbed a pen and decided to write. Some have been accurate in their depictions, but i find that i read a lot about love and don't quite connect with the emotions or with the characters. With this book, Laurie Colwin wiped me off my feet. I can totally put myself in the shoes of Jane Louise, who wants desperately to make everything OK for her husband, who cannot understand how someone so lovely could have been treated badly by others, who gets outraged at the thought that her beloved suffered at some point in his life. This is one of the key corners of love, and i have yet to find other authors that put their finger right there. This was an awesome love story. I watched a movie on PBS called "Ask me Again" some 12 years ago, and i have not been able to forget it. What do you know? Laurie Colwin wrote the script. Thank you for leaving us with such terrific books and movies.

Years ago, I used to look forward to issues of Gourmet to see if another of Laurie Colwin's whimsical, insightful, and so well-written essays would be included. Then, with no warning, came the announcement that "this will be her last submission to Gourmet," as she had died unexpectedly and at far too young an age.
That's the first I learned that she'd written several novels, so I began reading all of them. A Big Storm Knocked It Over was her fifth and was published posthumously.
Happy All the Time is my favorite of her books, but this one is pretty damn good. Like all of Colwin's books, it's quiet and introspective. Jean Louise is a NY book designer whose boss, Sven, comes on to her all the time - and JL can't deny the attraction. But she's totally happily married to a calm and pretty ordinary chemist. Then she gives birth to a daughter, and her joy is complete - almost. She still has those unspecified hankerings, the feeling she's maybe missing something. It's Colwin's wisdom about relationships, her sharp eye of always watching, watching that make her books so special. Unlike this Big Storm, Colwin's books don't knock you over - but you find yourself thinking about them for a long time afterwards.
She is greatly missed.

I am not normally given to overstatement. I can, however, think of no other work I have encountered yet that can rival Laurie Colwin's "A Big Wind Knocked It Over" for reinforcing the balance between idiosyncracy and pure happiness that comes from a union, whether it be one of marriage or of friendship. Colwin's prose, while spare, rings with images and emotional relevance. I, as well as everyone else I have discussed this work with, have found myself, the smallest details of my personality, echoed in her words. The characters, without exception, are wonderfully flawed and human, drawn with an attention to detail that brings life to their written existences, and transcend the reader-text barrier to make them as present as a coworker or a friend. Anything more I could say would throw this review into the realm of the hyperbolic, so I will close by recommending this work to any and all readers. It stands on my bookshelf next to the works of Shakespeare and the "Maus" graphic novels of Art Spiegelman. All three I consider depictions of life without equal in the literary world.

I am a huge fan of Laurie Colwin's writing, so I am baffled by the reviewers who didn't enjoy this book as much as I did. To me, her writing is sophisticated yet very comfortable. I can identify most with the main character in this particular book of hers as I also married a bit later in life and am trying to have a child despite being a little long in the tooth. The longings Jane Louise has for the domestic bliss that other people in her life seem to have so easily are all too familiar. This book will not hit you over the head with a message, and it does meander ... which is just like life for most of us. And I for one sometimes enjoy a book that doesn't leave me with a headache. Reading is so much like eating - balancing what's good for you with satisfying cravings for those things that aren't - and for me, Laurie Colwin's books are like hot tea with milk and sugar on a cold afternoon. Grown up, but sweet and comforting - they always hit the spot. And I still find myself in disbelief that there will be no more books by this great writer.

I think this is my favorite Laurie Colwin book; well, maybe a tie between this and "Family Happiness". Or maybe "Passion and Affect"! This was her last book written just before her live was cut short by a heart attack.

Jane Louise Parker is a totally believable character, married and in love in her 30s, and finally pregnant. The story is dreamy and evocative with beautifully drawn characters and scenes. The descriptions of place, Teddy's mother's home, Jane Louise's longing for a true home, and her growth as a woman are perfection.

I've read this book at least 20 times and plan to read it another 20. And I miss her books and her writing. I've never found another author who comes close to her spare and tightly crafted writing. And my home library contains more than 5000 books.

I think that this was a very good book. It kept me wanting to read. I also like how some of Colwins characters were unsure about themselves. That way if you are not sure about your self you could read the book and do what the characters do. i recommend this book to anyperson looking for a great read

I am a HUGE Laurie Colwin fan and this is by far her best book. It sucks you in. A great book to read when you're feeling blue.

This novel is a spare, well-written character study of a young, sensitive, cosmically insecure, recently married Manhattanite. Reading this book is a little like listening to the conversations of an articulate and intelligent female friend who shares her interior thoughts and subtle ambivalences about work, family, home, love, and marriage. I found this book enjoyable but it had no compelling story, nor did it leave a lasting imprint in my memory. I sometimes share the books I read with my friends, both male and female. I think that most of my male friends would be quite bored with this book.

I'm three-quarters of the way through this book and I wish it was a lot longer. I'm smiling almost the whole time I'm reading it. I wish Laurie Colwin was still alive because I'd like to read many more of her books

I'm completely baffled by the five-star reviews for this book. The main characters are likable enough, certainly, but nothing. ever. happens. There is no narrative tension and no real plot, no conflict, no obstacles for the characters to overcome, nothing of substance--just a vaguely pleasant meandering toward an indefinite conclusion. Even the much-anticipated baby seems to disappear into the background once she arrives, like a sitcom baby whose birth is a great episode for sweeps week but who is conveniently asleep off-camera for every episode thereafter.

Perhaps my opinion was tainted by reading this book too soon after Alison McGhee's "Shadow Baby" -- a book with both style AND substance. Colwin suffered in the comparison. However lovely her sentences and paragraphs may be, in this case they don't add up to anything greater than the sum of their parts.