Customer Reviews

A Certain Slant of Light

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Peter lives a solitary life along the rural Maine coast; Elaine, eight months pregnant, comes into his life in the midst of a terrible ice storm, seeking a solitude of her own in which to sort out her life. In this beautifully crafted novel, the secrets each carries are revealed early in the plot. It is to see how Peter and Elaine each come to terms with their own secrets that keeps one reading.

Peter has spent the last twenty years living in guilt for the loss of his family to a fire while he was away at a bagpipe championship. Winning the national prize was no comfort for him upon learning that his whole family perished in the blaze, and so, he retreats to his lonely existence at a family cottage, never playing the pipes again.

Elaine crashes into his quiet and well ordered life, refusing to be moved from her spot. She too, has demons with which she must wrestle, but hers are spiritual. Her religion does not allow transfusions, and because of a youthful transgression, she may have a baby with Rh postive blood. Peter, with much trepidation, allows her to settle in to find the answers she needs to her problems. Her baby is born, and their life takes on a new type of ordinariness, cadenced by the daily rhythms of milking, planting, cooking and tending to the flocks. As Peter comes to enjoy her presence, he also comes to realize that his past is passed, and he needs to come to terms with that, too.

This quiet story glows with the depth of the characters and their thoughts, and the reader, through the author's ability to evoke a sense of place, can feel and smell the barns, the rhubarb pie cooking, can hear the quiet night sounds of the cabin and the plantive singing of Elaine or Peter finally playing his pipes again. The story moves along, much like life itself, through normal days, dramatic events, quiet epiphanies and endings that are hopeful, but not Hollywood.

I liked this novel better than her first one (Strong For Potatoes) because it seemed utterly realistic and utterly engaging. It's a novel of hope, of rebirth, and of grief and loss--all those wonderful subjects so often done--yet because it is set in the Maine woods next to the sea and because Cynthia Thayer knows so much about farming, bagpiping, midwifery, and sheep raising and even the Jehovah Witnesses, she takes what might be cliches and gives them new life. I read it in a day. One of her best characters is Dog, later to be called Seamus, who fetches a log of wood upon command each morning and who howls if he is not called upon to do this task. Then there is Alice the horse who will kick out the barn wall if her needs are not tended to exactly at the right moment. The human characters are wonderfully real too, and the title, drawn from Emily Dickinson's poem about grief and grieving, makes complete sense in a way that her first novel's title did not.

This tale is a modernized, closely observed retelling of George Eliot's Silas Marner: a once-naive young man, devastated by loss and betrayal, spends 15 years as a recluse in a rural society before finding--perhaps--redemption when a lost soul shows up on his doorstep. In Thayer's version (and she doesn't mention George Eliot in her foreword, somewhat to my surprise), it's a neighbor who's the weaver, and the baby is yet-unborn when its mother arrives on a winter's day on the hermit's doorstep. (I read Silas Marner as soon as I'd finished Certain Slant of Light, having recognized the plot and characters from Steve Martin's movie version of Silas Marner, A Simple Twist of Fate). Unlike some other reviewers here, I found the Jehovah's Witnesses in Thayer's retelling--particularly the husband--wholly backwards, stifled, misogynistic, and in all ways despicable, and the girl's decision in Thayer's tale left me feeling depressed, cheated, and disgusted. Thayer makes a vital plot point out of the girl's adamant decision as a J.W. not to allow a blood tranfusion for her child should it be born with a condition requiring such a tranfusion to survive. I found Thayer's resolution of this "plot complication" ethically and dramatically bankrupt. Thayer writes beautifully and evocatively, and I'll read whatever she writes next, but this particular book just wasn't to my taste (which may say more about me than the book, since a dear friend of excellent taste cites this as her favorite book). Happy reading to all...

Here is a carefully crafted story of pain, loneliness, guilt, growth, healing and redemption as experienced by two very different individuals who are accidentally brought together by the harsh weather of coastal Maine. Peter, a gruff, older man living as a hermit in the country after tragically losing his family in a long ago fire, reluctantly gives refuge to Elaine, a young, gentle, pregnant runaway from the city. Peter and Elaine, with very dissimilar life experiences are torn in different ways by grief and guilt and yet in their brokenness find a way to help each other understand what has happened to each of them. As their unlikely friendship develops, Peter and Elaine sort out their values, learn to put the past in perspective and find the strength to make difficult life choices. Themes of loss, grief and despair are intricately interwoven with change, birth, hope and renewal in a sparse, unpretentious landscape where "that certain slant of light" that yields forgiveness does not occur often or easily. There are no cliches here. Instead, the reader struggles with both Peter and Elaine and the rugged life of rural Maine. The reward is a simple but rich story as satisfying, as unique, and as beautiful as Maine itself.

As a third generation Jehovah's Witness, I was particularly intrigued to see how Ms. Thayer would portray Jehovah's Witnesses through her characters. I believe she has done a marvelous job. Surely, she must have studied the Bible in depth with Jehovah's Witnesses to be able to depict them and their culture so accurately and honestly! By contrasting Witnesses like Oliver Sinclair and his father with Witnesses like Elaine Sinclair and her mother-in-law, Ms. Thayer illustrates the Apostle Paul's differentiation between a "righteous" person and a "good" person at Romans 5:7-"For hardly will anyone die for a righteous [man]; indeed, for the good [man], perhaps someone even dares to die." Ms. Thayer's depiction of Jehovah's Witness elders is, likewise, right on target. By and large, these sincere, righteous men are "unlettered and ordinary." (Acts 4:13) Some of them are even humbled by their own limitations. Beyond the Witness aspect, this is a wonderful story with marvelously developed characters. I heartily recommend this novel!

Peter Macqueen has never gotten over the fire that destroyed his wife and two children. So much so that he keeps and plays with a dollhouse, whose figures he pretends are his wife and two children. Each morning, he sets them at the breakfast table. Each evening, he puts them to bed. He is a quiet man, living alone, tortured by the guilt of his memories. One day a lady named Elaine appears, pregnant, having run away from her husband, she needs a place to stay. Peter cannot have her in the house, he simply cannot face a woman's presence in his solitude. He fears Elaine will discover the dollhouse, which he covers with a towel while she is there, and think him mad. What follows is a story of a love that was never meant to be, of a tiny baby that decides the fate of four people, and of the torturous journey towards healing that Peter Macqueen refuses to take. Woven throughout the story is one woman's faith in God, sorely questioned, and one man's lack of faith in anything at all. Wonderfully written, beautifully phrased, this is a story that will touch parts of you forever.

Both my husband and I agree that is the best novel we've read in a long, long time. From the beginning when we were introduced to Peter, a hermit who keeps a doll house and gently cares for and manipulates the dolls as the replacements for his wife and children that he lost in a fire, up to the bittersweet ending, we were mesmerized. Peter and Elaine, the pregnant, abused young woman he takes in during an ice storm, are memorable characters that live on long after the book has ended. They truly need each other in so many ways, but will they have a future together? You'll have to read this wonderful book to find out & I guarantee that you'll be glad you did.

This isn't a bad book, and is quite good for a first effort from this author. It certainly isn't your normal romance story, and there is a definite feeling of hope that comes through. It is a story about two very strong-willed people and how they clashed at first, and then found out that they complimented each other. It's also a good view of the Jehovah Witness faith, and let's face it, there's not many books about that. The writing is good, and the story moves along nicely. I liked these characters and I think you will too.

Yes, the story is corny. Yes, the events are predictable. But the standard of writing is high, and the author doesn't fall into the obvious traps - except, possibly, for the tendency to make Peter into a respectable-man-turned-hermit-by-grief rather than a genuine recluse. I also liked the way she avoided making an issue of the Jehovah's Witness lifestyle (though, let's be fair, the presence of the Witnesses in the story was only a plot device to give Elaine an excuse for staying put). All in all, a good read.

I was left feeling cheated and sad by this well written 2nd novel of Thayer's. However, I too found it so similar to George Eliot's Silas Marner, that I wondered how it was possible that Cynthia Thayer, or the publisher: St. Martin's Griffin, didn't make any mention of that anywhere. Still, I found this novel does justice to the harshness of living on the remote Maine coast, evoking sounds and sights, and even smells to mind that coincide with the mood of the main character - Peter. The deep sadness and strangeness of the characters, their awkwardness towards each other, their bonds, the caring for their neighbors, is all written of in true fashion.

Btw: it is widely available at libraries, if you don't want to buy it or can't afford to.