Customer Reviews

Dream of the Blue Room

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

An adventure through a tortured soul. Richmond is expert in developing the drama that exposes the sensual desires that Jenny still feels for her lost lover. The fantastic plot turns left me in suspense and wanting more, and more, and more....Not only does Richmond create a vivid drama of the past, but also brings the painful realities of her current relationship with her husband to abrupt confrontation. Jenny's anguish, and attemtps to find emotional escape through her physcial rather than emotional relationships with others, added to the excitement of this artful novel. I can not wait until Richmond's next work comes out, nor until Dream of the Blue Room hits the big screen.

I really enjoyed reading this novel but what kept me going was wondering how the death of Amanda Ruth was going to be resolved. Did the main character do it? Would there be a confession, or was it some unexpected person or the girl's Chinese father. The problem is that nothing ever really happened. Nothing was resolved. I was disappointed with the ending, with everything hanging up in the air, people left with other strangers, trying to drudge up something, but never really having it come to the surface.

The writing was interesting. The short paragraphs and chapters helped to propel me through the book, but my opinion is that there was no real story here, just a listing of feelings, observations and events. I agree with other reviewers about the delightful dream-like quality of some portions of the book.

I was also disappointed with the depth of her observations on China. I mean, I was hoping to actually learn something, to come away with something I didn't know before, but no. I got about the same amount of info that I'd get from reading a Wikipedia piece or some travel book.

Maybe I'm being too harsh, but I gave it 4 stars, and I'm not related ...

I could not put down "The Year of Fog" by the same author, but I could not get to page 100 of this book. It made absolutely no sense.

This novel takes you up the Yangtze River during the construction of the Three Gorges Dam. The descriptions of abandoned villages and bustling riverside cities are lush and unforgettable. But something more is happening in this novel. While the main character, Jenny, travels up the Yangtze, her marriage is falling apart. The dissolution of the marriage is captured with painful accuracy, and the memories of Jenny's adolescent relationship with a girl named Amanda Ruth are both sensual and poignant. Jenny and Amanda Ruth were so close and Jenny's love for her was so strong that, even though Amanda Ruth is dead, she is a constant presence in Jenny's mind.

If you've ever been to China, or if you ever plan to go, this book should be your travel companion!

Michelle Richmond's "The Year of Fog" is one of my favorite books. I thought I'd go back and see how she started as a writer and picked up "Dream of the Blue Room."

Like "Fog," this early novel reveals a troubled relationship between a man and a woman and a beautiful journey to an exotic spot, this time, China.

There is also a back story of a murder.

Without hitting you with a bunch of spoilers, I felt that Richmond's early work was beautiful and finely detailed. I also could see how she often left the path of her narrative to splice in details from a variety of journals, dreams being one of the main ones.

Thus, I have given this book four stars, not five. It's a quick read, poetically written, nuanced in description, and strong (almost didactic) in theme. I wanted less disruption to the flow of the narrative and more understanding of the main characters: Jennie, Dave, and Graham.

It's definitely worth reading. Richmond is also definitely in better control of her later works.

This is the third Michelle Richmond novel I have read and perhaps my mistake was in reading them all in a row, so to speak. I quite liked No One You Know so I bought The Year of Fog and Dream of the Blue Room, and have read them in that order, with increasing disappointment. Blue Room is meandering and unresolved, and frankly none of the characters are especially likeable or even believable, particularly the narrator's husband. He's a jerk in my opinion and therefore to me the narrator is less than sympathetic, because why on earth would she be trying to save her marriage to this self-absorbed wanker? It's hard to really care what happens to any of them.

On the plus side, Ms Richmond's writing style is lyrical and evocative, if a bit long-winded at times. Her descriptions of places and events sometimes verged on the poetic. I also got a vivid sense of China as it was experienced by the characters. The short chapters helped move the book along. Hence three stars as opposed to two.

Lastly and least important, but still jarring,is the issue of Ms. Richmond's factual inaccuracies and anachronisms. For example, elephants do not have "cubs", they have "calves" (those who have read Year of Fog know what I mean). Madonna and Andy Gibb were not popular contemporaries. Do some research for the next book, please!

(I read this book last month, so the details aren't fresh. Still, I was impressed with Richmond's writing that I feel compelled to post a positive review.)

Two Southern girls fall in love and lust during their teen years. One is murdered, the other moves on with her life. She is forever scarred by this murder. Years later, the protagonist is cruising down the waters of China, attempted to put to rest two deaths: her marriage, her former lover. The protagonist spreads the ashes of her teen lover within the waters of China. She also realizes her marriage is over. Her husband is shacking up with a recovering drug addict who sits at their table on the cruise ship. The protagonist is wooed by a handsome older man with ALS. Will they find happiness? ALS kills. Will the protragonist come to terms with her new lover's impending demise?

Against the backdrop of China, with colorful snapshots of the modern communist country, we learn a little about modern Chinese culture, but mostly about love and loss. Richmond interwaves past and present into the novel. We learn of the protagonist's lesbian relationship with her (now deceased) lover. We learn of the impact that China had on her lover, and how "something" Chinese led to her murder.

I appreciated the symbolism of the cruise ship. The ship, ultimately, has maintenance problems. At one point, the passengers are forced to stay on the ship while these problems are fixed- bad food and mindless games to occupy the time. (That's part of life, especially the mindless games we don't want to play, but sometimes there's nothing else we can do.) The Chinese young adults with the Americanized, celebrity-inspired names- we all want to be celebrities- Hollywood celebrities. (There's more symbolism....)

The ending, thankfully, is neither happy or sad. It is what it is. In a world of "wrap it up with a bow" fiction, Richmond chooses to let the reader draw his or her own conclusions about the story. And, that, too, is life. Sometimes we don't get a happy or sad resolution. We continue to exist, to live, to move, without any sort of closure.

Highly recommended, China buff or not!

This book is brilliant! It hit me hard on so many different levels that it makes moving on to another book a recipe for disappointment.

The plot, for starters, is impossibly compelling. By page ten I was completely hooked: the dynamics between Jenny (a married woman) and Graham (a mysterious and intriguing stranger she meets late at night on a boat) and Dave (Jenny's husband who sleeps in their cabin below) are rich and complex. You can sense danger ahead but can't help moving towards it, page by page.

Nothing is predictable and yet the events unfold as you fear (hope?) they must. I don't want to ruin anything and so will just say that it's a book that you will wish that you could read more slowly.

The characters are the reason this book stands above so much of contemporary fiction. They are complex and nuanced. And, most importantly, they are real--as real as anyone that I know: flawed, maddening, endearing, and just plain interesting. When Jenny describes the visceral power of her estranged husband's smell she captures the essence of her conflicting feelings for him beautifully:

"I haven't washed his pillowcase since he moved out. Each night I go to bed with his pillow positioned neatly on the left side of the bed, but in the morning I wake with my arms around it, like a grieving widow..." Richmond makes you care about every character; they invade your brain. I find myself referring to them in conversation, months after I finished the book, as if they are real people.

Anyway, I wish that I could give this book more than five stars. I just love it. Buy it. Read it. And then buy copies for your friends so that you can share the experience.

I recently finished another "Year of Fog", another Richmond book. I liked it but thought it was not realistic enough for me. This book was much better. I liked the setting and the detail given to the surroundings.
In a nutshell, an estranged husband and wife go on one last trip to China. She needs to scatter the ashes of a friend. They are also attempting once more to reconcile. The author moves back and forth between the past and present in a way that is not confusing and complements the story.
I gave Michelle Richmond one more shot with this book and based on my reaction, I will read more from her.

I look forward to her next novel as well. I recommend all three of her novels.