Customer Reviews

Evenings at Five

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

It doesn't take readers of Evenings at Five too long before they realize that this book was written as an homage and in memory of the author's recently deceased partner. Gail Godwin in her secretly veiled memoir has crafted a fine novel about love, compassion, loss and the human spirit to move on.

The title of the book Evenings at Five refers to that time of day when Christina, an author and Rudy a composer would meet for drinks. Cocktails for this twosome are a ritual each evening at five, they even have special names for the knives they use to cut the lemons and limes. This special hour at their home includes lively conversations about how that spent their days on their individual projects, their plans for trips and their futures together. They never anticipated Rudy's premature death and now Christina spends her evenings at five thinking about her time spent with Rudy and her future alone.

While this book is poignant and very sad at times, the reader finishes the last pages content that Christina as well as Gail Godwin has had a fulfilling relationship and an amazing love. And because of this she will be able to move on, perhaps a bit sadder,but complete in the knowledge of what they have had. And as the author intended it is a fitting book to be written by an excellent author about the man she dearly loved who did die two years ago.

I do recommend this book to those who love,to those who have loved and those who hope to love. As the saying goes,"'Tis better to have loved and lost, then never to have loved at all." Evening at Five certainly proves this adage to be true.

Because life is rarely without loss and grief, this slim novel may have wide appeal. However, this reader feels that the persons most attracted to and affected by "Evenings at Five" would have to be spouses for whom grief is still new, raw and ever present.

It is amazing how so few words can so richly convey Christina's aching feelings. The simplicity of the book lies in the scarcity of words and the simple and stark pen drawings of the very articles that serve as constant reminders and reinforce the piercing emptiness and grief. A favorite tumbler; a metronome that is an integral tool to Rudy's composing skills; a richly-grained wooden chair with a beautiful, tapestried pillow; an answering machine with Rudy's voice that Christina cannot bring herself to erase.

The chair keeps cropping up because Rudy, as his disease progressed, required sitting in an upright position and was probably all the more visible because of his forced confinement. Drawings, too, of the living room and descriptions of how they sat in proximity to one another, emphasize their closeness. They were woven together as a couple, as best friends, as collaborators in the co-creation of their home and individual work spaces...she an author...he a composer.

Christina chronicles her pain without being mawkish. No matter where she turns, the memories are present and what makes the agony still worse is that on the night of Rudy's death, she had unsuspectingly left to return home and was reading as Rudy was dying. Sadly, she recalls that she will never be able to read that author again. No matter how many moments were spent together, from their grand passion when they first met, to the quieter times, the intimacy that grew over the years, there was never enough because it's now all gone...forever! It cannot be re-created.

Religion is of some comfort to Christina, as are some friends, one of whom zeroes in on her drinking but it is in the seeking and in the finding of her own way that Christina can continue. And there are no easy answers, no and "she lived happily ever after". The final passage contains comforting words from Rudy, one of many things Christina recalls that he said. Memories are blissful, funny, poignant and pierce like a weapon!

This is undoubtedly one of the most intimate books I have read on grief and loss. There are many on how to deal with grief; how to become financially capable; how to resume dating; how to tell children about the death of their parent but this one is truly unique in its ability to deal with the simple, pure aching that occurs when a loved one with whom one has shared so much is removed from one's life. It is like major surgery with no anesthesia during the surgery or painkillers to dull the agony following the procedure!

Heart-breaking yet comforting -- exquisitely written, perfectly structured, emotionally precise. The illustrations poignantly echo the writing. I am buying extra copies for friends and family.

A good little book that is well-written and beautifully crafted into a story with resonance for anyone who has lost a love to death. Provides a peak into a woman's day-to-day grief and into a life lived well together by two people. Sometimes sad, always poignant, Evenings At Five moves the reader to feel the void death leaves and to hear the voices that remain. It leaves you asking how much time is ever enough with your life's love.

Gail Godwin, one of my all-time favorite authors, lost her long-time companion, composer Robert Starer, before writing this book as a tribute to him and their relationship. It is, in a word: Perfect.

For anyone who has ever felt unbearable grief, or for anyone who has felt the same measure of real love, this book is a tribute to the best of the human spirit. I was lucky enough to have listened to the Audio version, which is read by the author herself, and her lightly southern-tinged pleasant voice adds a measure of poignancy she may or may not have intended.

The fictional characters, Rudi and Christine, an author and a composer, live a life rich in every way, from their afternoon cocktail hour (preceded by a phone call from "Cope Paul," Rudi's fictional pontiff who urges them to have a drink) to their wide and wonderful collection of shared jokes, memories, people and most of all words...rich tapestries of words. Rudi is multi-lingual, and Christine is her willing foil.

It sounds like it was the perfect relationship we all want and need, and its loss it made all the more so by the way Christine's reaction to her unspeakable loss.

A truly beautiful book; I only wish I had seen the drawings that accompany the text, and will make sure I buy the book as well as the recording.

I love Gail Godwin's clean, specific prose, and her thinly disguised (according to what I've read elsewhere) story of loss touched me. Her literate examination of (always imperfect) love is a joy, and I was surprised by how much I also embraced the collection of "Christina" stories in the latter half of this collection.

What do Pope John Paul, a serrated knife fondly known as Ralph, and a bottle of gin have in common? Artfully, with humor and tenderness, Gail Godwin weaves the Pope, Ralph, and Bombay Sapphire gin into a loving testament.

Every evening at five, Rudy builds his wife a drink with loving precision. and announces that "the Pope has called." Rudy is a composer and hears music; Christina is a writer lost in a world of words. But somehow, despite their differences, for 28 years their marriage works. When Rudy dies, his formidable presence no longer holds center stage in Christina's life. The gifted linguist and world traveller with a mellifluous voice "one octave below God's" is gone. Stripped of his presence, Christina is reduced to drinking her gin alone and conversing with Rudy's chair every evening at five.

It's Christina's recollections of Rudy that makes Evenings at Five a standout. She reads his appointment diaries, kept through their years together, reliving the chronicle of his life. She listens to his music, composed one note on top of another until he reached a glorious symmetry - much like their life together. His is a powerful and lingering presence that defies death.

Christina's memories are a delightful read, despite the sobering subject. Ms. Godwin's skill as best selling wordsmith proves itself once again in this latest book. Evenings at Five transcends death and loss, guiding each reader to an individual finale.

I can't say much more about this book. This book is probably way over my head but the point of the story touches me deeply. I mean we all have to face our loved ones leaving this world without us and to be with someone for many years and then to have that empty space is a bit harsh.

However Christina does, it just takes time. She goes over everything she can remember and I think she is feels a bit guilty about leaving him on the night he went, but perhaps it was better this way. I am not sure what way I would want it.

Great book, great author. Have plans to check out her other books. But pick up this book! It is a quick read, but really means a whole lot.

First off, the drawings reminded me strongly of the illustrator of the "Al" children's books. Since I loved those books, I was already well disposed toward "Evenings at Five." But this book though it expressed the stages of grief beautifully just did not go deep enough. I may have been spoiled by Godwin's previous books which are meaty and filled to bursting with provocative ideas and fascinating characters. Perhaps if I were reading it through the lens of grieving, I would have come away more impressed.

Gail Godwin's thin EVENINGS AT FIVE is a fictionalized tribute to her companion of thirty years, composer Robert Starer who died in 2001. The characters are Christina, a writer of fiction, a "cradle Episcopalian"; Rudy, who is Jewish, a composer, a polyglot, and tad arrogant; and Bud, whom this most gifted writer describes in one point in the narrative as a "neatly folded cat." Every evening-- hence the title-- at five sharp ("punctuality is the courtesy of kings") the couple-- she on the black leather sofa that the Siamese cats had destroyed and he in his Stickley chair-- had drinks and discussed how their respective days had gone. Seven months after his unexpected death-- even though Rudy was ill, they both believed they had more time together-- Christina is trying to put the pieces of her life back together as she answers letters of condolence, attends church, leans on friends, in short, the things that grieving persons do to get them through the period that Emily Dickinson described as that "awful leisure."

To say that Ms. Godwin writes about something universal is trite beyond words since all of us at some point will, again in Ms. Dickinson's beautifully sad words, be "sweeping up the heart." We expect someone of Godwin's talent to write eloquently about the loss of a companion, a subject that so many authors of her generation have written about recently: Calvin Trillin (ABOUT ALICE), John Bayley (ELEGY FOR IRIS) and Joan Didion (THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING). Then there are writers like Mark Doty (HEAVEN'S COAST) who did not have the luxury of even as long a time together as Ms. Godwin and Mr. Starer had since Doty lost his lover to AIDS before the advent of the new life-sustaining drugs.