19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"The sea was my biggest treasure, a jewel as huge as I could imagine the earth to be.", May 14, 2008
This profound exploration of what it means to be family is set by The Salton Sea. Located in the southeastern corner of California, this vast body of water is actually a lake, the largest in California and a huge magnet for birds and other forms of wildlife. But the very things that make this lake so unique are placing the Sea's existence at risk. Also at risk is the twelve-year old Ares, who lives in a ramshackle trailer in the town of Bombay Beach, on the edge of the Sea with his free-spirited mother, Laurel and his severely autistic younger brother, Malcolm.
A thoughtful and introspective boy, Ares seems content to be with just this "solitary family of three,' even as he lives an enchanted life in this run-down desert outpost, under the spell of his mother, who conjures a life for them out of nothing. In Laurel's world milk crates are upended to become chairs, and discarded cardboard boxes from the grocery story are covered with madras bedspreads and transformed into coffee tables. A woman who can't bear to be hemmed in by other people, Laurel manages as best she can, working as a therapeutic masseuse, while Ares shoulders the lion's share of Malcolm's care, looking out for him at school and deflecting the cruelties of Malcolm's classmates.
Although he grew up with great physical freedom and a mother who obviously loves him, Ares has few friends; he and his mother are content to eschew that few rules that may conflict with their privacy with Laurel of the conviction that society has little to offer them. Ultimately, however, Ares blames himself for a terrible accident involving Malcolm, the memory always coming alive to him just, as it was five years earlier.
Over time, the disbelief, the fear, and a first nearly imperceptible seed of guilt has taken root inside of him and steadily grows. In the end, the accident left Malcolm a damaged boy, unable to speak, forever trapped in his own little world, his head facing towards the sky perhaps wishing he could fly like the birds that fly across the desert towards the water, "their pale wings reflected the sun like sails on a boat."
Hoping to somehow escape the misery of his culpability and the minefield of recriminations that he's convinced he stumbles across daily, Ares forms a friendship with the kindly librarian Mrs. Poole, partly because he's angry at his mother for her fierce but sometimes neglectful love, and for not doing enough for Malcolm, and also angry at his brother, as just for once, he would have liked his brother to look at him like he really knew who he was. When Mrs. Poole offers to work with Malcolm on his speech, Ares takes the opportunely to spend some time at her house and is almost at once spellbound by the way her home speaks so simply of a life different from the one that he knows.
Like a dream or a heroic fantasy, Ares feels trapped between a life he had once enjoyed and one that now feels miserable and lonely and bitter. His time with Mrs. Poole not only gives him a break from his mother, it also a releases him from the life of the careful and guilt ridden boy, a boy who is always shadowed by an "old and mongrel guilt," but also a boy who can invent himself as someone who can perhaps do things right.
When Mrs. Poole's self-obsessed and incurious adopted-son Kevin returns to the fold, events take a turn for the unexpected. Ken is a dangerous boy who Mrs. Poole and her husband are desperately trying to turn into a loving and giving son. Unfortunately, Ares underestimates the persuasive power of Kevin's rebelliousness and finds himself mesmerized by the evident power of the older boy's apathy. It is with Kevin - and later an incident with Laurel's part-time lover Richard beneath the shadows of the Chocolate Mountains - that Ares eventually realizes that he can no longer be so self-effacing and so remorseful.
This is a beautiful novel about innocence and guilt, about the grievous mistakes and their consequences, and also about the punishing ramifications of willful ignorance. Ares, Laurel and Malcolm are mostly trapped in history and are unable to transcend the labels of the time. Despite the obvious obstacles, it is this bond of brotherhood between Ares and Malcolm that gives this novel so much of its heart with Malcolm's disability telling us much about how far as a society we have come in the way we view and treat autism.
Obviously the Salton Sea and its surrounds make up an integral part of this book with its constant listless movement and descriptions of the few birds that float in the water and then take off again "like cars at a drive through," perhaps providing an allegorical reflection of Malcolm's need to belong and to make peace with himself. Without a doubt, the desert itself is a symbolic miniature world with its own tiny valleys and mountains, "square inches of variegated detail, even as it helps propel Ares forwards with the choices that he is forced to make in life.
A truly remarkable coming-of-age story, The God of War shows that you can never be sure what something is in a world that is often so desolate and uncompromising with people who always seem to be living on the edge, struggling to survive. As Ares gravitates between crazed and calm, truly believing in what he had done to injure Malcolm, it is eventually an act of self-effacing love involving a violent gun accident that perfectly cements their relationship and finally tests Ares metal as a loyal brother to Malcolm and as a devoted son to Laurel. Mike Leonard May 08.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
'We are trapped by history', September 17, 2008
Marisa Silver's 'The God of War' is an absorbing and elegant novel. A story of darkness, despair, disappointment, and doubt.
Ares Ramirez, the 12 year old protagonist and narrator of this work spends his days helping to care for his younger brother Malcolm, whom Ares dropped on his head as a baby, and lives each day with the guilt of this, as he watches his brother struggle to communicate and to live. Ares, Malcolm, and their mother Laurel all live in a trailer in the less than lively area of Bombay Beach, on the shore of a man-made lake, and closeby to government bomb testing.
When difficulties arise at school, Malcolm begins work with the school Librarian, Mrs. Poole, to try to enhance his communication and development skills. As he accompanies his younger brother to these weekly sessions in the Pooles' home, Ares feels a strong pull to Mrs. Poole, and is intrigued to meet her foster son, Kevin, who is a few years older than Ares, and much more despondant and 'empty inside'. Kevin's release from a juvenile detention facility enhances and complicates Ares' life far more than he ever anticipated.
What follows is breathtaking, tragic, heart-wrenching, and poignant, as Ares befriends a boy far more 'hollow' than himself. The conclusion of this novel, while I will not spoil it for those who have not yet read it, will touch even the hardest of hearts.
A wonderful read, and the kind of novel that makes you wish for twice or three times the number of pages, so that (no matter how dark the subject matter) the story would go on and on. Highly recommended, and I look forward to more titles from the same author.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
