Customer Reviews

The Language of Goldfish

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

this book touched my heart. i'm now 26 and i read it while i was in junior high. i remember the pressures of growing up and am glad that i was able to make it through better than carrie. this novel is about the anguish a young woman feels when growing up. everyone wants you to be something you aren't and you don't know how to say no. carrie, instead of rebelling, retreats into her own consciousness. she equates her madness to her lovely pond in the backyard -- where she spent so many young and happy years talking to the goldfish with her sister. its a steady downward slope into the mind of an unstable young girl.. the writing is exceptional and the imagery will stay with you for a lifetime.. trust me, i can't forget this book and i haven't read it since i was a teen.

The Language of Goldfish is a delicate book about a young girl who is trying to get beyond her mental illness. The story first leads up to her mental breakdown and her attempted suicide. The second part is about how she is coping with it and growing up. In my opinion the book cannot be used in a class full of young people without good follow up. Teenagers may be confused by it, recognizing some situations and wanting to talk about it. The book tries to picture Carrie as a normal girl, but she has abilities, like drawing and maths, that are rather special. She also has the luck of being assigned to an understanding psychiatrist. Not every teenager with similar feelings has that luck. On the other hand, some teenagers may be blessed with understanding parents, which Carrie is not. Therefore, the book tackles a very interesting topic, and certainly not one to walk away from, but it has to be handled with care.

It was a great book to read! Little by little you get to know Carrie, you get to know her anxieties and fears, and also her strong sides. I felt really sorry for Carrie, a lonely girl, reminding me of myself and of so many other young girls, unsecure, wanting to stay as she is, wanting things to stay as they are..
Still, even these very insecure children have to grow up, and so does Carrie, helped by her friend and teacher, who believes in her and in her art. I really loved Carrie, a loyal friend. She doesn't want to forget her old home and her old friend Tanya, she is very loyal towards her little brother, and to Mrs. Ramsay.It also shows in the way she is dedicated to her sport,playing hockey, and her art lessons. Still, she cannot cope and leaps back into the safe world she once knew, the world of the goldfish, where she was safe, together with her sister whom she has already lost to "growing up".
One big question remains linguering in my head after reading: what about her mom and dad, don't they care, don't they see what is happening? Their attitude really makes me sad. Just the way Carrie has to find her way all by herself.An impressive book!

Now 28, I remember reading "The Language of Goldfish" for the first time at age 12. My original copy, with yellowed pages, still sits on my bookshelf. It's gone with me through seven apartments, six roommates, two degrees -- and over the years it's been sandwiched amidst many books that have come and gone, but it will always stay. Zibby O'Neal is my hero (when I was 12 I thought she had the coolest name in the world!) So glad to see it's still in print!!!

The 80's seemed to usher in a slew of movies about teens who found growing up more difficult than their peers. Being one of those teens, I found solace in those movies and wished for the same storylines in books. Not too many existed. I did not know about The Language of Goldfish by Zibby O'Neal at that time. Yet it also transcends that period, in being about a universal theme: the inevitability of change. I am glad to have discovered it.

Carrie Strokes used to live in Chicago. She wishes her family had never moved. She wishes a lot of things had never changed. After her family moves, Carrie and her older sister Moira have their own rooms. Despite this, her sister and her now having separate rooms , they initially retain a common bond: being able to beckon to them the goldfish that swim in their garden pond. Then Moira starts to grow up. She becomes interested in dances, music, and boys; Carrie prefers math and art. The two begin to drift, perhaps when Carrie most needs her older sister. Before the family move, Carrie used to have a best friend. Now she does not have any close friends. Her classmates are all beautiful people, except for ones like Katherine who are ugly and mean. Carrie does have her art lessons. But when her art becomes more experimental, Carrie feels as detached from even it. Everything is changing, from her relationships to her interests and even her body.

Carrie resists these changes, wherein lies her story. When we meet Carrie, she is studying math and appreciating the neat geometric figures that lay solidly on the pages of her textbook. Carrie likes their permanence: "Forever the square of the hypotenuse of a right-angle triangle would be equal to the sum of the square of the other two sides." To Carrie, math was firm; it didn't shift and change as sometimes things did in her head. She begins experiencing moments where her mind is assaulted by a kaleidoscope of colors and shapes . These assaults initially make Carrie feel dizzy and eventually disorient her to the point that she ends up lost during an evening walk. I do not care for this vague depiction of mental illness. It reminds me of stories where the heroine develops mysterious aches, experience fainting spells, and suddenly becomes deathly sick for no concrete reason. Over all, though, I do applaud Zibby O'Neal for effectively portraying Carrie's mental breakdown. When found and questioned after her evening walk, Carrie tries to find the right words to say but "they swarmed in her head like insects". O'Neal even uses atmosphere: On her way to the clinic, "Buildings on either side formed a canyon through which the taxi moved". Later, Carrie views the clinic elevator as threatening to shake itself apart. At this point, Carrie herself is struggling to hold herself together.

Near the start of The Language of Goldfish, we see Carrie visiting a psychiatrist. He asks her about what triggered the kaleidoscope of colors and shapes. She tries to remember and flashes back to incidents with her family, at school, and even at an art gallery. I do not know that the novel was helped by our meeting Carrie after she was already on the road to recovery. It might have been less confusing and more suspenseful to start with her descent. As it is, we meet her after her hospital stay, which by the way is glossed over . Then via flashbacks learn how she ended up with these daily clinic appointments. About halfway through, we catch up to Carrie's present and follow her struggle to recover. Carrie's resistance to attend school dances and her persistence in asking her sister about the goldfish both points to her need to keep her world simple and static.

Zibby O'Neal established herself in the 1980's as a voice for youth. There are aspects of her writing in The Language of Goldfish that I appreciate; others that I disliked. Her descriptions are at times crafted: "The train flowed smoothly, as if gliding on a ribbon. A few people got off, a few people got on, and a cold air moved along the floor of the car." Other times they are startling, as in these examples: "fell dead in the dark wet cave of her mouth". And sometimes they sounded odd, such as in these examples: "... steam rise and umbrella over her". While Zibby O'Neal adds complexity to Carrie's story with the plentitude of people in her life, O'Neal also overwhelmed me with an abundance of minor characters. Pretty much anyone Carrie met had a name: from her siblings to the household maid, her school classmates, the children of her art teacher, the members of her field hockey team, and even her hair dresser. I don't recall her naming the taxi driver, but he was a rare exception. Moreover, some of those depictions were pretty sleep-inducing: "She sat behind Katherine Fowles in English, in front of Laura Mott. Across the aisle was Jerome Taylor, who had acne."

The Language of Goldfish is about reluctance to but also inevitability of change. In an interview, Zibby O'Neal told how she had been making up stories before she could write. At a young age, she established her own space by sitting under a tree and making up stories. She likened it to moving to another country. She also admitted that as an adult she dislikes that she "has lost that passport". This sentiment seeps into Carrie's story, making it realistic but also a little sad. I ended up feeling a little bit like Peter Pan, in that I wish we could all stay young forever. At the same time the story is hopeful, for Carrie perseveres and matures in her own unique way.

"The Language of Goldfish" is a novel that at first glance seems a simple story of a young girl who loses touch with reality after her parents decide to move in her difficult teen years. An outsider will probably not understand what it is like to have those moments of losing oneself completely; of having a safe island to turn to when things get too rough; of having the comfort of being able to speak the language of goldfish; of being able to hold on to the familiar in a world of insanity and lies; the keeping up of appearances. This book is very recognizable for those who have once found themselves in a similar situation, perhaps not as drastic as for the protagonist of "Language of Goldfish". The theme of learning to deal with reality, having to come to terms with things and being able to lay aside that which is old and no longer of use, can offer a helping hand.
A wonderful book of hope!

I first read "The Language of Goldfish" when I was in eighth grade. I liked it. I thought it was written in a unique way. One thing that I don't like about the book, however, is the way her family treats Carrie's problems. They're definitely no help. Her doctor dad dismisses Carrie's problem as anemia and all her mother cares about is having parties. And to make things worse, they're trying to force Carrie to do things she doesn't like to do, like go to school dances. When her mom says that Moira, her older and more social sister, loved the dances, Carrie insists that she's not like her. In other words, they want her to be like Moira, and she's just not. My belief is that if they talked and listened to Carrie more, she wouldn't have these problems and resort to attempting suicide. Nonetheless, I did like this book.

This was a birthday present to my wife. A rather old book, I was pleased to find a brand new hardcover copy. She's very very pleased with this addition to her library, so I'm pleased as well!

A few weeks ago, I read the "The Language of Goldfish." I usually don't read these sorts of books, but sometimes you don't really have a choice.
By now, you can probably imagine that I wasn't looking forward to reading this book. However, once I had started, I noticed that I began to take an interest despite my initial reluctance. It would be unfair to say that this book has changed my reading preferences and I still find it a rather depressing book, but, at the same time, it is interesting as well. I was very curious to find out how the main character develops through the course of the story and how she tries to handle growing up. The story is well written and is easy to read. I think that a lot of teenagers can find something in this story with which they can identify themselves.
All in all, this still isn't a book I would have chosen to read for fun. I still think it's rather depressing, but it's an interesting story all the same. I would definitely recommend this book to people who like the genre.

I found the book was easy to read. The story is about a topic that you can imagine some teenagers go trough. Their are probably a lot more teenagers than we think who have a difficult time growing up, handing with the changes in their life and body. In this story the main character Carrie comes from an "normal" family so it is good to know that finding growing up hard to deal with has nothing to do with what environment you come from, it just happens. Carrie has a safe place when she cant handle reality. She escapes with the goldfish to an island were it is safe. To find out if Carrie can lear to cope with growing up read the book.
I recommend the book to everyone. Even adults can read it.