Amazon.com: Lost Geography (9780006514923): Charlotte Bacon: Books

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11 Reviews

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
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4.0 out of 5 stars (11 customer reviews)

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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Finding one's place on the map..., July 21, 2000

By

Dianne Foster "Di" (USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)

This review is from: Lost Geography: A Novel (Hardcover)

Images of maps, bits of geography float through this excellent story of four generations of women--Margaret, Hilda, Danielle, and Sophia. Margaret is a nurse in Saskatchewan when she meets her future husband Davis, a Scots immigrant searching for his fortune in the new world. Davis, felled by a fever, changes course and settles down as a farmer-husband-parent. Daughter Hilda chooses to move onto Toronto where she makes a different kind of life with an antiques dealer. Margaret's granddaughter Danielle leaves her mother Hilda and migrates to Paris where she meets Osman, a dealer in antique oriental rugs. After Danielle dies, Osman and their two children Sasha and Sophia move to New York to begin again.

On the surface, the stories of these women's lives do not contain obvious morals or seem to have a purpose other than their recounting. However, this is a tale not only of shifting landscape, but of the search for one's place in the geography of the heart. It puts me in mind of the short-story novels of Alice Munro--'Friend of My Youth' or 'Lives of Girls and Women.' The richness of the text is like a Bazaar. Colorful and original images abound--the grandmother who is bent like a cipher and feels like a raspy husk when she hugs you; the former library-cum crater, filled with mushrooms feeding on mouldering books and lined with Queen Anne's Lace; the little boxes filled with copper pennies turned green, stacked and hidden behind the old kitchen stove--and rugs, maps, and mellow old wooden antiques. Bacon's writing is as rich as the antique Yatak pictured on the book jacket.

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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully written story!, May 9, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Lost Geography: A Novel (Hardcover)

Lost Geography is a beautifully written book. The discriptions of place, and the thoughts of each character are so poetic and unique it took my breath away. It is a generational story about the way we fall in love, how fate and place and those we meet shape us, how our plans may get changed but life can lead us to the unexpected, that even through pain there is joy. Charlotte Bacon weaves us a tapestry with her words and characters. You should read it.

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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars More than just Geographically Lost, September 7, 2000

By

Lee Armstrong (Winterville, NC United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER) (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER) (VINE VOICE) (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Lost Geography: A Novel (Hardcover)

I really wanted to like this book. It's episodic expanse of multi-generational portraits were like looking in an old photo album of family pictures. Each character was interesting enough. However, like looking at the old photos, nothing much actually happened in the book. I kept expecting that events would also lead to a sense of the profound. Ultimately, this only achieved a sense of the mundane. After reading through these 259 pages, I felt like I'd labored through an 800-page Russian novel or the collected short stories of Mavis Gallant. I suppose in what was supposed to be a true-to-life portrait, the sudden deaths were to reveal the meaning of life rather than simply being jarring. And the ending left me clueless. What was that? What is one supposed to get from standing in the window other than the book is over with the characters left standing in the windows? If there was a hidden profundity in the ending, I totally missed it. Perhaps this is a book that would resonate more with a woman than a man. If you spend the time with this, I hope you find it a more satisfying read than I. -- And if you get the ending, why not email me to let me in on what I should have gotten? BuddyBipkin@excite.com

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful tale of many generations
I loved this book. It was eloquent, intersting and grabbed my attention. A very smooth read. When I read books like this I marvel at those who have the gift of telling a story.

Published on June 5, 2007 by Maggie Carpenter MD PC

5.0 out of 5 stars Excited/nervous!
I have'nt read this book as of yet but looked up reviews for it because I will be taking a form and theory fiction writing class in the spring taught by Charlotte Bacon. Read more

Published on December 20, 2003

4.0 out of 5 stars Some geographies were lost, but new ones were found
The common thread in this book is the transcontinental distances that characters put between themselves and their families. Read more

Published on December 1, 2003 by Manola Sommerfeld

4.0 out of 5 stars deeper than it seems
Lost Geography is a story about the search for each character's place in the world. Each character is uprooted from the familiar and must find a place that 'fits' in a new and... Read more

Published on April 14, 2003 by camm

3.0 out of 5 stars Strange and Depressing
I thought this book was a little strange--not necessarily in how it was written, but that the lives of the women in this book seem so SILENT. Read more

Published on November 21, 2001 by J. Peterson

3.0 out of 5 stars Happy? Just wait - someone will die!
At first this book reminded me of Carol Shields' "The Stone Diaries". The first section, the story of Davis and Margaret was written in a spare, even cold fashion. Read more

Published on July 17, 2001 by saliero

5.0 out of 5 stars Moving and Surprising
Bacon's first novel is beautiful and poetic. All of her characters touched a place in my heart, and when I was done reading I still wanted more. Read more

Published on March 5, 2001 by Marcia

5.0 out of 5 stars Sex, death, joy, grief--all in this brilliant book
Charlotte Bacon has written a fine book about sex, death, grief, joy, fire, water, air, dust. Ranging from Depression-era Canada to Ataturk's Turkey to Imperial India to 60s... Read more

Published on August 22, 2000 by sam

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Inside This Book (learn more)
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First Sentence:
One August morning, Margaret Evans opened the door of her clinic to find a tall, slight, sandy-haired boy ranting about forest fires and cod. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, Miss Engel, Marie Claire, Bey Habibi, Jean Paul, Bobby Hanlon, Eileen Carstairs, Miss Parker, Prince Albert, Miss Hofstader, New World, Osman Harris

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