Customer Reviews

On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon, A Novel

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This, Gibbon's latest work, is not her best, or perhaps a better way of saying it would be, her most literary, but it shows a side of this Southern author that was hiding in most of her earlier works. I've read the book several times, and though I am a male, I am a Southerner, and the book gives my shivers every time. It is the most beautifully tragic book I have ever read. (Shakespeare wrote plays, not books.) Emma Garnet Tate Lowell is, like most of Gibbons' main characters, strong, insightful, but none of the others have endured as much hardship as she has. The prose is, as usual, pitch-perfect, and though the characters are not greatly subtle in a post-modern way (to which we have perhaps become *too* accustomed), they are classic morality studies in themselves. This one blows GONE WITH THE WIND out of the water for Southern Romances. Kaye Gibbons is a consumate storyteller, and ON THE OCCASION OF MY LAST AFTERNOON is a stunning book.

If you thought Cold Mountain was a good story, you'll like On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon for different reasons. Whereas Mountain was a love story, Occasion is one woman's story. Easy read, believable, entertaining. A good choice for a book group--mine gave it a thumb's up.

Kaye Gibbons has a very breezy, readable style, and she has managed to capture very well the phrasing used in writings of the ante- and post-bellum period. I only wish her research had been done more carefully. As a long-time Virginia resident, I can safely say that her sense of the geography of this state is confused at best and downright wrong at its worst. She is also incorrect when she tells of wounded soldiers being transported from Gettysburg and Antietam all the way to Raleigh so that they can undergo surgery at the hands of the main character's husband. No soldier needing surgery would ever have made it such a great distance, and the railroads were in such a dismal state that the Confederacy could not have transported desperately wounded men that far, even if it had had a mind to. Wounded men were generally treated in farmhouses and churches and barns nearest the battlefield. However, her portrayal of hospital conditions is accurate, and her knowledge of medicine is impressive. Her characters, although interesting, are a little two-dimensional -- either tolerant and good and wise, or abusive and narrow-minded. No one is depicted with the usual beauties and warts we generally find in humans. It is a testament to the strength of Gibbons' style that I enjoyed reading the book despite these glaring problems.

Other reviewers will summarize the plot for you -- let me just say that this is an extremely well-written book, with beautiful and haunting imagery, realistic dialogue and intriguing situations. I think the device of a woman looking back on her life on the occasion of her last afternoon on earth is quite brilliant. I read that Kaye Gibbons mentored Charles Frazier through his writing of Cold Mountain. This book is like Cold Mountain in that it shows war in all its grimy squalor and blows the myth that war is noble and pure. I enjoyed it very much, as I do most of Kaye Gibbons work.

This book crept up on me slowly, quietly. For the first half I wasn't sure if I was enjoying it or not. At the end, I realized I was just completely enchanted with this woman.

The story is narrated by Emma Garnet Tate Lowell, at the end of her life (her last afternoon). It is told in 1900, looking back over her childhood with a tyrannical father whom she could never please, due to the fact that she actually had a brain (most unbecoming in a proper lady of that era). It goes on to her marriage to a man her father detests, and their life through the Civil War, living in the South. It is love story, war story, family story, all wrapped up. She is a woman who endures much with an amazing amount of dignity, who allows us to see the deep-felt emotions below the quiet exterior she must always maintain throughout her life. She is noble, and she is human. And if you're like me, you will adore her by the end of the book.

I recently read the historical fiction novel, "On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon" written by Kaye Gibbons. I found the novel to be both interesting and factual. I chose the novel in the first place because I had to do a book report for my high school history class on a novel from the civil war period. Many of the events we have been studying in class showed up in this book. Also it was a wonderful first-hand account of how a women might live her life in this time period. Overall, I enjoyed the book and would recommend it to anyone looking for a good historical fiction novel.

i fell in love with kaye gibbons writing when i read ellen foster -- her writing encapsulated everything i love about southern literature. easy prose -- but not simplistic, a great story, and memorable, wonderful characters. emma garnet and all the characters in "my last afternon" read like caricatures. the whole story has a shallowness that i wasn't expecting. it's like kaye gibbons had this wonderful idea, but just coudn't quite realize it in writing. none of the characters were particularly believable. her father was too horrible -- with no redeeming features, and her husband was too annoyingly perfect -- as were her chidren and her idyllic life as a married woman. the fact that she did not tell her servants that they were free did not, in fact, make me like her less, but was an indication that the author was trying to create a believable narrator that was a product of her time, rather than the creation of a 20th century mind. but that only exists as a hint.

Emma Garnet's wealthy, sheltered childhood with an abusive, domineering father and a loving and refined mother was top notch -- insightful and at times heartbreaking. Gibbons was writing what she knew about and it felt like she lived some of those scenes

But after Emma's marriage, it was a different book. To quote Mr. Tate, everything was "pluperfect". Perfect husband, perfect children, perfect family life -- except for one unlikely incident at a dinner party when Emma is asked about her unfortunate brother and which felt manufactured to put some distress in Emma's perfect life.

I believed in Emma the child but Emma as an adult lost me and lost my sympathy. The child's sensibilities -- treating slaves like people, and not calling them "slaves" but "servants" -- this didn't transfer to adulthood. Why else would Emma not tell her servants that they were free? Emma should have realized how patronizing that was, not to mention simply cruel.

Much is made (by Emma) of her love for her beleaguered mother, yet she kept Clarice with her -- her mother's only bulwark against the father. Emma had wealth and status and protection and she didn't fear her father, yet in twelve years she couldn't visit her mother? The child Emma would have brought mom home for a visit and kept her.

After her mother dies, she worries for her sister Maureen and writes to her father, "You monster, send Maureen to me now." Then nothing. She could have rescued her sister, but she did nothing.

What happened to the strong, resourceful, fearless child we met in the first part of the book? Someone swapped her for Melanie Wilkes.

The only scenes that felt real in the second half of the book were Emma and her doctor husband caring for wounded soldiers, and the privation they suffered. Everything else felt like a fairy tale, with a bit of an apologist slant.

This was my first experience with Ms. Gibbons writings. I had the fortunate experience of listening to this book on audio. read by Polly Holliday, better known as "Flo" from the 70's series "Alice". She had a range with all of her voices which allowed characters as Emma Garnet, Clarice and the horrible Samuel P. Tate come to life as I drove down the interstate. I had just returned from a trip touring Civil War Battlefields in Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and Southern Pennsylvania. This book brought me to those places in my mind as they really were. Gibbons portrays Emma Garnet as a sympathetic, yet strong woman as she ventures further into her life with her beloved Quincy. If I had a criticism of this novel, it would be this. Could Emma Garnet have any MORE people in her life die during the span of the book? As each death occured (if I spoil anything for future readers, I humbly apologize) I thought to myself, "Can anyone survive to keep this woman going?" But all in all, I very much enjoyed the ride. It was portrayed at a brisk pace and I was spellbound the entire 5 hour length of the audio cassette.

I have been a fan of Kaye Gibbons' writing since Ellen Foster. This may be her best. Totally different from her other novels, this book is the story of a woman's life from the 1840's to 1900, which of course spans the Civil War. The book made me think of that war in a new way, especially through Emma's and her family's experience, which is the story of all the families who lived during that time.

I liked the fact that I encountered a lot of new words and phrases, some of which I haven't found the meaning of yet. Like gold chargers, pumpton tart, asafoedita bags. Other phrases delighted me; stepping children, first footer come to mind.

Beyond that, I liked the way Emma, her mother and Clarice adapted to their circumstances, horrific as they sometimes were. Although the men in the story are the kind you will remember, it's the women who triumph.