Most Helpful Customer Reviews
23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good Will is great, June 5, 1997
By A Customer
Ordinary Love is a decent enough novella, but Good Will is just superb. I've never read anything quite like it. The characters are lovingly crafted, and their unusual setting and lifestyle gives Smiley to fully showcase her descriptive powers.
The most surprising thing is how well she writes from the main character's perspective. His personality as a father and husband is so clearly defined, so original, and so _masculine_ that I often found it difficult to believe that the author is a woman.
Like Smiley's other writings, this story is very much about relationships--familial, neighborly and those between oneself and the world--and how even the most carefully made decisions and choices can dramatically alter an equally well-planned life.
This novella originally appealed to me as a story of escape from society and retreat to nature, but I took away a great many lessons about life as well. Within her beautifully woven tale Smiley manages substantive discussions on racism, money, religion, and sexism--but these scenes are unforced. They are simply _there_, as natural as the lifestyle treasured by the main protagonists.
I loved this book.
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Absolutely wonderful; the best, December 19, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Ordinary Love and Good Will: Two Novellas (Paperback)
I loved these novellas and think they are some of the best works I have read in years. The first time through I was riveted and struck by Good Will but did not like Ordinary Love as much. I reread them and saw the brillinace of Ordinary Love, too. These are so beautifully written and captivating with profound insights into human nature and what it's like to be a parent and how we can hurt each other and our children without meaning to and so much more. This is the best kind of reading there is with lovely use of language and compelling stories that move, surprise, and shake you, making you see life a little differently. I can't say I've read anything better.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Thought-provoking and enjoyable, May 14, 2001
This review is from: Ordinary Love and Good Will: Two Novellas (Paperback)
An interesting conjoining of two very different stories. I read them in order, starting with "Ordinary Love" and then moving on to "Good Will." At the end, I found myself wondering what links the two stories? In both, there is a father who directs his family to such an extent that he could be called controlling or even an egomaniac. In "Ordinary Love" the father is not present; he is the "fifth man", invisible, but the scars left by his words and actions have sunk deep. In "Good Will", the father is the protagonist, and through his own eyes we see the results of his actions. Unlike the other reviewers here, I preferred "Ordinary Love." I enjoyed the character of the mother, who narrates the story. She strives to be objective and offer a balanced viewpoint. She has a depth of self-knowledge. Also, she watches her children with great love, and that lends the story real warmth, which I thought was missing from "Good Will." I plan to read both stories again. There's a depth of character and thought here that can't be fully taken in with one reading.
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