Customer Reviews

Seasons of Sun & Rain

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

 

 

I was fascinated by the characters in this book and by the way in which it was written. While I was puzzled at first as to why so much of the discussion revolves around past events, I soon realized the beautiful interwoven commentaries this allowed Dorner to make about the connections between memory and self-definition as well as about what the loss of memory truly does mean. I finished the book in a 24-hour period, unwilling to put it down and wishing that I could follow these six women for just a bit longer through their lives.

I won this book in a drawing and had no idea the jewel I now had in my hand. Once I began this story I could not put it down because I became so entwined into the lives of these friends who became acquainted in college. This book mirrors the relationships so many of us have in our own lives---creating friendships, losing contact for a while, and rebonding later. These relationships are part of who we are and continue to be important to us. The beautiful friendships, acceptance of others, and how each of us perceive the "role" others have in our friendship are examined. I had never thought much about this until I read this book.

I wish that I could afford to send a copy of this book to all my friends.

A girl friend recommended this book to me because, like the women in the book, Seasons of Sun and Rain, I also have a long time group of girl friends that travel together. While these friends are "only" 50 (and we are all in our upper 60's), the themes of long time friendship remains the same. While one of the group is experiencing early onset Alzheimer's, and the rest of the group is trying to come to terms w/this, another one in the group (spoiler alert) is asked to help her exit when the time comes. If there is any plot at all, it concerns the decision that has to be made. Mostly this book is a retrospective of their trip w/flashbacks on how and when they became friends. I found it sad, moving, sentimental and an engrossing read. I also saw myself in the woman experiencing Alzheimer's.

No matter how "important" a subject is (and Altzheimer's is an important subject), it is not sufficient in itself to carry a reader through a story, much less through the entire plot of "Seasons of Sun and Rain." As a former student of Dorner's, I am disappointed to see her falling back on the literary habits of rural college professors, who almost invariably write about characters who sit around and think; and the women in "Sun and Rain" think A LOT. When you read this book, you keep waiting for the story to begin. The action is minimal--"How's your daughter?" "Fine." etc.--while too much uninteresting background information is dumped onto the reader, who is called upon to keep these interchangeable women straight. And that's all backwards. A story is something that happens forward, but most of this novel consists of internal reveries by the characters. Literature can have subtext, but a book should not be ALL subtext, and the real challenge for any writer is to develop a story dramatically, with interesting ACTION and DIALOGUE, and even FEELINGS, not "realistic" (humdrum)acts and words by characters who don't do much. (By the way, having a superior intellectual "insight" is not the same as having an honest feeling.) There's too much reminiscing in this book, and there's way too much intellectualizing! That's not literature; that's a sermon.

I wrote Summers with the bears and was the publisher of Cook County News Herald in Grand Marais, stumbled onto this book in our library and saw GM in book so brought it home where my wife read it in one and half days. She loved it, touching story on friendships with women about women, and with insights into the beautiful country we lived in, Grand Marais, only the locals called Ben Franklin, Joynes, not Ben, other than that it was a good read. Thank you Marjorie for a great book