Customer Reviews

So I Am Glad

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

 

 

This book is one of the finest novels I've ever read. A wonderful premise
with characters I believed in and cared deeply about. With funny,
insightful, courageous writing as well.

So I am Glad is a somewhat gritty Magical Realist story set in modern day
Glasgow. It is about an emotionally damaged woman named Jennifer whose
life begins to change when a man with amnesia unexpectedly appears in her
apartment one day.

That in and of itself would make for a decent premise. The beauty of
Kennedy's premise is that the man is Savinien Cyrano De Bergerac. Most
readers will only know Savinien from the play about him or the movies
based on the play. But he is indeed a real historical figure, a romantic
whose life revolved around duelling and writing and love.

One of the more interesting things about this book is how such a man,
mysteriously brought back to life 300 years after his death, would deal
with modern laws against violence and the apathy of modern people. Indeed,
a sub-theme running throghout the book is a commentary about political
apathy: Jennifer stops occasionally to rant about events from the news
that she announces for a living which anger her but which she feels
powerless to do anything about.

The core of the book, however, is about the relationship between Jennifer
and Savinien. Even though they fall in love with one another, their
relationship is slow to develop (very slow in the beginning) and suffers
horribly along the way.

There is a kind of dreadful symmetry about the two characters which
hinders their relationship. Both of them have personalities which help
them cope with their fear of being hurt by other people. Jennifer because
she was abused as a child. Savinien because his appearance led people to
mock him. Jennifer isolates herself from others emotionally, refusing to
feel love among other things, while Savinien needs other people to show
their love or respect for him. This is, of course, a recipe for disaster.

Jenifer inflicts pain during sex with someone (not Savinien) in order to
assert her invulnarability to and control over those people she allows
closest to her. Savinien used to duel to assert his invularability to and
control over those who would belittle himthese actions also gets in the way of their relationship to some extent.

Watching Jennifer and Savinien try to love one another when their own
neuroses and fears drive them apart is an intense, at times agonizing
experience. But ultimately it is an important and rewarding one. Which is
probablly something close to the author's intent, to show us why loving
others is so difficult and why it's so important to suceed.

It would be far too easy to merely state that this book is about a lonely woman, who meets a man, who claims to be the reincarnation of Cyrano de Bergerac. This is an emotionally complex story with some of the most beautiful language put to paper that I've read in years. There are paragraphs I want to cut out and put on the wall as keepsakes. This is certainly not your everyday romantic fantasy. So I Am Glad is just as much about pain as it is about love.

Though there are many beautiful passages and the love story is intriguing, overall I found the book a bit tedious. It's hard to relate to any of the characters since none is particularly likeable, and the plot meanders somewhat. Perhaps if the book were shorter, it would have packed more punch. Still, the author does many things right -- the Cyrano parallel was well conceived and well outlined.

It's hard to describe the sensation of reading this book -- the scenes seeemed so detached at times as to be surreal and I found myself getting disoriented within the novel. I didn't enjoy the experience that much, but I would not want to dismiss the author who has many good ideas and interesting premises. A bit odd overall, but interesting.

I guess after reading this I am baffled by when Kennedy was trying to achieve. I was initially drawn into this story, but mainly by the description of the woman's character and her life. When Savien turned up I wished he'd go away. He just did not seem like a real character. He had no redeeming features whatsoever and it was beyond me why she was attracted to someone who spent his time vomiting, mutilating himself and telling longwinded stories about his past which were neither interesting nor revealing.

But love is blind, so they say, and I guess Kennedy was trying to show that you can be attracted to anyone if you are psychologically damaged enough.

I'm afraid my patience with all this waned about two thirds of the way through. I think Kennedy should possibly stick to shorter fiction. Original Bliss, her short novel was much more successful.

All this is a shame because A.L. Kennedy is a brilliantly original wordsmith and although I enjoy her prose immensely the plot was just too thin to sustain my attention.

This is one of the rare books that I really couldn't stomach. The characters are psychologically very sick, the dialogue is thin and verbose, and there is a boring preoccupation with physical sex. When I came to the part about killing and eating a dog, I had had enough. Fair warning.

(A review I wrote in January 2006)

Miss Kennedy is a Scottish writer who lives with her cats. That's the description I always find whenever I do any research on her. So there you have it. Lonely writer with cats. That always makes me feel a bit sad for her.

"So I Am Glad" is a special novel in the sense that there is a touch of magic realism in it. Namely, a famous historical person suddenly appears in her bedroom one day (or night, I don't remember). It's Cyrano de Bergerac, the one with the long nose as some of you may know. And the narrator/main character sort of falls in love with him and him with her. The narrator writes the book after his disparition, so it's a novel that deals highly with the loss of a loved one, at least that's how I felt it and at the time I read it I had myself lost a loved one so it made too much sense for my own mental health. It's a beautiful story, though so incredibly sad at times.

The thing is that Kennedy has read extensively the real works of the real Cyrano, and thus she felt a strong connection with that person (who really existed) and so she brought him into her novel and I must say I quite like that idea.

I don't even remember the name of the narrator... But I remember she works as a "voice"; she is a voice, she dubs commercials and record radio advertisings and so on and so forth. There are some sexual elements in the book; the main character has a past of abusive parents (though that's not very explicit in the novel, you won't find much on that) and as a result, she has become a dominant person in bed. She needs to dominate her partner to feel a sense of security in intimacy. So there are magical events and other more "realistic" things in the novel (notice I hate to use the word "realistic", it's all real to me).

This is a very moving novel. I personally would say it is an ode to a lost loved one (and in this case a loved one the author has only been able to imagine, and never ever met in real life, which makes it even sadder) and for that reason it was very touching to me, and also very hurtful. There's a letter in that book for the lost one, and Jesus that is heart-wrenching material. It's the sort of thing that makes you go "Oh my God, that SO is it."

I recommend you give this book a try if you think you're interested, and PLEASE don't believe what's written on the cover of the book; the marketing made for it is just plain dumb and the description of the book, which focuses on the dark sex, is completely stupid and totally misses the point of the book. It is not an acurate description and I find it very sad that they did that to the novel, it is not a dark tale of subversive sex and all that stuff; they don't even mention the magical apparition! Anyway, don't trust the cover. [That remark is about a different cover than the edition I post to review for; it's the cover which features a close-up of a mouth with fleshy lips, and so I have no idea what is written on the blurb of the edition presented here.]

From my point of view, this is a story about a detached woman, who falls in love with a man, who essentially doesn't exist, which psychologically is a perfect situation for an angry woman, who doesn't seem to possess the ability to love. On the other hand, the book at times, was very fluid with glimpses of good insight on the evolution, or lack there of, human behavior.

Several times while reading this book, I found myself a bit lost with it's sequence of events, some of which didn't seem fully explained to me, most importantly, why or how this man, Cyrano got to point b, back into this world. It also seemed odd to read smatterings of political ideologies from the main character, Jennifer, who herself remains an enigma without a cause.

Overall, I'm left in the middle about this one. I enjoyed reading the well written prose but couldn't find myself buying into the storyline.

This is one of those times where words just fail. To say So I Am Glad is a beautiful book doesn't begin to address the complexities, the nuances, the sound of the language this book possesses. It is one I will read again and again.

I purchased this book because I thought the premise was interesting, and it sounded like an interesting read. On opening the book however, I found it tedious and erratic. I couldn't help thinking that instead of writing it in first person, it should been written in third person narrative. It's hard to find the characters likable when you are always confused about who is speaking.

This books is a must! Highly recommended!