Customer Reviews

Ursula, Under (Shannon Ravenel Books)

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"Ursula, Under" is rich in wonderful stories of long ago and far away, leading through time and space to Upper Michigan in 2003.
And leading to one special life - that of a little girl who falls into an abandoned mine shaft. Stories of Ursula Wong's Chinese and Finnish ancestors are interwoven with nail-biting accounts of the gathering of rescue workers, TV crews, and gawkers.
Hill's consistent use of the present tense gives her stories a sense of forward movement - often urgent movement. Her clever interweaving and her reminders to the reader tie together times past and present, as well as far-apart places: China, Finland, Michigan.
Reading the first chapter, I fell in love with 2 1/2-year-old Ursula and her parents - Justin Wong, a Chinese-American gutter repairman and musician, and his Finnish-American wife, Annie Maki, a librarian. Then in Chapter Two, the author takes us back to ancient China, and the (over-long) story of a Chinese alchemist. Here the author's symphonic repetition of themes begins. Ursula has followed a deer into the woods; Qin Lao wonders at the deer that has somehow entered his walled garden. She falls into an abandoned copper mine; he works with cinnabar (the source of quicksilver) from a nearby mine.
In later chapters we meet other ancestors in the "cloud of witnesses" cheering on Ursula's rescuers: Deaf-mutes, like Qin Lao's servant Zhou(who just might be the true ancestor). Another foundling left, like Qin Lao, in a basket at a rich man's door. A brilliant Chinese princess with useless legs, whose Jesuit tutor helps her conceive the child she wants. Finnish immigrants working the iron and copper mines of Upper Michigan.
On occasion the author packs too many experiences into one life story, straining the reader's credulity (which he has had to abandon in any case to appreciate the book). For example: Chapter 8, "A Foundling at the Court." While Shakespeare is writing plays in England, a Finnish foundling grows up as the playmate and classmate of the future queen of Sweden, daughter of the great King Gustavus Adolphus. When they are twelve years old, the princess, jealous of Violeta's beauty, banishes her. She becomes a children's teacher in a wealthy household, marries the son's tutor, sets sail for the New World with him, and is pregnant and widowed when she lands in New Sweden. A huge multilingual Ethiopian, recently freed from slavery, takes her under his wing. She settles down long enough to bear the son who will become Ursula's ancestor - and to establish the fact that Finns brought the design of the frontier log cabin to America.
A disaster sends her back to Finland with her little son and their Ethiopian protector. There she claims her dead husband's estate. When her son is four years old, she is discovered to have leprosy and is banished to a leper island. To escape the attentions of a leprous man, she hitches two huskies to a sled and crosses to the mainland, where she freezes to death. Her story is a novel within a novel.
"Ursula, Under" appeals to all the senses. We see, hear,feel, taste. We shiver - with fear or cold. We drown. We hear symphonies that will be written many centuries later. Reader, allow yourself time. Not only because the book is long, but also because it must be savored attentively, like a great symphony. Suspend disbelief; accept dreams and visions. You will be richly rewarded.




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Hill's debut novel is at once sprawling and tightly plotted, broad in scope and narrow in focus. It takes place over the course of one endless, terrifying day in the life of 2-year-old Ursula Wong's parents, and encompasses some of the thousands of years and generations that went into the making of that child.

Annie and Justin Wong are on a rare outing with their daughter in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Annie, a librarian, has developed an interest in her ancestors and they are exploring the area where her Finnish great-grandfather lived before his death in a 1926 mine explosion. They stop for a picnic and spot a deer in the trees. Ursula goes after it. It's a charmed moment: a lovely June day, a delighted child, happy, relaxed parents.

"She gives them a sign in mime: Watch me. Ursula's every gesture seems meant for the comedic stage. She is a natural. She tiptoes toward the treeline. The deer disappears deeper into the forest, as silent as breath. Ursula puts on a burst of speed, silent herself, looking back at Justin and Annie, steps into the trees, and disappears from sight. The only sound is an astonished tiny intake of breath from Ursula as she goes down, like a penny into the slot of a bank, disappeared, gone."

As Justin races off to find help and Annie cannot yet take in what we already know - that Ursula has fallen down an unmapped ventilation shaft - the narrative veers, following Annie's anguished thought: "So many generations, back into history and then prehistory, all concentrated into this one little girl."

At first Hill drops back only a generation. We meet Justin's warm-hearted mother, Mindy Ji, who never stopped loving Joe Cimmer, the musician who left them both when Justin was little older than Ursula. We glimpse Annie's father, an abusive drunk who probably killed her mother while Annie was in the hospital after a hit and run accident that left her legs permanently damaged. We've already met the drunk who hit Annie, though we don't know that yet - Hill, the omnipresent, omniscient authorial voice, parcels out her knowledge, creating a pattern of pieces that merge into a seamless whole at the end.

Hill drops back further to visit key ancestors Justin and Annie will never be (consciously) aware of, in a series of precisely named chapters that alternate with the ongoing scene around the mineshaft.

"The Alchemist's Last Concubine," introduces Qin Lao, a third-century BC alchemist who, in a happy accident of fate and generosity, has his first and only child in his 79th year. A few centuries later "The Caravan-Master's Lieutenant," a deaf man with a captivating gift for storytelling, is smitten by a deaf Finnish girl, who has thus far been indulged by a doting father in her desire not to marry.

"A Wastrel Killed by a Snail," Chen Bing, fathers a daughter in the California gold fields iin 1851 before he meets his freakish - and timely end. For, had he lived, he would have sexually abused his daughter, causing her eventually to run from him into the path of a runaway horse and be killed at the age of ten, "stopping the lineage of Ursula Wong - who would of course never have come to be - then and there."

Hill's authorial voice often interrupts these brief, but fully realized life histories to make connections across the centuries, or share information unknowable to the character concerned. This authorial omniscience reveals the patterns visible only at a distance and emphasizes the essential role of each haphazard, accidental life in the intricate and exacting fabric of history.

Hill's language is rich, whimsical and visual. Her voice combines a playful, comic sense of omniscience with the intimate joys and tragedies of individual lives. An ambitious, successful debut which leaves the reader with a sense of satisfied wonder.

If I have for some time now been reading books to illuminate the meaning of life, here was a break to turn that coin on its other side and ask of its value. To ponder meaning, after all, assumes life has value. And if it does, are all of our lives to be valued equally?

When 2 1/2-year-old Ursula falls into an old mine shaft in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, media and curiosity seekers swarm the scene, and not one alone asks about the mixed race child born of poor parents - is she worth saving? How much investment and effort is one such child worth?

Ingrid Hill, in this debut novel, explores the question of one life's value by going back into history, traveling the long and complex limbs of a family tree, to an ancestry of two thousand years and a genealogy that contains within it royalty and peasants, slaves and alchemists, immigrants and miners. Little Ursula's ethnic roots wind through China, Sweden, Finland, Poland, traveling over land and oceans, passing through the courts of royalty with as much intrigue as through the tents and barracks of immigrants, until the two branches of her parents' families, the Wongs and the Makis, finally meet to create this child. In one tiny child: the spans of millenia and the bloodlines of countless generations. Such is the value of one human life, that it contains the lives of many, and these many are intertwined by all who have ever lived, all across the globe, a concentration of all humanity and all the characteristics and traits, good and evil, therein. Every life, we soon see, is a vessel holding all that has been and all that will be.

To hold so many threads in the plotting of a novel such as this, author Ingrid Hill has accomplished a no less than amazing feat, her writing skill already at such a level of artistry that it is nearly impossible to imagine how she might top this stellar debut. Yet, realizing what value, what hidden treasure and untold promise our bloodlines may contain, why not? Indeed, every stop along the way in this novel beckons a novel of its own.

I first picked up this book for the very simple reason that its story frame was out of the Keweenaw, a place I too once lived, my own storyline weaving through the area, holding now my own personal bits and pieces of hidden treasure. But if my expectations were simple enough, seeking but a pleasurable revisiting to the warming of nostalgia, Ingrid Hill astounded me with her range and reach, her skill and her sense of beauty combined with deeper meaning, winning me over with a standing ovation by the turning of the final page. "Ursula, Under" proved to be not only an excellent story well told, but a masterpiece of literary artistry that now tops my list of all-time favorite books.

"Tapestry" is not the right word. "Symphony?" Not quite. "Cinematic," seems closest. Reading this astonishing novel is like riding a canoe on subsurface white water, surfing streams in the sea of time and culture, from ancient China, to Finland to Upper Michigan. Each chapter is like a cinematic a short story, and it's somehow both a page-turner and a book that gives you patience, because you know you'll be returning to read it again, to visit the wonderful characters that will be like old friends, or stories passed down through your own family. Eight pages in, you'll be hooked; rather, you'll fall into it and lose yourself...

Cherished two-and-a-half-year-old Ursula Wong falls down an old mineshaft before her shocked parents, Justin and Annie. Justin drives for help while Annie sits stunned at the site of her daughter's disappearance. She cannot contemplate the reality of what must have happened to Ursula. Instead, she thinks of the generations concentrated into that one precious tiny being.

The reader is catapulted into riveting tales of Ursula's ancestors, beginning with the Chinese alchemist Qin Lao on her father's side in third century B.C. China. His life-long quest is to discover the secret of immortality, though there's a problem: he has a wife but no heir. He acquires a second wife and concubine, but to no avail. The birth of his son, when it finally occurs, is remarkable --- maybe magical.

Interspersed with stories of Ursula's forebears are chapters of the here and now, as Justin summons rescuers, the media gathers, and the young parents wait in agony. The reader experiences Justin's and Annie's memories of their own childhood and the time before and after their daughter's birth.

In the present, people all over the country watch Ursula's rescuers on television. They wonder if the girl is alive and how deep into the earth she has fallen.

In the past, Annie's ancestors live in eighth-century Finland and are about to meet. Curiously, both are deaf and mute. After they marry, they remain childless for years, possibly due to spells a spiteful witch has cast against them. Even after the witch burns to death, the two remain childless until they are past fifty, when they find themselves expecting. And what of the witch's curse? Could it affect their descendents, clear down to Ursula, lost in the mineshaft?

We return to Annie, who is bent on distracting herself from Ursula's plight. She is remembering a chain of events in her girlhood, which terminated in her being permanently disabled by a car hitting her.

Back and forth through time we travel. Each linked story is a perfect gem, with the feel of a fable. Each character is a fully realized individual and completely fascinating. We read of a true virgin birth, foundlings, concubines, fathers on the run, immigrants, witches, royalty, gypsies, foxes, lepers, and more --- while in the back of our minds, like a beating heartbeat, pulses the question: What has happened to Ursula?

As I turned the pages and Ursula's forerunners came to life before me in exquisite detail, I also began to sense my own ancestors' stories concentrated within me --- quite an unusual perspective. URSULA, UNDER is irresistibly fascinating, thought-provoking and suspenseful, and is packed with diverse historical elements from different countries and different ages. Without question it is one of the best books I have ever read. I highly recommend it.

--- Reviewed by Terry Miller Shannon [...]

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. It is my new all-time-favorite novel. I also grew up in Michigan so it is nice to read about familiar territory. The author's true gift, however, lies in creating true to life, vivid characters. I found that in almost every case, I was sorry to move on to the next character. I wanted to know more about each one.

I teach High School english and I will whole heartedly recommend this book to my student and fellow teachers.

Years ago, I was so 'affected' by a particular novel, I began a tradition of giving away copies of it. It became a minor obsession; to date, I've introduced more than four dozen friends, family members and virtual strangers to this personal favourite.

I never thought I'd be fortunate enough to be compelled to repeat the tradition.

Well, my lottery numbers came in with 'Ursula, Under'.

And you know, my cash reserves have already begun to dwindle; I hadn't even finished reading it yet and two copies had gone out to friends.

From a reader's point of view, 'Ursula, Under' provided me with numerous moments of enjoyment. From a writer's point of view, the same, but more: it reconnected me to the craft, reminding me of just how wonderful writing can be, of the effects someone with just the right skills, imagination and sheer audacity can have when they're in both their element and 'the Zone'. Truly remarkable stuff; I hated to see it end.

As Ms Hill has effectively cost me a ton of productive work-time because of the addictive nature of her novel, therefore making me want to get back my own writing ASAP, I'll leave the more lavish reviews to others. But I will say this: my personal 'Quad Gods' of writing heroes may very well now have to be expanded to a quintet.

I was so disappointed when I came to the last page of this book. It is a wonderful book; and I'm still searching for another book that will give me the same, warm, fuzzy feeling I had when I finished this one.

This book is an affirmation of life and begs us to examine the question of whether some lives are more worth saving than others and whether class differences should matter in answering that question.

One of the most powerful scenes in the book is when the "villain" of the story, in a drunken stupor, sees the newscast of the little girl, Ursula, in the mineshaft and calls her "Trailer trash." She wonders why so many efforts are being made to save Ursula. As the stories of Ursula's parents and their love for Ursula as well as the marvelous stories of Ursula's ancestors unfold, they are juxtaposed against the life of the villain, a drunken, narcissistic heiress, who has done little in her life but cause pain for others.

Ingrid Hill does a wonderful job of convincing the reader that class should not matter and that Ursula is worth saving. But the author's mastery of interweaving highly interesting stories in this book, each with powerful and interesting characters ranging from Northern Europe to Asia, are what truly make this novel a great read and not just another story with a moral.

`Ursula, Under' weaves together a magnificent tapestry of tales like none I've ever read before. Knowing that you are entering the tapestry is no mystery. As Michael Anft of the Washington Post says in his wonderful review, "The author gives away her story's artistic raison d'etre in the first 13 pages." Yet the richness and the depth of the weave take you far away from that outer metaphor into at least eleven different lands and epochs full of detail and emotion each a story unto its own.

Even as I write this review a year or more after the first read, I'm deeply moved by memories of the passions of the characters and the interplay between them across thousands of miles and centuries of time. Tears still flow. None could paint this picture like Ingrid has done.

In retrospect and after reading the editorial and reader's reviews, I can say that Ms. Hill has composed this work with her heart and not with her mind. The tapestry is not so structured so as to appear obvious. The connections interlaced are heart and soul in nature, sometimes born of deep passion, other times of pure fate, but always coming from a place outside the minds of the characters; and of the author. This book is about connections beyond the level of singular beings.

As I've stated before, each of these eleven or so tales is a story rich unto its own. Several worthy of their own book. You'll read this collection and identify with many of the characters, some of them quite deeply. You'll come to know their personas, and then slip on inward into their hearts and souls. You'll weep as they touch poignantly in singular events, and weep harder as you realize the effects that these isolated moments have across aeons of time. Most assuredly, you'll come to realize, to 'know', that your own life is made up of the same kind of tapestry none less significant. And you'll realize fully that each person you touch at any given moment in this lifetime can have far reaching effects. As you come to know Ursula, you'll know the meaning of the soul behind the person she is, and by extension, the person you yourself are.

Maybe I'm a little more sensitive to these things than the average guy, but give this book a try and see if you can feel the same. I can guarantee that you'll be pleased you did! The stories alone are worth it. This is a beautiful read worth many times its price.

Dave

Ursula, Under is a story of a girl, but not just that. It is a story of how lives connect and intersect. It is a tale that makes you wonder how you got here and from whom you came. The author compared it to seeing the top of the iceberg but not really knowing about the mass underneath. In Ursula, Under, she tells us about Ursula Wong's "mass." Ursula has fallen down a well and in between chapters about her rescue, Hill has interwoven stories about Ursula's ancestors, some as far back as 3 B.C. There is a Chinese alchemist, a priest, a queen and her maid, and many more interesting characters from Ursula's past. Between the past and present day tales, Hill keeps you mesmerized and wanting to read more, to find out whan happens to Ursula NOW and to find out how she came to be.

It was a wonderful choice for a book club discussion and lends itself well to other activities for a book club meeting (sharing about your own ancestors, bringing food from your ancestors, etc)

Thank you, Ms. Hill, for a wonderful read!