Customer Reviews

Vandal Love

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

 

 

I remember biking once along the rural coast in Western Ireland, when I came across a small herd of goats. As I had just come around a bend in the road, I guess I startled them, and several started off bleating, or whatever the sound is that goats make. Three of the goats, however, turned stock-still, keeled over, and were frozen with their legs completely stiff and up in the air. I almost fell off my bike in amazement, and for some time afterwords I thought I must have dreamed it. I found out later that this response is due to some mutation in a chloride channel (CLIC to be more precise), which while settling my mind that it wasn't a hallucination, sort of ruined the magic for me. Anyway, this book reminded me of that experience over and over again. The magic that we fail to notice but others live with as common experience.
Bechard's simple language often captures drops of life like I haven't found since reading Hopscotch over and over obsessively years ago: "There was nothing worse than thinking about God alone. It was very lonely." I've managed to find myself there more than once...Too much existential longing? No, these characters have lives to live and mouths to feed. Only Harvey can afford to indulge in such escapism, and perhaps that's why I didn't find him terribly appealing.

If you don't find yourself falling in love at first with Jude or Isa or Francois, read it again. They don't shout their messages. It's more like that longing glance that you get from a lover telling you that your wanted or that tell-tale averted glance that your not. More feeling is found in the physical decription of a scene, which for some reason is how I read emotional weather reports. So perhaps that's why I get it...
I think I'll post more when I've further digested this more thoroughly, but I think these characters are destined for history- like Steinbeck's Lenny or Dostoevsky's Raskolnikov. Characters who taught you something, without trying.

first to find out how life unfolds for the characters in bechard's compelling tale, and the second to savour the beauty of the writing.

Looking at the list of accolades for this book, I thought it would be great. I really wanted it to be a good read. When it started off slowly, I hung in there. It sat at the top of the stack at my bedside and dutifully each night I would pick it up. The experience was like reading a computer technical manual. It was nearly impossible to emotionally engage with the characters and difficult to care about their lives or struggles. When the library overdue notice came, I kept the book long enough to acquire a $12.50 fine--that's how many hours I invested in this book. Finishing the book was money wasted.