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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful and intense, but flawed, August 5, 2008
This review is from: The White Mary: A Novel (Hardcover)
Marika Vecera is a fearless war journalist, traveling to war zones that many male reporters have avoided. When her idol, the famous journalist Robert Lewis, commits suicide, Marika feels driven to write his biography. In the course of researching her book, Marika receives a letter from a missionary who claims to have seen Lewis in Papua New Guinea. Marika drops everything to follow up the lead, embarking on a grueling journey that may cost the journalist her life. As the story progresses, we see that Marika's quest is as much a journey to find herself as it is to find Robert Lewis.
The White Mary is one story told in two parts. The main part of the book covers Marika's search for Lewis in the jungles of Papua New Guinea, while the events that drove her to that search are told in a series of flashbacks. These flashbacks, though insightful looks into Marika's character, are the weakest points in the story. I found Marika's interaction with her boyfriend Seb to be unrealistic. The dialogue between the two of them just felt stilted and forced. Marika is an interesting, multi-faceted character, but with each flashback, I found her less likable. Her journey ultimately changes her for the better, but that change came too late for me.
There were elements of this book that I loved. Salak's descriptions of the jungle are absolutely breathtaking. Tobo, Marika's guide through the jungle, is a fascinating character. Clever, resourceful and wise, he saves Marika's life on more than one occasion. Kira Salak, like Marika, is an accomplished war journalist, and her experience is evident in the descriptions of Marika's time spent in various war zones.
The White Mary is gritty, intense and, at times, disturbing. There are graphic depictions of torture and rape, and one scene towards the end of the novel is so disturbingly vivid that it may turn even the strongest of stomachs.
I wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. As I stated earlier, there were many things that I loved about this book, but in the end, the things I didn't like stood out more. While I can't give it an enthusiastic endorsement, I am glad that I took the time to read The White Mary.
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Only the darkest depths can shed some light, September 14, 2008
This review is from: The White Mary: A Novel (Hardcover)
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The main reason why I chose to read this book was the fact that I have just finished watching the last season of Lost which has rapidly turned into one of my favorite shows of all time and I needed a quick jungle fix to prolong the euphoria. Rather than just being a good read, "The White Mary" surpassed my expectations and was one of the best books I have ever read, I feel so lucky that I decided to read this!
Intense, addictive and at some passages almost unreadable but in a good way, the world of young journalist who decides to find her inspirational favorite writer Robert Lewis is turned upside down as she dives into a life changing adventure. Marika Vecera has had enough of dangerous journalistic work overseas in war ridden countries where murder and thievery rule daily life, when her relationship suffers at her own decisions she decides to follow hear heart and seek out the one man who can give her answers. The problem is that he has been proclaimed dead due to a suicide possible by drowning in Malaysia, but rumors that reach Marika about his sighting in the most remote jungles of Papua New Guinea spark her interest at finding him, no matter how dangerous the journey. When she starts looking for him her outlook on life is weak, she is not afraid of death but the more her life is threatened with various occurrences she learns new things about herself that open the reader's eyes to deep corners of our own souls. The journey is fascinating but the future often bleak and the reader never knows when it will all suddenly end. I can't remember the last time I was so engrossed in such a rich, beautiful novel.
Half way through reading this I looked up the author, Kira Salak and found her website. Her own journeys to almost all the continents are documented with stunning photos; I spend a whole afternoon browsing her site, looking at the scrapbook of her life, so enormous and exciting that her life looks like an adventure movie in comparison to someone like myself. Through her eyes and words I too feel that the world is large and remote but accessible for those who really want to see each nook and cranny. I can't wait to read more of her work; this is one strong and brilliant woman.
- Kasia S.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Pass up this pale mary, November 26, 2008
This review is from: The White Mary: A Novel (Hardcover)
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Unfortunately, the author spends this entire book breaking the cliched cardinal rule of writing -- show, don't tell. For example, we're told about the protagonist's murdered father and insane mother. We're _told_. We are never shown any flashbacks in which these people are alive and relating to the protagonist. We're just supposed to swallow the scenario whole, and believe in it, care about it, for the balance of the book.
The book's third-person-omniscient point of view doesn't help matters. At some point, we're inside the head of nearly every character in the book, being told things rather than being shown them. Sometimes we're in more than one character's head in a single scene. Sometimes we're inside the "head" of something like a knife or a headache -- more than once, I noticed the author personifying objects and sensations. There was a headache or a fever that "wanted" to split somebody's head in two, or something like that. Lots of window dressing, but very little meaning.
The book tells nearly everything and shows almost nothing, and despite the author's seeming desire to be explicit, the writing remains imprecise. For just one of many possible examples of the imprecision -- at one point, the author describes a young government official as wearing a uniformly "solemn" expression, but a couple of sentences later notes that his eyes are darting around the room, which doesn't seem very solemn at all. The book is full of this type of garbled observation.
The characters are flat and expository. The romantic male figure, Seb, is meant to be sensitive and caring but he comes off sappy. It seems like Seb's character is propped up to show the reader how businesslike and non-touchyfeely Marika, the protagonist, is. The two characters continually butt against one other and never engage in a way that seems believable. Even when they're at their most comfortable with one another, they speak in pronouncements about how much they care about each other. The famous journalist Marika pursues tells her the story of his murdered son's decomposition, and somehow that story is lacks immediacy, lacks horror. Also baffling were the fact that the famous journalist mentioned having told the decomposition story to native children who couldn't understand English, and the fact that the author includes almost nothing about Marika's reaction to hearing this story. It seems to have been included as pure exposition.
In addition to being flat, the characters were just plain implausible. I had a really hard time believing that the hardened journalist would confess to Marika that he'd promised himself he wouldn't care about anyone anymore (but, of course, he finds himself caring about _her_). Certainly not at the point in the book at which this happens. I also had a hard time believing that Marika, a professional journalist who regularly visits countries where women are second-class citizens or worse, would balk in such an ignorant manner at being made to go to a menstrual hut while having her period. Surely someone in that line of work would have some understanding of customs and superstitions that aren't in line with modern civilization.
The closest the book comes to creating a real character is with the character of Tobo the witch doctor. Tobo is dryly funny, foolish, superstitious, wise, fatalistic, and caring all at once. I found him to be the only likeable character in the book, and I was pleased that he had the last word.
But truthfully, I wouldn't pick up this book just for Tobo. The writing is very bland, and scenes that are meant to stir some emotion in the reader (including, unfortunately, the torture scenes) simply do not work. Nothing really happens in this book, which would have been something very different in the hands of a more dynamic writer.
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