March 2009 DeeAnn's pick
From Library Journal:Lively recently won Britain's prestigious Booker Prize for this deeply moving, elegantly structured novel. The heroine is Claudia Hampton, an unconventional historian and former war correspondent who lies in a hospital bed dying of cancer. Forced inward, Claudia moves randomly across time and place to reconstruct the strata of her life. But "most lives have their core, their kernel, the vital centre"; Claudia's is the brief, tragic encounter she had in Egypt during the war with Tom Southern, a British tank officer on leave from battle. Tom's voice, along with those of her brother and daughter, joins Claudia's to shape a narrative that is a complex, intricately composed fugue. This haunting evocation of loss is Lively's finest achievement yet. Read more...
5 comments:
So, I just finished the book and I was wondering if anyone had a comment on the imagery of the kite descending to its target when Claudia and Tom are conversing in Egypt. Any thoughts?
I just re-read the kite imagery. Claudia and Tom are talking about their plans for the future, after the war. Tom ends by saying he wants a child. "A child. . ." says Claudia. "Goodness. A child. . ." She looks up again at the swirling kite; one is now much larger than the others, starting its slow descent upon some selected target.
I think this could mean a couple of things. It could be the imagery of the conception of Tom and Claudia's child. Or it could be that narcissistic Claudia is the big kite who has finally found someone she loves more than herself and so she is "starting her slow descent". Or Tom could be the big kite overshadowing her independence.
The image of the kites swirling also bring to mind the Moon Tiger spiraling it's way into ash.
Any other ideas?
I was also thinking about how different Claudia was with Tom than she was at any other time in the story and considered that this could possibly be the effects of seeing war firsthand. Claudia had now seen dead soldiers, moved dangerously through a war zone. Perhaps she is finally able to see beyond herself and thus is able to experience loving feelings for another human.
I don't know why this didn't carry over to her life after Tom and Eygpt--why she never cared for her daughter or Jasper. What do you think?
And finally, I assume that for a consensual incestuous relationship that both siblings would have narcissistic characteristics. Or maybe not?! Maybe one would be super-submissive?!
Making the connection to The Thirteenth Tale--those siblings, whose names I have now forgotten, definitely were both narcissistic.
Despite this incestuous element in the story, I did find myself dwelling on it much, perhaps because it did fit the characters personalities. But it really would be a big deal in real life. Wouldn't it?!?
Here's more info on Penelope Lively's memoir thing I mentioned. It sounds very interesting--
MAKING IT UP, was published in July 2005. This work of fiction is a form of anti-memoir, in which she imagines some of the alternative outcomes, had she gone down a different road at crucial points in her life. A ship travelling to Cape Town during the second world war, an archeological dig in the nineteen seventies, Cairo in the early fifties - these are some of the roads not taken, through which winds the thread of what really happened.
Post a Comment