Thursday, February 28, 2008
Snow Angels
Book number 5 of the year is Snow Angels. My main reason is picking up this book is that next week this will be the 4th feature film from the extraordinary director David Gordon Green. It has a lot to live up to as I love all of the first three efforts.
The novel interweaves two stories set in a poor town outside of Pittsburg in the fall of 1974. The story echoed the themes of some of Atom Egoyan’s films, Exotica or The Sweet Hereafter. While Stewart O’Nan’s debut novel is interesting and well written it doesn’t pack the emotional punch that either of those two works did.
Most of the novel is told in flashback. It starts with Annie being shot and the blasts being heard by 15-year-old Arthur, whom Annie formerly babysat. The backstory of Annie and her husband during separation is quite interesting. Her story of living in a dead end town is whose life unravels under two tragedies comes alive with real characters and details. One drawback is that you can see the first tragedy unfolding as soon as the chapter begins and the buildup to the second tragedy, the shooting, seems a bit too literary an ending.
The parallel story of the dissolution of Arthur’s parent’s marriage doesn’t have need the interest of the first. This is mostly due to Arthur’s mother being completely one-dimensional and unappealing. Arthur’s coming of age, especially with his changing feelings toward Lila, the even poorer classmate who is the only other family living in the run down complex his mother is forced to move to post-separation. I’m really excited to see how DGG handles this part of the story given his success with similar parts of Undertow and All the Real Girls.
Another bothersome aspect of the book is the way it treats the female characters. Most of the male characters don’t seem to be judged. Annie meanwhile is abusive, hot-tempered, and cheats on her husband and friends. Her own mother even blames her for causing the situation she’s in. While she doesn’t deserve to die, the reader is lead to think she deserves almost what happens to her. And as stated before, Arthur’s mother is unappealing with much of the same attributes.
The novel interweaves two stories set in a poor town outside of Pittsburg in the fall of 1974. The story echoed the themes of some of Atom Egoyan’s films, Exotica or The Sweet Hereafter. While Stewart O’Nan’s debut novel is interesting and well written it doesn’t pack the emotional punch that either of those two works did.
Most of the novel is told in flashback. It starts with Annie being shot and the blasts being heard by 15-year-old Arthur, whom Annie formerly babysat. The backstory of Annie and her husband during separation is quite interesting. Her story of living in a dead end town is whose life unravels under two tragedies comes alive with real characters and details. One drawback is that you can see the first tragedy unfolding as soon as the chapter begins and the buildup to the second tragedy, the shooting, seems a bit too literary an ending.
The parallel story of the dissolution of Arthur’s parent’s marriage doesn’t have need the interest of the first. This is mostly due to Arthur’s mother being completely one-dimensional and unappealing. Arthur’s coming of age, especially with his changing feelings toward Lila, the even poorer classmate who is the only other family living in the run down complex his mother is forced to move to post-separation. I’m really excited to see how DGG handles this part of the story given his success with similar parts of Undertow and All the Real Girls.
Another bothersome aspect of the book is the way it treats the female characters. Most of the male characters don’t seem to be judged. Annie meanwhile is abusive, hot-tempered, and cheats on her husband and friends. Her own mother even blames her for causing the situation she’s in. While she doesn’t deserve to die, the reader is lead to think she deserves almost what happens to her. And as stated before, Arthur’s mother is unappealing with much of the same attributes.
Labels: Books
# posted by ChrisR @ 10:00 PM 
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Hello. This post is likeable, and your blog is very interesting, congratulations :-). I will add in my blogroll =). If possible gives a last there on my blog, it is about the Monitor de LCD, I hope you enjoy. The address is http://monitor-de-lcd.blogspot.com. A hug.
# posted by 
: 3:35 AM
: 3:35 AM
Hello. This post is likeable, and your blog is very interesting, congratulations :-). I will add in my blogroll =). If possible gives a last there on my blog, it is about the Impressora e Multifuncional, I hope you enjoy. The address is http://impressora-multifuncional.blogspot.com. A hug.
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