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Carregando... The Widower's Tale (2010)de Julia Glass
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Registre-se no LibraryThing tpara descobrir se gostará deste livro. Ainda não há conversas na Discussão sobre este livro. Started this audiobook but after half an hour hadn't got into it. ( ) (52) I adored this book. A curmudgeonly old man lives alone in big restored farmhouse in a bougie suburb of Boston, defined by his wife's sudden death in her 30's many years before. At the book's opening he has reluctantly agreed to allow a preschool to open in his converted barn and a treehouse to be built in his yard. These connections bring several people in to his life and into contact with one another and lives are transformed. There are several other protagonists struggling with their own demons besides our widower, Percy Darling: The Guatemalan gardener, Celestino - also defined by a twist of fate many years in the past; the gay preschool teacher, Ira; and Percy's grandson, Robert, a Harvard pre-med student. Large chunks of the book are narrated by them as well and we are treated to their backstories and details of their lives as well. It is hard to see where things are going for much of the novel, but the world created is effortless and entertaining so this reader at least just enjoyed the ride. I love Glass' writing - her characters do border a bit on caricatures but she does make you care about them and she includes excellent contextual details that make the story come alive - that chicken-brocolli casserole if Ira's mother! Of course. The pink-pineapple bathing suit. The feeling of being away at college with a bad head-cold. These are the kind of family strife type novels that got me hooked on fiction from the very beginning. For awhile, in my quest to elevate my reading I moved away from novels like these. But I am coming back! I love to get lost in the intricacies of a fictional town and family with well-written and heartfelt characters and drama (not melodrama, though.) For me, the perfect escape. Not sure if I have read all her books yet or not, but I will work on reading whatever this author writes. Highly recommended for those who like Joyce Carol Oates, and/or Elizabeth Strout. I think a cut above the usual 'Women's book club" pick, but just a cut and still enormously entertaining and easy reading. The Widower's Tale is one of my favorite books to read again and again. For the honest wit and humor, the realistic family dialogue and challenges, the transformation of the barn, the compelling pond, the finely tuned characters and more, it is one to be savored and shared. That said, what feels off is The Widower's choice of a new home, so dangerously and loudly close to a noisy street. HIs choice to move, while allowing and protecting both his grandson and his gardening friend, could also have been differently arranged - house cleaned, repaired and rented out until both men were safe again. Leaving his beloved pond was a letdown. The Pond feels as much a character as the people and The Barn. Sarah was a character whose laughter and lies made her unappealing and somehow unworthy of Percy who appears to think that he no longer has another choice. Likely there will be no welcome sequel (back to Pond and Barn and plant a new tree!); if yes, let Sarah give her best to Gus and Rico while freeing Percy. The title of The Widower's Tale is a bit deceptive, because it is three stories rolled into one novel. As well as the widower's story, it is also the tale of Robert, the widower's grandson and the tale of Celestino, a gardener who works for the widower's next door neighbor. Other characters are also explored in the book, but it is primarily from the point of view of these three we see the world. The widower is Percy Darling, a sixty-nine year old man who lost his wife when they were in their late thirties. He hasn't dated anyone since then, which might be due to a sense of guilt. Although he wasn't responsible for his wife's death there were some issues on the day she died. Percy starts seeing Sarah, a fifty-one year-old artist who works with stained-glass. The age difference isn't much of an issue, but the difference in the way they look at the world is. Robert, Percy's grandson, has a roommate, Turo, who is involved in environmental activism, expressed through pranks some people see as vandalism. Robert gets sucked into Turo's activities and the story goes on from there. Meanwhile, Celestino's life is also explored. He is an immigrant from Guatemala who came to America when a professor at Harvard noticed his potential. But a mixture of bad luck, bad decisions, and a romantic nature forced Celestino to run off and turn to manual labor for his income. All three of these stories read well. I love the way the narratives touch each other throughout the book. I was also impressed with the way Julia Glass changes her style depending on whose point of view she's writing. Percy is a retired librarian and thinks in an scholarly style. The language in the Robert and Celestino sections is straight forward and reads faster. Steve Lindahl – author of Motherless Soul, White Horse Regressions, Hopatcong Vision Quest, and Under a Warped Cross.
Each strand of this narrative macramé is surprisingly supple, offering a convincing illusion of lives roundly lived. The effect is one of remarkable expansiveness, in which a rather modest small-town story is able to incorporate all kinds of contemporary social issues, including illegal immigration, eco-terrorism, health-care coverage, divorce and gay marriage....The older characters sometimes lapse into "On Golden Pond" parodies, and Glass gets the lively, profane patter of college students entirely wrong. Even so, it's wonderful to see Glass recover the unforced flow of her first two novels, a rhythm that convincingly imitates the shifting fortunes and allegiances of daily life. Once again, she's proved to be a master of milieu, an old French word that means "middle place" -- the place in which all her characters, young and old, continue to engage with the world and where she, a novelist in mid-career, keeps refining their stories. Reviewers have praised "The Widower’s Tale" for the author’s satiric wit, her ability to write from male perspectives, and for her talents in conveying a sense of place, which may have arisen from Glass’s early training as an artist. Los Angeles Times reviewer Helen McAlpin comments that humor does not mean Glass has become “all bounce and no bite,” noting that "The Widower’s Tale" takes on concerns from her previous novels, including breast cancer; mortality; mourning; rivalry between sisters; romantic relationships, both gay and straight; as well illegal immigration, gay marriage, and cultural decline. This energized, good-humored novel, Julia Glass’s fourth, smashes through that illusion, beginning as satire, becoming stealthily suspenseful and ending up with a satisfyingly cleareyed and compassionate view of American entitlement and its fallout. PrêmiosDistinctionsNotable Lists
Enjoying an active but lonely rural life, seventy-year-old Percy allows a progressive preschool to move into his barn and transform his quiet home into a lively, youthful community that compels him to reexamine the choices he made after his wife's death. Não foram encontradas descrições de bibliotecas. |
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Google Books — Carregando... GênerosClassificação decimal de Dewey (CDD)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyClassificação da Biblioteca do Congresso dos E.U.A. (LCC)AvaliaçãoMédia:
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