So depressing, but strongly moving ( )

I reckon Jane Hamilton is a great writer, and this book is a good example of her work. She can see things from a different perspective, and yet, when she presents that vision, the reader understands it. Here's a couple of examples:

In the first, her narrator is contemplating the state of her marriage relationship:

"Because I couldn't make out the blur of the next week, or month, I tried to see though to the end.I would die, and if I was still married to Howard I would be buried next to him. Where would we rest our useless bodies? We might not be allowed a plot in Prairie Center Cemetery, but it would be of little matter, save for our hurt feelings, because Howard would want to be buried with his relatives in Minnesota. ...In the end maybe what marriage offered was the determination of one's burial site. "

In the second example, the same woman is on trial, and she describes one of the witnesses, a psychologist, called to speak against her:

"It wasn't difficult to understand why Dr Bailey could speak to the horror of the body, when his own form - his sunken chest, his slim waist that required a belt for which he likely had to make extra holes - might alone have caused him plenty of trauma and subsequent neurosis. I liked Dr Bailey, felt his sensitivity, his probable fondness for moss and lichens, wild flowers, Debussy."

I laughed out loud at that last sentence...and wondered what Claude Debussy himself would make of it. Only two days ago I had been on the roof of my house and noticed how lichens were covering all the tiles, and some of the lichens were quite wonderfully complex, and perhaps even beautiful. And yes, I've put extra holes in my belt when I was younger and slimmer!

The whole book is full of fascinating observations of things and people. Her photo on the dust jacket shows a very contemplative and thoughtful person - and yet she is obviously not without humor.

I was very interested in this book from the point of view of its exploration of forgiveness. The book doesn't have a neat and complete set of answers, but it does pose lots of questions and offer a variety of forgiveness experience. I guess that's the best you can hope for? ( )

It was very well writen. The author gave a lot of emotional feelings to the characters. ( )

I had heard of this novel without knowing too much about it. I only knew that something happened in the beginning that changes the lives of the characters. I almost didn't want to know as I began reading and came to the realization that Alice, the main character and co narrator is responsible for the death by drowning of her best friend's 2 year old daughter. As if this isn't bad enough, Alice, while still unraveling over the tragedy, becomes accused of sexually abusing several students in the Elementary School where she works as the nurse. It is almost as if the accusation and eventual time spent in a women prison has more to do with the accidental death than it does with the 6year old boy's accusation. Alice's guilt over the first event makes her seem okay with the time spent away from her family. I found the novel at first a little melodramatic, but started liking it more when the husband took a turn at the narration. I found the courtroom proceedings and the eventual reality of what a trial of this nature can be like to be very interesting, that and the change that took hold of Alice as she dealt with the events. This seemed almost Kafkaesque as Alice is in jail for something she did not do, yet is guilty for not supervising the little girl. Other scenes of interest in the novel include the amazingly forgiving attitude of Theresa, the mourning mother, the life inside a women’s prison, the resiliency of the children who become more independent as their life goes more awry, and the way the local townspeople so willingly jump on the bandwagon of accusation. I would be interested the author’s first book which won a Pen/Faulkner Award. ( )

I’m not sure just exactly what was so compelling about Jane Hamilton’s A Map of the World, but I found it very difficult to put down. Perhaps it was the all too possible nightmare of taking care of a friend’s child and having a fatal accident occur in a split second of negligence. Or maybe it was the experience of having a colleague falsely and ridiculously accused of child abuse. The reactions of the characters in this novel to the chain reaction of events in this story, as well as their responses to one another, are beautifully portrayed. Despite the difficult subject matter, I enjoyed reading this book. ( )