fannyprice's Orange January 2011

I think I had previously determined that the only Orange Prize winner/nominee that I own but haven't read is Helen Dunmore's The Siege. My oft-uttered (but rarely held to) resolution to read more of the books I own rather than buying new ones, coupled with my long-standing desire to read more of her books, means I will most likely be trying to read this one in January.

I'd also love to read more Sarah Waters, something by Margaret Atwood that is NOT a dystopia (have read them all and mostly loved them), and Wolf Hall has been on the virtual TBR pile for a long time (although I make no claim to be able to finish that one in a month). There are a lot of good things to choose from.

Read in January
We Need to Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver - Orange Prize winner 2005

Is Margaret's Alias Grace a nominated book? It's one of hers I've really enjoyed.

It is!

Nice to meet you, Kris, and welcome!

Kris, The Siege is a fantastic book.

What Terri said:)

Kris, I haven't read The Siege but it sounds great. I am still kicking myself that I had it out of the Wellington library last year and didn't get to it before it was due back.

Wolf Hall mightn't take as long as you think - I couldn't put it down.

Bouncing through to say hi and looking forward to following your reading!

Just discovered that We Need to Talk About Kevin is finally available on kindle so I've downloaded it and that's what I'm starting with, even though it's not quite January. I've wanted to read this for a while now.

Orange January can start anytime! Keep us posted on what you think about Kevin.

Kevin is such a great book, but really difficult too. I just finished We Need to Talk About Kelvin, a science book. You have to love a science book that plays on a literature book.

LOL! Kelvin.

Oh good, it's not just me who liked that.

>12 raidergirl3:: I thought it was clever, too. I read your review on your blog and at first I thought, "wait, didn't she read that already?" I meant to comment on the title, but forgot.

So I read one "chapter" before the Nyquil kicked in and I was out light a light. Hope to do better today. :D

I'm reading We Need to Talk About Kevin for my first Orange January, and it's killing me. I both love it and hate it; I had thought that - based on the "ripped from the headlines" premise, a school shooting - it would be kind of a saccharine, Jodi Picoult-like book....(I know it doesn't make sense to expect a book about a school shooting to be "light reading.") It's not.

I probably shouldn't admit this, because I think Eva - the shooter's mother through whose eyes we see in this story (which is told in a series of letters from Eva to her estranged husband, Franklin) - is kind of a sociopath herself, but I am having trouble not identifying with her. Obviously, the letters are only Eva's perspective on events and she is crafting the narrative in such a way as to evoke some amount of empathy, but it is hard not to feel for her.

I have passed through phases with Eva, first trusting her recounting of events implicitly, then dismissing her as the classic unreliable narrator - I mean really, can a seven-week old baby be malevolent? - and now after seeing her perspective reflected in others' reactions to her son, I am in full rapport with Eva once again. Perhaps things will change as more of the story is revealed - I think I am about 1/3 of the way through (reading on iphone, so hard to tell). But right now I feel like Eva is Rosemary in a non-supernatural version of Rosemary's Baby, with a "bad seed" son and a husband who is both blind and uncaring.

This is also an incredibly hard book to read as I get to the age where many of my friends are having children and I have to confront the question of whether I want them myself. How in the world does anyone know whether they want kids absent an overwhelming desire? How does anyone know whether they would even be decent at parenthood?

I love your reaction to the book, and to Eva.

Keep reading and do another one of these. This book evokes very strong reactions in people.

Oh dear God, I've just now finished. I feel rather hollowed out inside. What a pick for my first read of 2011. Now I'm going to go do something stupid for a while.

Amazing book, isn't it? And so true to its title because as you read it, you really need to talk about it. I love your post #15, because you wrestled with a lot of the same stuff I felt reading it.

And I'm impressed you read the book on your iPhone. Wow.

I felt emotionally exhausted after finishing We Need To Talk About Kevin. Maybe you should go eat some chocolate now.

>18 lauralkeet:, I actually do a large portion of my reading on the Kindle app on the iphone. I love only having to carry one device around with me. My actual Kindle is collecting dust somewhere. :)

We Need to Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver

This is a book that probably demands a re-read, however, it was such an emotionally draining and unpleasant experience to read, I don't know when I would ever feel like subjecting myself to that again. I don't want to imply that this was a bad book or a book that I wish I hadn't read; quite the contrary, I thought this book was extremely well-written and thought-provoking. It just sucked all the air out of my life for the three or so days I had it in progress; I felt like someone was sitting on my chest, making it hard to breathe.

Most people probably know this as a book about a teenager (Kevin) who plans and executes a massacre at his high school, however, I wouldn't really call this a book about a school shooting. Certainly, that event happens, but at its core, this is a book about families - marriage, motherhood, and fatherhood. Probably more specifically motherhood, since the book is told through a series of letters written by the shooter's mother, Eva, to her estranged husband Franklin.

As I've said before, I struggled with Eva continuously throughout the book, wondering how much to trust her perspective on events. From her son's first breath, she is so quick to attribute to him not only intentionality but malice. From Eva's perspective, Kevin's childish antics are deliberately calculated to spite her and to erase her very personality. And as ridiculous as this sounds, Shriver has written Eva's point of view so compellingly that one trusts her implicitly at first. Who knows a child better than its mother? And Eva is so seemingly honest about her own shortcomings as a mother and as a person that it seems inconceivable that she would intentionally distort facts about her son. Other character's experiences of Kevin - again, however, as related by Eva - mirror his mother's, which adds weight to her perceptions. Except for the glaring exception of his father Franklin who sees Kevin as a completely normal boy and often cruelly dismisses Eva's feelings. Which raises the obvious question - is Eva delusional or is Franklin oblivious? Or is the truth somewhere in the middle? Perhaps neither really knows who their son is...

This book takes an unflinching look at some very uncomfortable truths about families and motherhood. I can see how many people responded negatively to Eva, who describes herself as "just the sort of woman who had the capacity, however ghastly, to rue even so unretractable a matter as another person," and struggles desperately to love her son, something that we think of as natural and automatic in all parents 'who aren't monsters'. But as a childless early thirty-something in a long-term relationship and utterly lacking in any overwhelming urge to have a kid of my own, I really related to Eva's feeling of having been cheated because she had never felt an overriding urge to reproduce. Perhaps that feeling of identification with young Eva compelled me to stick with her version of the story through most of the book. I should make it clear, though, that I realize she's an unreliable narrator who is looking back on the past in light of specific events that have happened and perhaps unconsciously imposing a pattern or mood on her life, and I didn't always trust her.

I felt that I was supposed to wonder whether Eva could be blamed for Kevin's ultimate actions, and this question struck me as strange and then angered me. Again, probably for personal background reasons, I firmly believe that parents can do everything right and still see their children make terrible, life-altering decisions. I felt strongly inclined to defend Eva, but also to wonder why no one asked whether Franklin could be blamed for Kevin's actions, as he certainly played an equally significant role in molding his son. This strikes me as one of those uncomfortable truths about motherhood - that we presume that the mother's role is so critical that she must have done something to ruin her child, while the father gets off scot-free. Of course, there are possibly other reasons that Franklin escapes blame....

The aspect of the book which I found the most devastating and which probably made this book so hard to read was the gradual dissolution of Eva and Franklin's marriage. Although their radically different perceptions of Kevin and his actions in the fifteen years leading up to the shooting clearly feed into the breakdown of their marriage, I couldn't help but feel that Franklin stopped being on Eva's team the minute Kevin was conceived. From the minute he orders pregnant Eva to stop dancing out of fear for the fetus, it seemed to me that he had stopped thinking of her as a person and their relationship as an end in itself and was thinking of her as a vessel to bring forth what was now the purpose of their relationship. And again, I know all of these events are filtered through Eva's perceptions of her familial relationships as fundamentally adversarial, but I couldn't help but hate Franklin. It made me remember an article that was written a few years ago that provoked so much controversy in which a woman essentially declared that she loved her husband more than her kids because her marriage was a relationship of choice and her children were an 'accident of biology.' I think Eva felt that way but Franklin never did.

Lionel Shriver has said in interviews that she didn't want this book to be any sort of broad sociological look at the school shooting phenomena, but rather a a study of relationships in one particular family. So it isn't some cheesy novel where we learn that video game violence or bullying is the key to unlocking the mind of the school shooter. And - possibly a disappointment to readers - we never unlock the secret of why Kevin did what he did. Which I was cool with - this is ultimately a book that continue past the last page into the reader's own mind and provides questions and possibilities rather than answers.

Am I glad I read this? Yes, terribly. Am I glad to be done reading it? Yes, terribly. It is a hard read that forces one to confront some really uncomfortable myths about the 'naturalness' of familial relationships and will probably make you into a slightly unpleasant person to be around for a few days, especially if you over-identify with Eva, as I certainly did. I feel worn out and worn down, but I would recommend it to others.

Now for something completely different. I hope. I have a tendency to accidentally stumble into a series of depressing books.

Thanks Kris for this review. It explains why I have shied away fron this one for so long. I am looking foward to seeing you what you are reading next ?
Tuning to your dust collecting Kindle - why is it collecting dust?

>22 juliette07:, Ah, the Kindle itself started collecting dust when I got an iPod touch and downloaded the Kindle app onto that and then the iPod touch started collecting dust when I got an iPhone and did the same. (I have device proliferation issues.) I just love only having to carry one device with me when I'm on the go & I love that I can hold my reading device in one hand and turn the "pages" with my thumb. e-reading is like the best thing that's ever happened to me (even though I was a reluctant recipient of the Kindle initially and didn't think I would like it).

~23 Yup, me too, I really resisted the clutches and even flirted with a Sony reader .... I have found I am able to use the centre page turner with my left thumb ... and *all* under the bed clothes. Sorry too much information. Personally it is not an either / or situation .... although I have found quite a few 'wants' which aren't yet Kindled. I click every time on the 'I want it on Kindle' button. In addition it will house my tbr list on it as well which should help the book case situation!

All this from a Parker pen user who loves writing a journal - usually in purple ink.
Chosen your next read yet?

>24 juliette07:, Eventually I'll be reading The Siege for this group, but I think I'm going to knock off some small, light things first. Also got to get cracking on my re-read of Sense and Sensibility - I'm a huge nerd, so I got the Norton Critical Edition for this time around and am excited about all the additional material. I'm not in the 75 Book Challenge - I can't do the commitment and the group is just too big for me to feel cozy there - but they have graciously agreed to let me join in their group reads of Jane Austen over the year. However, right now I am vegging out, catching up on episodes of Psych on the television and making chicken korma in my new slow-cooker!

>23 fannyprice:,24: hmmm ... guess I'll have to try eBooks on my iPhone. I just thought it would be too small ! Under the bed clothes eh Julie? Hmmm ... !

Wow, I wish I would have had some one to talk to about this book when I read it several years ago. You hit on a couple of issues that I also had with the book especially identifying Kevin as a malicious infant. Seriously?? But the emotion wallop that this book produces is unequivocal. I found myself thinking about it for months after I had finished it. Nice review.