Disturbances in the Field
by Lynne Sharon Schwartz
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Lynne Sharon Schwartz's critically beloved novel about family, tragedy, and philosophy The field is all around us. It's our needs and our wants. This is what George tells Lydia. A disturbance, however, is something that keeps us from grasping and attaining the things we need. Usually, we can adapt to these disturbances and move forward. But, what happens if a disturbance becomes too great to move past? In this entrancing tale of loss and understanding, acclaimed author Lynne Sharon Schwartz show more plots the course of a woman's life, through the cycles of love, loss, and acceptance. Lydia's early life is marked by calm constants: a house in Cape Cod, a philosophy group in college. These remain her touchstones as she becomes a busy wife, mother, and music teacher. But when her family's world is suddenly shattered, she struggles to regain her equilibrium. Will she be able to find her way in such a radically altered field? show lessTags
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Member Reviews
This is absolutely the best novel I have ever read. Packed with insight and intelligence, writing that illuminates and communicates, characters who live. Schwartz has created a whole world in which the reader can enter and relate, yearn, suffer, learn. As in other good books, the best books, I've read, each page is a delight, a joy to read, and yet sad because it is nearing the end, and you don't want it to end. The first half of the book explores mostly happiness, or the deep contentment that comes with having long time friends, acute intelligence, work one loves, marrying the right person, making the right decisions...then comes the wrenching loss and sorrow, all compellingly described, a true "disturbance in the field," that changes show more everything. Or does it? All mixed with a wry and forgiving humor, insights galore, a density of ideas and discoveries. I have personal reasons for loving this book -- it takes place in NYC, and there is a lot about Barnard College (I'm a Barnard girl) in it, I can identify with the discoveries of the place and of the mind (and of the time), and the happy marriage, the joys and frustrations of being a mother of four. I never had such a brilliant mind as her Lydia, and I hope never to have such a horrific loss, and I don't have Lydia's gift or blessing for friendship, but oh, how Lynne Sharon Schwartz serves the reader with what all of that is like. Fantastic writing!! Martha Huntley show less
Beautifully written with wonderful characters and lots of philosophical questions about life. This book reminds me of 19th century novels -- a depth of character development and lots of ideas to ponder. I agree with some reviewers that there isn't much plot, but that doesn't matter in this kind of book....it's about human reactions to life.
I loved this book. Something about the characters' reactions to life helped me feel more whole and normal. This is the sort of book you can't read just once. I look forward to "really" reading it a second time around.
Beautiful writing, but too much philosophy and not much plot. Giving up halfway through as my TBR pile is growing.
3.5 stars
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Author Information
29+ Works 2,279 Members
Writer Lynne Sharon Schwartz was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. She received a B. A. from Barnard College, an M. A. from Bryn Mawr, and started work on a Ph.D. at New York University. She chronicled her love of reading and the meaning it has had upon her life in a book called Ruined by Reading. She has published around twenty books show more including Rough Strife, which was nominated for a National Book Award and Leaving Brooklyn, which was nominated for the Pen/Faulkner Award for Fiction. She has also written for children in such books as The Four Questions, explaining the traditions of Passover. She is also an Italian translator and her translations include A Place to Live and Other Selected Essays by Natalia Ginzburg and Smoke over Birkenau by Liana Millu. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Disturbances in the Field
- Original title
- Disturbances in the Field
- Original publication date
- 1983
- People/Characters
- Lydia Rowe; George; Vincent Rowe; Gabrielle; Nina; Esther (show all 10); Althea Rowe; Philip Rowe; Alan Rowe; Vivian Rowe
- Important places
- New York, New York, USA
- Epigraph
- The name of the bow is life, but its work is death. ~~ Heraclitus
- First words
- George remarked that he has trouble working with patients who complain of overbearing mothers.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)The old bachelor Thales waited too, perhaps sipping wine with his friends in the marketplace, till that right moment
when a person's shadow grows to the persons size, when the body and its image, its burden, its imprint on the land, come together in harmony, and at that perfect moment of equivalence, he could take the measure of anything in the universe.
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Statistics
- Members
- 265
- Popularity
- 121,643
- Reviews
- 5
- Rating
- (3.75)
- Languages
- Dutch, English, German
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 8
- ASINs
- 3
