Corked: A Memoir

Corked was nothing at all like I was expecting it to be, but I thoroughly enjoyed it nonetheless. Both the author and her father are simultaneously hilarious and rather self-absorbed, and the way they play off each other during their two week trip through the wine regions of France is somewhat maddening and ultimately heartwarming. The book is rife with the author's existential angst, but it is wisely mixed with plenty of humor, not to mention the many wonderful images, scents and flavors of the glorious wines and wine-making feats of France.

Philippe Borel, Kathryn's father, reminded me only too much of my own pater familias, though mine was Irish, not French. There's a good chance I would have had fantasies of patricide after two weeks show more in a car with my own father, too.

I have to say that Corked is not a book for everyone, and if you pick it up thinking it is simply a 'wine book' then you will most likely end up running away screaming. But, if you'd be satisfied to learn quite a bit about the wines of France while being given a glimpse of a stormy but loving relationship between a father and daughter, then give it a shot. show less

Kathryn Borel is her own worst enemy. In wanting to be a cliche that doesn't exist (the bonding father-daughter road-trip that will be so life-changing, everyone will be moved by the story), she becomes an even worse cliche (the self-involved traveler so bent on having a life-altering experience that the weight of expectation can't help but ruin the trip from the start). At the onset, one must give her credit for laying bare so much of her current tragedy - a failure to connect with her father, the messy breakup of a long-term relationship and her hand in vehicular homicide. At the onset. Because as the book drags one gets the distinct feeling that all of these things are merely new and exciting ways to be involved in the ever-expanding show more Drama of Kathryn. And while self-involvement is perhaps her best coping mechanism at the moment, it doesn't make for a fun road-trip. show less

I've been marinating over this one for awhile. Truth is I just had mixed emotions about it. There were times I loved it, laughed out loud, shook my head yeah, and even highlighted certain lines in the book. When making hollandaise, she says she put a stick of butter in her back pocket, walked around until it softened then whisked up her sauce. I'm still thinking about that one, for some reason it stuck with me. I'll think of it everytime I soften butter for a recipe. I think this is the epitome of why I feel so conflicted about this memoir, she thinks in a quirky, dry, but witty way, yet in a way that I totally don't think. This is not bad, it's just different. I really at times thought her writing was genius, and then a few lines later show more somehow I was taken back a bit. I think its a French thing. Whenever I watch a French film, even though the story is great and I enjoy it there is an underlayment of despair and gloom, and I found that here. This book was emotional, angry, funny, depressed, intelligent, charming, frustrating, and haunting. All words that I think describe who the author is, it almost seems to me, a person, dare I say that is conflicted, so I the reader find myself feeling the same way about this memoir. show less

I liked this book. Sure, there are unlikeable moments, and some unpleasantness, but that's life, right?

This memoir of Kathryn and her father doing a wine tour around France (where he is from) is actually quite wonderful. As they travel through the country, stopping at wineries and hotels, getting into arguments and having heart-to-heart moments, pitching fits and laughing it up, they get to know each other very well. And like so many things in adult life, the more you think you know, the more you realize how wrong you are. "Corked" is cute, funny, sad, touching, with a realistic parent/child relationship...what more can you want from a memoir?

Kathryn has a wonderfully quirky writing style, with unusual and spot-on ways to describe show more things. I really like this book, and I hope Ms. Borel will write another book in the near future. show less

Not exactly your typical father-daughter memoir. The pair travel through the father's native France on an extensive wine tour. The father is an expert, the daughter/author, Kathryn, feels like a failure in her father's esteem. But the wine trip is just the vehicle for a daughter who needs her father and fears his mortality (after a surprising, disturbing revelation of something Kathryn did), and worries about their lack of a real connection. She's not that concerned about the wine. A wine lover might be annoyed by the level of wine discussion and knowledge shared, but I'm not a wine lover. I appreciated the interesting unfolding of the important relationship - that between daughter and father, not between father and wine, daughter and show more wine, and father, daughter and wine. I'd share this with a fellow lover of the memoir genre. show less

This meandering memoir covered a father-daughter wine-tasting trip trip through France, but the location was the only appealing element of the book. Both the narraor and her fathercame across as selfish, self-involved, and immature. Between his tantrums, her childish sulks, and both of their inability to communicate like adults, the book was actually painful in places to read. The book seems to have no general purpose- no grand revelations or useful life messages or interesting stories emerge that would make spending time with these self-indulgent people worthwhile. I gave it 2 stars only for the bits of interesting wine trivia that popped up on occasion.

Kathryn Borel goes off to France on a wine tasting trip with her oenophile father after she has a terrible car accident that has made her cognizant of her dad's mortality. But her sudden revelation about the fleeting nature of life isn't the only thing that she comes face to face with during this tour the breadth of France. She spends quite a lot of her time deconstructing the romantic relationship she's ended just before leaving as well. While she and her father do indeed travel around to different vineyards, this is more a journey to knowing and understanding each other, and at least in Kathryn's case, in understanding herself better. The wine vacation is simply the framework upon which hangs the tales of Kathryn's feelings and show more relationships.

This memoir is billed as the tale of a wine innocent daughter and her expert father learning about each other as much as about wine and vintners. Truly though, the information about wine and the trip itself is sparse and not terribly satisfying. Instead, the two relationships, between Kathryn and her father and Kathryn and ex-boyfriend Matthew, take center stage. Unfortunately, in the case of the father daughter dynamics, I'm not certain their relationship translated particularly sympathetically to the page. It is easy to see that Kathryn is reduced to childishness when around her domineering father but he is also reduced to a fairly childish caricature in these pages. The by-play between the father and daughter, which I suspect could be funny and entertaining in real life, limps along on the page. Inside jokes are only funny to those in the know and we readers aren't enough in the know here to recognize and appreciate those found here. When the narrative veers to Kathryn's relationship (or former relationship) with Matthew, it feels as if the reader is being dragged out of one story and into another one entirely, one only tangentially related to the original story. Somehow there had to be a way to connect the two threads and then weave them convincingly against the backdrop of Kathryn's life changing accident, but it's done so loosely that it loses what needs to be an effective, tight connection. Ultimately disappointing, this road trip used as therapy memoir might have been cathartic for Borel to write but therapy sessions aren't engrossing reading for anyone other than the subject(s) or therapists in training to read and this doesn't disprove that. show less