Michael

It's hard to say what I thought about this very short novel. I really didn't like the first 50 or so pages (it is only 114 pages long) but ended up being very moved. This is a matter-of-fact story about a gay dom/sub relationship told by a narrator (Colin) in his forties looking back at his 6 year relationship with the biker Ray. Colin was only 18 when the relationship began.

There is also a very moving subplot about the Colin's parents.

I'm not sure why I disliked the first part. Maybe I just couldn't quite believe in either Colin or Ray. The subtitle of the book is “A Story of Low Self Esteem” and while I know practically nothing about dom/sub relationships, I don't necessarily think that the sub has low self esteem!

Oh well, I ended up liking the book very much.

3.75 rounded to 4

I'm not sure how this got on my TBR, since it is not what I usually like.

It is a thriller. I like thrillers. It is slow-paced. A slow-paced thriller is an oxymoron as far as I am concerned. And it is written in a style I hate: long, long paragraphs, sometimes 2 pages long. Long, long sentences. And no quotation marks to set off dialogue. What is the point of this style?

But I absolutely loved this book. It is slowed paced-the better to build up tension. The page of solid words makes it seem like what is happening is somehow inevitable, that horrible things will happen.

Originally written in French, the book takes place in a very small hamlet in rural France. Patrice and his daughter Ida are preparing a surprise 40th birthday party for Marion, Patrice's wife and Ida's mother. The elderly artist next door is baking the cakes. Two of Marion's co-workers have been invited for cake and to further surprise Marion. But Marion has a past and it is close to catching up with her.

One should not reveal the plots of thrillers, so that's all I will say, other than the ending is wild and violent and very satisfying.

4.75 only because the font in the Fitzcarraldo edition is a little small for these 70 year old eyes. The book itself: 5 stars.

This short novel is about woman who is a cook on a ship who meets a woman named Samsa. Samsa gives the other woman the nickname Boulder. The two women fall in love, and when Samsa gets a job in Reykjavik, they decide to move in together. After a number of years together, Samsa decides she wants to have a baby. Boulder doesn't really want this, but goes along with it. Samsa has a daughter and the relationship changes.

That's it. (no spoilers above as this is all on the back cover).

This book is beautifully written. Eva Baltasar is also a poet and it shows. You become intimately familiar with Boulder–what she thinks, feels, how she navigates her new life in Iceland, as a partner, as–not a mother perhaps, since she doesn't feel like a mother but something else. I found the ending sad. But this is Boulder's story. We have no idea what Samsa is thinking and feeling. Truthfully, I found Samsa somewhat selfish, maybe even a little monstrous. You see Boulder at times really bonding with her daughter, but she isn't able to completely because Samsa won't let her. Samsa is completely focused on her daughter to the exclusion of anyone and anything else. It also appeared to me that the relationship between Boulder and Samsa ended years before their daughter was conceived, and they should have parted then. Perhaps Samsa's yearning for a child was due to her unconscious knowledge that the relationship had run its course and she was looking for something to fill the empty space in her life.

Who is at fault? Certainly Samsa for being so blind to Boulder's concerns. Boulder also bears some blame for just going along and not being more explicit about her concerns. And both for not calling it quits on the relationship.

But a problem I am having is that I just can't relate fully to the book. Like Boulder, I don't have, and I have never wanted children, so I can't understand this urge (and it's not just women who desperately want children–I know men who also are desperate for a child) so I can't understand Samsa, and Baltasar doesn't explain. The ending did have an emotional impact on me, but until then, I was unmoved.

Anyway, the book should be read for the beauty of its prose and for the creation of Boulder, a really unique character.

Perhaps Baltasar should write the exact same kind of book, covering the same period of time, but from Samsa's point of view.

This is one of the best SF novels I have read in a long time.

Jason is an ordinary physics professor at an ok college. However, in his 20s he was something else-a man on the edge of greatness. Then he met Daniela, and she became pregnant, and he was faced with a choice: marry the women he loved and start a family or stay on the course he was on and possibly win the Nobel Prize. He decides to marry. Does he regret the choice at times. Of course, but we all regret the choices we have made and at times we wonder what our life would be like if…. This novel tries to answer that question.

It is a novel about the road not taken, about regrets, about love, about what is important in life. It is about identity. It is about the multiverse. It shows that our choices and what we make of them are our responsibility. It’s about a lot!

I became invested in these characters, even in the multitude of Jasons. After all, like “our” Jason, they only wanted their family. However, I do wish Crouch had given us a hint about what happened to Amanda.

The ending took me by surprise.

It is well worth reading.

2.75*

Perhaps I admire Truman Capote’s writing more than I enjoy reading what he wrote. He was clearly a brilliant writer, but I generally don’t respond to him. However, this book was given to me as a gift, so I read it.

These are clearly immature works. The stories were all enjoyable to a greater or lesser degree, but many of them seemed little more than character sketches. And as Hilton Als pointed out in the Foreword, Capote never gives his Black characters a “self.” Perhaps as a southerner born in the 1920’s he is simply unable to imagine Black characters as unique individuals and treats them as stereotypes. This makes these early stories uncomfortable at times. However, being himself marginalized, he can look at marginalized white characters with great sympathy.

It is very hard for me to rate collections of short stories. None of these stores were bad, in the sense that I no longer wanted to read them, many were pleasant, but I don’t think any of them will stick with me.

I believe that anyone who loves Capote’s writing will appreciate this collection and love some of the stories.