Barry, B. (2006). The lace reader. New York: William Morrow.
Warning spoiler.
Yes, this does contain a comment about the end.
08/13/08 to 08/15/08
****
I'll pit my God against your god any day, I say to the Calvinists. It's not their god I'm praying to.... The God I'm praying to is neither male nor female. My God is the one who exists apart from all of men's agendas, the God who takes you away when there is no possible place you can go.
So I was skeptical about this book at first. After the hype of the NPR interview, the beginning wasn't what I expected (even after Barry read the first page on the radio). I think it took about 40 pages to get into the book, until dead relatives started talking to the main character, Towner. The book then flows into an expression of her psychopathology/psychic ability. That's when the book started to give that sensation of perspective shifting, of everything being slightly off-kilter. That lasted until Barry changed narrators.
Moving from the main character to the primary love interest was an interesting choice. I don't think I liked it, not that he wasn't a neat character, but I never got enough sense of history to be able to fully embody his perspective. Plus it was just jolting. I was glad that she sent us back to Towner.
The end was strange too. It was a little too Fight Club-esque for me. A little too much coming out of the fog into the *clear*, assumably better light of reality. I don't think that was a space I wanted to occupy.
2 mad ranters:
I just added this to my "to read" list today. So per your review, should I not read it? :)
I'd recommend not. I comment on the end pretty explicitly so, unless you want to know how it ends, don't read the review. Do know that I really enjoyed it (hence reading it in three days). Let me know what you think after finishing!
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