This is what I get when I don’t write reviews for a week. A pile of messy thoughts, all tumbling and falling over each other in a heap on the floor of my mind. Here they are, laid out very briefly as I pick my way through them. I am not quoting from the books except where there are really exceptional quotes to keep the post as short as possible.
The Bear and the Paving Stone by Toshiyuki Horie
I read The Bear and the Paving Stone in almost a single sitting. It was rivetting and dream-like in its setting, and true to the Japanese style, philosophical. Divided into three short stories, this novella is about a Japanese translator who comes to France to see his friend Yann on a quick two-day visit. But the two days are filled with a lifetime of shared memories, reminiscing about common friends, and musings about the future.
Written very much in the stream of consciousness style, The Bear and the Paving Stone reminded me of the conversation-heavy movies Before Sunrise and Before Sunset where the two protagonists shoot the breeze while walking around the streets of Vienna and Paris. The conversation touches myriad topics essentially detailing how their lives have changed or imagining how it would.
The Bear and the Paving Stone is vivid, luminous, and quiet. This is my first book from Pushkin Press, and I am so looking forward to more from them.
Rating: 4.5/5
Ivy and Abe by Elizabeth Enfield
I began reading Ivy and Abe with great anticipation because the summary promised me that the story would be “Sliding Doors meets One Day.” I thought that is not a bad combination at all. Essentially, the book is a series of imagined stories with the same characters, and certain situations acting as the connecting thread of thought that ties them together into one book.
It started off well enough with the first story about Ivy meeting her childhood friend Abe after a few decades, and finding that they are really more than friends. But as the book progressed I found my patience wearing thin with the numerous what-if situations, and the way situations just moved alarmingly fast with not much consideration (according to me). So, while the idea was appealing I found that I could not take the repetitive meetings of Ivy, Abe, and Richard after a while albeit in different points in time.
Ivy and Abe might have benefited from some more editing to make it tighter, and make the story move faster.
Note: I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley for review.
Rating: 2/5
Stuart Little by E.B. White
I have only recently begun reading YA novels, and children’s books are a much more recent entry in my reading repertoire. Sadly. I read Stuart Little thanks to my read-along with SM. While I vaguely remember seeing the movie a long time back, I did not realize that the book was such a joy!
Stuart is an adventure-seeking, kindhearted mouse with a penchant for landing himself into sticky situations, and I loved how his family always comes to his rescue. They also teach him all that there is to learn about values like friendship, bravery, having fun, and being kind. At just about 130 pages, Stuart Little packs a punch with Stuart’s rollicking adventures, which is why I was a bit disappointed by the ending. E.B. White just brings it an abrupt end with no explanations on where Stuart is going to be or what his plans are. Even more disappointing – there is no sequel! I could not believe that a book like this and a mouse like that is not going to have the privilege of being developed into a series.
Oh well. It was fun while it lasted, as Stuart would say.
Rating: 5/5
The Friend by Sigrid Nunez
When a woman unexpectedly loses her lifelong best friend and mentor, she finds herself burdened with the unwanted dog he has left behind. Her own battle against grief is intensified by the mute suffering of the dog, a huge Great Dane traumatized by the inexplicable disappearance of its master, and by the threat of eviction: dogs are prohibited in her apartment building.
This is what the Goodreads summary promised me. How could I not pick up the book then? Well, I was in for a surprise when I discovered that Sigrid Nunez’s The Friend is not much about the dog but more about how she deals with grief. I guess I expected a moving, dog-helps-person-get-over-sadness story where the dog is a rambunctious little fellow whose antics are destructive but adorable.
The Friend is about a woman whose close friend and mentor commits suicide sending her into the depths of sadness. She hesitantly takes in her friend’s dog, Apollo, who does provide her solace but we only see glimpses of it. The pages are filled mostly with the woman’s memories of her friend, the good times they have had, and how much she looked up to him.
What I really liked about the novel is the fact that it places a close friendship at the heart of all emotions usually associated with losing family. Devastation at losing a friend is rare, and made all the more precious because it speaks of the purity of that relationship. A friend is solely bound to you by the strength of your interactions, and your love for each other. Not family ties. Not blood. Not marriage. ‘
Perhaps, I approached this book with a preconceived notion, and maybe I should read it again with the perspective I got from this reading.
Rating: 2/5 for now
The Universe of Us by Lang Leav
The Universe of Us by Lang Leav is one of those delectable books that are so good that you don’t feel like reading it too fast for fear of it getting over too soon. This collection of beautiful poems is not exactly a small book at 240 pages but they fly by pretty fast despite exploring weighty topics like love and friendship.
In fact, it’s not just about relationships. Leav talks about travel, books, dreams, and a lot more in mixed formats of verse and prose. I found myself highlighting and underlining a lot of quotes and lines from the book, which just took me on this headlong ride through stars and planets and seas and universes. They are in free verse or in short paragraphs, and there were many that I could relate to and connect to. Here is one of my favourite quotes from the book about a book
In many ways, a book is, in itself, a tiny universe. Each page is like a newly formed galaxy, fashioned from a single, pulsing thought.
And another one about intensity in love
“I don’t want to be the one who tucks you into bed—I want to be the reason why you can’t sleep at night.”
And one about loss
“When you lose a person, a whole universe goes along with them.”
Do you see why it’s easy to love this book?
Rating: 4/5
Attachments by Rainbow Rowell
Having loved Rainbow Rowell’s beautiful YA novel Eleanor & Park sometime back, I was looking forward to read Attachments. The book is about Lincoln, the typical IT dork who is shy around women, and whose only job is to check and filter emails. In the process he slowly gets sucked into the lives of Jennifer and Beth who exchange emails everyday detailing their personal lives.
Attachments is an extremely easy read, and it was easy to see how it will all end just a few pages into the book. It is a highly character-driven book, and I really liked the way Lincoln is portrayed. The book retained my attention for a while but then the overload of “cute guy” references got to me, and I couldn’t sustain it any more. The story dragged in the middle with nothing particular happening in the story. I somehow finished it just to see if there was anything different in the end. There wasn’t. I think Eleanor & Park was far more sensitive, and had a superior plot line.
Rating: 2.5/5
The Bridge by Peter J. Tomasi, Sara DuVall
The Golden Gate suspension bridge in San Francisco is one of the most widely known icons of America for non-Americans. But the Brooklyn Bridge is not too far behind, with countless movies familiarizing it for those of us who have never visited New York or Brooklyn.
The Bridge recounts the story of how this icon of America was built, and we see it through the wonderful sketches of Sara DuVall, and words of Peter J. Tomasi. It was a project of epic proportions, and one of great responsibility but it appears that the Roebling family was the one best suited to execute it. Designed and envisioned by John Roebling, and made a reality by his son, Washington, the Brooklyn Bridge took 14 years to finish. In the process, workers fell sick and died, and Washington himself was rendered ill due to long hours spent at the site.
Tomasi details the painstaking work that went behind the building of the bridge with a great passion, and I immensely enjoyed reading it. It is very clear that Tomasi himself is very invested in the city, and its landmarks from the minutiae that the book is filled with.
But at times the same details, particularly concerning the engineering, made my mind wander. It did give an in-depth feel of what went into the building of the bridge but sometimes I wish there was more of the family in it. It was great to see that Washington’s wife Emily played an important role in making his dream of building the bridge a reality but that aspect somehow felt incomplete. Emily was, no doubt, an exceptional woman given that she was able to handle complicated architectural desgins and make sense of them as well as manage the workers on the site, all of which was unheard of for women in those times. I wanted to know more about Emily other than the fact that she was a very devoted wife. What made her unconventional? What was Emily as an individual? I would have loved to know some of these aspects of her.
Otherwise, this was a delightful read for me, and I look forward to more from Peter J Tomasi and Sara DuVall!
Thank you NetGalley for sending me this book 🙂
Rating: 4/5
