Ms. Hen reviews A Long Petal of the Sea

A Long Petal of the Sea

Isabel Allende

Ballentine Books

2020

Ms. Hen decided to read this novel, because she needed to recover from the last two books she had read, and she wanted to read something nice. She has read lots of books by Isabel Allende, and they always make her feel better about the world. She got this book from her local library.

This novel is about a couple who escapes the Spanish Civil War, and go to Chile. Victor is an army doctor, and his brother's fiancee, Roser, who is pregnant, escape Spain to go to France at the end of the war. Her fiance died fighting in the war. Victor and Roser survive refugee camps, and are separated, but find each other. Pablo Neruda, the Chilean poet, finances a ship, the SS Winnipeg, to save refugees and take them to Chile. Roser and Victor have to get married, out of necessity, to qualify getting passage on the ship.

They live together as man and wife with their child in Chile. Victor finishes his medical studies, and Roser teaches music and performs. They dream of going back to Spain, but don't know if that can happen. The country they knew does not exist anymore.

Ms. Hen knew about the Spanish Civil War, but the way it's described here is gruesome. It was said there was so much blood, that the peasants found onions that were red, and potatoes with teeth. That image will stay with Ms. Hen for a while.

This is a good recovery novel from the last two that Ms. Hen read. She doesn't know how she can classify this as a "nice" novel, but she will try to. It's a normal book, something that is pleasant to read, even with the graphic sections. She doesn't know how a novel can be normal, especially when it's so interesting and compelling. But she thinks it can be called normal.

Some chickens appeared in this novel, which Ms. Hen liked. "Roser spent the money on two live chickens," she bought the chickens because the family had very little food when they were in Spain. The chickens saved their lives! Chickens can be helpful, which makes Ms. Hen happy.

Parts of this novel dragged at the end, and it got a little like a history book, which Ms. Hen found tiresome. But she loved the story of refugees going to a different country to start over. Ms. Hen learned after she read this, that this is based on a true story. If you want a comforting novel, this is the one for you. It's about an entire life, its ups and downs, love and pain, war and peace, and finding love when and where we least expect it.

 

Ms. Hen reviews August is a Wicked Month

 

August is a Wicked Month

Edna O'Brien

Faber & Faber Ltd

1965

Ms. Hen decided to read this novel, because she had read others by this author, and she wanted to read more. She learned that this was a banned book, and she became curious. Ms. Hen finds that she likes banned books; when a book is considered dangerous enough to be banned, it's usually worth reading.

This novel is about an Irish woman who lives in England, Ellen, who is divorced. Her son and ex-husband are going camping in the country, and she has an ill-fated affair with a man she has had her eye on for a long time. She is disappointed in herself, so she books a trip to the South of France. She wants to have fun.

She finds herself in a couple of unpleasant situations in the hotel where she is staying with men who work there. She starts talking to a woman in a bar, and she goes with her with some other people to a club, and they end up at someone's house. Ellen likes an actor named Bobby, but she ends up spending the night with the owner of the house, though she doesn't want to. She gets herself into trouble, and makes mistakes.

Ms. Hen was surprised where this novel went. She was surprised with what happened with the character, which is what a good novel should do. She has not read a lot of book in which a female protagonist get venereal disease.

To Ms. Hen, this reminded her of novels by Ottessa Moshfegh, EILEEN, and MY YEAR OF REST AND RELAXATION. These books are about women who make bad choices, and could be considered bad people. Traditionally, woman are supposed to be good and have redeeming qualities, and be kind and gentle, and not be disgusting and humiliate themselves. Also this novel made Ms. Hen think of ANNA KARENINA, the quintessential fallen woman novel. The character does not do what convention expects her to do, and she pays the ultimate price.  

Ms. Hen felt sorry for this character; she doesn't seem very smart. All she wants is to have a good time, but she gets in trouble. She won't tell you what happens at the end of the novel, but Ms. Hen thinks Ellen will be okay. This novel is a great example of creating an anti-hero, the reader roots for her, because we have to, but we watch her spiral out of control.

Ms. Hen wanted to read a nice book to recover from the last book she read, and this isn't exactly nice, but it was a good rebound. She doesn't think this is her favorite Edna O'Brien book, but it was published a long time ago. The world has changed since this novel has been published. If it were published today, it would not be banned; Ms. Hen thinks it would have been more successful.

Ms. Hen reviews The Small Backs of Children

 

The Small Backs of Children

Lidia Yuknavitch

Harper Perennial 

2015

Ms. Hen happened to stumble across this book online. She read about it, and decided to give it a chance.

This novel is about a writer who becomes obsessed with a picture of a girl whose house is being blown up behind her in Eastern Europe, the country is not named. A group of friends, the writer's husband, a filmmaker, a bisexual poet and a performance artist, go to the girl's country to save her and bring her back to the States. They contrive a plan.

When Ms. Hen read about this book, it was in the context of a high school reading list. She was not prepared for how triggering this book can be, and she does not think it would be appropriate for a lot of young people. Ms. Hen is not a hen that gets triggered, but she does not like to read about a lot of sexual violence, which this book contains. It's almost pornography in some sections, which Ms. Hen did not like.

Also, the characters in this book are pretentious. The writer, the filmmaker, the performance artist, the photographer, the poet, and the artist do not have names. To Ms. Hen, they are people who don't have lives, she understands that artists can be crazy, and she considers herself a crazy artist, but she thinks she might not be that crazy after reading this book. She does not know what it is to be so unstable that her life is a mess. Ms. Hen has worked to appear to be normal.

This novel got rave reviews, and Ms. Hen does not understand why. Some critics said it was the best book of 2015. Ms. Hen thinks that some people might crave perversion and pretentiousness, and that is why they loved this. Ms. Hen does not crave those things. Ms. Hen is a hen that desires weirdness and originality, quirkiness and surprises.

Ms. Hen read an article while she was reading this book about a protester in Russia of the war who was told she was going to be put in a cell with other prisoners so they could rape her. That article blended into this book that Ms. Hen is reviewing, and when she remembered that, she didn't know if it was in this novel or not. She does not recommend this novel if you are sensitive or intelligent. If not, this is the book for you. 

Ms. Hen reviews The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol

 

The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol

Vintage Classics 1999

Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky

Ms. Hen decided to read this book because she was researching the meaning of the term "Russian soul," and she learned that this idea started with Gogol. She usually likes to read a Russian book in March, around her birthday, but she's late doing this. She got this book from her local library.

The collection is in two sections: Ukrainian Tales and Petersburg Tales. She had read some of the Petersburg Tales before. She thinks the Ukrainian tales are dream-like and similar to fairy tales. Some of them are funny and some dark. She especially enjoyed, "The Night Before Christmas," with the way it turns and twists and transforms into different stories.

In the Petersburg Tales, Ms. Hen was struck by the story, "The Nose." It reminds Ms. Hen of Kafka's "The Metamorphosis," in the way that it is absurd, but Gogol's story is satire, and Kafka's is dark. In "The Nose," a man wakes up to find his nose gone. A barber's wife bakes the nose into a loaf of bread, and when the barber finds it he becomes dismayed.

In the story, "The Overcoat," the character is a titular councillor who needs a new overcoat, and saves money to buy one, but it's stolen. Ms. Hen learned that scholars think this is the best Russian short story ever written, and she can understand why. It's about the anguish of poverty and the ridiculousness of bureaucracy, which Ms. Hen found similar to Kafka's THE TRIAL. Ms. Hen has read "The Overcoat" before, but she still finds it compelling, because she always finds something different in it. The character evokes pathos, and his life gets worse and worse.

This collection took a long time for Ms. Hen to read. Not because it wasn't interesting to her, but she had other things going on while she read it. Lots of chickens appear in this book, which Ms. Hen liked a lot. Ms. Hen enjoys reading classics to learn how life was in the past. She thinks they are like time machines, instead of learning about history from a class or a non-fiction book, we can learn through the pages of book written a long time ago about the attitudes of people, and how different the world was back then. The world has changed, but we still have a long way to go.

Ms. Hen reviews Red Clocks

Red Clocks

Leni Zumas

Back Bay Books/ Little, Brown

2018

Ms. Hen read about this novel a while ago, and at first she didn't want to read it, because it's about how difficult it is to be a woman, and Ms. Hen already knows that. It's described as being similar to THE HANDMAID'S TALE, and it is, but it takes place in the very near, realistic future. Ms. Hen thinks it might be almost too realistic.

This novel is about women who live in a small town on the coast of Oregon. A biographer, a mother, a daughter, and a mender enter the novel and it's revealed that the biographer desires a child, but is not married, and is in her early forties, the mother is unhappy in motherhood, the daughter finds herself with an unwanted pregnancy, and the mender tries to heal people, lives in the woods, and shuns comforts and company.

The lives of the four women intertwine, and they want different things. The biographer is resentful of the mother's children, and her life. The daughter wants to have an abortion, but abortion is illegal in the United States. 

In vitro fertilization, and adoption by single people are also illegal. If a woman wants to go to Canada to have an abortion, she is arrested with a possible jail sentence. If a woman has an abortion, she can go to jail, and if someone performs an abortion, that person can also be arrested with possible jail time.

Ms. Hen was entranced by this novel. Not only is the writing exquisite, the characters and their lives were so realistic, Ms. Hen thinks that they are people she could know. She loved all the characters, but was especially interested in the Mender, because she is so strange. Ms. Hen doesn't know anyone like that, but she imagines there are people like her. Hermits, who stay away from people, prefer animals, don't like artificial food or fabrics, and know ways to heal with herbs.

Ms. Hen breezed through this novel. She thinks it might be one of the best books she read this year. She thinks it's important, because it looks at all the stages of being a woman, and how the different characters handle their lives. Reality can be a difficult thing to handle, and most of the time, Ms. Hen does not like to face it. She reads her books and looks at the trees, and the world keeps going on. The birds still sing in the spring, and always have.
 

Ms. Hen reviews Remote Control

 

Remote Control

Nnedi Okorafor

Tordotcom Books

2020

Ms. Hen decided to read this novel, because she had read another by this author recently, NOOR, and wanted more. This novel is very different in the way that it is a fable or a fairy tale, and is very short. Ms. Hen read this quickly.

This novel is about a young girl named, Sankofa, known as the adopted child of the Angel of Death. She has powers that others do not understand. She can glow green, and she cannot touch technology, because she will break it. She travels to towns in Ghana where she is invited into people's houses, but everyone is afraid of her.

She received her power from a seed. Her family and entire town died because of her, but she didn't understand why. She is alone in the world, and wants to go back home, and when she goes home, her town is transformed. 

This novel is written like a fable. It's about a girl who is alone, and she wants to be accepted. Some of this novel reminded Ms. Hen of stories of witch hunts. People do not understand Sankofa; they drive her out, and try to kill her. Other aspects remind her of the story of the Midas touch, where the characters turns everything into gold by touching it. This is similar, but instead of turning things to gold, Sankofa breaks them, or she kills people.

Ms. Hen liked the simple way this novel is written. It's almost like a children's book, except adult issues are discussed. Ms. Hen admires the writing style.

Ms. Hen recommends this novel, but the reader has to be prepared for something weird. When she first started reading it, she wasn't into it, because her head was still swimming with the previous novel she read. That happens sometimes, when her head is so full, that it needs to take a break. REMOTE CONTROL packs a punch, but be ready to travel to a strange place.

Ms. Hen reviews All the Light We Cannot See

All the Light We Cannot See

Anthony Doerr

Scribner

2014

Ms. Hen decided to read this novel because she had read about it, and had been meaning to get to it for a while. It was recommended to her, and when she started reading it, she realized it was the perfect book for her in that moment. She usually shies away from reading really long books, but this moved fast, and she gulped it down.

This novel is about a young blind girl, Marie Laure, who lives in France, and a young man, Werner, who lives in Germany during World War II. The narrative darts back and forth between these two characters, and we learn about Marie Laure's life with her father in Paris; he works at the Museum of Natural History as a locksmith, and they leave for the north of France at the outbreak of the war.

Werner is an orphan in Germany, but he has talent with electronics and radios, and he goes to school to learn to be a soldier, but he is sensitive and does not totally embrace the Nazi ideals. Werner's and Marie Laure's lives intersect. A stone called the Sea of Flames lies hidden in the museum, legend has it that it is a cursed stone, and whoever is in possession of it will live forever, but their loved ones will perish.

Ms. Hen loved the way this novel moved back and forth between the two characters, and also between time periods. She thinks there is enough mystery to keep the reader reading, and the chapters are short, so this is a fast read. The novel is also a thriller, and Ms. Hen didn't know what would happen in the end.

Ms. Hen thinks the writing in this novel is exquisite and precise. Each word is carefully placed where it is. She also admires the way the author wrote the sections about Marie Laure, and how she moves in the world. It's difficult to write about a blind person, but reading these parts made Ms. Hen understand that the character would smell odors on people others would not, and hearing sounds and understanding what they mean that seeing people would not be able to decipher. Writing about disabled people can be challenging, but the author succeeds in this.

Ms. Hen thinks this book is lovely, and she understand why it is critically acclaimed. It's a tender novel about life and love and war, and Ms. Hen would recommend it to anyone who wishes to be swept away.