The minds of twelve-year old girls are wound round and round with golden chains, padlocked shut, and the key tossed out the car window on the way to the fast-food restaurant. This is probably a good thing, since what they keep in there isn't always very nice. Human sacrifices, cockeyed sexual adventures both sadistic and masochistic, also kitties with balls of yarn and puppies chewing on slippers and soft pink babies and disembowelings.
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
A while back, I swooned over Kathryn Davis' novel The Thin Place. Shortly after I made that post, much to my dismay, I misplaced the book. It resurfaced recently, and I am swooning all over again. This paragraph blew me away (especially since I'm the mother of a very complex twelve year old girl)...
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Re "The Thin Place"...my group book will need to choose a new book this Sunday and I'm considering suggesting "The Thin Place" but despite some very good reviews, I'm a little concerned because it sounds plotless and complex and potentially difficult, and books in that style just don't fly with the group, no matter what the critics say. (I was also considering James Lasdun's "Seven Lies," and a memoir by Irish author John MaGahern.) Any comments?
Hmmm...As much as I'm adoring The Thin Place, it might be a difficult book club book, Kit, especially if your group tends to be averse to plotless complex work (there is plot to be found, but it is language that is really at the forefront of this book.) I highly recommend it for you personally, but I'm not sure whether to recommend it for your group. I'm not familiar with the other books you mentioned...Good luck making a decision! Let me know what you choose...
xo
gayle
Well, we're going with the l965 novel "The Dark," by John McGahern, which has a fascinating history. Banned in Ireland when it came out, for frank discussions of profanity, and various forms of abuse--parental and sexual--it was widely acclaimed when the ban was overturned forty years later and the writer compared to one of Ireland's most-honored sons...Joyce. Honest!
If you saw McGahern's piece in Granta last year about this time, called "The Lanes," you may have some idea of the mesmerizing simplicity of his style. Interestingly, the LATimes reviewed the late writer's recent memoir--"All Will Be Well"--and said it covered much of the same territory originally seen in "The Dark"...so we decided to read the novel. Thanks for asking!
I will definitely seek McGahern out. Thanks for the tip, Kit!
xo
gayle
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