- Marrow: A Love Story by Elizabeth Lesser
It is rare that I close a book and put it on the shelf
unfinished. It feels like a defeat to me and like an insult to the book.
However, after a bit of internal turmoil, I did just that with Marrow. I'm not
going to give it a rating in terms of stars, but I think it still warrants a
short "review" of sorts.
I'm definitely more of a fiction gal, but I was drawn to
Marrow when it first came to my attention (note: I received a review copy from
the publisher free of charge). I finally pulled it down to delve into (life has
been more than a bit busy) after hearing the author talking about some related
items on NPR. I was interested in how the two sisters came to know each other,
how they accomplished the merger of souls as they went through the donation process.
I got a few glimpses of this and enjoyed a few pages here and there about the
very different childhoods that can be had within the same walls. However, the portion devoted to this was so
tiny. Much more of the book, at least in the just-shy-of-100pps I read, was
something akin to either a self-help book crossed with a primer on the author's
view of the life (a mix of various social science disciplines).
I didn't want that and I almost began to resent the time I
spent on the book. With time a precious commodity of late and truly needing my
reading to be about pleasure and to help me feel refreshed rather than drained,
I put this aside.
- Mister Monkey by Francine Prose
First things first...this is about a children's play that
involves a monkey played by a young boy. It is not, however, a children's book.
Okay, moving on. This novel follows a number of people both
directly and tangentially tied to a mediocre production of a fairly mediocre
play based on a beloved children's novel. Early on, the reader experiences a
particularly notable showing in which the young boy, a gymnast on the verge of
puberty who has a wreck of a stage mother as his primary parent) who plays the
monkey wreaks a bit of havoc including sexually assaulting one of the adult
actresses (he's supposed to jump in her arms, he...well...humps in them
instead). This episode factors into a number of the different narratives the
reader comes across as Prose takes them from one character to another to another,
with each character serving as the protagonist for one chapter.
As I suppose is common with this sort of book, I found
myself really enjoying some chapters and hurrying to get through others. The
word "zany" pops up in many reviews...both in reference to the book
and to the play at the center of its orbit...and that's pretty much the best
way to sum it up. Zany but also, at times, dark. Along those lines, I feel like
it was far from a serious read, although it did have some serious moments and
serious thoughts including a lot about destiny, loneliness, and even the suitability
of evolution as a topic for children. Honestly, I finished it a while back and
while I remember my response to some characters' tales, I can't really remember
a feeling about the book as a whole. I think that probably sums it up best.
3 stars. That falls a bit below my somewhat standard 3.5 which is what I'd usually give a book that I generally enjoyed but didn't feel all that strongly about. The lower score meshes with the fact that I enjoyed parts of it but was very much ready for this book to end. I received this book free of charge from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
It doesn't bother me and I imagine it is evident from the
summary and the reviews one can find here and elsewhere, but both sex and
religion (largely in reference to the aforementioned issue of evolution) come
up.
