A Home at the End of the World...

[fajrdrako]

I just read A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham. I picked it up not realizing that he wrote The Hours, which I have not seen, or that A Home at the End of the World was made into a movie with a group of actors I do not like. If I had known, I might not have started it.

It reminded me of the novels of Carol Shields, which is not a recommendation.

Spoilers follow. If you care, stop reading now.

It's the story of two American boys and their parents, and a woman named Clare. Each chapter is narrated in turn by one or the other of them; mostly Bobby and Jonathan, who are friends or lovers from childhood. Jonathan moves to New York and takes a lover named Erich and a roommate named Clare; he makes a big point of not loving Erich, though I was beginning to wonder how he and the author defined 'love' in the first place. Eventually Jonathan falls in love with both Bobby and Clare, but his first act, on realizing this, is to run away and disappear from their lives.

By that time, I'd long lost sympathy for everyone in the book except Clare. Then Clare eventually leaves both Bobby and Jonathan, taking their daughter, without a word or warning or explanation - only a few lies about going to visit her mother. I decided they were all chumps. No sense of commitment whatsoever, and not even the sense that commitment might be something people might consider.

All the characters seemed undersexed and divorced from life. Every single one. Selfish, too. I think this says more about the author than the world he's writing about.

Comments

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

It always makes me wonder, these people fortunate enough to get published, who write such ugly and worthless things. I just don't understand. To me, writing is about creating beauty: in wordings that capture something wonderfully well, in stating or describing something that leads the reader to think something they have never thought before... creating beauty. I don't get these books that belabor horrible things. Or boring things. Or shallow things. I don't.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I don't really think the book was about ugly and worthless things, but it was about people who didn't know or care to take charge of their lives - to the point of irresponsibility. The author clearly didn't think so. I wanted more life to it all. These characters made their own problems, for no reason.

Yeah, people do that. But it isn't a very interesting theme.

[auriaephiala.livejournal.com]

You dislike Carol Shields? Oh, excellent! It's not just me.

The book sounded like a total waste of paper and your time. Condolences.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

You dislike Carol Shields? Oh, excellent! It's not just me.

Yeah. I find her boring, trivial and overblown. Don't often say so out loud, though.

The book sounded like a total waste of paper and your time. Condolences.

LOL. I think it's good for me to occasionally read a book that isn't much fun.