I really liked the creative structure of this book! The four parts are presented, respectively, as a novel, the rough draft of an unfinished memoir, aI really liked the creative structure of this book! The four parts are presented, respectively, as a novel, the rough draft of an unfinished memoir, a memoir, and entries in a private diary. It isn't until the third section that you understand what the different parts have to do with one another, what they represent.
The story at the center tells about the lives of a well known couple in the early twentieth century, whose social standing was earned with great success on Wall Street. But taken together, the four sections of the book make the point that those in positions of relative power (due to wealth, status, sex, influence/reach, etc) get to decide which voices are heard, thereby controlling the narrative, and effectively "bending and realigning reality"....more
In the section called "Roots" we get what amounts to several short stories, each introducing one of tIn the beginning, I thought this book was great.
In the section called "Roots" we get what amounts to several short stories, each introducing one of the main characters. I was impressed with Powers' talent here. I was excited for where the story would take these people we had met.
But then in the meat of the story, beginning in the section called "trunk", things got sooooo sloooooooooow--seriously, even in tree time. There were still moments of wonderful writing here and there, but buried in so many extraneous words and repetitive bits, trying to hammer home the point of the book (we're depleting the Earth's resources way faster than we could ever to hope to replace them, human psychology blinds us to the obvious, and trees are the bees' knees) by saying explaining the same things over and over again. And then at the end, I was very confused by a some things. (view spoiler)[How did Ray and Dorothy connect to the rest of the story? Was Olivia their....imaginary...daughter, except real? How-what does that even mean? (hide spoiler)]
Some good things here, but it took me so much longer to read this book than it should have because I had to psych myself up just to pick it up again each time....more
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