Tag Archives: fiction

Behind the Scenes at the Museum

I’ve been a little afraid of writing this book review. Why? Because I love the book so much, and I don’t think I can convey how awesome it is without reproducing the entire thing here for you to simply read directly.

The front of my edition calls it “darkly comic” and that is oh-so-accurate. To that I would add evocative, beautiful, poignant, understated, humorous, heartbreaking, original.

I first read this book by accident. I had just won a prize for the best short story in my grade–I think I was in 9th grade at the time. The prize was a gift certificate for 12,000 pesetas (about $120) at a bookstore. So I went, and I shopped with a spontaneity that only free money could allow. I bought this book because the title and cover drew me in (it was called “Entre bastidores” in the Spanish translation) and fell in love with it.

Then I went to college, and spotted the book in its original English at the college bookstore. It was used, and cheap–I snatched it up. And I fell in love with it again. I recently re-read it, and realized that I needed to blog about it immediately.

The narrator, Ruby Lennox, starts speaking at the moment of her conception, with the exclamation “I exist!” The writing is realistic and revelatory of human nature in its details, but it blends in almost magical elements seamlessly, such as the case of Ruby being able to speak to us from the womb. Don’t get me wrong–this book isn’t part of the South American magical realism genre–it’s something totally different. In its own class, in my opinion.

In between Ruby’s accounts of daily life in York living above the pet shop with a philandering father and a mother who takes out her rage by cleaning obsessively, there are chapters that spin off into the past. Ruby may come across an old button that’s been kicking around in the attic, or her mother may use a particular expression that her own mother used, and with these tidbits as springboards, an omniscient narrator segues into a tale about one of Ruby’s ancestors. Like her great grandmother, who ran off with a traveling photographer one hot and dusty night. Or her grandmother, losing her lovers to the war and alienating her sister. Her aunt, who hopped on a boat to America with her fatherless baby. Her own mother, trying desperately to be interesting, beautiful, and plucky, but ending up in a marriage that has her butting her head up against the walls of her own soul.

As Ruby grows up with her two older sisters–the know-it-all, melancholy Patricia and the bossy and attention-getting Gillian–she realizes little by little that there’s a family mystery she has been exluded from. Shadowy memories and evasive answers eventually drive her to find out what exactly she has lost.

When I finish this book, my heart aches. It ached so much this time around that I went and wrote a song, which maybe one day I’ll share with you here. Kate Atkinson is an incredible writer, and this book is one of my favorites of all times.

If you like her style, her novel “Human Croquet” is also fabulous, with the narrator/main character slipping in and out of time. In all her works, Kate Atkinson gravitates towards the themes of motherhood, the loss of loved ones, the bond of sisters, and the mystery of memory. I hope you enjoy her work as much as I do!

The Emily trilogy

Have any of you read the Emily books?

I have. And not just once–probably a dozen times through, starting at approximately age 9, and continuing to this very moment. At this exact minute, I have the last book (“Emily’s Quest”) on my desk, bookmarked with a receipt from Starbucks, with only about 100 pages left before I sadly have to close the doors on this magical world. Authored by L.M. Montgomery (most beloved for “Anne of Green Gables”), this trilogy is one of my lifelong companions. Know what I mean? Some books just walk through life with you.

Yes, they are a little sentimental. Maybe a lot. If you didn’t grow up with this writing, you might find it a little too saccarine. Even I wondered if I had grown out of them for the first dozen pages . . . and then quickly adapted again to the style. But its faults aside, if you have that girlishly romantic streak in you, you might just love them as much as I do, and be swept up in the torrent of the story. However much the plot may end up in satisfying places, there is also real heartbreak strewn throughout the story. Twists that make my heart clench even now, especially as I know the moments in question are approaching.

Emily, a native of Canada born some time in the early 20th century (or late 19th?), is orphaned at age 11, and taken to live with her relatives the Murrays, a clan of people known for their pride, traditions, and general hoity-toitiness. Tradition has it that in the days of Noah, there was a special ark just for the Murrays.

Emily moves to a a farm called New Moon to live with her two spinster aunts and “simple” cousin Jimmy. New Moon is a place of tradition and beauty, a place where only candles are burned–gas lamps being too modern–, where the parlor is meant for company, and where Emily must wear buttoned boots instead of running barefoot. Emily, with (of course) pale skin, thick black hair and violet-grey eyes, is a dreamy and imaginative girl who is always caught up in one flight of fancy or another. She’s an aspiring poetess, a loyal friend, and, having one foot in fairyland, not always as well-mannered and proper as her stiff-spined family might desire. The trilogy begins when she’s 11 and ends when she’s 24, covering all those important years of growth, maturity, awakening, and the beginnings of romantic love. Through narration (with just enough omnipresence of the author) and Emily’s journal entries, we watch Emily evolve and grow from a girl to a woman, pursuing her unconventional dream of making a living for herself through her pen, gaining her independence, and (of couse) finding love.

While L.M. Montgomery’s trademarks are all over the books (an orphan, a stiff and proper older woman whose love this orphan earns over time, a woman who aspires to support herself and be independent, etc.), Emily is a very different character than Anne of Green Gables, and most definitely has her own voice. In another life, she and I are fast friends, and never doubt it.

Your library is bound to have these books, so look them up and check them out! And then you will sink into this lovely world where the sea is moaning, the fires are rustling, the cats are prowling, and the wind is moving in the evergreens.