Obviously, I had not been to our blog page in some time. Even at this date, I enjoyed going back and reading what people had posted about the Kingsolver book. Amy must be the most faithful of us all, as she is the only person who wrote about DEWEY. Though I'm a dog person at heart, I like cats too and enjoyed DEWEY but really didn't have anything to say about it.
Now THE LACE READER is a different matter. I'm a good reader, but I felt confused early on, and by the time I got to the end, I felt duped. The experience was similar to reading Toni Morrison. (I've read every one of her books and have not understood any of them.) I wonder how my reading experience would have differed if I had done a chart of characters because I kept feeling that I needed one. Angela is planning to do one when she reads it, as several of had mentioned that we thought it would help.
I thought the twin issue was well established and had even made a mental comparison to THE THIRTEENTH TALE. However, once here are some things that bothered me:
Towner says she hates her mother (May), yet why is she so obsessed in looking for May's lights?
There was a mention that May and Emma were half-sisters. What?
Towner talked about how she and Lyndley grew up separately, yet there were many, many accounts of them playing the game together and spending what sounded to me like massive amounts of time together.
Reference to Cal and Emma not allowing Lyndley near May (p. 242) Why not?
Reference to Towner being Eva's grandniece (p. 285) What? I thought Eva was Towner's grandmother.
Then toward the end Emma is referred to as Auntie Boynton.
It may be that I'm totally confused and didn't really understand the book, but on the whole, it did not resonate with me, and I wanted it to. There were many characters and ideas that I liked, but Barry's writing is not in the same league with Setterfield or Kingsolver. Do you really think Towner could have dragged Angela by the hair while swimming? The book just felt like a rip-off. Okay, at the end we just wrap it up with a mentally ill narrator--almost like saying, "I woke up, and it was all a dream."
One last interesting note. This week's TIME magazine had an article about how publishing is changing. THE LACE READER was originally self-published but went on to a $2 million deal with a publisher.
