"We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves" by Karen Joy Fowler
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
I keep my eye open for books that have either already won literary awards or are being considered for awards. But It's a hit or miss proposition since not all those books are necessarily my cup of tea. However, winning an award or being considered for one is usually a sign that the book has some real heft or literary merit to it as opposed to just being a well-written diversion. At any rate, the book has already been awarded the PEN/Faulkner Award and is currently short-listed for the Man Booker Prize. It was also a nominee for the Nebula Award and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award which basically means a lot of different people have read the book and found it to be worth the time and effort to read compared to a lot of other books out there.
With that said, the prose in this book isn't difficult if that's what you're thinking (like they typical Irish author's writing tends to be, as an example). In fact, the book is written in the form of a simple narrative from the perspective of a 22 year old college woman who's reflecting on her life, both past and present.
At first, the book seemed kind of whimsical (no, I'm not gay just because I used that word) as the narration involved the woman's recollection of her life when she was 5 years old. In fact, a lot of the early part of the book is about what happened when the main character was 5. The author seemed to perfectly capture that illogical reasoning of children at that age who may very well come to believe something just because it seems to conform to their emotional reactions. But as the book progressed, I could see real depth in both the story and the telling of the story as well as some quite telling observations about humans beings in general and the human race as a whole. On balance, I guess the author could have been making a connection between the two.
Whether that was intentional or not, most better books work on more than one level like a Disney animated movie that offers humor for both children and adults. In other words, there's a good story and some kind of underlying truth about the human condition that doesn't come across as overtly (or overly) preachy as if you're being talked down to in some way.
At only 308 pages (with not that many words per page, I should add), it's both an easy read and a worthwhile one. I highly recommend it.
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
I keep my eye open for books that have either already won literary awards or are being considered for awards. But It's a hit or miss proposition since not all those books are necessarily my cup of tea. However, winning an award or being considered for one is usually a sign that the book has some real heft or literary merit to it as opposed to just being a well-written diversion. At any rate, the book has already been awarded the PEN/Faulkner Award and is currently short-listed for the Man Booker Prize. It was also a nominee for the Nebula Award and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award which basically means a lot of different people have read the book and found it to be worth the time and effort to read compared to a lot of other books out there.
With that said, the prose in this book isn't difficult if that's what you're thinking (like they typical Irish author's writing tends to be, as an example). In fact, the book is written in the form of a simple narrative from the perspective of a 22 year old college woman who's reflecting on her life, both past and present.
At first, the book seemed kind of whimsical (no, I'm not gay just because I used that word) as the narration involved the woman's recollection of her life when she was 5 years old. In fact, a lot of the early part of the book is about what happened when the main character was 5. The author seemed to perfectly capture that illogical reasoning of children at that age who may very well come to believe something just because it seems to conform to their emotional reactions. But as the book progressed, I could see real depth in both the story and the telling of the story as well as some quite telling observations about humans beings in general and the human race as a whole. On balance, I guess the author could have been making a connection between the two.
Whether that was intentional or not, most better books work on more than one level like a Disney animated movie that offers humor for both children and adults. In other words, there's a good story and some kind of underlying truth about the human condition that doesn't come across as overtly (or overly) preachy as if you're being talked down to in some way.
At only 308 pages (with not that many words per page, I should add), it's both an easy read and a worthwhile one. I highly recommend it.
