Carolina Novo
this was one of those books which made me reflect a lot on my perspective about life, which made me think “I hope that when I'm older someday, I'll look back and see my life like this - a series of losses, and other things too, better things, like one of the characters says, at one point - and be at peace about it. Truth is, I think I'm terrified of aging, of watching time pass, but somehow books about time passing are my favourite kind of books. Maybe because I feel less alone, maybe because it feels that there's still a long way to go. I was completely taken by this book - the story, spanning five decades, is detailed, dense, and the characters are well written, profound, complex, as real people are, and, I believe, won't be leaving me soon. I read the book mostly over a weekend spent at my childhood home, and there was something about it that just made sense; there's something special about thinking about life at the place where life started. Maybe it's a very personal opinion, and the reasons why I did like the book so much don't apply to everyone, but I really wish I could read this book for the first time again.
Enquanto lia este livro, ao longo destas últimas semanas, não conseguia parar de pensar nele. Agora que acabou, acho que nunca o vou esquecer.
Ps: crying a lot.
if you want to be completely devastated, then sure, go for it. jesus
it hurts but it's a beautiful and brave book, about grief and death and illness, and about family - and being a sister. It made me think a lot about who we are at the end - the author says we return to the childhood - and who we are when we see others at the end as well. I think we also return to childhood then.
I am not gonna lie – I struggled with keeping on reading the book a couple of times. Not only because I found most of the characters extremely unlikable, but also because the ones I actually liked (Gracie, Louis, Noreen) seemed a bit underdeveloped; it all felt a bit flat, to be honest. I craved more depth and detail and I think that the plotline was a bit too scattered and left with some loose that needed to be tied up. Also, as I said before, I grew fond of Gracie, for many reasons - she is the oldest daughter, she is trying so hard, she is caught in one of the most difficult moments of her life and everyone seems to be unable to see that it is about her, not about all of them. I really liked her vulnerability, the fact that she is the only one that shows emotions and cries in public while the others recoil in embarrassment. So I would love to have more of her, too.
This is all to say that I spent all the reading with mixed feelings, thinking that there was always something missing, that the story wasn't fulfilling me completely. But then, right at the end, I wonder if Ann Napolitano played a little trick on me. Maybe it's just my opinion, but something on the last page (yes, last page) makes me forgive a lot of the other things. Catherine, the matriarch, says “I am lucky enough to recognise this for that it is: one of those perfect, full-to-bursting moments you wait a lifetime for, when it all comes together”. And somehow, that trespasses the narrative and becomes about that bit of the book, too. Maybe the rest of the book, incomplete, with some bits missing here and there, is a waiting room for this moment.
That is the last line of the novel. But if you go through the next pages, you'll find the ‘Acknowledgements'. I read them, and somehow, again, the book became a different thing to me. It became a very dear memory. And I know, I know – the author is one thing, the book is another. I honestly don't care. What Ann wrote, in this re-editing of her first novel, was what I needed now. She says “I wrote Within Arm's Reach a lifetime ago. It was published in 2004, when I was thirty-two years old, and while I was writing it I was convinced it would never be published. I'd already written two other failed novels in my twenties, and I had little reason to think this time would be any different. My first novel had been rejected by eighty literary agents; the second secured me an agent but my agent was unable to sell the book to a a publisher. At that point, I felt like a failure with a capital F. I was working as a personal assistant to pay my bills, and my father had started sending me law school brochures in the mail [...] I'm a different writer at fifty-one than I was at twenty-nine, I'm a different woman. Thank goodness for that! But this is the best book I was able to write when I wrote it, I was proud of it then, and I'm proud of my younger self for writing it now. I had so little belief in my ability when I wrote this novel, so little belief in my right to be a writer at all, that it feels miraculous and brave that I summoned this story and put it down on the page.”
And somehow, this brought me down to tears and to reason. Of course. She should be proud of her first novel. I'm proud of her too. It is confusing and something with some holes, but who cares? It came together at the end.
there are many criteria you can follow to review a book, but I don't feel like I can apply them here, and I don't want to. some books are just brilliant because how they make you laugh, cry, be glad to be alive, wrap around you like a warm hug. this is exactly the book you need if you want a page-turning, lovely and sad story about sisters, if you want to restore your faith in the world. this is a real comfort book, so warm that you can't stop reading it - but it was touches very important themes such as female health and available responses, addiction, pain and grief. it is also very beautiful, emotional, and well and sensibly written. also: potentially extra destructive to people with sisters. be careful.
pensei várias vezes em que avaliação dar. hesitei entre o 4 e o 5, embora nenhuma delas faça jus ao trabalho da Susana, embora tenha terminado o livro a chorar e a querer ir para a beira da minha avó, embora saiba, no fundo, desde o início da leitura, que há livros aos quais não se dá pontuação, porque não há forma de os pontuar de modo justo e não há pontuações para coisas assim. na semana em que perdemos Maria Teresa Horta, acabo de ler Susana Marques, que me leva a Maria Lamas e a todas as mulheres que, entre elas, foram capazes de narrar. quando os livros são assim – revolução, história, tempo, espaço, feita de pessoas e para pessoas que nunca estiveram em livros nem em revoluções –, não há pontuação que encapsule o seu valor. por isso, vai cinco estrelas. mas só porque a Susana é brilhante, e vale a pena apontar nisso nesta escala que não vai mais longe. no entanto, não faz sentido e não chega. não é esta a medida certa. talvez só se meça o que quer que seja, ou só se valorize, de facto, o livro, quando o lemos. há livros que só honramos lendo, e dizendo às pessoas para os lerem, até ao fim.
well, I guess that this year my type of book is stories about religion, what's built around it - the communities, the rules, the secrets, the downfalls and the salvations -, and about how people are impacted by it. in the author's biography it says “Adopted by Pentecostal parents she was raised to be a missionary. This did and didn't work out” - and I think it's always a bit like this in life, isn't it? It works and it doesn't.
After “Crossroads”, this one is probably my 2022's favourite book.
Okay, so, as expected, I did cry (a little) at the end. I understand some of the critics made about this book - that nothing incredibly “special” happens, that it is long and very descriptive. However, it worked perfectly for me, maybe because I love this type of book: long, about the passage of time and what time does to people, and about friendship, family, and love. In short, about life, showing what it looks like when we are teenagers and what it will probably look when we are middle-aged. I'm fascinated with the capacity some authors have to write about our lives' normality, and how they can capture the beauty and magic in all that normality. This book gave me “A little life” vibes (mixed with something written by Jeffrey Eugenides), because the characters' lives and the world-building are so detailed and well written that it seems that they have always been there, solid and ready, waiting for us.
Foi o meu primeiro Murakami. Comprei-o em 2011 e sei que na altura li apenas meia dúzia de páginas antes de o abandonar; acho que não era o momento para ele. Mas agora foi, e ainda bem.
A estrela a menos na pontuação deve-se apenas a dificuldades com algumas das personagens, que não me convenceram totalmente. E certos aspetos do último capítulo. Se bem que o fim em si é um daqueles que acredito que só compreenderei mais tarde.