A Home At The End Of The World by Michael Cunningham
Title: A Home At The End Of The World
Author: Michael Cunningham
Published: 1990
Pages: 343
Summary: Here are two decades of American life told through four people: Bobby and gay Jonathan, growing up together in a small town in the 1970s; Jonathan's mother Alice; and unconventional Clare, with whom the two grown-up men form a family.
I did enjoy this book, though I had a few problems with it. There is no doubt that it was beautifully written, many of the passages and anecdotes the characters told really struck a cord with me and stayed with me long after I had put the book down. Though I dearly wish that it hadn't been written in the first person, especially since it was told from the point of view of four different characters. There were time when I found the changing from character to character jarring and a little frustrating.
One of the main things that I found was that even though Alice, Jonathan, Bobby and Clare each have distinctly different stories, all their stories were told in the same voice it was hard to differentiate between them. I also found it frustrating that we learned about Jonathan and Bobby's life and story mainly from Alice and Clare. Jonathan was my favorite character and I didn't really like how his story wasn't more involved and explored, it was hard to get a sense of who he really was and why he acted the way he did. There was one exchange between Bobby and Clare where they talk about Jonathan's actions (or non actions) where Clare says "You know how he is." I actually yelled at the book then, because the reader doesn't know how Jonathan is because the author doesn't really tell us who he is. i found myself making up my own back story for why Jonathan up and left the way he did.
Some chapters were long and rambley and covered only a few days in the lives of our heroes, some were short and to the point and spanned a couple of years. The ending was a little abrupt, almost like the author wasn't sure how to bring the four stories to a close. But I wasn't expecting a neat ending, or a happy one...which is just as well really.
All in all I did like the book, I liked the characters for the most part. They were very human, imperfect and real and sometimes they made mistakes and sometimes they learned from them. I may re read the book in a few months, a re read will either make me fall in love with it or just make the things I found frustrating the first time round even more so.
Author: Michael Cunningham
Published: 1990
Pages: 343
Summary: Here are two decades of American life told through four people: Bobby and gay Jonathan, growing up together in a small town in the 1970s; Jonathan's mother Alice; and unconventional Clare, with whom the two grown-up men form a family.
I did enjoy this book, though I had a few problems with it. There is no doubt that it was beautifully written, many of the passages and anecdotes the characters told really struck a cord with me and stayed with me long after I had put the book down. Though I dearly wish that it hadn't been written in the first person, especially since it was told from the point of view of four different characters. There were time when I found the changing from character to character jarring and a little frustrating.
One of the main things that I found was that even though Alice, Jonathan, Bobby and Clare each have distinctly different stories, all their stories were told in the same voice it was hard to differentiate between them. I also found it frustrating that we learned about Jonathan and Bobby's life and story mainly from Alice and Clare. Jonathan was my favorite character and I didn't really like how his story wasn't more involved and explored, it was hard to get a sense of who he really was and why he acted the way he did. There was one exchange between Bobby and Clare where they talk about Jonathan's actions (or non actions) where Clare says "You know how he is." I actually yelled at the book then, because the reader doesn't know how Jonathan is because the author doesn't really tell us who he is. i found myself making up my own back story for why Jonathan up and left the way he did.
Some chapters were long and rambley and covered only a few days in the lives of our heroes, some were short and to the point and spanned a couple of years. The ending was a little abrupt, almost like the author wasn't sure how to bring the four stories to a close. But I wasn't expecting a neat ending, or a happy one...which is just as well really.
All in all I did like the book, I liked the characters for the most part. They were very human, imperfect and real and sometimes they made mistakes and sometimes they learned from them. I may re read the book in a few months, a re read will either make me fall in love with it or just make the things I found frustrating the first time round even more so.