11. We Need to Talk About Kevin
So. I got side-tracked from reading Great Expectations.
Title: We need to talk about Kevin
Author: Lionel Shriver
Synopsis:(from amazon.co.uk) here
My thoughts: I seem to be reading quite a lot of good books this year. It's told through letters to Eva's husband after the event. (Hurrah for epistoalry form: I love the intimacy of it, and the way it tends to link the reader more closely to the narrator.)
We need to talk about Kevin is a very in-depth exploration of the way a child develops into a 15 year old who can murder 11 people. Of course, it does raise the question of whether Kevin was born cold and indifferent enough to grow into a killer, or whether he develops into this state of mind. I don't want to linger on just this issue, since many people seem to blanket that he is cold and it isn't his mother's fault and so on.
I'm personally of the opinion that the whole novel is narrated by his mother, Eva, whose inability to bond her son is evident throughout the novel. Only once, right near the end of the book does she claim to love her son. Many of the earlier events are ambigious, and shaped by nothing more that Eva's suspsicion of a certain look in her son's eye. By contrast, her husband's saccharine perfect American family approach to parenting doesn't help either, nor does Eva's obvious preference of her younger daughter.
This novel is isn't intended to get inside Kevin's mind: Eva tries and I think she fails. If Shriver wanted us to understand the motivation of a killer, she would have written the novel from Kevin's point of view. I have to admit I found the twist at the end shocking, but apparent resolution/change in Eva's view a little too quickly slotted in to be believeable.
Up Next: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. Promise.
Title: We need to talk about Kevin
Author: Lionel Shriver
Synopsis:(from amazon.co.uk) here
My thoughts: I seem to be reading quite a lot of good books this year. It's told through letters to Eva's husband after the event. (Hurrah for epistoalry form: I love the intimacy of it, and the way it tends to link the reader more closely to the narrator.)
We need to talk about Kevin is a very in-depth exploration of the way a child develops into a 15 year old who can murder 11 people. Of course, it does raise the question of whether Kevin was born cold and indifferent enough to grow into a killer, or whether he develops into this state of mind. I don't want to linger on just this issue, since many people seem to blanket that he is cold and it isn't his mother's fault and so on.
I'm personally of the opinion that the whole novel is narrated by his mother, Eva, whose inability to bond her son is evident throughout the novel. Only once, right near the end of the book does she claim to love her son. Many of the earlier events are ambigious, and shaped by nothing more that Eva's suspsicion of a certain look in her son's eye. By contrast, her husband's saccharine perfect American family approach to parenting doesn't help either, nor does Eva's obvious preference of her younger daughter.
This novel is isn't intended to get inside Kevin's mind: Eva tries and I think she fails. If Shriver wanted us to understand the motivation of a killer, she would have written the novel from Kevin's point of view. I have to admit I found the twist at the end shocking, but apparent resolution/change in Eva's view a little too quickly slotted in to be believeable.
Up Next: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. Promise.