The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake Musings
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake has got to be one of the oddest books I have ever read and quite frankly, I keep wanting to call the book The Particular Oddness of Lemon Cake. In fact, I don’t know what is going on at the moment but I seem to be picking the ‘odd’ books. First I picked up Room, which I couldn’t even continue reading (though it was only £1.99 for the Kindle so I may try again), then Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. Unlike Room and similar to Extremely Loud, The Particular Sadness has an appeal about it which keeps me reading. The oddities aside, the main character, Rose, is lovely and the story captures my attention.
In comparison to Extremely Loud, which had very long chapters, each chapter is rather short which is a welcomed relief. I don’t always have time to read much, if I’m on the bus for example, so it’s nice to be able to finish a chapter quickly.
Unfortunately, the more I read the book, the more I wonder how the hell it got published. I’ve read countless books about writing rules and etiquette when it comes to novels and the Particular Sadness seems to break a few. The amount of s/he saids is vast, more than is needed, I feel. To the point where it stilts the prose. I’ve read a handful of lines which are as follows:
“Sorry, she said, laughing. My little sister is having a tickle fight with my dad, she said.”
I’m not sure what purpose the author has in using she said twice. It’s bad enough used several times in several lines of dialogue, but to use it twice in the same piece of dialogue? I can’t understand it.
And it’s all prose.
Extremely Loud appeared to be as a whole, just dialogue or just prose and that worked in an interesting way. However, I’m not sure a story works where dialogue is simply part of prose. I’m not entirely sure why or how books get accepted by publishers when they don’t use speech marks. Though at least it’s not as bad as the book I read many years ago where every word seemed to begin with a capital letter, or at least the words of the non-speech marked dialogue anyway.
The story itself is one where you have to suspend your disbelief. How can a nine year old child know how someone is feeling from food that they prepared? How can a nine year old child know everything there is to know about that food, where it was prepared, who prepared it, what ingredients are in, simply from one bite?
Disbelief aside, it’s a nice idea. It’s like that she’s an empath, someone who knows how others are feeling, with a food preparation twist. It works in the context of the story and it’s actually quite unique.
Everything below here is quite heavily spoiler based.
Something which troubles me, however, is how the story is set out. Not only the way it’s written with prose and dialogue. Also, the way it’s written in story content. In the first few chapters Rose is a nine year old and it’s like I’m just getting to know this wonderful little girl when all of a sudden she’s twelve and now, she’s seventeen. Time moves too quickly, so quick that it’s hard to keep up enough to relate to the character. In the same day, reading a few chapters, she’s literally grown up from a pre-teen to an almost high school graduate. That’s a huge chunk of time to have passed. The fact that she’s kissing boys and exploring that side of friendships and relationships is really something of importance. The teenage years, the years in school are so important in building a person and it’s like we’ve missed the bit in between. One minute she’s hiding away Barbie dolls and the next she’s hiding away playing tonsil tennis with someone we don’t even know.
I don’t hate it, necessarily; I just can’t quite love it either. If the story was slowed down and focused on a period of Rose’s life instead of the whole thing, then perhaps I’d be more willing to love this book.
Another unfortunate aspect of the story and the speed it’s going at, Rose’s brother and his best friend are there one minute and gone the next. They go from high school graduation to George not even existing in Rose’s life and her brother continuing to live as a hermit. I’m most concerned because I believe that her genius brother with terrible social skills is potentially on the autistic spectrum and yet the novel has completely failed to mention it. There’s so much focus on how he likes his own company and doesn’t fit in well with new people, that he has few friends and is extremely intelligent in spite of his social difficulties. I don’t expect the book to focus on him having any disability or social disorder, but if a condition fits, surely it’s better to acknowledge it? For the simple fact of doing so promoting the fair treatment of those with disabilities and disorders. I don’t expect a whole essay about it, but a line about how he was tested and they believe he has a social disorder would perhaps be sufficient.
When I write these musings on a book I’m reading, I often make notes at various stages of reading. Sometimes my thoughts jump, which I guess is why I’m writing this line, to inform you that actually the paragraph above is about to be made redundant.
It’s amazing what sort of judgement you can put upon a story when you don’t have every piece of the jigsaw. The closer I get to the end, the more I find out and actually, I don’t think Joseph has Autistic Spectrum Disorder at all, I think it’s a lot more complex (and unique). I worry that we’ll never get to know what it is, I am so close to the end and there are a few unanswered questions and I really wish that I could find out the answers. I fear that may not be possible, though the final pages of a good book often reveal huge details. I wonder if this will be one of those books…and I’m excited to find out.
And now I’m just confused.
One of those moments where WTF? is a completely valid response. I don’t even know what to say, there are no words.
Rose can taste people’s feelings. Her grandfather could smell people’s feelings. Her father was too afraid to find out his gift but knew it was to do with hospitals (which he avoided). And her brother, well…he could turn into inanimate objects…I think…I’m not even sure I fully understand. I’d have much preferred to find out what her father’s special skill was, considering what I discovered about Joseph. I just don’t know what to think.
Jodi Picoult described the book as ‘beautiful’ and in so many ways I believe this to be true. The concept, the idea of the book is truly beautiful and amazing. There are simply some things which are not quite so beautiful or amazing and actually made the book feel quite weak.
Rose and her food empathy is probably the most stunning aspect of the book and perhaps the most significant part. I just can’t buy into whatever it is that happens with her brother and to be honest, I’m quite disappointed with how that turned out.
I know that, as a writer, I struggle to write endings. But this books ending wasn’t even anything…it wasn’t that it was a bad ending, in the wording, it was the content. I just don’t know what to say because I’m so confused. Generally the storyline has been, what I would consider, quite weak.