The Magician's Assistant
The Magician's Assistant, Ann Patchett
I enjoyed this book for its very strong story telling and character development. I also was continually surprised where the plot went. I kept expecting X to happen, and instead it was Y.
I never could fully like or relate to the main character because her life choices did not make sense to me - I mean the sum total of life choices that lead up to the opening of the book. Still, if I knew this person in the world, rather than trying to read her inner life, I think I would admire and/or like her quite well. I had the tension the whole read of feeling like a good friend was making choices I would have counseled her against... But still, the character was complete and whole and beautiful, if not my kind of person. Really well written. There is no rule that says in order for a book to be good, one must be able to relate to the choices of the protagonist.
I really was entralled by the big omissions in her life, which were 1) why was it really ok with her to spend her life in love with a gay man who never returned her erotic love? and 2) why didn't her parents just tell her they met in a concentration camp?? Why, even into adulthood, didn't she put 2 and 2 together and work that out? Or perhaps they didn't, and their secrecy was about something else besides protecting her from that particular horrific possible past.
My very favorite thing about this book, besides the Rabbit, was the dreams. When she went to sleep, she got to meet up with people she loved who had died and to have ongoing, completing-unfinished-business, closure conversations with them, and not just that, but she got to have pleasant exchanges with the ones she missed who were forever gone from her waking world. Those dreams, which really could have been pat or a fake construct too transparent to fit, were somehow, for some reason, perfectly written and inserted into an otherwise very realistic story. The magic of those dreams offered an impossible hope to the reader - that we might be so lucky in our own dreams.
The twist at the end - I was not surprised by the relationship that blossoms at the end of the book, and I don't know if that's because there was enough subtle foreshadowing or if it was just so natural that it had to happen (or aren't those two the same thing?).
This was a light, pleasant read (despite the overall morbidity of the ideas involved), a page turner, a well crafted story with an unusual cast of characters and unexpected turns of events.
4 out of 5 stars.
I enjoyed this book for its very strong story telling and character development. I also was continually surprised where the plot went. I kept expecting X to happen, and instead it was Y.
I never could fully like or relate to the main character because her life choices did not make sense to me - I mean the sum total of life choices that lead up to the opening of the book. Still, if I knew this person in the world, rather than trying to read her inner life, I think I would admire and/or like her quite well. I had the tension the whole read of feeling like a good friend was making choices I would have counseled her against... But still, the character was complete and whole and beautiful, if not my kind of person. Really well written. There is no rule that says in order for a book to be good, one must be able to relate to the choices of the protagonist.
I really was entralled by the big omissions in her life, which were 1) why was it really ok with her to spend her life in love with a gay man who never returned her erotic love? and 2) why didn't her parents just tell her they met in a concentration camp?? Why, even into adulthood, didn't she put 2 and 2 together and work that out? Or perhaps they didn't, and their secrecy was about something else besides protecting her from that particular horrific possible past.
My very favorite thing about this book, besides the Rabbit, was the dreams. When she went to sleep, she got to meet up with people she loved who had died and to have ongoing, completing-unfinished-business, closure conversations with them, and not just that, but she got to have pleasant exchanges with the ones she missed who were forever gone from her waking world. Those dreams, which really could have been pat or a fake construct too transparent to fit, were somehow, for some reason, perfectly written and inserted into an otherwise very realistic story. The magic of those dreams offered an impossible hope to the reader - that we might be so lucky in our own dreams.
The twist at the end - I was not surprised by the relationship that blossoms at the end of the book, and I don't know if that's because there was enough subtle foreshadowing or if it was just so natural that it had to happen (or aren't those two the same thing?).
This was a light, pleasant read (despite the overall morbidity of the ideas involved), a page turner, a well crafted story with an unusual cast of characters and unexpected turns of events.
4 out of 5 stars.