feather_ghyll (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
feather_ghyll) wrote2012-12-09 03:27 pm
feather_ghyll) wrote2012-12-09 03:27 pm
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REVIEW: Girl Reading
Girl Reading: Katie Ward Virago 2012
I picked up this book in a charity shop because of the title, of course. It’s a collection of (long) short stories that all feature girls (or women) reading that, until the last story, are only tangentially linked. The stories cover various periods of time and places and, despite the book’s title, are more about art – painting, photography and virtual representations, also women’s roles as subjects and artists, or as muses and creators. The stories are all long enough to focus on more than one character and to dart off in unexpected directions. To quote the end of one
‘There is a world under here, and Gwen never knew it. There is a world under here, and it is completely different from how she dreamed it.’
As a whole, this is an absorbing book, and I thought the final story, set in the future, which audaciously links and lends a new perspective to what has gone before, was a success. I admired the writing at a stylistic level, although I didn’t see what the affectation of not using quote marks to distinguish dialogue from anything else added except confusion. I also didn’t like all the stories – I’ve read stuff that's covered similar ground as the medieval story set in Sienna before, only here I thought too much of a contemporary viewpoint intruded (possibly also true in 'Portrait of a Lady'). Fortunately, it was followed by probably my favourite story, featuring Esther, an intelligent, sensible deaf woman who is a maidservant to the not entirely happy family of a Dutch artist. There is a sense of being on the brink in this story, as a stolen moment of reading that reconnects Esther with the imaginative child that she once was - she wanted to fight dragons - inspires a painting that is both dangerous and valuable. To a lesser extent, I liked the story about twin sisters and the one set closest to our day, but the story set during the first world war was a bit of a tester, as the main character is teenage Gwen, in the throes of her first love affair with an unworthy object and who has quite the wrong idea about many things. That was a bit of a drudge.
I was aware from the contents page that the final story would be set in the future – it’s a future that’s very much informed by now, with a woman trying to juggle her work with her far-distant family, parents’ concern about how much time their children are spending in virtual reality and the age-old question of how much of youthful idealism has been compromised or corrupted by life. There’s also a mysterious AI figure that embodies the images of a girl reading (or literate women) who have populated the book. This is a book about the ideas that consume (women) readers, although for me it was a book to be admired intellectually rather than loved.
This half-way house, in form, suits me better than a collection of discrete stories, although I still prefer one big story as told in a novel. The final story tries to convince that this is a collection of specifically linked stories, although the reason why is deliberately left mysterious.
I picked up this book in a charity shop because of the title, of course. It’s a collection of (long) short stories that all feature girls (or women) reading that, until the last story, are only tangentially linked. The stories cover various periods of time and places and, despite the book’s title, are more about art – painting, photography and virtual representations, also women’s roles as subjects and artists, or as muses and creators. The stories are all long enough to focus on more than one character and to dart off in unexpected directions. To quote the end of one
‘There is a world under here, and Gwen never knew it. There is a world under here, and it is completely different from how she dreamed it.’
As a whole, this is an absorbing book, and I thought the final story, set in the future, which audaciously links and lends a new perspective to what has gone before, was a success. I admired the writing at a stylistic level, although I didn’t see what the affectation of not using quote marks to distinguish dialogue from anything else added except confusion. I also didn’t like all the stories – I’ve read stuff that's covered similar ground as the medieval story set in Sienna before, only here I thought too much of a contemporary viewpoint intruded (possibly also true in 'Portrait of a Lady'). Fortunately, it was followed by probably my favourite story, featuring Esther, an intelligent, sensible deaf woman who is a maidservant to the not entirely happy family of a Dutch artist. There is a sense of being on the brink in this story, as a stolen moment of reading that reconnects Esther with the imaginative child that she once was - she wanted to fight dragons - inspires a painting that is both dangerous and valuable. To a lesser extent, I liked the story about twin sisters and the one set closest to our day, but the story set during the first world war was a bit of a tester, as the main character is teenage Gwen, in the throes of her first love affair with an unworthy object and who has quite the wrong idea about many things. That was a bit of a drudge.
I was aware from the contents page that the final story would be set in the future – it’s a future that’s very much informed by now, with a woman trying to juggle her work with her far-distant family, parents’ concern about how much time their children are spending in virtual reality and the age-old question of how much of youthful idealism has been compromised or corrupted by life. There’s also a mysterious AI figure that embodies the images of a girl reading (or literate women) who have populated the book. This is a book about the ideas that consume (women) readers, although for me it was a book to be admired intellectually rather than loved.
This half-way house, in form, suits me better than a collection of discrete stories, although I still prefer one big story as told in a novel. The final story tries to convince that this is a collection of specifically linked stories, although the reason why is deliberately left mysterious.