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This amazing memoir documents the author's life after a hectic period of time. In December, 2003 her adult daughter contracted a near-fatal toxaemia and while she was in hospital in a coma, Didion's husband had a massive coronary and was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. In the following days and months, Didion went through a process that many people will go through at some stage in their lives, but that no one likes to think about.
The credible thing about this book is that it explores emotions immediately following her husband's death as well as during her daughter's first and subsequent admissions to hospital over the time. Didion was obviously imminently capable of keeping track of immediate emotions as she was a writer already; used to scribbling things down for more exploration at a later date.
This book for me was characterised firstly by Didion's bluntness and dedication to her subject of shock, grief and recovery. This often seems to appear as a lack of feeling or sensitivity but it does demonstrate a coping strategy that many use in times of grief. The feelings in this book are also expressed in a useful way which corresponds well with the natural process of grief. Tragically, just as Didion began to rebuild her life and look to the future, her daughter collapsed and was taken to hospital presumed brain dead - she recovered amazingly, but Didion found herself unable to grieve in the months while she sat by her daughter's bedside trying to accept that there was more to lose.
This is an amazing book both about the experience of death and the processes of grief involved with it. I would highly recommend it to anyone who has lost someone close or anyone interested in how the mind copes with such a loss.
This book is a love story set during the time of the Nazi invasion of the (then) Soviet Union. Tatiana lives with her family in Leningrad and is sent out for food on the day of the announcement of the Nazi invasion. This is when she meets Alexander Belov, a captain in the Red Army who happens to also be going out with her sister. The story progresses and the Nazis get closer and closer to Leningrad until they barricade it off, leaving Tatiana and her family without necessary food and less necessary vodka. Alexander watches as rations decrease more and more and throughout the winter when people start to die. When Tatiana and her sister Dasha finally make it out, the story increasingly becomes a love story set against a backdrop of bomb blasts, low rations and the ever-present fear of discovery.
My (new) flatmate lent me this book. This series is one of her favourites. I enjoyed parts of it, and other parts less so. The book starts off realistically but as the love story spirals out of control so do the historical inaccuracies and the unlikely scenarios that Tatiana and Alexander find themselves in. A part of the book towards the end consists of 100 pages of just sex and nothing else. Although the desire in this book makes sense, the presence of this and the absence of any other part of the setting made me believe it less. The two main characters, for me, were also not believable. Tatiana seemed to reserve herself and then dramatically come out of her shell, she then fell pregnant after months and months of starvation. Some people are incredibly fertile, but not that fertile. The likelihood that she could then also suffer what she did and come out nearly unscathed was also unrealistic.
Despite this, I do realise that this story was above all a love story. The love part was done very well and with a good accuracy for the time (the notion of Alexander owning Tatiana did niggle my inner feminist a bit but it was like that back then I imagine). The continued reference to the book of poems which serves as hope not just through the poetry but also through the secretive storing of money was a nice image. The descriptions of Leningrad also built a good picture in my head and I would say they are also accurate as Simons grew up in Leningrad. I would recommend this book but people should keep in mind it is fiction, it is unrealistic in parts and it is above all else a love story. I'm currently reading the sequel.
This book features eight short stories written by an immensely talented author and all featuring Bengalese people settling into America, they also have a back story of loss.
The first story named the same as the title of the book features Ruma, a married woman with a child accommodating a visit from her father. Her mother, her father's companion has also recently died. Her father has left his job and started travelling the world. The reader is aware of a woman he has met on his trips but he feels he cannot tell his daughter. As well as detailing the loss of a wife and a mother, this story also goes into the splitting up of a family.
The second story named "Hell-Heaven" is told in the viewpoint of a girl who's family all but takes in a fellow Bengali man and whose mother slowly falls in love with him. When the man starts to form his own life, they separate barely ever seeing him any more. He builds a new life for himself and an unexpected invitation reveals the enormous differences between their adjustments to other countries.
In "A Choice of Accommodation" a recently married couples goes to a wedding at the boarding school of the groom (Amit) where his old crush is finally getting married. You can see from the beginning the trepidation they feel about the trip. Amit's past is explored, not being able to follow his dreams because of the expectations (of becoming a doctor) that his parents have in mind rather than his talent of journalism. The story is filled with the difficulties the couple experiences right until the end.
The next story - "Only Goodness" was one of my favourites. It deals with a Bengali family living in the USA with high expectations for their two children. It shows how Rahul (the boy) slowly turns away from the expectations of his parents experiencing problems that lead him to be an outcast in the family. His older sister Sudha feels responsible for introducing him to the ill he now deals with. The story comes to a sad climax at the end.
In "Nobody's Business" a young Bengali woman has a tumultuous relationship with a mystery man who from the beginning - possibly because of his own feelings for her - her flatmate suspects. When she goes on a trip, her flatmate is left to pick up the pieces of the secrets in their relationship causing her to eventually return to her senses or so it seems.
In the second section of the book, the two characters are related through three stories. Firstly when he comes back with his parents to visit, later his experiences and his life and finally when they come to meet one another once again.
All these stories are absolutely amazing and I highly recommend them all.
