Pearl
I slogged through this one. Not because the book itself was a slog, but because I read it this month — December. And December is definitely not a slog; rather, it’s a rapid-fire pinging of busy-ness of both the physical and mental sort. So the two sort of didn’t fit together. That being said, I liked Pearl. (I like December too.)
I finished Siân Hughes’ Booker long-listed debut novel early this morning after getting about 3 hours of sleep (oy), and the slog sped up and her vision became clear. And this novel about a girl-turned-woman who tries and tries and tries to remember her mother, who mysteriously disappears presumably after a bout of desperation, reminded me that both “good” and “bad” emotions and experiences are simply part and parcel of life and that “forgetting” (Hughes plays with this idea of “forgetting” particularly in the last chapter) to acknowledge sadness or stress (or a crappy stretch of sleep, as may be the case) likely does more harm than good. Happiness or rest mean nothing if we can’t see the counterbalance.
{Fans of Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s A Ghost in the Throat might like this one because although it’s not memoir, Hughes uses an old poem — in this case, the Middle English poem “Pearl,” written by the same person who wrote “Gawain” — as a source as well as inspiration.}
#youtakethegoodyoutakethebad
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