December Reviews

Happy holidays. How is your month going so far?  Getting hectic?  We are counting down the days now and have about one more week here before flying down south to join up with family in California. I usually do all my gift shopping once I get there since it’s usually easier and cheaper to do it that way. And if you leave it till Dec. 24 like me, then you really are living on the edge …. but don’t worry, it can (and will) be done.  Meanwhile, it’s been quite mild here this past month and there’s no snow in the forecast for the foreseeable future.  How unusual it’s been. Could it be a green Christmas this far north?!  We have a couple inches on the ground now but it’s melting away thanks to a bit of wind. Who knows what the second half of winter will bring. For now I’ll leave you with a few reviews of what I finished lately. 

There was quite a bit I liked about this novel of two sisters growing up on opposite sides of the world. One sister (Inja) grows up in war-torn Korea with her grandparents and Uncle/Aunt, while the other sister (Miran) grows up in the prosperous American suburbs with her parents. The parents left the child behind in 1948 thinking they would return soon for her but then the Korean War breaks out and they are unable to return for the child who ends up living with her extended family for more than a decade before she can be reunited. Yikes. It’s a story that highlights how difficult this decision is on all of them and also how hard returning one sister is as well — after she’s grown up in one country with family to be taken from them and placed in another country with her birth parents later in life. 

Apparently it’s based on the author’s own family story, which she talks about in a note at the end of the novel. One sister of hers was left behind in Korea then joined them later in life.  It’s an interesting premise —  family separated by war — and one that comes alive as the novel is told in alternating chapters by the two young sisters in different countries. I liked learning about the Korean side of things — the geography, history and the war and how it tore families apart. The cultural differences too are interesting. There is one main secret within the family — and perhaps a few other small ones — that come to light as the girls grow older.  

Why for instance was one sister left behind?  It is eventually revealed in the story but I’m not sure I could fully grasp it. The separation and reunification seem to cause so many hardships to the sisters and family that surely it seemed a grave mistake … but obviously the parents didn’t think war would break out when it did. Neither of the sisters has it easy:  the sister in America is sort of overlooked by her parents who are so worried about their daughter in war-torn Korea; and the daughter in Korea is being raised in rough conditions by those who are not her parents.  

Towards the end I thought maybe the novel made it out to be too much about “secrets” in the story when the hardest part to me seemed  to be one’s identity and being torn asunder from one’s family and culture. I also thought parts of the storytelling were a bit uneven:  some parts such as at the beginning when the Korean family is fleeing the invasion are active and dynamic, yet later parts in the story felt a bit soupy with emotion or less dynamic, when things are being told but not shown. It’s definitely a story with a lot of unhappiness and grief in it. The parents in the U.S. work very hard but can’t make right their previous decisions about coming to America like they did. Still I’m glad I read “The Kinship of Secrets.” It gave me some perspective on Korea and families caught in the mix of war and keeping together. 

Next up I loved the audiobook of Esi Edugyan’s award-winning novel “Washington Black,” which is performed so well by actor Dion Graham. It’s one of those novels you can easily fall into … the narration is linear and it’s told by one person throughout it as if a memoir.  The boy (nicknamed Wash) who’s born into slavery on a sugar plantation in Barbados in the 1830s luckily avoids life under his sadistic master’s hands when the master’s (nicer) Englishman brother (Titch) comes to visit and Wash becomes his assistant to his scientific experiments. Eventually Titch and Wash escape the plantation in a hot air balloon and later — with a bounty hunter on their tail — travel up the coast to Norfolk, eventually reaching the Arctic to find Titch’s father, then get separated and Wash goes on to England, Amsterdam, and Morocco in search of whether Titch is still alive. 

I loved the 19th-century science along the way that Wash gets involved with: the hot air balloon, the Arctic exploration, scuba diving, and the aquarium of the sea creatures. Wow it’s wonderful storytelling of Wash’s adventures and his coming to grips with his own identity (as a slight black man with a burned face) and what he is to the white man Titch who changed his life. Wash and Titch have an uneasy alliance with one another … that undergoes a reckoning throughout the book.

I thought “Washington Black” beautifully written and well-researched and likely my favorite novel of the year. I repeat:  it might be my Pick of the Year.  Just the mix of the great storytelling, the science and the reckoning of the boy’s life and what he’s able to do and become … was enough for me to say: Wow this is a great ride … that’s easily and perceptively told. Apparently the author based the story on a historical incident she read about but then it took off in another direction so it ended up being her made-up creation. Kudos to Esi and Dion Graham, too, who read it for the audio. It’s unlike various other slavery tales I’ve read before … so don’t let the number of stories in that genre stop you from this one. 

Lastly I just wanted to mention:  that I was able to see three good movies over the past week — wow just my luck. First off, “The Wife” starring Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce, which is based on the novel by Meg Wolitzer, is quite an intense little foray into the marriage of a couple who meet in the 1950s and whose life comes into question decades later on their travels to Stockholm, where the husband is scheduled to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Uh-oh, this movie simmers … until a secret is revealed about the couple’s lives …that explodes over the brim.  Some critics think Close will win her first Oscar for the role … she’s been nominated six times before … but will she?  Perhaps she very well could this time. It’s nearly impossible to forget how well she played the character in “Fatal Attraction” and what she did to that poor bunny…. 

Next up, we saw director Steve McQueen’s movie “Widows,” which is about three wives who decide to take matters into their own hands after their criminal husbands are killed trying to pull off a large heist in Chicago. Wow I didn’t know too much about this one going in, which is probably best not to. I had no idea it would be this intense and violent but with (“Gone Girl”) Gillian Flynn as the co-screenplay writer — adapted from the novel by Lynda La Plante — what did I expect? I should have known.

I liked the cast and thought Viola Davis and Elizabeth Debicki were especially strong. All said and done, it’s quite a powerful movie that makes you think about a number things along the way: such as how women under such tough circumstances are able to get by in their lives to earn a living. Kudos too to the little Westie dog in the movie named Olivia, who’s owned by Viola Davis’s character. She was the only nice cuddly soft thing about the story. Olivia must have been there as a juxtaposition or for comic relief. Either way, she stole quite a few scenes and was awesome. Now I’m thinking I might need an Olivia dog too, though my Lab Stella might object. 

Last up,  we rented the sailboat movie “The Mercy,” starring Colin Firth as Donald Crowhurst and Rachel Weisz as his wife.  We had been looking for this movie to come to the big screen all year long (since we had both read  books about Crowhurst), but all of a sudden it just appeared on rental and we grabbed it.  It’s based on a true story about the first solo, round the world sailboat race, which took place in 1968. Nine started the race but only one finished. This is the story of one of the racers and what tragically happened to him. 

For whatever the reason, it’s a bit of a slow start for this movie. Crowhurst — played by Firth — is quite out of his league for taking on this huge dangerous sail but gets hooked by the idea of the race and tries to get investors to help pay for the making of a boat to do it. But from the get-go all is not looking too good, the building of the boat goes over budget and over schedule … and the boat is delayed till late in the season, well after the other sailors have left. Still Crowhurst seems a wonderful father to his kids and husband to his wife … and theirs appears to be quite a love story. Despite second thoughts he eventually sets off on the epic voyage, which turns difficult from early on as the boat doesn’t seem well-equipped or made for such a momentous undertaking. (Unfortunately not many knew the risks of sailing through the dangerous Southern Ocean at the time — let alone doing it solo — and the area was avoided as the epic storms there could capsize or de-mast boats; the wood construction and early fiberglass technology of the day not being what it is today.) 

The movie, which picks up a bit as it goes, shows Crowhurst’s realities at sea trying to overcome the conditions and problems with the boat — as well as his family back home who tries to keep in touch with him by radio phone along with his whereabouts on maps. It’s a bit of a quiet movie that takes on a forbidding feel to it. I will refrain from saying too much more about what happens but it’s quite a wrenching story. The movie of it turns out to be okay … but it’s not as captivating as we had hoped it’d be — judging by various books about Crowhurst and the race. Still we are glad we saw it. Kudos to Firth and Weisz who took on the roles. 

What about you — have you read either of these books or seen any of these movies and if so, what did you think?