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books2009-05-23 08:26 pm
paperchain) wrote in books2009-05-23 08:26 pm
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Book Review - We Need to Talk About Kevin
*waves* Hi all :) I'm new both to dreamwidth and to this community, so thought I'd drop in with a book review. It is part review, part mediation on my re-reading of this book (I'm a big re-reader), but isn't spoiler-y outside the kind of information you would glean from the dust jacket. I'd also be interested if anyone else has read this (I'm sure plenty have!) what your take on it was...
I first read Lionel Shriver's award winning novel when it came out in paperback in the UK (at some point in 2005). I wolfed it down: it was truly one of those un-put-down-able books, that to extend over more than one sitting seemed an absolute impossibility. It was (and still is) a tautly constructed thriller, a book whose final, heart-wrenching twist not only shocked me (as all good thrillers should), but also had me in tears.
Given my rave reviews of the book to friends both after I immediately read it and more recently, I decided, for my first "free" book of the summer (as a literature student there is something wonderful about getting to summer and getting to just read, to not have to consult a schedule to find out what you're picking up this week) to revisit this book, to see if it was as good as I remembered, and whether it could withstand a second reading, given so much of its power seemed to rest on its sense of mystery.
We Need to Talk About Kevin is the story of a mother whose son, Kevin, shot and killed 9 fellow students and staff at his school three days before his sixteenth birthday. Using the perspective of Eva, Kevin's mother, we travel back in time to Eva's decision to have a child, right up to (and past) the events of the shooting (Thursday) as Eva attempts to come to terms with what has happened, to unravel the events in her life which has lead her to her current position of town pariah.
Given the speed with which I read this book the first time round, I was curious to find myself reading it slowly, over the course of two weeks this time round (and I'm not given to slow readings, as a whole). No doubt, part of the intensity which constituted the pleasure of my first reading of the book was gone, but reading Shriver's work over a longer period and perhaps with more of an eye for detail made for its own, new kind of pleasure (which, of course, is one of the joys of re-reading any book).
Shriver's prose certainly demands and deserves this kind of attention: she is an excellent writer, whose very lucidity and inventiveness is a consistent draw. She is simultaneously make the epistolary form of her novel feel natural and unforced (although, quick quibble: I HATE the sign-offs in the fake 'hand writing' font in the version of the book I have. The hen scratch font looks nothing like I imagine Eva's handwriting would and therefore irks me immensely) whilst at the same time managing to mediate on a wide range of topics from motherhood, citizenship, travel and (of course, the biggies) the nature of evil, nature versus nurture. And truly, Shriver's willingness to confront "big questions" and even bigger taboos (like perhaps not all children are innately loveable, perhaps a woman who doesn't love her son is not simply A VERY BAD PERSON etc) are one of the greatest pleasures of this book. It is her unflinchingness in the face of the lies we as society (much as Franklin, Eva's husband, as an individual) must tell ourselves in order to live our lives that remains fresh and strong and engaging, even in a second reading.
I was also left, on this reading, with a deep sense of appreciation of how Shriver doesn't hesitate away from making this a domestic thriller. Excuse me while I put on my feminist literature student hat, but it is one of my pet peeves to hear fiction that deals with domestic themes (a.k.a "women's fiction") described as limited in scope or not able to deal with the "big issues." Clearly, we need to talk about Kevin puts paid to that theory: it is at once a (albeit potentially unreliably narrated) vivid portrait of domestic life, of the stultification of stay at home surburban motherhood, and also a brave attempt to deal with what is simply incomprehensible, and Shriver is full of recognition that these two strands (domestic and public) need not be separated.
What else can I say? After a second reading I am just as likely (if not more so) to carry on reccomending this book to family and friends.
I first read Lionel Shriver's award winning novel when it came out in paperback in the UK (at some point in 2005). I wolfed it down: it was truly one of those un-put-down-able books, that to extend over more than one sitting seemed an absolute impossibility. It was (and still is) a tautly constructed thriller, a book whose final, heart-wrenching twist not only shocked me (as all good thrillers should), but also had me in tears.
Given my rave reviews of the book to friends both after I immediately read it and more recently, I decided, for my first "free" book of the summer (as a literature student there is something wonderful about getting to summer and getting to just read, to not have to consult a schedule to find out what you're picking up this week) to revisit this book, to see if it was as good as I remembered, and whether it could withstand a second reading, given so much of its power seemed to rest on its sense of mystery.
We Need to Talk About Kevin is the story of a mother whose son, Kevin, shot and killed 9 fellow students and staff at his school three days before his sixteenth birthday. Using the perspective of Eva, Kevin's mother, we travel back in time to Eva's decision to have a child, right up to (and past) the events of the shooting (Thursday) as Eva attempts to come to terms with what has happened, to unravel the events in her life which has lead her to her current position of town pariah.
Given the speed with which I read this book the first time round, I was curious to find myself reading it slowly, over the course of two weeks this time round (and I'm not given to slow readings, as a whole). No doubt, part of the intensity which constituted the pleasure of my first reading of the book was gone, but reading Shriver's work over a longer period and perhaps with more of an eye for detail made for its own, new kind of pleasure (which, of course, is one of the joys of re-reading any book).
Shriver's prose certainly demands and deserves this kind of attention: she is an excellent writer, whose very lucidity and inventiveness is a consistent draw. She is simultaneously make the epistolary form of her novel feel natural and unforced (although, quick quibble: I HATE the sign-offs in the fake 'hand writing' font in the version of the book I have. The hen scratch font looks nothing like I imagine Eva's handwriting would and therefore irks me immensely) whilst at the same time managing to mediate on a wide range of topics from motherhood, citizenship, travel and (of course, the biggies) the nature of evil, nature versus nurture. And truly, Shriver's willingness to confront "big questions" and even bigger taboos (like perhaps not all children are innately loveable, perhaps a woman who doesn't love her son is not simply A VERY BAD PERSON etc) are one of the greatest pleasures of this book. It is her unflinchingness in the face of the lies we as society (much as Franklin, Eva's husband, as an individual) must tell ourselves in order to live our lives that remains fresh and strong and engaging, even in a second reading.
I was also left, on this reading, with a deep sense of appreciation of how Shriver doesn't hesitate away from making this a domestic thriller. Excuse me while I put on my feminist literature student hat, but it is one of my pet peeves to hear fiction that deals with domestic themes (a.k.a "women's fiction") described as limited in scope or not able to deal with the "big issues." Clearly, we need to talk about Kevin puts paid to that theory: it is at once a (albeit potentially unreliably narrated) vivid portrait of domestic life, of the stultification of stay at home surburban motherhood, and also a brave attempt to deal with what is simply incomprehensible, and Shriver is full of recognition that these two strands (domestic and public) need not be separated.
What else can I say? After a second reading I am just as likely (if not more so) to carry on reccomending this book to family and friends.