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This is one of those books I had lots and lots of mixed feeling about. It turned out not to be the book I was thinking of, but one I'd never read before. I loved The Sixteen Pleasures by the same author, but found this one more uneven and harder to get into-- but I think that is my own weakness, not the fault of the author. The book is set against the backdrop of a difficult situation-- the death of Woody's oldest daughter in a terrorist bombing that occurred in Bologna in August, 1980. The novel begins seven years after the bombing. It is a year of crisis , turmoil and chance in the family, for Woody, his wife and his two living daughters. It is also the year the terrorists are finally to go on trial in Bologna.
As mentioned in the publisher's blurb, Woody is a classics professor. The novel is filled with quotes and references to the classics, some still in the original Greek. It bounces between first person narration by Woody's middle daughter, and a third person narration focusing on Woody and his relationships to the women in his life, living and dead. The interjection of Sara's voice reminded me of a Greek Chorus in one of the tragedies... interesting device. How love can be a thing of great beauty, but also bring pain, about the strength of love, and the strength of death, about growth, remembering, healing and forgiveness. There are some very amusing bits in there about love, sex, bats, and even a good explanation of String Theory!
There was an interesting discussion about midway through, where Sara reflects on her sister's death and how "(it) wasn't just the end of our life together as a family; it was the end of my expectations about what our life was going to be in the future. It was like reading a short store and thinking it was a novel. You think you've got a couple of hundred pages to go, but all of a sudden you're at the end. The story you were reading is over. That's it. The rest of the books is other stories."
I need to digest this one a bit more, I think.
The author gives three quotes at the beginning for glimpses into the title:
Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father knowing. Matthew 10:29
‘Such,’ he said, ‘O King, seems to me the present life of men on earth, in comparison with the time which to us is uncertain, as if when on a winter’s night you sit feasting with your ealdormen and thegns,—a single sparrow should fly swiftly into the hall, and coming in at one door, instantly fly out through another. In that time in which it is indoors it is indeed not touched by the fury of the winter, but yet, this smallest space of calmness being passed almost in a flash, from winter going into winter again, it is lost to your eyes. Somewhat like this appears the life of man; but of what follows or what went before, we are utterly ignorant.’
Bede, ‘Ecclesiastical History of the English People’ bk. 2, ch. 13
and
There's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow
- Hamlet V.II
As mentioned in the publisher's blurb, Woody is a classics professor. The novel is filled with quotes and references to the classics, some still in the original Greek. It bounces between first person narration by Woody's middle daughter, and a third person narration focusing on Woody and his relationships to the women in his life, living and dead. The interjection of Sara's voice reminded me of a Greek Chorus in one of the tragedies... interesting device. How love can be a thing of great beauty, but also bring pain, about the strength of love, and the strength of death, about growth, remembering, healing and forgiveness. There are some very amusing bits in there about love, sex, bats, and even a good explanation of String Theory!
There was an interesting discussion about midway through, where Sara reflects on her sister's death and how "(it) wasn't just the end of our life together as a family; it was the end of my expectations about what our life was going to be in the future. It was like reading a short store and thinking it was a novel. You think you've got a couple of hundred pages to go, but all of a sudden you're at the end. The story you were reading is over. That's it. The rest of the books is other stories."
I need to digest this one a bit more, I think.
The author gives three quotes at the beginning for glimpses into the title:
Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father knowing. Matthew 10:29
‘Such,’ he said, ‘O King, seems to me the present life of men on earth, in comparison with the time which to us is uncertain, as if when on a winter’s night you sit feasting with your ealdormen and thegns,—a single sparrow should fly swiftly into the hall, and coming in at one door, instantly fly out through another. In that time in which it is indoors it is indeed not touched by the fury of the winter, but yet, this smallest space of calmness being passed almost in a flash, from winter going into winter again, it is lost to your eyes. Somewhat like this appears the life of man; but of what follows or what went before, we are utterly ignorant.’
Bede, ‘Ecclesiastical History of the English People’ bk. 2, ch. 13
and
There's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow
- Hamlet V.II
