Spoilers lie below.
So, I finished reading Audrey Niffenegger's second novel earlier this month. Overall, despite the mixed reaction from critics and readers (compared to the enormous success of The Time Traveler's Wife), I enjoyed it. I thought the characters were, for the most part, compelling and rich, and I loved the setting of Highgate Cemetery--the perfect place for a novel so centered on dread and melancholia.
I did, though, have a few problems with the novel, most of them in the third act. The final chapters felt, compared to the rest, rather underdeveloped, as if the author was racing to finish a manuscript at the eleventh hour. In certain ways, this didn't bother me. For example, I dug how we never know Elspeth's -true- intentions and nature. Did she always intends to steal Valentina's body? Did she just jump at an opportunity to do so when the initial plan proved impossible? My favorite line in the entire novel might have been when her lover, Robert, said she has "ideas [with] other ideas hiding inside them." Elspeth's presence was both sad and sinister, in a very potent way. I also enjoyed how Robert's character arc was resolved. He never became a hero or a true villain, just a sad, sad individual tied to the dead without a way forward. I was moved by the symmetry of him leaving his child out of the shame the same way his father, a politician, left him. As for the peripheral, but quite developed character of obsessive-compulsive Martin--his resolution was fine. A nice bit of pure love-story charm.
I s'pose I am most bothered by the character of Valentina, who was my favorite for a long stretch of the novel. I never bought her extreme plan--her only way to "escape" her clinging twin is to die, become a ghost, and then reclaim her body a few days later? Yikes. I understand this was included so the third act could be exciting and full of supernatural action, which is all right, but still...credulity was strained, and Valentina never seemed as "real" again. The bit at the very end where she meets the other ghosts and flies away on crows (lol) didn't move me as it should have. In fact, I would venture to say it annoyed me a bit. Too much, too fast, too sentimental and "special effects." I would've rather seen Valentina still in the apartment in the end, beginning to learn a possible way of escaping. Leave us with a bit of hope without going into overblown "I'm flying over London on a crow. A crow! Oh, and I'm dead and super-happy!" territory.
I fear this is more of a review/rant than a question, lol. I just wanted to spill. Does anyone agree? Did anyone else read this novel? Were you satisfied by it? Favorite character? Any general thoughts? etc., etc.
*out of shame, not "out of THE shame"
So, I finished reading Audrey Niffenegger's second novel earlier this month. Overall, despite the mixed reaction from critics and readers (compared to the enormous success of The Time Traveler's Wife), I enjoyed it. I thought the characters were, for the most part, compelling and rich, and I loved the setting of Highgate Cemetery--the perfect place for a novel so centered on dread and melancholia.
I did, though, have a few problems with the novel, most of them in the third act. The final chapters felt, compared to the rest, rather underdeveloped, as if the author was racing to finish a manuscript at the eleventh hour. In certain ways, this didn't bother me. For example, I dug how we never know Elspeth's -true- intentions and nature. Did she always intends to steal Valentina's body? Did she just jump at an opportunity to do so when the initial plan proved impossible? My favorite line in the entire novel might have been when her lover, Robert, said she has "ideas [with] other ideas hiding inside them." Elspeth's presence was both sad and sinister, in a very potent way. I also enjoyed how Robert's character arc was resolved. He never became a hero or a true villain, just a sad, sad individual tied to the dead without a way forward. I was moved by the symmetry of him leaving his child out of the shame the same way his father, a politician, left him. As for the peripheral, but quite developed character of obsessive-compulsive Martin--his resolution was fine. A nice bit of pure love-story charm.
I s'pose I am most bothered by the character of Valentina, who was my favorite for a long stretch of the novel. I never bought her extreme plan--her only way to "escape" her clinging twin is to die, become a ghost, and then reclaim her body a few days later? Yikes. I understand this was included so the third act could be exciting and full of supernatural action, which is all right, but still...credulity was strained, and Valentina never seemed as "real" again. The bit at the very end where she meets the other ghosts and flies away on crows (lol) didn't move me as it should have. In fact, I would venture to say it annoyed me a bit. Too much, too fast, too sentimental and "special effects." I would've rather seen Valentina still in the apartment in the end, beginning to learn a possible way of escaping. Leave us with a bit of hope without going into overblown "I'm flying over London on a crow. A crow! Oh, and I'm dead and super-happy!" territory.
I fear this is more of a review/rant than a question, lol. I just wanted to spill. Does anyone agree? Did anyone else read this novel? Were you satisfied by it? Favorite character? Any general thoughts? etc., etc.
*out of shame, not "out of THE shame"