For my summer reading assignment I decided to immerse myself in the "poetic writing" of Mary Karr. The book I selected is called The Liars Club. I wanted to make sure I could stay interested in the reading so the selection process was difficult. I believe we have all grown up thinking most non-fiction books are very factual and rather boring. I wanted to make sure that with the book I picked, this wasn't the case. The fact that The Liars Club was a memoir captured my interest. Reading about someones life experiences has always been interesting to me-- it gives you another point of view.
Even though I started the book with an open mind, it began at a snails pace. I didn't quite understand the points she was trying to make. Nothing exciting happened for such a long period of time that I didn't understand how this book got such raving reviews. It had to win the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for some reason.
Her style of writing surprised me. The vocab that was used was advanced-- so many sticky notes were stuck between the pages, marking words I needed to look up. Also, there was a lot of colorful language used. Sometimes it seemed as though Karr tried to get away with it by mashing phrases together to make it seem like one word. She had me stumped on a few! I had to read them over a couple times before I really understood what they signified.
Once I got on track with the pace this book was going, I began to enjoy reading it. At first I dreaded going back and seemingly skimming over words and glancing up at the page number multiple times to see I hadn't even made it three pages yet. But then, the story line picked up. Things began to happen that peaked my interest and made me want to immerse myself in the storyline.
I noticed something interesting that I would like to just make note of. Throughout the entire book there is a slight fixation on the idea of death, which began after her grandmother passed. Karr stated many times that the idea of death did not scare her. She saw death all around even at a young age, and realized how natural it was. Admittedly, this was not something an eight-year-old should be thinking, yet she was strangely comfortable with the idea. As I kept reading, the focus on this concept faded until the very end. The last paragraph in The Liars Club is her description of what death must be like-- as though it is something to look forward to.
I also found myself beginning to really appreciate Mary Karr's writing style. She truly makes it her own. It's as if she is reading the book aloud. She takes on a first person perspective, but makes it as though she is frozen in a young age. She may have wrote The Liars Club when she was older, but there is no way of telling. The book is written in the perspective of a young, tragedy-stricken girl.
In my opinion, the first section of the book started off on a sour note compared to the rest(and that is a lot to say for this particular memoir). Once part 2 came along, (Colorado 1963) things began to have a more positive light. Nothing became completely happy, just happier. It gave me an uplifting feeling to see that positive things began to happen in her life. She deserved every single one of them. This is one of the effects a great book has. It makes the reader want to dig deeper into the story. For me, I wanted to know if something good actually became of her life. That is the hook in her story.
From being raped to witnessing her grandmother's death, Mary Karr's world was not a great one to live in. The list of terrible events in her life go on and on-- just one of them would send my whole world in a tailspin. But she went about her experiences in a laughable way. For this, I applaud her. I found a part in her book that really captures how strong she was: "The theory behind it held that not mentioning a painful episode in the meanest terms was a way of pretending that the misery of it didn't exist. Ignoring such misery, then, was equal to lying about it. Such a lie was viewed as more cruel, even, than the sad truth, because it somehow shunned or excluded the person in pain from everybody else." This was the reality of her world. Most of us really don't realize how lucky we are. Mary Karr-- I pity you for your experiences, but commend you for your strength.
Hi Danielle,
ReplyDeleteI've always loved that feeling when you know that for better or worse you are stuck with a character in a book. Even when the story is fantasy it is the mark of a good writer to be able to make the reader empathize with every moment in their life. While I've never read this particular book I would love to read it. I think it's important to learn through the experiences of others because life is too short to live through everything yourself. Even if those experiences are on a page it is an amazing thing to close that book and feel as though you've been there. You've lived, laughed, cried, and loved with the person in your book, and are a better person for it.
Danielle,
ReplyDeleteIt really annoys me when books start out really slow, most of the time I stop reading it! So, I give you props for keeping up with it. I always find memoirs interesting. They have a much different feel to them. I think that in the long run, I would almost rather read a memoir than a fiction book. Knowing that all the stories are real, and that someone actually got through the hard times in their life can give you hope to get through yours. This books sounds very interesting! I might have to borrow it from you sometime.
Danielle, it seems that you talk a lot about Mary Karr's writing style and the things you liked and disliked throughout the story. Maybe some things you could use if you thought the novel was sucessful would be that it seemed as if she was frozen in time, that it's crafted in first person, and how the storyline picked up a lot as the pages passed.
ReplyDeleteHi Danielle! "The Liars Club" sounds like a gloomy, yet intriguing book. After reading your blog post, I would say one thing that you could critically analyze would be her “poetic writing” or her advanced vocab. You could also bring in the fact that she focused on death in the book. Another idea would be to talk about the how the book started out slow, but eventually, picked up and became a more positive memoir that told a story of a woman, who had unfortunate experiences. Maybe, you could talk about her main point in relaying her personal story or her strength or her theory of not mentioning painful events in her past. I hope this helps!
ReplyDeleteDanielle,
ReplyDeleteJust by reading your blog post, I think this book will make a very interesting analysis. There are a few ways you could take this. I think it would be awesome if you did a negative review. One that says how the language she used affected the book: it was not enjoyable because of the language or something like that. I think you could also take the idea of death and go off of how she used a said event to make a positive message.
Hi Danielle! There were many good things I picked out from your essay. I would definiely include in your review your thoughts on her writing style and her use of "colorful language." I liked when you said the author made her style her own--that would be great in your review. I would also include your thoughts on how she "went about her experiences in a laughable way." Readers like humor, and I think it would be effective for them to know that the author was able to use humor in such a dark area of her past.
ReplyDeleteI think that you should definitely talk about the author's writing style in your review, it seems like you really noticed that when reading the book!
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