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Oscar and Jeannie
As always in the remarkable fiction of Douglas Ord, a darkly comic vision usurps our known world and turns the reader's expectations upside down and inside out with affection and humour. Ord's love of life and people comes through in this lovely, peculiar tale of incompetence, bumbling and hope.
208 pages, Paperback
First published September 16, 1999
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November 20, 2010
This skinny volume takes place in one evening in Oscar's life, where he is just about to tear away from his old job and city into the fresh air and mountains of Colorado to be part of one of the world's most prestigious think tanks. His recent divorce and bachelorhood that leads him to a filthy apartment, no food in the fridge (or if there is it went rancid weeks ago). He has a 10-year-old daughter who wants to come and see him, sensing that he is leaving and is not going to say good bye to her. The first full chapter in the book is about a dreadful and very unusual climb up the stairs to his door. This climb is monumental throughout the rest of the story, but only in Oscar's head because the daughter is too young to even hint at what is really going on inside of him.
The turn of phrase employed by Douglas Ord is very good, and one can tell that he is a writer verging upon greatness, but the book is very claustrophobic. To say much more about it would be to give the whole story away, but I absolutely hate it when a book is tied up in a beautiful ribbon with all of the problems solved and people discover that after 30 years of hating each other they are suddenly the best of friends. I think a lot of people like that sort of closure, but I prefer my endings to be a bit more ambiguous so that I can draw my own conclusions. And, in finishing Oscar and Jeanie, I have found myself wondering what happened after the last page was finished?
As I stated before, it is a short book, one that could easily be finished in an afternoon and I do recommend it to people who can live with sparse action and who appreciate fine writing just for the art of it and don't need espionage, car wrecks or bombs happening every third page (maybe read some Dan Brown for that) and I am looking forward to reading Tommy's Farm, Mr. Ord's other book (which I believe was written before Oscar and Jeannie). You will have to hunt for it, but it is possible to find copies of both books with a little looking (neither will be in you local Barnes and Nobels). I found copies of both books on Amazon's MarketPlace (which isn't my favorite place to buy books, but sometimes, they have what you need!)
The turn of phrase employed by Douglas Ord is very good, and one can tell that he is a writer verging upon greatness, but the book is very claustrophobic. To say much more about it would be to give the whole story away, but I absolutely hate it when a book is tied up in a beautiful ribbon with all of the problems solved and people discover that after 30 years of hating each other they are suddenly the best of friends. I think a lot of people like that sort of closure, but I prefer my endings to be a bit more ambiguous so that I can draw my own conclusions. And, in finishing Oscar and Jeanie, I have found myself wondering what happened after the last page was finished?
As I stated before, it is a short book, one that could easily be finished in an afternoon and I do recommend it to people who can live with sparse action and who appreciate fine writing just for the art of it and don't need espionage, car wrecks or bombs happening every third page (maybe read some Dan Brown for that) and I am looking forward to reading Tommy's Farm, Mr. Ord's other book (which I believe was written before Oscar and Jeannie). You will have to hunt for it, but it is possible to find copies of both books with a little looking (neither will be in you local Barnes and Nobels). I found copies of both books on Amazon's MarketPlace (which isn't my favorite place to buy books, but sometimes, they have what you need!)
Displaying 1 of 1 review