Ravelry Knitters discussion

Here we'll discuss our other group read of the month. There's been a lot of buzz about this book!

I do occasionally keep a journal. I must admit, someone reading it after my death would be awful, as I switch between grateful counting of blessings and extreme complaints (usually about my in-laws). What about you, Ravelers? Ever put down the needles and journal?

I've journaled on and off during the years. It seems I get most prolific when things are going badly and I need a place to vent. I imagine if anyone found them they'd think "what a bitch!" It always feels better to get it out someplace and I figure putting pen to paper is better than spewing all over the family on a daily basis.

I keep a journal but dont write often. Its mostly complaints so I wouldnt want it found and read O.o

I have been a long time journaller, but have had a dry spell for a while now. Like another mentioned I'm not sure I'd want someone reading them after I'm dead and gone, not that it is really that much whenging, but would maybe expose me for the shallow and insignificant person I really am.....

Picked up my copy at the library this morning, got an audio to listen while driving to California tomorrow.

I was lucky enough to get a copy at the library. How long do I have to read it? I'm new and sure how the group works yet.
I'm going to work on a Beanie than start my book. This is gonna be a perfect group ;)

Rebecca - it's theoreticlly sometime during february, but for a book with interesting content, we often discuss it for quite some time after a month. I don't take the discussion threads down any time soon.

I'm about halfway through this one though and am waiting to see if anyone has started it before I start commenting. I have ALOT to say about this one, people, so let me know how you're all doing!

I also got a copy at my library after a short wait. Hope to get to it soon.

Listened to it on audio and finished yesterday....I'm anxious to hear your "ALOT" Rebecca.....

Okay Isabel, it was me that had the ALOT of comments, and I'm going to get started, because while I have about 100 pages left to read, I've kind of figured out where this is going, at least where Elizabeth was concerned.

First, I was not a fan of Kate from the start. She makes a great show of being surprised and slightly dreading the outcome when she 'inherits' these journals, because she says 'Wow, Liz was just a stay at home mom. What could she have possibly had to write about?'
REALLY? I like to think no human ever meets another in this day and age and assumes that they have no past, no interests, no deep thoughts on life, love, the metaphysical, literature, but that there might be more to a person than what you get in just a few minutes. But not Kate. Who was supposedly friends with this woman. Wow. Then she stuns us by being slightly vapid herself and thinking of very little except the classic women's lit questions of 'am I happy?' 'Is my husband happy?' 'How can I keep anything bad from happening to my children?' The answers ('If you have to ask, probably not'; 'please ask him-that's what you would do if you had a brain'; and 'no, shit happens, try to enjoy the now') seem irrelevant, as you get the impression that if she didn't have these things to worry about, she'd come up with something equally non-interesting. Did she assume she had more value than Elizabeth because she had had a job? Elizabeth had a job. It's not quite clear, but it didn't endear me to Kate. Mayeb that was the author's intention.

Second - it's hard not to notice that this book is about 2 shoddy marriages where people neglected to tell their spouses large chunks of their feelings, worries, past. That and the constant "Am I happy?" type litany are really one of the reasons why I avoid a large amount of modern literature.

Third - and here's the good part, Elizabeth is a fascinating character. I keep reading for her journals. My feeling isn't that she had an incredibly unfortunate life, but that she actually had about the usual amount of misfortune, documented it all, and faced it with a steely resolve that we have to admire. I'm really not sure I would have been able to be married to Dave without smacking him upside the head, so she's earned my respect there. She continually does what she thinks is the right thing to do, even when it's obviously not the easiest.

Zoe wrote: "Okay Isabel, it was me that had the ALOT of comments, and I'm going to get started, because while I have about 100 pages left to read, I've kind of figured out where this is going, at least where E..."

I'm at the same point in this book and I agree 100% with your own impressions. The gimmick of the journals does keep me reading but I find so much of the writing vapid. By contrast I just finished a young adult novel titled Hold Still about a teenage suicide that also focuses on a journal. The YA novel uses the device of a journal to hold the whole narrative together and build a vision of this young girl's internal life. This book falls short in comparison.

Ooh, sounds good Barbara.

It's not that this books is bad....but I was trying to explain to my sister on the phone last night my issues with the book. I told her about the protagonists 'am I happy? is my marriage happy? primary concerns, and my sister said "Well, I wonder those things sometimes." And it occurred to me, we ALL wonder about thise things....I just don't want to read about it.

Which is probably why I don't read a large amount of modern women's Lit, LOL....

well, I think you are being too kind. The book really was quite bad. And I was disappointed, as I so often am by this genre. The synopsis sounded like maybe the author would dig a bit deeper through her characters, especially when we had the prospect of digging into Elizabeth's journals. In an early post to this forum, I stated I wouldn't want anyone to read my journals for fear of any one who loved me enough to read the journals posthumuously would find me insignificant and shallow. That is exactly what I think the author revealed about Elizabeth and even more so about Kate as she journeyed through them.

Okay, fonished it last night. Literally skimmed last chapter, because I was so anxious for Kate to have a revelation. Unfortunately, she didn;t have one, and I felt this book ended with a whimper instead of a bang. Yes, we figured out about a third into the book that the woman was sick. Yes, that was also about when we figured out Kate and her husband have a kind of screwed up marriage, and if they want to tackle it with anything other than avoidance, they're going to need major therapy. But all she realizes at the end is something akin to "boy, I guess it's going to take me awhile to apologize for spending all summer reading these journals (that my wanker of a husband should have been more understanding about) and fess up that I stash canned goods in the trunk of the car in case of terrorist attacks".
Also, Pastry chef. FASCINATING profession. Yet I was shocked at how little the character thought about cooking or food. Did this pointless fact annoy anyone else?
All in all, glad to be done with it. It was pretty readable considering it was almost all internal narrative, but not my cup of tea.

I started this book late and am slightly more than halfway. This is not my genre and I was having a hard time pushing through for a bit, so now use a timer.

That said, I actually enjoy the book.

I thought the broken mercury thermometer incident absolutely hilarious, especially considering that we still had a couple of those until very recently.

Anyway, back to reading.

Finished. Very interesting read. I disagree that these were two not very good marriages. If you ask most people celebrating 50 year anniversaries, especially those who have had tremendous challenges, they will tell you that there are good years and bad years. It's how you get through the bad years that will save or break your marriage.

I do think that Elizabeth's reticence may also be because she was an introvert. I have a whole family of those, so I get it. There can be an entirely different viewpoint that you have no clue about. Is that always a trust issue or simply a desire to keep your own council unless it plus relevant. My sister, an introvert extraordinaire, is remodeling a bedroom into a hobby room. She is putting up a dinosaur wall mural. Where did THAT come from? Just an example.

I'm not sure i agree there. There's a big difference between being an introvert (I am a BIG one, by the way) and not telling your husband you have cancer.

And everyone has bad years in a marriage, of course, but I think when I look at Kate and her not wanting to tell her husband and her paranoia and not being willing to 'risk' confronting him about his smoking....it just made me feel that if that problem weren't dealt with, they were headed for more bad years. And if you sit around wondering if your husband is cheating on you while on business trips- that's a problem.
Luckily, I did get the sense that she was starting to understand that these were issues at the end of the book. I just didn't get the satisfaction of her REALLY having the relegation that she needed. She still seemed to think shed have to do a lot of apologizing to her husband, and in a good marriage, I don't think things should always be one persons fault.

And I find dinosaur murals incredibly soothing! No one on iPhones, no cars, no litter....or maybe she's trying to recapture a happy memory or feeling of visiting a natural history museum. Way cool!

I feel you've expressed your insight quite well. As I was reading your post, I had an image of her dinosaur mural as garden of eden.....not the usual garden of eden, but her own personal one.

Isabel, you made me laugh, as in Sunday school today, we were discussing that part of Genesis. I hate to say donosaurs are better, but in the Garden of Eden, you can't seem to have Adam and Even without that pesky serpent, where as with a garden of dinasaurs, you just have dinosaurs, so yeah, sounds better to me!

Zoe, I am right with you on so many of your points! I finished listening to this audiobook on the way to work today and I found the last CD quite tedious. I think I struggle when there is so much exposition in a characters head. I just want to sigh and shout, get on with it! During the moment where she is considering staying the night because she missed her train, all I could think was "oh really now?" No one would have that much going through their mind, would they? She played out a whole scenario in her head that lasted probably five minutes. I was getting anxious waiting for something to happen. Elizabeth is a good character and loved hearing her voice - it is what kept me going. Kate was just flat, but of course...maybe that is the point.

Well, I enjoyed the book quite a bit. What I got out of it is that Elizabeth had her problems and was the type to keep it hidden, for fear of judgment. She was really repressed, I guess might be a word for it. Yet she tried to work things out for herself with a journal. And she tried to find one friend to share with, but , IMO, she too found Kate a little too shallow to get closer to. So Elizabeth left her journals to Kate so that Kate could benefit from whatever life lessons Elizabeth had struggled with, and maybe learn that she needed to be a better friend and better parent / wife.

There is a time in life when each woman plays a role, and sometimes we get caught up in the role as we envision it: Daughter, Wife, Mother, Friend

And sometimes it takes something drastic to make us step back and look at what we are doing and realize we are playing a role that fits a stereotype, but not behaving the way we truly think we should.

Some people never get out of it either, they just play the role the way they were told or expected to.
Hopefully it doesn't take getting cancer and losing everything to make you take a look at your behavior and see what effect it is having on your life and the lives of others.

a very thoughtful point of view. Thanks for contributing. We certainly do need to make time for reflection about how we fill all the roles of our lives.

Well put Dana! Yes, I didn't find the book that good, but it did make me think about women, personalities, and how people see each other, which maybe it was meant to do, even if I don't find the end very satisfying.