The Lessons by Naomi Alderman
My rating: 4/5 cats
this may be one of those books that is a four star cat book for me, but maybe not a four star cat book for everyone else.
for starters, it is a mash-up of secret history and the talented mr. ripley, so if you like those things, get in line. it is about an average man from an average background coming to the attention of a wildly charismatic man and his circle of friends.
however, this is a book which simply tells a story.
that’s it.
no bells, no whistles, no uncovering the mysteries of the universe.
just a story about people and the things they do and the choices they make.
so, why did you like it so much, karen?
1) i love secret history. and any time someone writes a book about close-knit friends who all live together in a crumbling mansion and are among the careless wealthy entitled elite with a scholarly bent, but then there are seeeeeecrets, i am already there with my face in the book.
2) the atmosphere of this one was more haunting than most of the secret history wannabes. this one’s seeeeecrets were more of the emotional, realistic ones, and less of, you know, murrrder. which is refreshing. it becomes less of an escapist treat and one that is a more contemplative experience.
3) the descriptions of oxford alone were enough to make me love this one. i dated someone that went there, and i remember hearing the tales of rigo(u)r and beauty and it kind of gives me a little yearn.
and while this is in no way unexplored territory, i think she expresses herself well.
There is no safety that does not also restrict us. And many needless restrictions feel safe and comfortable. It is so hard to know, at any moment, the distinction between being safe and being caged. It is hard to know when it is better to choose freedom and fear, and when it is simply foolhardy. I have often, I think, too often erred on the side of caution.
i mean, it’s not a revolutionary observation, but the way she wrote it was lovely; she knows how to express things in a way that is pleasing.
I wanted to tell him something about how it was with Jess and me, how I had found that love was a constant cycle of coming together and breaking apart. But I did not want to talk or think about Jess just then. And perhaps I did not at that time have the ability to explain the truth about relationships: that they produce their fruit intermittently, unpredictably. That every relationship has moments where someone says, or thinks, or feels that it might not be worth doing. Every relationship has moments of exasperation and fear. And the work of the thing is to come through it, to learn how to bear it. And even if I could have explained this, Mark would never have understood it. He has always been rich enough that if something breaks he can simply throw it away and buy a new one. He had never used string or glue to bind something together again. He had never been forced to learn how to mend.
you know? i like that. i’m simple.
one more, just because i think this final sentence is heartbreaking the way she invokes that perfect confidence of children and softly implies how much of that these characters have lost.
Daisy grew sturdy and sweet. She learned to say her own name, ‘Daidy’, and mine. She began to recognize Jess and me, to trust us as she trusted her family. Once, on a walk, she could not quite clamber over a fallen log and held out her little hand to mine with such an expectation of my aid that I felt suddenly heartsick at the charm of her.
because that’s a lot of what this book is: the realization that “you are unprepared for the emotional challenges of life.” in love, in friendship, in academia, in family…and poor beautiful james, drawn into a world to which he has nothing to contribute but so desperately wants to be a part of.
again, yearn
so, yes, a lovely book, but maybe not for people who need more than just personal resonance from their reading material.
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