More re: Louise Marley's The Glass Harmonica

[pegkerr]

Interesting: I'm not the only person to see the structural similarities between The Wild Swans and the Glass Harmonica by Louise Marley (see my discussion of The Glass Harmonica in last June's book list). According to this reader:

Message 947 was left by Lenora Rose on 2002-03-11 12:12:00. Feedback: 0/0

I just finished Louise Marley's The Glass Harmonica at about 2:30 AM last night/this morning. Overall very good.

It also knocked a book I already found problematic down a notch. Both Glass Harminica and Peg Kerr's the Wild Swans use the concept of two characters in different times whose lives resonate, but who never meet in a literal sense, but whose lives are supposed to converge thematically. But Peg Kerr's "resolution", and the finally-in-the-last-chapter connection between the two time periods were accomplished with transparent writerly "devices" which, being transparent, didn't work (This is consistent with a writing style that includes pov slips and a few dropped threads - when I started the book, I thought her writing sounded a bit like mine. By the time I finished it, I thought her writing sounded like mine - a few years ago. And I'm barely published... :) I never felt like the two characters really had anything to do with one another. And the question which apparantly prompted her to write the book, she never dares to answer - or even to offer a different non-answer from the one that she had at the beginning.

The Glass Harmonica, of course, used some of the same devices, but they worked. The two points of view had more connections before the last chapters, and the threads wound up. The characters were vivid. The devices were technically present, if you stopped to read for authorial technique, but all but invisible, being natural, inevitable, part of the story. And she dared to suggest answers about her subject matter - that might or might not be true, that raise new questions, but which at least were indeed answers.

The Wild Swans did not come off very well by comparison.

Peg

Comments

[iscaris.livejournal.com]

*winces* Ouch. That was... a bit brutal, I think. But kudos to you for having the aplomb to take it and even post it on your LJ.

I disagree with her criticism of 'Wild Swans' - apart from the fact that I enjoyed the book, especially Elias's story. Admittedly I liked that thread better than Eliza's, but that doesn't make the parallels any less striking - and after chatting with you, I realised how much I had missed. Aparently Rose missed those too.

Rhysenn