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Title: A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley, Kathy Bates, Susan Perrin ISBN: 0-671-57727-1 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio Pub. Date: October, 1997 Format: Audio Cassette Volumes: 4 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.6 (151 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Nonstop Thrill
Comment: In A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley keeps her audience wanting to read more with each word. This novel is an drama to the extreme. Between Rose's breast cancer and the horrible truth that comes out about their father, the reader can't help but wonder what will happen next. What happens in the novel is that Ginny's dad decides to retire from being a farmer. He offers the land to his three girls, but the youngest, Caroline, refuses the land causing her father to cut her completely out of everything. This causes many painful memories from the past to return. Smiley shows a good use of detail. She paints a perfect image in the readers mind. She also uses extreme irony, in the fact of what the father did to his girls. She shows the audience that asumptions from Rose thinking that Ginny knows what her father did to her as a child are not true. This novel discusses many issues, but what is feel is one of the main issue discussed in it is child molestation. The author shows it's reader that this event in a child's life can severly change his/her feelings about that parent. This relates to the larger issue of rape that is sweeping over the country. I feel that this is a serious issue and should be addressed, and that kids should be aware that it is wrong for their parents to do that to them. In conclusion, this book is a nonstop thrill, from the minute you read the first word, until the moment you read the last phrase.
Rating: 2
Summary: Poor parallels
Comment: While reading and scanning some of these summaries, I felt urged to write in response to some of the supporters. Most especially, there was one man who claimed that people who did not this book were younger people forced to read it for school. Well, I will admit that I am a seventeen year old girl forced to read it for her AP Literature class. However, that does not change the fact that my high expectations for this novel were poorly realized. "King Lear", which I adored, was the assigned reading book before "A Thousand Acres", and I was thorougly disappointed to the point of extreme anger at Smiley's perversion of Shakespeare's classic tale. Her parallels were ill-made and strove too hard to make the link. As a classmate of mine observed "it stands well-enough on its own". I agree with that, but will take it further by claiming that she should have left "King Lear" completely out of this book, which I feel is better suited to be a Harlequin Romance as opposed to a heralded piece of literature. Her action is completely coincidential, and the events which she forces these characters she's formed go completely against their nature. Her writing style is stilted and boring and, frankly, I don't appreciate having to go through the sexual fantasies of the main character, especially when she thinks of herself as a sow. I regret to say that I feel that Smiley pushed her creative talents too far and forced this story of hers to consent to being this inferior piece of work. I cannot believe that she dares to compare the incestuous relationships between Larry Cook and his daughters Ginny and Rose to Lear's pure father/daughter relationships to Goneril and Regan (another thing which annoyed me, incredibly unoriginal names; Larry - Lear, Ginny - Goneril, Rose - Regan, Caroline - Cordelia... she even named Caroline's husband Frank: in King Lear, Cordelia married the king of France. That is not wit, Ms. Smiley, that's just plain idiotic, and rather silly too). In addition, her sentences were full of redundancies and somewhat stupid-sounding phrases, such as "they crossed the road the way one does in the country a hundred times a day without looking either way". What is that point of that? Does it contribute to this 'literary art-form'? To all you 'adults' out there who feel that we students are too young to understand this "deep" piece, think about why that might or might not be. I resent her storyline about incest and extramarrital affairs, why don't you? I pray to God that I never become mature enough to accept such a thing as normal and genius.
Rating: 4
Summary: A wonderful..
Comment: book full of rich descriptions making you feel as if you are there. I couldn't put this book down. I do however feel that I didn't understand the dad fully and wanted to know why he was really acting that way in court etc. Caroline's part could have been developed a little more, but that is life! All in all a wonderful read!
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Title: Moo by Jane Smiley ISBN: 0804117683 Publisher: Ivy Books Pub. Date: 28 February, 1998 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: King Lear by William Shakespeare ISBN: 0671722727 Publisher: Washington Square Press Pub. Date: 01 May, 1993 List Price(USD): $3.99 |
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Title: Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres: A Reader's Guide (Continuum Contemporaries) by Susan Elizabeth Farrell, Susan Farrall ISBN: 0826452353 Publisher: Continuum Pub Group Pub. Date: September, 2001 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love: A Novel by Oscar Hijuelos ISBN: 0060955457 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 January, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Horse Heaven by Jane Smiley ISBN: 0449005410 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 27 February, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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