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Title: All Is Vanity by Christina Schwarz, Blair Brown ISBN: 0-7393-0199-3 Publisher: Random House Audio Publishing Group Pub. Date: 01 October, 2002 Format: Audio Cassette Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $35.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.21 (39 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Schwarz is a superb writer. But.
Comment: I have not read "Drowning Ruth." I picked up "All is Vanity" after reading a positive review in Publisher's Weekly that claimed some readers would raise petty objections to a novel that does not redeem its characters while others would appreciate its "no-exit spin on ambition and greed." I was curious to find out which category I would fall under.
I guess I fall under the former category because I did have a problem with Margaret. Not because she wasn't redeemed, but because I eventually wondered what the point of her story was.
Schwarz is a superb writer because she manages to detail excruciating moments so well I had to close the book and shudder *with* Margaret: Margaret and her husband go to a party and Margaret has to explain that she has quit her job as a teacher to write a novel. A snobbish writer is at the party and asks Margaret about her book. I will not give anymore of this scene away because it is just *too good*. It is painful and great and real.
There is another scene like this that nearly made me cry. Margaret takes a job working for a friend and meets one of her former high school students who is also working there. The scene is just humiliating. Schwarz pulls it off expertly. There are other things: when Margaret sits down to write she starts to notice how dusty the apartment is and spends the day cleaning instead. I think the most frustrating/infuriating moment is when she decides the place must be repainted. All this because she can't concentrate on writing!
Schwarz's ability to create a character who narrates such painful moments and at the same time says things that prove she is completely unaware of how *wrong* she is impressed me immensely. But Margaret is a total jerk. I tried hard to think of her as something else, but she is a complete jerk and it was difficult to spend so much time with her. It was also difficult to have sympathy for Letty and Margaret's husband. Because Margaret was clearly manipulative and selfish. I just wanted someone to put a foot down and say: "Get a job! You are not a writer!"
I struggled with my feelings for the book because Schwarz did a remarkable job, but I've decided the story just isn't strong enough to make the time I spent with Margaret worthwhile.
Rating: 4
Summary: Novelistically delightful!
Comment: Unbelievable this is just the second novel from this author. Drowning Ruth was a good story slowly told. This book is exponentially better, so much so that I can't wait for a third. Like Drowning Ruth, the writing is very strong. Her choice of words, metaphors, etc. is flawless. The first part will be chillingly but also amusingly (quite a feat!) familiar to any writer who has ever stumbled over the same blocks. It works as a wonderful satire as well, but the characters are so achingly real that their inevitable downfall has true resonance.
I've read some of the other reviews that have been negative. I am so glad that Christina Schwarz apparently does not have all these "Margarets" in her life. You don't have to "like" the main characters for a story to be good. I certainly don't want to read stories about perfect people who are absolutely morally relatable to myself who might happen to fall out of line in an understandable way and then pay a clear and overwritten price for it. Yawn. Some people write those books. I don't read them.
Rating: 1
Summary: Drowning in Vanity
Comment: As Margaret, our narrator, ruins several lives in her efforts to get her novel published, it becomes quite clear that All is Vanity would never have earned publication without the success of Drowning Ruth. While Ruth is suspenseful, I had difficulty even getting through Vanity. The characters are annoying and nearly impossible to empathize with, and become more and more despicable with each passing page. Wholly unsatisfying.
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Title: The Center of Everything by Laura Moriarty ISBN: 1401300316 Publisher: Hyperion Pub. Date: 02 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman by Elizabeth Buchan ISBN: 0670032069 Publisher: Viking Books Pub. Date: 10 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Family History by Dani Shapiro ISBN: 0375415475 Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
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Title: Mrs. Kimble : A Novel by Jennifer Haigh ISBN: 0060509406 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 06 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Drowning Ruth (Oprah's Book Club) by Christina Schwarz ISBN: 0345439104 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 31 July, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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