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Title: The Dive from Clausen's Pier by Ann Packer ISBN: 0375412824 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 09 April, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.38
Rating: 4
Summary: Insightful and profound novel
Comment: I first heard about this novel from "Entertainment Weekly" and its annual list of the best books in fiction and nonfiction which "The Dive From Clausen's Pier" held a prominent spot (I can't remember exactly what it got). The main character, Carrie, has been dating the same guy for several years, all through high school and college. Though engaged to him, Carrie decides she wants to break of their engagement because she no longer loves him. Just as she reaches this conclusion, her fiancee takes a dive off a pier and breaks his neck. The novel follows Carrie focusing on the impacts of the accident on the victim's family and friend. Though the question of whether Carrie will stay or leave is compelling, I was more moved by the realistic and heartfelt portrayal of Carrie as a person. I truly felt like she was someone I had known my entire life by the end of the novel. One may not like Carrie's actions, but the author fleshes out her character so well that you understand Carrie's thought processes as if they were your own. On a personal note, my mother's brother injured himself the same way at twenty and my mom chose to come home early from college to help take care from him. Because of this book I feel I understand what contradicting feelings of love and hate my mom must have experienced over the situation. I recommend this book to all. It is one of the few books I have compulsively read and been unable to out down.
Rating: 3
Summary: Starts great, takes a dive
Comment: Packer starts her ambitious novel with a picture-perfect prologue: in spare, elegant prose she sets the scene and sends her protagonist's boyfriend to his quadriplegic fate. She takes the reader inside Carrie's head, and her strong writing keeps us engaged as Carrie and friends wait for Mike to emerge from his coma and as Carrie dithers over whether or not she'll look like a creep if she dumps Mike now. Packer has populated her story with a few interesting people--the therapist mom, the co-dependent friend, Mike's pal Rooster--so we forgive the lack of plot and the lack of character development.
Abruptly, the book switches directions. (Perhaps Packer decided that readers must be as bored with Madison as she and Carrie were.) Without warning to mom, friends, fiance, or the reader, Carrie jumps in her car and drives to New York. (Apparently young women never meet with foul play in Madison--Carrie's mom and friends don't seem concerned about her disappearance--they all somehow know that she skipped town because she didn't want to deal with her feelings about Mike.)
Packer's leisurely style becomes lethargic once Carrie hits the Big Apple, where she quickly acquires a free place to live, the stereotypical gay buddy, and an enigmatic boyfriend, Kilroy. Except he's not an interesting enigma; Carrie never figures out what makes him tick, and neither do we. What's more, it's hard to care, or to understand what she sees in him. Nor does New York feel "real." Packer, who excels in portraying Madison, fails to capture any of the essence of the big city.
The reader is still inside Carrie's head, but not a lot seems to be going on there. Much of her behavior is inexplicable. For example: she's planning to come to Madison for a visit (Rooster's wedding). Being a talented seamstress, she buys the most gorgeous, expensive fabric in the most upscale fabric store in New York and fashions a stunning outfit for herself. Then, at the last moment, she decides not to go. This scene, which could (and should) have some emotional depth--might even explain Carrie's internal state of disrepair--is simply flat.
Finally, Carrie comes home to Madison (she never should have left) and the story picks up again--but by then I was tired of her whining, her lack of insight, her poor impulse control, and her inability to learn from her past mistakes.
Other reviewers have mentioned the sex scenes. I suspect that a well-meaning friend or editor told Packer that she needed to spice up her book, and that's why she inflicted these embarrassing and ineptly written episodes on her readers.
Bottom line: not awful, not great, could have been better.
Rating: 3
Summary: A captivating story that falls flat.
Comment: While I enjoyed reading this book, I felt disappointed somehow by its ending. Carrie Bell is narrating the story and we discover that she is suffocating in her life. She is 23 and engaged to her high school sweetheart but the love she felt is no longer there. Unfortunately, her fiance, Mike, is involved in a diving accident and paralysed for life. Carrie has a whole new set of obligations to rise to and consequently her moral dilemma begins.
While I do not blame Carrie for leaving behind her hometown and heading out for a life of her own, she could have at least had some closure with her family, friends and most certainly with Mike. She spends her entire time in this book running away which causes the reader to have no real connection with her, we just cannot empathize. She meets Kilroy while in New York and jumps into a relationship with him. Then she is torn between her life there and her obligations to the people back at home. Carrie just cannot make a decision and face the consequences.
We want to see Carrie mature and learn something from the choices that she has made, but by the end, I just felt let down. She never had the courage to truly follow her heart. She let others choose for her, even after her courageous move away from home.
This book does however raise some interesting questions for ourselves. What would you do in such a situation? Would you choose loyalty over love?
Also, the author was able to use some beautiful prose in this book. Her writing ability is wonderful, I just think that the characters themselves were a little unrealistic.
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Title: The Lovely Bones: A Novel by Alice Sebold ISBN: 0316666343 Publisher: Little Brown & Company Pub. Date: June, 2002 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd ISBN: 0142001740 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 28 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Atonement: A Novel by Ian McEwan ISBN: 0385503954 Publisher: Doubleday Pub. Date: 12 March, 2002 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: The Nanny Diaries: A Novel by Emma McLaughlin, Nicola Kraus ISBN: 0312278586 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: March, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Bel Canto: A Novel by Ann Patchett ISBN: 0060934417 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 16 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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