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Title: Disobedience by Jane Hamilton, Robert Sean Leonard ISBN: 0-553-71234-9 Publisher: Random House Audio Publishing Group Pub. Date: 17 October, 2000 Format: Audio CD Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.56 (86 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Slightly Let Down
Comment: I have to temper my comments on "Disobedience" by stating that after reading the magnificent "A Map of the World," I expected to be blown away by everything Jane Hamilton created thereafter. Unfortunately, upon first reading "Disobedience," I found myself to be more than a little disappointed.
The idea is simple enough: 17 year old Henry Shaw accidently stumbles upon a stream of e-mails between his mother and her extramarital lover. Of course, this discovery forces Henry to re-examine everything he thinks he knows about his family, himself, and life in general. I found this basic story to be a compelling idea rich with possibilities. Unfortunately, the story seems to lose focus on more than one occassion, and moves relatively slowly throughout. I found Henry's sister, Elvira, to be horribly over-examined from the beginning; a mistake only slightly redeemed by the end of the book.
With all of that being said, I find myself growing more fond of the book as I put more distance between myself and the reading. I believe the priciple idea behind it was unique and compelling. I admire the fact that writers like Hamilton can create a novel from something so simple, so un-earth-shattering. I'd probably enjoy it more upon a second read. Of course, that may not be enough to tempt you to give it a first read.
Rating: 5
Summary: Thoughful presentation of "an old story"
Comment: Disobedience, not deception, is the title of this intelligent and wry work by Jane Hamilton. At first glance, it is the wrong title: a teen son spies on the progress of his mother's love affair by reading, printing and filing her emails to and from her violin-making lover. But this work is too subtle and thoughtful for the obvious to predominate. As the mother writes of her own affair " This is an old story." The real story belongs to the son, Henry, who observes, but never quite confronts, his mother's year of disobedience, and never moves on past his own disobedience. This affair by the woman alternately called Liza38, Mrs. Shaw and Betty Shaw is less a betrayal of the father than the son - one email reveals a psychic has told his mother that mother and son were once husband and wife in a previous reincarnation. The father moves seemingly and cheerfully undisturbed by all this drama - a man his son hates for "nothing in particular if you don't count his passivity." In this odd family of four, the father and the daughter share a passion for history. The father, a history teacher, encourages Elvira to become with him participants in Civil War reenactments. More deceptions are required as the younger sister binds her breasts, cuts her hair and passes herself of as "Elviron" Ironically, it is the mother who protests this deceit and fears the results of its eventual discovery. Later, the "living historians" of the Battle of Shiloh play out their own modern melodrama of disobedience.
This book is as much about history - make that histories - made personal. The father teaches it, the sister is absorbed in trying to live in it, the son files and records - like a historian - his mother's email. It's what to do with all that history that trips the family up, especially the narrator. He presents the story of the year of the affair as if he were still a teen, watching it happen. We get his immediate reactions. But this is not a teen telling the story. What Henry does now, how he lives, loves or makes that living, is never told. We only get glimmers, by a device Ms. Hamilton uses to good effect, but ultimately overuses. When the narrator wishes to give perspective, or adult insight, or an alternative interpretation of the mother's actions, Henry tells us about the time he told this or that girlfriend about it and then tells us their reaction. We learn he was in film school only because he uses the emails in a project. And so it goes. Henry passively, keeps his distance from us as much as he does from his mother. Still, he is able, when it counts, to present his own disobedience
Rating: 2
Summary: Boring
Comment: It took me a while to finish this book. Every time Hamilton started to get to the actual story, she'd stop and explain through Henry how every character felt about every little thing that was happening. It bogged down the story for me and eventually got on my nerves. There were so many points where I was tempted to just give up. The story is complex and multi-layered, but incredibly slow-paced. I am glad that I reached the end; the story gets interesting at the end. Overall, though, it's a very boring read, and I don't feel the ending, as good as it is, makes it up for the time I spent dragging myself through the rest of it.
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Title: The Book of Ruth (Oprah's Book Club (Paperback)) by Jane Hamilton ISBN: 0385265700 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 01 January, 1990 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Short History of a Prince: A Novel by Jane Hamilton ISBN: 0385479484 Publisher: Anchor Books/Doubleday Pub. Date: 16 March, 1999 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: A Map of the World by Jane Hamilton ISBN: 0385720106 Publisher: Anchor Books/Doubleday Pub. Date: 03 December, 1999 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: A Virtuous Woman (Oprah's Book Club (Paperback)) by Kaye Gibbons ISBN: 0375703063 Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: 01 November, 1997 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: Midwives: A Novel by Chris Bohjalian ISBN: 0375706771 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 08 November, 1998 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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