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Title: The Forms of Water by Andrea Barrett ISBN: 0-671-79522-8 Publisher: Washington Square Press Pub. Date: 01 August, 1994 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.17 (6 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: slow but wonderfully human
Comment: The water in this book is in the form of a reservoir-not a river, not an ocean. That should warn the reader not to expect quick flowing action or "big" momentous events or epic characters. This is a quiet, slow-moving work and it deals in small eddies and ripples. The plot, such as it is, focuses on Brendan, a former monk dying of cancer who wants to see his boyhood home one more time before he dies, or at least, see what he can of it since most of it has been covered over by the reservoir which forced his mother and father (now dead, as are his brother and sister-in-law) off their land. At the start of this journey, we are introduced to the other surviving members of the clan, ranging in age from teens to middle-aged, all of whom are barely holding on to themselves, and are not doing much holding on to each other. All of them, for various reasons, undertake the same physical journey as Brendan and it gives nothing away to the reader to say they eventually all end up in the same spot.
The journeys are clearly more personal and metaphysical than geographical, as is where they end up, both when they all meet and later. Though there is nice, neat symmetry (and a bit of contrivance but since it's the only one we can give it to her) in getting all of them together, the book itself does not tie itself up anywhere near as neatly with regard to the characters or the plot. There are unintended consequences, surprising decisions (ones that surprise even those that make them), poor decisions, misunderstandings, revelations. A few of the characters are sketchy and one or two too easily drawn in broad, one-note strokes (though even these are given by the end a more full, if still cursory, interpretation) but none of the characters at any point ever acts like anything less than a real character and the family dynamics are never less than messy (in other words-also real).
What we see here are the after-effects: the after-effects of a community drowned for "progress", the after-effects of isolating oneself from family and the world entire, the after-effects of death (children brought up by grandparents when their own parents die in a car accident), of witnessing death en masse (several characters were involved in WWII) as well as intimately (one character acts as the caregiver for a dying family member), the after-effects of separation and absence. Some of it is clearly drawn for us, at other times we have to fill in the blanks, and sometimes the blanks are filled in for us but not until the end. It is a subtle work of metaphor and connections lightly but tightly drawn.
It is not a page-turner. It is slow. It is quiet. It is sad at times, funny at times, but always human, always real.
Rating: 1
Summary: The Forms of Boredom
Comment: Man, was I bummed out on this here book. It were a real downer to me. And it were real boring, too. Get real books that have some adventure and fun in them instead of relying on death and old peoples. I read this book cuz my girlfrend said it were real good and stuff like that but I am going to just tell her it was good and put it on my nightstand along with some poetry books so it looks like I am sensitive and that makes the girls hot.
Rating: 4
Summary: Wonderful interweaving of Life's metaphors
Comment: The Forms of Water advances the use of metaphor into an elaborate understanding the states of life. I saw elements of the characters in myself (sometimes unsettlingly so), and I understood the meaning of various forms of water that may seem to some a remote reference, but can also draw one deeper into the significance of the story. I read it straight through, unable to stop.
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Title: MIDDLE KINGDOM by Andrea Barrett ISBN: 0671729616 Publisher: Washington Square Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 1992 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Voyage of the Narwhal: A Novel by Andrea Barrett ISBN: 0393319504 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: September, 1999 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Ship Fever by Andrea Barrett ISBN: 0393316009 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: December, 1996 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Servants of the Map: Stories by Andrea Barrett ISBN: 0393323579 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: February, 2003 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem ISBN: 0375724834 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 24 October, 2000 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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