Mislaid by Nell Zink .. A Review

This is a 3.5 rating for this novel.

I feel the author is ambitious and I would give her credits for trying and she’s got some effort into this novel.

The main characters Lee Fleming the flamboyant poet in residence at an all girl college at Stillwater and Peggy ‘ Megan’ villiancourt a lesbian student who became his wife and then a mother and then a runaway.

Ten chapters from the 1960s till 1980s. Their children are separated and two narratives appear. The male and the female.  yet both are confused in their own ways and each one is built on lie , love , deception and devotion.

It starts as a campus novel which I wished it stayed a campus novel with booze, affair, drugs etc but it breaks into a separate narrative that didn’t allow the female to.grow she was still stuck in her sexuality. . she couldn’t express herself for fear of being exposed.

The last two chapters felt sort of boiled and not done properly. Maybe sugar coated .. too many coincidence

Though the language is beautiful and brilliant, I feel the author would a winner as a poet if she decides to go that way.

An Event in Autumn- Review

This book sees Wallander living with his daughter Linda in Ystad. He is looking for a country house. The events of the book take place in the autumn as show in the title.

Viewing a potential new house, he stumbles across human hand in the garden. It’s the clue to a decades-old mystery which Wallander is keen to get his teeth into; and no, he doesn’t buy the house.

He is a man with no dog, no life and no woman.

It was a smooth read with a nice twist and a couple of red herrings. It transports you to the winter barren scape of a Swedish town.

 

The moans of a deaf girl

I wonder late at night .. just in bed. In a fetal position
If the deaf girl moans
If the nerves synapse . Fire. Click. Shoot
I wonder silently with open eyes
If the deaf girl moans
If she screams
Shouts
Pants for breath

If she feels the rain hitting the window
The light streaming through the blinds
If she sense that pea soup thick fog

It’s me . The night. And a thought
Repeating on a theme
A theme … never ending
Infinity drilling into my head

Bubble tent

How can one live in a tent. A glass bubble. A fort and not hear the cries of hungry wolves and thirsty children.

The Bear – Marian Engels ( Review)

Lou and the bear.

Lou the lady who works underground. . in the darkness… collecting the history of families … yellowed pictures. . foxy books. cataloging and long dark nights.

She gets a chance to spend a summer at Cray Island. A house.. more like a mansion. all for herself to catalogue .. books and furniture.. and a bear.

Bear a bear .. a male. the musk and dirt. the organic and natural. an inhabitant .. a fixture .. with every colonel there was a bear. he is the last of them.

this book caused a lot of controversy. . a woman in love with a bear. a love that evolved from companionship… caring.. feeding into a sensual beastiality. A woman craving a man.

Lou is conscious of her actions. she knows what she’s doing. she is not sugar coating .. she loves Bear. Looking for a real macho. something that’s not tainted. a pure form.

the erotica in this book is probably in the last quarter of it. It may be graphic for some, yet it’s there to show you how normal it can be.

Marian Engels did a marvelous job in this short novel. She truly transported the reader into the island. one can smell the sea and forget the city. forget the noise and pollution and venture into a dark Victorian library and relax with a bear sleeping by the fire.