by Sue,
Set in a village in the English countryside, this novel begins by describing the night a teenage girl goes missing and then considers the immediate and long-term consequences of her disappearance. There’s a large cast of characters, and the setting is described in great detail. Could we consider these questions:
What do you think is the author’s central concern?
What do you think happened to the missing girl?
Is the community one you’d like to live in?
Happy reading, ladies.
Hello Ladies!
ReplyDeleteHope this finds you both well. Thanksgiving is tomorrow and we will have a full house. It’s the first year Franklin and I are hosting. We have been cleaning and prepping the meal all week. Do you celebrate any similar holiday at this time in your countries? I know our holiday is centered around the native people helping early settlers but a holiday based on being thankful is never a bad idea no matter where you live!
This month’s novel was very well written. I found Mr. McGregor’s writing style to be enjoyable. I could, however, have used a list of all the locals. I had an extremely difficult time keeping track of everyone. He bounced between characters at such a fast rate. It took me a very long while to get acclimated with everyone. I felt that each chapter was almost a whole new novel.
I think that Mr. McGregor’s center concern was to show how life continues even after tragedy. We’ve read in previous books how shocked the victims of loss were by the outside world continuing along. For the people affected by tragedy, life can freeze in time. Becky’s mother and father cannot move away from their loss initially. The first few years it seems they will never move on. Meanwhile, the entire town is going about its business. The group of teens, James, Lynsey, Rohan, they all continue growing and changing the way Becky would have. Mr. McGregor even has the local wildlife go through their natural life progression.
Call me pessimistic, but my guess is that Becky is dead. Honesty, I assumed that we would be finding her body in reservoir 13. It made sense to me that the title would have some correlation to her disappearance. Martin’s odd behavior with the computer and Jones’s prison time makes them both prime suspects. Or the shady appearance of Ray and Flint; another pair of potential child killers in my opinion.
I felt that a lot of things in this community were left without resolve. What happens to Jones and his sister? What happens to Andrew in his new special needs community? What about Cathy and Richard? Do they ever end up together? Does Jackson every fully recover? So much left open. The only closer I felt was in Mr. Wilson’s story. What did you both think?
I look forward to hearing from you both!
Much Love,
Katie
Hello Ladies
ReplyDeleteHappy Thanksgiving, Katie. I hope you enjoyed it after all that hard work. I’m not sure we have a public celebration based on giving thanks for something – unless one sees the Queen’s birthday celebrations as a thank you to the Queen. I’m not entirely certain that’s the idea, though. Still, I’m with you, Katie - a holiday based on being thankful is a wonderful concept. A day to express appreciation of all working in the National Health Service would be an excellent idea. How’s it going, Nancy? I read with horror about the fires. I hope that they have not encroached on your life, or those of friends or relatives in anyway.
Initially, despite the excellence of the writing, the lyrical descriptions and the detailed evocation of a community, like you Katie, I got very frustrated. Little point in looking ahead to find out what happened to Rebecca – and goodness knows I read the last few pages enough times - so, I concentrated on picking up clues. In answer to my own question, I think the poor girl came to a bad end, assuming the clothing the dog found was hers. And one wonders whether Jones had anything to do with it. But the central concern was on life continuing, not on what had happened to Rebecca, so eventually I settled down and read it purely as a commentary on a community. And it was beautiful. ‘All human life was there’ and lots of non-human life too. Wonderfully detailed.
I think I asked the wrong question, really. It’s not whether we’d like to live in such a community because I think we all do live in such a community. Of course, we’d like to live without the distress Andrew causes his mother; without Sally’s awful brother and his friend, Ray; without being witness to the impact of failed relationships, racism, long-term illness and tragedies on families and individuals. But that’s life. And so realistically drawn. For example Winnie, her grandchildren and the elderflowers (p.249) portrayed family relationships horribly movingly.
I was quite wrung out by the time I got to the end. A gorgeous book which deserves a second reading.
Hello Ladies,
ReplyDeleteI’m sorry to be so late I commenting this month, time seems to have gotten away from me.
I’ve had the family home for an early Christmas last week, it was wonderful to have us all together for a few days.
Ivars and I will be road tripping to Melbourne early in the new year to move Gracie back to Brisbane where she is moving in with Sam and his partner Michelle. So fun times, travelling across the country in the middle of Summer, but as I’ve said before, the bigger the kids the bigger the probs!!
We have had fires around us for the past month and it is only in the last few days the smoke has finally started to clear. The main fire is on the other side of the river to us so we are quite safe, although it has burned in excess of 115,000 hectares of land. I heard the other day the combined burnt land in NSW so far this season is in excess of 2000000 hectares. It has devastating for so many of our local little communities and our fire fighters are absolutely exhausted yet still carrying on, amazing people, such heroes.
On a happier note, Ivars and I have booked a Canadian adventure for spring next year, so needing to get the fitness regime going for all the hiking we have planned.
I actually finished our novel a couple of weeks ago and enjoyed it. Sadly, though for me I decided early on it was a mystery and spent the vast majority of the book looking for clues and fully expecting a result in the end. So, I was disappointed and disappointed in myself to be so presumptuous, maybe I should have also read the ending of the story earlier Sue so I could have enjoyed what you so rightly say was excellent writing.
Like you Katie, I expected Reservoir 13 to be a key piece of the story, perhaps it was the authors subtle hint of what became of Rebecca.
The story was such a realistic description of community life with all the characters sharing complex relationships, both good and bad.
So many real life tragedies like this also end in this way, the not knowing must be tortuous for the families of these victims and so many innocent lives become destroyed by false accusations and distrust.
Yes Sue, I believe we all live in communities like this, Jon McGregor’s wonderful writing makes the everyday things of life interesting and quite beautiful.
Thanks Sue, I enjoyed this book.
Much love,
Nancy