Kathryn BorelBesprekingen

This book is a memoir of a daughter who travelled around France to various vineyards with her eccentric father. I did enjoy this book although it is not what I expected. Don't expect to learn a lot about France in this book. Nor will this book educate you about French wines (There is some of that, further into the book). Although there is a fair amount of wine discussion in the book, the focus is largely on the father/daughter relationship. Both are temperamental. Now they are going to be trapped in a car and drinking together. Does this sound like a good plan to you?

This is a memoir about 26 year old daughter Kathryn and her father Philippe going on a wine trip through France together.

Kathryn Borel goes off to France on a wine tasting trip with her oenophile father after she has a terrible car accident that has made her cognizant of her dad's mortality. But her sudden revelation about the fleeting nature of life isn't the only thing that she comes face to face with during this tour the breadth of France. She spends quite a lot of her time deconstructing the romantic relationship she's ended just before leaving as well. While she and her father do indeed travel around to different vineyards, this is more a journey to knowing and understanding each other, and at least in Kathryn's case, in understanding herself better. The wine vacation is simply the framework upon which hangs the tales of Kathryn's feelings and relationships.

This memoir is billed as the tale of a wine innocent daughter and her expert father learning about each other as much as about wine and vintners. Truly though, the information about wine and the trip itself is sparse and not terribly satisfying. Instead, the two relationships, between Kathryn and her father and Kathryn and ex-boyfriend Matthew, take center stage. Unfortunately, in the case of the father daughter dynamics, I'm not certain their relationship translated particularly sympathetically to the page. It is easy to see that Kathryn is reduced to childishness when around her domineering father but he is also reduced to a fairly childish caricature in these pages. The by-play between the father and daughter, which I suspect could be funny and entertaining in real life, limps along on the page. Inside jokes are only funny to those in the know and we readers aren't enough in the know here to recognize and appreciate those found here. When the narrative veers to Kathryn's relationship (or former relationship) with Matthew, it feels as if the reader is being dragged out of one story and into another one entirely, one only tangentially related to the original story. Somehow there had to be a way to connect the two threads and then weave them convincingly against the backdrop of Kathryn's life changing accident, but it's done so loosely that it loses what needs to be an effective, tight connection. Ultimately disappointing, this road trip used as therapy memoir might have been cathartic for Borel to write but therapy sessions aren't engrossing reading for anyone other than the subject(s) or therapists in training to read and this doesn't disprove that.½

This meandering memoir covered a father-daughter wine-tasting trip trip through France, but the location was the only appealing element of the book. Both the narraor and her fathercame across as selfish, self-involved, and immature. Between his tantrums, her childish sulks, and both of their inability to communicate like adults, the book was actually painful in places to read. The book seems to have no general purpose- no grand revelations or useful life messages or interesting stories emerge that would make spending time with these self-indulgent people worthwhile. I gave it 2 stars only for the bits of interesting wine trivia that popped up on occasion.

At first I was excited about getting this book because I thought it had a lot in common with other books I enjoy reading - road trip, food oriented, memoirs, etc. Unfortunately as I read it, I found I didn't like it much at all. I found the author/narrator to be juvenile, narcissistic, and unlikeable. Ostensibly she goes with her father on this road trip to better understand him because she fears his mortality. In reality, what she seems to want is to make sure he listens to her and understands how he has failed her.

The father is also not particularly likeable, even though he is supposed to be charming. Late in the book, he reveals a significant event in his life. It would have been more interesting to hear more about this or even how it effected him more than the brief accounting we get. Perhaps the book would have been more interesting as a biography of the father rather than the memoir of the daughter.

One assumes that because it's a memoir, events took place in the order they happened, so perhaps this is a true recollection of the trip. However, it was neither particularly funny or particularly enlightening. If I had gotten this book from the library, I doubt I would have finished it.½

This was a hard one for me. Borel's memoir of a trip to France with her hotelier father to learn about wine sounds like it should have been a light hearted romp through France. Instead, it was a dark examination of her mostly strained relationship with her father. At times, Borel's contempt radiated off the page. For the first two thirds of the book, it was sort of like listening to an ultra-long therapy session. Borel cannot get over her dad's response to her own traumatic event. The wine and everything else take a back seat to Borel's attempt to resolve her issues with her father. Once she finally makes her breakthrough, the rest of the story is sort of sweet and the descriptions were lovely. I had no idea what I was getting into with this, and had I known I would not have requested this book. It was too angsty for me. I also disliked Borel's use of each tasting to address stages of her theraputic experience. However, Borel's writing is very good, her language is dynamic and certainly expressive. For those who aren't expecting a light read, this may be an excellent choice.

This book was not what it I expected based on the description as an Early Reviewer. I was expecting the story of a bonding father/daughter wine country tour…that is not what I got. Before I read it, I loaned it to my mom who returned it saying “Well, the language is kind of strong.” I don’t mind a few f-bombs, when appropriately placed, so I was not concerned. However, after I began, I realized that it was my mom’s way of saying “I didn’t like the people in the book…I didn’t like the way they spoke, interacted with each other or anyone else for that matter”. And, I tend to agree. Another LT reviewer (valkylee) wrote: “It's hard to enjoy reading when you don't like the characters and find nothing redeeming in them” and I quote the reviewer because frankly I could not have said it better myself. I did not like the characters so I could not like the book…plain and simple. The one redeeming aspect: Ms. Borel does a lovely job describing French wine country, not quite on par with Peter Mayle, but not too shabby.

Kathryn Borel is her own worst enemy. In wanting to be a cliche that doesn't exist (the bonding father-daughter road-trip that will be so life-changing, everyone will be moved by the story), she becomes an even worse cliche (the self-involved traveler so bent on having a life-altering experience that the weight of expectation can't help but ruin the trip from the start). At the onset, one must give her credit for laying bare so much of her current tragedy - a failure to connect with her father, the messy breakup of a long-term relationship and her hand in vehicular homicide. At the onset. Because as the book drags one gets the distinct feeling that all of these things are merely new and exciting ways to be involved in the ever-expanding Drama of Kathryn. And while self-involvement is perhaps her best coping mechanism at the moment, it doesn't make for a fun road-trip.½

Neither Kathryn Borel nor her father is the most psychically stable of individuals when they set off on a two-week wine tasting adventure through France. And there is nothing like the pressure cooker of a tin can rental car to bring emotions to the boiling point.

Full review posted on Rose City Reader.½

An unlikable father given to rants, verbal abuse and bullying of anyone who would endure it travels through his native France in the company of his adult aged daughter who has yet to enter a mature state. She is obsessed with pleasing this abusive bore in an attempt to win parental approval which has been perpetually withheld. Borel tries to deal with unresolved feelings about an accident that has obviously affected her, but credits her abusive father with having had the"good sense" to make a joke about the recent tragedy.

The only redeeming feature for me was an excellent description of the wine country. As a former French teacher, I enjoyed the visit.

This unusual memoir has the author recounting a road trip through France visiting vineyards with her wine connoisseur father with whom she has a very mixed relationship. On the one hand, she is eager to please with her limited vino knowledge; on the other, she is angry that he wasn't there for her in the aftermath of a horrible accident.

It took a while for me to get into this book - Borell's writing place is kind of stream-of-consciousness, and is hard to read at times (although very fresh and engaging at others) but ultimately I enjoyed it and learned a little bit about wine too. I'd recommend it for someone who wants angst-filled family dynamics memoir with some wine 101 to boot.

I liked this book. Sure, there are unlikeable moments, and some unpleasantness, but that's life, right?

This memoir of Kathryn and her father doing a wine tour around France (where he is from) is actually quite wonderful. As they travel through the country, stopping at wineries and hotels, getting into arguments and having heart-to-heart moments, pitching fits and laughing it up, they get to know each other very well. And like so many things in adult life, the more you think you know, the more you realize how wrong you are. "Corked" is cute, funny, sad, touching, with a realistic parent/child relationship...what more can you want from a memoir?

Kathryn has a wonderfully quirky writing style, with unusual and spot-on ways to describe things. I really like this book, and I hope Ms. Borel will write another book in the near future.

I've been marinating over this one for awhile. Truth is I just had mixed emotions about it. There were times I loved it, laughed out loud, shook my head yeah, and even highlighted certain lines in the book. When making hollandaise, she says she put a stick of butter in her back pocket, walked around until it softened then whisked up her sauce. I'm still thinking about that one, for some reason it stuck with me. I'll think of it everytime I soften butter for a recipe. I think this is the epitome of why I feel so conflicted about this memoir, she thinks in a quirky, dry, but witty way, yet in a way that I totally don't think. This is not bad, it's just different. I really at times thought her writing was genius, and then a few lines later somehow I was taken back a bit. I think its a French thing. Whenever I watch a French film, even though the story is great and I enjoy it there is an underlayment of despair and gloom, and I found that here. This book was emotional, angry, funny, depressed, intelligent, charming, frustrating, and haunting. All words that I think describe who the author is, it almost seems to me, a person, dare I say that is conflicted, so I the reader find myself feeling the same way about this memoir.½

Not exactly your typical father-daughter memoir. The pair travel through the father's native France on an extensive wine tour. The father is an expert, the daughter/author, Kathryn, feels like a failure in her father's esteem. But the wine trip is just the vehicle for a daughter who needs her father and fears his mortality (after a surprising, disturbing revelation of something Kathryn did), and worries about their lack of a real connection. She's not that concerned about the wine. A wine lover might be annoyed by the level of wine discussion and knowledge shared, but I'm not a wine lover. I appreciated the interesting unfolding of the important relationship - that between daughter and father, not between father and wine, daughter and wine, and father, daughter and wine. I'd share this with a fellow lover of the memoir genre.

The essential element of a successful memoir are, at least for me, a memoirist I can like and care about. It also helps if there is something at stake in the writer's life. Kathryn Borel and her father were not at all likable; in fact, I could barely stand their company for the time it took me to read this. Her failed romance was inexplicable, her father's behavior inexcusable most of the time, their wine tastings were actually unpleasant to read. Why all the spitting, the vomiting, the throwing of menus? Why should we care about this rude, arrogant man and his confused and self-obsessed daughter? I really don't know.

As a wine lover and Francophile I was prepared to love this book - a daughter bonds with her father during vineyard tours of France. I was wrong. Borel's father comes across as a complete asshole. He is abusive toward restaurant staff, arrogant and self-absorbed. His daughter - the author - is only slightly more likeable. She whines about a failed romance ( shades of Chevy Chase's daughter in European Vacation), whines (rightly so) abouit her father being a complete asshole, and obsesses about an automobile accident in which she killed a man. You will learn nothing about France, its wine or its cuisine, even though this appears to be her father's metier. This is a father-daughter drama queen pairing that should not have been made public in a book.½

Corked was nothing at all like I was expecting it to be, but I thoroughly enjoyed it nonetheless. Both the author and her father are simultaneously hilarious and rather self-absorbed, and the way they play off each other during their two week trip through the wine regions of France is somewhat maddening and ultimately heartwarming. The book is rife with the author's existential angst, but it is wisely mixed with plenty of humor, not to mention the many wonderful images, scents and flavors of the glorious wines and wine-making feats of France.

Philippe Borel, Kathryn's father, reminded me only too much of my own pater familias, though mine was Irish, not French. There's a good chance I would have had fantasies of patricide after two weeks in a car with my own father, too.

I have to say that Corked is not a book for everyone, and if you pick it up thinking it is simply a 'wine book' then you will most likely end up running away screaming. But, if you'd be satisfied to learn quite a bit about the wines of France while being given a glimpse of a stormy but loving relationship between a father and daughter, then give it a shot.

Corked..well, it was a bomb. Hard to read. I would find myself at times thinking “HOW on earth did this get published?” It was painful. What a shame too as I was so very excited to receive this book. The cover states it’s a story about a wine trip to end all wine trips. When I started the first two chapters I was not impressed but soldiered on, giving it the benefit of getting better. (it certainly couldn’t have gotten worse). My attention was captured with mention of Chateneuf-du-Pape. Alas……deep disappointment.

The title Corked covered it completely. A wine gone bad.
The two main characters are completely ego-centric and THE rudest people to grace a restaurant. The cover and title lead you to believe this will be a father-daughter trip through wine country where they detail their experiences of good food, wine and descriptions of French towns and culture.

But instead it is a whining diatribe of two people who do not go out of their way to connect. They are both petulant, self-absorbed individuals who never make the time to listen to one another let alone try to connect to their feelings.

Never mind wine and French food….this is about Kathryn picking her belly button lint, her promiscuity with many partners which she talks about to her father. It’s about Philippe’s vocal impatience with restaurant staff, the endless pity party about a sore leg and the unsympathetic daughter whose mantra must be ME,ME, ME.

And what was with ALL THE CAPITAL LETTERS WHEN SHE CURSED AND FUSSED? That was annoying.

Perhaps I expected something along the line of Peter Mayle, Georgeanne Brennan or Carol Drinkwater…..

I would not recommend this book....but that is just my opinion. I see others who reviewed it liked the book. I did not.

I received this book as part of Early Reviewers. My father raised three daughters, so I was ready to relate to this book and Borel’s travels through Europe with her father. I was ready to learn about her connection with him during their two week trip.

I think a quick and easy one word description for this book is sad. Kathryn Borel is sad, her father is sad and her trip through Europe is tinged with sadness. I think the part that most resonated: I understood her sadness. I understood that deep place where she was coming from, realizing that one day she will lose her father and this trip is her way to always remember him. Her sometimes desperation throughout her memoir shows how important this was to her.

Borel tries desperately to learn her father’s stories, to document his life, in the various tidbits that he shares (sometimes awkwardly, sometimes laugh out-loud funny). She learns about her father’s early career, his love interests, and to her surprise, his time in prison, which helps explain who he later became in life.

Though there are some moments where you want to scream at Kathryn and her father, for their selfishness and stubbornness, at the end you can’t help but hope they each find what they are looking for.

I thoroughly enjoyed Ms. Borel's story. Her analogies for the wines she was tasting were perfect. I identified with her ambivalent relationship with her father (my mother). The writing is contemporary and fun and a book I highly recommend not only for the lessons in wine/tasting/history but also for the lessons in love.

Corked is the true story of 26-year-old Kathryn Borel's wine-tasting trip through France with her father. Mr. Borel was born in France and is a great lover of wine with an extensive wine cellar. This trip is Ms. Borel's attempt to get to know her father and develop a deeper understanding of his passion for wine.

It's a quick and easy read, part road trip and a lot of family dynamics. The relationship between this father and daughter plays out in the confines of a small car, giving us the full range from the childish "I hate you", to discussions of their sex lives, to a deep love and mutual caring. All packed into a short book, the writing was a bit jarring at times...like a rollercoaster ride. At the end, I felt I understood their relationship, but was less sure I knew either of them as individuals. But, family dynamics can be like that, I guess. When I'm with my mom, I'm always still just a little bit of a kid -- even though I have kids of my own now.

Interesting read, not great, but not bad either.