Marjorie CelonaBesprekingen
Auteur van Y
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It IS a very suspenseful novel, a slow burner that comes together in a demonstration of human nature and circumstances gone out of control. Recommended.
I thought this book wasn't having a deep effect on me. Then, twenty pages left to read, tears are streaming down my face. Ah, good books.
In Marjorie Celona’s How a Woman Becomes a Lake the missing protagonist is Vera, a thirty-year old filmmaker and lecturer who lives in the small West Coast fishing town of Whale Bay, “just a stone’s throw from Canada”. On New Year’s Day 1986, Vera goes out for a walk with her dog Scout and fails to return home. The local detectives immediately presume foul play. Vera’s considerably older husband, Denny Gusev, becomes a murder suspect, particularly since neighbours claim to have heard the couple heatedly argue on the evening of the disappearance. Officer Lewis Coté, however, refuses to accept this neat solution. Just before going awol, Vera phones the Police claiming that she has found a boy in the woods. Could it have been one of Leo’s two sons, who were out near the lake on the same day? Do the boys know more than they are letting on?
The book’s blurb describes this novel as “a literary novel with the pull and pace of a thriller, told in taut illuminating prose”. It’s the type of description which, unfortunately, shows the stigma still associated with genre fiction. There would have been nothing wrong or shameful with describing How a Woman Becomes a Lake as a “noir” or an outright “thriller”, because (i) that’s what it is and (ii) it is a noir/thriller in the best senses of the word. It is a page-turner which reveals its secrets cunningly. In a nod to Scandi-thrillers, it also uses landscape and nature to wonderful effect. Also, at a more ‘philosophical’ level, it is in keeping with the noir tradition which revels in psychological and moral shadows. The best characters have their faults, whilst even the worst have redeeming features.
Celona borrows her title from a New Yorker essay by Jia Tolentino, which in turn references Ovid. This title, with its echoes of Classical mythology, suggests a magical realist aspect to the novel, one which becomes apparent in its more whimsical, poetic chapters. It also invites a metaphorical reading of the book: a cry against the gender politics of a patriarchal society, reflected in the expectations society makes of Vera, of Evelina and, conversely, of Lewis, Leo and Denny.
How a Woman Becomes A Lake provides much food for thought. Which, of course, does not make it any less of an exciting noir.
https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/2020/02/how-a-woman-becomes-a-lake-marjorie-c...
When a woman takes her dog for a morning walk at the lake in the morning on New Year’s Day, there are numerous directions, complete with various twists and turns the tale can take. These only increase in number when she finds a young boy standing in the snow, alone and freezing, and almost forces him into her car for warmth. Her gorgeous dog is an unwitting lure to the boy.
Neither of them knows at this point that the world is about to shatter and spin out of control in ways that nobody could have predicted. They will both be launched into a lifelong nightmare of silence, although for one of them, it will be all too short.
I honestly cannot see this title in the mystery genre, it is perhaps more fitting for thriller. It is a slow pace, but it is steady and unrelenting. I would highly recommend this title to those who like a good solid read! It kept me a little unbalanced throughout... just when you are sure you know what is coming - nope!
Born and raised on Vancouver Island, BC Canada, author Marjorie Celona’s debut novel, Y, won France’s Grand Prix Littéraire de l’Heroïne, and was nominated for the 2012 Scotiabank Giller Prize.
Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for the ARC!
#NetGalley
#HowaWomanBecomesaLake
This is beautifully written, full of complex, flawed characters. The mystery (such as it is) was reasonably obvious once you were about half way through the book, but by then you cared so much about the characters that you were more interested in them than plot development. I'm deducting half a star for the chapters from Vera's point of view, which struck me as a bit unnecessary. The ending was very good.
The novel is set in 1986 in the state of Washington “in a small fishing town a stone’s throw from Canada.” A police officer, Lewis Côté, finds Vera Gusev’s car abandoned in a parking lot near a frozen lake at Squire Point. She had called the police to report finding a young boy in the woods, but neither she nor a boy can be found. Leo Lucchi takes his sons Jesse and Dmitri to the lake but when Jesse pulls a cruel prank on his father, Leo leaves him in the woods for a while to think about what he did before picking him up. Lewis wants to find out what happened to Vera. Did Leo and the boys meet her? Despite their claiming not to know what happened to Vera, there are suspicions that they are keeping a secret.
The novel is told from shifting perspectives: Lewis, Jesse, Denny (Vera’s husband), Evelina (Jesse and Dmitri’s mother), Leo, Dmitri, and Vera. The reader comes to know each of these characters quite well, including their personalities and their motivations. Of course, information is also withheld; it is made obvious that the full truth is not being told: “He could live with that story, with that version of things” and “’I will keep your secret . . . Because I think it’s the right thing to do.’”
Guilt and grief are explored. Denny, for example, suffers from both. He is consumed by grief because of his wife’s disappearance and by guilt because his marriage was failing. Lewis grieves because of his father’s death and feels guilty because he was unable to help his dad when he was alive. Leo, divorced from Evelina, knows he was not always the best husband and father and keeps looking for redemption.
Jesse knows he has not always been a good brother so he determines to treat Dmitri better.
The book examines justice: does justice for the dead supersede any duty to the living? A search for the truth cannot help a deceased victim but may harm the living. For instance Denny is initially suspected of knowing something about his wife’s disappearance. The investigation leaves him in even more torment: “They would investigate every aspect of his life and marriage, the detectives told him. They would turn him inside out.” So he starts thinking “Maybe she hadn’t disappeared at all. Maybe he had driven her away. Maybe he had driven her to suicide.”
Also explored is the impact of childhood experiences. Lewis often ponders the impact of his difficult childhood on his life, especially the choices he has made: “the child of a crazy parent spends his whole life trying to fix the world.” As a police officer, he thinks that “if a child committed a crime by age twelve, he could help that child turn things around. He could have a huge impact on that child’s life. But if that child was fifteen? Forget about it.” Jesse experienced violence at the hands of his father so when he becomes a parent, Evelina “finds herself watching him closely when he holds his daughter. Studying his hands. How tightly they grip the baby’s little thighs, her little arms. Or did he get all the violence out of him . . . ?”
A concern shared by several characters is the desire to be a good parent. Certainly, Lewis wants to be a good father: “Was that the kind of thing a good parent would say? . . . He wanted to be a good parent . . He wanted to be.” Evelina wants to be a good mother: “She had read somewhere that after a separation a parent should not speak ill of the other parent. So she tried to reminisce, as much as she could with the boys, about Leo’s good qualities.” Even Leo acknowledges that he might need to take parenting classes.
This is a crime novel, but it is a crime novel with thematic depth. It leaves the reader wondering what he/she would do in a similar situation.
Note: Please check out my reader's blog (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski).
When I started this story I didn't think I would even make it past the first 20 pages, but the writing kept me reading even if the subject matter wasn't much to my liking.
I received this book through Goodreads First Reads.
I don't think I have ever been so sad to see a book end. It caught me by surprise and I must have stared at the last page for 5 minutes before I finally closed the book. It was like saying goodbye to a friend that you don't want to lose. I grew so attached to the main character that I almost cried.
One of my favourite things about this book is the way it was written. The narrative is beautiful and 150% suits how you imagine Shannon would think if she was an actual human being. She doesn't always describe what's going on in full sentences, but when you think about it, when does anyone in real life think to themselves in full sentences when something is going on? I sure don't. In my opinion the narrative is pretty much what made this book exceptional.
I loved how not one character in this book was perfect. Their flaws don't get pointed out blatantly, but you know that they have them and you know what they are for the most part. It's like you've been talking to this character for a bit and you notice they have a tick or something. Their flaws are slipped in just like that. And it makes them so much more vivid and life like.
Last but not least, the plot. I only have one word for this: phenomenal. I seriously can't explain it any other way. If I had the time and I thought someone would actually read it, I'd write two pages on just the plot alone. It flowed so smoothly and weaved together so wonderfully that I didn't even feel like I was reading a book. No questions were left unanswered, and yet there was still a hint of mystery at the end. But I was left satisfied instead of upset with that.
I would, and have already, recommend this book to everyone I meet. Strangers walking down the street might even be told to read this book. I loved it that much.
Und doch hat dieses Buch eine so hoffnungsvolle Botschaft und gefällt mir daher sehr,. Denn es ist möglich, es gut zu machen, Glück zu haben, Beziehungen einzugehen. Es ist möglich, trotz aller Einsamkeit in Verbindung zu treten. Es ist möglich zu leben.
A baby is abandoned at the Y. Why? Why do people choose the forks in the path that they do? People are so often incapable of recognising choices. They lack a perceptual awareness of their own abilities to influence their own course through their life. The novel follows the story of the abandoned baby and her childhood, and intersperses it with the story of her biological parents. The paths of the characters are littered with misery and bad choices. The bleakness is alleviated only a little by the naive hopes of the child.
The characters were sketched in bold strong strokes, but didn't feel filled in. The use of the city as a character itself helped compensate for this. The rich imageries of the various neighbourhoods of Victoria were replete with details that provided strong contexts for the story lines. I enjoyed this the most. As she walked her characters along Dallas Rd at the ocean front, past the World's Tallest Totem, and over to Ogden Point where the cruise ships berth, I saw it readily in my mind. The down and outs of Pandora Ave and other marginal areas dominated the book. The rural areas out west, beside a provincial park, also played true to form, harboring an eclectic mix of reclusive people who seek refuge in the environment of towering trees "forming a nave", like a church, or an Emily Carr painting, as noted by one of the characters.
Beautifully written, unsympathetic look at the bonds of mother and child, tough decisions and what family really means. Step mother Miranda is the real heroine of the book. She provides Shannon with stability and tough love. The Y of the story is both the question and the fork in the road the characters face... lots of symbolism for this literary-critical mind to love.
Y takes its title from the opening scene where 18 year old Yula leaves her newborn baby at the front door of the YMCA, and it also suggests the word “why?”, as in “why would someone abandon her baby?” The novel shifts back and forth in time and follows the baby, now named Shannon, as she is passed through foster care and eventually into a more stable home, and alternates with the story of Yula and what happens to her in the time leading up to Shannon’s birth.
Y has received rave reviews and was nominated for the Giller Prize. I’m stunned, because I thought the writing was fairly atrocious. I was able to make it through only because I listened to the audiobook, but if I’d been reading the paper copy I would have thrown it in the recycling bin before getting halfway through. A few of the negative comments I read were that readers found the characters unlikeable and the story unrelentingly depressing. This may be true, but is not my complaint.
To give the writer some credit, I think she handled the alternating storyline and the pacing well. Of course from the beginning the reader knows that this is going to be Shannon’s quest for her birth mother, and I was mildly interested in the path that would take. So it wasn’t all bad.
If I had a paper copy, I would have noted all the problems I had with how the story is written, but since I’ve already erased my electronic copy, I will just outline a few of my problems. Overall, I could see the author at work, and picture her checking her copious notes as she sat at her keyboard. I can see that she took a creative writing course, and was given the advice to add an air of reality and to paint a picture through the use of rich detail. She was also told to know absolutely everything about all her characters—not to use it in the novel necessarily, but to understand what makes them tick. Celona’s problem is that she couldn’t stop herself from including every single meaningless detail. The result is that for every minor character that is ever mentioned and every major character that enters a scene, the reader gets a sentence describing their hair, a sentence or two describing their complete outfit, and a sentence describing the effect of their physical appearance on Shannon. This made the narrative flow very clunky and mechanical. Before the end of the first chapter, it was making me scream. She also layered on the forced details like this with settings and locations. I often admire the magic an author can achieve with subtle details, but here I felt like she was bludgeoning me over the head with them.
Celona chose an unusual narrative technique, one that I will dub “first person omniscient.” The narrator, Shannon, knows details about other characters thoughts and motivations, even when she wasn’t there, even when she wasn’t born yet. Ultimately this is just a hinky form of third person narration.
And to really make sure I hated this book, Celona employs my pet peeve cliché of the young woman having sex for the first time and getting pregnant. In actuality, the chances of conceiving from any single sexual encounter is 3%-11%, but in literature, if you’re young and unmarried, it’s 100%, cause sluts have to be punished. Authors: if you want to have some credibility, stop. Please stop.
It’s pretty clear from the start where the novel would end up, and that was fine with me as it was really about the journey. However, I was surprised at how judgemental and preachy the ending was—colour me Not Impressed.
3 
Nickelini | 24 andere besprekingen | Nov 13, 2014 |
Nickelini | 24 andere besprekingen | Nov 13, 2014 | Goodreads Synopsis:"Y. That perfect letter. The wishbone, fork in the road, empty wineglass. The question we ask over and over. Why? . . . My life begins at the Y."
So opens Marjorie Celona's highly acclaimed and exquisitely rendered debut about a wise-beyond-her-years foster child abandoned as a newborn on the doorstep of the local YMCA. Swaddled in a dirty gray sweatshirt with nothing but a Swiss Army knife tucked between her feet, little Shannon is discovered by a man who catches only a glimpse of her troubled mother as she disappears from view. That morning, all three lives are forever changed. Bounced between foster homes, Shannon endures abuse and neglect until she finally finds stability with Miranda, a kind but no-nonsense single mother with a free-spirited daughter of her own. Yet Shannon defines life on her own terms, refusing to settle down, and never stops longing to uncover her roots — especially the stubborn question of why her mother would abandon her on the day she was born.
Brilliantly and hauntingly interwoven with Shannon's story is the tale of her mother, Yula, a girl herself who is facing a desperate fate in the hours and days leading up to Shannon's birth. As past and present converge, Y tells an unforgettable story of identity, inheritance, and, ultimately, forgiveness. Celona's ravishingly beautiful novel offers a deeply affecting look at the choices we make and what it means to be a family, and it marks the debut of a magnificent new voice in contemporary fiction.
My Review: I received this book probably two years ago in exchange for a review, and I misplaced it for forever, or so I thought. It showed up at the weirdest time, right when I thought I lost the other book I read, and my kobo was dead. I thought, hey, I should probably get around to reading this! And am I glad I did. It's an amazing, touching story that I couldn't put down from the moment I opened the first page. It kept my attention for the whole entire book, and even though the ending didn't turn out like I thought it would, I loved every minute of it. The characters were exciting to learn about, I loved how the book was written, I loved every single chapter. It's an amazing read that I definitely think that more people should read, and definitely check it out if you get the chance. I'm sorry this review took so long to write! I didn't mean too, I just got busy! Thanks for reading. (':
(Radioactivebookreviews.wordpress.com)
Ms. Celona has successfully told a story from an unsual perspective: Shannon begins narrating her story from before she was born. In Shannon's voice, we hear the story of her mother and father, as well as her own, in alternating chapters. The author allows Shannon's voice and perspectives to change as she ages -- a remarkable talent in character development. Shannon will warm your heart: you'll want to hold her, give her a good talking to....you will care deeply about her.
This book is also interesting because we have the perspective of the abandoned child, as well as that of her mother and father. Her parents were irresponsible and made many bad choices in their lives. This book will help you explore a young woman's search for identity and belonging.
I loved it.
Quotes:
"Do not believe anything anyone tells you. You have to evaluate the world with your own eyes." (Quinn to Yula, 75)
There's a kind of desperation that comes from having a small family, a palpable strain....Each of us tries too hard - each must encompass, for the other, an entire family combined....I try to be grateful that I live in this beautiful place. I try not to be so restless. But I feel like I grew up on the moon. When you live on an island, all you can think is, "How am I going to get off it?" (102)
I want to hate them so much....But they're not bad people and never have been. How do you become a part of someone else's family? You don't, and you never do. (126)
I want to reach with an outstretched hand. I want to open all the windows. I think there are angels in this city. They are in the windows with the lights left on. (131)
People talk about when you're young as being full of possibility, but the uncertainty of it all makes me feel lost and insane. I try to be cheerful. I try to live in the present. But it's hard. (177)
I understand her immediately. She is an instigator, a fire starter, an accelerant of a human being, throwing herself into the middle of a crowd and lighting it up. She is fucking lighter fluid. (180)
I try to picture what my life will be like, but it all seems impossible....Life seems full of impossibility. I don't know how anyone gets through it. (197)
I might have loved you most of all; either that or the sum of our heartbreaks never diminishes, only keeps silent until we're ripped open again. (letter from Vaughn's ex-wife to Vaughn, 199)
Knowing the story doesn't make it any better. In the end, we get what we're given, nothing more, nothing less. (259)
It's the one thing in life he can't predict: who will get the lucky break. (259)
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In Marjorie Celona’s How a Woman Becomes a Lake the missing protagonist is Vera, a thirty-year old filmmaker and lecturer who lives in the small West Coast fishing town of Whale Bay, “just a stone’s throw from Canada”. On New Year’s Day 1986, Vera goes out for a walk with her dog Scout and fails to return home. The local detectives immediately presume foul play. Vera’s considerably older husband, Denny Gusev, becomes a murder suspect, particularly since neighbours claim to have heard the couple heatedly argue on the evening of the disappearance. Officer Lewis Coté, however, refuses to accept this neat solution. Just before going awol, Vera phones the Police claiming that she has found a boy in the woods. Could it have been one of Leo’s two sons, who were out near the lake on the same day? Do the boys know more than they are letting on?
The book’s blurb describes this novel as “a literary novel with the pull and pace of a thriller, told in taut illuminating prose”. It’s the type of description which, unfortunately, shows the stigma still associated with genre fiction. There would have been nothing wrong or shameful with describing How a Woman Becomes a Lake as a “noir” or an outright “thriller”, because (i) that’s what it is and (ii) it is a noir/thriller in the best senses of the word. It is a page-turner which reveals its secrets cunningly. In a nod to Scandi-thrillers, it also uses landscape and nature to wonderful effect. Also, at a more ‘philosophical’ level, it is in keeping with the noir tradition which revels in psychological and moral shadows. The best characters have their faults, whilst even the worst have redeeming features.
Celona borrows her title from a New Yorker essay by Jia Tolentino, which in turn references Ovid. This title, with its echoes of Classical mythology, suggests a magical realist aspect to the novel, one which becomes apparent in its more whimsical, poetic chapters. It also invites a metaphorical reading of the book: a cry against the gender politics of a patriarchal society, reflected in the expectations society makes of Vera, of Evelina and, conversely, of Lewis, Leo and Denny.
How a Woman Becomes A Lake provides much food for thought. Which, of course, does not make it any less of an exciting noir.
https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/2020/02/how-a-woman-becomes-a-lake-marjorie-c...