The Price of Salt
I struggled mightily with this book. I very nearly abandoned it (and perhaps I should have). But it's a classic and it's not very long and I was already well over halfway through it. Instead I took an extended break and then picked at it, ten pages at a time, until I finally reached the end.
I'm not sure whether or not I'm glad I stuck with it. I am, perhaps, glad I read it. But I can't say that I liked it very much. The language was the biggest barrier to me. It demands too much attention for me to read a paragraph at a time while keeping half an eye on my son. But neither could I sink into it for very long. After twenty pages or so I'd find myself bored. Overwhelmed by the language and trying to hold on to what I'd just read.
A more generous person might say that it's a book to be savored. And perhaps it is. If you can find anything in it that you want to savor.
See the real problem is that I didn't care for either Therese or Carol. I couldn't figure out what they wanted, what they saw in each other. They seemed sketched in, like much of the book. I kept feeling like I'd missed something, but I hadn't. Therese frequently refuses to say what's on her mind. She's like a hole where a person should be, and the people around her just pile all their expectations and desires on her and then she doesn't live up to them and everyone is confused and I'm frustrated.
Carol made a bit more sense, until the end when she did something that I disagreed with so strongly it made me hate her a little. Except that Carol, like Therese, is barely enough of a person to hate.
So the two of them have an epic, sweeping romance that takes ages to get started and then manages to remain frustratingly on the edges of the novel. Always teased and never just started explicitly until suddenly it's over (for good reason). What sense I did get of the characters was that they were horribly mismatched, that this was not a relationship that would last for any number of reasons. But even that sense of doom failed to provide much tension because I was just so bored by it all.
But I did finish it. So I can cross that one off the list. I wonder if the movie is any better.
I'm not sure whether or not I'm glad I stuck with it. I am, perhaps, glad I read it. But I can't say that I liked it very much. The language was the biggest barrier to me. It demands too much attention for me to read a paragraph at a time while keeping half an eye on my son. But neither could I sink into it for very long. After twenty pages or so I'd find myself bored. Overwhelmed by the language and trying to hold on to what I'd just read.
A more generous person might say that it's a book to be savored. And perhaps it is. If you can find anything in it that you want to savor.
See the real problem is that I didn't care for either Therese or Carol. I couldn't figure out what they wanted, what they saw in each other. They seemed sketched in, like much of the book. I kept feeling like I'd missed something, but I hadn't. Therese frequently refuses to say what's on her mind. She's like a hole where a person should be, and the people around her just pile all their expectations and desires on her and then she doesn't live up to them and everyone is confused and I'm frustrated.
Carol made a bit more sense, until the end when she did something that I disagreed with so strongly it made me hate her a little. Except that Carol, like Therese, is barely enough of a person to hate.
So the two of them have an epic, sweeping romance that takes ages to get started and then manages to remain frustratingly on the edges of the novel. Always teased and never just started explicitly until suddenly it's over (for good reason). What sense I did get of the characters was that they were horribly mismatched, that this was not a relationship that would last for any number of reasons. But even that sense of doom failed to provide much tension because I was just so bored by it all.
But I did finish it. So I can cross that one off the list. I wonder if the movie is any better.
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