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Does 'Her Fearful Symmetry' make the grade?
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HER FEARFUL SYMMETRY by Audrey Niffenegger
If you are looking for a novel to get lost in as the days get colder and you need an escape from the beginnings of the frantic shopping season, then here is one mind-bending option for you:
Audrey Niffenegger's new novel "HER FEARFUL SYMMETRY."
(The title of the book is derived from a poem written in 1794 by William Blake, "The Tyger." Just in case you were wondering.)
From the publisher:
"The novel opens with a letter that alters the fate of every character. Julia and Valentina Poole are semi-normal American twenty-year-olds with seemingly little interest in college or finding jobs. Their attachment to one another is intense. One morning the mailman delivers a thick envelope to their house in the suburbs of Chicago. From a London solicitor, the enclosed letter informs them that their English aunt Elspeth Noblin, whom they never knew, has died of cancer and left them her London apartment. There are two conditions to this inheritance: that they live in it for a year before they sell it and that their parents not enter it. Julia and Valentina are twins. So were the estranged Elspeth and Edie, their mother.
The girls move to Elspeth's flat, , which borders the vast and ornate Highgate Cemetery, where George Eliot, Karl Marx, and many other famous people are buried. The girls come to know the living residents of their building. Martin, a brilliant and charming crossword-puzzle setter suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder; Marijke, Martin's devoted but trapped wife; and Robert, Elspeth's elusive love, a scholar of the cemetery. As the girls become embroiled in the fraying lives of their aunt's neighbors, they also discover that much is still alive in Highgate, including--perhaps--their aunt."
Niffenegger is a genius at blending the believable with the surreal in a literary way. Storytelling trickery at its best. What made her first amazing THE TIME-TRAVELER'S WIFE so enjoyable was the way she bent time to fit into her story--and made time a part of the story itself, almost like a character (plus the romance of Henry and Clare, der).. She does the same thing here--death and dying occur but not in a scary way AT ALL--more as a catalyst for the story--and also as the setting, given that Highgate Cemetery is where the novel takes place. You get a sense of the history of the place (most American have no idea unless you've spent time there) and if you go online, you can see all kinds of pix and learn more about its vaunted history. You HAVE to visit the linked website...amazing and unbelievable just don't cover it. Wow.
This is book had a romantic element, but not the same long-lost pulling for them at all costs kind of story that she wrote for TTTW. If you are looking for a good, solid romance, you will find shades of it here, and even the occasional pop of hope, but that's about it. Primarily, this book is about obsession--and not just the dude with OCD(Martin, whom is quite likable, BTW). And of course, there's a major twist at the end that you don't see coming--always cool.
All in all, you should savor this book, hoping it won't end. Mainly because it will probably be another five years until she writes another one! Niffenegger is also a visual artist and makes it very clear that churning out novels every year or two is not for her--which is unfortunate for us.
(To present the other side, feel free to read the inevitable second-book negative reviews and criticisms on both the amazon and barnes & noble sites. While I wholeheartedly disagree, certainly all readers are entitled to their opinion. My only caution with a literary book that bends the rules of convention is this--to borrow a genius line from the group En Vogue--"free your mind and the rest will follow.") Ga head...you can start singing it now.
(FYI--you can purchase this novel at forty percent off at Barnes and Noble if you are a member; thirty percent off for non-members. Amazon has it for fourteen bucks or less used. Go to www.amazon.com to purchase from them. Costco probably has an even better deal. Hardcover price is $26.99.)
If you have read it or have your own comments on the book, reply here.
For a great discussion of the book and some Q&A with the author, check out this site: www.litlovers.com.
Again, for more information on Highgate Cemetery, click here.
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