Student of Weather

Rating:
Summary: The story of an enduring conflict between two sisters
Review: A Student Of Weather is the story of an enduring conflict between two sisters and the man who walked into their lives when they were young. Spanning more than three decades, A Student Of Weather begins in the Prairie dust bowl of the 1930s, and in the decades following World War II, moves back and forth between Ottawa and New York City. As a novelist, Elizabeth Hay has the ability to evoke characters and scenarios that are both eccentric and familiar, surprising, richly textured, and totally engaging. Her debut novel, Elizabeth Hay is a writer of substantial ability. Also very highly recommended is Small Change (1997), her earlier collection of short stories.

Rating:
Summary: A Disappointment...Why Did I Keep Reading?
Review: I kept reading this novel to the very long end because of Hay's writing talents- her descriptions are intriguing but not verbose. Her wording is both descriptive and to-the-point. However, the main character- Norma Joyce - is very unlikeable. Sure she is flighty, witty, and adventurous. But she is also dumb, insecure, and desperate. She steals her poor sister's boyfriend, sleeps with him, and bears his child...all the while he repeadately dogs her and leaves her in the dirt. To the very end of the story, she is 50 years old and still alone, sad, desperate and chasing after him! It is very unfair to the reader to drag them through this 368 page novel without tying up the story and the plot. Sure, this is how real life is, and I can take a story that is realistic, but only if I love the characters and walk away with an emotional response or a lesson learned. This gave me neither! Ms. Hay leaves the reader hanging and turning that last boring 100 pages, hoping praying that she is not going to end the novel the way it ultimately does end- depressing, boring, and frustrating. Don't waste your time and money!

Rating:
Summary: Great Writing; okay story
Review: I picked up this book after having it for a year on my shelf because my online book club chose it for a monthy pick. While I am glad I read it, I cannot say it is because it was a riveting, exciting novel.

What carried this book for me, and what caused me to stick with it even when the story line lagged was the writing. Ms. Hay is an amazingly talented writer who's talent for prose, particularly through the use of metaphore, is incredible. Ordinarily if a story doesn't captivate me, I put the book down, but not this time.

The main theme through out this book is unrequited love. For the main character of this book, Norma Joyce, that love is multi-faceted. It is familial love, romantic love, and self-love. All of which she chases through out the story. This book left me unfulfilled as far as the story went. Though well developed, none of the characters were appealing. The relationships amongst people, the lack of loyalty and devotion revolted me. But perhaps the authors intent, it is the writing itself that carried the book for me.

A great book club book as it lends itself to a great deal of discussion.

Rating:
Summary: Has a richly textured, physically emotional writing style
Review: Maurice Dove is a visitor to the Saskatchewan farm of widower Ernest Hardy and his two daughters: Lucinda and Norma-Joyce. Beginning in the Prairie Dust Bowl years of the 1930s and spanning the decades following World War II, this story of human emotions, obsessions, and self-discoveries moves back and forth between Ottawa and New York City in a beautifully written debut novel by Elizabeth Hay. Her descriptive text of the story's varied backdrops, the cast of eccentric and memorable characters; and her richly textured, physically emotional writing style combine to present a unique and satisfying work that lingers in the memory long after A Student Of Weather has been finished and set back upon the shelf. Also highly recommended is Small Change, Elizabeth Hay's collection of short stories.

Rating:
Summary: A Master of Art
Review: The criticism of most of the other reviewers seems to amount to this: Fine writing, talented author, beautiful descriptions, but no moral to the bleak story. The characters don't "learn" anything. What, one might well ask, is the "moral" of Hamlet? What does he learn? What is the "morality" of Wuthering Heights? What does Heathcliff learn? How about Joyce's Ulysses? Moral anyone? - Reading the reviews, one begins to suspect that a group of frustrated Sunday school teachers got together to compose them.

The fact that there is no "moral" to the novel is another of its attributes. Has anyone else caught on to the fact that Norma Joyce's surname might be significant? Or how about the Hardy family? - It should be apparent to anyone reading this novel with the slightest knowledge of English literature that Hay's greatest literary influence, along with her character Norma Joyce's, is Thomas Hardy, who is mentioned in the work several times as Norma's favourite author. The book resembles nothing so much as Hardy's Jude the Obscure - A feminine version of Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage is another apt comparison. - The wonderfully told narrative maintains its artistic strength through its mirroring of reality. I can put it no better than Hay in her description of Maurice's falling in temporary love/lust with Norma:

"Probably it happens fairly often, falling in love in a dream. You wake up with an appetite for someone you might not even like. But in the dream there was sex, and upon waking, the idea of sex, and from then on that person is on your mind in an entirely new way."

In other words, life, like a dream, just rather happens to one, for good or ill----And how accurately Hay describes it! Let's hope that the moralists out there don't discourage Hay from writing another novel, as they did Thomas Hardy after he penned Jude the Obscure.

Four stars because the book doesn't quite measure up to the masterpiece of which I feel certain Hay is capable of giving us.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant, emotionally gripping story
Review: This little story was truly a wonderful surprise. I expected a cozy little family saga, but got much more. This quiet unassuming novel about ordinary people builds slowly into a gripping tale that once it gets going is impossible to put down.

It begins in 1938 on a farm in Saskatchewan, Canada with two lonely motherless sisters, nine years apart in age and worlds apart in looks and personality. Norma Joyce is small, dark, wiry, homely, inquisitive, provocative, and restless, while older sister Lucinda is a ravishing redhead, quiet, serene, the hard working homemaker for father and younger sister. Although Norma is just a kid, when Maurice Dove, a 'student of weather' visits the farm, both sisters, each in their own way, fall desperately in love with him, a love to last a lifetime, but with tragic consequences. The presence of Maurice will be the wedge that drives the sisters apart and alters the family fate, although the personality of each character will also determine the outcome of the story, which later shifts to Ottawa and then alternates between Ottawa and New York City.

What makes this novel stand out from the crowd aside from its careful plotting and lovely descriptive passages about foliage, flora, and of course weather, are the ways in which the author makes brilliant use of small details of personality and psychology to drive what would otherwise be an ordinary story into high gear and to create unforgettable complex characters. She gets it right on target, too, so much so, that the reader feels that he/she is a witness to real peoples' lives. This book is one of my top picks of the year!