Fugitive Pieces

Rating:
Summary: This book is a real treasure! I will read it again and
Review: I was mesmerized by Ms. Michaels wirting. I can't imagine being intelligent enough to have written Fugitive Pieces. This book is a real treasure. I will read it again and again!

Rating:
Summary: great for book groups
Review: This is the first book in the 10 year history of our book group to generate not only 100% favorable reviews, but also 100% attendance. Often unanimous favorable reviews mean a weak discussion, simply because there's not much to do besides reading favorite passages to each other. But there's plenty to discuss here, including the provacative question of whether the second half is really necessary. Check out her page on the Canadian poets web page to see Michael's defense of the second story.

Rating:
Summary: Like an overstuffed chair
Review: I tried at least six times to pick up the rhythm and flow of this book but always felt like i was being preached to rather than joining in an imaginative recreation. lacks the quality of felt life, is overwritten, extremely abstract, and hardly a novel at all. Some memorably evocative descriptive prose but too fragmented and, despite its horrific subject, curiously detached.

Rating:
Summary: emotionally moving and mentally stimulating
Review: I had to read it quickly in order to return it to a neighbor heading north for the summer. To rectify this mistake, am going to buy copies for everyone in my family. To review this is difficult, like trying to tell someone of a particularly wonderful dream and the feelings it left with you. This is a story of the triumph of the human spirit-a subject all too rare in this day and age. Oh, and I'm going to buy a copy for myself too, so that I can treasure it from time to time.

Rating:
Summary: The emperor has no clothes
Review: I tried very hard to like this book since it was recommended to me by a bookseller, but to my distress I found it to be extremely pretentious-- overwrought, overwritten, and vastly overrated. The voice reminded me of the kind of poetry readings I hate to attend--monotonous and full of itself.

Rating:
Summary: A beautiful tapestry of words and images!
Review: This is the type of book that one can read again and again, each time noticing different and beautiful images. Yes, the book has a free flowing plot and if one were to analyze it according to historical fact they may find gaps. I do not believe that the author's intent is to write a history textbook. Instead, the poetic language works to provide colour and shape to the weaving of the tragedic story of war and loneliness.

Rating:
Summary: Mediocre
Review: I wanted to enjoy this book for the description sounded so enticing. Parts of it were beautiful and enjoyable to read, but most was too poetic and choppy to follow. Would imagine that many would enjoy it if the style was were appealing to them. Not for everyone. I never understood the introduction of Naomi and partner.

Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly enjoyable!
Review: Having not encountered Anne Michaels' work before, I was pleasantly surprised and thoroughly enjoyed this book! I have read several war histories and fiction... (this is not a history of the holocaust and am surprised at those who criticize its failure in this area). I found the flow (sometimes seeming erratic and disjointed) challenging and the diction very enjoyable... Overall the feeling I was left with after reading this book was quite pleasant. I found myself making notations on several intriguing ideas and made copies of some of the quotes in my personal journal. As I typically don't read this type of literature, perhaps my opinion is of little value, but I thoroughly enjoyed this book an expect to keep it on my shelf for a life time. I would recommend it to anyone!

Rating:
Summary: An astonishingly bad book
Review: Despite the glowing reviews this book is so seriously flawed one has to wonder if different reviewers weren't reading different books by a different author. From the Harliquin-Romance-type tripe of "She slept with an abandon that was almost shocking" (whatever that means) to the gaping holes in the so-called plot (big enough to drive a truck through)this turgid piece of sacrine slop reduces The Holocaust to a kind of Paint-by-numbers sentimentality that does a profound diservice to history and memory. No one, apprently, has stopped to question what deal the saintly archeologist must have made with the Nazis to be allowed to work in occupied Poland, nor has anyone again, apparently, bothered to question how characters so absorbed with The Holocaust and the meaning of being Jews could fail, at any point in the narrative, to broach the subject of Israel. The counter argument that the author might be free of such "political" responcibilities, simply begs the question:If the book is about The Holocaust, memory, responcibility, and all the rest, then how honest a work of art is it that leaves out the difficult issues of the present in order to write schmaltz about the past? This is "Holocaust-lite", with all the right buttons pushed for people who don't want the more frightening shades of moral gray and the horrors of the true tradgedies experienced by those who survived, and those who didn't. In the end I'm surprised this wan't picked by Oprah, as it is on par with The Bridges of Madison County and in fifty years, no one will remember "Fugitive Pieces."

Rating:
Summary: Read it slow. Again and Again. Your Heart will Ache.
Review: I usually start a book and finish it in a day or two or three. I read Fugitive Pieces for days. Not because it was slow or boring, but because it was soooo beautiful. I wanted to savor it. I still pick it up and read several pages at a time. Still so heavy, still so beautiful, still so full of memories, still such beautiful prose. At times like reading poetry. For those who read it and did not like it. Too bad. You went through it too fast. You can't enjoy the scenery traveling at ninty miles an hour or traveling through rush hour and thinking only about getting there. This book is a thing of beauty and I will think of it for ever.