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Summary: RAFFEL'S SPEECH
Review: Raffel's speech has oracular power. Her primal declarations are weird and exalting.
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Summary: Christmas Present
Review: This is a beautiful and original book. It would make a wonderful Christmas present for a discerning reader.
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Summary: Reminiscent of Pedro Paramo
Review: This novel reminded me of _Pedro Paramo_ (by the Mexican writer Juan Rulfo), another slim novel that explores death and life through small but powerful observations and voices. _Pedro Paramo_'s style is a little more straightforward, but the form it takes is no less confusing or beautiful than in _Carrying the Body_. In both novels, you are asked to think about the language, to fill in the holes that these writers have excluded on purpose, and to examine the form of the novel itself.
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Summary: Painful impressions, family transgressions...
Review: This short, disturbing novella thrusts a series of impressions on the reader, from the first page. It is the reader's task to identify the persons: Aunt, her sister Elise, Mother (dead), Father, Elise's son and their positions in the story. The elemental nature of the body is ever present: sweat, milk, blood, tears. "The child had a rash across his chest, a fearsome swath of color- infection, the aunt thought, bred of the child. Mould on dough. Blood mold. Why, look at the child, just look at the child!- dripping, it seemed, the irises fluid- red in the nose, the cheeks, pale belly as if risen; and there in an indolent fist, a bulbous, sucked-on toy in the likeness of some life-form." And there is the constant rumbling of the train that passes too closely to the unkempt, now mildewed house.Family dynamics are amiss. Dysfunction and confusion lurk around each corner, couched in soiled sheets or a bathtub full of steaming water, condensation dripping down a mirror. Mother has been dead for years. Her decline began after the disappearance of the younger girl, Elise. Elise ran away, and the older sister remained to care for her parents, now alone with a frail, failing father. Aunt's only comfort is liquor (yet another liquid) and as she sips she tells the child distorted versions of "The Three Little Pigs", evocative of the sisters' childhood. At times stunning, at times confusing, the broken narrative combines images and feelings to tell a story, one of loneliness, abandonment, loss, grief and perhaps, incest. "Seal your lips, as Mother said. Never kiss and tell was another of her sayings. Why would I tell? Father said, 'Don't speak of this.' Well, surely, we spoke of it. How in the world is a person not to speak?" The author's intent is often murky to this reader, half-truths or half-lies, everything shrouded in the past, half-remembered memories. There is no doubting the skill and courage of the writing. Still, I'm never sure if finishing the story is a relief (hope) or a burden (despair). Luan Gaines/2003.
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Summary: For real readers
Review: What sentences! "A girl and still a girl, and not a girl at a window, nightdress loose." Raffel wants a real reader. Even if her style is tight--Dickinson comes to mind, especially with the dashes--it continues to spring open. "The train's report, all mineral and animal." She's caught the sound of illness, the panic of childrearing, the clipped exchange of argument, the muteness of love. I loved it because it can be read and read, with all the hestiations in the world.
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