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S'està carregant… Anything Is Possiblede Elizabeth Strout
Books Read in 2018 (650) Books Read in 2017 (1,654) » 5 més S'està carregant…
Apunta't a LibraryThing per saber si aquest llibre et pot agradar. No hi ha cap discussió a Converses sobre aquesta obra. "The Barton family had been outcasts, even in a town like Amgash, their extreme poverty and strangeness making this so. The oldest child, a man named Pete, lived alone there now, the middle child was two towns away, and the youngest, Lucy Barton, had fled many years ago, and had ended up living in New York City." Elizabeth Strout’s Anything Is Possible is a lovely collection of nine stories revolving around characters mentioned in her novel My Name is Lucy Barton. These interrelated stories are set in the small run-down town of Amgash, Illinois, Lucy Barton’s hometown. Though many of the characters have moved on from Amgash the events in their past have left an indelible mark on their lives and as they recall significant memories they are all taken back to their life in Amgash. Most of the characters will sound familiar on account of them being mentioned in the conversations between Lucy and her mother in the previous novel. Only one of the stories, Sister, features Lucy Barton and her siblings as the main characters but we get to know more about Lucy’s townspeople such as Vietnam War veteran Charlie Macauley ( The Hit-Thumb Theory), the Nicely family (Windmills) and the Mumford family( Mississippi Mary), her school janitor, Tommy Guptill ( The Sign), and her cousins, Abel Blaine (Gift) and Dottie (Dottie’s Bed and Breakfast. As we learn more about the lives, relationships, backstories and struggles of some of the past and present residents of Amgash, each of their stories contributes to a better understanding of Lucy Barton and her story. Elizabeth Strout’s writing is elegant, her characters are real and relatable and her prose is beautiful and the narrative flows smoothly. The structure and style of this collection are similar to the author’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Olive Kitteridge. Though many of these stories are heartbreaking and revolve around unhappy moments and memories, touching upon themes such as poverty, parental neglect, PTSD, infidelity and trauma, the author writes with compassion and a great understanding of human emotions and complex relationships. I strongly recommend reading My Name is Lucy Barton before this collection of stories to understand how and where these stories connect to Lucy and her story. It's surprising how some books stick with you. I read My Name is Lucy Barton months ago, but when I picked up this title in the library the mood, created by dialogue and structure, whooshed over me in a blink. So I checked out this companion novel without a second thought. Strout, however, is all about second thoughts, and third and fourth as well, as she unspools a series of vinettes peopled by characters mentioned, however tangentially, in Lucy Barton. Readers find the ache and horror, tenderness, and surprise that all come with a closer look. About page 42 I thought, "Ah, this is a novel about forgiveness", and on page 54 nodded to myself, "Yes. See." But it is so much more. Because while so many things can be forgiven as we see more of a person's story, some things are indeed so dreadful, so dislocating, that we can never forget. These short, but rich renderings of deeply human, deeply flawed people reminds us that most everyone is doing their best. But sometimes that best destroys us. The citizens of Amgash, Illinois and its environs, people we met while visiting Lucy Barton’s hospital room in My Name is Lucy Barton, are more fully explored in the second book in the Amgash series. Because of Strout’s gift of moving fluidly from present to past, it doesn’t really matter which book you read first; however, this reviewer recommends you read the second book first. Then, when Lucy’s mother gossips about people in the first book, you’ll be able to nod: ah yes – but there’s more to that story, and you’ll get a deeper insight into the character of Mrs. Barton as we see the behavior of others judged through her oddly skewed lens. As in a relay race, the baton is passed from one character to the next in shifting points of view; for two of the characters we travel all the way to Italy. None of these characters is perfect; they are all human and some are badly broken. Still, compassion runs through Strout’s prose like a river – beautifully expressed by audiobook narrator Kimberly Farr – and maybe by reading, we will learn to view our fellow humans with a little more grace I found this book pretty rough. It is a series of connected scenes -- some are stories but not all. One describes Lucy on a visit to Agamash to see her brother & sister and it includes some more explicit descriptions of their childhood & treatment. Some of the other stories are also hard to read. I'm not sure what else to say about this book. Sense ressenyes | afegeix-hi una ressenya
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"Anything Is Possible explores the whole range of human emotion through the intimate dramas of people struggling to understand themselves and others. Here are two sisters: One trades self-respect for a wealthy husband while the other finds in the pages of a book a kindred spirit who changes her life. The janitor at the local school has his faith tested in an encounter with an isolated man he has come to help; a grown daughter longs for mother love even as she comes to accept her mother's happiness in a foreign country; and the adult Lucy Barton (the heroine of My Name Is Lucy Barton, the author's celebrated New York Times bestseller) returns to visit her siblings after seventeen years of absence. Reverberating with the deep bonds of family, and the hope that comes with reconciliation, Anything Is Possible again underscores Elizabeth Strout's place as one of America's most respected and cherished authors"--Amazon.com. No s'han trobat descripcions de biblioteca. |
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Google Books — S'està carregant… GèneresClassificació Decimal de Dewey (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LCC (Clas. Bibl. Congrés EUA)ValoracióMitjana:
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As well as tenderness and humour, Strout can maintain tension in these seemingly simple stories, just because you as a reader are unsure where Strout wants to take you. For example, the final story about Abel Blaine (Lucy Barton’s cousin) should (you think) mirror the goodwill of the play of a Dickensian A Christmas Carol, but in about 30 pages Strout creates multiple ways in which the story might develop. ( )