I am finally getting back on track after our week of the flu plague and that includes finishing the book club book Peace Like a River by Leif Enger. I love having this book club with my blogging friends! Especially since I am a bit of a book snob and tend to get disgusted with my ward book club, they only read things you can get at Deseret Book. That is great sometimes but then the librarian's daughter comes out and I just wish I could show them some other great books.
Anyway, I digress. Peace Like a River. Can you tell I just like even saying the title? This book made me think about and realize some things I don't always spend time thinking about these days. Like the fact that I realize a lot of my book choices lately have been simply for entertainment purposes. Nothing wrong with that I think, but a substantial book like this one, full of symbolism and beautiful prose makes me remember that I really did use to like to study literature and dig deeper. To be honest when I started this book, in my "entertain me" frame of mind, I wasn't so much in love with it. I kept getting hung up on little things; like would someone please give that poor boy a puffer, surely they had some asthma treatment better than boiling water in 1960! And where did the name Swede come from? Short for something? Nickname? You can see I am truly confessing my shallowness here. But then I sort of settled in and especially after talking to Tif, whose review is much better than this one will be, I started to appreciate it a little better.
I don't think you often find books today that draw symbolism like this one does. Once I started thinking of it in the way I did books in college it was really interesting to think of Jeremiah as a prophet/savior figure. Poor Davy as that person we all could become I think if we let our more evil tendencies guide us. Rueben as a lovely, eloquent witness. Even the transformation of Roxanna, made me think how much lovelier we all become when we have the chance to serve others and be loved. Oh, I could go on, the poor FBI man, the awful Walzer, Sara they all could represent something more than just another character.
This is not a happy, entertaining book. It wasn't meant to be I think. But it is beautiful. The writing is just lovely. So once I adjusted my thinking to a more studious manner, something which I am sure it is obvious right now I don't do too often, I did really enjoy this book. I may even read it again so I can pay better attention to all that symbolism. But it probably won't be for awhile because the storyline was a little hard for me to take.
Now, back to reading the children's book Brittany recommended to me. I would hate to hurt myself with all this deep thinking!
If you want to read really good reviews check out Tif's post here, she has links to the others who read it. Next month is Glass Castle. Read with us?!
2 comments:
I thought YOUR review was great. Apparently I'm the only fan of Davy though :( In the context of a 17 year old boy trying to keep his little sister from being raped and kidnapped I can kind of see him like Swede did .. a real western hero.
I agree, I can see it that way, but I think he let the "carnal man" part of him win when he invited the boys to come take vengence and then finished them off with that thrid shot. Not to mention no regret at having taken their lives.
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