LitPicks - November '08

A Boy's Life: Stories of three young men who come of age in the years soon after World War II—one in the American Midwest, one in Norway, and one in India during the tumultuous years of that nation's independence.

A Lighter Touch | Wonderfully Written | Great Works



The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
Bill Bryson, 2006
288 pp.

By Molly Lundquist
Well, it's Bill Bryson, so you know it's funny. And it is, wonderfully so. But it's also a gorgeous evocation of the 1950's, those halcyon years, following the depression and war, when prosperity was spreading among a burgeoning middle class. For many, particularly Bryson's family, life was sweet.

It was the kind of life in which adults waxed poetically about new refrigerators, nary a tear for the old icebox; in which kids devised their own play—outdoors; and a time when young and old could walk to town on sidewalks shaded by overhanging elms and chestnuts—in fact, when there were downtowns, places with local stores and eateries unique to each community. Mickey D, Burger King, and Wendys? Not quite yet.

But then Bryson, being Bryson, refuses to leave us floating on the surface of leafy recollections. He'll always take us a little deeper, to a darker part of his vision, as he does, say, in A Walk in the Woods. In Thunderbolt he reminds us about the fall-out from nuclear testing—onto the unsuspect-ing residents of Nevada and South Pacific islands. And he reminds us that inevitably more and more autos crowded the roads, and roads cut through the countryside, and the countryside sprouted row-upon-row of national chains. Bryson reminds us how much was lost.

Nevertheless, don't miss this book...especially if you've lived through the era that Bryson did...or if your parents did and you'd like a bird's-eye view of their growing-up years. It's a terrific read.

Be sure to see our Reading Guide for The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid.


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Out Stealing Horses
Per Petterson, 2003; English trans., 2005
250 pp.

By Molly Lundquist
An elegy for a beloved father and youthful innocence, this story uses parallel time-frames, then and now—in which an older man comes face-to-face with events of his childhood.

Nearing his 70's, Trond Sander has retreated to an isolated Norwegian cottage only to find that his neighbor, another solitary soul, belonged to his long-ago childhood—the summer of 1948 which Trond and his father spent in a remote village near the Swedish border. Now haunted by memories both beautiful and painful, Trond comes to see that he is more his father's son than he had realized.

Petterson's writing is laconic yet grainy—he details the day-to-day minutiae of his characters' lives—as they hike, cook, chop wood, fell trees, sharpen tools, hay their fields. Even more, he immerses us in the joyous and near mystical beauty of Norway's night-time skies, it's brittle cold and dense forests.

Most engaging of all is Trond's father, a charismatic yet mysterious man, whom we meet right after the war. Eventually, Trond learns of his father's wartime activities and comes to understand his strange—and strained—relations with surrounding neighbors during that eventful summer of 1948.

Don't look for a fast-paced read; it's not high on plot although a lot happens. It just happens slowly as Petterson gradually unfolds his story, moving back and forth between past and present. It's a quiet, powerful, altogether stunning piece of writing. I loved it.

See our LitLovers Reading Guide for Out Stealing Horses.

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Midnight's Children
Salman Rushdie, 1981
560 pp.

By Molly Lundquist
Like Toni Morrison's Beloved, Rushdie's novel has become a contemporary classic. Written less than 30 years ago, it was first awarded the Booker Prize in 1981...then the "Booker of the Bookers" in 1993 and again in 2008.

Set in India, Midnight is part family saga and part national epic—a three generational story set during the years leading up to and after the country's independence. The story is told through the eyes of Saleem Sinai, whose birth at the stroke of midnight coincides with India's own birth, the very second of its independence. From that point on, events in Saleem's life reflect his country's struggle for unity, coherence, and national purpose.

We're drawn into the frenzied—and hilarious—workings of Saleem's extended family and neighbors — many of whom gain our affection. Much of what happens we are told beforehand; thus, suspense is replaced by a feeling of inevitability—of destiny working itself out. What keeps us turning the page is the sheer imaginative genius of Salman Rushdie. (Really, what was the man on when he wrote this?)

Midnight's Children is a riotous conglomeration of realism and magical realism, hilarity and fury, hope and disillusionment. It's like nothing you've ever read...except, perhaps, One Hundred Years of Solitude, with which it shares its excursion into the surreal. (I actually enjoyed Midnight more.)

Caution: this read is for the hardy...it's long, involved, and at times densely textured. But it 's a roller coaster of a ride, or maybe a tilt-a-whirl instead. It's one you won't forget.

Be sure to see our Reading Group Guide for Midnight's Children.


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