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This is Literature with a capital L Oct 28, 2009 (99 of 103 found this helpful)
Plot Summary: In a story told entirely through diary entries and letters, we meet Harrison William Shepherd, a half-Mexican, half-American boy who grows up with his mother in Mexico. He has no education, but his love of reading and writing nurtures his own inner dialog that leads to his success as a writer. But that's getting ahead of the story. First he passes his adolescence working for some of Mexico's most infamous residents in the 1930s - Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and Lev Trotsky. His break with Mexico is abrupt, and Shepherd moves to America where he embarks on a writing career with the assistance of his invaluable stenographer, Mrs. Violet Brown.
I've spent the past two days in close communion with this novel, and it has moved me deeply. It's not often that I abandon popular literature for the big fish, but Barbara Kingsolver is one of the few authors whose writing entertains me in all forms - novels, essays and non-fiction. I suppose I'm like a book groupie, following her whether she's spinning yarns in the Southwest, or matter of factly walking me through slaughter day when her chicken's days are numbered. Make no mistake, her latest effort is Literature with a capital L, and the story is so poignant it could make a stone weep in sympathy. And weep I did. Frequently.
When a novel covers a person's life, from the beginning to the end, it takes on an epic flavor by default. Harrison Shepherd's life could be considered epic even if it was condensed down to a three paragraph obituary. It's an extraordinary tale told during haunting times in both Mexico and the U.S. I regret that I don't know as much as I should about the history before, during, and after World War II, but I will use this novel as a crutch for my shoddy memory. This is history refracted through a miniscule lens; a tiny dot that represents the life of a boy who becomes a man.
It's a scary proposition trying to populate a work of fiction with famous dead people. I don't know if Ms. Kingsolver got it all right, although I don't doubt that her research was extensive, however it doesn't matter. She brought everyone back to life in full color, so bright and blinding it almost hurt my eyes. I will always carry around these portraits of Frida and Trotsky, along with Shepherd and Violet Brown. They are permanently inked onto my imagination.
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The Crucial Missing Piece -" The Lacuna" Oct 27, 2009 (36 of 37 found this helpful)
Barbara Kingsolver has written a book of historical fiction that reads like a Frida Kahlo painting: allegory, poetry, beauty & pain. Kingsolver writes likes a great artist paints.
The story opens in 1929 and ends in 1951. Harrison William Shepherd (a fictional character) born in the US to a US father and a Mexican mother, is a child in Mexico. Since his parents are both disinterested in parenting, he makes his own way in life. First he is a cook/secretary in the household of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, then for Bolshevik/Marxist Revolutionary Leon Trotsky during his exile in Mexico. After Trotsky is assassinated, Shepherd is encouraged by Kahlo to move to the US where he finally becomes what he was meant to be; an author of historical fiction.
The backbone of the story is the Communist/Worker's Movement in Mexico & the US and Rivera, Kahlo & Trotsky's part in it. They provide the political dialogue. Kingsolver imagines what it would have been like living in these households during this turbulent period. The story culminates with Shepherd being called before the US Committee on Un-American Activities. But the story is about so much more than politics and history.
If you are an admirer of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, reading this book will be like contemplating their art. The story mirrors the politics and history portrayed in Rivera's murals and the pain and beauty of Kahlo's paintings.
If you enjoy reading historical fiction, this is a beautifully written example.
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A Life Well Lived Nov 6, 2009 (11 of 11 found this helpful)
It is quite possible that "The Lacuna", Barbara Kingsolver's newest novel, surpasses her masterpiece "The Poisonwood Bible" and that is no small feat. Or perhaps surpass isn't the correct word for an author of Kingsolver's talent who can make the unlikeliest of stories and characters come to life. "The Lacuna" manages to weave together some of the early twentieth century's most pivotal events without demeaning them, offering fresh insight into some of the darkest moments of American history through the eyes of a genuine and likeable misfit.
"The Lacuna" is the memoir-of-sorts of Harrison Wiliam Shepherd, an author caught between two very different worlds. As a young boy, his Mexican mother drags him back to her native country as she pursues any wealthy man who is willing to take her on as a mistress. Years later, he is sent to live with his father, a man he does not even know, before returning to Mexico where he finds himself in the employ of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. His association with these two famous artists brings him in contact with Trotsky, on exile from Stalinist Russia, who continues Shepherd's odd education in the school of life experiences. When events turn sour in Mexico, Shepherd returns to the United States, fulfilling his dream of becoming a beloved author, only to have to confront his past and the words he has never said during the Red Scare of the 1950s. His story is told in his own words, his diary entries and letters, some too private to lay bare, and by the words of his secretary who takes it upon herself to compile his life's narrative.
The sheer amount of history that Kingsolver is able to plausibly mix into Shepherd's story is incredible, and all of it believable. "The Lacuna" is a beautiful story, one man's search to find a place he can call home and to be accepted and loved for the person that he is. Kingsolver's prose sparkles with the poetry of her descriptions and her uncanny ability to craft intricate narratives that unspool effortlessly in the reader's imagination. "The Lacuna" is unforgettable. Readers will feel that they have lived alongside Shepherd and that he also lived, not only on paper or through words.
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A Huge Disappointment Nov 4, 2009 (68 of 85 found this helpful)
I am a lover of Barbara Kingsolver's books. However, I did not like this book at all. It was didactic, rhetorical, and historical, but there is barely a novel contained within it. William is living in Mexico with his mother, who is an American ex-patriot, having left William's father to live with a man with better economic prospects. William's mother is distant, money-conscious and is trying to get her hands on the richest man she can find with not a whole lot of luck. William is finally shipped back to the United States to live with his father who spends no time at all in enrolling William in boarding school. This is the plot by page 110.
The novel is the story of a young boy in the early twentieth century who has been keeping a journal since he was nine years old. This journal is, ostensibly, the story line. The bulk of what we read about is the history of Mexico and the United States, Cortes and the Aztecs. We learn about the horrible times of the Great Depression in the United States and the horrible president at that time, Herbert Hoover. We hear about Frieda Kahlo and Diego Rivera as they work on their great mural in Mexico City. William learns about capitalism and communism during that same time period. Kingsolver gives rhetoric about what is right and what is wrong. She talks about hobo camps, soldiers who have not received their promised pensions after fighting for their country during wartime. She rants about people being locked up for their political beliefs, the dire straits of the educational system, and the dichotomy between the wealthy and the impoverished. However, there is barely a story line.
I really wanted to like this book as I've loved her other novels. I had noticed that she was getting more didactic with each novel she wrote but I never expected anything like this. What a huge disappointment!
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Mexican-American man pays price for comradery con communistas Oct 22, 2009 (49 of 62 found this helpful)
There is so much going on in this long (507 pages) novel (historical fiction genre) about a made-up man named (p 29) "Harrison William Shepherd, a citizen of the United States born in 1916 (Lychgate, Virginia)..." that it'd be hard to say, in a word, what exactly it's about. Just over twenty years' worth of Shepherd's life, lived alternately in Mexico and America, is told, primarily through journal entries (courtesy of archivist "VB" whose connection to him is eventually revealed), newspaper articles, and personal letters. The story begins in Mexico, where he discovers the sea and spends time exploring a lagoon while his mother tries to find a mate to support them. There he first becomes acquainted with Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. He returns to the States (enter the first of several highlighted bad happenings in American history-the plight of the WWI Bonus Army men) and then returns to Mexico in time to become part of the life of living-in-exile Lev Trotsky (hiding with help from Rivera and Kahlo). At one point Shepherd gets to ask this famous man the Big Question (p 242), "...why did Stalin come to power instead of you?" which seems a bit of a stretch, even for this genre. Although I'm not generally a fan of historical fiction, I liked this section (Part 3) the best, probably due to my interest in Stalin and the gulag. It ends with news of Trotsky's assassination, followed by the fact that the U.S. goverment disallowed Trotsky's body to be brought in to America. Unfortunately, I found the following one (Part 4 Asheville, North Carolina) a mixed bag. The stuff about his books, reviews and fans seemed a touch tedious, though that about his blacklisting due to communistic connections was as interesting as it was unsurprising. This is where several additional bad happenings are brought up: internment of American and foreign-born Japanese, the arrest of "Axis nationals" during WWII, racism against African-Americans, and McCarthyism. If Kingsolver was trying to raise awareness about America's treatment of these persons, I believe she succeeded.
Best of the book: thought-provoking. Makes me want to learn more about Trotsky and Kahlo. I also like that she typically translated Spanish words and phrases. Worst - a joke about (p 245) the gulag and the fact that a person's intimate friend would accept the contents of inflammatory newspaper articles as truth in lieu of going straight to the source (p 474). I didn't buy it. Lastly, parts seemed pretty heavy-handed against the U.S. government. She let Stalin off relatively easily in comparison. Further reading on mostly similar subjects: Before the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka, The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin's Russia by Tim Tzoudialis, Lenin's Tomb by David Remnick, 11 Years in Soviet Prison Camps by Elinor Lipper, and The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver.