Strawberry Fields, Marina Lewycka
SnakWorld Reading Circle
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1mirrani
There’s a point at the beginning of the book where someone is being chased and it’s written in such a way that really made my heart pound. Might not do the same for everyone, but the feeling of it was totally conveyed to me.
Also, the way the book is written, from first person from some characters to second person for other characters is very interesting. Cool to see the dog get a first person narrative.
Parts of the book are very high energy, other parts seem very slow. That doesn’t mean it was boring, it just means I didn’t take a lot of notes.
Somewhere around page 119 I had a very hard time reading because of the jobs at the chicken food processing plant. It’s enough to make you a vegetarian, really.
Is he freer here in the West today than he was in Poland in the years of communism, when all he dreamed of was freedom, without even knowing what he was? Is he really any freer than those chickens in the barn, packed here in this small stinking room with five strangers, submitting meekly to a daily horror that was already become routine? Tormentor and tormented, they are all just damned creatures in hell. There must be a song in this. p126
I loved the writing, I was moved by the whole situation… And I /did/ find myself thinking that the paragraph would make a good song, before I even read the line.
Someone has propped their men’s trailer back up on its bricks, but it has a desolate and abandoned air-dead flies beneath the windows, cobwebs, a smell of must and staleness that he never noticed when they lived there. He looks at his old bunk, the dirty and sweat-stained mattress. He never noticed that either. The Andriy Palenko who used to sleep here was a different man--he has already grown out of him, like a pair of too-tight shoes. It has happened so quickly. p155
A great way to show how short a time it took these people to open their eyes and realize what was happening.
Together, they ground down the valves and replaced the solenoid and the clutch. He learned something about car engines, but the main thing he learned was that all problems can be solved if you approach them in a patient and methodical way. p190
I really need to learn this lesson. I realized that as I was reading this line. I’m patient about some things, but not everything and I have /got/ to learn to slow down and be able to wait for the right time to bring the solution on.
You go through life waiting for the one to come along, kisses by moonlight, eternal love, Mr. Brown and his mysterious bulge, faithful beyond the grave, then suddenly you realize that what you’ve been waiting for doesn’t exist after all, and you’ll have to settle for something second-rate. What a let down. p202
And sometimes you learn to recognize that the first stuff leads to the second stuff only if you let it change you into believing that. There are ways to find /the one/ that you are looking for and make sure that what you have is something that you will never want to let go of.
Around page 218 I made a note about how the love between two of the characters is real. The woman is told from first person and the man from second, so you hear her thoughts and you experience what he’s thinking and she’s thinking about how she should do things, but it would be ridiculous and he is thinking how he’d want to hold her close and support her through her stress and how she’d just yell at him to let her go, so he doesn’t. It’s just so real, it almost makes me want to say every time I need something… but if you did that every time you’d never really have the random affections or care that you needed. Some of that “what if he/she did this?” and then have it not happening keeps you hanging on until the next time, when it actually /might/ happen. You keep telling someone “hold me, I’m afraid” and they’ll soon stop reaching out to caress your arm just to be supportive. It’s a hard balance and it’s why you’ve got to stick through the clumsy stuff.
There’s a special sadness at the end of a journey. For it’s only when you get to your destination that you discover the road doesn’t end here after all. p288
I’ll leave you with that last note, which I thought was really brilliant.
Also, the way the book is written, from first person from some characters to second person for other characters is very interesting. Cool to see the dog get a first person narrative.
Parts of the book are very high energy, other parts seem very slow. That doesn’t mean it was boring, it just means I didn’t take a lot of notes.
Somewhere around page 119 I had a very hard time reading because of the jobs at the chicken food processing plant. It’s enough to make you a vegetarian, really.
Is he freer here in the West today than he was in Poland in the years of communism, when all he dreamed of was freedom, without even knowing what he was? Is he really any freer than those chickens in the barn, packed here in this small stinking room with five strangers, submitting meekly to a daily horror that was already become routine? Tormentor and tormented, they are all just damned creatures in hell. There must be a song in this. p126
I loved the writing, I was moved by the whole situation… And I /did/ find myself thinking that the paragraph would make a good song, before I even read the line.
Someone has propped their men’s trailer back up on its bricks, but it has a desolate and abandoned air-dead flies beneath the windows, cobwebs, a smell of must and staleness that he never noticed when they lived there. He looks at his old bunk, the dirty and sweat-stained mattress. He never noticed that either. The Andriy Palenko who used to sleep here was a different man--he has already grown out of him, like a pair of too-tight shoes. It has happened so quickly. p155
A great way to show how short a time it took these people to open their eyes and realize what was happening.
Together, they ground down the valves and replaced the solenoid and the clutch. He learned something about car engines, but the main thing he learned was that all problems can be solved if you approach them in a patient and methodical way. p190
I really need to learn this lesson. I realized that as I was reading this line. I’m patient about some things, but not everything and I have /got/ to learn to slow down and be able to wait for the right time to bring the solution on.
You go through life waiting for the one to come along, kisses by moonlight, eternal love, Mr. Brown and his mysterious bulge, faithful beyond the grave, then suddenly you realize that what you’ve been waiting for doesn’t exist after all, and you’ll have to settle for something second-rate. What a let down. p202
And sometimes you learn to recognize that the first stuff leads to the second stuff only if you let it change you into believing that. There are ways to find /the one/ that you are looking for and make sure that what you have is something that you will never want to let go of.
Around page 218 I made a note about how the love between two of the characters is real. The woman is told from first person and the man from second, so you hear her thoughts and you experience what he’s thinking and she’s thinking about how she should do things, but it would be ridiculous and he is thinking how he’d want to hold her close and support her through her stress and how she’d just yell at him to let her go, so he doesn’t. It’s just so real, it almost makes me want to say every time I need something… but if you did that every time you’d never really have the random affections or care that you needed. Some of that “what if he/she did this?” and then have it not happening keeps you hanging on until the next time, when it actually /might/ happen. You keep telling someone “hold me, I’m afraid” and they’ll soon stop reaching out to caress your arm just to be supportive. It’s a hard balance and it’s why you’ve got to stick through the clumsy stuff.
There’s a special sadness at the end of a journey. For it’s only when you get to your destination that you discover the road doesn’t end here after all. p288
I’ll leave you with that last note, which I thought was really brilliant.
