We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

After a recent change in jobs, I've gone from a twenty two minute walk to work to a thirty-seven minute commute on the central line. Carriages filled with suits. Eyes on ipads. Michael McIntyre, (whom I love) has a really fantastic quote of tube reading, "You get on in the morning and every single person is reading the Metro. Everyone, everyone. Why doesn't one person just read it to the carriage?"

Yes, finding out the weather for the week is important, and the "Good Deeds Feed" does restore a certain faith in reality that is often lost, but a time to sit for near on forty minutes, or even folk who have a twenty minute journey, should be taken advantage of  and a spine should be opened not a paper. Catapult yourself anywhere other than the overwhelmingly humid swarm of people surrounding you.

Karen Joy Fowler's novel is my first one to read on The Man Booker List. Charmingly modest in size to fit easily into a bag or briefcase, or even an over coat pocket. But this is the tube, in summer, so I doubt any of those commuting through London are donning the overcoat as they leave their front door. So, let's get back to the book. Charming in size and charming in nature.

The words are as light as a pretty little fairy-cake without being overly sweetened or synthetically sugared. The prologue, as indeed, with the rest of the book, hops and skips it's way over childhood memories. The narrator darting back to resurfacing visions, smells and feelings as she tells this story of her upbringing. This is a book focusing on family, on family values, and how parents chose to raise their children. Rosemary, a daughter, now adult, is depicting where she thinks her parents went wrong and how this effected her, at the time, and who it has made her in the present.

To reveal a little of my own personal status, I am currently dealing with a broken family situation, and thus many of the sentences rang true to me, easy to relate to. But then no family is ever perfect, and I suppose everyone has that moment when they are an adult, when they realise that actually their own family doesn't make sense. It doesn't fit the rules, the fairy stories, the happy ever afters. Reading this, I imagine, we all will find similarities that will draw us further into the book;

[On speaking about her Mother] "I think now that she was one of those women who loved her children so much there was really no room for anyone else."

"If your brother loves you, I say it counts for something."

"In most families, there is a favourite child. Parents deny it, and maybe they truly don't see it, but it's obvious to the children."

Rosemary has a unique upbringing. This is all I'm saying as I most definitely do not want to spoil this for anyone, as the unsaid factor defines Rosemary. It was not a gasp out loud moment, nor was it a shock. It quite simply made my eyebrows rise slightly, my forehead crease in intrigue, my lips to form an "o" shape as I whispered, "oooo that's clever".

I have less than a hundred pages left and I will finish it by the time this weekend slips into Monday. I have an inkling of where I want Rosemary to be by the end but I'm not certain this will happen.  Ms Fowler is leading me there gently, meandering away from anything that would seem to easy, and skimming in stones of curiosity to keep me on my toes.