The novel Fugitive Pieces, by author Anne Michael's is both poetic and descriptive in style. I loved the amount of description within this novels pages. Upon reading the first section of the novel I was excited and enthused to read further. However, further is where I found an incoherent storyline, filled with faltered male characters.
The images that Fugitive Pieces created were at one moment unforgettable and then at another moment completely forgotten. I found the images of Fugitive Pieces to be unforgettable due to the immense amount of detail used to produce them. However, they became forgettable due to the incoherence in the storyline, and the switch mid-way from Jacob to Ben's narration.
For myself, I loved the characters of Athos, Jacob, and Ben. This was because they were real people, they had faults and failures, and had been strongly affected by death. As I said before they were slightly faltered, but because of this, I loved them.
Micheal's decision to switch from Jacob to Ben in the midst of her storyline created a great deal of confusion for myself. This was due to the fact that the switch was unannounced, I was readying along peacefully and then found myself confused and backtracking to figure out what had happened. This switch I would argue caused three main problems, for myself, and I am guessing for others. First of all, there was no explanation for the switch and the reader is left wondering, what happened to Jacob? The second problem was, who is this Ben character? and why is he important? Lastly, I found myself waiting for Jacob and Ben to connect with one another in the end, which obviously never happens.
Finally, Jacobs odd obsession with his sister Bella still bothers me even now. On one hand, I was waiting for them to meet up in the end, almost as though Michael's had made her so predominant in the storyline because one day they would reconnect with one another, and perhaps she did not die after all. On the other hand however, it was strange how Jacob compared his wife and then his lover, to his sister.
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2 comments:
I agree with you Rachelle - the poetic and descriptive style was great!
I also agree that the switch to Ben and Naomi was confusing. I also had to backtrack, re-read, and then read some more to try and get my head around what was happening.
Athos was a great character - I can see that he had to die but I would have loved to see him around a bit longer.
I like your comment here Anne, because i woud have loved to get a better look inside Athos' character.
what if instead of going into the world of Ben, we went back in time to the beginning of Athos? now THAT i'd like to read!
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