But once you get into the story, it starts working a lot better (even if some passages were almost making me stop reading). So when I saw a book with two novellas and the description did not sound half bad, I had to get it.Jane Smiley is a new author for me and her plain prose takes a little while to get used to. Novellas are almost a lost art these days - authors either go for the longer form and end up writing novels or stay on the shorter format and stay in the short stories realm. All too reminiscent of the Luddites, but no longer feasible in this day and age. The ending, returning to “modern” life, is anticlimactic in light of the chaos that his earlier choices created. The father's obsession to maintain an exaggeratedly simple, self-sufficient lifestyle proves to be especially ill advised, given the psychological problems that his son develops. Although a desire to revert to a preindustrial era might have benefits, a total rejection of technology is ridiculous. Smiley captures the nuances of a dysfunctional family - sometimes you like the characters, sometimes you don’t – and that’s how I felt about this story. Eventually though, her children come to respect her for leaving an overbearing husband and making it on her own. But it reminded me a bit of my mom, always watching and analyzing what I’m doing, which is very annoying. Ordinary Love: The mother’s obsession over her children makes sense because she hasn’t seen them in years. The two novellas demonstrate the price children pay for their parents' mistakes.
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