Saturday, November 25, 2017

Ms. Hen reviews EILEEN






Eileen
Ottessa Moshfegh
Penguin Press
2015

Ms. Hen decided to read this because she learned about it a while ago, and was curious about it. She likes to read about disturbed young women; this is one of her favorite subjects in literature, to read as well as to write. EILEEN is about such a character.

Eileen Dunlop works in a boys’ prison, and takes care of her alcoholic father. Going between the two places she despises everything about herself and her life. She is twenty-four and the year is 1964. She tells the story looking back at her life from the present day; since this is the narrative, Ms. Hen knew she survived in the end.

Eileen shoplifts, and fantasizes and stalks the handsome, young prison guard Randy. She supplies her father with liquor, and imbibes herself at times with him. She rarely showers and does not eat healthy food.  She is an unlikeable, but pitiful woman. Ms. Hen likes her, however. She likes her because she understands her and she knows she is realistic. Ms. Hen read some reviews of this book, and people wrote that Eileen is a despicable character, which is unusual for a female protagonist. It’s typically men who are portrayed as monsters, but Ms. Hen is glad that now there is equal opportunity and women can be depicted as truly bad characters in fiction as well.

It’s not that Eileen wants to be bad. It’s her life circumstances that make her that way. Her mother died young, and her sister is a loose, unkind woman, and Eileen is stuck with her father who treats her like garbage. So it’s no wonder Eileen acts like a pariah, and dreams of escaping her situation.

Things change for Eileen when she meets Rebecca, the new teacher at the prison. Rebecca appears to be everything Eileen is not: beautiful, educated, poised, charming. Eileen is fascinated with Rebecca, but in the end, she becomes Eileen’s downfall. They end up accomplices in a crime, and since the story is told from Eileen’s older point of view, the reader already knows something horrific will happen because the narrator reveals it ahead of time.

This novel reminds Ms. Hen of two different books which take place in time periods surrounding this: GIRL, INTERRUPTED, in the late Sixties and THE BELL JAR, in the Fifties. This novel seems to be caught in the middle of those two worlds, the venue of lost girls who cannot seem to find their way out of the dark. GIRL, INTERRUPTED is a memoir, and THE BELL JAR is based on Sylvia Plath’s real life, but even though EILEEN is not based on anyone’s life, it seems as if it is drawn from these two books. The difference is that Eileen does not end up in a psychiatric hospital, she commits a crime and runs away, but the feeling and the emotions are the same. The world is a fucked up place, and there’s nothing we can do about it, is the lesson Ms. Hen gleaned from all three books. But Eileen ends up happy in her life when she’s older, she says in the book. This novel might offer some hope to young women who think there is no way out.

Eileen’s family does not eat that much, but there are a couple of mentions of chickens, which pleased Ms. Hen. She talks about Christmas, “Back in X-ville, Dunlop dinners had been at best dry chicken, mashed potatoes from a box, canned beans, limp bacon. Christmas was a little different. A store bought sponge cake was all I remember eating from year to year. The Dunlops were never big eaters.” And also, Eileen talks about taking care of her mother, “ 'I should be dead already,’ she insisted. I dutifully boiled the chicken soup on the stove, day in, day out and brought her the clear broth in a green salad bowl big enough to catch the spills…”


Ms. Hen thinks this book is disturbing, but she loved it. She likes reading something that is unusual. This book is not perfect, but it’s dark enough to mirror the bleakness and reality of life.

Sunday, November 19, 2017

Ms. Hen reviews LIAR









Liar
Rob Roberge
2016
Crown Publishers

Ms. Hen had first heard of Rob Roberge when she went to a reading at AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) in 2013. She went to a bookstore to see someone she knew from graduate school, and Mr. Roberge was reading also. She was so impressed by his reading that she bought his novel, THE COST OF LIVING. She read it and loved the novel about mental illness, because she is a hen who likes to read those types of things, for reasons she will not disclose right now.

She had read about this memoir when it first came out, and was curious. She finally got around to it, and wow! She doesn’t know if she’s ever read a book like this.

The entire memoir is written in second person, which is unusual. There aren’t many entire books written in this point of view. Instead of saying “I” or “he” the author chooses to write “you,” which gives the book a more intimate feeling, as if the author is writing a letter to himself. Ms. Hen is a fan of writing in this style, but she does not know if she could handle writing an entire book like this.

Another aspect of this book which is unique that it is written in short vignettes, all out of chronological sequence. At first, Ms. Hen thought this was jarring, but then she got used to it. It paints the picture of a man whose mind is scattered, and whose life is all over the place, and does not know what is happening to him a lot of the time.

This memoir is about a man who has drug addiction, bipolar disorder, and memory problems. He is told he is losing his memory from all the concussions he’s had in his life. He lives a wild life of sex, drugs, and rock n roll, outrageous parties, and traveling around the country, and lying about his life and the scars on his body. But most of all, he lies to himself.

He is a musician and a writer, and has had major psychotic episodes and does not seem to get better. Some people with bipolar disorder can recover, and appear to be normal, but this author does not. Ms. Hen feels sorry for him, but not too sorry. He has lived an adventurous life, unlike some people Ms. Hen knows. Ms. Hen doesn’t think he wrote this memoir to have people feel sorry for him, or to convince people into thinking he’s cool; she believes that he wrote this to help himself remember his life before he loses his memory, and is not the same person anymore.


Ms. Hen does not think this memoir would be an appropriate book for delicate hens to read, but Ms. Hen herself is used to reading difficult books. She liked this book, but it made her think about how truly screwed up some people can be, and it made her pause to consider whether or not she’s happy with her own life.

Sunday, November 12, 2017

Ms. Hen reviews THE WONDER






The Wonder
Emma Donoghue
Little, Brown and Company
2016

Ms. Hen decided to read this because her hen-sister lent it to her. Ms. Hen had read another novel by this author, ROOM, and she loved it. This book is very different, which shows the versatility of the author. It is also about a child, but it takes place in Ireland in the nineteenth century, not that long after the potato famine.

THE WONDER is about an English nurse named Lib who travels to Ireland to take care of an eleven-year-old girl, Anna, who has refused to eat. Her family and the people in the parish believe that it is a miracle and God is helping her to live. Anna claims to be fed from manna from heaven. It is Lib’s job along with another nurse, a nun, to make sure Anna is telling the truth that she is not really eating.

Lib scours Anna’s room and house to try to discover if food is hidden. She takes Anna’s vital signs, and attempts to understand how Anna has survived without food for four months, from April to August. Lib doesn’t understand the superstitious tendencies of the Irish, and their strange rituals. The housekeeper leaves a bowl of milk under the cabinet, and Lib inquires as to why, and the housekeeper said it is for the fairies.

(Ms. Hen is an Irish hen, and she doesn’t know if her relations were as ridiculously religious to the point where they believed in magic and little people. She has a suspicion that they were, and she thinks it could be fun, but if it ruled your life, it could make you seem a wee bit crazy. But if everyone else is like that, then you might not seem that unusual.)

One aspect of this novel which Ms. Hen liked is that it is primarily about a nurse. She hasn’t read that many novels that are mainly about nursing. She has read CALL THE MIDWIFE, which is a memoir, and ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST, which is not principally about nursing. Lib had been a student of Florence Nightingale, and at that time, the profession of nursing was in its infancy. Nurses were mostly meant to take care of people, and not interfere with doctors, or give their input about diagnoses. Nurses were all women, and some were volunteers.

There are several hens in this novel. Ms. Hen finds that Irish novels are usually brimming with hens and chickens. One example, “Silence as she let herself in the door. Rosaleen O’Donnell and the maid were plucking a scrawny chicken at the long table.” This takes place near the end of the novel and Lib thinks that the women were talking about her, about how afraid they are of her.


There were times in the beginning of THE WONDER when the narrative dragged and Ms. Hen wanted more action. But when the action picked up, she was dazzled. She didn’t know how it would turn out in the end, whether the story was magical or not. She would recommend this novel to anyone who wants their breath taken away, and who want to believe that people are basically good.

Tuesday, November 7, 2017

Ms. Hen reviews THIRTEEN REASONS WHY the novel






Thirteen Reasons Why
Jay Asher
Razorbill
2007


Ms. Hen watched the Netflix show, as everyone else
did this year. She was moved, yes, and saddened yes, and when she
saw this book at the Little Free Library near where she lives, she grabbed
it and made it hers. She took a while to read it, but wow, when she did…

The book is different from the show; there is not much outside Clay listening
to the tapes and reminiscing. Two narratives drive the story
concurrently, his and Hannah’s. Even though
Ms. Hen knew what would
happen in the end, she still adored this book,
its intensity, its rawness,
it made her glad she is not a young hen
anymore and does not live in that fishbowl called high school.

Ms. Hen came to the conclusion after reading this novel
that she is glad she does not care what other people think
of her as much as before, because if she did, she would have ended up like Hannah
many times over. Ms. Hen thinks that youth is a time when we think
the whole world is watching and judging us, but when time passes
we should grow up and realize that all the horrors that happen to us
and in the world
are small
and insignificant
and sometimes things don't make any sense,
but there’s nothing we can do
except wake up tomorrow
to face the next day
even if it sucks
and continues to suck
and never seems to get better
we just have to live
and deal with the shit
and hope that something better than shit
will come our way
someday.