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Book Reviewed by:This is Toews at her finest: a story that is as much comedy as it is tragedy, a goodbye grin from the friend who taught you how to live.
Elf and Yoli are sisters. While on the surface Elfrieda's life is enviable (she's a world-renowned pianist, glamorous, wealthy, and happily married) and Yolandi's a mess (she's divorced and broke, with two teenagers growing up too quickly), they are fiercely close — raised in a Mennonite household and sharing the hardship of Elf's desire to end her life. After Elf's latest attempt, Yoli must quickly determine how to keep her family from falling apart, how to keep her own heart from breaking, and what it means to love someone who wants to die.
All My Puny Sorrows is the latest novel from Miriam Toews, one of Canada's most beloved authors — not only because her work is rich with deep human feeling and compassion but because her observations are knife-sharp and her books wickedly funny. And this is Toews at her finest: a story that is as much a comedy as it is a tragedy, a goodbye grin from the friend who taught you how to live.
Excerpt
All My Puny Sorrows
Elf has beautiful hands, not ravaged by time or sun because she doesn't go out much. But the hospital has taken her rings. I don't know why. I guess you could choke on a ring if you decided to swallow it, or pound it against your head for several weeks non-stop until you did some damage. You could throw it into a fast river and dive for it.
How are you feeling right now? Janice is saying.
If I squint across the room at Elf I can change her eyes into dark forests and her lashes into tangled branches. Her green eyes are replicas of my father's, spooky and beautiful and unprotected from the raw bloodiness of the world.
Fine. She smiles feebly. Dick Riculous.
I'm sorry? says Janice.
She's quoting our mother, I say. She says things like that. Chuck you Farley. You know. She means ridiculous.
Elfrieda, you're not being ridiculed, okay? says Janice. Right? Yoli, are you ridiculing Elf?
No, I say, not at all.
And neither am I, ...
All My Puny Sorrows is surprisingly uplifting considering the weighty themes with which it wrestles. True, there's a lot of pain embedded in its pages, but ultimately Yoli's unconditional and near-reverential love for her sister are what will remain with readers. Toward the end of the novel, the author cites T.H. Lawrence: "We've got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen." I think the quote also helps explains why the book feels so positive in spite of its grim subject matter - the story becomes one of survival and acceptance, of moving on and healing. I can't recommend this one highly enough to anyone looking for a book that's both complex and well-written...continued
Full Review
(757 words)
(Reviewed by Kim Kovacs).
All My Puny Sorrows takes its title from a line in a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 – 1834), who is considered by many to be the founder of the Romantic Movement in poetry. He is most famous for the poems Kubla Khan and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Both his works and his literary criticism had huge influences on poets William Wordsworth (who was also a close friend) and Ralph Waldo Emerson, as well as on American transcendentalism.
Coleridge was born in the rural town of Otterly St. Mary in Devonshire, England, the youngest of fourteen children. His father was the local vicar and headmaster of the town's grammar school, and upon his sudden death in 1781, the eight-year-old Samuel was sent to study at Christ'...
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