Margaret, are you grieving. . . begins Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem which gives this novel its name. (You'll find the entire poem in the book. If you love it, try this one. Or this. Or this.)
This book I read when it came out, thinking that maybe once it got to paperback it would make a good summer reading selection. I gave the first couple of pages to my spring semester honors class, and they all said "We love it." It's all about loss, grief, desire, self-discovery, family dynamics, and lots more.
Here are a couple of optional supplemental readings:
- An article about the author, entitled "In Praise of Prose". (It mostly mentions her other works, but you should find it insightful.)
- An article about Shakespeare's Hamlet, focusing on the melancholy prince as grief-stricken over the death of his father. (I have a lot of issues with the play, but it is still Hamlet, after all, and we'll be covering it some fashion early in the semester.)
- Hamlet itself. (If you're done early with your summer reading -- I know how dedicated you Honors kids are [wryly ironic smiley face goes here] -- and want to get a headstart.)
(It's Jean Seberg.)
Alright, alright, here I am: brave soul, first commentator, geeky enough to admit that I have started my summer reading and finished this book.
ReplyDeleteThe book had momentum. And voice. Nico's perspective became a perspective I cared about. She always whined about seeing the world from a straightforward perspective, but she told her story (---first person) from a beautiful and intricately detailed viewpoint. I was reading at the gym, I was reading in the car, I was not driving the car when I was reading, but when I was driving, I wished I was reading. That was the kind of momentum it had.
The book had a lot of teen angst going on. Anyone else pick up on that? The teen angst saturates the entire novel. That's one of the reasons I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Page One: "I was Miss One-Thing-After-the-Next. Which is how I remember what happened." Bam. Right off the bat, I'm interested. Good job, Ms. Prose (aka the author).
In /The Catcher in the Rye/, Holden talks about how, when you read a good book, sometimes you just want to call up the author afterward and chat. That's how I felt about this book. If anyone has Francine Prose's number and/or address, be sure to let me know. (PS - if you're looking for a really teen-angst saturated novel, Holden Caulfield is the protagonist for you).
I am typing this comment from my grandparent's prehistoric computer in Ayden, North Carolina. They believe in dial-up internet. They also believe in a peaceful lifestyle that my words could never quite manage to capture. My grandmama stays up late, sitting in her comfy chair, reading whatever novel she's working on at the time. She's the best reader I've ever known. When I'm here, I read a lot. It's quite possibly my favorite part of the summer - the undistracted part.
Now, I don't want to be that horrible, rotten, no-good book ruiner who gives away the ending, but I'd like to say that I'm not entirely satisfied with the ending of /Goldengrove/. The resolution was cheap. Expected. I'll leave it at that for now, but I'm curious if anyone else felt the same way?
Other than the ending, I genuinely liked it. From this book, I've learned:
A) I'd like to own a book store someday.
B) Grief, loss, & death - all suck.
C) Not to name my kids after poems about death.
D) I'd like to wear vanilla oil. It smells like cookies.
E) To refrain from having sex with loose-screw boyfriends.
F) Opinion: Watching old movies is an extremely cool and very unique pastime.
G) Don't smoke if you have a heart condition.
That's all for now,
~Ms. Samantha Ann Mairson
Samantha --
ReplyDeleteHere's the best I could do on a quick internet search. Ms. Prose is represented by the Bluflower Arts Group (http://blueflowerarts.com/home). If you want to contact their authors, they suggest the following:
HOW TO SEND MAIL TO OUR CLIENTS
If you would like to send a letter to a Blue Flower Arts client, please mail your letter to our office. For us to forward the mail, you must do the following:
1) put your letter in an unsealed envelope
2) affix correct postage to the unsealed envelope
3) mail unsealed, stamped envelope in a separate envelope to Blue Flower Arts, LLC.
Letters will not be mailed without postage. Please, no packages or manuscripts; these will not be forwarded.
Blue Flower Arts
PO Box 1361
Millbrook, NY 12545
(Not exactly J. D. Salinger, but close).
I really didn't think I would like this book at first, but I was surprised by how quick it went by. Prose brought me into the story with Nico's deep and compelling narrative, who's voice brought true feelings into the plot. Sam, I agree with you that there was a lot of teen angst throughout the story, which was very appropriate considering Nico's situation. I thought Prose did a very good job in making Nico's feelings and reactions the way a real teenager would react. I also agree that the ending to the story was weak and predictable. I also thought that the ending seemed very rushed compared to the rest of the story. Prose wrote a very detailed and enthralling story, but invalidated it with such a poor ending.
ReplyDelete-Alex Clifford
Sam, I felt the ending was expected too. From the time Nico's parents went to Boston and felt that they should live there to the fact that I don't think I could live next to the lake any longer if I was a member of Nico's family, I felt that the family would eventually move in order to get a fresh start. Something drastic had to change to allow them to recover from Margaret's loss.
ReplyDeleteAnother predictable part of the book was how Nico's dad thought Aaron was a "screw-loose." He was clearly right after what happened as the book progressed. I thought he was an extremely creepy character, but maybe a lot of it had to do with Margaret's death. But something must have been weird with Aaron if the father didn't like him before the death, so I don't know how much his personality really did change after Margaret's death. Maybe he was always a little on the odd side.
It cut me off on number of charatcers before, so this is the rest of what I have to say...
ReplyDeleteI have just a couple of comments/questions on this book.
1. Is there a special meaning / symbolism to “the spirit of the staircase”? I understand that it is “the voice that catches up with you, minutes after the fact, to make fun of whatever you said and come up with the perfect answer you didn’t think of.” So I guess my question is, why is it used so frequently in this book? What is the meaning? Is it symbolic? Or does Prose just like that phrase? And I have a fun fact that I looked up which is that it can be taken as meaning that you only think of what to say when you have closed the door and your feet are on the staircase, but that it really comes from the French esprit d'escalier, and that esprit really means “wit” not “spirit”. I found that interesting.
2. I love Francine Prose’s last name. It’s a good name for an author.
And then (last thing, I promise) the part when Nico says “The only first kiss I would ever have. And it wasn’t even mine” (page 225 in my version) reminded me of that poem we read last year with the snow on the gravestone and then the dad kisses his daughter who is alive but he’s really kissing the dead daughter. Did anyone else think of that? Or am I just making bizarre connections?
-Beverly Naigles
Based on Sam's generally positive point of view on this book, I decided to read it first, and I could not put it down. I realized that I like Francine Prose’s writing style. I think that’s what kept me so engrossed in the book. It’s very clear, very poignant, and can make you feel like you see what Nico sees and you feel what Nico feels. There are some really nice metaphors. The writing is relatable; it wants to include you. I also like how you see Nico’s thoughts and you hear her editorialize. I think that makes it easier to relate to her. One of the things that intrigued me when I thought about it was that, in general, I can’t put down a book because I want to know what happens. I want to know if Harry defeats Voldemort or who committed the crime. I don’t think that was the case with this book. I was not very engrossed in the plot. Therefore, I have to attribute it to Prose’s writing style. The style gives it that sense of urgency and draws you in. I think this is kind of cool because (in my memory) I’ve never really noticed that I like a book for the style but not for the plot. It’s interesting. It makes me realize that a lot (though not all) of the books that I can’t put down because of their plot are also keeping me going because the actual writing is drawing me in. I would read more of Prose’s work if I liked the plot more.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of the plot…I was not a huge fan of the plot of this story. It seemed a bit...cliche?...predictable? Nico is grief-stricken, and then she works her way out of it. The part where Aaron wants Nico to “be Margaret” is a bit of a twist but not terribly unexpected. Otherwise, Nico just wants to be around people who know how she feels, and she tries to desensitize herself to things related to her sister. It just seems to show a girl feeling the way that everyone thinks you feel after you lose someone and going on a usual path through it. It doesn’t dig deeper. It doesn’t explore if maybe the clichés about grief are wrong and Nico feels differently. I don’t know. Someone else might completely disagree with me. Sam, if you do write Ms. Prose, I’d be interested to know if she lost a sibling when she was young or if any of this comes from personal experience. If it does, then I take back everything about how the grief seems cliché. I also just couldn’t feel like this story was realistic and Nico could exist and feel this way, both in her love and in her grief. Maybe that’s the point. Or maybe it’s just me. In a similar vein, I agree with Sam on the ending. It was predictable, cliché, without real resolution. I mean really, we go through all this angst for a month or two and then we just get dropped out of the entire thing and it goes into narration, this is how the rest of my life goes mode. It wasn’t worth all the angst that was in the rest of the book. There was nothing about it to touch you, or make you feel for anyone. Most of the book had some really good feelings going on and then the ending really cheapened all of that.
-Beverly Naigles
Apparently I don't read as fast as some people--or maybe it's because I never seem to have a chance to pick up the book until it's around 11 PM--but I'm still only eighty pages in. However, the thing I've noticed most about the book is how different the two sisters were, but how well they got along. It kind of shows you how important differences and tolerance thereof are. Either that, or it's an example of how two people locked up in the same house for years have to learn to love each other; although, come to think of it, this may not always be true, for I don't *think* I've formed such a bond with any of my computers.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, here are a few of those contrasts between Nico and Margaret that really caught my attention:
- Nico strives for knowledge, and succeeds in school easily, while Margaret focuses on popularity, and is renouned for her singing (28).
- While Margaret seems somewhat conceited--she seems to let others talk "up" to her--Nico has a somewhat degraded self-image and thinks of herself as overweight (8, 31).
- Overall, I picture Margaret as a freer and more confident person, and Nico as someone whose lack of self-confidence and growing paranoia (30) keep her more rigid.
- Margaret is somewhat careless with boys and sex, though she doesn't appear to value faithfulness very highly or harbor much trust (14); Nico has some serious shyness around--and almost seems to fear--the opposite sex, and feels that she is somehow inadequate (13, 59).
- Nico takes more after her mother, who will continue to dwell on an ancient action, while Margaret is more like their father, who tries to encourage the family to move on (33).
Well, that's what's struck me most so far. I'll keep you posted, though (ha, ha).
-- Sol Boucher
I have just begun reading Goldengrove, and I honestly can't put it down. This book, as Entertainment Weekly called it, is truly "a page-turner". I am dying to find out what happens next, as right now Nico and her mother and father are lost without Margaret in their lives.
ReplyDeleteI feel as if I can connect with the characters in this novel, especially Nico. I have two sisters, one older and one younger, and when I picture in my mind this happening in real life to me, with me being Nico, I can feel the depression, guilt, and denial she must be facing at this point in the novel. She doesn't even have enough strength to look at the lake, let alone do anything without thinking of her sister.
In my opinion, to be a good novel, the author has to capture the reader in a new world so that they don't want to put the book down until there are no pages left. This novel, Goldengrove, by Francine Prose, is exactly what I mentioned above; and therefore I will be finishing it shortly and am very eager to find out what is going to happen next in this captivating, enjoyable, and deeply touching novel.
~Julia Lachut
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI finally finished _Goldengrove_; the suspense really picked up in the second half, when Nico seemed to be losing just as much ground in her "recovery" as she was gaining. However, I agree that the ending was a little on the weak side: while not a deal breaker, it lacked the energy and was perhaps less believable than the rest of the book, largely because the wide time gap meant the reader had lost a key connection to Nico.
ReplyDeleteBeverly, I kind of thought the staircase spirit was the bad/rebellious side of the sisters, which seems to have transferred from Margaret to Nico since... I think this partly because Margaret was always the master of lying, and the spirit seems to to endorse this, as on page 235 of my book. I also think the name may give me that feeling: after the book's persistent forays into the afterlife, I can't help but think the spirit is meant to be associated with the recently-deceased Margaret. Although I couldn't find any evidence of an untimely death in Francine Prose's past, and it doesn't seem that she has written any similar books, I noticed a couple of commonalities while I was searching. It seems at least a few of her works include an autistic child (Tycho), and she often writes about artists, especially painters.
A couple of quotations caught my eye over the course of my reading; I'll post them separately in the appropriate thread.
-- Sol Boucher
"Goldengrove" was a very well-written novel. I enjoyed reading it more than any other summer reading book I can remember being assigned. I think it was because of, as Beverly already stated, the writing style. It had a quality similar to that of JD Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye"- written as if a teenager was writing, including all of their feelings, side comments, and sarcastic remarks. Even in the most suspenseful or unexpected places, I found myself laughing because of a cleverly written or bizarre statement. What I liked best about the novel is how quickly the action started and how effortlessly the plot continued. Unlike most books, the author did not take up the first half of the book to introduce the setting and the characters; they were all introduced and elaborated on throughout the book in a way what kept the plot moving but gave us substantial information about each character. I was astonished how many topics Prose incorporated into “Goldengrove”- drugs, sex and rape, death and grief, family relationships, friendship, self identity, beliefs (including religion and other ideas), and tons more. It was rather marvelous that these hard-to-grasp or talk-about themes and ideas kept recurring and were incorporated to create an exceptional novel. Based on the comments above, it seems I liked the ending more than other people, although it did not have the same chutzpah or moxie as the rest of the book. It seemed that Prose captured the writing style of the teenager for when she was writing Nico's teenaged years; but at the end it just became a straight-forward play-by-play of "here is what happened, then this, then this, and now I'm done". Even though I agree the ending could have been written better, I think it brings a bit of closure to the book. Overall, I greatly enjoyed "Goldengrove".
ReplyDeleteAnother aspect to Prose’s writing that I greatly enjoyed was the number of allusions that were referenced. I realized that throughout the course of this book, I found myself making many connections. The allusion I liked best was the “My Funny Valentine” reference that pretty much opened the book. I think it was a clever song choice because it not only was a reminder of Margaret to Nico and Aaron, it also summarized the way Nico viewed herself at the start of the book- unglamorous, not special, weak, unphotographable, imperfect. I believe it is ingenious that the poem “Spring and Fall” (from where “Goldengrove” gets its name) played such an important role in the storyline. As a whole, I would say that “Goldengrove” is the exact opposite to “Thanatopsis”. Both discuss the idea of death and grief, but “Goldengrove” was written subjectively by an adult through the eyes of a teenager; “Thanatopsis” was written more objectively by 16-year-old William Cullen Bryant in a very grown-up manner.
-Dylan Schiff
When I first began reading Goldengrove, I wasn't sure how much I was going to like it. I've never really enjoyed reading books involving death and depression. So I was very surprised when I couldn’t put the book down; its captivating tone really pulled me into the story. I felt as though I was able to relate to the protagonist, Nico, because of her innocent but still open-minded teenage outlook on life. Nico was looking for ways to find closer even if it meant becoming her dead sister. Just as everyone has already said, I too agree the ending of the story was way too predictable. I would have liked a “twist” at the end, one that leaves you speechless from its unexpected nature, to me, that is what completes a good book. I also would have liked to see Aaron learn from Margaret’s death and become a dynamic character. He let the accident of a loved one’s death, aka Margaret, take over him. Most of the time I like to give people the benefit of the doubt and therefore I believe that people can change but only if they want to work for it and make themselves a better, happier person. And in this case I am predicting Aaron did not, although the reader will never know this from the ending.
ReplyDelete~Megan Vatteroni
As I said before, something about the way the Nico’s grief is portrayed kind of annoyed me and I wanted to know if Prose had had a similar experience in her childhood. So then I thought a bit and did some research and learned a bit about Francine Prose and had some observations/questions that I can’t quite figure out.
ReplyDeleteI read "In Praise of Prose", and it mentions how some people think that Prose's books are "satire" but it doesn't think that. I also read some reviews of some of her other books (I might actually read one of them later in the summer...I'm really quite curious…but reading the reviews has given away all the endings) and in one of the reviews of After, it talked about how the events were so extreme that the reviewer did not feel that they could actually occur. As background, it seems that After is about a school shooting and after the school shooting there is an extreme (like extreme extreme) crackdown on security at the school. I think that this is why people think she writes satire, because it is over the top and so people think that it is to show an underlying message. I don't think she writes it to be satire, but I do agree with her events being a bit over-the-top and unbelievable. I think this was my problem with Goldengrove. I thought it went just a nanometer too far, and got to the point where I thought, "No, this would not really happen." It just bugs me...I don't see the point of what she's doing. She seems to make it LESS relatable by going so crazy with it. And it really doesn't seem like it’s meant to be satire and to poke fun at society or human nature. Does anyone have any light to shed on this? Why would she write this way? Why would she exaggerate just enough so it’s not realistic but not mean to be satirical? Or do you think that Goldengrove is realistic?
Francine Prose seems to remind me of Jodi Picoult in the subject matter of her books and a bit in the way she writes, so I looked that up. I could not find anything “comparing” Prose to Picoult, which I thought would be interesting. Does anyone who’s read books by both of them have any input on this? I feel like Picoult manages to write books about grief and hot issues and not make them so over-the-top that I don’t believe them. Or maybe she just pulls you in more. (For the record, I’m not a huge fan of Jodi Picoult so I don’t think I’m biased…I like her books but I don’t love them).
Sol - I like that idea that the spirit is associated with the now-dead Margaret...kind of like Margaret's voice coming from the grave...cool. Also, thanks for looking up Prose's past. It seems that her husband is an artist, so that might explain why she likes to write about artists. The only other thing I found was that she wrote a lot of books rooted in Jewish folklore.
I apologize if this is straying from the topic of Goldengrove, it was just that knowing that there was something about Goldengrove that I didn’t like made me try to look into it and figure out what it was and why.
One other thing that I think is cool is how we all look at the same book and different aspects of it stick with us and we make different connections.
-Beverly Naigles
When I first read the summary of this book I was very excited. I thought that this was finally a summer reading book I would enjoy, and that was more than true. I was very impressed with several features of this story. For example, the way Francine Prose was able to tell the story from a teenager's point of view made it very easy to relate to Nico, as well as feel with her. In addition to this, the progression of the plot moved quickly, however it remained smooth, and the transitions were flawless. Prose was very successful at writing a story about a tragic event and still giving it a very youthful, innocent feeling.
ReplyDeleteProse created her characters in a way that numerous individuals can relate, especially myself. One character in particular I found it easy to connect with, was Nico. Nico is a fact based person, who favored school and learning. She strived to gain new knowledge and understanding of the world. I’m a more fact based person myself; I’m not very artistic like Margaret, or musical like Nico’s mother.
Unfortunately, I agree with Sam, the ending of this book was very predictable and I was left a little unsatisfied. Seeing as losing a child is a huge tragedy, I was not surprised when the family ended up moving out of their house on the lake. In order for them to move on with their lives, something major had to happen.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I could not put it down, I read it in three nights! Goldengrove was a page turner and definitely one of the best summer reading books throughout all of high school.
-Dakota Gagliardi
When I read the back cover of the book, I thought the book sounded interesting and that it would involve a lot of twists and turns that would keep me enthralled. This was a summer reading book I really enjoyed reading and I keep going over passages again and again. The novel really made you part of the story and its process. Because it was told from a teenager’s point of view, I could really relate to Nico and what she was going through regarding her sister‘s death and everything that came with it. Most of us are close to at least one person, and if that someone suddenly dies or gets seriously hurt we would be devastated but, just like in the book, we would handle it differently. We might turn to drugs to numb the pain of life, like Nico’s mother did; we might escape to non-reality and do whatever it takes to find a reason for living, like Nico’s father did; we might turn to others and try to channel that person’s spirit and do whatever it takes to hold on to that person, like Aaron did; or we might look in every aspect of life and try to find that person and hold onto the past instead of moving forward, like Nico did. Whatever it is, most people hurt when something happens to the people that we love and do not always want to accept the reality of what happened. I think this novel did an excellent job of looking into grief and relaying those feeling and processes to the reader so readers could relate to the characters and understand what they are going through in their life.
ReplyDeleteI like the way that the narrator included her comments, remarks, and editorial sayings that projected that the character was in a process of going through something and not just telling a story. We could have been a friend that she was telling this story to and the familiarity in the way that she spoke was comforting. It felt like she was speaking to you instead of speaking at you, which is something I really value in a book. I also liked that you really got into the story right away and got hit with the grief right away instead of slowly leading up to the event. It made the story move much faster and kept you hooked into the flow of the story. You got to see the characters in action instead of the main character just explaining away the characteristics of them.
I also liked that the novel elaborated on many controversial topics such as drugs, sex, relationships, religion, and also having some characters that had mental problems and went off the deep end. Having these topics front in center instead of the author tiptoeing around them made the story more interesting and comfortable because we know about these topics but not always the processes or feelings that people have while dealing with them. Beverly, the way the author relays topics also reminded of the way that Picoult does that in her novels. I love her books and the fact that she tackles such tough topics, like Prose did in this novel. It is really refreshing for someone to not shy away from tough topics and go in depth about them. We look into figuring out who you are, who are you to the people around you, and what you can do when you are left to fend for yourself. Nico and the rest of the characters were all interwoven into Margaret’s life and when she died, they kind of went their separate paths in trying to deal with themselves. They tried to find ways to deal with the pain and figure out who they were and they can deal with a missing part of their lives.
ReplyDeleteThis was an exceptional novel and I could not stop myself from reading it. I do kind of agree with comments about Aaron. I believe he was a really static character that could not let go of the past and the women he loved, so he could never move forward in the story, I also agree with Dylan saying that the ending did really bring closure to the story and how everyone got away from the gaping hole in their lives, but it kind of ended a little too quickly and abruptly for me. I really would have liked to know what happened to Aaron, but a little mystery in a story really keeps you guessing and helps you to really think about a novel. Overall, I would definitely recommend this book for someone to read, especially if they are dealing with a loss in their life.
I also liked that the novel elaborated on many controversial topics such as drugs, sex, relationships, religion, and also having some characters that had mental problems and went off the deep end. Having these topics front in center instead of the author tiptoeing around them made the story more interesting and comfortable because we know about these topics but not always the processes or feelings that people have while dealing with them. Beverly, the way the author relays topics also reminded of the way that Picoult does that in her novels. I love her books and the fact that she tackles such tough topics, like Prose did in this novel. It is really refreshing for someone to not shy away from tough topics and go in depth about them. We look into figuring out who you are, who are you to the people around you, and what you can do when you are left to fend for yourself. Nico and the rest of the characters were all interwoven into Margaret’s life and when she died, they kind of went their separate paths in trying to deal with themselves. They tried to find ways to deal with the pain and figure out who they were and they can deal with a missing part of their lives.
ReplyDeleteThis was an exceptional novel and I could not stop myself from reading it. I do kind of agree with comments about Aaron. I believe he was a really static character that could not let go of the past and the women he loved, so he could never move forward in the story, I also agree with Dylan saying that the ending did really bring closure to the story and how everyone got away from the gaping hole in their lives, but it kind of ended a little too quickly and abruptly for me. I really would have liked to know what happened to Aaron, but a little mystery in a story really keeps you guessing and helps you to really think about a novel. Overall, I would definitely recommend this book for someone to read, especially if they are dealing with a loss in their life.
One thing I found particularly appealing was the way in which Aaron’s view of Nico transformed following Margaret’s death. Before Margaret passed, Aaron solely viewed Nico as his girlfriend’s “cute” little sister. However, once Margaret died, suddenly Aaron saw Nico as a grown up independent women, and she became the only person he could confide in. The abrupt way that Aaron’s perception of Nico changed was very interesting to follow as the story progressed. Even though Nico had not grown up, age wise, a substantial amount since her sister’s death, Aaron still thought of her as a companion, even a “love” interest. As the story continued to move forward, it became quite apparent that the main reason, if not the only reason, Aaron went to Nico was because he was trying to turn her into Margaret so it would be like she never left. I think this forced Nico to really take a step back and define herself. She realized she was not her sister and no one could ever convince her that that was who she needed to be in order to move forward with her life. I certainly found this transformation in Nico and Aaron’s relationship very intriguing and complex.
ReplyDeleteAfter finishing this novel, I appreciate it even more than I did before. In the beginning I was captured in the style that Prose had written in, and although towards the end, as everyone else has stated, it was not as thrilling or captivating as the beginning, I still thoroughly enjoyed this book.
ReplyDeleteAgreeing with Dakota and plenty of others, this is one of the best summer reading books I have ever read because I was able to connect with the main character Nico, and it felt as if it was pleasure reading, not a required summer novel. I thank you Mr. MacArthur for including this in our summer reading because if you did not, I may not have even read this wonderful novel that I now love!
Yes, I do agree how Prose did not capture your attention in the end as much as she did in the beginning, however, that very well could have been her plan. Like Dylan stated, she did not bore you in the beginning with introducing characters and the plot, and that part personally intrigued me into liking the book right away. I believe that Prose is an excellent author, and she used her unique style and way of writing to capture the attention of our teenage thoughts and lives right now. In the end, I have to honor her for creating, in my opinion, such an amazing novel; Goldengrove.
~Julia Lachut
It looks like I'm in the minority as far as liking the ending of the book. I usually root for a happy ending, and that was the case for Goldengrove too. This time, I actually got it; I'm usually sorely disappointed. I feel like most books kind of drop off, but here Prose took us through Nico's life to a point where we could be sure she was ok, and was going to be ok for the rest of life. And she didn't waste too much of our time doing it. I thought it was comforting, how the family could move on and create a new normal, after what was such an earth-rocking tragedy for them. Too many families loose children, and I applaud Prose for being able to say, so gracefully, to the survivors that whatever may happen, and whatever aftermath you may have to go through, you can still be happy and successful in whatever you choose to do.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I thought was really interesting was how the story seemed to be told from a point of view years after that summer, which, at the end, you find out, is the case. We learn what Nico is feeling and thinking, but it’s conveyed without bias, and almost unemotionally. She’ll say something like, “tears were streaming down my face” in describing an (almost) normal conversation. She’s just telling us what happened, how it happened, and what she was thinking as it happened, but doesn’t muck it up with a lot of sentimentality (I know, I’m not very sensitive). I’ve never read a story quite like that before. I thought it was fascinating how emotionally disengaged the narrative was, while still getting us inside her head, at a very emotional time.
I also adored Prose’s metaphors, similes and imagery; she seems to have quite a talent for this, and I’d really like to read more of her work, partly just for the clever descriptions.
As I continue to read more and more books, I’m starting to come to an understanding of what I think makes a good story and what I think could use some improvement. Goldengrove had a little bit of both. To start off, what I think makes a good story is a complex plot, and Goldengrove certainly had that. There was a very balanced mix of positive and negative events, as well as many controversial topics, like Lexi previously stated. This combination of positive and negative, kept me on my toes and really forced me to keep on reading, just to find out what was going to happen next! Another factor that makes a good story, in my opinion, is the resolution. Ultimately, this story had a decent ending. Even though I formerly stated that I was left a little bit unsatisfied with the ending, I also have to consider what others have said, especially Kelsey. I now feel somewhat more comfortable with the ending because of the thought that Francine Prose was trying to convey to us that Nico and her family all ended up okay. Contemplating this idea put me more at ease and I know consider the ending much more fulfilling. The resolution would have been the only issue I had with this story, and seeing that I don’t have that issue anymore, I feel that Goldengrove meets all my criteria of a good and wholesome story.
ReplyDelete-Dakota Gagliardi
I recently finished reading Goldengrove on vacation and had my comments all planned out so I could blog them when I got home, but after reading everyone else’s comments I feel an urgent need to share my thoughts on some of the things I have just read.
ReplyDeleteFirst off, I feel obligated to share my stance on the ending of the book. I can safely say that I must join the minority in saying I was pleasantly satisfied with the ending. I put the book down feeling content knowing Nico had moved beyond Margaret’s death and had created a normal life for herself. I will admit the ending didn’t blow me off my feet, and I agree that it felt too brief and not well-thought out at times, but overall it was not the catastrophic ending many people made it out to be. I was actually shocked to read so many people disliked the ending, and was happy to find Kelsey shared my perspective on happy endings. Some people may not agree with my personal feelings on grief -- I will admit I have never lost a loved one from my immediate family – and the ending of this book, but I believe that people enjoy reading about other people’s grief, depression and hardships because people like to know that there are people out there who have it worse than them. Think about it, if everyone liked happy endings every book would end with a happily ever after, but it doesn’t. Reading an entire book in which the main character and the secondary characters are grieving is easy to get used to. But do people want to find out that everything turns out ok? I personally do, because if I was grieving and read this book I would appreciate the hope of a happily ever after, and I am sure many people agree with that. But a part of me thinks that so many people can be disappointed with a happy ending because it is forgettable. A happy ending makes you think isn’t that nice, and then you put the book down and never return to it. But an unhappy ending (at least for me) leaves you devastated for hours, maybe even days after you have finished the book. An unhappy ending can make you think about the things that are most important to you in life, and can really make you feel closer to the people in your own life. Books with unhappy endings are the ones you remember, the one’s you connect with, and that is why authors like Jodie Picoult (great comparison Beverly) have become so popular.
Not sure anyone agrees with this conclusion about happy endings vs. sad endings but in my opinion, reading about how many people disliked this ending made me wonder if there was more to it than just the way Prose wrote it (although I agree there is room for improvement in the way it was written). Maybe everyone disliked the ending so much because they were not expecting a happy ending but rather an ending where Nico spent the rest of her life in grief. I know it is a bit of a tangent but I think it is an interesting consideration.
-Heather-
I recently finished reading Goldengrove on vacation and had my comments all planned out so I could blog them when I got home, but after reading everyone else’s comments I feel an urgent need to share my thoughts on some of the things I have just read.
ReplyDeleteFirst off, I feel obligated to share my stance on the ending of the book. I can safely say that I must join the minority in saying I was pleasantly satisfied with the ending. I put the book down feeling content knowing Nico had moved beyond Margaret’s death and had created a normal life for herself. I will admit the ending didn’t blow me off my feet, and I agree that it felt too brief and not well-thought out at times, but overall it was not the catastrophic ending many people made it out to be. I was actually shocked to read so many people disliked the ending, and was happy to find Kelsey shared my perspective on happy endings. Some people may not agree with my personal feelings on grief -- I will admit I have never lost a loved one from my immediate family – and the ending of this book, but I believe that people enjoy reading about other people’s grief, depression and hardships because people like to know that there are people out there who have it worse than them. Think about it, if everyone liked happy endings every book would end with a happily ever after, but it doesn’t. Reading an entire book in which the main character and the secondary characters are grieving is easy to get used to. But do people want to find out that everything turns out ok? I personally do, because if I was grieving and read this book I would appreciate the hope of a happily ever after, and I am sure many people agree with that. But a part of me thinks that so many people can be disappointed with a happy ending because it is forgettable. A happy ending makes you think isn’t that nice, and then you put the book down and never return to it. But an unhappy ending (at least for me) leaves you devastated for hours, maybe even days after you have finished the book. An unhappy ending can make you think about the things that are most important to you in life, and can really make you feel closer to the people in your own life. Books with unhappy endings are the ones you remember, the one’s you connect with, and that is why authors like Jodie Picoult (great comparison Beverly) have become so popular.
Not sure anyone agrees with this conclusion about happy endings vs. sad endings but in my opinion, reading about how many people disliked this ending made me wonder if there was more to it than just the way Prose wrote it (although I agree there is room for improvement in the way it was written). Maybe everyone disliked the ending so much because they were not expecting a happy ending but rather an ending where Nico spent the rest of her life in grief. I know it is a bit of a tangent but I think it is an interesting consideration.
-Heather-
I definitely agree with Heather that happy endings you tend to forget about and sad endings really make you think; though even with the more positive ending of Goldengrove I don't think it’s something I'll forget about anytime soon. It's probably good that we have a mix of each kind in our summer reading books this year, because I think in life we need a balanced combination of cheerful and thought-provoking.
ReplyDeleteHeather, I agree with your assessment that the books with the sad endings hit people harder and make people remember them more than the happy ones. I'm not totally on board with people wanting to feel that there are people worse off than them, though. I have read books with sad endings where the characters are nothing like me and it doesn't even feel like their situation is real so I don't think I enjoy reading the sad ending to feel like "compared to that, my life is amazing."
ReplyDeleteI don't have the perfect solution for ending this book. I didn't like it the way it was, but I have no suggestion for how to make it better. I don't think I would have liked it if Nico remained grief-stricken, but maybe I would have thought it appropriate. I guess I just wish Prose showed how Nico got over her grief instead of just sort of "she's greif-stricken" followed by "she's all better". It was as if there was a magic potion, which I'm pretty sure is not the point.
I'm in two minds about happy and unhappy endings. The unhappy endings hit me harder and stay with me more, but they also depress me. Sometimes the happy endings seem too manufactured, but they leave me with a more optimistic feeling (which is good).
-Beverly Naigles
Beverly, I agree with your statement, "I just wished Prose showed how Nico got over her grief". I think that really pin-points what the ending was lacking. I still attribute some of people's disappointment to the unexpectedness of a happy ending, but I think that you are right, a happy ending that really dove into Nico's recovery, would have left people more satisfied. Somehow Prose made it seem like Nico was suddenly fine because she left Aaron. I remember looking at the number of pages left in the book and thinking there is no way Prose can resolve Nico's problems in this number of pages. And so although I liked the last chapter where Nico is described as living happily, I agree Prose did not elaborate enough on how Nico got to that point. Leaving Aaron would not end the problems with her Mom and Dad; it would have taken more than that.
ReplyDeleteAlso Beverly, one more question about what you posted above, referring to the story seeming unrealistic. When I first read that comment, I disagreed completely, but now I understand where you are coming from with the ending being unrealistic. But I am still curious if you were referring to the end of the book when you posted that comment, or if you were referring to something else?
I think that Ms. Prose is an excellent writer but needed to do a little more research before she wrote on such a serious topic. The writing style of this book draws the reader in and makes them wonder what will happen next. Although this is a very good trait for a writer to posess, I thought that the plotline of "Goldengrove" was predictable and that made it frustrating for me to read the book. It's hard to be excited for what happens next when you already know!
ReplyDeleteI also think (agreeing with Beverly) that the behaviors of all the characters, except for Elaine, were way too exaggerated, thus making them seem unrealistic. Not all families who experience deaths have prescription drug problems, have affairs, and have children who sneak around, all to deal with their grief. I believe I am able to confidently say this because I myself have experienced death, when my father passed away in 2008. I know I cannot speak for everyone who has lost an immediate family member, but I felt a little insulted at her view of the "grieving family". It *is* possible to lose someone and still keep some sense of yourself, and it seems as if she took every possible outcome of a family in grief and mashed it together.
I also think that her idea of the stages of grief was taken right out of a psychology textbook. I was most disturbed by her idea of acceptance after grieving. In Goldengrove, all of Nico's family comes out of their depression all at once and everything seems to be happy once again, like Margaret's death never happened; the three of them have a big epiphany and all of the family's problems go away. From my experience and from knowing the experiences of others who have dealt with loss, in real life you do not have a big epiphany and have everything fall perfectly into place.
Although my view of this novel is (probably) colored by my personal experience with loss, I believe that Goldengrove is misleading to anyone who has not experienced death and should not be used as an example of how everyone deals with death.
- Marissa Lenoce
Beverly, Heather, I think I'm going to have to disagree with you on the point that Prose doesn't show Nico getting over her grief. That's what the whole book is about, not just some crazy mess Aaron got her into.
ReplyDeleteAfter Margaret’s death she obsessively avoids anything and everything that could bring back painful memories of her sister. The list starts on page 38. But obviously she can't go on living her life like that, so she goes along with Aaron's "autoimmunization" plan (page 106), and even though we know now this isn't his true motive, I think it genuinely helps Nico. Lastly, in the beginning of the book her conversation with Margaret focuses on Margaret. Her life kind of revolves around her sister, and she thinks several times, when hanging out with Aaron, that she should remind him that she's Nico, not Margaret, that she's her own person. Aaron's methodical destruction of Nico and recreation of Margaret forces her to focus on herself, not her dead sister, and to really define her person (the spider watch, 236, and the Roman Forum, 268). I think once she had finally rid herself of Aaron’s toxic influence she found herself a good part of the way through the healing process. Though I do agree with Marissa that the family’s grieving process isn’t exactly the most realistic.
Also, did anyone catch if the family’s last name is ever mentioned in the book?
Heather, I think that when I wrote that I felt the book was somewhat unrealistic, I meant the entire part focusing on Nico's grief, including but not limited to the ending.
ReplyDeleteKelsey, I see your point about the ending. I still don't really agree with it, but I do see where you are coming from. I do see, logically, how one could argue that once she leaves Aaron, that starts her on her upward journey and then she gets better and so we don’t need to hear about it. I don’t really think the “immunization” helped her, but I do see what you mean about her gaining more of a separate identity, and I like that. As a reader, though, I’m not feeling it. I think this is because Prose drops us out of the story when she goes from Nico telling everything to the “epilogue” part (chapter 16). This is right after Nico starts to look up, but not really when I think she’s doing too well in the time of the story. It’s during the epilogue (everything after pg 264) that I think she is at the “I’m all happy now” stage. It’s like some sort of unknown “epiphany” (good term, Marissa) but she doesn’t show how or why. Unless it was leaving Aaron, but I don’t really see how that leads the whole family to be like “cool, life is good.” But she does seem to imply an “epiphany”, which I feel is unrealistic. I think my problem is that I am looking for ways for Prose to show how Nico gets over her grief, because I think that’s what the story is supposed to be about, but at the same time I’m thinking that you can’t really show getting over grief in a book because it doesn’t really happen in events or concrete markers and you just sort of keep on trudging through it (like Marissa said…no big “epiphany”). But then why write a book about just many days went by and slowly I felt better? That would be a really boring book. So, since she did write a book I guess I wish she would show Nico getting over it in some way (how, I have no idea), and I don’t feel that she really showed that day to day feeling better (but I don’t know if it is possible to show that). It just feels like a there’s a jump from the “I’m sad” to the “Life is good” to me, like a gut feeling, and it left me unsatisfied. I think I’m contradicting myself, but I’m trying to figure it out at the same time as I’m writing this. If this makes any sense at all then you can be sure it’s by accident : ).
Marissa, I agree that the grief itself is unrealistic, and I’m glad I’m not the only person who is like “this is not how it works.”
Kelsey (again, sorry), I don't remember seeing the family’s name, but I wasn’t really looking for it.
-Beverly Naigles
I was most excited to read Goldengrove because for the first time, I found a book on a summer reading list that I would actually pick out for myself. I dove into it and liked it immediately, but it was a strange kind of like. Usually when I read a book, I fall in love with it and I never want to stop reading it, or I have to push myself through the entire thing. For me, Goldengrove has been both. I want to keep reading because I want to watch the characters cope and develop without Margaret, but I also want to stop reading and just collect all the thoughts the book brings out for me. The book isn't just about the loss of a person because they die, I think it's more about the loss of the person's love and emotion towards life. The loss of the love doesn't even have to be as drastic as the person dying. It can be as simple as losing someone you loved who never loved you back in the same way. The book makes me want to just drop everything and drive over to see all of my friends, even the ones I haven't talked to in awhile, and just enjoy spending time with them. The book makes me want to be fearless with love and life and not care about the opinions that come from people who don't really matter. It makes me want to celebrate life and love and it also makes me remember pain. When I'm not reading, I want to be, but when I start reading, I just want to stop to think and reflect. It's amazing that a book can make me feel these extremes. What is truly amazing about this book is how we can all see ourselves in it in some way. Maybe we have had a close relative or friend die, or maybe we feel lost and not sure what do with life. It's so relatable and thought-provoking. I'm truly glad I read this book.
ReplyDelete-Sarah Anischik
As I was reading, random comments popped into my head, and instead of taking notes on the book like I would usually do, I just wrote down the comments and it helped me remember the character of the book better than ever before.
ReplyDelete1. Sometimes, on really hot days, I often wonder if the cause is global warming (for example: the ridiculous heat wave we just had).
2. I don't really love old movies, but I'm compelled to discover the educational value in Some Like It Hot.
3. Margaret makes me want to go out and buy vanilla perfume. It reminds me of countless movies that show the girl baking cookies right before her date arrives.
4. I would like to meet Nico's dad because for some reason I find myself randomly using old-fashioned phrases like "that's not my cup of tea."
5. Just the other week, I was at tennis camp and all of the girls were in one dorm room just talking about various boy stories when one of the girls actually compared boys and sex to ice cream-just like Margaret did for Nico. This is the best coincidence I have ever had between my life and a book. I am amazed.
6. It's scary to think someone can just disappear from life the way Margaret did. One minute she was with her sister, just relaxing on the boat, and the next, in the water and and gone forever. How can life be that fragile?
7. I feel like you need to have "My Funny Valentine" playing in the background while reading this book.
8. It's so interesting to find pieces of myself in Margaret, like the way she makes fun of country songs that she actually adores.
9. I never knew that those masks were called Groucho masks. I feel like it is quite an honor to be a part of that 100-book club.
10. I've always wanted to have an adult friend like Elaine, one that would fall somewhere between a mother and a sister.
11. I love how Francine Prose so easily captures the wit of a young teenage girl. Although Prose is much older than Nico, her jokes and sarcasm are perfect.
12. When Nico says, "I'd always known my parents loved Margaret more," it's really heartbreaking. So many kids feel that way about the relationships between other siblings and their parents. Nico's bitterness for being "the one their stuck with" makes me ache for her more.
13. I like the way Goldengrove Bookstore becomes a character that is trying to help Nico move through her life without Margaret.
14. The town's meeting about the pond scum reminds me of the town meetings in Chatham. All they do is talk and argue...and to make it even better, the meetings are televised too. They wouldn't handle phytoplankton too well either.
15. Aaron is the creepiest character ever. He dressed Nico up like Margaret, made her smell like Margaret, and he made her taste like Margaret all to fulfill his perverted little fantasy in which Margaret is still alive.
16. The ending was disappointing to me as well. It ended in a heartbeat, just like Margaret's life did. It was rushed, almost like the first sumer without Margaret was the only truly important time.
-Sarah Anischik
Okay so i haven't made it all the way through this book yet, I'm at page 93 and I am really enjoying it. It reminds me of the book The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (which to my dismay was recently ruined by being made into a nauseating movie.) The Lovely Bones also deals with the death of a young girl who has a sister, however it is told from the dead sister's point of view. It is almost like reading that story in a new light, as stories of sudden loss are usually similar in the tragic realization that life goes on even when you don't want it to.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing I've picked up on from Goldengrove is the way that Margret lived in the past. She always focused on old movies and vintage clothes, things from the past that were already nostalgic and forgotten. This seems to set her up to become a memory, to die young and dramatically like the Hollywood starlets she idolized. Margret is already trying to live as a memory even before she dies.
On another note, this book makes me want to leap in and yell at Nico for not talking to her parents. I understand that death is horrible thing to go through and that this take isn't exactly realistic or as easily done as suggested but I can't help it. I am the type of person who yells at the stupid character in horror films that walks right into the room where the killer is hiding and I feel the same way about Nico. I want her to just sit down with her parents and talk. When her father found her lying on the ground after she found Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem that her sister was named after I wanted her to just say "Oh hey Dad, I just found the poem you named Margret after and I am pretty confused. What's it all about." This book is frustrating to read because I know what I want Nico to do but I know that even if she were my friend and I was there every time i want to shout at her, I wouldn't because it wouldn't make much of a difference anyhow.
That's all for now, I'm going to go read some more and return!
-Emma Stankiewicz
P.S. If someone could explain to me how to post with your name at the top in those important looking bold letters, I'd greatly appreciate it. I'm a bit like Nico's father in that I'm not too computer savvy!
Well, in only a few short hours, I have managed to read through half of Goldengrove, and I already know that this will go down in history as being one of my favorite books that I have ever read - definitely somewhere in the top ten.
ReplyDeleteNow that I've read eight chapters, I am posting my Part 1 comments (just incase I forget some of what I have already read), and when I finish the book, I'll post my comments about the other half. NOTE: I have not read any of the previous posts about this book, and it is INCREDIBLY tempting to scroll up and see what everyone else has written, but I refuse to spoil what is to come in this book! I'm sure there are some comments here that I won't even think to write about. Once I finish the novel I look forward to reading what everyone else had to say about it.
- Liz Elliott
* Apparently I can't post things that are over 4,096 characters, so I'll have to post this entry in two parts..
For starters: WOW. I did not think that Nico's hair was cut THAT short. I like it a lot though. I think Nico needed that haircut to be revived, and stripped of the past, even though it is clearly easier said than done.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first read the brief description about this novel on the book's back cover, I knew that I would develop quite an interest in the story. For me, reading the words 'sudden death' and 'dangerous relationship' made me want to start reading as soon as I possibly could, and that's exactly what I did.
I am so amazed that Nico has been able to persevere as much as she has since her sisters passing. Granted she is still suffering, I give her a lot of credit for making the small yet progressive strides that she has made. Although I can't imagine what it is like to lose a sibling at such a young age, I think that the author has done an incredible job of putting just the right amount of emotion into the words that are on the paper. I feel my heartstrings being tugged at as I read, and it is this personal application which makes me love the book so much.
When I first read the poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins at the beginning of this novel, I didn't think much of it. However, when the poem reappeared later in the book (when Nico found it in the poetry book in Goldengrove), it sent shivers down my spine. When I read the line "It is Margaret you mourn for," my jaw dropped. If it were me, and my sister Margaret passed away, and I read that line, I would be convinced that it was some sort of message or sign (just as Nico's teacher Mrs. Atkins told her that her sister would be looking out for her). If I were Nico, and I was in her situation, I would be saddened by the poem, but it would also bring me a slight amount of comfort during such an incredibly difficult time.
For some reason, as I'm reading this book, I don't picture Nico as being thirteen years old. Maybe it's just because I'm seventeen, but I imagine Nico being older, maybe just a year younger than Margaret or something like that. Maybe I am thinking this way because she has to be so mature at such a young age. I can't say I've experienced such awful grief in my life, but it seems that with every page, I find more and more scenarios that I can somehow relate to. I am very pleased with this assigned summer reading book!
I feel as though there is a lot that I am forgetting to write about, but I am so excited to read the second half of the book! I want to find out what is going to happen with Nico and Aaron - SO SCANDALOUS.
Oh! This might be an incredibly dumb question, but:
I understand that Margaret drowned, but was it due to her heart condition or to the fact that she couldn't swim? When Nico's parents say something along the lines of, "Oh, if only Aaron had been in the boat," it implies that she couldn't swim too well, but that doesn't make sense because she seemed to comfortable in the boat with Nico in the beginning. But at the same time, her heart condition keeps being brought up, with Nico continually reading books about it and all. Could someone clarify this scenario for me? Again, sorry if this is a wicked dumb question. I'm just confused.
- Liz Elliott
I just finished the second half of the book and all I have to say is: WOW. The last eight chapters literally had me biting my nails. I just couldn't wait to find out what was going to happen next. I'm actually sad that this book had to end!
ReplyDeleteI thought for sure that Nico would end up dying the same way that Nico the rockstar died: having an aneurysm while riding her bike. Although it would have tied the name "coincidence" together, I am extremely happy that the book did not end this way.
I do, however, wish that we could have learned a little more about Nico's husband and children. For me, the author wrapped this book up in about three pages, and then it was just over with. I also wish we could've found out what happened to Aaron. When Nico saw the painting on the wall in the museum, I thought for sure that it was going to be his painting, and I was disappointed when it wasn't. Now that I think about it, there were many instances in this story when the author lead me to believe something was going to happen, and then it didn't.
When Aaron first told Nico about their recovery plan which they would embark on together, I thought it was a wonderful idea. Since both of them were grieving, it seemed like a good idea for them to get together to help each other out. I thought that they were going to have a real friendship with one another, and then when Aaron started to change Nico into Margaret, I got freaked out. I thought he was just being kind when he gave her the perfume, and sentimental when he asked her to wear his sister's shirt, but then when he was feeding her the ice cream, I finally realized what his plan was. Elaine was right: Aaron was acting like a pervert. I can see why he would try to change Nico into Margaret, but that was just so creepy to me.
I am so happy that I finally get to read everyone's comments about the story. All in all, I thought that this was an outstanding book. I thought that it was going to be good, but it was absolutely fantastic.
- Liz Elliott
MY COMMENTS TO OTHER COMMENTS:
ReplyDeleteSam: I totally agree that there was a ton of momentum in this book. My mom kept telling me to shut my lights off and go to bed, but I just wanted to keep reading it so badly. I would've read the entire thing in one night if my mom had let me stay up. I'm not happy with the ending either. It was cheap, just like you said. But expected? No way. Where are you coming from when you say that it was predicable?
Beverly: I HATED how the ending was "and this is how the rest of my life goes." To me, that's too much like a movie. Although, I would actually love to see this book as a movie. The ending was just bad. Poorly written. To answer your question about the spirit of the staircase, I think it is just all about regret. Nico's regret of wanting to do something to save her sister. Nico's mother's regret of arguing with Margaret before she died. Aaron's regret of saying what he said to Margaret before he could make up with her. Nico's regret of making out with her dead sister's boyfriend. The examples go on and on. Does that make any sense?
Sol: I love that the sisters are so different; it helps them to learn from each other. For me, it's a very nice contrast. I agree with you: the time gap and the end was incredibly lame, and definitely made everything a little less believable. In addition, I didn't pick up on the fact that it was autism that Tycho was suffering from. I couldn't figure out exactly what it was, and I tossed a few ideas around in my head, but I am glad that I know now.
Dylan: Goldengrove was definitely my favorite summer reading book in my history of summer reading books. Although I definitely wasn't a fan for the ending, I can see where you're coming from when you say that it was able to give the book some closure that it needed. You made a great point there.
Megan: I wish the ending could've left me speechless. That would have been wonderful. I'm still not sure what people mean by the ending being predictable. What part is everyone referring to?
Beverly (again): I don't think this book was TOO over-the-top. Sure, some parts of it were, but I thought it was mostly believable. And, I also think the idea of the mental spirit being Margaret is a very interesting idea. I'm glad that Sol picked up on it. Great thinking!
- Liz Elliott
MORE OF MY COMMENTS TO OTHER COMMENTS:
ReplyDeleteJulia: I considered this to be a pleasure reading book as well, instead of mandatory summer reading. Neither one of my parents believed me when I told them that I finished it in less than 12 hours. Needless to say, they are very impressed with me! ;)
Kelsey: Okay, okay. You made two great points. It was great to see that Nico turned out alright. I thought for sure that she was going to die. Also, I agree that it was comforting to know that the family was alright. Those aspects of the novel were great. I, too, might read more novels by Prose.
Beverly (again again): Yeah, I don't think I have the perfect ending for this story either, but all I know is that it could've been a heck of a lot better. I hate to sound bitter, but I didn't like the happy ending!
Heather: Elaboration was DEFINITELY needed for this ending.
Marissa: You are totally right about the exaggeration that came with the grieving family in this story. I never even picked up on that, but it's so true what you said. Just because someone loses a family member, it doesn't all of a sudden cause people to become drug addicts or any of the other stereotypical things the author wrote about. Good point! Just like you, I hated how everything turned happy again in a snap.
Kelsey (again): I just HAD to comment on your wording in one of your comments: "Aaron's methodical destruction of Nico and recreation of Margaret," and, "Aaron's toxic influence." I LOVE IT. :)
Kelsey and Beverly: I don't recall there being a last name, but I wish there was. Did anyone else think that each name was picked for a certain reason? I mean, Nico and the rockstar, Margaret and the poem, the D.A.R.E. officer with the last name of a drug. I would have LOVED it if Nico's family had a last name, because I feel as though it would have had a ridiculous amount of symbolism.
Sarah: You made a great point about wanting to drop the book and drive over to visit friends. We truly never know how long we have to live, and I think this book helps to bring people to the realization that we need to make each and every day count, because we don't know when our final day will be. You also made a wonderful point about fearlessness in love and life. Well done!
- Liz Elliott
EVEN MORE OF MY COMMENTS TO OTHER COMMENTS:
ReplyDeleteSarah (again): WOW. We are totally on the same wavelength here. I never knew those glasses were called Groucho masks either. I own a pair! I think Honors English should have a goal for this year to get a picture with everyone wearing a pair. When it came to your opinion of Nico thinking that her parents loved Margaret more than they loved her, I thought that that scenario was incredibly sad too. Although, I know the feeling. Being compared to an older sibling, in my case academically, sucks. You always feel like even when you're trying you're hardest, it's never good enough. I'm right there with you, Nico! Haha. I also loved the Goldengrove Bookstore, but your comment about it being a character itself is GREAT. I didn't think of it that way, but you are totally right about what you said. Bookstores are so unique, and from the countless smelly 'book barns' I've been in with my brother, I understand first-hand how bookstores can surround you and take you into a completely different world. Each one is just so different from the next. It's great. Lastly, you hit the nail on the head when you said that Aaron is "incredibly creepy." AMEN SISTER. I thought for sure that he was going to kill her, put her in his van, and dump her in the pond. Does anyone else think that would've been a great ending? Then for the rest of the book the police would've had to figure out who killed the sister. I mean, the van was talked about SO MUCH, I thought it should've had some important role at the end. Oh well. Haha.
Emma: I LOVED what you said about Margaret living in the past, and then becoming a memory. Very, very true.
- Liz Elliott
Replies from a Veteran Reader (I'm using this book for my thesis, so I feel like I've read two or three times):
ReplyDeleteEmma, I definitely agree with Margaret living in the past (almost used this in my paper, but it didn't quite fit in) and that Nico should have been more direct and honest with her parents about a lot of things. There's a part where her mom gets up from the diner table to throw up, because she’s been taking too many pills, and she and her dad barely want to mention it- when it’s happening right in front of them! Lying and skirting the issues could not have helped their coping.
About the names, when you go to write a post, it says Comment as: below the text box; select Name/URL from the drop down menu and enter your name (no URL needed).
Liz, I agree with the significance of Margret’s name in the poem. Do you think, that because the poem is about the death of innocent youth (at least, that’s what I got out of it), that Margret was maybe destined to die young? I kind of do. Is that what you meant about getting comfort from it? Because that was maybe how it was meant to be, from the beginning from her life?
What I think happened when Margret died was that she had a heart attack or something of the sort under water because of the combination of just been smoking and physical activity. Her heart giving out caused her to drown. Or maybe it just…stopped. We’ll never know, though I thought maybe Prose had a more defined idea and just didn’t convey it well, or wanted to leave it vague. I agree that the book was kind of vague on this, but I think her heart condition definitely had something to do with it. I think what Nico’s parent meant was that Aaron might have been in the water at the same time as Margret and notice something was wrong and could have saved her. But I don’t think they were blaming Nico at all. Just my perception of it.
I didn’t notice the part about how Nico the rock star died. Good eye. If I had, I definitely would have been having the same thoughts.
I thought I was the only one who thought Aaron’s plan was actually innocent and good at the beginging! I didn’t realize how creepy it was until he was having her listen to the German Nico’s version of “My Funny Valentine”, right before he fed her the ice cream. Did NOT see it coming, but he is an absolute pervert- sign him up on Meghan’s list .
Thank you for the comment on my comment! And you’re right about the symbolism in the name, I really like that about it too. I’ve always been interested in the meanings of names, and when I was done with the book, I looked a few up (though I’m curious about if Prose took the meanings into consideration when choosing them). Maragret means pearl; Nico is a shortened form of Nicholas used in Europe and Nicholas means victory of the people; Aaron means high mountain or exalted; Elaine is a French variant of Helen, meaning torch or possibly moon. Interpret these how you will.
I've had a question that's been smoldering in my head since I came to the part in the book where Nico finds the poem with Maragret's name in it, and Liz's comment's finally made me remember it while I had the computer on (and I am able to post it).
ReplyDeleteDo you think that Prose read Hopkins' poem and built a story around it, or do you think she had some idea for the story (or maybe even a rough draft) and then found the poem and incorporated it? I'd like to hear other people's opinions on this because I honestly don't know what to think. The poem plays a minor role in the story, in my opinion, but I'm glad it’s in there, it makes the book more unique, I think. I might just write Prose to ask her this, and if she took the meanings of the names into consideration, because I always wonder that when I read something (and if she responds tell you what she says!)
Also, little known fact (or so I'm told) that might interest people: Authors don't usually pick the titles of their books, some one at their publishing house does, though they probably consult the author. I mention this because the title was a part of the poem, and I also wonder what Prose was calling her manuscript before it was officially Goldengrove; if it came from the poem, was totally different, or if it included, or was, to her, Goldengrove. I guess I’ll include this in my letter too!
P.S. Liz and other readers, I also didn’t understand what was meant by the ending being expected.
Beverly, I think now I do see where you're coming from with Prose not showing most of the upward journey. I think she showed the “It has to get worse before it gets better” stage, which is what I believe, and apply to pretty much everything in life. I guess she would have had to make the book longer, or write a sequel to show the things-slowly-getting-better process; if it’s even possible, which is a good point- who knows? Maybe she didn’t know that would be a good way to do it or maybe she didn’t know how to write that, and just put the epiphany in its place. It is a disappointing ending when you look at it that way, because shouldn’t a book that starts off with some one dying be about the course of grief? Either that, or who killed them, haha.
ReplyDeleteKelsey-
ReplyDeleteSorry this is a bit late, but I also noticed the lack of a last name for the main family! Usually an author doesn't leave out a last name because they "forgot" too, so there must be some meaning behind it. My thoughts towards why there is no last name are:
1. By leaving out a last name, maybe Prose wants the reader to think "Wow, this could totally be my family!" although I really hope not, due to my reasons above. If she doesn't give the family a last name, they are missing an important part of what creates their identity as a family. Because a last names separate one family from another, maybe Prose thinks the lack of identity makes the family easier to connect with?? Just a thought.
2. The story is told from Nico's point of view, and she constantly talks about how Margaret was the more loved daughter and recieved a lot of attention from her parents. Leaving out the last name may be Nico's way of separating herself from her family, because a last name is something important that each family member shares with one another.
Just some food for thought!
-Marissa Lenoce
Kelsey, I think she started with the poem. That’s just a guess though. When I was reading about her (I think in the “In Praise of Prose” article) I read that she likes to sort of “base” her books off of other books. Apparently Goldengrove is like a reverse The Mill on the Floss. I haven’t read The Mill on the Floss so I don’t have an opinion on how this was done, but maybe if someone has they could share if they see a similarity? I don’t think she “based” the book off the poem, but considering as she likes to draw from other literary works I do think she had the poem in mind from the start. Also, I agree with you about how Prose shows the “it has to get worse before it can get better.” I think that’s a really accurate depiction. I also think that that way you phrased it really cleared up for me why I didn’t like it, which I couldn’t figure out, but now I kind of see (at least for now). So thank you. As for characters’ names, I think some of them came from the poem, but some might have been chosen to be symbolic. I know I was shocked to find out a lot of Harry Potter names have meanings that relate to the character’s traits, and so I would definitely consider that she chose the ones not dictated by the poem to mean stuff (this is assuming she started with the poem, but you never know). If you do find out if she stared with the poem or not and if the characters’ names are meant to be symbolic, I’d definitely like to know.
ReplyDeleteLiz, I also think it's really interesting how you thought Nico was going to die. That never even crossed my mind, but now that you mention it I see how a reader could definitely think that would happen.
Marissa, I agree with you about how leaving out a name could make it seem like this could be anyone, even though I also agree that this definitely could not be anyone. I also think it’s interesting to think that maybe it is left out because they don’t act much like a family so it removes their family identity…very interesting.
-Beverly Naigles
I also believe that the author read the poem first, and then began to write the story, but like Beverly said, I don't think the novel was based off of the poem, rather the poem was applied. I think it would be WAY too big of a coincidence if she had started writing the novel, and then read it. That would have been freaky.
ReplyDeleteKelsey: I loved that you looked up what the names meant. For me at least, the meanings actually applied to the story. Whether or not Prose meant to do that, I'm not sure. And to answer your question about Margaret's name in the poem: no, I don't think she was destined to die. I personally believe that everything happens for a reason, and unfortunate as it is, I think that Margaret had to die in order to strengthen the family ties between Nico and her parents. Oh! And thank you for clearing the whole thing up about her death. I figured it had something to do with her heart, but just as Nico asked herself at one point, was it a slow stop or just BAM-dead. I didn't pick up on how strange Aaron was being until the ice cream scene either! That's when everything really clicked for me and my creeper radar went off. I was literally yelling to the book, "Aaron, you better not kill her!" and, "Nico, get the heck out of there!" THAT'S how you know a book is really good. About the ending being expected (I can't wait to read why people think this), I think that the expected part was the family moving away, which I predicted after I realized that Aaron actually wasn't going to kill Nico. But everything else? Hmm..
Marissa: I liked your second idea as to why the author left out a last name, with Nico distancing herself from her family and all. I think that the lack of a last name is parallel to the lack of communication, care, and love that Nico shares with her parents. I feel as though she thinks that she is the black sheep of the family, which she sort of is, and by not putting a last name into the story, it just strengthens this, uh, analogy? Is that the appropriate term to use for my example? Haha.
Beverly: I think I addressed some of the stuff that you said. :)
- Liz Elliott
I cried at the end of this book. I almost cried at certain parts in the middle, but when I read through the last few pages I was sobbing on my couch in my living room. The only other time I can remember crying while reading a book because of it's content was when I read the first chapter in A Series of Unfortunate Events (the first one) about their parents untimely deaths. I was much younger then so don't make fun of me. This book really touched me and I can't quite put my finger on why. It did read really fast and, for lack of a better phrase, it was a page turner (I hate myself for using a cliche!). Writing it in first person was definitely an excellent decision on Francine Prose's part. It really connected me with Nico and helped me understand what was going on in her mind through the grief and the "Little Adonis" relationship. Describing Margaret and the circumstance of her death made me feel some of the grief that Nico was feeling. Maybe this is because I have a sister and it was easy (though painful) for me to imagine. The character of Margaret was almost too perfect to completely believe. This was clearly because of Nico's admiration for her sister and her death probably made her forget Margaret's faults. Even though Margaret's smoking problem was touched on, it was cast aside like a funny joke and described in a way that added to Margaret's perfect personality. Grief was definitely a theme of this story, which touched on every aspect of the word. It perfectly demonstrated all of the effects that a tragic death would have everyone that was involved, directly or indirectly. Nico's grief brought out superstition and a great longing and to cast off reality for the perks of the afterlife, like in the paintings of the Saints that she liked so much. Her mother's grief brought out drug addiction and the longing to erase or forget the pain instead of face it. Her father's grief was probably the best case scenario. He wrote his book and cast off society for as long as he could, without significantly damaging anyone around him. Aaron's grief was definitely the worst case in the story. He tried to bring Margaret back to life by turning Nico into Margaret. This was scary and definitely showed the psychotic behavior that grief can sometimes cause. At the end of the story, Nico and her parent's grief are overcome and they move on with their lives stronger for it. Not knowing Aaron's fate and whether or not he moved past the grief to saner pastures made the story that much better for me. It made me think about the paths that that kind of grief could have taken. Recovery could have resulted like Nico and her parent's did. Continued psychotic behavior could also have resulted which would lead to many different scenarios in the case of Aaron. Suicide may also have occurred because of the great depression that his grief seemed to have caused him. Not knowing which of these occurred left me feeling like the choice was mine, and if I ever end up in a situation like this, I can think back to this story and chose better for it.
ReplyDelete~Andrea S.
Liz-
ReplyDeleteThe reason why I expected the happy ending was because of the type of story more than anything. When I was reading Goldengrove I kept thinking to myself, "Prose doesn't seem like the type of author who would kill off a bunch of her characters". The message I got from reading Goldengrove was stay strong, you can do anything, just don't give up on yourself sort of thing, so if she had killed more characters than just Margaret her whole purpose in writing the book would have been lost. Also, I feel as if in most books that I read, if you want the main character to succeed and be victorious in whatever they're doing, it usually happens. As disappointing as the ending was (for me), I think that it would have been worse if Nico had died; the hope that people want to recieve from reading books like Goldengrove would have been lost.
-Marissa L.
I see what you're saying. I picked up the same message that you did about perseverance, and everything that you just wrote makes a lot of sense. I think the part that is throwing me off when people say that the ending was expected is the whole quick wrap-up about her getting married, having kids, etc. I thought that it would end with Nico coming to grips with what happened, and finally being able to move on. I didn't think there would be that time jump. When people say the ending was predictable, I guess they don't mean the entire spectrum of the ending, just maybe the ideas to come away with from the story.
ReplyDelete- Liz Elliott
Marissa and Liz, interesting insight on the lack of a last name! I never even thought about why, but all of your theories are definitely valid. I also noticed the perseverance theme.
ReplyDeleteBeverly, after all this discussion about Goldengrove, I’m really curious to see the similarities and connections with The Mill on the Floss, so I might just read that (or watch the movie…). It’s too bad you couldn’t make a Gone with the Wind reference!
Liz (again), I found some connections between the names and the character’s too. I support your idea that Margaret had to die to strengthen the family reminded me of The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (Did Honors read this? We did in A.P. It was an experience.) in that the eldest child was a sacrifice in the end, though there are more differences than similarities.
I have to say, I also lean toward the poem serving as a sort of inspiration for Prose, but I don’t want to rule out the opposite. If she only had a vague idea, a malleable daydream, perhaps, and then the poem helped her flesh it out.
Andrea, I can’t help but think from what you wrote that you’d have preferred if Margaret’s smoking was discussed, and maybe condemned more, and I noticed no one else has brought that up (yet). I never thought about it when I was reading it, but I don’t think it would have added positively to the book; it just would have gotten too preachy and not realistic for a teenage narrator. Also, what you said about the family members’ reactions I thought was interesting because it’s out of the ordinary with what people have been posting (so far). Prose did showcase several of the possible, though some times clichéd, reactions to grief, and that is a positive, but the fact that they all happened within one family in reaction to the same death is, I think, less realistic. You almost have to choose, create a microcosm (oh, English III…) of grief within a family (as Prose did, I believe) or portray a family’s reaction that is, as a whole, realistic.
I think i should start out saying i truly enjoyed this book, which is surprising because it was our summer reading assignment! Goldengrove literally became my best friend for two days, it may have just been glued to my hand because i never put it down. i finished this book in two nights, and i even had discussions with my sisters about the different things that happened in the book. I have three sisters, and i couldnt imagen how hard it would be for me to lose one of them, or any other person in my family for that matter.
ReplyDeleteI could connect with Nico because the bond she shared with her sister is very much like the bond i share with my sisters. this is why even though i knew Margarets death was inevitable, it was still hard for me to read about her family waiting for the sad news on their porch.
Margarets death had many sad effects on the family. the most shocking was the effect it had on Daisy, Nicos's and Margaret's mother. everyone who has read this book knew that she was blackmailing her doctor to prescribe her perscription drugs, but i wanted to know more, it made me wish that Prose could write a book from Daisy's perspective.
it was sad for me to read about how Nico's mother was more caught up in her own emotion's then in Nico's. This is why ((like Liz)) i thought Nico might die or result in suicide because Aaron wanted her to act like Margaret, dress like her, smell like her, and taste like her, she was made to feel that "Nico" was unimportant.
Overall throughout reading this book, i wished i could tell Nico to talk to her parents about everything; Aaron, her mothers growing relationship with drugs and vampire Sally, and her fathers past affair with Elaine. Also, i cant express enough that like many others i was very unsatisfied with the ending. it did explain that although Nico could move on with her life she did continue to grieve over the loss of her sister from time to time, but i didn't like the "sum up" of the rest of her life, it wasn't captivating, and i felt like there was no resolution.
TO EVERYONE WHO THINKS THE CHARACTERS ARE OVER EXAGGERATED!: I couldn't agree more, its true, not every family who encounters a loss turn to drugs, sneaking out with the dead sisters boyfriend, or completely detaching from reality. BUT if the parents maintained control of the situation, then Nico would have never been allowed to sneak out ithe Aaron, and in that case there wouldnt be a very interesting story to read.
I would have to say that this book is my favorite summer reading book I've ever read for school. Sounds cheesy, but it's true. Yes, it has a sad background, but it was just good to read. I was at my grandparents house where in the past I barely get a chance to read because we are so busy, but I made time for this book.
ReplyDeleteI knew from the time Nico and Aaron arranged their first "get together" that the relationship would go bad because Aaron would go too far. It made me uncomfortable to read what he was making Nico do. And the fact that Nico knew what he was doing was irritating. She could have avoided this whole thing, but I also understand where she was coming from. She just wanted to be with someone that loved Margaret, besides her parents, and who was also having a hard getting over her death.
If I were ever in Nico's position, I feel like I would never get over this. I am very close to my sisters and it seems impossible to go through what she is going through. I think the part where she decides to do everything Margaret used to do would be hard but necessary to live your life. Like Nico did, I think I would make a list of everything I can't do, see, touch, etc. because it would remind me of my sister. But turning that list into something that you need to do step by step was a good idea. I know that was her intent, but it came out to be a healthy idea.
My question is why was the book named Goldengrove. I know it's the name of Nico's father's bookstore, but I feel like it didn't have much to do with the healing process or anything else. Maybe because that is where she read all the books on grief and art that led her to realize she needed to stop avoiding all of the things that reminded her of Margaret?
So just a warning, what I'm about to say isn't being said for the purpose of being a jerk, I'm legitimately confused, even after reading all of the responses above.
ReplyDeleteA large portion of the people who have written on this blog have commented about how they are able to relate to Nico really well. How are you able to relate to her? Because one of my problems with the book was that I had difficulty doing so. When I was in a situation similar to hers, I did not act or have any of the same thought processes as her. I do know (once again) my view is pretty biased, but if anyone could explain how they related to Nico that would be great!
Marissa L.
When I first read the summary i wasn't sure how I would feel about the novel. But, after the first chapter I really got into the story. I felt that the author was able to pull me in through the emotions of what it could feel like to loose an older sibling. I have a older sister whom i am very close with, and the story made me think a lot about how my life would change if she ever died. Although i did like the book, there were a few things that I found about the novel I didn't like. One of these was the way Prose ended the book. i felt like it was rushed, as if she just wanted to end the novel quickly. it seemed like one day the family was still grieving, then they moved to boston and completely got over it, which included dismantling margaret's room. i don't know why but that part just irritated me for some reason. The part of the novel I did really like was Prose's use of symbolism. My favorite symbol was Margaret's favorite shirt. I saw this as Nico trying to become Margaret for Aaron and herself. It helped show that she shouldn't become her sister, "I put on her blue comet shirt. I kept getting it tangled as i slipped it over my head." Some parts of the book seemed kind of over the top or fake. The most noticeable was some of the thing that she and Aaron did. I thought it was kinda creepy how close they were and the things Aaron made her do. I guess I can understand how Nico's want to be with Aaron could keep her blind to what was going on, but none the less it made me uncomfortable. One thing that i wanted to ask was how everyone red the book. i mean like how it effected everyone, because i feel like having an older sister and knowing what it feels like to have a sibling to look up to i might have seen the story (or connected to the story) differently than someone who is an only child or and older sibling.
ReplyDeleteMarissa-
ReplyDeletei could relate to Nico but not in a way of how she acted due to grieving over her sister. i could relate to her finding out who she is and her idolizing of her sister. i know how it feels to have a sister i'm very close with, and how we have opposite interests. Often when i was a kid i looked up to my sister and was kind of jealous of her because she is someone who everyone gets along with and she has really good social skills when she meets new people, where i am the opposite more often. for a long time i wanted to be more like my sister but then i realized that i was a much different person and i was proud of that. But anyways, i can say i can connected to Nico with her relationship to her sister and wanting to be her discovery of wanting to be her own person. I hope that makes sense and helped, i kinda started to ramble haha.
Ian, I loved the quotation you used that said, "I put on her blue comet shirt. I kept getting it tangled as i slipped it over my head." You're idea was totally and completely correct: Nico wasn't meant to be her sister, and she wasn't meant to wear the shirt either. Personally, I believe in 'signs' and I think the fact that Nico was struggling to put on the shirt was a sign that it wasn't her place to be wearing it. Nico isn't Margaret, and she shouldn't have tried to be who she wasn't, even if she was only trying to cope with the death of her beloved sister.
ReplyDelete- Liz Elliott
Thanks liz:) so i was also wondering through the novel what the point of tycho's character was. he seemed to be in it some what often and i feel like he had a meaning or like, deeper purpose to the novel that i didnt see or understand. Did anyone else understand his purpose?
ReplyDeleteI recently just finished Goldengrove, and, looking back on it, it definitely wasn’t one of my favorite books.
ReplyDeleteThe book just started off way too fast. It’s like the whole book was supposed to be about the path to healing and recovery for Nico and her family after the loss of her sister, but they killed Margaret off so fast that I didn’t even realize that she had died. I’m all for quick action, but I think if the reader had more time to get used to the relationship between Margret and the rest of her family, her death would have pulled more on the heart strings.
Then, after Margaret died, the book got incredibly boring. I get that she was depressed about her sister and her family was grieving, but seriously? I don’t need like 75 pages about how upset she was. I got it like 25 pages in. I found myself skipping ahead trying to find when Aaron comes into the picture, in hopes that something exciting will happen.
The most readable part of the book was when Aaron became part of Nico’s life. I did enjoy the aspect of first love for Nico and how she became so infatuated with the idea of Aaron that she completely missed the fact that he was a complete creep. As their relationship progressed I almost felt like I was watching one of those horror films where you want to yell out to the characters to not go in the basement. It became so horribly obvious that Aaron did “have a screw loose” that I had to keep reminding myself that Nico was 13 and didn’t know better because I was getting so agitated by the fact that she wasn’t catching on.
Then came the ending, the worst part of the book. It’s like the author didn’t know how to end the book, so she just slapped together the last chapter without any mental effort at all. I mean really, going ahead in time and being like “oh everything worked out ok and I never saw Aaron again” is like the laziest way to end it. I finished this book and literally just was completely disappointed. Prose didn’t show any progression to Nico’s healing. It was like one page Nico was depressed beyond anything and then the next page she’s middle aged with kids and has moved on. But what really irritated me to no end is how Prose basically blew off what happened to Aaron. She spent over half the book having Nico obsess over that stupid kid and she thinks that just saying that Nico looked him up and couldn’t find him is good enough? I don’t think so. She could have had Nico look up Aaron and find out her was in jail or a famous artist or even dead. ANYTHING would have made that ending better.
Normally I can get myself through a book like this by making connections with at least one of the characters, but that never happened. That problem was probably due to the fact that the character development was bad to say the least. Aaron turns into basically a child rapist, the dad into a suspected cheater, the mom into a pill-popping druggie, and Nico into an angst ridden, lying teen. It’s like the author chose the worst way for everyone to turn out in a failed attempt to create some sort of excitement.
I honestly did not like this book. I didn’t connect with any characters and I definitely agree with Sarah on how it was difficult to get through. I just think that the summary on the back of the book was more interesting than the book itself.
--melissa kenney
Liz, I wasn't sure if I ever said it was predictable, because after discussing it I no longer really have an opinion on it, but I looked back and I did say I thought it was predictable so I'll try to share what I think my original reasoning was. I think the predictable part was the "she gets better" part along with "she has a husband, she has kids, the loss is still in the back of her mind". Then, most of all, the seeing something in later life and suddenly thinking of the story. That seems like such a good "resolution" for a story, but not really realistic. I do think it's really predictable for an author to do that sort of "and I saw this and remembered everything" thing. I also think that having her just get over it and living the rest of her life was predictable; I didn’t see any of the “she’s going to die” bits (even though I wish I had) and so what else could Prose do to end it? I think that this is a possible explanation.
ReplyDeleteMarissa, I agree that Goldengrove is the type of story to have a "happy ending" and that that also makes the happy ending expected.
Kelsey, Honors (at least my class) did not read The Metamorphosis.
Katie, as for why it is called Goldengrove, it could be because (like Kelsey said sometime earlier) that authors don’t always have much input on the name. So maybe the publisher thought it was cool. It’s also the name of the poem that ties in strongly with the story, so maybe it is called Goldengrove to emphasize the connection with the poem.
Marissa, I didn’t connect with Nico, so I can’t really help you there. Like Melissa, I didn’t really connect with any of these characters, which was a little sad because it’s nice to either connect with or care about at least one character in a book. I think that while this may have been one of the easiest summer reading books to read that I’ve ever had (as in, I can read it quickly and it’s engrossing), it’s not my favorite when I really think about the story.
-Beverly Naigles
So I wrote this once before, but it disappeared, so if it reappears...oops.
ReplyDeleteSo after posting my last comment, I decided to read all the other comments and I realized something. Almost everyone liked the book. So I started to panic and skimmed through the book again, thinking that I missed something. The thing is, I didn't. I came to the conclusion that I hated the book to such a large degree, not because it was such an awful book, but because it was a giant let down. After talking to some people who previously read the book and after reading the summary on the back of the book, I was expected something great. I wanted to read this amazing book that was full of emotions, heartbreak, and that little zip of romance, but you can find something that isnt there. Then the ending just killed any chance of me liking it. Honestly though, if I hadn't of talked to anyone or read the back, I probably would have enjoyed the book more. The fact that I started reading the book with such high standards, really just set the whole thing for disaster. I can definitely see how, if a connection was made, someone could truely love this book. However I was not one of those people.
Oh and Katie, I definitely agree with you on how reading about some of the things Aaron did to Nico was awkward to read about. Especially when he started to rub ice cream on her mouth and made her suck on his finger. What a creep.
Also I have a couple questions.
What was wrong with Tycho? I understand that mentally something is off, but did it ever come out and say what it was?
Did anyone else find it weird how Nico's father kissed Elaine goodbye when they previously had an affair?
Where did Sally even come from?
I figure some of these had to be answered in the book somewhere, but I couldn't find them anywhere, so I figured I'd ask.
--Melissa Kenney
Melissa: I think that in one of the very first posts, Sol said that Tycho had autism. I thought the same thing that you did: something was mentally wrong with Tycho, but I didn't know what.
ReplyDelete- Liz Elliott
Okay so honestly, this book took me a long time to get through. It wasn't that it took me a long time to finish because I didn't like the book necessarily, I just felt that it dragged on at points, repeated things a multiple times,and made me not want to keep going. For example, the fact that Nico and her family lost interest in eating and how she was losing weight was repeated a number of times in the story. I know that a lot of what was repeated was probably there to emphasize and make an impact on the reader, but I didn't think a lot of it was needed.
ReplyDeleteI finished it last week but didn't have internet access for the past two weeks because I was on a mission trip. But I remember a couple things that stuck to me and that I want to mention. While reading the book, I kept thinking about losing a sibling to a tragedy, like Nico had, and how my reactions and ways of coping would be different from how Nico handled it. I only have one brother and I realize that her parents and mine are totally different but I feel like I would get closer to my parents. Maybe I would think differently if it actually happened, hopefully not. "Knock on wood." haha.
Another thing that I noticed was the references to the afterlife and spirits. Nico didn't believe in an afterlife and that made me wonder, if she didn't believe in a heaven or hell, where do human spirits go? And it also didn't make sense to me that if she didn't believe in an afterlife why, at first, she kept trying to get signs and ways to contact her sister's spirit.
Wow. Good call Liz. I probably should start doing these posts at a normal time of day so my brain is actually working.
ReplyDelete--Melissa Kenney
After posting my first comment, I read many of the comments that other people wrote and noticed a lot of things that I didn’t before. Like Melissa asked, I don’t really understand the point of Sally being a character in the book. Maybe to show how Nico’s mother had changed? Or how she was trying to distract herself from Margaret’s death and turn to someone other than a family member? Now that I think about it, Nico’s mom and Nico both tried to turn to other people outside of the family for help to try to cope with Margaret’s death. Interesting. No wonder Nico turned to Aaron, her parents should have tried to actually comfort her themselves and not be so caught up with their own emotions. They kept talking about how she was their only child now and didn’t want to leave her at home by herself, but when it came to the topic of Nico needing help, they wanted to turn her over to someone else to talk to her or some doctor to check up on her, they didn’t really try to comfort Nico themselves.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the majority that said that the ending of the book was not its strongest area. It was predictable and felt rushed. I didn’t like how moving away to Boston seemed to just fix everything that was wrong. Prose did say it was little by little, but didn’t really explain how the coping got easier. What sort of events happened in between that made it that way? I feel like it might even be harder for me if I was Nico. I would think that moving away would be the same as forgetting my life with a sister all together. And it was basically how it ended up being. She eventually told people that she didn’t have a sister. I know that it was because she didn’t want people to feel sorry for her but at the same time it was kind of selfish, and I think unfair to Margaret.
Yea I completely agree Sharon. I was actually pretty mad that she started telling people that she doesn't have a sister because she did have a sister but they didn't ask did have a sister. I thought that was the biggest load of crap I have ever heard. Like you, I understand that she didn't want people to feel bad for her, but I think that it also may show that she isn't as "over it" as she says she is. When people ask about a traumatic time, it often brings all the memories back, including the emotions tied to the event. I could see how she would play it off as she didn't want sympathy, but I'm pretty sure part of it was that she didn't want to keep reliving her sister's death. Not really the best way to cope, but who am I to criticize.
ReplyDeleteMelissa: As I said, props go to SOL for writing that it was autism in the first place, because like you, I had no idea either.
ReplyDeleteSharon: I agree with what you said in your post. When I read that Nico started to tell people that she didn't have a sister, I wanted to smack her across the face! At the end of the novel, Nico is a woman, not a little girl, and in my opinion, she shouldn't have a problem with saying that she used to have a sister, but unfortunately she accidentally passed away at a young age. Nico should be proud to have had Margaret as a sister, and she should want to celebrate the amazing life that Margaret had, even if it was tragically cut short.
- Liz Elliott
I was saying good call on the fact that you found that Sol said it. I really don't fully read everyone's comments, I just skim. But definitely any props should go to Sol for going that extra bit and looking up about the author and her other books. I wouldn't have even thought to do that. I did just look up the symptoms of autism because I was skeptical that it truely was that disease. I've talked to people who are autistic, and their parents never had to worry about them going to a different school, or eating tinfoil, or anything like that. I found out that for someone to act like Tycho did in the book, the disease would have to be pretty severe. So once again, good job SOL for figuring that out.
ReplyDeleteIan:
ReplyDeleteThank you for helping me understand where people are coming from when they say that they can relate to Nico! =]
Melissa:
I pretty much agree with everything you said, I also was dissappointed in the book. As for the actions of Nico's father, I think that during that point in time, he was looking for some sort of affection. Since his wife was definitely out of it during most of the book, I think he just wanted attention from someone who cared about him and what he was going through (even though what he did wasn't right).
Liz/Sharon:
I believe that Nico's reason for telling others that she didn't have a sister was more for her own sake than for others. She did tell her story to the people who were most important to her, but why go and tell everyone? Yes, its a big part of her life, but not a big part in others' lives, and I'm sure she didn't want to be known as "the girl with the dead sister".
Melissa: i completely agree with the first comment you posted about how it was pretty boring to have to read like 75 pages about Nico being depressed after Margaret's death. when i read the book i found myself wondering when the story was actually going to come into play.
ReplyDeletealso, i liked the questions you asked in your second comment, i was also confused on tycho, and really curious to know who Sally really was. i wish Prose gave us a little more info on her.
Since my first comment on this book, there have been a lot of more entries, all with interesting perspectives and interpretations on the story.
ReplyDeleteSharon: I liked how you brought up the topic of Nico not mentioning her dead sister, it created interesting discussions and opinions.
Marissa: After reading some of the most recent posts I was interested to read everyones’ different opinion on why Nico decided to not share with everyone that she once had a sister. Most people criticized Nico for doing that, but I thought you made a good point, in that maybe Nico was in fact doing it for herself, although her sister’s death was a long time again, that subject still might be painful to go into detail about. She’ll never forget about her sister, she just doesn’t want to share a sore subject with the world, every time someone asks her. I also liked your opinions on why the author failed to mention the characters last names, accidentally maybe or purposely. Both your reasoning are really thoughtful, and I really liked the idea that "Wow, this could totally be my family!" because your completely right. Maybe the author was trying to say without being straightforward about it, that this could happen to anyone at anytime, and it does. And even though this was a fictional book, it’s a scary realty check, life’s unexpected, Margaret could be me, my best friend, my sister, Mom, anyone. And yeah it’s hard to “live life to the fullest” because what is really living life to the fullest, but you can try to be a better person, not perfect just “more improved”. There’s always “room to grow” in life.
Sarah/Liz: When I first began reading this book, after I got past Margaret’s death, it really got me thinking about how anything can happen in a split second, good or bad, life’s unexpected like that. Once I had finished the scene where the family knew Margaret was never coming back, I had to put the book down. I then began to think, I don’t want to go to work today and leave my little brother and sister alone. Instead of this book showing all of life’s happiest moments, it shows life more like reality, that bad things can happen to anyone, and although you can’t be prepared for it, you have to learn to deal with whatever life throws at you.
Kelsey: It’s interesting that you looked up the meaning of all the character’s names; I never would have thought to do that. I think that’s really cool. A lot of the meanings of the names match either the character’s personality/view of themselves of how the other characters view them. It makes you think about how much the author puts into consideration when writing a story, that most of the time, it’s not by random, there’s usually a reason behind it.
My Connection:
ReplyDeleteThe other day, I was watching a movie called Ordinary People, which is an older movie made in the 1980’s but still really good and intriguing. A great rainy day kind of movie. After watching it, I noticed it wasn’t very different from the book, Goldengrove. I love finding connections because they are so easily over looked.
Goldengrove (book) AND Ordinary People (movie) -
It was about a family of three (used to be a family of four) who had just experienced a tragic event, the death of the oldest son, Buck. Both accidents involved the two siblings being on a boat, except Margaret had a heart condition that caused her to drown while Buck and Conrad were caught in a bad storm and Buck inevitably drowned.
Conrad (yes unique names) was the youngest of the two brothers and not the favorite of the sons, to say the least. In fact, the mother, Beth, had always preferred the oldest son and in her eyes, he would always be the better athlete, person, and SON. Although she never openly said this to Conrad, he could sense her disappointment that he had lived over his brother. Nico’s parents weren’t as extreme as Conrad’s mother but both teens felt as though, their older sibling was the “perfect” and “favorite” child, in their parent’s eyes. Nico reached out to Aaron, her dead sister’s boyfriend, while Conrad reached out to his psychiatrist, who he went to after being hospitalized for trying to kill himself.
Nico and Conrad both in some ways felt responsible for the older sibling’s death.
Possible Reasons:
#1: Maybe it was because Nico and Conrad were the only ones there when the accident occurred and their sibling died; so they felt as though they could have prevented the situation from happening using the common phrase… “If only”.
#2: Or maybe the contributing factor for the guilt they both felt was the way their parents and the people around them acted to the situation, especially the mother (at least in Conrad’s case).
In both stories, the mothers reacted poorly to the situation, and although hurt and in pain, forgot about the feelings of their loved ones, especially their other LIVING child. While watching the movie, it made me angry how hurtful the mother was acting towards Conrad; she wouldn’t reach out to him, she wouldn’t respond to him, nor could she still love him. Conrad couldn’t get past the fact that his mother never even visited him once, while he was in the hospital for a couple months. I thought how is it that any mother could neglect their child like Beth did. I understand everyone handles grief differently but my god! On the other hand, the fathers were just trying to keep the family together and to get past the horrific tragedy.
Like I said before, I don’t usually like watching/reading sad stories whether fictional or not, Ordinary People was a really good movie. Like Goldengrove, it was another story about life, its tragedies, and how “ordinary” people react to them.
I have just passed the halfway point of Goldengrove, so I will try do post without reading the other ones in fear of spoilers. I was surprised at how the book captured your attention from the very beginning. I have not really lost interest with the story yet either. It is a rare books that have so few lulls and that attests to the skill of the author. I really enjoyed how the author has portrayed Nico's grief and the sudden, short bursts of depression that follow a memory of Margaret. I am looking forward to seeing Nico recover from her loss and discovering the "screw loose" fault in Aaron that I believe will present itself in the second half of this book.
ReplyDeleteI thought this book would be too hard to read after I just lost my dad, but I read it anyway and it turned out to be a good book. Instead of being painful to read about a family moving on after a death, it was helpful to read about a family going through almost exactly what my family is going through right now. The author really captures what its like to go through something like this in ways that anyone who hasn't lost a close relative would not understand. She talks about symptoms of grieving that aren't obvious and she explains feelings that seem impossible to describe.
ReplyDeleteI was thoroughly impressed with this book. The author carefully manipulated the voice of the character in order to provide persuasive characters and settings. The settings themselves were very clear cut and can easily be viewed as different sections of her life or defined by the separate feelings she associated with those places. They were described thoroughly enough to give a nice overview of each location yet allowed the mind to wander and create its own imagery.
ReplyDeletethe characters themselves provided the meat of the entire story. It is watching how each character cope with a loss that made the book worthwhile to me. The fact that the book was in the first person through the eyes of Nico left a slight void for me. I really wanted to see the day to day actions, thoughts and emotions of the rest of the cast. I can say that Nico was unusually perceptive in watching and catching all the little nuances of her fellow characters actions. That was a little unbelievable, though I guess that was just the way her personality held her. To me, the book wasn't exactly about Nico, but about Margaret and how her death impacted everyone in the entire town. Every customer of the Goldengrove book store felt sorry and became depressed at the sight of Nico's demeanor. This book is worth a reread as I can see how easy it may be to miss a hidden back-story or important character trait hidden behind the plot. This is similar to a book called "Imajica" (can't underline) by Clive Barker, or "Under the Dome" by Stephen King. However, the plots of each character are hidden behind the thoughts of Nico in this book. While in the other books the POV is third person omniscent.
The plot of this book is a little underdeveloped. It would have done the book wonders to have been extended another hundred pages in order to show a little more intense of a bond between Aaron and Nico. It would have held more emotion for the final meeting. I did like the final scene with the Nico "look-alike". This meeting shows to the reader that Nico has officially moved on from grief and moved into the stage of acceptance. The stages of denial were a great detail added into the main plot and helped aid in the definitions of the character.
overall, this book was amazing and my favorite of all the three books this year. I am definitely glad I read this book as it was quite an eye-opener to me.
(I will be adding on to this later...)
I love how many interpretations and opinions other people have on this book! I find it quite interesting and a bit funny that everybody seems to be able to add new insight to the same book. I have let the book sink in for the past few week and I think it would be very interesting if we read a book through Margaret's point of view. A few years back, I read "The Five People You Meet in Heaven" and i think that this book would be a great read to go along with "Goldengrove" in that respect.
ReplyDelete-Dylan Schiff
Marissa- Sorry I'm posting this much later than you posted your question regarding the relate-ability to Nico, but for me, it is in the way Nico expresses herself and her thoughts. Similarly to Holden Caulfield in "Catcher in the Rye", she keeps everything blunt, honest, and up front. In that respect, I can relate to her and her though process.
ReplyDelete-Dylan Schiff
This book really seemed to draw me in. It perfectly described situations so that you could really imagine what was happening in your head. Which is what makes me enjoy certain books. You were able to get into Nico’s head so that it was like you were experiencing everything that she was.
ReplyDeleteEven though I enjoyed the story, the plot did seem predictable and cliche. However, I was surprised by the fact that in the story, after Margaret died, the family seemed to grow a lot more apart. It surprised me because in my own personal experience with a family member dieing (no, my sister or someone as close did not die) the family had grown much closer. I agree with Alex about the ending, it did seem rushed and she had done such a good job about describing details throughout the story and making sure you got the perfect picture but the end just totally changed that way of writing.
The spirit staircase confused me a lot. I guess I must have zoned out or something when it first came to be in the story, because I don’t remember that. Like Beverly said, I just didn’t get its symbolism or point.
I disagree about what Sol said regarding Margaret striving for popularity. I took Margaret as the type of person that just expressed herself and didn’t care much of what others thought of her. He also said that Margaret was careless with boys and sex, which I didn’t understand either. Yeah, she had sex with Aaron but she wasn’t sleeping around.
-Kristina Porter
Although Goldengrove was a decent book and a relatively easy read, I found the ending, while realistic, to be very anticlimactic. Call me old fashioned, but after all of that build-up with Aaron and Nico, I was disappointed by the outcome. It's a legitimate ending, but I would have ended it differently.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I've never lost someone close enough to me to know, and I'm probably going to get criticized for this, but I found the characters after Margaret's death, especially her mother, to be a bit unrealistic. It almost didn't seem like Daisy was grieving, she just seemed clueless to me.
I just started this book today. I was surprised to find that it reads more like a pleasure book, rather than a summer reading book. Although I'm not finished with it yet, I really enjoy reading this book. I want to sit down and read it, instead of locking myself in my room and making myself sit there a read it. I'm only on chapter six, so all I have read about is the coping processes of the family. I agree with Ryan, in that Daisy seems to not be able to grieve for the loss of her daughter. She seems to be stuck in the denial and depression stages.
ReplyDeleteThe death of Nico's sister is heart-wrenching. I know the feeling of going about your normal life, only to find that your everyday habits have been changed. You never really know the little routine movements you make until you find yourself doing them and then catching yourself before they are fully carried out because it doesn't make sense to do them anymore.
I haven't finished this book yet, but wanted to post my thoughts so far so I don't lose track of them. I just finished Chapter 9, and Nico has just convinced Elaine to be her alibi while she hangs out with Aaron.
ReplyDeleteI'm on the fence about how much I like this book. As far as plot goes, it's pretty boring. The only notable events (in my opinion) were Margaret's death, the haircut, and the first meeting with Aaron (keep in mind I haven't finished yet). However, the entire 133 pages I have read so far have been very deep on an emotional level. The author creates a very dreary, hopeless feeling that is consistent with the death of a loved one. It reminds me of the book Speak, with the exception that the main character in Speak had to deal with her problems alone, while in Goldengrove, everyone is grieving. So far, this isn't really the book for me. I like to read stories with a lot of action and plot, or non-fiction books with political significance.
Speaking of political significance, I'm slightly perplexed by the authors subtle messages of her political views. One mention that I enjoyed was on page 102, when Aaron describes the town councilmen accomplishing nothing in their meeting, something that's entirely accurate. But on the next page, the narration says, "Margaret knew we were headed for ecological disaster...". The author is basically saying that global warming is an actual problem that mankind has created and cannot be disproven (I know more than a few people on this blog will disagree with me), even by the dead. She also seems to display a little bit of anti-war feelings on page 113 through the ice cream girl's explanation of why the ice cream was more expensive. One could argue that these are simply characters, but a lot of characterization comes from an author's own feelings and experiences. I have no problem with the author doing this, I just find it odd that she would in this type of book. Anyone have any ideas on why, or other instances of this?
Time to get back to the book, I'll write back soon with my final thoughts and respond to other posts.
-Troy Ciesco
I finished the book about an hour after posting my last comment, and I have to say, I didn't really enjoy it. It's just not the type of book that catches my interest. It was far too emotional, and had very little plot depth. Although I know that the death the family was dealing with was very hard, I felt someone was crying on every single page.
ReplyDeleteAaron's attempt to try and turn Nico into Margaret became more and more evident as the story went on. I have to say I found that interesting, because I don't think he had planned that at the beginning. Nico and Aaron showed two different ways of coping with their grief. Nico tried to remember Margaret, while Aaron tried to recreate her.
Ryan, I half-agree with you about Daisy. What I found unrealistic was how easily she just stopped taking the drugs. It kind of tied in with the whole ending; the author was just saying "and everyone lived happily ever after" in a way. But I think that the pills were her way of getting rid of the pain (physical from the arthritis, mental from the death of her daughter), and in turn made her clueless. The character I liked best and that seemed most realistic (which makes sense, since he was a static character) was Tycho. My younger brother has Down Syndrome, not autism, but he does have autistic tendencies. It just cracked me up to imagine Tycho doing things a certain way and always needing to be stimulated, because to a lesser extent, that's what my house is like (although Disney movies replace Doom Invaders). I also think that the conversation that Nico had with Tycho at the end of the book was really a picture of how Nico had grown. On page 261-262, Tycho bluntly says, "Your sister died." And Nico says, "Yeah. She did." Then they simply play video games. If nothing else, I liked that this part of the ending showed us that Nico had nearly healed, instead of the rest of the ending, the "and they all lived happily ever after part".
All in all, this book was probably towards the bottom of my "books to read list" (Catcher in the Rye is at the dead bottom of that list, as anyone in my AP English class last year can attest too). To end, I'd like to point out that on page 145 Nico says that Ronald Regan was the worst president ever (which isn't true, even if you are liberal), which just adds to my point that she was coyly bringing up politics throughout the book.
-Troy Ciesco
I've read a lot how the ending seemed to be predictable. However, I have to disagree with that. I would have thought the predictable ending to any story about a person or family who lost a child would be suicide. The vast majority of the book is how Nico and her parents cope with the loss of Margaret. Eventually, no matter how long it takes, they will recover from the agonizing pain they feel every day from the loss. Whether that recovery is in a few months or several years after the tragedy. Prose just stopped the story when the family was beginning to be whole again and finished off with how the family ended up decades after the tragic event for closure. I know that if the story just ended with Nico and her parents still miserable, I would want to know what happened next. Does her family ever recover from the loss? If Prose was to write about the entire coping process, we would never finish this book before school started- it would be too long and elaborate. She ended it on a good note that led us into Nico's present life with her husband and children. I understand that Nico and her parents are fictional characters, but for them to have gone through what they did and survive is a miraculous thing to achieve. Would I be able to do it if I was put into Nico's shoes? I don't know. I would like to think that I could, but I can't say for sure. And I don't want to find out.
ReplyDeleteThis was probably the saddest book I've ever read. I could really feel the depression in it. Nico talked about having dreams of Margaret all the time. People read and watch on TV all the time about characters having dreams of someone who recently died and the messages they receive from them. They don't put it into reality that it really happens. It really does happen.
Ryan- I agree with Troy to some extent about his argument regarding Daisy. I believe that the pills she took may have caused that undescribed side effect; however, if you look at this book in simpler terms, it seems as if it is showing how different people react and grieve. For example, Aaron uses Nico to fill his "void" and Dad gets lost in writing his book in an attempt to forget what had happened. In a way, these characters also were one-dimensional and undynamic. I think that Daisy's representation was only easier to pick up on since it was more blatantly obvious in Prose's descriptions.
ReplyDelete-Dylan Schiff
I know I said this was my favorite book I've read for summer reading, but I hadn't read The Return of the Native yet, so hear me out. I think I liked this book so much because it was written recently, fast to read, and to tell you the truth, it was easy to read. Now that I have read The Return of the Native, it has pulled me in and I like it a lot. At first it was hard to get into but the dramatic side to the book is really interesting and entertaining to me. The twists and turns of the book keep the book from dive bombing allows me to enjoy it even more. have less than one hundred pages left and though I'm happy my summer reading obligation will be over, I'm sad that the end of The Return of the Native is so near.
ReplyDeleteTroy, I have come to the conclusion that one can read a book from any background and see things from that background in it and make connections between that background and the book. In a way, relating this back to quotations from Goldengrove, I think here we have an example of, "...People see everything through the lens of their obsessions" (Nico p. 199). I read these books right after reading Gone with the Wind and found pretty big Gone with the Wind connections in two out of the three books (Goldengrove was the one I did not). While I’m not obsessed with Gone with the Wind, you could say I saw the books through that lens. You read these books after reading a lot of political books and see politics in them. As for why it mentions politics at all, I think that Prose simply puts these in to show Nico’s (and the ice cream girl’s) voices. Nico at this point is pretty negative, she will say that the world is going to end, or that someone was a horrible president. It also shows the community they live in. They live in New England. Many (but no, not all) people in New England are liberals/democrats and are anti-war and believe that global warming is occurring. It helps elaborate on the setting. And yes, I do disagree with you about global warming : ) I also really like the part of the ending that you pointed out about “yeah, she did”, it made me realize that not all of the ending was bad and “happily ever after”, and I like that.
ReplyDeleteJessi, you’re right that to write about everything the book would have to be really long. I would almost rather have read a really long book than have had it end like this, though.
Katie, I agree with you about Goldengrove being an easy read and Return of the Native having a more interesting and substantial plot.
-Beverly Naigles
Troy, not to fall for your political bait or anything, but I think you can see that I need to respond to your post. First of all, perhaps the aptly-placed environmental messages in the book point to a clear theme: we must own up to our mistakes and set out to fix the problems we've created, even if it takes every bit as much effort as denouncing and decrying scientific findings that prove us guilty. If you still persist in your, ahem, argument against global warming/climate change, look at and , where I'm sure you will observe a more-than-coincidental correlation between the atmospheric level of CO2--a proven greenhouse gas, as you recall--and the mean global temperatures. I'm confident you will also realize that these environmental changes correlate conveniently with the end of the Industrial Revolution. Coincidence? I think not, and I'm sure that you will agree--especially after having taken an environmental science course with such a competent instructor as Mr. Powell.
ReplyDeleteAs for the Ronald Reagan issue: whether or not your views are politically-aligned with his, I think you can see how any character who is portrayed as an environmentalist and pacifist would almost certainly have problems with him. According to , he supported anti-communist revolts and increased defense spending by thirty-five percent. At the same time, he was cutting taxes by twenty-five percent, leading to major reductions in social areas, especially education and relief for the impoverished. The budgets of the Interior Department, Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, Department of Transportation, and EPA were also hit hard by his re-prioritizing of the budget; this impaired the government's ability to enforce environmental laws and regulations, and almost certainly resulted in further environmental damage (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/492882/Ronald-W-Reagan). Again, not a peacemaker's president, nor, for that matter, an environmentalist's.
-- Sol Boucher
Sorry that it took out some of my links above! Here are the three that were removed:
ReplyDelete- (http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends) for atmospheric CO2 trends
- (http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs) for mean temperature trends
- (http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/ronaldreagan) for some information on President Reagan
-- Sol Boucher
Sol-I knew you couldn't resist! I like the amount of research you did. I think we should make a different blog on this page to talk about these things (although I don't know how to do that), so that the rest of the class can participate, and we don't bog down the Goldengrove page.
ReplyDeleteBeverly-The connection you made between the quote from the book (which is my favorite quote from this book) and how I looked at the book was fantastic. I hadn't even thought of that, and it's entirely accurate.
-Troy Ciesco
americangovpol.blogspot.com
ReplyDeleteSol, I created that blog just for you. Check out the very first (and only) post. I invite anyone else on this blog to look check it out and write on it too.
Wow, I suck. Samantha Mairson here, realizing that you guys gave me a lot to respond to, but I just let it slip by. The first post was written by me, geeky reader extraordinaire, and the rest were written by all of you. And they were well-written. My attention was especially drawn to the ones that addressed me. Gee, I hope I'm not a narcissist. That's beside the point, I am here to let you know that I am still alive, still thinking about Goldengrove, and ready to respond a bit to what you've been saying. Can I get a hip-hop-hooray?!
ReplyDeleteDue to the fact that the majority of you agreed with the views I expressed in my first post, I would like to take a moment and thank the higher powers. Being agreeable is quite nice. However, there is the brilliant Liz Elliott who decided to challenge me. Being challenged is also quite rewarding. I stumbled across her comment addressed to Sam (being the narcissist I am) and it said this: But expected? No way. Where are you coming from when you say that it [the ending] was predicable?
Dearest Ms. Elliott,
My sincerest apologies for delaying my response to your queries. I extend my gratitude for you patience. I am in a predicament. The story of Goldengrove has gotten a little dusty in my mind's attic, but I still have a fairly clear recollection of the ending and the dissapointment it instilled.
Here's how I feel: some authors manufacture happy endings for characters, who in reality, would probably continue to toil in misery. Maybe I'm being a bit cynical, but how does Nico go through this enormous ordeal - the grief, the role-playing, the 'relationship' with Aaron - and then poof! She's ready to move on. I'm dissapointed with the ending because I feel there had to be a more artistic way to craft a resolution for the characters than running away to Boston and starting over. Then again, maybe the ending we got was a bit closer to reality. Maybe the only way to move past grief is to keep moving forward. If that forward direction is Boston, then so be it. I just wasn't satisfied because the plot, in its beautiful entirety, made me sympathetic to Nico's pain. I wanted her to survive that pain and make sense of her sister's death in a way that enabled her to grow as a character. She didn't grow at the end, she merely escaped. But hey, maybe escaping isn't easy.
Olivia said this about the ending: "Sam, I felt the ending was expected too. From the time Nico's parents went to Boston and felt that they should live there to the fact that I don't think I could live next to the lake any longer if I was a member of Nico's family, I felt that the family would eventually move in order to get a fresh start. Something drastic had to change to allow them to recover from Margaret's loss." That was the predictable bit. Through their dialogue, the actions, you could tell they were drowning in their own way. They were clawing at Goldengrove's surface, begging for escape.
Which brings me to my next thought.
Dear Julie,
ReplyDeleteWhat you said speaks volumes for your bravery (--- just picking up the book) and says a lot about the story itself.
July 28, 2010 1:04 PM
Julie said...
I thought this book would be too hard to read after I just lost my dad, but I read it anyway and it turned out to be a good book. Instead of being painful to read about a family moving on after a death, it was helpful to read about a family going through almost exactly what my family is going through right now. The author really captures what its like to go through something like this in *ways that anyone who hasn't lost a close relative would not understand. She talks about *symptoms of grieving that aren't obvious and she *explains feelings that seem impossible to describe.
Julie's post is small, but says a lot about Goldengrove. Gives the story merit, to those who doubt the reality of its characters and their feelings.
Dear Troy and Sol,
Politics, boys? Really? Well, this goes to show that we all get something different from a book. We all cling to certain dialogue. Certain characters. Certain moments. It can be a book about the fragility of the human spirit, and someone can still pull a political message from its pages. Kudos. I must mention Beverly's response as well and the quote she pulled: "...People see everything through the lens of their obsessions" (Nico p. 199) I like this. Let's get together and be in a bookclub! Speaking of which, [Warning: Off topic - but undoubtedly valuable & informative - tangent headed your way] THS bookclub! Started by passionate readers and recently graduated seniors, THS Bookclub is an awesome opportunity to read and talk about what your reading in an unfiltered environment, outside of the classroom. Which is a figure of speech because, of course, it is held in a classroom and advised by Mrs. Benton. It is worth it on every level and has gotten me to read, and fall in love with, books I never would have picked up otherwise. It keeps you reading in the school year, even when you get bogged down. And it connects you to people. I feel very connected to people when I write on here. All of you should join and say all the things you say here. [Also a figure of speech; if we are reading The Hunger Games or Wicked and you start talking about Nico's tragic internal conflict, I am going to look at you with a puzzled and bewildered expression.]
As for Nico's tragic internal conflict, I am still rooting for her. I hope wherever she is, the author's head - the reader's heart - or Boston - I hope that she is doing well. I hope that she is surviving, that her sarcasm and dark humor thrives, and that she remains a timeless and beautiful testament to the complexity of grief and loss.
Sincerly,
Ms. Samantha Ann Mairson
Sam, I think you're giving me too much credit. I would not have found that quotation if Sol had not initially posted it in "Arresting Quotations" and then Troy had said how he liked it too, thus making me think about it again. I want to give credit where credit is due and so thank you to Sol and Troy!
ReplyDelete-Beverly Naigles
and anonymous really means that Samantha said...
ReplyDeleteBeverly, I wish you would be less humble and take credit where credit is due. Once upon a time, I sat in an auditorium full of the hardest workers in our school and their gushing parents. Beverly Naigles walked down the aisle every time her name was called, a march of muted aggravation, a split second smile of pride, then replaced by an unreadable expression that I took for something along the lines of "get me out of here". You are incredibly talented and used the quote appropriately, where if you hadn't, I may never have appreciated its value. You used the quote in an understandable context, not surrounded by political ranting - an accomplishment for which you (unlike others - cough, cough) deserve credit. So take the credit I have bestowed upon you, take a second to smile with pride, and then get out of the auditorium as fast as you can.
-Ms. Mairson
Well, here I am, finally putting up a post. I could go on and on about the reasons why it took me so long to get on top of my summer reading, but I imagine it'd be more appropriate for me to skip the details of my personal life and move on to my opinions about the book.
ReplyDeleteWhen the book opened, I was pretty positive I was going to enjoy it. Prose has a nice tone to her writing. Nico's narration is the kind that sticks in your head. I found that I couldn't stop hearing her tone narrating my everyday life, as if the book was more than something I was assigned. It really felt like a part of my life, which, to me, is important for any piece of literature. It was a casually but thoughtfully written book, one that aimed to make you understand and care, not one that wanted to show off with a decorated vocabulary and should have been sold alongside a pocket thesaurus. I've found that some authors find writing to be more about the length of the words they can use than it is about making you feel. I think that's what I liked the most about this book. Prose wasn't one of those authors. She didn't want to place herself on a pedestal above you. She wanted to pull you down with her, to make you understand and care about what her characters were going through. The book's tone made it incredibly genuine, and that's one of the biggest things I look for in a book.
Of course, as much as I loved the tone, I can't say everything about the book was perfect. For example, I see I share an opinion about the ending with many of the people who have already posted. The whole book is about the struggle to overcome grief, and then a chapter just opens telling us that they got over it in time? I felt ripped off. It was like the entire book was building action, they skipped the climax, and then moved to falling action. There isn't a point where things start to get better. Nico says herself that it only got harder as days went on without Margaret. What suddenly makes them start getting better? Grief is something that's cured with time, but shouldn't a book about grief show at least the beginning of healing? This book seems to be only about the suffering, as if Prose wasn't interested in the point where things started to get better, so she skipped over it. The family is in terrible condition, then it skips some time and they're all doing just fine. Do people disagree with me? On a similar note, I was incredibly unhappy with how they ended things with Aaron. Nico never sees him again, and we never know what happens to him. I mean, I'm not asking the author for a full analysis on the remainder of Aaron's life. That's not what the book is about, and I understand that. But I would love to have had at least a clue. It feels to me like Prose just couldn't quite decide what to do with him, so she decided not to do anything conclusive with him. She has the right to do that, as the author of her own book, but it's not satisfying to the reader. Or, at least not this reader. Maybe others feel different about how Aaron was concluded in this book?
Ashley- I completely agree with your comments about the ending of the book. I wish that Prose made a more memorable and stronger ending. I think that in a way, however, (and I am sort of being a devil's advocate)for Prose to go further in-depth with their healing process would make the book seem unrealistic for people who have experienced loss in real life since there are many ways different people recover from a loss. In addition, Aaron's mystical disappearance from the end of the book does in a way make sense. Remember that the book is written through Nico's point of view, so if she never saw him again after the last encounter mentioned, it would not be appropriate to include him in the (brief and unsatisfying) conclusion. Still keep in mind I personally was not completely thrilled with the ending, but this is still a possible reason.
ReplyDelete-Dylan Schiff
Thank you to Ashley and Dylan for making me think of this. I was thinking about why, as Ashley brought up, Prose would make Aaron just disappear, and Dylan's point is completely valid, but my immediate thought was,"Because he's not important enough." He's a catalyst, he might as well be an object or event, because he's static, and I don't think he would have changed after Nico's family left the town (finally, the man is the object this time!!). And that, with Dylan saying "mystical disappearance" made me think of Venn from Return of the Native (Oh yeah, inter-summer-reading-book-connection, I'm good. But sorry Ashley, somewhat of a spoiler->). Originialy Hardy was just going to have him disappear. And it would've, could've, worked. I said in one of my posts on that book's thread that he invites comparison to the narrator, he's kind of almost omniscent, like the narrator is, so it would have been reasonable for him to disappear. This is not at all why Prose would have choose to have Aaron disappear because he is not omniscent, but they are two catalysts disappearing. Kind of.
ReplyDeleteYesterday, I spent the duration of my day reading Goldengrove from start to finish. Many of you might believe that that isn't the "proper" way to read, and fully comprehend a novel, but believe me, I still have my opinions on the book, and I did fully comprehend what I was reading. I believe Margaret's death came too soon within the novel. While the back of my book said "After the sudden death of her beloved older sister.." I didnt really believe it'd come so soon. I feel like her character didnt have enough time to develop in her living state, but rather we learned more about her in death. I'm not sure if that was the point or if I'm just way too picky when it comes to when a person should die in a book. Kristina Porter, I disagree with what you said about being surprised that her family began to crumble after Margaret's death. While that may have been your personal experience, did it occur to you that this just made the book a whole lot more interesting. Think about it, if they became all lovey-dovey and tried to act normal after the drowning that wouldn't make for a good novel at all, just saying. I feel like I'm just being a downer, but I didn't really like the author's writing style. I felt it to be predictable, as many of you have said, and also too cliche. While I did read it in one day, I thought it was too run of the mill. It was almost like every other book I've ever read. There was nothing new to the plot that I couldn't already predict was going to happen. While it may be one of the better summer reading books I've read in my years of highschool, I still wasn't totally happy with it. To be blunt, the ending was ridiculous. Prose seemed to really prolong the summer and make it last the entire book, but in the end just left us a list of things that happened after the summer ended. Maybe she believed it was best not to focus too much on the family's life after that summer and just leave the reader with some minor details so they weren't left wondering what happened to them. I believe that she just rushed things too much and to be honest, I wouldn't have minded an extra ten pages if it meant she went into more details about their life after Margaret, and after that summer. Don't get me wrong, there were a few good parts within the book that made me want to keep turning the page but all in all it was predictable, and had a lame ending. As for this post, it's also predictable and has a lame ending but hey, it's my first one ever, give me some credit.
ReplyDelete-Hanna Christensen
After I posted my last comment, I went on to read a lot of the comments above me. I just wanted to point out that grief can and always will be dealt with in different ways, as with many other obstacles life throws at you. I have lost many important people to me throughout my life and while Nico and I had this in common, we chose to handle it in different ways. Well, Francine Prose actually did the deciding for Nico, but you know what I mean. Anyways, I just wanted to make it clear that there is and never will be a "normal" way to respond to death within a family or death as a whole. On the bright side, I also just want to point out that if these comments have any insight into what Mr. MacArthur's class discussions are going to be like, it's going to be a very awesome year!
ReplyDelete-Hanna Christensen
Dylan- I do agree that, in a way, Aaron's disappearance is realistic. It makes sense for Nico to never see Aaron again in such a huge world. However, when you read through an entire book, I just feel like you should have at least an inkling of what happened to the characters. I'm not really talking in terms of what's realistic in human life, but in what makes a book the best it can be. But of course, I'm only one person, and that opinion varies greatly. Different writing techniques and styles are thrown all over the place, and everyone has their own opinions about what's right and what's not. As for the healing process, I feel like it's more unrealistic the way Prose wrote it than it would be if she had gone more in-depth. The brief, hurried way she mentions their healing leaves you with no idea as to when and why they really began to get better. I do realize that it's time that really healed them the most, but time does go by in the book, and they only say that their feelings get steadily worse. She just completely skips the healing process.
ReplyDeleteKelsey- I haven't read Return of the Native yet, but I agree with you about the catalyst disappearing and such in Aaron's case. But it doesn't feel right to me to leave such an important character static. This book was about Aaron's healing process as well as Nico's. I would have liked to see if any of the book's events caused any change in him.
Hanna- First of all, I have to say that reading a book from start to finish in one sitting is the absolute best. I didn't have the time to do that with Goldengrove, but I would have liked to. Getting through an entire book in a day is just such a nice feeling. I also agree with almost everything you're saying about the book, especially about the ending. Ridiculous is the perfect word for it. One moment they're all struggling to get over their personal grief, then the next they're bantering around Greece. Fortunately, there are compelling parts to read throughout the book. If we only read for the ending, it wouldn't have been worth the time it took to read it.
I found that Goldengrove was well written and well developed novel. This was definitely a good read, especially for a summer reading book for English class. As several people have already stated, it wasn’t the plot that hooked you into the book, but Prose’s style of writing that hooked you into the book. There was something about the way she wrote that kept me reading because honestly the plot wasn’t all that interesting and somewhat weak. I think it was because she wrote as if she was our age, but was still able to mix in the more complex part of writing that just kept you reading more and more. I found it pretty cool that the whole book was almost like a flashback on Nico’s life and you didn’t truly know it until the last chapter of the book where she told of what eventually happened to herself.
ReplyDeleteAnother aspect of this book, which connects somewhat to the style of writing, was the many connections that I was able to make with the book. Due to the fact that the book was written from a teenager’s point of view helped. It was more relatable because we’ve all had some sort of connection to her life, whether it be with peer pressure with drugs, relationships, or death. Although there was a lot in this book I couldn’t connect with, it was some of the smaller things that I could which helped keep me into the book.
So the plot of this book was not as strong as I was expecting it to be or that it could’ve been. If it wasn’t for the style of the writing, I probably wouldn’t have been able to read this book as quickly as I did and not have liked it either. I found the plot to be somewhat predictable; especially that Aaron was trying to make Nico into Margaret. From there first “date” I predicted that that was what Aaron was striving for and was right when he started having her wear Margaret’s T-shirts and perfume and acting like she was Margaret. Another part of the plot I found to be relatable to people who lose someone close to them or even lose someone in their life. It was right when the plot started in the beginning when they found Margaret drowned. Everyone became very depressed for a long time and they all changed some part of their life that they hadn’t done before. Mom was becoming a drug addict, Nico was becoming her sister, and Dad was staying more to himself. Dad was probably the one character that was as affected by the death as the others were (but maybe I missed or forgot something). Once the parents went to Boston, I knew from there that things were going to change for the whole family because they were saying how much they loved it there and it would get them away from the grief of being where Margaret died. In general, I found this plot not to be all that strong as it could’ve been because there were many other ways Nico could’ve dealt with her grief, but instead it took the normal/usual path that many books dealing with grief go.
Now I wasn’t all to impressed with the ending. Although it told what eventually happened with the family, I was expecting it to be better. I found that the rest of the book had feeling and was able to explain and develop everything very well, but then I got to the last chapter and it just ended, you didn’t get a good feeling of what their situation was like now and how they had changed or gotten to control the grief they had had from Margaret’s death. I felt that more could’ve been said instead of just we moved and made new friends and so on. Other than that, it was a pretty good read.
This book I did find had a lot of feelings that you could connect to and make you part of the story. Normally these kinds of stories I don’t care about reading, but this one got you involved. It kept you into the story by going into detail of how Nico was feeling and what was happening around which helped to make for a better story. So overall I thought it was a pretty good read.
Matt Gaudio
Matt- I swear we share the same brain or something because that was exactly how I felt when I read "Goldengrove". But one has to imagine, if Prose changed the ending to something deviating from the norm (more radical and unexpected), do you think that we would have acknowledged it as much, or give it as much praise as we're preaching we want, since the whole beginning of the book was written so well?
ReplyDelete-Dylan Schiff
Ashley- I completely agree with what you were saying about Aaron's disapperance. I feel like he was such a big part throughout the book that he should've at least made a small appearance towards the end. Like maybe in a letter to Nico, apologizing for everything he did, I don't know, maybe I'm being too synnical of the author. Oh well, it's not like we can re-write the book.
ReplyDelete-Hanna Christensen
"If all the clocks and calendars vanished, children would still know when Sunday came. They would still feel that suck of dead air, that hollow vacuum created when time slips behind a curtain, when the minutes quit their ordering tick and ooze away, one by one. Colors are muted, a jellylike haze hovers and blurs the landscape. The phone doesn't ring, and the rest of the world hides and conspires to pretend that everyone's baking cookies or watching the game on TV. Then Monday arrives, and the comforting racket starts up all over again." (I like this)
ReplyDeleteEveryone seems to think the ending sucked a bit. Unresolved. But the middle? The middle was good. Poetic. I feel like every time I write something on here I'm telling you the same thing.
Soooo I've got something NEW. Whoopee! Can we talk about this?:
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)
Spring and Fall:
to a Young Child
Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What héart héard of, ghóst guéssed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
Alright guys, how do you feel about team-thinking? Poetry is trippy and often means different things to different people. My curiosity wants to know, What do you think?
Oh and since we're students, I though maybe we could get a kick out of some teacher reviews I found =)
ReplyDelete"As a secondary education teacher, I would absolutely use this book in my classroom. Though some of the language is extensive, it is not more than any secondary student could bear; the plot is both engaging and addicting to anyone who has experienced loss, or even anyone who has experienced what it feels like to be completely alone. The story, told from the point of view of the deceased girl's sister, is a unique spin on an Alice Seabold-esque story. The reader is able to get a glimpse into the lives of the surviving family, and is able to see how the once close-knit family structure is tested by the pressures of succeeding one of its members. This novel would undoubtedly be a fast read for students, and one that they will actively and willingly participate in reading." - Melissa Brown (http://www.amazon.com/review/R2YPOKUP1A51DU/ref=cm_srch_res_rtr_alt_2)
And for more laughter and insight into the tricky mind of an English teacher I give you:
"I will say that Goldengrove is a virtual goldmine for English teachers, though. It deals with the subject matter of grief and loss in a way that many adolescents - both girls and boys - will likely find refreshingly blunt. Prose's narrative is packed with emotion and the tumult of life that many secondary students can relate to. There's anger and grief, resentment and understanding, denial and acceptance; it keeps a perspective about itself that is all too often lost in young adult literature - though I must admit I wouldn't necessarily classify this novel as YA. The subject of death is very real in this story, much moreso than in other fiction that might find itself in the classroom -- particularly in units that deal with Shakespeare or other works that sometimes lack a real contextual basis or sense of familiarity. Admittedly, it is a slow read at times. But it does reward the patient reader with an insightful look at the reality of life and death, the struggle to find one's identity, and the belief that not everything happens for a reason. Yet there are times when even though we know Nico is not your average teenager, her thoughts and feelings seem oddly like that of a much older and more mature young woman. In that sense, students may find it difficult to believe everything Nico says. One wonders how much of Nico is really Francine Prose channeling her lost adolescence. Finally, there are some scenes that might be inappropriate for class discussion so a teacher who wishes to use this novel in his or her class should tread carefully." - Jeffrey Catalina (http://www.amazon.com/review/R2QBYCN2YCK948/ref=cm_srch_res_rtr_alt_1)
Warning to future comment posters: Tread carefully.
-Sam!
Liz! Wow, okay, so I never thought of that kind of ending with the van! In fact until you mentioned it, I never really noticed how much the author played up the van. There was always something to be said about the van, and it is strange that it didn’t get to play a larger part than it did. I think if there was a movie interpretation of this book, then it would end with Aaron kidnapping Nico in the van because of course movies always have to be more dramatic. And now I would like to admit that when I first finished this book, I did really like it, but now, after discussing it with friends who both have and haven’t read it, I realize even more how creepy the book truly is. Before Aaron totally went off the deep end, he seemed like such a nice and genuine guy, one that I would want in my life, but then his turn for the worse completely ruined that for me. You gotta love how books can do that with a character...
ReplyDelete-Sarah Anischik
Hanna! I absolutely LOVE what you said about how there never has been and never will be a "typical" way to for someone to respond to death. This is such an amazing point that you made. I think that everyone has this image of themselves in their own head about how they would respond if someone very close to them were to die, but no one ever really knows how they're going to react until it (unfortunately) happens to someone they know and love.
ReplyDelete- Liz Elliott
I’m going to have to disagree with you, Ashley, because I don’t think that the book was in part about Aaron’s healing process. I think it was about Nico and her family going through the “It has to get worse before it gets better” stage before the real healing begins (like I said in a post awhile back to Beverly) and Aaron is a separate example of some one not being able to even start to heal, and just refusing to accept Margaret’s death. Since his is a whole other, complicated situation, it would need a whole book unto its self, and just making him disappear was a good way of not complicating it too much. Just having him pop up and say he was all better (like the family- and remember how disappointed you all were about that?), or that he turned into a psycho (which he is) would have just been silly.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Sam, that once Nico met Aaron again in the bookstore (and it dragged its feet a little bit getting to that part) it was compelling, and made me read faster because I wanted to know what was going to happen next. I think Prose knew this and maybe made those parts a littler easier to get through. I also loved that passage you posted; I think it’s a perfect example of Nico and Prose’s voices. I also loved the part where she’s in the grocery store with the cookies. I thought it was hilarious, something my sister might do, and interesting to me later because I didn’t think Margaret’s scent would come up again but it did.
As for the poem, I think it’s about the narrator predicting how Margaret will grow up, loose her innocence and youth and not grieve over Goldengrove loosing its greenery as the season shifts to fall because she will “come to such sights colder”. “The blight man was born for” is growing up, growing more cynical maybe, and Margaret is, unwittingly, grieving over her youth, represented by the change of summer to autumn. Except that the Margaret in the poem is Nico in the book. How’s that for trippy philosophic babble?
I liked what that second teacher said about Nico seeming older and more mature, because that definitely made it a little easier for me. When I found out (I don’t remember where in the book she says this) that she was only thirteen, I thought, “Oh great, a kid.” But Prose might as well have bumped her age up a couple of years because sometimes I forgot she was so young. The fact that she was telling this from years later in her life was probably why, but we didn’t know that until the very end.
Now that I've read all of the summer reading books, I definitely think this is my favorite. I can relate to it so much better than I can relate to the other books. I also like how the author explains what its like to move on after a death.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Kelsey, the book wasn't about Aaron moving on. Maybe Aaron was just another example of how someone could deal with a death. Its like the author is giving an example of someone who is dealing with it fairly well, and someone who is not dealing with it at all. Its normal to now want to face the fact that someone you love died. It gets unhealthy when you can't get past the first "symptoms" of greiving.
Thanks Liz! I just thought that that really needed to be put out there in order for others to understand, or at least attempt to understand the hardships Nico and her family were facing.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Julie in the sense that Aaron was another way someone could deal with death. I feel like Nico used Aaron as a sort of cushion to fall back on when things got too tough for her to handle on her own. I don't think the author intentionally put Aaron into the story just to contrast the different ways people handle death though. I also disagree with Julie's point that someone was not dealing with the death of Margaret at all. Everyone in the story was trying to cope but some progressed at a slower speed than others, and in the end Aaron began to regress in the healing process that he and Nico had worked so hard to accomplish. While it was a sad way to end his place in the plot of the story I believe it was neessary for Prose to show the other side of dealing with death. Like Julie said, if your never able to make it past the first hurdles of grieving, it gets to a point where you endanger yourself and others around you and thats exactly what happened.
Sam- You decided to bring up the point of the poem and heres what I think.
The poem goes through the seasons in selected words. For example "leaves" are for fall, "colder" is for winter, "Springs" are for spring, and none of the words hint towards summer, which is strange because thats not only when Margaret died, but also when the duration of the novel takes place. Poets have a quirky way of wording things that can lead you to believe any single word was put there for a purpose, so maybe it was the poets intent to go through the season's like that, or maybe it's just me analyzing the poem too much. Anyways, now that I read the poem again I really enjoy the lines, "Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder..." That really resinates with our teenage years, and I believe it means that as we get older we realize that the world is not such a great place as we once believed it to be and we begin to face harsher realities than ones we've ever wanted to face. Well those are just some of my thoughts on the poem. Tell me what you think!
-Hanna Christensen
Regretfully I admit, that usually after I finish reading a summer reading book, I just forget about it. However, not this time. The story of Goldengrove will definitely stick with me for some time. I also think I will be able to relate to Nico for years to come, especially every time I am faced with a tragedy or put into a tough situation. I am very grateful for this book because it sends a great message to teenagers.
ReplyDeleteJust wanted to say that I still sometimes think about this story!
My dearest Hanna and fellow fascinated blogposters, This is me telling you what I think about the poem.
ReplyDeleteMargaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
> a father is talking to his daughter, trying to explain the passage of time, the way of life, and the inevitability of death. He is asking her if she grieves for the naive days of her youth, days before she knew of death or grief. I picture Goldengrove as a place of sunshine and carefree life, a place of summer warmth, of gold, a place of beginnings. Goldengrove made me think of the Robert Frost poem:
Nature's first green is gold
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
> Can't you picture a young child caring for the leaves? - Chasing them as they drift from the treetops in fall, picking up the leaves of extraordinary reds and vibrant oranges that catch her eye. In the poem, leaves are like 'the things of man'. What if 'the things of man' are materialism? - all that crap we collect throughout our lives, all the things we accumulate during life that we have no use for in death. Also, I am in kahoots with Hanna's belief that some of these words are meaningfully related to the seasons.
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
> The older you get, the less you will care for the materialistic things - the less you will care for leaves, 'like the things of man'. You will not be in Goldengrove and you will be cold to the memory of chasing leaves as they drift from the treetops in fall, of picking up the leaves of extraordinary reds and vibrant oranges that catch your eye.
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
> Death, death, death; this is poetry so we must, of course!, mention it. These stanzas talk of time passing without paying much mind to it, and suddenly you're dead. I knew this because of the 'wanwood leafmeal' which, for me, translated to death. No matter what your name is, you will grieve. The writer says that sorrow's springs are the same --- apply this to Nico's story and Bam! Theme. What does that say about the characters in Francine Prose's Goldengrove?
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What héart héard of, ghóst guéssed:
> The heart expresses grief that the mind and mouth cannot.
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
> Man is born for death (depressing, ay?) To me, it's as if the father is telling the small child, "You're mourning for yourself." or "Hey kid, are you grieving? Yeaaaa, that's appropriate, because you're gonna die too."
Sooo, Hanna! You said,
ReplyDelete--> "Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder..." That really resinates with our teenage years, and I believe it means that as we get older we realize that the world is not such a great place as we once believed it to be and we begin to face harsher realities than ones we've ever wanted to face." <-- Well said.
Since you've gotten through my trippy philosophical babble up to this point, I'll mention Kelsey's:
--> As for the poem, I think it’s about the narrator predicting how Margaret will grow up, loose her innocence and youth and not grieve over Goldengrove loosing its greenery as the season shifts to fall because she will “come to such sights colder”. “The blight man was born for” is growing up, growing more cynical maybe, and Margaret is, unwittingly, grieving over her youth, represented by the change of summer to autumn. Except that the Margaret in the poem is Nico in the book. How’s that for trippy philosophic babble? <-- Yes. I very much agree with you. I didn't even realize what you meant, about Nico being Margaret, until I reread what you wrote a few times.
Do you remember the scene in the book where Nico finds out her sister was named after the Margaret in the poem, the Margarent who dies, and she is upset with her parents? It almost seems ironic - because you get the sense that the Margaret in the poem will live a long time, will get to 'come to such sights colder'. Margaret in the story does not. I did not realize this irony until now. This can happen with trippy poetry. In fact, I'll confess this much: when I first posted the poem on here, suggesting we do some team work, I had absolutely no clue what it meant and understood only that it sounded somber, tragic, and beautiful. I was going to let everybody else disect it for meaning, but then Hanna sent me a message on facebook and mentioned my bringing it up. She wanted to know what I thought. I giggled and sighed, knowing that I would have to come back and tell you exactly what I thought. I'm glad I did. Hanna, you rock.
Alright now,
I'm leaving,
But fear not -
Don't go grieving,
For I'll be back,
To hear what you have to say,
And sorrow's springs
Can flow a different direction,
A different day.
Yours Truly,
S.A.M.
I think I agree with most people when I say that Goldengrove was probably one of the best summer reading books we've been assigned. I found it to be a quick read and finished it the day I started. I thought the characters were easy to relate to and style of writing made the book flow pretty well. I was disappointed to find that Aaron was trying to turn Nico into her sister because it was predictable and expected. That however, is my only complaint of the book. I thought Prose did a great job of including the details in Nico’s life. Not only did we learn about Nico’s immediate family, we also learned about their relationships with Elaine who I thought added a lot to the story. I also found the connections to movies very interesting. It made me want to just spend a day watching all of the old movies mentioned in the book. I also really like how the book ended. Again the ending was slightly predictable but it was also realistic and satisfying.
ReplyDelete-Rebecca Tourtellotte
Dylan- You bring up an interesting point about whether or not the ending of Goldengrove would've been as highly ackknowledged as it is. I think if she was able to make the ending deviate from the norm, it may have enhanced the book as a whole. I think that if she were to make it a more radical ending, we would be talking about how different Nico handled the problem of grief versus the everyday people. You are probably right in saying that the ending wouldn't have stuck out as much as it did because it would go with the book, but it also may have made us stop and think about the way Nico handled her situation and how she moved on. Do you think it would've been acknowledged less if she did a more radical ending?
ReplyDeleteI was also just thinking about what happened throughout the book and realized how once the parents went to Boston, everything fell into place from there (they moved on and started a "new" life). Unlike the beginning of the book where things kinda just happened randomly (in a sense), by the end of the book, things would just fall into place and became more predictable. i think if Prose were to change the ending to be more of how the beginning was, then the ending could've been stronger. My opinion though. What do you think?
-Matt Gaudio
I've read the first three chapters of Goldengrove, and here are my thoughts:
ReplyDelete1. The plot is slow. Chapter 3 seems totally irrelevant; nothing happens in it! If Aaron doesn't enter the book soon, I might have to say that the book is slower than A Moon for the Misbegotten.
2. Some of you earlier were mentioning whether or not Nico's reactions to Margaret's death are realistic. I have no way of knowing, because obviously I cannot relate to Nico in any way, but I just wish she would stop moping and start actually doing productive things (what a concept!). I'm not meaning to sound callous, but I just think Nico should grieve in a rational way, which so far she is not doing. Her parents aren't helping either, with their blabber about medications.
3. So far, the best chapter is chapter 1, before Margaret died. If this book's pace doesn't pick up, then this might not change.
There should not be this much time and this many pages between the first big event (Margaret's death) and the next one, which hasn't happened yet. Hopefully, it'll come soon.
~ Gregory Naigles ~
Sam, you are a poetic genius, just saying. And you very welcome, my love of facebook has brought you to disect the poem, I knew facebook would come in handy some day. You did a fine job, and I can see where your coming from in everything you said. Nice work!
ReplyDelete-Hanna Chritensen
I enjoyed the ending to Goldengrove because Prose finished the story the same way it would finish itself in reality. In dealing with death, one of the hardest things to fathom is the indefinite loss of that person and the fact that nothing else stops. The feeling that life is still going on in the same manner that it did when the person was alive makes it seem almost impossible for them to be gone forever. That is what Nico and her parents are working through during majority of the book. In the end of the book Nico explains that when strangers asked her if she has any siblings she finds it much easier to answer no. This is the point in the book that I felt summed up dealing with death perfectly; that point where the person's death is no longer so magnificiant, where it becomes a part of the back of your mind. At this point your reflexes take over realizing that the deceased is gone and it is no longer a struggle to remember. It is not that the sadness of the loss lessens, or the love for that person vanishes, but the understanding kicks in, the realization that life goes on. When Nico explains to strangers that she had a sister who drowned, that is all her sister will ever be in their eyes, a drowned girl. In death the seperation of the death of that person and the life of that person are the hardest things to balance. Margret will either be Nico's dead sibling or sister. By explaining Margrets death, she becomes the DEAD sister, but if she isnt even brought up she will always be who Nico remembers her to be. I think Prose explained death perfectly, the ending made the book feel like less of a book and more of a commentary on life.
ReplyDeleteMatt- I agree with what you said about how the events at the beginning of the book were unpredictable in relation to the events occurring at the end of the book. However, I think that was the right way to end it. Think about it- if in the last chapter, Nico says that Aaron married her and then had an affair with her resurrected sister (of course, I'm making this up off of the top of my head), it would not bring as much closure to the book and would not seem realistic. Remember that Prose is trying to convey the process of healing after losing a loved one. Still, who am I to say... does anyone else have other thoughts?
ReplyDeleteI'm up to chapter 7, and Aaron's finally arrived in the book! About time. Prose must love to drag out her books. The book should have been: Margaret dies in chapter 1, Nico grieves in chapter 2, Aaron comes in chapter 3. Instead, Aaron comes in chapter 7. That's four wasted chapters (3,4,5,6)! This is so far shaping up to be a book that could be condensed easily into fewer pages. In that way, it's similar to The Scarlet Letter, which could have been easily condensed to about 60% of its actual number of pages.
ReplyDeleteSo far, I'm not seeing any deep inner meaning, just an irrational, illogical teenage girl who needs to start getting her life back, two parents who either refuse to help her or don't know how to help her, and just in this chapter, a teenage boy who seems to be using Nico to get out of his own grief. Who knows where this may lead, but I hope it's interesting and that there aren't any more wasted chapters.
~ Gregory Naigles ~
Dylan- You bring up a good point, never quite thought of it that way. After thinking about it in that way, the Prose's ending does go more with the theme and intention of the book. Although it did end fast, it did bring closure and answered most, if not all, the questions running around my brain about what happened with the situation. I'm glad you brought that up because now I do feel the ending was probably the most appropriate for the book.
ReplyDelete-Matt Gaudio
I'm up to chapter 11 in Goldengrove. Aaron's entrance into the book has definitely made a difference in the quality of the book, and I'm glad another important even happened (Aaron and Nico's watching TV at Aaron's house).
ReplyDeleteI'm really not sure what Aaron's motives and goals are for his trying to get to know Nico much more personally. It seems strange, but maybe this is how we, the audience, are kept reading the book, in order to find out Aaron's motives. I'm certainly curious.
And pardon me for sounding like a broken record on this, but I can't say it enough: Nico's parents are not helping her, and they need to! That is their duty as parents, especially after such a horrible event as an older sister's death, and they are ignoring this! Dad needs to set his book and related interests aside, and Mom needs to recover without the aid of massive amounts of drugs, and they need to get the family back together again! This is really annoying me!
Sorry for the rant, I just can't help myself sometimes.
~ Gregory Naigles ~
I just finished reading Goldengrove, and I truly enjoyed this book from start to finish. I would have to say the main reason has to be the realism in this book. It was tough, sad, and a plot that is a harsh reality of life. It kept me hoping for Nico throughout the book. While I was hoping for Nico, I was angry at her parents, especially her mother. As a side, I apologize in advance for my anger at the people who hurt Nico while they should have been helping her.
ReplyDeleteWhile her daughter just lost her idol and was clearly struggling, her very own mother was selfish enough to indulge in pills she received from a doctor who felt bad because he didn't help prevent Margaret's death. How dare she use her daughters death to her advantage. Then she would invite her friend over and stay upstairs and have a good time. Now, I would have felt bad for her if she was addicted to the drugs. This however wasn't the case. When she decided it was the time to quit, she simply went to the dump and spread around the pills. This tells me she knew what she was doing the entire time and just found it easier to self indulge than face reality. Yes, it is traumatic and horrible to lose a loved one, but she certainly should have dealt with it in a better way.
Now onto the father. I applaud the way he allowed his daughter to work in the bookstore, something she really loved to do. I was angry however, that he almost hid in the back room and let his daughter drift off into sadness. He then (unintentionally) led his daughter to believe he was more interested in Elaine.
Elaine is a whole different story. In trying to help Nico, she hurt her so badly her life was forever changed. Thankfully, one day Nico was able to marry and find her career as a geologist, but her experience with Aaron almost ruined her irreversibly. Elaine is a smart women, and she must have known that wearing a special shirt and putting on a skin oil was not just for friends meeting each other. Aaron was more than a friend, and nearly raped poor Nico.
I want to be clear that I do not at all blame Nico during this debacle. She was a young teen who had an extreme tragedy and didn't know hoe to deal with it. Even if her parents were unsure how to handle the situation, the least they could have done would have been to bring her to a doctor so she could have received help.
Okay, so that's enough ranting for a day. In conclusion, I believe the reaction I had from reading this book shows that is was realistic and well developed. I do not ever have such strong reactions from a book, but the plot left me in such suspense that I was wondering what would happen page after page.
-David
Wow. So I've been reading this book for a week or so now and have probably reached the halfway mark. However I have been reading everyone's comments and I would just like to say congratulations to everyone because you all sound so smart! I hope I can legitimately respond well enough to all your posts. But I will wait until I get to the ending for that. What I would like to say now is that I LOVE THIS BOOK! Out of the three it is by far my favorite. Prose dives deep into the teenage mind and something clicks. When Nico is describing her feelings, it seems vague and hard to know what she is describing but the second time around I know exactly what she is feeling! And to be able to make that connection with a book is quite awesome. I haven't been able to read a book for enjoyment in awhile with my schedule however this book is definitely fitting in to that category for me. I especially love Goldengrove becoming a character, as Sarah said. It is something like a tool or a resource of comfort for Nico. It seems to me (so far in the book) that although it is where customers bring up Margaret the most, it is a place where she feels less alone than any other setting in the book. It is confusing to me seeing as how she is alone there. But I like this and it is something of a spectacle for me to read and observe how Nico sometimes becomes a little bit of a different person there. It is fascinating. Anyways I will definitely come back to comment on your posts because they are so in-depth and interesting, and make me like the book even more!
ReplyDelete-Kristen Tetreault
David- I know its hard to believe that there could be any excuse for Nico's mother's actions, and I definitely don't think what she was doing was right, but when someone you love dies, its impossible to face the reality completely. You have to block parts of reality out of your mind until you're ready to deal with it. If you dont then it really can be harmful. Although it is also harmful to block everything out completely too (Aaron is proof of that). I think Nico's mother, and for that matter every character in the book, represents a different way that someone could deal with death. I don't look at her so much as a bad mother, but more as a warning to those who are reading the book.
ReplyDeleteI have just finisshed chapter eight and am now halfway through the book. I really like how well the book flows from one word to the next. That makes it really easy to read. I'll sit down to read a chapter and it feels as though it only takes a minute to get through it, which is really nice after Return of the Native. Also, I like how relatable of a character Nico is. I find that I share many characteristics with her. However, I have two major criticisms of this book so far. Nico's greif seems all too familiar for me. I have never lost anyone as close to me as a sibling, but I recognize many of the activities that Nico does to deal with it from my own experiences. In addition to that, nothing much has happened really so far, and I do not find a story about a sad girl who just goes to work and hangs out whith her dead sister's boyfriend interesting.
ReplyDelete-Erik Anderson
Up to chapter 15 now, and making good progress. I'm very glad that now things are actually happening in the book, such as Nico's increasing obsession with Aaron and Aaron's increasing strangeness. Another good thing is that Nico's parents seem to be recovered; their trip to Boston must have helped them in some way. However, this brings me to a complaint about the book: That it is in first person. I usually don't like books that are written in first person, and this book is no exception. When books are written in first person, the story cannot leave the protagonist for even a second, which I find really annoying. I think it would have been a good contrast to go back and forth between Mom and Dad having a good time in Boston, and Nico and Aaron eating ice cream and kissing. A really good example of a back-and-forth in a third person book can be found in chapter 11, pgs 255-295, of Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident.
ReplyDeleteAlso, while I used to think that Nico's parents were the crazy ones, they seem to have somehow transferred their craziness to Nico herself. What kind of crazy person would go back to a boy who had treated her inappropriately, stuck his finger in her mouth, smeared ice cream on her lips, and then kissed her? Seriously. All I can think of is that the worst is yet to come in this book.
On the bright side, the book's pace is increasing, and I am thankful for that.
~ Gregory Naigles ~
So I finally started my summer reading, and I've finished Goldengrove and A Moon for the Misbegotten. Goldengrove was my favorite by far. I wasn't very excited when I read the back of the book and discovered that it was about a girl who falls into a "dangerous seductive relationship relationship with her dead sister's boyfriend." However once I got past that and actually started to read it I decided it was pretty good. I agree with Erik in the fact that I also found it very easy to read. Nico and her family were interesting to read about. I thought it was realistic in that everyone had their own way of dealing with their pain and grief after Margaret's death. It just seemed like this books plot could take place easily in real life.
ReplyDeleteEric, just wondering, why is it a bad thing that you do the same thing Nico does when you're upset?
ReplyDeleteThe ending to me felt like the author just gave up. They moved away, the mother stoped taking her pills, Nico stoped talking to Aaron, she grew up and they all lived 'happily ever after". It all just seemed like the predictable ending.
ReplyDeleteI really dont get why Sol and Troy are arguing about global warming on a blog about a somewhat girly book? But alright.
Hannah - I didnt expect them to be "lovey-dovey", Thats not what I meant. But from what I've seen, and its my own opinion, it can make families become closer possibly because they have each other as a support system. I liked what Matt said about the loss though, how it changed an aspect of each persons life.
Emma - i absolutely love what you said in the beginning of your post - "In dealing with death, one of the hardest things to fathom is the indefinite loss of that person and the fact that nothing else stops. The feeling that life is still going on in the same manner that it did when the person was alive makes it seem almost impossible for them to be gone forever." It describes how people can feel perfectly.
I dont know if i was Nico, if I would respond no when someone asked if I had any siblings. Because I feel like that would be cheating Margaret of the life she had and just forgetting that she ever lived. But at the same time, if she responds yes, and then goes on to explain that she drowned when she was young then peoples automatic reactions are just going to be sorrow for that person and make the situation somewhat awkward.
Gregory - I disagree with your comment on how you think Nico should stop moping and just move on to something more productive. As many people have discussed throughout this blog, people deal with death in many different ways. Nico was young and never had experienced death before (from what the readers know) and did not know how to handle it. It sort of made me mad about how she was having such a hard time and her parents did not really do much to help her. Or try to.
I finished the book! 275 pages in five days, that's 55 pages per day on average. That's more like it.
ReplyDeleteAs many of you have said, I do think the ending was a little too neat, "This problem's magically solved, that problem's magically solved, now we'll move and live happily ever after". I'm at least thankful that the ending wasn't too long, was not dragged out much, and was not too graphic. It seems to me that Prose tried too hard to use just the first chapter to drag readers in, and then let the next bunch of chapters be boring. But then, when things started happening, the book got better, and now I must say that Goldengrove is not slower than A Moon for the Misbegotten, as it seemed to be early on.
Kristina: I certainly agree, as I have said many times, that Nico's parents should have done much more to help her, and in doing that, should have mastered their own grief, because they are, after all, adults. However, after Mom and Dad's return from Boston, they seemed to be recovered, and so they were able to help Nico with her illness. I do believe that they should have stopped Nico before letting her go to Aaron's house for the last time. You are mostly correct. I just feel that Nico should have put in at least some effort to master her grief, and not forced her parents to do everything to help her recover (which they didn't, with bad consequences).
One more thing: Let this book serve as an example to those who are superstitious, to show that superstition can lead to disaster. If Nico was not superstitious, she would not have thought that her origami dream meant anything, and she would not have gone to Aaron's house that last time.
Okay. I have two weeks for The Return of the Native, and hopefully, I'll finish it in that time.
~ Gregory Naigles ~
Gregory- I disagree with your comment "I just feel that Nico should have put in at least some effort to master her grief, and not forced her parents to do everything to help her recover". This entire book is written to show the different ways to recover from the loss of a loved one and the grief that goes along with it. Nico, I felt (and you may, and probably will, disagree), did everything in her power to recover. It was just, however, unsuccessful. She tried to avoid objects that would reminder her of Margaret; later she tried to emulate Margaret and do things that reminded her of her sister to help both herself and Aaron be reminded of "the good old days"; and lastly she went to seek medical attention once her parents stepped in to help. It was not that Nico did not put in any effort, it was just that what she attempted to do did not work. And again, that is just one person's opinion and interpretation of the book.
ReplyDeleteGregory - I don't agree with thinking that the parents should have "mastered their own grief". I mean loss of someone is hard for everyone, but especially if you loose someone as close as a child. And I don't understand how you think the parents should have stopped Nico from seeing Aaron the last time, if they didn't know she was seeing him. If anything, the family friend (I am drawing a blank on her name right now) should have stopped her.
ReplyDeleteDylan - I completely agree with your comment. I was about to say that and then read further. I actually agree with you that she did everything she could to try and recover. Like I said in my last post, she didn't have experience with death before and she was just trying to figure out how to deal with everything.
I have not read any other comments and this is what I thought of the book....
ReplyDeleteI loved the personality and person that Margarett was. She seemed unique and interesting while Nico was the opposite. She wanted to be a scientist while Margarett had dreams of going into the arts. They were so close yet so different. When Margarett died, to me it seems like the rest of the family did too. They all lost touch of who they really were and afraid to live on without Margarett.
I didn't like how the parents seemed to just slip away especially the mother. She turned to drugs and that stupid Sally rather than talking and being with her family. And the dad focuses mostly on his book and doesn't even worry about his wife. I liked how he became closer to Nico and included her more in his life.
I liked Nico's humor and metaphors throughout the book. Nico grieves by being with Aaron who is trying to make her become Margarett. Nico knows he is doing this but accepts it because she thinks she is in love with him. To me, Nico soon seems to forget about her sister and just becomes obsessed with Aaron and being with him. She doesn't even feel guilty or a little bit distrubed by her relationship with her dead sister's boyfriend.
Aaron is just a complete jerk, using Nico to recreate Margarret.
Corri Swart
Okay, it looks like I have some explaining to do.
ReplyDeleteDylan: I do disagree that Nico did everything in her power to recover. However, maybe she did, and my definition of 'recover' is different that hers. I consider 'recovering' to be mastering grief, coming to terms with what's happened, being at peace with oneself, and continuing with one's life, possibly not the exact way it was before but still in a productive way. Nico may think 'recovering' means something different, and in that case, you may be right. Also, I definitely agree that her methods did not work; they were a miserable failure.
Kristina: Elaine (the family friend) definitely should have stopped her, however at the time, Nico's parents were recovered, and they should have stopped her before she left for Aaron's and asked her where she was going. For Nico's parents to not care where their Only Remaining Child (had to use that) was going, especially at this stage of grief, was, in my opinion, an abrogation of their duties as parents.
~ Gregory Naigles ~
Hello people who have finished Goldengrove!
ReplyDeleteSo after reading this book, I am actually left with mixed feelings. I can't really decide if I liked it or not.
So, things I liked about Goldengrove: I like how it had all of the references to old movies. Since I took film studies last year (best class ever!) and we watched some of the movies that were mentioned, it was cool to read about them and think about them again. I loved how basically the two movies that were described in detail(Casablanca and Vertigo) were both movies that we had watched in film studies so I was able to picture the film in my mind. I also liked Nico's character. She seemed a lot older than 13 which helped me enjoy the book. I usually hate books about kids who are younger than I am...not sure why, I guess I just can't relate as well, but Nico didn't seem 13, all of the problems she faced made her seem much older so I enjoyed her character more. I liked the ending when Nico describes what her life is like as an adult. Throughout the entire book I thought that it was being told as events were occuring, so in present tense, and I found it very boring I guess is the word (I'll go into why later). When I found out that it was basically a flash back...it made the book seem like a better story to me. It brought the book out of the depressing state that it was in, always talking about how upset they all were. It made me happy to see that Nico ended up having a good life.
Things I didn't like: Death, Upset, Aaron being a creeper, upset. that's about all I got from this book. There didn't really seem to be much of a story to it. In my opinion, what happened to Nico, (sister dying part..not creeper Aaron part) could happen to any person, so I really didn't understand why an entire book was written about how sad people get when loved ones die. I mean, I can see why, but it just seemed so unnecessary. I really didn't like how every little thing was described so in depth..for example, the first page when Nico describes that she doesn't like Sundays (WHO DOESN'T LIKE WEEKENDS?!?)she just keeps going and going for basically the entire first page. I also just didn't really enjoy how the entire book was about death/grief. It was so depressing. I was on vacation while I was reading this, so every night after having fun I ended my day with this book...not the most fun way to end a day. I also hated Aaron. He was just creepy and I understand that he wasn't dealing well with the grief...but still...kind of really creepy trying to turn your girlfriend's sister into your girlfriend. I don't think I really need to go into why I didn't like him...I think most people agree that he was just way out of line and wrong with everything that he did.
I think that's about all I have to say for Goldengrove. After reading this...someone want to tell me if they think I liked or disliked this book because I still haven't decided.
-Jen Rankin
Jen- I do have to agree with you on the part that the book was somewhat slow and boring. I found the plot to be somewhat weak, but after thinking about the book for a week and reading what other people have said about the book, I think the plot may have been weak, but had a lot of meaning to it. FOr example, the whole story showed just how everyone dealt with their grief in different ways. Mom became selfish and became a drug addict, Dad got engrossed in his work, Nico didn't want anything to do with what her sister had done and then started doing things to get her life back, Aaron used Nico to get over his grief. So there was more to this story than just a book written about people mourning over a loss, it was more about how the different people dealt with their grief and eventually were able to overcome it, not about the greif of lossing a sister as you had stated.
ReplyDelete-Matt Gaudio
After finishing all three of the books, I must say, Goldengrove would have to be my favorite. I feel as though it was much more “down to earth” and more relatable, and mean that in regards to the time period. But although, I didn’t enjoy The Return of the Native and A Moon for the Misbegotten so much, I enjoyed trying to interpret the meanings behind why certain circumstances happened or why characters did what they did. It was also interesting hearing other people’s interpretations, because there were a lot of things others picked up on that I wouldn’t have ever thought of. After reading all the books, they have given me insightful outlooks on life, as well as, wise information or warnings (however you may look at it) on life; what to do and what not to do. Relationships and death seemed to be a recurring theme in all three of the books.
ReplyDelete----DEATH/GRIEF/“DYING”----
-Goldengrove-
Nico’s sister, Margaret (dies)
Family (grief) ~ Mother (severe grief)
Aaron (severe grief)
Nico (grief/consoler)
-A Moon for the Misbegotten-
Jim Tyrone (“dying”, a troubled soul)
Josie (consoler)
-The Return of the Native-
Eustacia (dies)
Wildeve (dies)
Mrs. Yeobright (dies)
Clym (severe grief)
~LIFE LESSONS~
1. Life is full of surprises, good and bad.
2. Never rush into a marriage. (Is this why so many marriages end in divorce today?)
3. Life is unexpected; anything can happen at any moment, even death.
4. Love can be bitter sweet.
5. Go for your dreams, be passionate.
6. Money can’t buy happiness. (Clym knew this, as well as, there’s no place like home.)
7. As hard as one may try, you can’t bring someone back to life. (This means no dressing up like your dead sister, to please her boyfriend.)
8. Try to part on good terms with loved ones because you might not see them again.
9. You can’t change a person; they can only want to change them self.
10. ENJOY LIFE…
11. And make the most of it. (Don’t be a downer like Eustacia.)
Matt: I understand that the book was about more than just people dealing with grief, I just still don't think that the plot was strong enough for me to consider Goldengrove an amazing book. I don't know,I just didn't particurally like the idea of an entire story being about how people deal with grief. Like you said in your original post, the way the family delt seemed so normal, so in my opinion, it was boring. Oh and from reading your first entry...it sounds like you hated this book. All you do is say that the plot was lacking and talk about the bad points. About the only good point you mentioned was that it was easy to read and that you liked the writing style. Just my opinion.
ReplyDeleteMegan: I love you list of life lessons. They are true to the two books that I've finished reading (haven't finished Return of the Native yet) but they are also true to everyday life. They are good things for all people to keep in mind. :)
-Jen Rankin
I recently finished this book and want to post a more in depth comment than my previous one. I really enjoy stories like this that put you so deep into a characters head and let you feel their pain. I don't think that Francine Prose could have portrayed that much better. The latter half of the story was fairly predictable I was not surprised when Nico was faced with the choice between her parents and Aaron and I knew their confrontation would be of a sexual nature due to the recurring theme of sex. I was, however, a little surprised that it was a token from her parents, the spider watch, that saved her. I thought it would be something that reminded her of her individuality but I thought she would find it on her own. In response to all the negativity towards the ending, I think that it was ended very appropriately. Both parents' final hurdle over their grief could have been expanded upon, but I don't feel that it was terribly necessary. Nico overcame all conflict relating to her sister's death and was able hold back the recurrence of grief in the epilogue-like last few pages. Overall I really liked this book and think that the author did a great job
ReplyDeleteAlright, so for the beginning of summer I concentrated on my summer reading books for the A.P. Euro class that I will be also taking in the upcoming fall. After completing those I started the Honors English books and I am currently a little over half way through Goldengrove and have started A Moon for the Misbegotten as well. I started first with Goldengrove, and honestly it was such a nice change from the books I read for A.P. Euro. I love history, but these books had no plot, no story line, and nothing I could relate to. Although this book tells of a terrible tragedy that not many and hopefully not many teenagers have gone through, there are still so many relatable aspects that Prose enables. Even though I have never lost an immediate member of my family, my dog of 14 years, whom I have had since I was just two, recently died this summer. I was a counselor at a camp in Long Island for two weeks when I heard the news about my dog Hans. Although this may not be a physical human being, he was still an extremely big member of our family so it was a really tough situation. Because I was in Long Island I was not able to be there with my family when he was put to sleep, which was a really hard concept for me to grasp. There was nothing I could do or say to him before his death, just as Nico was sleeping on the boat and was unable to do or say anything to Margaret before her death. So in a way I can relate to Nico’s sense of helplessness and guilt in such a situation. Also this further proves the comment written my Emma, which Kristina also agreed with saying, "In dealing with death, one of the hardest things to fathom is the indefinite loss of that person and the fact that nothing else stops. The feeling that life is still going on in the same manner that it did when the person was alive makes it seem almost impossible for them to be gone forever." This really does describe perfectly the situation I have dealing with Hansey’s death. Because I was gone when he was put to sleep and the few extreme grieving days at my home afterwards, it almost seemed as if I had skipped over the event completely. Grieving alone at camp just wasn’t the same. No one at the camp is from Tolland or really from Connecticut for that matter so only a few of my friends had ever met my dog but very briefly, therefore there was nobody who could truly comfort me or understand my situation. This can be related to how Nico would become extremely frustrated every time a person or stranger would say they were sorry for her loss and ask her how she was doing. She felt she had no one to go to because the entire time the only person she was looking for comfort from was Margaret. At camp, every person I tried to talk to and grieve to, just seemed to make me more frustrated because they couldn’t seem to understand and feel the way I felt. My best friend who also goes to the camp did know Hans very well but she was away in Greece when I found out the news. When she came to camp late I was so happy to be able to tell someone so close the news and just be able to cry together. It made the healing process easier, and took away my feeling of abandonment. I think that is what has led Nico to Aaron so far, that feeling on abandonment, and the need of a helping hand to join in the grieving process. To be able to relate such terrible emotions to one another alone is a major comfort in grieving.
ReplyDeleteBut back to Emma’s comment, when I came home from camp his bed was still there, his blankets, his toys, but no him. It just seemed surreal and it took a very long time to truly hit me. I’m not sure it really has yet considering I sometimes still put left-over food for him on top of our toaster just like we always used to. Just as Emma said life is still going on in the same manner as when the person was alive, so it makes it difficult for me to completely comprehend the concept that something that has been there your entire life is just gone, vanished. Nico still has to walk by Margaret’s room and see an entire “shrine” to herself, yet no actual Margaret inside it. Also when Elaine was having that ridiculous “sex talk” with Nico, she couldn’t wait to tell Maragret, until she realized that was not possible. I think that death is such an interesting and mind-boggling concept which is why this book is so compelling to me. How every person deals with something so drastic and how they can even try to wrap their head around such a tragedy is always different from one another. Some can try to take any positives available away from the situation, and many can take the negatives. Although Nico is an incredibly hard situation I do not understand why she will not talk to her parents about any of it. I happen to be very close to my mother and when anything is on my mind I know talking to her will help. Although Nico may not have had as close of a relationship with her mother as I may have it seems unhealthy to me that she would not tell her parents how she is really feeling. Being able to share that anguish and sorrow with your family during a death seems like one of the most vital parts of the healing process. This was something I longed for at camp when I was away from my family, so it makes it very frustrating for me when Nico is right there and will not even try to talk to her parents. For example when Nico’s parents invite her to the movie she persuades them that she will be alright without them and would prefer to be alone, but as soon as they leave she regrets her decision and must drink her worries away. If she had used the comfort of spending time with her family, she would not have been put in such a situation.
ReplyDeleteOh and I know this is a comment from quite some time ago but Ian referred to Tycho and his purpose in the story. My thought would be that maybe he is just another symbolism to relate to the death of Margaret and the affects on her family. Tycho symbolizes a sort of struggle in Elaine’s life, dealing with the hardship of autism, but it also shapes Elaine into a very patient and understanding human being. Margaret’s death is a struggle for Nico’s family and has definitely changed and shaped them as people. Because I have not finished the book, right now it may have not changed them for the better since they are dealing with the acceptance, but hopefully as the book continues they will grow from the situation. I’m not exactly sure of Tycho’s purpose but it’s just a thought…
As you can see I have really enjoyed this book so far. It is captivating and drew me in from the second paragraph of the book – “When I think of that time, I picture the four of us wading in the shallows, admiring our reflections in the glassy, motionless lake. Then something – a pebble, a raindrop – breaks the surface and shatters the mirror. A ripple reaches the distant bank. Our years of bad luck begin.” After reading that alone I was beyond curious to find out what Prose was talking about. I was reading this book during my vacation in Canada and found myself ignoring everything else. This is by far one of my favorite summer reading books I have read yet and I’m really excited to finish the rest of the book. I’m also very curious about the end considering everyone has seemed to comment on how “predictable” it was. Honestly, I’m not sure what to predict…
I have finished Goldengrove and must say I am quite pleased to have read it. Based on what it is about I never would have chosen to read it on my own, but I definitely enjoyed it. So, thank you Mr. MacArthur for assigning it. The part of it that intrigued me the most is the numerous similarities between Nico and I. These were not just the major characteristics (being a math and science person and how she handles greif) which were similar but the minor ones (enjoys Mystery Science Theatre 2000 and Myst and opinions on Ronald Reagan) too. I was very fascinated by that. I feel that the book wrapped up well. It was interesting reading about how the older Nico was absorbed into the painting in the museum. However, I do not understand why the author included the part in Rome. It seemed a bit extraneous to me. But, overall it was a compelling read, and I am glad to only have one book to go.
ReplyDelete-Erik Anderson
So I have also completed Goldengrove, and now understand why many people commented on a "rushed" ending to the book. It did seem to quickly convert from Nico being forced into a sexual and verbal tension with Aaron to her entire family returning back to as much of a normal state possible since Margaret’s death. In the writer’s point of view, I can see how she wanted to wrap up the story in a short sum, considering it would take many more pages to describe it as she had the remainder of the book; but from a reader’s point of view it did not make the story seem believable. For instance the fact that Nico’s mother could have just scattered all of her pills throwing them away so instantaneously seems a bit ridiculous to me, then again many commented that the fact that she had started going on prescription pills made the story too exaggerated.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with Erik when he said he did not understand why Prose included Nico and her family’s trip to Rome. To me it just seemed very awkward and unnecessarily put into the plot. I also think that Prose dragged on too many details at times, causing me to find myself skimming through some sentences more than others. For example on page 144 the old movies that Aaron and Nico watched, such as Casablanca, were being described. Every detail about the movie seemed to excessive and lost my interest.
Overall I really enjoyed this book. My mom would try to talk to me as I was reading and most of the time I wouldn’t even respond because I was able to put myself into the story. It was sort of like watching a movie. During movies I tend to zone out and completely pay attention only to that movie, as if I was in it. The same thing happened while I was reading Goldengrove and it made me feel like Nico; at times I even wanted to jump in for her and make different decisions to help guide her. Because of this I didn’t mind the excessive details at points that may have bothered others more. I couldn’t believe Aaron was being so disturbing about Nico acting like Margaret. At first I thought it was sweet and nurturing for the both of them to be able to talk to each other, but once Aaron asked Nico to wear Margaret’s blue comet shirt I would have bolted and never talked to Aaron again. I couldn’t believe Nico realized he was trying to turn her into Margaret but continued to let it happen. That was definitely a part when I wanted to jump in and make the decisions for Nico.
I also thought Prose has a very creative mind and clever way with words. One of my favorite quotes was on page 140 when Nico was describing Aaron’s cabin the first time she had been there. – “Either Aaron had obliterated every trace of my sister, or else he kept secret reminders around, visible only to him, thorns that could snag only him, so only he would know he was bleeding.” I would have never thought to describe grief and reminders of grieving in such a way. I thought it was really interesting how some people have commented wondering why the author never mentioned a last name. Honestly I don’t have much of an idea, but my thoughts are that Prose was demonstrating some type of identity crisis. Throughout the book Nico is changing, losing parts of her while gaining new parts. She becomes a completely new person but in the end she begins to see the old Nico again. Also through Aaron she began to somehow transform into her dead sister. Throughout the story there seemed to be a reoccurring theme of identity and how much of an impact the loss of one identity in the family created an identity loss of the rest of the family. Nico’s mother was addicted to prescription pills; Nico’s father seemed to be having an affair, and the entire family was forever different after Margaret drowned. Nico’s family was not the same family therefore maybe the author felt you could not put the same label on the family that was no longer the same family.
Prose's use of words amazes me, the way she can portray a moment, thought or feeling perfectly. This quote is a great depiction of that - "
ReplyDelete"Margaret's death had shaken us, like three dice in a cup, and spilled us out with new faces in unrecognizable combinations. We forgot how we used to live in our house, how we'd passed the time when we lived there. We could have been sea creatures stranded on the beach, puzzling over an empty shell that reminded us of the ocean."
I remembered that when i first picked up this book at the beginning of summer, I read the back and thought the entire plot was ruined. Like, i knew what was going to happen for the most part and it would just be random words to fill in between the death of her sister, grief, a relationship with her dead sister's boyfriend, and the "life changing moment when a child realizes that their parents can no longer help them". I guess that's admitting that I never really have much expectation for summer reading books. But Prose surprised me. The reader may know the big parts of the plot, but the plot grows to be really exciting.
I'm glad I read Goldengrove as my final summer reading book. It was very interesting and I was able to keep my mind on the book without it wandering off like it sometimes did in The Return of the Native. I can't imagine losing someone so young and so close to me like Nico did. I agree with Erika that Nico should have stopped seeing Aaron when she found out he was using her to turn her into Margaret, but I also think that because Nico is only 13 in the story that she still let a part of her mind think that maybe he actually wanted her as Nico. She said that she loved Aaron and it would be hard to let him go, but thank goodness she was finally able to!
ReplyDeleteI also agree with others that the ending came on way too fast. There had been so much detail throughout the rest of the book and then all of a sudden your reading how Nico and her family moved to Boston and a few paragraphs later she is all grown up and has children!
Nico did a lot of growing up the summer when Margaret died. At such a young age she had to deal with recovering from the loss of someone so close to her. She also learned that her parents wouldn't always be able to help her in some ways. She saw how someone could be here one minute and then gone the next.
Jen- I agree with you that based off the plot, this book was not the most amazing book I've read, but it's not the worst plot in the world either. Although the whole plot is about grief and how most people deal with it, there is a lot of meaning to how Prose put certain details in that can be overlooked. Anyway, I don't think you particularily liked the book either because the plot was not what you would've chosen to read and you say how it wasn't a very good plot to be so "normal" and not "different".
ReplyDeleteJoanne- I wish I had saved Goldengrove as my last book to read, but I didn't. I also found that I was able to focus a lot more without thinking about other things while reading it. I also agree with what you said about Nico being only 13. Since she is so young, there is always that hope that someone wants you as who you are. They let their imaginations get the better of them, which for Nico was a bad thing to have happened to her.
When reading the description of Goldengrove, I felt moderately apprehensive. It seemed like a typical book you could pick up off of the shelves in the "Young Adult" section of Borders, a section I've avoided like the plague the past few years. Nonetheless I obviously read it, and though it kept my attention and Prose did a wonderful job phrasing things in literary terms, I felt the characters were overdone and certain parts rushed.
ReplyDeleteI felt that Nico's character was not that of a thirteen year old girl. She seemed like a girl my age, not someone just about to enter high school but a girl about to leave it. In my opinion, if Prose wanted to show Nico's growth after the death of her sister, I think that she should have had a more child like character. The way she (Nico) would phrase things, such as the quote Kristina used above, isn't the way 13 year old girls think about things. Or at least the thirteen year old's I've known.
It may be Prose's way of showing the grief of Nico, her parents and Aaron, but I felt that the main characters seemed almost overdone. Like what Marissa said in her post, the symptoms of grief Nico and her parents had seemed to be copied right out of a psychology book.
The ending was rushed and completely predictable, I felt that it was unrealistic for the whole family to just completely heal at the exact same time and all be like "Let's move!"
In general, I enjoyed that this book was able to keep me entertained well enough to sit down one morning and have it done by mid afternoon and that it was easy to comprehend. But I did not like the way the characters were written, like Jen said earlier how she enjoyed that Niko seemed older than a normal 13 year old, whereas I would find myself forgetting that she was only 13 and then get quite confused. And I didn't like the rushed feeling I got at the end of the book. I felt it was aggravating.
On another thought, I wanted to comment on the relationship between Aaron and Nico. I thought it was disturbing to say the least, how Aaron just used Nico to make her seem like Margaret. It made me wonder if it was his plan from the very start, when he walked into Goldengrove and started talking to Nico about hanging out, to use her so he could pretetnd Margaret was still there with him. Every scene with the two of them together succeeded in making me almost uncomfortable, where I just wanted to read faster and get it over with. I thought it was creepy, especially how he started asking Nico to wear her sister's clothes, and she was so willing to do it. Just to make him happy. It was an important part of the story, but an unnerving one.
ReplyDeleteWhen I read this book I believed that Nico was quite stereotypical in her reaction to Margaret's death. I consulted a book on psychology and found that she did everything a normal person should have done in her situation. This surprised me enough to cause me to form a thesis paper about it. I was able to find why she was so stereotypical.
ReplyDeleteMatt: I don't think I completely hated the book, but it definately wansn't my favorite. I think I will say that I was impartial to it...I don't have a real opinion one way or the other. It definately isn't something that I would have picked to read, but wasn't horrible.
ReplyDeleteJosh: Thank you! You say that she did everything a normal person would have done which kind of makes my point. I didn't like the book because it seemed so, almost pointless, to me because Nico's situation could have happened to anyone, and now you just proved that it could easily happen to anyone. I don't really see a point in writing a story about something that happens everyday. Yes, it's relatable, but it just seems like a weird topic to pick to write about. If anyone can tell, I still don't really know what I really didn't like about this book. I know the little things that I disliked, but it's hard to describe.
-Jen Rankin
I know that this was first brought up back in July, but I am finally here to put in my two cents- as far as I'm concerned, Prose's decision to never give their family a last name was genious. It makes the family that much more relatable-- you know, "Oh my goodness, this could be my family". It gives Nico a sisterly quality, like she becomes a lost sibling I never had. It makes it much more believable, not just some random characters that make up a dysfunctional family which is "just there". I am probably the only one who believes this, but I just feel like I should put it out there.
ReplyDeleteDylan, I was thinking the same thing with the last name absence. If they were given a last name as most families in books do, it makes them seem no more than a family in a book. The fact that they are almost an anomaly makes it interested in my point of view. It may be just me, but the family seemed almost like the people down the street: they could be someone I knew.
ReplyDelete-David
Hello fellow Bloggers!
ReplyDeleteMy official opinion: This book was by far one of the best “assigned” books I have ever read.
Nico was an amazing character, and despite the fact that she was grieving for all but the last chapter of the book, I think she was very strong (yes, stronger than Josie). Perhaps it was Francine Prose’s depiction of Nico, but I never got bored with Nico’s grieving. In so many other stories, I want to hurl the book against a wall when a grieving character gets too whiny and “dead.” For example, in New Moon, I was very aggravated with Bella’s dull, dreary attitude after Edward left. I was so bored that I had to flip to the end of the book to make sure Edward would come back so I would have a reason to trudge through Bella’s hundred pages of monotonous mourning. But in Goldengrove, not once was Nico a stagnant character. Her ways of handling her grief were dynamic and compelling. Yes, she was sad, but she did not sit in her house and cry for the whole book or act overly helpless. Nico had trouble facing life (like Dairy Divine and Mirror Lake), but she ultimately overcame her grief and rebuilt her life around the hole Margaret left.
I loved Nico’s voice – some of her comments sounded just like things that I would say. I laughed at her description of Sundays: “If all the clocks and calendars vanished, children would still know when Sunday came” (2). Again, she wasn’t too teenage angst-y or too dull and morose because she was grieving. She recovered, and I was so happy at the end when she finally swam in the lake again, signifying how she forgave the lake for causing Margaret’s death, forgave fate for what happened to her, and forgave herself for not having the power to do anything about it.
I feel like the poem deserves a comment of its own (Sam: Very nice interpretation.) I’m going to try Mrs. Morrison’s “chunking” method, but I hope that this year Mr. MacArthur will teach a new way to understand poetry, as clearly I’m not very good. (The poem is on pages 90-91.)
ReplyDeleteMargaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
The poem is about grief, presumably over the death of a loved one. The narrator is speaking to a grieving Margaret… *The poem now speaks to Nico.
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
The narrator asks a rhetorical question of Margaret: Can you care about anything else other than your grief? To Margaret, though she is probably a young girl with ‘fresh’ and resilient thoughts, it would seem as if her grief was all that existed. The childish joys of leaves falling in autumn along with other previously important things in the world seem to fall away, unimportant in the face of such devastating loss. The season is fall, symbolizing death as plants and trees die, preceding a long, cold winter of mourning. *Nico must face life now without Margaret, and she is afraid to do the things that she used to enjoy with her sister, like eat at the Dairy Divine and swim in the lake).
Ah! As the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Through worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Even as Margaret grows older and moves past her grief, she will always remember this pain. Margaret’s heart will have to deal with the cold of winter and the cold of ‘Goldengrove’s’ absence. *Even at the end, years after, the older Nico still remembers Margaret and feels the same pain.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow’s springs are the same.
“Name” could be two things: the name of the symbolic spring of rebirth and renewal, seeing the light at the end of the long dark winter (the eventual relief that helps her move on); or, the name of the person she has lost because whether it is Margaret or another loved one, death and grief are universally devastating.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
The mouth cannot say and the mind cannot even fathom what the heart is feeling. *Nico and her family had a difficult time expressing, even to each other, the feelings they were experiencing.
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
The “blight man was born for” is death, for everyone who is born must eventually die, inevitably leaving behind people who will mourn over the death.
I have to agree with Marissa, this book was really hard to relate to. I thought that maybe people could relate to the experience of a loved one's death, but that is different for everyone. Personally, I thought I could relate to her potential heart condition (because I have a heart condition), but it was not focused on enough. I didn't think the book was very realistic at all, Nico's actions/reactions to the events seemed very illogical (although her shock of her sister's death is a good explanation for her illogical decisions). I thought her parents had much more realistic responses to her sister's death, they turned to the only thing that could make them happy (even though her mother's use of drugs was self destructive). Nico was the only one actively trying to recover, but she was doing it with the wrong person (Aaron); even when she realized he was a creep she went back to him (which was one of her illogical decisions). Her relationship with Aaron was very strange and I agree with what Melissa said, it was extremely obvious that he had a screw loose. The relationship wasn't easy to relate to either, so basically the two main parts of the book (her sister's death and her relationship with Aaron) were very alien. Also, Nico seemed way to sexually confused for her age. Like Lauren, I kept forgetting that she was only thirteen. On the back of my book there is a review that says "..Goldengrove explores the intoxication and heartache of female adolescence", I completely disagree with that and I think it's disgusting that someone would think that EVERY adolescent girl goes through that because it is so wrong.
ReplyDeleteAnother problem I had with this book was that the meaning of it was not clear to me until the very end. I realized that she found herself through recovering over her sister's death, but the author only made that obvious toward the end of the book. Now that I look back, there are clues throughout the book, such as her wearing her sister's clothes, but it was hard for me to tell at the time.
As for the style that this book was written in, the metaphors and similes were beautiful but they got very predictable and overused. I did enjoy the way it was written (although I'm not sure how to describe it), except for the dialogue which I thought was extremely annoying.
Overall, I feel indifferent about this book. The writing style was enjoyable, but I found it hard to read like a few others on this blog because it was too depressing and most of the characters were dumb losers. I am also disappointed that there was no event or character that I could relate too. I'm wondering if the author experienced events similar to this, if she did research, or if she just guessed. Also, I'm sorry if I repeated something, I only skimmed through what everyone else wrote because there is a lot.
-Ashley Donor
Actually I can relate to Nico on two levels. I am very science minded like she is. Also, I know what is is like to have a job as a distraction. Nico uses her job at the book store as a way to pass time. I can't directly relate because she is distracted from her sister's death, but I know the feeling of having a job that is time consuming and distracts you from basically everything else going on in your life.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I wanted to mention a paragraph on page 127 that says "The heart-disease books warned against caffeine. Uncaffeinated, my heart was ricocheting off my rib cage. Fear made me want coffee, the way being near a cliff can make you want to jump." This paragraph really annoyed me because the author was obviously mixing up fear with stupidity, unless she (the author) did it intentionally to show that Nico wasn't thinking clearly. I am not allowed to have any type of caffeine because of my heart condition, and I definitely don't think fear would make me want coffee, I would only try it out of curiosity or stupidity. So I'm not sure if the author made a mistake or wrote it to show that Nico was making bad decisions.
-Ashley Donor
Okay, the “staircase spirit” has something to add… ;)
ReplyDeleteSome of you might hate me for saying this, but it has to be said. I kind of liked Aaron. GASP! I know he was crazy; I know he had a “screw loose.” I KNOW he was “bad” now that I have finished the book. But without him, I don’t think Nico would have known how to move on without Margaret. In a way, in trying to make Nico become Margaret, Aaron actually forced her to become her own person. By the end of their relationship, Nico was not only able to say Margaret’s name, but she could assert herself: “‘I’m not Margaret, I’m Nico’” (226).
Flipping back to Nico’s trip with her dad to the site of the Great Disappointment on page 161… “Dad said, ‘Before his death, Williams Miller wrote, ‘Were I to live my life over again, with the same evidence that I then had, to be honest with God and man, I should have to do as I have done. I confess my error and acknowledge my disappointment.’’”
For me, this justifies Nico’s summer with Aaron. Miller made the most humiliating snafu of all time when he led fifty thousand people to the hill to be raptured but ended up being wrong. Miller looked back on his mistake and rather than wish to take it all back or wish to become invisible, he honestly said he would do it all again. He realized that his mistake, though horrifying, was meant to be made. Likewise, Nico can look back on the summer after Margaret’s death as a mistake but still be happy she made the mistake. Aaron was a catalyst for her healing, the vital push she needed to patch up the hole Margaret left in her life and move forward.
Nico then responded with a characteristic teenager’s answer, “‘Wouldn’t it be better if you opened your eyes and looked where we were going?’”
But this is more than a simple remark…. Nico’s eyes are *symbolically* closed in the grieving process. She cannot see the mistake she is making with Aaron and she cannot see how much it will also help her. Yes, it would be easier for Nico to step twenty years into the future (or the end of the book) and look back and see that everything will be alright – she will find someone who loves her and she will one day be able to cope with Margaret’s absence. But at this point she has to make her own mistakes and ride out the summer. Looking back, Aaron and the town may not have been expert therapy for the grieving Nico, but it certainly launched her out of heartache and into her future.
Stephanie, I can definitely see where you are coming from about Aaron. Without Aaron who knows how Nico would be after the summer. As much of a "bad guy" Aaron ended up turning out to be, he was also suffering from their loss and could relate to how Nico was feeling. without spending the time she did with Aaron who knows how long it would have taken Nico to move forward with her life in a progressive way.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Stephanie and Joanne. Without Aaron, Nico may have never gotten over Margaret's death and may not have been able to seek her own identity. I do think Aaron was a creep, but that whole scenario helped Nico in the end. She learned to stick up for herself because Margaret had always done it. Aaron was an important person in her life and her grieving process. It's unfortunate that she needed him and it ended that way, but who knows where she would be today without him.
ReplyDeleteI found this book to be the fastest of the three. It started to develop quickly, and it jumped right in, literally. Nico, an almost impractically dynamic character, definitely needed help, whether Aaron was the help she need or not is still questionable, but as her grief progressed, she changed physcially and morally. Dealing with loss is always bad, but sudden and unexpected loss is akway worse. Nico is in a way responsible, but she has deniability in the fact that she never watched before when Margaret swam alone. Nico felt some guilt and that made it worse. The fact that her parents responded worse than she did made it harder for Nico to move on. The mother's descent into drugs was a very bad response and the father never seemed to help much either. Aaron was Nico's one and only outlet. It probably would have been better f she kept Aaron at arms length, if not cut him out completely, because he was feeling the same grief and Nico should have tried to keep emeories of Margaret at bay, for both of them. Moving to the city was a very good idea. It was the exact opposite of Emersonville, and would provide the necessary distractions from Margaret. At the end of the book, I had 1 question. What does Francine Prose have against Pistachio ice cream. I have no idea why it was mentioned so negatively in the book. If anyone knows why please tell me.
ReplyDelete-Jesse Aldin
Jesse- The only reason I can think of that Prose used pistachio ice cream and made it sound negative was because it was yet another object that reminded Nico of her sister. It may have also foreshadowed (although it may be a bit of a stretch) the incident with Aaron and Nico sharing the ice cream at his house for the last time. Maybe, maybe not; I'm just guessing.
ReplyDeleteI think Jesse made a good point in saying that Aaron was Nico's one and only outlet. I do think that without Aaron, she would have faltered. However, as Nico's only outlet, Aaron took advantage of his position. Instead of being the support and comfort Nico needed (which he seemed to be at the beginning of their relationship) he used his position to get what he wanted. All he wanted was to experience the joy he felt with Margaret, and who can blame him for that. He did, however, hurt Nico in the process. He made Nico wear oil to make her smell like Margaret, told her what shirt to wear so she looked like Margaret, and then watched a movie about grieving with her so he had a full Margaret experience. He then ate Pistachio ice cream with her, feeding her like he did with Margaret. Finally, he tried to seduce her as he did with Margaret. He used poor Nico to get what he wanted.
ReplyDelete-David
Stephanie, I don't necessarily agree with the idea that Margret moved on from her sister's death because of Aaron, I think that she was able to move on from Margret despite Aaron. I think that there were other possible ways for Nico to deal and grieve than being transformed into her dead sister. Nico wanted to remember her sister and Aaron wanted her to BE her sister. I think that Aaron's actions blinded Nico and distracted her from the tragedy but I don't think it moved her forward in the grieving process. I think that Nico reasserted herself in the end of the summer because of herself, not because of all that Aaron had done to her that summer. I think that she knew what she was doing was wrong and eventually found enough inner strength to stand up to it, either that or the situation finally got so intense that she couldn't lie to herself about it any longer. Many people grieve in other ways and I think Nico would've been better off grieving in a different way than spending time with Aaron (although it probably wouldn't make for such an interesting book.)
ReplyDeleteOn another note, I don't think that Aaron was necessarily a bad guy. I think that he was just as damaged by Margret's death and got completely lost once she died. Aaron didn't have much help after her death, and didn't seem to have too many friends of his own. Also, his parents didn't know about Nico and so they just assumed that he was spending all of his time completely alone. When a child is dealing with such a horrible tragedy, a parent probably shouldn't have them spend massive amounts of time alone. A parent of a grieving child should keep themselves updated on their child's life for the child's own safety. This was obvious with Nico the entire book, that her parents were oblivious that she needed immense help, but with Aaron it never really got pointed out. His mother bought him one grieving book and sent him to a therapist but that seemed to be the extent of her help. Sometimes the parents have to take initiative themselves. I think that Aaron was just as lost as Nico was and although what he did was very wrong, he just needed guidance and help.
Jesse: I was also kind of wondering what the author had against pistachio ice cream, even thought I myself don't like it, and I came up with this: maybe Prose just doesn't like that flavor of ice cream, so she used it in a negative way. In my opinion, not every decision the author makes needs some deep reason behind it, so her reason for picking pistachio as the ice cream flavor that would be seen as a bad thing could be as simple as she doesn't like that flavor.
ReplyDeleteEmma: I agree with you in that I don't think that Aaron actually helped Nico heal. I agree that he was a good distraction, but I think that for him to actually be considered helping, he would have to be at a better mental/emotional state than Nico, and he was obviously in a worse one. If anything, I think Nico helped Aaron more than Aaron actually helped Nico.
-Jen Rankin
And here we are at Goldengrove. I don't really have too much to say about this book, to be honest. While I wouldn't really call it a "terrific" book, I do have to say that I thought it was far and away the best of the three books we were assigned this summer. I don't know how much of the book I'll be able to remember, seeing as how I had to borrow one from someone else and cram the entire thing in two days, but I'll give it a shot.
ReplyDeleteThe thing that really strikes me about this book is how predictable it is. Probably by about chapter three or four I could already tell (in general) how the plot was going to go and how things would end. The fact is, this type of book has been done to death in recent years, and each iteration is a carbon copy of the other. Remember reading "Burns", or "Speak" in English I and II? There's a consistent and predictable pattern to books like this; it's as if they were written with MadLibs or something. Some teenager has some traumatic thing happen to them or their family and they spend the rest of the book in a "deep, meaningful" period of soul-searching until they finally snap out of it and move on with their lives. It's a comfortable and familiar plot thread, but it's getting old.
All in all though, this book was easily the best of the three works we were assigned; better, at least, than the utterly interminable "Return of the Native".
Reading through the comments the debate about Aaron helping Nico with Margaret's death or not attracted by attention the most. Stephanie, I found it funny and was surprised when you said you liked Aaron as a character because I sure was not a fan. After reading your comment though, I sort of agree with you. Nico didn't have anyone else and she couldn't find any other way out. She did have Aaron though and no matter how much we didn't want him there, he was and Nico being with him was a big part of getting through with her loss. And Emma I'm really glad you opened my eyes to see Aaron in another perspective. I totally judged him and always just thought of him as a creep that I didn't like one bit. Thanks for making me realize that he was put in a difficult situation too and really needed help but turned to the tactics he did because he didn't get what he needed.
ReplyDeleteLauren- This is from a little while ago but I agree with everything you said when you commented on how disturbing Nico and Aaron's relationship was. I also became incredibly uncomfortable as I read about Aaron's desperate attempt to bring Margaret back to life through someone else. When I read how Aaron smeared the ice cream on Nico's lips to make her taste like Margaret I almost got chills. I was completely aghast. It was so incredibly creepy! But I agree with you when you said it was a very important part of the story. It left me wanting to read more because I just couldn't believe what I was reading.
ReplyDeleteDavid: I have to agree with you completely that even though Aaron seemed to be there for Nico, by the end of the book he was just using her as a replacement Margaret. He manipulated Nico into being his friend and then manipulated her into turning into Margaret by saying it was the only way to get over Margaret. This statement may have been true for him though because he was making another Margaret as if she never died. So even though he was an outlet, he was also using her to his advantage to get over Margaret.
ReplyDelete-Matt Gaudio
I had a really tough time reading this book. Some parts of it emulated the warm fuzziness you get on a careless summer day, but the rest of it was like a magnified version of the tragic stories you see on those teen pregnancy shows - GROSSLY young girls being forced into decisions and situations that no child should ever be made to.
ReplyDeleteIt is painfully obvious that one of the reasons tying Aaron to Nico was her similarity to her long-dead sister, a point that resurfaces multiple times with varying degrees of disgusting and wrong.
The story touches on several intense experiences that a 13-year-old should NEVER need to deal with - and yet Prose refuses to explore those experiences with any depth. This made "Goldengrove" some sort of haphazard hybrid between sunny and dank, lacking the profundity and depth needed to be a true dark novel while having far too many malignant plot twists to be a true idyllic romance.
I don't regret reading it - while it was consistently ambivalent, it was very well written and had an underlying momentum that kept me reading until the end.
PS. Sorry if this post is somewhat rushed, I spent much longer on a different version that was lost when my computer crashed!
-Billy Sprout
I think that "Goldengrove" was definitely better than "Moon for the Misbegotten" but I'm not sure if I enjoyed it as much as "Return of the Native". The two things that drew me into this book were the tone and how quick the plot started. The tone of this book reminded me of that of "Catcher in the Rye". It was very relatable, the comedic relief used and the wittiness in the dialogue reminded me of that which a teenager would use. Although I was not thrilled with the idea of a book centered around death and grief, Prose did an excellent job distracting the reader from becoming uninterested and gloomy. She found a way to keep the plot moving and make the book sound light rather than depressing (as Billy stated in his last post). It kept the reader from wanting to put the book down (something which "Moon for the Misbegotten" lacked). I found that to be a very positive aspect to Prose's writing. The most disappointing part of "Goldengrove" was its ending. It was a very predictable and satisfactory (if that) type of closing to such a wonderfully written book; it was a bit of a let-down and did not do the rest of the book justice. For that, I must say that it was not my favorite read of the summer. However, it was definitely a better and more interesting read than "Moon for the Misbegotten".
ReplyDeleteA lot has gone on since I last blogged about this book but I have finally returned from traveling the world, and upon tuning in found the debate about the role Aaron played in Nico's recovery very interesting.
ReplyDeleteI must agree with Stephanie's original assesment, that Aaron was just what Nico needed to move past Margaret's death. I know that everyone thinks that Aaron is a total creep, and he was, but he was grieving just like Nico was. And I hate to bring this up but some of the things Nico did throughout this book where not exactly normal either. Everyone blames Aaron for their creepy relationship, but Nico was just as much a part of it as Aaron. Instead of saying I can't believe Aaron would try and turn Nico into her dead sister, why not say, why is Nico going on dates with her dead sister's boyfriend. I know this book was about Nico's grieving process, but Aaron was trying to get over Margaret's death just as Nico was. I would like to think that even though Prose doesn't touch on it, Aaron was able to recover after Nico left. I believe that their realtionship was just as much a recovery tool for Nico as it was for Aaron. I do not know what Aaron was thinking when he went to see Nico for the first time at the bookstore, but I do not think at that point he had intentions of smearing pistachio ice cream all over her lips. Both Nico and Aaron needed someone to help them get over Margaret's death, and regardless of how messed up it was...it needed to happen. Although it was Nico who finally made the decision to leave Aaron; which was what finally helped her get over Margaret. Without the oppurtunity to stand up for herself, and assert herself as a person she would have never gotten over Aaron.
So this probably seems totally random but as I was looking over my blogs for this book, I realized that I never posted the blog that contained my original thoughts on the book. I got so caught up in what everyone else had said that I ended up responding to their blogs and forgot to post this blog, which I wrote as soon as I finished the book, and it has been sitting on my computer ever since. So…
ReplyDeleteThis is the first summer reading book that I have read, and I really did enjoy it. I found it very impressive that Prose was able to make this book as interesting as it was with what seemed like very little action. My favorite part of this book was probably the beginning. I really enjoyed the dialogue between Nico and Margaret. I am a big sister and I could always pick up on the similarities between the conversations I have with my sister and the conversations they had. It is ironic to me, that my sister and I are completely different people from Margaret and Nico, but the interactions between us were so similar. I am always amazed by the similarities in family dynamics in literature and in real life. So, when Margaret died I was quite disappointed because I was truly enjoying her presence in the book. After that, the book was still enjoyable; I just missed Margaret, probably because I kept thinking about what I would do if I lost my sister. I am just glad that Aaron came into the story shortly after, because the part of the book were Margaret was gone and before Aaron came in was boring.
Next, I would like to say that I need better creeper radar, because I was pretty sure until the very end that somehow Aaron was going to realize that Nico was his true love, and stop pretending she was Margaret. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I did like the ending that Prose ended up with, I just had this crazy plan in my head that they were both going to realize that Margaret died so they could be together, because they were meant to be, and they would spend the rest of their lives together, with the memory of Margaret, and the knowledge that she was what brought them together. I know crazy, especially since finishing the book I am pretty sure everyone else felt very differently about Aaron, hence the need for better creeper radar.
Also, my comments about Nico. I liked Nico as a person, some of the things she did made me laugh. I loved picturing her in the bookstore, lying on the floor, investigating the greater meaning of life in various books. Sometimes it sounded nice to spend a quiet afternoon alone in the bookstore with access to tons of books; I am just not sure my book choices would have been the same as Nico’s! Also, I have to say that I am not sure if I were in Nico’s position I would have ditched Aaron any earlier. Reading this book and realizing what a creep Aaron was, it is easy to say I would never continue to hang out with him but in reality he was the only thing she had to hang on to. And I am not sure I would have given that up.
One last thing that I want to mention is Nico’s parents. I wished that her parents were different. I like the concept of her parents not being there for her, and the notion of her family being broken. But I just wish that her Mom could have been anything but a drug addict. That was the most unrealistic thing to me. Overall though I thought that the book was enjoyable and well worth reading.
First off, I must say that I am very impressed with Prose. She captured the essence of a teenage mind masterfully. I can hardly imagine as an adult, being able to write a novel that is relatable to a much younger version of me. When I started the book, I wasn’t thinking “well this is typical.” The whole idea of the perfect older sister dying and the family recovers could be very predictable. And it was at the end, but I didn’t even mind. Nico’s narration provided a kind of dual-prospective as she looks back. She was a Petri dish for Margaret to grow in, and I believed it. How the author simply states, rather than using the extravagant decoration like in Return of the Native, was a plus for me. It wasn’t trying hard to get through a page; it was trying hard to not rip the page as it turned.
ReplyDeleteHaving two sisters of my own, I know how far away sibling relationships can get from perfect. To lose a sister would be beyond devastating and getting through it without that idolized older sister is mindboggling. I hadn’t thought much about that before reading Goldengrove, except I woulnd’t understsand unless I was in the situation. That’s what I love about books, especially this one: you experience things unimaginable through the character’s life. Being immersed in Nico’s feelings and identity made me tag along, always relating her to how I would feel. The fact that Margaret’s life was cut off so short may imply that all she was (talented, beautiful, kind) and all good fortune can’t be as good as it seems, or if it is, it doesn’t last.
Audrey, I like what you said about all good fortune not lasting forever. That really makes you think about your life and wonder what great aspect is going to fade first. This book makes me want to appreciate life and family so much because you never know what could happen. You don’t expect to lose such a perfect person, like Margaret, so close to the beginning of life, but it happens. This story is raw and sends an unbelievable message about the meaning of love and appreciation.
ReplyDelete-Dakota Gagliardi
This book made me very angry.
ReplyDeleteIt was a very well-written story, and Prose was showing the grieving process so well. I was really into the story up until the ending.
Why would you write a book about the grieving process if you're only going to skip over a large part of it? The way this book fast-forwarded at the end was just cheap. There's nothing like reading a book, loving it, and being cheated out of a satisfying ending.
Other than the terrible ending, this book reminds me of the novel Identical by Ellen Hopkins. Spoiler warning for anyone who hasn't read it- but it's about two twins named Kaeleigh and Raeanne. Both take turns narrating throughout the novel; however, at the end it is revealed that the entire time, it has only been Kaeleigh, who developed Multiple Personalities Disorder after the death of her sister. The way she takes on Raeanne's personality reminds me of how Nico was made to take on Margaret's personality and stand in for the person that Aaron missed so much.
I finished this book a while ago but never remembered to blog on it in the ciaos of my summer. Trying to read all the comments I quickly got lost in who thought what and everyone's personal opinions. So I'm just going to speak my thoughts.
ReplyDeleteI can see both sides when it comes to the ending, and I have to say I'm split between the two. I both predicted and was happy with Nico and her family moving. It was a welcome and refreshing end that helped give the book some real closure.
However the sudden turnaround in the behaviors of Nico's family and the trip to Rome were a bit much, and a little unrealistic. Both her mother and her father seemed to snap out of some very deep psychological situations at just the right time, falling right back to normal. Her mother stopped her drug abuse cold turkey, and like Nico said it was easier than her DARE instructor and made it seem, because it's not that easy. Then a family, who has lived in a house in a small town, her sister has died recently, her father owns his own small book store, and her mother doesn't seem to work at all. How is it then that they moved a fare distance, start over, and still have the money to travel to Rome for a week? It was ok, I was left with a sense of closure, but a little unconvinced of some of the closing events of the book.
Overall i really enjoyed this book, in a pleasant turn from my normal summer reading experiences. With the protagonist as a teenage girl in relatively modern setting allowed for me to more easily make personal connections despite having never lost someone close to me.
The plot and context flowed cleanly and naturally pulling me in and creating a realistic life situation. Being an older sister, though closer in age to me than Margaret and Nico, I can't imagine someone trying to turn me into my sister. My only real thought was why did Nico not realize that earlier? I don't fully understand the feelings and thoughts that go with grief, because I have never experienced them; But can it really turn someone so blind that when their older sister's boyfriend, is being overly friendly, and trying to get you to do thing you don't normally don't do, you wouldn't notice. I think you would notice or at least protest slightly. Aaron seemed like a nice guy, until the end, and then I feared that her would do the worst possible thing to Nico, because he saw her as his replacement Margaret. his downfall after Margaret's death was really hard for me, because he reminded me of a character in a show that i loved, and to see that character in that situation would have been really hard. however his turn and obsession after was really unnerving and though provoking. How had no one caught this, and could this happen to the people around me under the right circumstances?
Over all I truly enjoyed Goldengrove as a novel, and as a piece of literature. small points don't quit sit right with me, but the story conveyed a realistic, if not exaggerated for emphasis, rendition of a girl dealing with the death of her sister, her best friend, and her role model.
~Lindsey Davidson
I can honestly say that i didn't enjoy this book much, but I did find one element of it interesting. I feel like Goldengrove showed quite well how different people deal with death and mourning. For example, after Margaret dies, Aaron tries to make nico more like her sister and he becomes emotionally confused. He can't deal with her death so he tries to replace Margaret with her sister. The mourning process is also explained well with Nico. Goldengrove explained how any little thing could set Nico off into a depression because it reminds her of Margaret. Although I couldn't connect with this story, I can see how someone who has lost a sibling could really enjoy reading Goldengrove.
ReplyDeleteOverall I think that this was the best of the three books. I liked how the plot was relatively fast moving unlike Return of the Native. I was captured by the deep emotion of the novel and Prose's writing helped to stir my soul to greater deeds. I firmly believe that although Nico lost her sister, she truly found herself.
ReplyDeleteA few things I didn't like about the book was its predictibility as well as the ending. I am sure most people knew within the first few chapters that Nico would begin a relationship with Aaron. I also disliked the ending. All the events in the book took place over one summer and I would have preferred it ended that way leaving the reader to wonder what happened to Nico and her family. Instead by giving us Nico's life story in a few pages at the end, the book looses some of its magic.
Chris, I agree with you in saying that the ending was slightly predictable. In my opinion, this helped to enhance the book for me. While reading, I was wondering when and how the relationship would develop, and how this would impact the characters in the book.
ReplyDeleteI was also amazed how Nico'c parents either were completely clueless or just didn't want to believe what was happening. This relationship and the way it developed made the book much more enjoyable for me (even though it was very disturbing at times).
David, Your perspecetive is intriguing. Perhaps by already knowing the ending, the reader does not truly know at all. I concure that the cluelessness of Nico's parents was bewildering. Perhaps Margaret's death forced them to see only what they wanted to see.
ReplyDeleteDavid and Chris,
ReplyDeleteI also agree the end of the book was bad. It ruined the rest of the book for me because it jammed everything into that last chapter. The story about teenage Nico ended, and Bam! shes an adult doing fine. I hate endings like this I read a book with a similarly bad ending at the beginning of the summer, and all the characters problems that had developed over the entire book were solved in one chapter. Books like these make me mad because you can read a great book all the way through and the ending can just ruin everything the author established up to that point.
After looking over all the posts on the three books, it makes me love Goldengrove even more. Reading some books it takes a little strain to relate to either the characters or the plot. Although I would have guessed grieving over a loved one's death, for me, might be a stretch, it wasn't. There were so many similarities to real-life emotions and family in a book written about a younger sister. I agree with all who said Aaron was a creep, but it all pushed Nico closer to acceptance and realizing that her own identity is not Margaret's.
ReplyDeleteI guess the end was somewhat of a let down for me, but only because I felt so involved and it was like bam, she just moved away. What the ending means more to me, though, is that good times will always roll back around and that growing up insn't only about loss, but gain and overcoming, too.
Now looking back at all of my summer reading books this year, even between A.P. Euro and English, Goldengrove was definitely my favorite. Even though the book was of a terrible tragedy that not many teenagers go through, it was written in a manner in which I could easily relate too. What Nico was feeling was such deep emotions: sorrow, anguish, vulnerability, curiousity, and so on. The book always left me wanting to read more. I think thats why so many people had an issue with the ending, or at least for me. I had become so engrossed in the book that I almost felt connected to the characters so I was aching for the details of what was going to happen in the future. A short quick summary of how the family moved and finally overcame most of the coping did not leave me satisfied. I wanted to know the sequel to the story. I would have loved to read a second follow-up book!
ReplyDeleteI agree Goldengrove is one of my favorite summer reading books ever. This was a book I might have actually read on my own if a friend had suggested it.
ReplyDelete~Lindsey Davidson