BOOK REVIEW: Homestead by Rosina Lippi

Homestead
By Rosina Lippi
Completed December 9, 2011

Have you ever selected a book with a good feeling you’re going to love it? The story premise sounds interesting, other readers write glowing reviews – even the book cover grabs your interest. Then when you finish the book, you’re so excited that you actually loved the book, just like you thought you would? That’s exactly how it went for me with my latest book, Homestead by Rosina Lippi.

Homestead is a collection of tales told from the perspective of different women who live in a remote Austrian village from 1909-1977.  To help tie their stories together, Lippi provides clan family trees at the beginning of the book. As you’re introduced to each woman’s chapter, you see her name and clan affiliation, which helps you understand her connection with the other characters in the story. While a woman may be featured in her chapter, she’ll appear in other chapters as well. It was a great way to build up different perspectives on the same people.

The women’s stories individually are moving, but when taken as a whole, create a fabulous book. Themes of love, loss, deception, greed, farming and raising family all permeate the narratives. The themes are universal, but it’s the way Lippi fuses in the Austrian dialect and customs that make Homestead a unique historical read.

Shortlisted for the Orange Prize in 2001, Homestead is exactly why I advocate this award. Without its Orange Prize distinction, I may not have found Homestead, which would have been my loss. I hope other readers who enjoy provocative fiction will consider reading this exquisite book.  I can’t recommend it enough. (  )

BOOK REVIEW: Regeneration by Pat Barker

Regeneration
By Pat Barker
Completed October 25, 2010

One of my favorite eras of poetry is the War Poets – a group of British soldiers who served during World War I and used their poetry to express their disillusionment with the war. After learning that Regeneration, the first in a trilogy by Pat Barker, features two war poets, Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, I couldn’t wait to read it.

Regeneration focuses primarily on Sassoon and his stay at Craiglockhart, a hospital for World War I soldiers who were experiencing post-traumatic stress syndrome. Sassoon was sent to Craiglockhart after writing his famous Finished With The War: A Soldier’s Declaration – an open letter of protest, which alluded that the British government was prolonging England’s involvement in World War I (and at the expense of young British men). At Craiglockhart, we meet an interesting cast of characters, including Sassoon’s physician, W.H.R. Rivers, Owens and many soldiers who were traumatized by their time in the trenches.

Barker does a spectacular job depicting the stress of the soldiers at Craiglockhart. Many had nightmares, screaming fits and panic attacks, while others experienced physical symptoms such as mutism and paralysis. Sherman once said that “war is hell” – and there’s no mistaking its terrible effects on the men staying at this hospital.

Though written about a war almost 100 years ago, the messages about war’s atrocities bears much relevance to today. Regeneration is a cerebral book, delivering its readers to much introspection about the characters and their circumstances. I look forward to reading the other books in this trilogy. ( )