User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
Stupid people read books because Oprah says so. Other stupid people won't read a book just because Oprah picked it to be part of her club. The second group of stupid people think they are very smart though, and they are usually pretentious windbags who say very stupid shit but with big words that people are supposed to be impressed with. The people in the second group will never read this awesome book, and I don't feel sorry for them because they don't deserve it.
(A note: Of the second group they will also whine when a book from Oprah Book Club 2.1 (ie., the second incarnation of the book club which began with John Steinbeck's
East of Eden, and was in it's 2.0 manifestation only going to be for dead authors, but then morphed into 2.1 to include such titles as
The Road, and
Measure of a Man) they want to buy is now affixed with the Oprah wrapper or sticker. They will now whine about the little blemish in the same way they whine when the book they now want to read has just been made into a movie and only comes with a movie cover. In both cases these people are bandwagon jumpers but don't want to seem like bandwagon jumpers and by buying the new edition of the book they will be seen as no different from the ignorant masses they so deeply despise. Again they deserve what they get, especially since everyone knows that you can goto a used bookstore and buy an old cover, and if you really need to lie to yourself and everyone around you, you can claim that the 1960's beat up mass-market copy of Steinbeck you bought was really bought by you in a much better condition when you were thirteen, and now you have worn the book down by your constant reading of it, and because of that you know the book soooooo much better than anyone else alive).
Rating: really liked it
OMG, I
hated this book. It was painful to read. I spent a good 3 hours trying to read this book and ended up skimming the rest of it so I could be done with it.
MacDonald covers just about every topic in her book: racial tension, isolation, domestic abuse, and forbidden love, which leads to incest, death, and even murder, but does it in a very complicated way that will turn many readers away.
I consider myself a strong reader-one who has fantastic reading comprehension but this book tests even the strongest of readers. I felt that I had to read for days in order to get the jest of what she wrote about 30-50 pages back. It was ridiculous.
I consider myself pretty open to reading just about anything but this one just was too much....
I think I'll stick to my VC Andrews for my abuse and incest stories. She does them so much better than MacDonald did...and that's not saying much is it?
I'll give it 1 star but to be honest I wish Zero stars was an option...maybe even negative ones. I will not be reading anymore of her books.
updated shelves June 2011: zero stars due to skimming and not fully reading
Rating: really liked it
2.5 stars !
Jaidee fell on his knees and screamed
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!!!!!!"
How can a book that is written well with many excellent elements cause such dire frustration and become a hodgepodge mess????
Ms. Macdonald is a very good writer with wonderful ideas that seem limitless but unfortunately she tried to fit them all in the span of one novel. There are a thousand stories in here and none get developed. She creates a number of interesting characters only to plaster them with more and more make-up and gaudier and gaudier costumes that take them from being flesh and blood to Vaudeville players.
This book is like taking first rate ingredients and putting them all together in a stew without any thought to how they will taste together.
She piles dysfunction on top of dysfunction on top of dysfunction so that something that is initially interesting becomes histrionic and then just plain tedious.
I will try another novel of hers at some point and see if she has been able to direct her talent into something more cohesive, whole and ultimately satisfying.
Rating: really liked it
I was in a super geeky frame of mind when I read this book in early spring of 2012. I had been reading books about metaphors (see I told you... geeky). And as fate would have it I picked up this book suggested probably via the stream of books suggested on Amazon after you look at a book title there—right after my nerdy metaphor phase.
I literally started writing down metaphors I came across in the prose of this book... AMAZING. Beautiful. I'm not talking about similes or simple comparisons people. I'm talking about brilliant metaphors,that blow my mind!!
"... the glass panes gloated..."
"... the silvery sea flatters the moon."
"...cleanliness of steel born of soot."
"Shivering slightly at the unaccustomed breeze passing through the new spaces in her spine."
"She fell through a crack in time without spilling a drop. When she returned the tea was still piping hot."
"Teresa smiles at her. Frances collects the moment and puts in in a safe place, with 2 or 3 others." (other moments isn't that brilliant!?)
"The air (New York) is what the Gods live on."
"Sits down (in train station) serenaded by the (noisy) crowd."
(Scared) "It's autumn in her mouth and all her tongue can do is rustle."
(Upon waking) "Light in eyes: she buries her face in her pillow because the light is an eye operation... in the scalpel light."
"Kathleen is an abandoned mine." (after c-section/death)
knocking) "The door is thumping like a heart attack."
(happy)"He was Aladdin in an orchard dripping with diamonds."
"It was all boarded up, but he set to work, prying planks off windows, healing the blind."
"Her hair smells like the raw edge of spring."
(he was a) Cucumber in a woollen suit." (vs cool as a cucumber).
"A bookish girl, plain as a rainy Tuesday."
And possibly my very mostest favorite-est one of all:
"...enough merchandise to Mephistophelize a miner's wife."
I didn't know that word could be a verb!! :)
Oh the story? The Plot? Also fabulous. WORTH READING. Worth reading twice. Follows a young man in Nova Scotia and his life in a mining town. His young wife, their children and later the story of the children's lives... Epic. Amazing. Disgusting. Compelling. Sweet. Horrible. EVERYTHING a wonderful novel should be (and is).
Okay just go read it already.
Rating: really liked it
For 15 years (1996-2010), Oprah Winfrey picked books for her book club. Out of the 69 titles that she chose only 13 (19%) have appeared in at least any of the three (2006, 2008, 2010) editions of Boxall’s
1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die:
4 by TONI MORRISON (Beloved, The Bluest Eye, Sula and Song of Solomon)
2 by CHARLES DICKENS (A Tale of the Two Cities and Great Expectations)
2 by GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ (One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera)
1 each by LEO TOLSTOY (Anna Karenina), ALAN PATTON (Cry, My Beloved Country), JONATHAN FRANZEN (The Corrections), BARBARA KINGSOLVER (The Poisonwood Bible), BERNARD SCHLINK (The Reader), and ANN-MARIE MACDONALD.
Wait, Ann-Marie, who?
You see, for me, her name does not really ring a bell. Similar to the names of others in the list like Pearl Cleage, Sheri Reynolds, Mary McGarry Morris, Edwidge Danticat, Billie Leats, Bret Lott, Melinda Haynes, Breena Clarke, Gwyn Hayman Rubio and Malika Oufkir. I think, they all became household names because their books were picked by Oprah. What was being included in the Most Influential People lists for so many years if she could not rally people to read her chosen books.
I must admit that I read David Wroblewski’s
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle and Ken Follett’s
The Pillars of the Earth because of Oprah’s stamp. However, I have had no motivation to read right away her other choices including
Fall on Your Knees because of what Jonathan Franzen said in the interview that Oprah’s picks catered more for readers who were women than men.
On the superficial level, that still is my main comment for this book,
Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald. The story of 3 sisters:
Kathleen the eldest. She is beautiful, a musical genius and an apple of the eye of his father;
Mercedes, may not be as pretty as her siblings but she stood as the mother for her sisters when their mother died;
Frances is as beautiful as Kathleen and she suffered in the hands of their father when the latter came back from the war. Joining them is
Lily who is the daughter of Kathleen and a twin of the baby infant
Ambrose who accidentally died in the hands of Frances when he and Lily were born. The 3 sisters’ mother,
Materia completes the list of female characters. She is the only daughter of a wealthy Lebanese businessman. She defied her parents who wished that she would marry a dentist by eloping with her husband,
James. So, the only male main character is the father
James who may be good-intentioned and has big dreams for her children but he is weak to resist temptation and to overcome the psychological effects of war.
So, there you go: 5 strong female characters versus 1 weak male character. So the mostly female adorers of Oprah cheer and clap their hands when Oprah raises the book and says “Hail, hail, read this book as I could not keep my hands from flipping over the pages while reading this!”
However, for me, there are three saving graces for this book.
And this maybe the reason why Oprah just flipped and flipped the pages till the wee hours of the morning:1. Brilliant first chapter that begins with “They are all dead now” then you follow the camera that zooms in to the things that the previous occupants of the house possessed and used.
2. Character-driven plot. Mac-Donald’s characters are bigger than the old familiar themes (family love, sisterly love, incest, war, etc) that we have all seen in the movies and read in similar books. Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres easily came to my mind. For one, MacDonald was never melodramatic and you don’t close the book feeling emotionally cheated.
3. Having said that, the denouement is well-handled. The use of the family tree not only wraps up the whole story but it provides the symbolism of the book’s main theme: family love, that no matter what we do, at the end of our lives, what matters most is our family. Then when you close the book, you know who the narrator of the first chapter should be. Well thought of novel. Well organized. Well written. For a first time writer, this is just amazing.
Now, I no longer wonder why the Boxall’s 1001 editors chose this book over the more popular Oprah titles like
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, The Pillars of the Earth, The Road, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, East of Eden, I Know This Much is True, She’s Come Undone or
The Deep End of the Ocean.
Rating: really liked it
This book reminded me of a grown-up VC Andrews, except you can read it on the subway without feeling like a pervy 12 year-old. Very Gothic at times and the crazy family drama had me reading non-stop, despite all the main characters being unlikeable assholes in one way or another. One thing that bugged me was that some of the writing didn't seem historically accurate. Did people in the 1920s really say "barf?" Maybe they did, I don't know. Regardless, I couldn't put this down and I blew through it in a couple days.
Rating: really liked it
I have had this piece by Ann-Marie MacDonald on my to-read shelf for a significant amount of time, but never found the time to read it. When I took the plunge, I kicked myself for waiting so long, as there was a great deal to enjoy within it and seems worthy of the accolades it’s received. New Waterford, Nova Scotia is a small town on Cape Breton Island, along Canada’s East Coast. At the turn of the 20th century, things were bustling and the population quite varied. It was this that brought James Piper and Materia Mahmoud together in a union of forbidden love. James, who is without a strong religious morality, did not sit well with the staunch Catholic Mahmouds, whose Lebanese background left them little choice but to disown Materia. Once married, the Pipers began building the foundation of their family, which included a slew of daughters: Kathleen, Mercedes, Frances, and much later on, Lily. What follows is a tale of drama and intrigue that pushes the Pipers to the brink. In a family so apparently tightly-woven is a pile of secrets, both from the outside world and amongst themselves, that no unit could be expected to come out of it without cracks. With a skill all her own, Kathleen heads to New York City to pursue a dream while James leaves to fight in the Great War for Canada (and Britain). By the end of the skirmish, both of them would experience life-altering events that would change the narrative forever. Struck by a number of tragedies in short order, the Pipers grow and evolve in a multi-generational story that exemplifies how decisions are catalysts for familial metamorphosis. As the years pass, some of these secrets come to the surface, while new and devastating ones emerge, taking these Piper women to new depths as they try to define themselves against the backdrop of an ever-changing small-town Canada feel. Brilliant in its delivery, MacDonald holds the reader’s attention throughout. Recommended to those who love familial sagas that build on themselves, as well as the reader who prefers small-town stories and their unique narrative pathways.
I remember reading another of MacDonald’s novels years ago and being fully committed from the get-go. The story, the style, and the characters all came together nicely and left me wanting more. However, I never found the push to reach for this book and actually read it until now. This story sees many of the Pipers take the protagonist’s seat and so I won’t choose just one. That being said, I can admit that all of these characters come together effectively to complement one another and help thicken the plot while aiding in creating wonderful backstory and development for one another. From the struggles of raising a family in the early 20th century to familial abandonment, the shock of war to the loss of a loved one, the confusion of one’s place in the family unit to finding a place in the world. All these are struggles faced throughout this powerful book whose narrative never lets the reader take a breath. MacDonald contrasts all these against a time when speaking out was less fashionable and the mighty hand came down on those who stepped out of line. Using Nova Scotia as a setting was brilliant, as it adds even more to the story, both for its wonderful scenery and less electrified feel. McDonald is able to inject some big city moments in New York, but there is something about the sheltered life on Cape Breton that spoke to me. With detailed chapters that serve more as family vignettes, MacDonald paints a wonderful picture of events as they progress throughout history. While this is a long book, it is sure to grip the reader in such a way that the pages will flow easily and the plot will keep the story moving. Patience is a virtue and MacDonald rewards that type of reader throughout this piece.
Kudos, Madam MacDonald, for this stunning piece that opened my eyes to so very much about the time, the region, and your writing!
Love/hate the review? An ever-growing collection of others appears at:
http://pecheyponderings.wordpress.com/
A Book for All Seasons, a different sort of Book Challenge: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...
Rating: really liked it
An amazingly harsh view of the hardships of life.
This book is most definitely one of my favorites. It is absolutely amazing. It's scandalous, it's real, it's intriguing, it's just plain -good-! MacDonald's writing style creates an interactive world that pulls you in to first person view of the characters' lives.
The story follows the Piper family, a unique little set up of father and four daughters. Mr. Piper's wife has passed, leaving him to fend for himself in a home bursting to the seams with the drama of being a young girl growing up with three other sisters. Kathleen, the eldest of the girls, has been sent away to live out her father's vision of fame and perfection with her glorious voice. Left behind are Frances (a fiesty middle child who lives by her own rules), Lily (the youngest of the four, living with a crippled leg and a strong desire to please and do good), and Mercedes (the second eldest, longing to take the place of their late mother and following her faith closely and fiercely). Each girl has their own story which is brimming with secrets that are both outrageous and real. Mystery is around every corner, and controversy hides behind each one.
If I had to describe it in one word, it would be "intense". Every story is intertwined in surprising and unexpected ways. It's difficult to not fall in love with someone in the novel because there really is somebody for everyone to relate to.
If you can stomach some harsh, dramatic reality with believable characters in a world covered with a dark veil of the unexpected, then this book may be the right way to go.
Rating: really liked it
This book left me wanting to slash my wrists-- especially when I think about the time I spent reading it that I can never get back.
Many people loved this book. I am not one of them. The characters are shallow,self-involved and just plain crazy and while I realize that this is just like the people you meet in your everyday I life, it doesn't necessarily mean I want to read about them unless they are delivered in a well-written story that makes them shine a little. This is not that kind of story.
Reading this book (and I persisted because I am an open-minded reader) was like trudging through mud. And as open-minded as I am, I just could not take the rather graphic descriptions of molestation and incest. Ms. MacDonald, some times less is more.
About 100 pages before the end I was ready to quit. I'd had all I could take of the simpering, whining, craziness and frequent spinelessness of the Piper family. I only kept reading because I was actually interested in the story of what happened to Kathleen in New York.
Rating: really liked it
Actually, I give this sort of a three b/c the author's style was oddly skillful, as a story though, it left a bitter taste in my mouth. Parts of the books were intriguing, other parts disturbing -- but given the subject matter I see no way around that; and yet, I can't quite get past it either.
Frankly I'm just really conflicted. The writing style was definitely interesting. Choppy, metaphoric, sensational; the author was very effective in putting me inside the characters' heads. I admire her ability, but sometimes I wanted out b/c it was such a dreadful place to be.
The father was a dispicable man, and there is no getting around that. The forgiveness between him and Frances at the end was somewhat redeeming -- sort of. The way Frances sent Lilly out into the world was weird. And the ending was unsatisfying regarding every character, except for Frances's son.
Hmm...I think I'll be puzzling over this one for awhile, and maybe that was the author's goal. If so, then I give her 5 stars. I guess the best way to describe this book is mostly interesting, and extremely unsettling. Read at your own risk.
Rating: really liked it
Okay - this is the second "Oprah's Book Club" book that I've read and, like DROWNING RUTH(Christina Schwartz), I disliked the story due to the disturbingly depressing plot. In DROWNING RUTH, the whole idea of a mentally-ill and controlling aunt (Amanda) ruining the life of her little niece (Ruth) after the girl's mother (Mathilda) mysteriously fell through the ice and drowned one cold winter eve was merely depressing; in FALL ON YOUR KNEES, however,the pervading theme of incest was more than distressing, it was just downright gross (and this is from an open-minded reader NOT easily shocked or bothered by sexual content!) Although I am always interested in reading books that deal with sensitive and even shocking topics (sometimes this makes a book more interesting!), I just don't find a need to experience incest in such poetic prose!
There's one thing I don't get - in the description on the back cover, the story is called "menacingly dark and hilariously funny" and it is also called "darkly humorous". Maybe I'm missing something or perhaps I'm not sophisticated enough, but I just don't see any humor at all in this distressing tale - and, like I said, I'm a very open-minded reader!
Rating: really liked it
Lily stays sitting. “Frances. What if Ambrose is the Devil?” “He’s not the Devil. I know who the Devil is and it isn’t Ambrose.” “Who’s the Devil?” Frances crouches down as if she were talking to Trixie. “That’s something I’ll never tell you, Lily, no matter how old you get to be, because the Devil is shy. It makes him angry when someone recognizes him, so once they do the Devil gets after them. And I don’t want the Devil to get after you.” “Is the Devil after you?”
“Yes.” This is Ann-Marie MacDonald's debut novel. I need to keep reminding myself about this fact that it's a debut novel because it is a polished work of complexity and beauty.
Fall on Your Knees, set in Cape Breton at in the first half of the 20th century, tells the story of Materia, Kathleen, Mercedes, Frances, and Lily - i.e. all the women of the Piper family. Each woman has a voice, a distinct history, a distinct outlook on life - and a distinct fate. So, really this is a novel with five main characters - not to mention James, who dwells at the centre of all their lives.
This book has so many layers that it was easy to be sucked into the world of the Pipers. But it is not a comfortable place. Far from it, it is a world full of harshness, brutality, and abuse, where each of the characters is trying to escape the confines of what holds them. Be it religion, loyalty, or something else - each character has their own form of imprisonment.
"God did not put me on this earth to stand by while my sister Frances is killed. Beaten is one thing. Wrongly touched is one thing. Stabbed with a bayonet is another. Push. Be strong enough to carry the burden of sin that goes with doing the right thing. There is only one saint in this family and I’m not it. God has made Mercedes a judge. No one loves you for that. Not like a crippled child who’s prone to visions. Whom Mercedes prizes. Not like a fallen woman who makes people laugh. Whom Mercedes loves." When reading some of the reviews, the aspect that I have picked up on most is that people have read this because it was an Oprah bookclub read. I am usually hesitant to follow up hyped up books, but sometimes, just sometimes, they are a exactly the type of book that will work their way into your soul.
Fall on Your Knees is a perfectly constructed family saga, but it is also more than this. It is a beautifully sketched insight into the human condition.
Mercedes is neither a saint nor a sinner. She is somewhere in between. She is why purgatory was invented.
Rating: really liked it
I discovered Ann-Marie MacDonald by accident, when I bought The Way the Crow Flies in a used bookstore during a biblioemergency. She hooked me instantly with her ability to get inside childhood, and her searingly real portraits of life in the 1960s, with the bonus of superb storytelling acumen and writing that is a pleasure to read. I read Fall on Your Knee second and had that wonderful enjoyment of a second shot of a writer who you liked so much the first time you didn't think you could have that pleasure again. Not only was Fall On Your Knees similarly satisfying, but it was uniquely satisfying for AMM's ability to create a nearly perfect gothic novel, along with all her other amazing traits. If I had to compare her to another writer, it would be Annie Proulx for her ability to give great reading plasure from the darkest of stories.
Rating: really liked it
there are 17,636 ratings and 1,500 reviews of this book. if you want to see them all you have to scroll through
eight hundred sixteen pages. i just noticed because i wanted to see if anyone else found this novel picaresque. no one did in the first three pages. if someone could search the other 813 and report to me, i'd be grateful.
so, i found this novel picaresque, or at least somewhat picaresque. it seems clearly picaresque to me when frances is in the narrative. i don't have a tremendous passion for the picaresque and the rocambolesque. i like my stories neat and real and possibly tidy. this is sprawling and untidy, even though almost all the strands are tied at the end. (view spoiler)
[the only thing i really do not understand is why frances wanted to have a kid, and to have it with ginger. i truly have no clue. (hide spoiler)]it is also an extraordinarily quirky and strange novel, though i've seen reviewers say that it is a straight and ordinary read. this is my explanation: canadian literature is invariably quirky, but if you are canadian you won't notice it. that's how we know which reviewers are canadians.
it took me two weeks to read this. it's a long time. frances' adventures, while fascinating and absolutely crazy, didn't draw me in enough to pull long reading stretches and i think that overall the novel might have gained from being shorter and on fewer tracks.
but i'm quibbling. this story belongs to mercedes, frances, and lily. materia is sacrificed at the altar of the multi-generational format, which is a shame because her madness is so, so interesting. women stay alive by going mad. it happens in books over and over. it happens in life. we stay alive by going mad.
but the story belongs to the three sisters and this is an exceptional sister story. this is what it shows: that sisterhood (the familial kind) is tremendously powerful but also a force so strong that it must be reined in gently and firmly, and never allowed to get out of control. sisterhood can keep you sane and happy and make you feel deeply loved in the midst of terrible mayhem -- and kill you the next moment. i speak as someone who has three sisters. sisters who have survived three or four world wars together may not be able to remain good to each other. when their love turns poisonous, they can choose to stay and be poisoned, or leave. there is an extraordinary act of love toward the end. it concerns frances and lily. watch for it.
i don't know what it is with the violence of fathers. i wish i knew.
this book is listed here on goodreads in many lesbian lists. if you are reading it for the lesbian story you'll have to wait a good long time, because it takes place at the very end. if it had been stuck in the middle, fewer people might have remembered it and thus bothered to classify this book as a lesbian book. there is a queer undertone under all of it, though, and the lesbian story is extremely beautiful. still, i would not consider this a lesbian book.
i think i may be done with anne-marie macdonald. i have spent two weeks with her and her mind has blown mine, but i don't feel a great need to spend another 800 pages in her company (she has written only two novels). i may, however, read her plays.
lily piper may be one of the most fabulous literary creations of all time.
Rating: really liked it
A novel full of dark secrets, revealed gradually over the course of its immense length. I had this book on my shelf for over three years before attempting to read it, wondering how the author would sustain my interest over its 560-plus pages. And, once making the bold attempt to finally pick-up the book, I had difficulty putting it down at times.
The novel is visual, reminiscent of a screenplay. MacDonald uses a variety of techniques to hook the reader: the rapid mixing of tenses and point-of-view, anchoring the story along pivotal events and replaying those scenes from different vantage points like different camera angles applied for the same screen shot, hiding information in scenes and gradually revealing more clues in subsequent takes of the same scene, using combinations of journal, memory, snappy and irreverent dialogue and tight unconventional narrative that focuses on visual imagery rather than on syntactical propriety - yes, a masterful performance for a first novel, and great learning for emerging novelists.
This story has a resemblance to the King Lear tale but is not as obvious as in recent re-takes such as Jane Smiley's "A Thousand Acres". The patriarch, James Piper, marries a Lebanese child-bride and begets daughters, some whose mothers are unclear until the end. There is Kathleen the budding opera singer, Frances the evil one, Mercedes the pious one, and the crippled Lilly the saint. Incest is at the core, which hobbles and fractures the family over a time horizon spanning the dawn of the twentieth century to the 1950's
Pivotal events such as Kathleen's tragic birthing of twins and its series of catastrophic aftershocks, Frances' shooting and the events that precede and follow, the unravelling of what happened to Kathleen in New York - are all launching points to move the story forward and grip the reader in a non-stop read.
The four sisters emerge gradually from their childhood as the indistinguishable offspring of James Piper, into fully flushed characters with different personalities and histories over the time span of this novel. Unfortunately, Momma, or Materia their Lebanese mother, gets no accolades for the girls' destiny, apart from a few Arabic words they banter around, and the occasional Middle Eastern dish they prepare for James. Daddy, in his twisted, well meaning way, gets all the credit for the disasters that befell their lives.
A great read, I recommend it.
