Kay's Bookshelf

The book shows its promise from the very first line, as the narrator announces he could count his overdoses on one hand, letting the reader assume that, oh well, this means he’s had at most five such problems. But then Daniel (as we later find out he’s currently called) enumerates his list and it contains six items. A first reason to wonder and a first hint at what makes Daniel special: he has six fully-formed fingers on his left hand. A first piece of the puzzle Daniel turns out to be, and in a way a symbol of what he’s become: the doctors think that the extra digit means that something may be wrong with his brain too (but that’s only a theory since his parents couldn’t afford to have him checked). There are more obvious signs attesting that too, as Daniel had a delayed development as a toddler (couldn’t talk until five) and in junior school he had to be enrolled in special children classes. There simply are some parts of life that don’t make sense to him (for example he failed the Rorschach test miserably because he couldn’t see anything but blots there), but there are also parts where he’s incredibly gifted at (mostly anything to do with numbers, geographical coordinates and, for lack of a better word, calligraphy).

And yet, despite all this and despite his somewhat dysfunctional family, our hero could have led a more or less ordinary life. He’s had a stint in jail, for forgery, when he was sixteen, and had decided to start a new life under a borrowed name, with a clean slate and all. Enter one more effect of his possible brain affliction: he has incredibly painful headaches that last for days, headaches that never appear on any doctor’s scan but that tormented him so intensely that most of the time he ended up ODing ’cause he didn’t care anymore what pills he took and how many of them. Having grown up near a psychiatric hospital and knowing the awful things that may happen to the patients in such places, Daniel focuses all his resources on escaping the possibility, reinventing a new name and character for himself after each and every encounter with the law.

On a personal note, I am not sure how I felt about the protagonist. I rooted for him and felt sorry for him when life treated him bad. But he is not only a victim to circumstances (his darn headaches), genetics (his father drank too much and it seems like our hero will follow in his footsteps) or bad luck (the time he landed into prison through virtually no fault of his own). He has no respect for the law (as in he stole lots of things when he was younger) and is a dedicate cocaine user (a habit that doesn’t help his health any). At times I did wonder why doesn’t he just clean up his act, leaving the past behind once and for all (as even the best forgery is not without risks) — however the author has done a great job creating unavoidable circumstances and I had no other chance than to understand, yet again, how a new identity change is the only way to go forward. I could have done without the drug addiction though.

A quote that explains the title:

Told a girl once that I’d wanted to be a contortionist. Saw a guy on TV when I was younger, bend, twist and crumple his body into an air tight box no bigger than a knapsack. Stayed inside for two hours, like he didn’t breathe at all. When they opened the box, he crawled out slowly like some strange hatching thing, every bone intact and breathing like normal. I can’t explain it, but that seems closer to what I do than any thing else.

And another quote whose imagery I liked:

Picture a shattering window, each piece of glass—from the biggest shard to the tiniest sliver—is a thought, a memory, an idea or an impulse, tumbling end over end in every direction at once, every minute of your life, from your first heartbeat to your last. Imagine stopping the film in a split moment, then running it back wards. Imagine the billions of jagged fragments magnetized in an instant, pulled back into an unfractured whole, crystal clear. That’s what it feels like. The perpetual whirlwind of vaporous memories and regrets goes away.

What I liked most: All the small details in Daniel/John/Eric/Steve/etc.’s mind. His very way of thinking was interesting to me. I like to think I learned a lot from what he said (mostly when it came to the way psychoanalysts categorize the people in front of them) but unfortunately I’ll probably forget every detail in a short while. I very much liked reading about that though :)

Oh, and I also thought the end was as close to a perfect one as possible. :) (in my eyes the fact that show spoiler

What I liked least: May I mention the cover? I have no idea why but I really didn’t like it — I get its point (a contortionist) but the knee bended in the opposite direction than normal was an image I didn’t care to look at.

Recommend it to? I encourage everyone to give it a try, as I have found it to be quite captivating (remembering me at times of a tamer Chuck Palahniuk) (speaking of Mr. P, he liked it too, according to the cover, so this should be an extra incentive for his fans :) ).

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Popularity: 16% [?]

It is interesting that, despite our heroine doing such a bad thing as posing as someone else and deceiving the trust some very nice people had in her, the author has chosen to portray her in such a way that the reader cannot help liking her and rooting for her. She is, after all, a nice person, one that is going through some rough patches, but inherently nice. I have liked her a lot, as I did Bill — as I did all of the characters actually but one (the villain, naturally).

I started reading this book because I have seen the movie made after it (Mrs. Winterbourne), a romantic comedy I thought quite nice. I was surprised to see the book being a lot less flighty than expected (especially when it came to the ending, which was deeply ironic and sad at the same time — a thing which, understandably enough, they left out from the movie). As a tiny detail, I have found it quite amusing to notice that in the movie they also changed the main family name from Hazzard to Winterbourne (my guess is because the initial one reminded people too much of “The Dukes of Hazzard”, creating confusion). Not that the two (book and movie) have anything else in common other than the characters and the main plot.

Two quotes I liked (among many, the book is beautifully written):

It was laughter.
Her eyes wreathed into oblique slits, and her lips slashed back, and harsh broken sounds came through. Like rusty laughter. Like laughter left in the rain too long, that has got all mildewed and spoiled.

What makes you stop, when you have stopped, just where you have stopped? What is it, what? Is it something, or is it nothing? Why not a yard short, why not a yard more? Why just there where you are, and nowhere else?

Some say: It’s just blind chance, and if you hadn’t stopped there, you would have stopped at the next place. Your story would have been different then. You weave your own story as you go along.

But others say: You could not have stopped any place else but this even if you had wanted to. It was decreed, it was ordered, you were meant to stop at this spot and no other. Your story is there waiting for you, it has been waiting for you there a hundred years, long before you were born, and you cannot change a comma of it. Everything you do, you have to do. You are the twig, and the water you float on swept you here. You are the leaf and the breeze you were borne on blew you here. This is your story, and you cannot escape it, you are only the player, not the stage manager. Or so some say.

What I liked most: The way the author described Helen/Patrice’s feelings, especially at the times when she felt secure and unexposed — she felt a full-rights member of the family, she felt like she belonged, like the house was not just a house but her home.

What I liked least: This is probably a mistake of mine and not the book’s, but all the time while reading I couldn’t help wonder about IDs with photos. I am not sure whether they had them at the time when the action took place (if they didn’t then it’s my bad) but if they did the whole story is highly unlikely, especially as both girls’ purses were found at the crash place. I would have preferred the purses to burn or something, destroying all their papers (with or without photos), it would have been a lot more plausible this way.

Recommend it? Yes, it’s captivating and the writing is beautiful.

Written by the same author:
Waltz Into Darkness

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Popularity: 13% [?]

Louis is an ordinary man brought in some extraordinary situations. All he wants is a family, a wife and possibly some children. His life turns into a total chaos once he meets Bonnie and falls in love with her – he becomes a fugitive for her sake, leaving behind every single bit of his former life. He is such a simple and honest person and all through the book I kept feeling he deserved so much more than the bits and pieces sometimes Bonnie threw his way. Above all he didn’t deserve his all-consuming loneliness – one sacrificing so much to be with the one he loves shouldn’t feel lonely, right? And yet…

The last thing he said was: “Take care of yourself, Lou.”
“If I don’t, who else will?” Durand answered from the depths of his aloneness. “Who is there in this whole wide world who will ?”

This book illustrates very well the idea of “love is blind”. At first Louis sees Bonnie a way better person than she is, finding her all sorts of excuses for her behavior. Interestingly enough, even when he manages at last to see her true face and to see the real motives behind her actions, he still loves her so much that she doesn’t care. I think we can say that Louis has for Bonnie the perfect kind of love – he keeps loving her regardless to the fact that she stole his money, that she’s greedy and at times vulgar, that her past is a mystery, that she doesn’t love him, that she cheated on him – even when she poisons him and keeps him from seeing a doctor, Louis’ love never wavers.

As for Bonnie… I think the quote best depicting her is the one saying that she had no moral sense at all. All she cares about is money and the pleasure of the current moment. I started reading this book because the movie “Original Sin” is made after it – a movie I like very much due to its seemingly all consuming passion. I expected to find a Bonnie similar to the one in the movie – not perfect but loving Louis the way he loved her. She isn’t and she doesn’t. All she sees in Louis is a way for her to the luxurious lifestyle she so much likes. She treats Louis well as long as he has anything to offer her; stops doing so when he doesn’t, without once stopping to think about him as a man or as a human being.

What I liked most: The wording. Woolrich uses some very nice word constructions to build up powerful imagery (for example when Bonnie leaves the house seems to Louis so filled with broken hopes that he thinks he could actually step on them).

What I liked least: I don’t think I can put here the fact that I didn’t like how Bonnie destroyed Louis’ life, can I? After all there would have been no novel without that. Nevertheless I kept wishing throughout the book that Louis might be spared at least part of his troubles. :)

Recommend it? Yes.

Two quotes:

“A man without a wife, ‘he ain’t a whole man at all, he’s just a shadow walking around without no one to cast him.”

——–

His heart said a prayer. Not knowing to whom, but asking it of the nothingness around him, that he had plunged himself into of his own accord.
“Make her love me,” he pleaded mutely, “as I love her. Open her heart to me, as mine is open to her. If she can’t love me in a good way, let it be in a bad way. Only, in some way. _Any_ way, at all. This is all I ask. For this I’ll give up everything. For this I’ll take whatever comes, even the ace of spades.”

Written by the same author:
I Married a Dead Man

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Popularity: 21% [?]