![]() ![]() ![]() A fascinating read in these difficult times. offers vivid characters and a gripping portrait of a world beset by a pandemic and political uncertainty. Donoghue seems most interested in the dramas of this one space - with which she manages to make clear the broader constrictions and injustices of an entire Irish society. In The Pull of the Stars, Emma Donoghue once again finds the light in the darkness in this new classic of hope and survival against all odds. The scenes in the 'fever/maternity' ward are so enthralling that the novel loses a bit of its fire - and realism - whenever it leaves that room, but these departures are thankfully rare. Even in Julia’s slightly euphemistic voice, the sheer attention devoted to these descriptions functions as a kind of unadorned reverence for the work and pain and strength of women - and how the paths of their lives are so often defined by the workings of their bodies. The city is ravaged by the war and the Spanish flu, referred to as grippe. In Red, midwife Julia goes to work at a Dublin hospital on October 31st 1918. The narrow aperture of the maternity ward allows Donoghue to focus on one of the novel’s most compelling preoccupations: the lives and bodies of women. Donoghue divides the novel into four sections: Red, Brown, Blue, and Black which depict three days in the life of narrator, Julia Power. Readers familiar with Donoghue’s masterly 2010 best seller, Room, will recall the focused intensity she can bring to bear on constricted spaces. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
May 2023
Categories |