Grief is the Thing with Feathers
I gave this three stars because I'm not sure how I feel about it. Also, because my ratings should be whether or not I enjoyed the book, not whether or not it is actually a good book. I feel strongly that those are two different things. I think this is a very good book, and I am eager to see what else Max Porter comes up with. But I am not sure that I enjoyed it. I am not sure that I didn't enjoy it. Suffice it to say, it was very strange.
I read Grief is the Thing with Feathers for the "a book about death or grief prompt" from the PopSugar Reading Challenge, which I am doing with one of my very best friends, Cathy, who, as far as, and therefore will not be reading this review. Alas and alack. Aaaaaaanyway. This is a story of loss. It is told from the perspectives of a father and his two sons (who are interchangeable and nameless) about their loss of their wife and mother. It is also told from the perspective of Crow, the embodiment of grief, who settles in the house a few days after the mother's death, and doesn't leave until he is no longer needed. Crow is funny and menacing and kind of gross, and given to a lot of corvine stream-of-consciousness that makes me wonder if Max Porter is himself part crow, because this is what I imagine crows would say and think if only we could understand them.
The absence of the mother is a character itself. I felt her loss as a hole that the story walks around and around - until, at the very end, it doesn't. There are parts that I think anyone who has felt grief - whether from death or even just a very dear friend or family member leaving - would recognize. There's a very poignant part where the father recounts his home as a catalogue of things she would never use again "makeup, turmeric, hairbrush, thesaurus", which I felt so keenly as a remembrance of all the loved ones who've died and all the friends who have moved away.
This is a very beautiful book. And a very strange one. And a very sad one. And, at the end, a little hopeful.
I read Grief is the Thing with Feathers for the "a book about death or grief prompt" from the PopSugar Reading Challenge, which I am doing with one of my very best friends, Cathy, who, as far as, and therefore will not be reading this review. Alas and alack. Aaaaaaanyway. This is a story of loss. It is told from the perspectives of a father and his two sons (who are interchangeable and nameless) about their loss of their wife and mother. It is also told from the perspective of Crow, the embodiment of grief, who settles in the house a few days after the mother's death, and doesn't leave until he is no longer needed. Crow is funny and menacing and kind of gross, and given to a lot of corvine stream-of-consciousness that makes me wonder if Max Porter is himself part crow, because this is what I imagine crows would say and think if only we could understand them.
The absence of the mother is a character itself. I felt her loss as a hole that the story walks around and around - until, at the very end, it doesn't. There are parts that I think anyone who has felt grief - whether from death or even just a very dear friend or family member leaving - would recognize. There's a very poignant part where the father recounts his home as a catalogue of things she would never use again "makeup, turmeric, hairbrush, thesaurus", which I felt so keenly as a remembrance of all the loved ones who've died and all the friends who have moved away.
This is a very beautiful book. And a very strange one. And a very sad one. And, at the end, a little hopeful.
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