Rating: 4/5
Review:
Intelligent, insightful and readable
I enjoyed this book.
It had its flaws, but it is well written and readable and it has some
important things to say.
It's not an easy book to summarize, but it is principally a
novel of character. The main protagonist
is Veblen Amundsen-Hova, a slightly quirky 30-year-old in Palo
Alto, California, who is to be
married to Paul, a medical researcher.
Veblen is named after Thorstein Veblen, the 19th- and early
20th-Century radical social thinker.
No – I hadn't heard of him either, but he coined the term
"conspicuous consumption" among a lot of other significant insights,
and his thinking and place in society plays quite a large part in this novel.
The book is chiefly about Veblen's humane view of the world,
her recognisable self-doubt and questioning, and her rich (if slightly bonkers
at times) appreciation of the wonder and beauty of the world, as opposed to the
shallow, grasping materialism of some of the rest of society. It's very well done for the most part; Elizabeth
McKenzie paints very convincing portraits of a rich cast of characters and
shows a believable range of reactions to the difficulties of life –including
Veblen's monstrously self-obsessed mother, who is a brilliantly disturbing
character. There is also a well-aimed
swipe at the greed, cynicism and corruption in the US
health system, and plenty of intellectual content, including thoughtful
reflections on what a life should be and what we van expect from it.
I may have made it sound a bit dry, but I found the whole
thing engrossing and readable. McKenzie
does let things go a bit toward the end, I think, with a tendency to explain to
us slightly clumsily what she has already rather deftly shown us. Also, lot of people have convenient and not
wholly believable insights and moments of self-awareness - and in one case an
almost farcical Come-Uppance. These
aren't the saccharine little Life Lessons which sometimes pollute the end of
novels, but it didn't feel of the same quality as the rest of the book to me.
Overall, though, this is an intelligent, insightful and
readable book which I enjoyed. I can
recommend it.
(I received a free ARC via Netgalley.)
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