Strange Fits of Passion by Anita Shreve
9/10
Because of the research philosophy that I have adopted in some of my research, I regard truth to be an elusive thing.
Each person sees an incident and then gives an account of it. Each account will be different. Why? Because there is no single truth. Each person sees from a different angle and sees details that another doesn't see, is more alert to some aspects than others. Each person has different motives for what they say. Each person has different perceptions based on who they are, what their lives have been like, what their day has been like. Each person, in the telling of their tale, will tell it differently because of the way they interact with the person they are telling, and also, of course, the audience (the listener) will hear it differently than it was told and will change it when they recount it.
This is really what Anita Shreve's book is about. It is a fascinating multi-voiced account of how a woman comes to kill a man. We try to understand her story from the accounts she gives to a journalist. We try to understand the sense that the journalist makes of her account, and those of witnesses and by-standers. We try to understand how the woman's daughter will attempt to understand the accounts that she receives, years later.
Anita Shreve even makes us look at out relationships and wonder - what is the truth of what is happening here? How much are any of us responsible for situations we find ourselves in?
She situates the story in 1971, when values, laws and the relationships between men and women were seen differently, and so I can't but help think about the recent historic sex-abuse cases that have been brought by women who say that, as teenagers and girls, they were sexually abused by older men.
Anita Shreve is a brilliant writer who writes deceptively easy stories, which have depths and breadth worth exploring. And all her books are connected in some way, through places and events - though I haven't worked them all out yet.
9/10
Because of the research philosophy that I have adopted in some of my research, I regard truth to be an elusive thing.
Each person sees an incident and then gives an account of it. Each account will be different. Why? Because there is no single truth. Each person sees from a different angle and sees details that another doesn't see, is more alert to some aspects than others. Each person has different motives for what they say. Each person has different perceptions based on who they are, what their lives have been like, what their day has been like. Each person, in the telling of their tale, will tell it differently because of the way they interact with the person they are telling, and also, of course, the audience (the listener) will hear it differently than it was told and will change it when they recount it.
This is really what Anita Shreve's book is about. It is a fascinating multi-voiced account of how a woman comes to kill a man. We try to understand her story from the accounts she gives to a journalist. We try to understand the sense that the journalist makes of her account, and those of witnesses and by-standers. We try to understand how the woman's daughter will attempt to understand the accounts that she receives, years later.
Anita Shreve even makes us look at out relationships and wonder - what is the truth of what is happening here? How much are any of us responsible for situations we find ourselves in?
She situates the story in 1971, when values, laws and the relationships between men and women were seen differently, and so I can't but help think about the recent historic sex-abuse cases that have been brought by women who say that, as teenagers and girls, they were sexually abused by older men.
Anita Shreve is a brilliant writer who writes deceptively easy stories, which have depths and breadth worth exploring. And all her books are connected in some way, through places and events - though I haven't worked them all out yet.
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