Best Books of September: "Her Fearful Symmetry" by Audrey Niffenegger
The epigraph to Audrey's Niffenegger's Her Fearful Symmetry comes from The Beatles's "She Said She Said": She said, "I know what it's like to be dead. I know what it is to be sad." And she's making me fell like I've never been born. Those lyrics, inspired by Peter Fonda, who, while tripping with John, George, and Ringo, was severely harshing their mellow with talk of a childhood self-inflicted gunshot wound, serve as a fitting starting point to this haunting tale about the complications of love, identity, and sibling rivalry.
The follow-up to her breakout bestseller, The Time Traveler's Wife, opens with the death of Elspeth Noblin, who bequeaths her London flat and its contents to the twin daughters of her estranged twin sister back in Chicago. These 20-year-old dilettantes, Julie and Valentina, move to London, eager to try on a new experience like one of their obsessively matched outfits. Historic Highgate Cemetery, which borders Elspeth's home, serves as an inspired setting as the twins become entwined in the lives of their neighbors: Elspeth's former lover, Robert, a Highgate Cemetery scholar; Martin, an agoraphobic crossword-puzzle creator with extreme OCD; and the ethereal Elspeth herself, struggling to adjust to the afterlife. Niffenegger brings these quirky, troubled characters to marvelous life, but readers may need their own supernatural suspension of disbelief as the story winds to its twisty conclusion.
--BTP
batterie ordinateur portable on September 15, 2009 at 05:27 AM
Title may have changed since Audrey Niffenegger began writing this four years ago and I'm wondering how things are coming along for Audrey on what she calls "a modern victorian novel."
A story about identical twin American girls Julia and Valentina Poole who inherit their aunt's London apartment in a group of flats next to High Gate Cemetary.
Two of their neighbors are Robert Fanshaw who is a cemetery tour guide and Martin Wells who is a translator by profession but because of an obsessive-compulsive disorder he never leaves his flat.
Julia tries to cure Martin of his fear of leaving his apartment and and Robert falls in love with Valentina.
Ghosts and mistaken paternity are part of the story.
The Poole's aunt may be one of those ghosts.
hdmi on September 17, 2009 at 01:00 AM
This is really awesome edition of Audrey Niffenegger.As I had always checked all of its edition.
Personally I fell in love with the cover immediately! It's obviously taken at Highgate Cemetery and the twins in the picture mostly match the description of Valentina and Julia so I thought it couldn't be more perfect!
As for the novel itself, I've had a chance to read it and I can safely say that it's pretty damn AMAZING. I've actually reviewed it here so you can read more about it (don't worry, the review as such is spoiler free). The novel itself isn't particularly creepy at all. I mean, yes, it's a ghost story, but it's not like a horror story or anything, it's quite nice actually and the ghost thing isn't as strange as it may sound, hehe.
I personally loved it, it's a remarkable novel and I'd really recommend it, but the final decision is up to you of course.