For a long time, this feels like a romance novel: swooning and fawning women, silent and hunky men. Vomit, vomit, vomit. And then, just when the novel is about to end and you're so fed up with the number of times Ann Grant says that Harris Arden "affected her curiously", then, all of a sudden, right near the end, in the face of an awful tragedy, the characters become real, and then you wonder if it was worth suffering through everything else to see a tiny glimpse of the human condition.The central story of Evening is that of a dying woman rediscovering her own life through memories that flood back to her on her deathbed. At her death, Ann Lord--nee Grant, then Katz, then Stackpole, then Lord, finally--realizes that nothing really meant anything but the "true love" she discovered during a two-day affair with an engaged man that she met at a friend's wedding. The central conceit of Evening is that this true love is anything deeper than the adolescent impulses of one Romeo and one Juliet, two teenagers with oversized crushes. Ok, let's pause for a moment. I'm a romantic. I love serendipity and sensuality. But life--and love, too--are larger than single encounters. Romantic and ecstatic moments are romantic and ecstatic, but they are only a part of what makes our lives rich.In Evening, if the next forty years of Ann Lord's life pale next to one night of groping and one night of steamy sex in the forest with her burning love doctor, then the novel reveals either Ann Lord's limits, or it suggests a narrow range of earthly purpose. Yes, we are sexual beings, but let's acknowledge that meaning can come in many forms.Let's pause again. I'm an idea guy--it's what being a romantic means. Ideas are ways of seeing things; they are fresh perspectives and thoughts. But, while I engage and pursue ideas, I do my damnedest to temper them with doses of real, hard worldliness. In Evening, we're beaten with an idea for over two hundred pages--an idea of romance, characters we're supposed to believe in: struggling but beautiful women, heroic but wounded men, clever and charming friends. And this main cast coexists with the lesser cast of the novel: depthless queens, consistent and dull semi-friends that adore but bore. But let's not call these people characters; they're caricatures. Their complexity is contrived, or nonexistent. They are ideas of people, and even if we believe in them, their belief in each other is even less substantial. Only in the end does anything real happen that snaps everyone out of their fancy and into a complexity that we, the readers, can finally believe. A complexity something like our own.I wanted to enjoy this book, but I didn't. I met Susan Minot briefly once, and she impressed me. Alas.This is not to say, however, that this book does not have value. It is well written--like a symphony assembled by an expert composer, but based on a melodramatic melody. The craft of construction is there; it is varied and rich and laden with layers of meaning. Read the professional reviews to find out more about this. It withstands close scrutiny. It is full of stuff. But the story it tells is tedious and made of neon colors.Do I recommend it? No. Would I teach it? No. It sustains close reading, but I just wouldn't enjoy it.Lasting impression: It makes me wonder if there is a value to escapism. This is far, far better in its craft than supermarket fiction, but it reminds me of it nonetheless. The main character is caught up in herself, and we're meant to be caught up with her. If you are, then lucky you.
Being a fan of some of Susan Minot's other work, I was kind of disappointed in this book. It started off really slowly, and I almost gave up on it entirely. I just could not get into it, I found parts of it seemed poorly written. I am not a fan of the pages of run on, mixed up thoughts that went on too long. The story of what happened years ago in Ann's life, while attending the wedding of her friend, is the only thing that kept the book going. The rest of it seemed thrown in at weird times, and too scattered. I know that it was all relevant, but unfortunately it wasn't woven into the story very well.The book only picked up and got interesting about a third of the way through, and I think a lot of people would not have even gotten that far. I only did because I wanted to like the book so much. I really enjoyed everything else I have read by Minot, and that coupled with the description on the back made me keep picking the book up hoping that it would redeem itself, even if I could only get through a few pages at a time until part way through. I am glad I didn't just toss it aside, and at least finished reading it, because the second half of the book was much more captivating, but it is still my least favourite of her work so far. I wouldn't recommend it for anyone who isn't already a fan Minot. If this had been the first of her work I had read, I would likely have never picked up anything else by her, which would be a shame. I would definitely recommend picking up Monkeys, Folly, or Lust & Other Stories before reading this.Interestingly enough, I noticed there was a movie made based on the book, and after watching the trailer, and I think I would actually find the movie more interesting. Fortunately, and unfortunately they drastically changed the story for the movie, which I have always found annoying when they base a movie on a book and then change the story so much that it hardly resembles the book at all, in this case I think they probably improved upon the story.
Do You like book Evening (1999)?
This novel is simply about the tragic life of Ann Lord at the age of 65. Susan Minot takes the reader to a time when the protagonist was younger and happier—in the present time she is terminally ill, diagnosed with cancer. Through the eyes of Ann, you see her younger self fall in love with the man of her dreams, Harris, during a weekend wedding. Harris is betrothed to another woman, and marries her dutifully. Heartbroken, Ann goes through life alone. She compares her many husbands to the man she fell in love with, and realizes on her death bed that life was never the same. It is a tragic realization, a discovery that allows the reader to feel an extreme pain through her words. tSusan Minot takes an interesting angle. She does a fantastic job of showing the reader—not telling. We are taken through Ann’s life in stages. She is first seen as a single woman who falls in love with Harris. As the story progresses, Ann marries three times. The reader meets her five children, each telling a story about her marriage. The writer does an amazing job creating three dimensional characters. As in life, children are all created differently and loved differently. Ann Lord shows her passions toward the children differently and with each passing husband we see her love dissatisfaction growing more distant. tEvening, by Susan Minot, had an uncomplicated plot. There was controversy and climactic scenes, but it was all very predictable. I believe that this comes from the time period it was written about. The romantic era was very predictable; people did not marry because of love. Instead, they married for security and within their class systems. It was taboo to do anything unordinary out of love, as the readers can see with Ann. She lives an unhappy life because the man of her dreams would have been killed socially had he left his wife to be. tWhat is interesting and different about this novel is the diction and structure. To portray the dying woman correctly, run-on sentences and thought fragments are seen often. The structure is confusing and looks unedited, without quotation marks surrounding words spoken. However, I believe this worked in the author’s favor. The fact that Ann is dying creates a dilemma, her thoughts are jumbled and confused. She has learned that she didn’t have a fulfilling life, creating more depression and confusion. On her death bed, we see exactly what Susan Minot wants the reader to see—a sad and dying woman.tAlthough this book was somewhat simple in plot, the structure creates tension and shows the reader the sadness in the situation. We learn of Ann’s first love and of her dying days—how she did not fulfill her life’s ambitions. tAs a reader, I learned that vocabulary and structure are as important as the plot. The point of view used in this novel makes it extremely interesting to read and is original in form.
—Lauren Davidson
This book could have been good, instead it left me hating all the characters except for Buddy Wittenborn who turned out to be more consequential to the story than he originally appeared. The author uses a LOT of stream of consciousness, which worked well in some places and was too jumbled to actually read and understand in others. In what I assume was an attempt to show the jumbled stream of thoughts in Ann's mind, she would write entire pages without using any punctuation whatsoever--no periods, no commas, nothing--which was, in my opinion, rude to her readers. Also, she was too lazy to use quotation marks or any other notation to mark dialogue making it extremely difficult to tell who was speaking and what was actually spoken in the same paragraph. Overall, the characterization of Ann was good, though it was almost impossible for me to actually like Ann. The imagery created by the author was also good, though sometimes extremely random. Minot clearly has an eye for detail and vivid imagery, she's just an unfortunately bad story teller.
—Laura
Stunning. I sat down and consumed this book in one evening. I know the movie has been dragged over the coals (and I have yet to see it), but I found the book beautiful and moving. The story for those who have escaped seeing the trailer is about a woman (Ann) at the end of her life, who looks back and remembers the events over the course of her friend's wedding weekend which lead her to meet her life's true love, Harris Arden. However, life is complicated and she and Harris are not to be, and so Ann moves forward with life but is forever changed by the events of the weekend. The book follows Ann floating in and out of the past and present, which Minot pulls off gracefully but which could easily be botched on film. It's been a while since a book had such a profound effect on me, I just adored Minot's exploration of how a chance encounter can color and shape the rest of one's life. Like, one of my favorite books, Mrs. Dalloway this is a novel that I can imagine picking up and reading favorite passages again and again. It really is that heart wrenchingly beautiful.
—Anne
