Endings are hard on people. They're even harder on novels. By the time readers arrive at the end of a story, they've built up an emotional and intellectual investment. They've earned - or think they've earned - a certain expertise about the plot, the tone, and the characters in between the covers.Novelists can get away with anything at the start of a book, but by the end, like it or not, writers are entangled in a kind of collaboration with their audience.Two of last year's finest books slipped off their tracks toward the end. After an intense first half, Barbara Kingsolver's "Poisonwood Bible" fractures into a collection of stories that dissipate her novel's power. "A Man in Full," Tom Wolfe's enormous and otherwise wonderful book, concludes as though the writer were running late for an appointment.Unfortunately, the same could be said for Sue Miller's engaging new novel, "While I Was Gone." What's good about Miller's writing is remarkably good. But in the end, the structure of this book is unsound. Its conclusion doesn't satisfy the high standards it sets for itself.The frank narrator, Jo Becker, has it all: a beautifully restored farmhouse in western Massachusetts, a satisfying career as a veterinarian, and an understanding husband who adores her and his own job as a minister.Jo is the first to acknowledge that hers is a wonderful life, and yet when lazily napping at one end of her husband's fishing boat, she's haunted by a nagging sense of dissatisfaction. "I had felt something like this every now and then in the last year or so, sometimes at work as I tightened a stitch or gave an injection: the awareness of having done this a thousand times before, or surely having a thousand times left to do it again. Of doing it well and thoroughly and neatly, as I like to do things, and simultaneously of being at a great distance from my own action."Miller is a master at plumbing the confluence of emotions that run through a long, loving marriage. In this highly confessional narrative, Jo trusts her husband enough to air her flashes of self-pity and episodes of melodramatic regret. They speak to one another in a mixture of affection, wisdom, and gentle mocking that only years of intimacy can build. And though she doesn't share her husband's religious faith, they've negotiated a profound respect for each other's beliefs.We're introduced to this admirable marriage just a moment before it's stretched to the breaking point. A chance encounter puts Jo back in touch with Eli, a friend from her hippie days in Cambridge. Both have thoroughly remade themselves since their bohemian days in the late '60s, but their unexpected meeting ignites old feelings of love and regret that threaten to ruin them.At this crucial point, however, the novel falters. Part of the problem is that Miller hasn't given herself enough room. Jo and Eli find themselves drawn to one another even as they revisit a grisly murder that broke up their commune 30 years ago. Miller moves so expertly through her delicate portrayal of Jo's life in the first 200 pages that it's difficult to understand why she barrels through this complex, exciting material toward the end.The other problem is that the character of Jo's husband, whom Miller has designed so expertly, reacts with baffling iciness to his wife's temptation to commit adultery. Inexplicably, the immense affection and spiritual wisdom he demonstrates through most of the book doesn't help him react more humanely to his wife's moral struggle. Instead, he withdraws at the moment she needs him most - at the moment we expect him to be there."While I Was Gone" remains a beautiful novel that raises fascinating questions about our connection to the people we once were and the ability to remake ourselves, but it's a book that leaves one wanting and deserving more.http://www.csmonitor.com/1999/0211/p1...
Reading this book was an amazing experience.WHILE I WAS GONE is an introspective and mysterious book that was completely engrossing and mesmerizing.This book made me question a lot of things about life, about pain and memories, about the past, present and the future. 'The different versions of ourselves that life keeps offering' is hard to accept, and the fact, the hard truth that the old version is gone, is more so. Are our thoughts who we really are? Having thoughts about a situation that is wrong, about a wrong act you want to commit but didn't in the end, is it wrong? Is it a crime, a wrong act, to have this thoughts in the beginning?I loved how this book questioned all of these aspects about life and our thoughts. The theme of forgiveness resonated throughout the book, with Jo,Daniel and Eli. The fact that Jo could't believe that she could ever be a person who could betray someone else, is such a human emotion, that it really astounded me with how genuine it was.We are always putting the parts of ourselves that are bad in the shadows, our subconscious shadow self. We know what this self wants, but we choose to pretend to be ignorant of it, or at least not to agree with it. So when this self truly emerges from the shadows and shows its true colours, we cannot believe that this self is actually a part of ourselves.That is what Jo Becker experiences in this story. She realises truths about herself and the past, about what forgiveness truly is, and she understands that no matter what point in life we were, there would always be parts of ourselves that we would keep secret and hide from others.And upto some extent, this wasn't wrong. But we should also understand that we have an impact on others' lives as well.Truly, this book is amazing. There were so many lessons I got from this book...I really loved it.
Do You like book While I Was Gone (2000)?
Added 2/14/11.I started reading this book 9/7/11 and finished around 9/16/11.This book kept me reading. It's the 4rd book I've read by Sue Miller. Each one seems better than the last.This book, _While I was Gone_, isn't a mystery book but there's a bit of mystery in it which keeps you reading.Below is a quote from the book which gives us some food for thought:p.266: "Perhaps it's best to live with the possibility that around any corner, at any time, may come the person who reminds you of your own capacity to surprise yourself... ... Who reminds you of the distances we have to bridge to begin to know anything about one another. Who reminds you that what seems to be -- even about yourself -- may not be."The main character in the book, told in the first-person, does a lot of reflecting about herself and others... about their personalities, their temperaments and other aspects of their natures. It's this psychological aspect of the author's books which I enjoy.
—Joy H.
The author says in the back-of-the-book interview that she found it hard to like Jo and I agree with her. I found Jo to be too self-centered and Daniel to be somewhat of a jerk. I also felt the kids were spoiled. No one in this family seems really loving. They're all involved in their own pursuits to the exclusion of everyone else. I agree that Daniel's sermon represents a turning point and was one of the more pleasurable sections. I do find it odd that Jo doesn't participate more in Daniel's life. She observes, she tolerates, she takes a vicarious pleasure in it, but she's not part of it. The closest communion they have is with the dogs. Even their children interact with them differently.
—Nancy
This story of a wife and mother suddenly revisiting her past had great moments and held my attention. Still it had long, boring passages.I found the protagonist annoying and self-indulgent in a way that didn't jibe at all with the way she thought of herself. Further, her inability to see it, even in the end left me unsatisfied.At points, her descriptions and observations, while interesting and well drawn, dragged on. Her focus on minutia rang untrue to me, her description of her marriage and her husband was so perfect, that it made what followed wholly unbelievable.In fact, all the male characters in this book, from her husband, to Eli, to the other men in "the house" felt more like a woman's fantasy of what a man is than anyone I've actually known.Not a bad pick if you're willing to have a quick read, nostalgic for the 60s, and willing to not think too much.
—Kate
