On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon

Rating:
Summary: audio book
Review: I strongly suggest getting the audio version of this book, if traveling is in your future. It is wonderfully narrated by Polly Holliday (Flo on the TV sitcom Alice). Her talents as a storyteller exceeded my expectations from her infamous line "kiss my grits" on Alice. The book is very entertaining, and her ability to develop distinct voices for the many characters in the book is unmatched.

Rating:
Summary: Papa bad, Mama good....
Review: Saints Emma Garnet and her husband Quincy grated my nerves so much I wished the South would have won! The characters were completely flatline. Papa very bad, mother angelic, Negroes very good, war very bad. There they were reading Aristotle and Latin verse to their children under the spreading Sycamore and they still had time to turn their house into a hospital,sing to the rebel soldiers who had either just lost their arm or intestinal tract, send every desperate kid that turned up to school, make clothes for the poor and.... that was just before their freed black maid took the kids on for a bit of extra classical Greek before their collard greens.God they were good to that woman.

When Quincy died of overwork what was his widow to do? Why, open a school for freed slaves,volunteer at a lunatic asylum, buy a factory,start a clothing business and run a pottery operation of course! With all her daughters married to professionals and making pantloads of money she had to fill in her time somehow.

This book, which I actually read at wartp speed has had an ill effect on my delicate humours. Why I can barely look at a glass of lemonade or a gingersnap without feelin' faint. In fact I think I am going out now to volunteer my services at the local asylum...before I make bandages from my hoop skirt and finish off the shoes for my neighbours kids.

Rating:
Summary: Civil War Stereotyping
Review: Brutish father, ailing mother, strong-willed oldest daughter, ill-starred son, stalwart servant, and, a rescuer from the North. No surprises, no insight, no complexity. While is it clear that Gibbons is attempting to convey one woman's intimate knowledge of the suffering wrought by slavery and paternalism, she oversimplifies the nature of the players, distilling the Civil War down to "South bad, North good". Gibbon's Emma Garnet and her busband, Quincy, are preachy to boot. Give me a genuine narrative any day.

Rating:
Summary: A True Gem
Review: The characters created by Ms. Gibbons are some of the most touching I have ever encountered. I have read this book, cover to cover, four times over the last several years and still manager to be amused, entertained and impressed.

Rating:
Summary: One to Read
Review: Other reviewers will summarize the plot for you -- let me just say that this is an extremely well-written book, with beautiful and haunting imagery, realistic dialogue and intriguing situations. I think the device of a woman looking back on her life on the occasion of her last afternoon on earth is quite brilliant. I read that Kaye Gibbons mentored Charles Frazier through his writing of Cold Mountain. This book is like Cold Mountain in that it shows war in all its grimy squalor and blows the myth that war is noble and pure. I enjoyed it very much, as I do most of Kaye Gibbons work.

Rating:
Summary: Touching
Review: Lyrically written, this is a novel of exquisite prose and razor sharp insight. ON THE OCCASION... achieves a better job of describing the Civil War than dozens of other books have done. The story is told from the viewpoint of a woman of great humanity, a true Southerner with a native's love of her home. Her outlook about the South is balanced, however, by the fact that she has married a member of the famous Boston "Lowell" family and shares his values of decency. The description of the old, slave-based South is balanced and compassionate. And the love between the husband and wife is enviable.

Rating:
Summary: Superficially literary, but founded on no research
Review: It amazes me that someone would write, and that someone would publish, a historical novel founded so shakily as this. It's written in a literary style which fooled me at first into thinking it might be a worthwhile book. But the historical errors were very off-putting. Just to name a couple of the obvious ones: The main character is, I think (though I may be wrong, because it was never entirely clear) supposed to be living, at the time of the war, in Raleigh, North Carolina. Therefore, it is completely impossible that wounded soldiers from Gettysburg (or any other major Eastern theatre battle) could have made it to her hospital. Also, the portrayal of General McClellan raiding houses in Virginia with his "bummers" is purely ridiculous -- McClellan was actually censured for protecting Rebel property too *much*, and he wasn't even in command at the time the events are presented as happening! The characterization of Southern soldiers reveals the author to have eschewed reading McPherson, Wiley, Power or any other authority on the subject. So, historically, the book doesn't make sense. I also found the characters to be unlikeable. I actually found the father, loudmouthed and vulgar as he is, to be more appealing than the snippy, mean, judgmental daughter. I could never quite figure out why he's supposed to be so bad. There are hints that he's a wife-beater, but we're never actually shown that. And the structure of the text -- all the main character reminiscing after the events are actually done -- deprives the book of any narrative tension whatsoever. It gets two stars for the reasonably fluent writing, but overall, I'd skip this.

Rating:
Summary: A talented tale of a delightful, not 'proper' Southern lady
Review: In this novel, the protagonist-Emma- is clearly defined, characterized and introduced. Yet I am not certain of the intended antagonist; whether it was the cruel and obnoxious character she called father, or the honest harshness of the Old South and the Civil war or simply the frigidness of life itself. Regardless, all played a role in the shaping of a strong, simple, independent woman living in a time when such a woman was not politically correct. In this novel, we are privy to Emma Garnet's dying thoughts of reflection; on the occasion of her last afternoon in a world that has shown her cruelty, deception , garishness and agonizing love. The complexity and duplicity of her character is alluded to simply by her name- Emma Garnet. The name Emma conveys something classical, romantic and fragile and then is quickly followed by Garnet, something hard, strong, rigorous and yet somehow delightfully alluring. The protagonist proves to be all of these. We explore her childhood and familial relationships that make her into the person she is. As the daughter of a Southern plantation owner, Emma is influenced by her studious, yet estranged brother in the North to read and become more self educated, she learns love and devotion from her real mother, as well as a surrogate mother; the family's free black woman named Clarice. Because Clarice knows the deep secrets of her father's boyhood, she is the only person who has any control over the unruly, pretentious, morbid behavior of a man that believes in the Confederacy and does not want a daughter who communizes with the slaves, attempts to gain knowledge and basically is not interested in becoming a proper Southern lady. Luckily, Emma Garnet is couted by a man from the north-Dr. Quincy Lowell- a fair, just and contemporary man whom she soon marries. Once free from the constrictions of her father, Quincy teaches Emma Garnet to love, to trust and to overcome, he also teaches her how to become a doctor and a surgeon during the Civil War when young men were in dire need of medical assistance. Emma Garnet and her family are also influenced and often ridiculed by their fair and partial treatment of the 'slaves' that they own. They are overjoyed at the culmination of the Civil War and the freedom of their black friends, but at the same time- they are stranded with the running of a household and hospital with none of their recently freed friends to help them.

Although it's been blamed for being predictable, the vitality of the characters and the closeness the reader develops with them makes this novel well worth the reading time invested. The talented author, (Kaye Gibbons), sufferes from mental illness and said to be in a state of hypomania when writing this work of art- I guess this may have lent faith to the duplicity of the character but certainly did not negatively impact this book in the least, maybe this state is when Ms. Gibbons does her best work. I was moved by the characters, my heartstrings were tugged countless times, I admired Emma Garnet's strength, wisdom and perseverance. I empathized with her struggle to overcome tragedy and defeat; whether it be to dealing with her father, learning to become a doctor or being taught how to be a housewife in the course of one evening. The language reminded me of the aesthetically pleasing Gothic novels of Charlotte Bronte and Emily Dickenson, and it was quite an easy read. "On the Occasion of My last Afternoon" has a deep-set heart, soul and integrity, and I would most definitely recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: If only the last afternoon had come sooner!
Review: This book illustrates a perfect case for a good plot dragged out to the point of oblivion. Emma Garnet, the main character, is the daughter of a tyrannical father who strongly favors slavery and faithfully puts politics before his family of six children. Emma is a sensitive child who cleaves to her equally-kind mother and despises the person her father represents. Thankfully, when she is little more than a teenager, she is whisked away by one Dr. Quincy Lowell whom she marries and moves far, far away with, taking the family "slave" (but not really), Clarice with her. Besides feeling guilty for leaving her mother alone to deal with her father, Emma Garnet has never been happier with her husband and three baby girls. As the war begins, she works along Quincy's side in doctoring the wounded, along with feeding and educating the poor. This is where the book should have ended, about two-thirds of the way through. Instead, it drones on and on and on. Quincy is too good to be true (I have never in all my life met such a hero) and Emma Garnet becomes a woman who is constantly trying to prove how strong and wise she is. It just gets dull quick. I can honestly say as I have now read at least three of Gibbons' books, thay I am going to lay to permanent rest those I have missed thus far.

Rating:
Summary: A Beautifully Written Book
Review: A beautifully written book with a compelling story, which I found weakened by the narrators obsession with the evil father. The feeling of justifiable hatred Emma Garnet had for her father obscured her feeling of love for her husband and children, her feeling of grief and guilt for her mother's passing, the realities of war, her tiredness caring for the wounded during the war.

But maybe that is the point, perhaps we need to let go of our obsessive hatreds and get over it. They do indeed prevent our living life to its fullest. They certainly did with Emma Garnet