The Book Borrower: A Novel

Rating:
Summary: What makes a friendship and what makes an "examined life"?
Review: A lovely book (actually a novel inside a novel) in which the reader follows the meeting and then the intertwined lives of two friends, Toby and Deborah. The two meet in a park when their children are toddlers and Deborah lends Toby (whom she calls Ruben) a book called, Trolley Girl. The book, which takes Ruben years to finally read (she leaves it in the middle when a tragedy occurs) is the autobiography of a self proclaimed anarchist whose little sister was killed during a trolley strike in 1921.

Ruben is very taken with Deborah and the first third of the book describes the growth of their friendship as well as the first half of the Trolley Girl that Ruben begins to read. The second third of the book starts ten years later when both women are working as teachers. The relationship between them becomes more intense but also has more moments when it is strained. Ruben seems, sometimes, to behave without considering the consequences of her behavior. The last third of the book takes place ten years later and it is during this time that the friendship is struck by tragedy. It is during this time period however, that the two families actually grow closer and Ruben meets Jessie, an elderly artist who, it turns out, we have met before.

In a quiet and effective way, Mattison brings the reader to wonderful closure and in the process has skillfully examined what makes a friendship and what also makes an, "examined life". This book is extremely well crafted and very solid. I liked this book a good deal and would highly recommend it - particularly to book clubs.

Rating:
Summary: What makes a friendship and what makes an "examined life"?
Review: A lovely book (actually a novel inside a novel) in which the reader follows the meeting and then the intertwined lives of two friends, Toby and Deborah. The two meet in a park when their children are toddlers and Deborah lends Toby (whom she calls Ruben) a book called, Trolley Girl. The book, which takes Ruben years to finally read (she leaves it in the middle when a tragedy occurs) is the autobiography of a self proclaimed anarchist whose little sister was killed during a trolley strike in 1921.

Ruben is very taken with Deborah and the first third of the book describes the growth of their friendship as well as the first half of the Trolley Girl that Ruben begins to read. The second third of the book starts ten years later when both women are working as teachers. The relationship between them becomes more intense but also has more moments when it is strained. Ruben seems, sometimes, to behave without considering the consequences of her behavior. The last third of the book takes place ten years later and it is during this time that the friendship is struck by tragedy. It is during this time period however, that the two families actually grow closer and Ruben meets Jessie, an elderly artist who, it turns out, we have met before.

In a quiet and effective way, Mattison brings the reader to wonderful closure and in the process has skillfully examined what makes a friendship and what also makes an, "examined life". This book is extremely well crafted and very solid. I liked this book a good deal and would highly recommend it - particularly to book clubs.

Rating:
Summary: Alice Mattison has written a masterpiece!
Review: Alice Mattison is an exceptional, critically acclaimed author
of both short stories and novels. With "The Book Borrower,"
Mattison has reached a new artistic peak. This novel is
engrossing, stimulating, and artistically satisfying. Toby
Ruben is the book borrower. Toby borrows the book from her
new friend Deborah Laidlaw. The book is about a young female
Jewish anarchist. The lives of Toby and Deborah, their
husbands and children, and the Jewish anarchist twine and
intertwine.

Alice Mattison gives us a picture of life in New Haven from the
early 1970's through the 1980's, and life in a small New
England town in the 1920's. Mattison has done her research, and the characters and the events in their lives ring true.

"The Book Borrower" is an extraordinary literary tour de force.
Don't miss it!

Rating:
Summary: Alice Mattison has written a masterpiece!
Review: Alice Mattison is an exceptional, critically acclaimed author
of both short stories and novels. With "The Book Borrower,"
Mattison has reached a new artistic peak. This novel is
engrossing, stimulating, and artistically satisfying. Toby
Ruben is the book borrower. Toby borrows the book from her
new friend Deborah Laidlaw. The book is about a young female
Jewish anarchist. The lives of Toby and Deborah, their
husbands and children, and the Jewish anarchist twine and
intertwine.

Alice Mattison gives us a picture of life in New Haven from the
early 1970's through the 1980's, and life in a small New
England town in the 1920's. Mattison has done her research, and the characters and the events in their lives ring true.

"The Book Borrower" is an extraordinary literary tour de force.
Don't miss it!

Rating:
Summary: The nature of friendship
Review: Deborah Laidlaw meets Toby Ruben while at a playground with her children and lends Ruben a favorite book of her husbands the Trolley Girl. Thus begins a friendship which will last for years. Interwoven in the story are excerpts from the Trolley Girl a story of two sisters in the 1920's, one of whom was an anarchist involved in a trolley strike.

Deborah and Toby become not only friends but colleagues. Teachers who first teach child care workers high school equivalency and then work as adjunct instructors in an English department of a college. There teaching philosophies vary and therein lies much of their conflict. Deborah believes in kindness and giving people what they seem to want at the moment and Toby is idealistic and truly "wants to teach." The book leads you gently to its lesson in life between the two friends.

Not a terribly heavy book, but it was an enjoyable read. It was interesting to me because the friendship they first had seem so similar to friendships I had in the 70's. Also as a person who has worked among teachers for many years their professional rivalry, seemed true to form. The taste of a historical novel added by the Trolley girl made the book all the more interesting.

Rating:
Summary: The Book Borrower
Review: I wish that I, too, would have read the negative reviews, while plowing through this book. I would then have not thought that I was crazy trying to finish it for our book review group. Not one of our readers, including me, found this book to have any merit. It is not well written, and remains very disjointed until the end. The author jumps ahead those ten years, without any warning. When did she manage to squeeze in that bizarre creature from the past? I think I missed that when I blinked.

We'll probably not need more than 10 minutes to discuss this book unless we're going to talk about the negative impact it has had on us!

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful narrative-within-narrative novel
Review: Mattison has created a wonderful novel about the friendship of two magnificent women. There is so much to love about this book, especially the narrative-within-narrative plot. I find the styling and characters superb in their authenticity; the author has demonstrated an unerring voice for dialogue that transmits emotion into a funny, moving account. The Book Borrower is a wonderful reading experience. It's difficult to believe this is Ms. Mattison's first novel, and the rave reviews she received for this brave effort are well deserved. If you like narrative fiction, I guarantee this will not be a disappointment, but rather a joyous discovery...

Rating:
Summary: Tryin' to...
Review: Reading this story is like looking at a framed picture of a framed picture.

The two tales, one of two self-absorbed women making a half-hearted attempt at a friendship, the other of a family tragedy relayed in a story-within-a-story, converge when a character from the second story arrives on the "friendship" scene. That took the focus of the book from the book borrower and the friendship and placed the entire narrative firmly into deus ex machina.

Also, the relationship between Toby (Ruben) and Deborah is more of an acquaintanceship than a friendship. They don't connect except in a superficial way. The "book" about the trolley strike is amazingly dull and I wondered why anyone would read it in the first place. Literary devices like the use of dashes instead of quotation marks and jumping back and forth from "reality" to the fantasy of the book are distracting and amateurish. I had to fight to finish this book. I kept falling asleep.

I'm not sure what the author intended here. Was it to show how a book can provide distraction from the trials of life? Or how it could affect a friendship and/or a life? Or to, as the ... reviewer said, "reconnect the bloody world to the lives of her characters?" Through fantasy? Whatever, it didn't work.

There's an old Southern expression that fits here: "Tryin' to but can't."

Rating:
Summary: Friendship Bonding..
Review: The Book Borrower was about friends bonding even when they have evil, negative thoughts brewing. Alice Mattison was inside the narrators head. Even when I wanted to shake Toby Ruben, (and why was she called Rubin throughout?) she was human. It may be the vogue not to have quotation marks as characters speak / think all in one sentence. I got the drift of this quickly. Bringing history into the book with Rubin's flashback to her childhood, immigrant parents and trolley strikes was interesting. I thought the book was well written. Other reviewers thought otherwise.Read John Steinbecks short storys before this book. That is a hard act to follow.When is the next Alice Mattison?Could hardly wait to pass on to friend.