Rating: 
Summary: A feast of the heart!
Review: Maribeth Fischer's, The Language of Good-bye, is a work of art. Sungae, a Korean-born woman who has left her great love behind to honor family duty is an artist. She paints her memories of Korea with great detail as she studies art and learns to speak English. Annie, Sungae's English teacher; Carter, Annie's ex-husband and childhood friend; Will, Annie's great love; and Kayla, the wife Will leaves for Annie, are characters that you will in turn love and understand as you get into each one's thoughts and desires. Sungae explains, "Duty is like an ancient tree which has survived many seasons. Love is only the blossom."Fischer is a beautiful writer. Language swept me into it with characters that are so alive I missed them when I finished. Her detailed writing creates a world that made feel like I could not only see the motivations of her characters, but that I was a part of the story; I felt as though I were a player in this compelling world: I could see it, smell it, and taste it. I could taste the hazelnut coffee Will doesn't like, feel the chill of the autumn air I shared with the Trick-or Treaters, and I understood Annie's need to be loved and that she must endure her sadness: an inability to bear her own child. And her resentment toward Will, father of five-year old Brooke, the child he adores. Often when literature is beautifully written, I am impressed by the skill and art of the writer, but still, I cannot wait for the book to be finished; there is a dryness when a writer loves words more than characters. As I read Language, I found myself wishing that it wouldn't end. The losses, passions, and joys of these people became my losses, passions, and joys as well. This book made me ask myself how much I was willing to lose in order to follow my heart and made me review the losses of my life where I had no choice in the matter. I have heard that we read books to feel less alone, and when I read this book, I knew from the writer's great craft that I was safe, that I had found a book I could relax with. I could identify with these living characters; Fischer and her characters understand that throughout our lives, we will continue to suffer loss, and we will continue with to live our lives as though we are not in pain because that is what we do. And that nothing we gain comes without loss, that our lives are very complex indeed, if we choose to live them fully. I am an English teacher by trade. I read books because I need them, love them, and live for them. This book touched me in a way few have. It reached me on an emotional level, and it touched my soul. It is a literary feast of the heart and of the senses not to be missed.
Rating:
Summary: Your Telling Line....
Review: Oddly enough I picked up this book while on vacation in California. From reading the flap, I had no clue that the story took place in (pretty much) my backyard of Richmond, VA. What a pleasant surprise! Going through a divorce myself, the character of Annie and her disallusionment of marriage really hit me - hard. I found myself underlining sentences in the story, so that I could find them again easily, to re-read over and over. These thoughts, and feelings that I had been feeling for months...were on paper in front of me. The author had found a way to put them in words for me. The international students storylines were an added bonus. It was wonderful for her to touch base on some of their beliefs and customs. I know this is the kiss of death...but I would love to see this adapted for the screen. In addition, Fischer seems to have a way of pulling in awesome references with music: Sarah Mac, a line from a Ben Folds Five song, etc. The wonderful point to this journey....what is your telling line? What sentence...would tell the story of your life up til now?
Rating:
Summary: Agony and Ecstacy Explored
Review: The kind of accident-scene voyeurism that draws people to a car wreck will draw some people to this book on the shelf, but if they are looking for tabloid sensationalism, they won't find it here. Maribeth Fischer's intelligent exploration of the complexities of marital commitment and fidelity transcends not only what you might find on the racks at the checkout stand, but even the therapeutic guidance of a psychologist. The reader learns early that the affair in this story is a bilateral morass of pain for the four principal spouses, decent people all, who because of their own frailties find themselves enmeshed in the agonies of love lost and love gained. More importantly, Fisher explores the slippery slope of infidelity by weaving in the powerful evolution of language from cognition to action. Annie and Will depersonalize their spouses by their choice of words; in conversation Kayla and Carter later become "she" and "he". All of us, presidents and paupers, remain vulnerable to the vagaries of infidelity whether in thought or deed and Maribeth Fischer masterfully tells us why in this story.
Rating:
Summary: Duty and Love
Review: This book presents a compelling and passionate struggle between "duty" and "love." Before Fischer's book, I had failed to understand the depth of inter-personal and intra-personal relationships of the two. It is a book that will provide every reader a reflection into their most personal feelings on both "duty" and "love." READ IT!!
Rating:
Summary: Amazing, Beautiful, Insightful
Review: This book truly moved me. Each of the characters, Annie, Carter, Will, Kayla, Sungae and Keehwan, are so unique and so real. Ms. Fischer's writing is truly beautiful and each sentence is loaded with meaning and depth. This is one of those books that you just don't forget. As I go through life I know that certain passages will always remain with me and will probably take on new meanings as I grow older. This is truly one of a kind - so beautifully written.
Rating:
Summary: Wow!
Review: This novel is a must-read - I finished it in less than twenty-four hours. The powerful emotions and conflicting desires of the main characters, Carter, Annie, Will, Kayla, and Sungae, actually brought tears to my eyes. The detail is incredible, using specifics to bring the characters to life. Carter remembers the smell of Annie's vanilla conditioner, Will buys Annie cherry Pop-Tarts because that's what her mother had done for her when she was little. Will has dry salt on his neck after bicycling and as summer turns to fall, Sungae suspects infidelity when Will doesn't protest when Kayla brings him hazelnut rather than amaretto decaf coffee. It is the emotion of grief that brings the characters of the novel together - Annie's Palestinian ESL student who writes about his friend being shot by Israelis in every assignment; Sungae, a Korean student, who avoids learning English for seventeen years to avoid remembering her past. Carter's inability to let go of Annie that brings him to stalk her, ordering pizzas because the delivery boy is in her class and Will's doubts about leaving his five-year-old daughter. The insights that the characters find, from Annie's observation that her students write about past tragedy in to present tense to Annie and Will's lesson that leaving is as hard as being left, leave a reader a little wiser.
Rating:
Summary: a Beautiful Blending of the Languages of Love
Review: This novel is a powerful exploration of modern love, illuminating with a dazzling, clear light the difficulties people face in trying to understand the language of their hearts. But what I love most in this book is its subtle dance between many different kinds of "language," which the author manages with exquisite skill. The lovers' struggle with the language of their feelings is interwoven with the struggle of the heroine's students, who strive to master English, but who strive also, it turns out, to find expression for their deepest needs and hopes. As I read this book, I was constantly reminded how fascinating and complex language is, whether you are like Annie, the young college teacher trying to figure out how to communicate with her lover Will, or like Korean-born Sungae, who struggles to find her way back to the words buried long ago in her heart. The writing itself, throughout the book, is gorgeous--lyrical and rich but also restrained and clean--this novel is not only a wonderful dance about words, but truly a dance OF words as well.
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