Book Review

The Lacuna

We started with The Lacuna which was the life story of one man who had a Spanish/Mexican mother and an American father. He was always moving from place to place but along the way he always kept diaries which eventually came together to tell the story. Some people found the link to the particular time in history was interesting and we all agreed that the main character held our interest throughout. However 3 people gave up on it as it just didn’t hold their interest. We all felt it was very drawn out and possible could have been more interesting as a much smaller book. We discussed the other book we all knew from the same author “The Poisonwood Bible” and agreed it was much more interesting although also a very long book. One person in the group really loved it but others thought it was over killed with detail. It scored an average of 4.3 from those of us who read it or started it and gave up.

On The Black Hill

Most people in the group had read and finished this one and it sparked off an interesting discussion in general about the twin-twin relationship that can exist between very close twins. It was the story of twin boys growing up in very rural Wales who with the exception of short separation during the war, lived together all their lives into the 80s and still shared the same bed. We all agreed it was an unusual tale with a very pathetic storyline to it. It was agreed that within the relationship, one twin was much more dependent on the other twin and he held the stronger twin Lewis back from leading a somewhat normal life. They lived in great poverty and primitive conditions throughout their lives even though they had built up a sizeable farm and probably had plenty of money. The money was controlled by the more dependent twin Ben and was probably used to control Lewis from setting off to see the world. The ongoing relationship between the twins was the strong storyline throughout. This scored an average of 6.7 from the group