Story House - Timothy Taylor
It's been so long since my last entry, and honestly, other than some teen novels that I read for school/pleasure, this is the only book I've been reading that whole time. That is not because I was relishing the incredible insight and detail of a Taylor masterpiece. Other than being busy with and exhausted from school, this just was not a great book and so I never wanted to read.
An architect father brings his 2 sons - totally opposite half-brothers - to an east-side basement to learn boxing in hopes that they will have one final, real fight and get it out of their systems. Unfortunately, the fight has an unexpected ending that estranges the brothers for many years. Eventually they find each other both desperate to make meaning out of their father's, and their own, lives, and they agree to work together to turn the same house where their familial ties had been severed in the fateful boxing match, into a museum of their father's work. Oh, and there's going to be a reality tv show about it, too. Sounds interesting...somewhat...
Like Taylor's book "Stanley Park" (see the first entry of this blog), this novel takes place in Vancouver and has themes of home and reuniting with estranged family. Instead of food and chefs, this one revolves around structures, illegal trade, boxing and architects. Perhaps this is why I had a hard time getting into it; I didn't understand some metaphors and found the description of the illegal trade ring boring. Although the beginning and the end of "Story House" are very good, the middle lost me.
I don't want to say that this book is not worth reading. I have read worse. And perhaps the architecture/boxing/illegal trade ring stuff would interest some of you more than it does me. But this is certainly not Taylor's best.
An architect father brings his 2 sons - totally opposite half-brothers - to an east-side basement to learn boxing in hopes that they will have one final, real fight and get it out of their systems. Unfortunately, the fight has an unexpected ending that estranges the brothers for many years. Eventually they find each other both desperate to make meaning out of their father's, and their own, lives, and they agree to work together to turn the same house where their familial ties had been severed in the fateful boxing match, into a museum of their father's work. Oh, and there's going to be a reality tv show about it, too. Sounds interesting...somewhat...
Like Taylor's book "Stanley Park" (see the first entry of this blog), this novel takes place in Vancouver and has themes of home and reuniting with estranged family. Instead of food and chefs, this one revolves around structures, illegal trade, boxing and architects. Perhaps this is why I had a hard time getting into it; I didn't understand some metaphors and found the description of the illegal trade ring boring. Although the beginning and the end of "Story House" are very good, the middle lost me.
I don't want to say that this book is not worth reading. I have read worse. And perhaps the architecture/boxing/illegal trade ring stuff would interest some of you more than it does me. But this is certainly not Taylor's best.
posted by Robyn | Wednesday, August 22, 2007
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