I just came back from a week at a resort, which I thought I might spend reading books by the dozen. I didn't--still feeling a bit distracted and jumpy, but I did read one very lovely book: The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, by Aimee Bender. In a nutshell, it tells the story of Rose, a precocious little girl who, the week of her ninth birthday, develops a horrifying gift. When she eats, she tastes every emotion of the person who prepared the food. In that terrible week, Rose learns that her adored mother is empty, lonely and miserable. And she begins to to shoulder the terrible burden of being forced to cope with other people's unhappiness.
I was enchanted by this book--by the dreamy quality of Rose's world (I was reminded of Ann Patchett, The Magician's Assistant in particular), by her tragic and mysterious brother, and by her precocious (think Holden Caulfield) ability to perceive the most hidden nuances of the adult world around her.
I checked out a few online reviews and discovered that many people don't like this book. They found it vague, unfinished. They hated the lack of quotation marks. Is it odd that I never noticed, for one moment, the punctuation in this work?
It was repeatedly described as being about how hard it is to love our families when we know them too well. I didn't perceive that as the theme at all! I thought Bender was exploring the mysteries of talent, of how our gifts are both blessings and terrible burdens--how they can frighten us into paralysis (Rose's father), separate us from each other (her brother, Joe), but ultimately lead us to our own particular destinies. I also felt it looked into the struggles of those who don't know how to find or use their gifts, and the havoc they can wreak as they struggle for direction--Rose's mother being the case in point.
Anyway, I didn't have a week of reading, but I did enjoy one lovely, haunting book! The rest of the time, I gazed off into the distance and thought about nothing. Which of course, is what I do most of the time.
