Cover image from Amazon.com
Quarantine Reading
Whenever I join an electronic meeting and the host asks people how they’re doing the most common responses are “I walking/hiking/gardening more,” “I’m cleaning more,” and “I’m reading more.” I can’t help with your walking or your garden or your cleaning but I thought I might share some interesting things I’m reading.
My plan is to do 1 or 2 book reviews a month. I’ll be picking books that you may not have heard of but are available electronically from the Prescott Public Library without a long waiting list. If you don’t live in Prescott, you might not know that our local library system has completely shut their doors to all but audio and e-books. You library may be closed as well.
“Perhaps the choices we are making are not building a moldable future, but are informed by one that has already solidified.” In Five Years Reading Club Guide
I picked up this book because it was tagged as “magical realism.” As it turns out, there is only one magical realism scene but that scene is the focal point of the entire book.
Dannie Kohan is an attorney who has lived her life according to a strict plan. So, she has a well-thought out answer to that standard interview question, Where do you see yourself in five years? As the Amazon blurb says, “Her meticulous planning seems to have paid off after she nails the most important job interview of her career and accepts her boyfriend’s marriage proposal in one fell swoop, falling asleep completely content.”
Somehow, she wakes up in a completely different time and place exactly five years in future. She’s in a different apartment, with a different ring on her finger, and beside a very different man. After an intense hour, she falls back asleep and re-awakens to her old life.
As a typical book group book, Dannie’s story explores questions of female friendships juxtaposed with romantic relationships. Several triangles emerge, Dannie, Belle and Dannie’s fiancé David as well as Dannie, the man of her vision Aaron, and Belle.
Through the twists and turns of Dannie’s and Belle’s lives we learn that not even Dannie can control everything. Just we think we know where Serle is going with this story, she throws something new at her characters, exposing more clearly their unique approaches to the world she has created.
The Unexpected
However, most unexpectedly, this book also explores the eternal question of free will vs destiny. Can Dannie truly control her own (and her friends’) lives or is she destined to arrive in five years in the place of her vision, regardless of her attempts to avoid that future?
I was somewhat disappointed that the magical realism element of this story was so small. Except for the one hour at the beginning of the book, this plot unfolds without any additional magical moments, that is any magic outside the wonders of daily life. However, having finished it, I am still struggling with the primary question it raises about our free will. Is there any way this story could have unfolded differently? Where could these characters have made different decisions and avoided the foretold event?
On a more personal level, are all of us caught up in a destiny we don’t control? Is our free will only an illusion? These are interesting philosophical questions not usually wrapped up in such an enjoyable read. You can certainly enjoy this story for its fairly conventional plot and characters but at a deeper level, it might leave you, as it left me, wondering about those larger, more philosophical issues.
Available today from many library systems as as an e-book, in regular print, large print, and audio on CD formats. Amazon has it as a Kindle book, audio through Audio.com, hardcover and audio on CD. Or support your local independent book seller like The Peregrine Book Company in Prescott who has the hard cover, large print and compact disk versions.
Where do you come down on the free will vs. destiny debate? Did this book make you question that answer?
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