Review by StelKel1592 -- Acquiesce to love peace gratitude
Posted: 10 Dec 2018, 12:39
[Following is a volunteer review of "Acquiesce to love peace gratitude" by Fabiola Piedad Maria Alicia Reynales de Berry.]
4 out of 4 stars
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Acquiesce to Love Peace Gratitude by Fabiola Piedad Maria Alicia Reynales de Berry is a memoir that tells the story of a woman recovering from the emotional wounds of a long and unhappy marriage. As a memoir, though, it is somewhat unusual. The preface tells us that the woman whose story it tells lost the draft of her memoir in a computer malfunction. She asked a friend to tell her story instead. She also asks her friend to edit as she sees fit. So what we have is a narrative that sounds like a direct memoir, using “I” throughout, but in fact we know that it has been filtered through a friend.
This kind of nesting is characteristic of the book as a whole, which continually peels off its layers to reveal hidden dimensions. For instance, the memoir begins by depicting recent distress in the woman’s marriage and then reveals a dementia diagnosis for her husband. While we might expect the dementia diagnosis to explain the marital difficulties, the speaker takes us back in time to show that this was actually a marriage in trouble from its outset. The book continues to weave in and out of areas of the speaker’s life. It then culminates in a description of her healing journey. She describes in detail the self-help books and webinars that have facilitated her personal growth. For a short book, a great deal is packed in. The variety and the constant unpeeling of layers make this book compelling and hard to put down.
While the narrator’s distress is palpable and the book is very readable, there are also problems with it. We are told in the preface that some details have been edited out to make the book universal. Reading through, however, it is clear that issues of class and social status operate in the world and personal framework of the narrator in ways that are not universal but culturally specific. Perhaps knowing more of the narrator’s cultural position would help in making sense of these details.
One example of this is in her discussion of her husband’s social class. While the narrator is from a wealthy family, her husband is not. He has moved into her social sphere through education and professional achievements. The narrator frequently talks about how disgusted she is by him and some of this seems to stem from the fact that he does not have the same standards of table manners and grooming that were part of her upbringing. Rather than seeing a narrative of accomplishment in his achievements, which is how her husband's history might be interpreted in some cultural settings, she is embarrassed by his roots.
This creates gaps in the story where we might wonder if her husband would offer a very different version of their marriage story. For instance, she describes a date early in their relationship where he took her to lunch at a very expensive restaurant. She says that he ate his prawns messily and that people at neighboring tables were gaping at him. She reported this to her colleagues afterwards, mocking his manners and describing the horrified reactions of other diners. It is possible to imagine another version of this story, though, where a young man from a humble background pulls himself up through education and hard work. Wanting to impress his girlfriend, he takes her to the nicest restaurant he can. She is embarrassed by him, sees other people as laughing at him, and makes fun of him to her colleagues for being out of place. If it is really the case that his manners were so bad as to distract other people from their meals, we can certainly feel for the young woman. But can we not also feel compassion for the humiliated young man too? The only place at which the narrator really seems to try to enter into the experience of her husband is to imagine the apology he might offer her. While we can never fully understand someone else’s interior world, I would have liked to see more effort on her part to understand the dynamics of their marriage from his perspective.
This is an exceptionally well-edited book. Although I have some reservations about its content, I rate it 4 out of 4 stars because it is well-written, compelling to read and very thought-provoking.
******
Acquiesce to love peace gratitude
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4 out of 4 stars
Share This Review
Acquiesce to Love Peace Gratitude by Fabiola Piedad Maria Alicia Reynales de Berry is a memoir that tells the story of a woman recovering from the emotional wounds of a long and unhappy marriage. As a memoir, though, it is somewhat unusual. The preface tells us that the woman whose story it tells lost the draft of her memoir in a computer malfunction. She asked a friend to tell her story instead. She also asks her friend to edit as she sees fit. So what we have is a narrative that sounds like a direct memoir, using “I” throughout, but in fact we know that it has been filtered through a friend.
This kind of nesting is characteristic of the book as a whole, which continually peels off its layers to reveal hidden dimensions. For instance, the memoir begins by depicting recent distress in the woman’s marriage and then reveals a dementia diagnosis for her husband. While we might expect the dementia diagnosis to explain the marital difficulties, the speaker takes us back in time to show that this was actually a marriage in trouble from its outset. The book continues to weave in and out of areas of the speaker’s life. It then culminates in a description of her healing journey. She describes in detail the self-help books and webinars that have facilitated her personal growth. For a short book, a great deal is packed in. The variety and the constant unpeeling of layers make this book compelling and hard to put down.
While the narrator’s distress is palpable and the book is very readable, there are also problems with it. We are told in the preface that some details have been edited out to make the book universal. Reading through, however, it is clear that issues of class and social status operate in the world and personal framework of the narrator in ways that are not universal but culturally specific. Perhaps knowing more of the narrator’s cultural position would help in making sense of these details.
One example of this is in her discussion of her husband’s social class. While the narrator is from a wealthy family, her husband is not. He has moved into her social sphere through education and professional achievements. The narrator frequently talks about how disgusted she is by him and some of this seems to stem from the fact that he does not have the same standards of table manners and grooming that were part of her upbringing. Rather than seeing a narrative of accomplishment in his achievements, which is how her husband's history might be interpreted in some cultural settings, she is embarrassed by his roots.
This creates gaps in the story where we might wonder if her husband would offer a very different version of their marriage story. For instance, she describes a date early in their relationship where he took her to lunch at a very expensive restaurant. She says that he ate his prawns messily and that people at neighboring tables were gaping at him. She reported this to her colleagues afterwards, mocking his manners and describing the horrified reactions of other diners. It is possible to imagine another version of this story, though, where a young man from a humble background pulls himself up through education and hard work. Wanting to impress his girlfriend, he takes her to the nicest restaurant he can. She is embarrassed by him, sees other people as laughing at him, and makes fun of him to her colleagues for being out of place. If it is really the case that his manners were so bad as to distract other people from their meals, we can certainly feel for the young woman. But can we not also feel compassion for the humiliated young man too? The only place at which the narrator really seems to try to enter into the experience of her husband is to imagine the apology he might offer her. While we can never fully understand someone else’s interior world, I would have liked to see more effort on her part to understand the dynamics of their marriage from his perspective.
This is an exceptionally well-edited book. Although I have some reservations about its content, I rate it 4 out of 4 stars because it is well-written, compelling to read and very thought-provoking.
******
Acquiesce to love peace gratitude
View: on Bookshelves
Like StelKel1592's review? Post a comment saying so!