About the only time I read fiction anymore is when I'm on holiday. So it was the case that when I'd finished the couple of novels I'd brought along with me for our vacation in Sicily, I began perusing our hotel's collection of paperbacks left behind by other travellers for some new reading material. It was there upon the lobby bookshelf that I found this amazing book, shining with its colourful cover out at me like a jewel amongst the seaweed. After reading the back cover I was intrigued enough to borrow it. After reading this book I left another in its stead at the hotel and brought it home with me in August of 2009. To give it the proper review it deserves, I've just recently read it again.
I've read a ton of worthy tomes in my life, but this was the first one that actually moved me to find the author of "My Adventures in Cyber Space" in cyber space and send her my compliments. It is unusual to find a writer who describes with such an intensity of no holds barred honesty and openness what she has seen in her own life and the lives of those around her, told through the magical lens of fiction but delivered in razor sharp focus. We as human beings are many-faceted creatures, both magnificent and flawed, with a psyche that can at times seem as fragile as a butterfly's wing or strong as a spider's silk. While we all travel different paths through life, what we have in common with others of our species is our experience of joys and sorrows, tragedies and victories, loves and losses. A great writer can describe in a nutshell the full range of human emotions and perceptions in such a way that it finds recognition and inspires something in others, perhaps even conveying a bit of wisdom from life's lessons learned along the way. The book's main character, Dominique DuBois, takes on the gauntlet of human nature with a "pen is mightier than the sword" attitude, a lion's heart and a keen eye.
Here is the story of one woman's life up to a certain point and her struggles to free her spirit from the confines of her circumstances. It is a tale filled to the brim with insights and reflections on the full range of her most intimate, meaningful and personal experiences, the sort of things you might or might not ever tell even your closest friends. This is not a book for the faint-hearted or prudish. The vocabulary ranges from exquisite, poetic prose to serious slang, at times within the same sentence. The big sex scene towards the end is also described in the raw with much love, passion and graphic detail. As I kept reading, I kept thinking about how much courage it requires to write such a book, albeit fiction, for all the world to see. I found the ending to be both graceful and satisfying, a bit like a cosmic cherry on top of a many layered cake, which left me quite looking forward to the next time Jude cooks up a novel for us.
I leave you now with a morsel of a taste of this one, with one of my favourite passages from pages 469-470...
"As we walk over the dunes from the beach-side car park I can see a fantastical sea monster floating in the sky. It must be a hundred feet long. It is a kite, an immense kite. I stand and stare in childlike awe. It is the sails of an invading ship, but floating in the sky. This thing is a work of art, the realization of insight and dreams. It is one of the most stunning creations I have ever seen; it billows, swimming against the tide of the wind with great gaping scarlet jaws and flowing white teeth. It trails orange, red and yellow, fluttering silk tendrils in the wake of its undulating green body. It must have been designed by someone who is in the possession of beautiful madness, for them to create such a beautifully mad, hundred foot sea monster that swims on the wind, harvesting the attention of dumbstruck passers by who stare, like plankton.
As we reach the top of the sand dunes we can see more dunes below us and further, the beach. The kite maker is standing on the sand, looking up at his creation, his hand at right angles to his forehead, shielding his face from the sun, as though he is saluting the wind. He has a long face with a long sharp nose, and dark curly hair which falls in ringlets to his shoulders. The kite is not tethered to the earth by traditional kite line, but by thick ropes, like climbing ropes.
As we descend, the kite maker turns round and looks at me, looks into my eyes. He has big brown eyes and I can see the benign madness in them and I love it; I love the fact that his madness has seeped out from his soul and into his kite and for these brief moments, unfurls itself and sails freely in the sky, billowing and giggling, a brilliant display of tumbling colour, usually quietly folded into his skull, but now unleashed and gloriously dancing in the sky. His madness can finally feel the wind on its face and taste the sea salt on its tongue, as it fills the sky above its father."
