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I Know This Much Is True (Oprah's Book Club) (Paperback) (平装)
by Wally Lamb
| Category:
Relationship, Family, Story |
| Market price: ¥ 178.00
MSL price:
¥ 168.00
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| Stock:
Pre-order item, lead time 3-7 weeks upon payment [ COD term does not apply to pre-order items ] |
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
This is an outstanding epic about the life and the traumas causing and caused by schizophrenia. Also tells the answer how can family members be so different and how strong are the ties of blood. |
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AllReviews |
  1 2 Total 2 pages 15 items |
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Carolyn Rampone (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-25 00:00>
Wally Lamb's "I Know This Much is True" captivated me and totally consumed my life, rendering me powerless to put it down.
It was the most deeply moving and completely satisfying novel I ever had the pleasure to read.
This book really gives your heart a workout.
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Milli Thornton (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-25 00:00>
I will never forget the character, Dominick Birdsey, the one we live the story through in this book. I'm not a man, and yet I felt I was living Dominick's life through the words on the page. He feels more real to me than some of the people I know, such is the power of Lamb's writing.
I will also never forget Dominick's brother Thomas, his mother Connie, his step-father Ray, his ex-wife Dessa, her dog "Goofus," his embarrassing friend Leo and the rest of the vividly-drawn characters (Dr. Patel is a classic; you'll love her to pieces). I've spent many a night of insomnia reliving scenes from this book and still never tire of it. Despite its 900 pages, I've read it twice and will no doubt read it again once enough time has passed.
Don't let the length of this book hold you back. If you do, you'll be missing the novel of a lifetime (besides, you won't want it to end). To say that this is the best novel I've ever read doesn't say enough: This book changed my expectations of novels forever. Everything has to measure up against this one now.
A little word of caution. If, like me, when the book is over you just *have* to have more Wally Lamb, don't go straight to his book about Dolores the overweight girl (SHE'S COME UNDONE). Give yourself time first. Plenty of time. I know SHE'S COME UNDONE is an excellent book in its own right, but reading it straight after Dominick Birdsey invaded my psyche was like trying to get a deep tan in winter sunshine. I just couldn't let Dolores into my heart. Dominick was hogging all the space.
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Cynthia Robertson (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-25 00:00>
I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb is one of the best books that I have read this year, and it's fitting that this powerful and moving story was chosen as an Oprah Book Club selection.
Forty-one year old Dominick Birdsey has not much going right in his life. His identical twin, Thomas, suffers from schizophrenia, he's divorced from a woman he still loves, his mother has died of cancer without revealing the identity of his real father, and he has a complex and frosty relationship with his abusive stepfather. When his brother goes off the deep end, Dominick starts meeting with Thomas' psychiatrist. Dr. Patel soon discovers that both brothers are "lost in the woods" and that the "normal" twin also needs much help. She takes Dominick on a voyage of discovery through the past (both his and his family's), and starts him on a mission of renovation. In the process of therapy, Dominick sees how it is possible to love, hate and resent those he loves at the same time. He learns the keys to friendship, betrayal and forgiveness. He discovers that arrogance and "power, wrongly used, defeats the oppressor as well as the oppressed." Throughout this process, he discovers that he actually has two fathers, rather than none. And he is also able to incorporate the best qualities of his twin to become a much better and more sensitive man.
I was reluctant to pick up I Know This Much Is True because of the length (901 pages), but I ended up reading it in record time. I just couldn't turn the pages fast enough. At first, this book reminded me of Pat Conroy's The Prince of Tides. On first look, there are many similarities: one twin with mental problems, an abusive father/stepfather, a psychiatrist who realizes that the "healthy" twin also needs help. But the more I read, the more I realized that Wally Lamb's story is all his own. Now I'm sorry that I let this book sit on my nightstand gathering dust for over a year. Several friends have told me that they enjoyed Lamb's first effort, She's Come Undone, even more. I can only imagine how awesome it must be.
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Brian K. Tarumoto (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-25 00:00>
I left this book on my shelf a long time before deciding to tackle it. Its 900 pages and its less-than inspiring subject matter initially intimidated me. But when the mood struck I started the first page. Two days later I finished it and only felt bad that I waited so long to read it. I suppose that's what a talented writer can do - make 900 pages evaporate in no time.
There are so many terrific things that I would like to say about this book that my words would become a mini-novel unto itself. The one comment I would make is the thought that stays with me when I read the last full paragraph - how that paragraph so beautifully captured the essence of the entire novel.
Suffice to say that a book with a talented author, a great storyline, engrossing characters and a penetrating theme contains the right ingredients for a captivating read.
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Earl Hazell (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-25 00:00>
When I first heard about I Know This Much Is True on Oprah a couple of years ago I avoided it for two reasons, the latter being the important one. I knew all too well much of the subject matter, as it affected someone in my family as close to me as the fictional character's brother was to him. But when I finished reading this literally 900-page novel a week ago, all I could think was that its cental flaw was that it was too short.
Wally Lamb, a genius of a novelist, has written a momument to love, healing, self-awareness and the human spirit that has only been equalled, I can only guess, by some of the best work of the 20th century-including Joyce, Melville, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison and Hemingway. I cannot imagine anything ever written short of the world's religious texts surpassing this. The central story is of a man named Thomas Birdsey and his struggle to answer with honor the Biblical question Cain asked God, "Am I my brother's keeper?," by taking care of his schizophrenic twin, and his own struggle against the dying of the light of his own sanity in the process. Lamb manages to teach more lessons about the nature of life, family, power, abuse, pain, wounds, healing, forgiveness, spirit, love and epiphany through the flowering of Thomas' consciousness in this novel--not to mention the architectue of schizophrenia itself, and how it serves as the ideal albeit frightening metaphor for our entire Age-than any dozen self-help books, tear-jerker movies and trips to Church or the therapist that I could ever think of. Lamb does not tear apart the the fabric of modern life or maliciously diagnose the diseases affecting it for the manipulative purpose of creating characters and a convincing storyline. He sings modern life. He creates a symphony with modern life. And in so doing he bears a human soul more true and more consistently than most real people are capable of bearing to the most intimate among us in a lifetime. The family and friends and even strangers in this novel became family and friends and meaningful people to me; so much so that after 900 pages I still didn't want the book to end, even when it did so nearly perfectly. In other words, Wally Lamb with I Know This Much Is True places the novel, the entire art form that is the modern novel, back into its proper place as part of the healing art of mythic sorytelling, in a way that has to be read to be imagined or believed.
I sat with this book ready to embrace a fairly good story and fairly good writing. I found myself turning pages uncontrollably and wiping tears as several of the chapters ended and whole new chapters of a human life began. A book I subconsciously gave myself a month or so to get through became the book I read in a little more than a week, wishing there was more.
This is a masterfully constructed piece of craftsmanship given life by the heart of a Shaman, in love with life. Read this book regardless of your background and be changed-for the better. The tired old cliches have finally been given a book that gives them new life: I laughed, I cried; I couldn't put it down.
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1 2 Total 2 pages 15 items |
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