Discussion Group Read for April 24th -- The Hunter's Wife by Anthony Doerr

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Spideyman

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I've only read one other book by this author- All The Light We Cannot See- and will highly recommend it to all.

My take was this was a love story with a series of wishes. Two characters with opposite goals who appear to want something, (togetherness, love, connection)
yet end up unexpectedly at odds with each other.

I enjoyed the spiritual and mystical nature of the wife. Her abilities to be one with nature.
She lives in winter, he in spring and summer.

The Hunting scenes are as they are, just difficult to read.

Was it a fairy tail ending? Or acceptance where he finally accepts her gifts as good and honest? They are metaphorically pinned against their glass reflection as he was physically pinned to the window glass by the weather at the beginning.

He reaches for her hand.
 

Dana Jean

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I've only read one other book by this author- All The Light We Cannot See- and will highly recommend it to all.

My take was this was a love story with a series of wishes. Two characters with opposite goals who appear to want something, (togetherness, love, connection)
yet end up unexpectedly at odds with each other.

I enjoyed the spiritual and mystical nature of the wife. Her abilities to be one with nature.
She lives in winter, he in spring and summer.

The Hunting scenes are as they are, just difficult to read.

Was it a fairy tail ending? Or acceptance where he finally accepts her gifts as good and honest? They are metaphorically pinned against their glass reflection as he was physically pinned to the window glass by the weather at the beginning.

He reaches for her hand.
Very nice observations and comments.

I'm not sure I have much to add to what you said so perfectly. (shock!)

I will say, the first bit of reading, I felt overpowered by all the detailed and descriptive adjectives. The story felt forced and overworked. But, that quickly changed. I'm not sure why it hung me up at first, but the author continued the pattern throughout the story and it didn't bother me. After I finished it, I went back and reread that beginning again and did not have the same reaction. Strange little hiccup that didn't last.

The age difference and the fact they were different seasons, as Spidey pointed out, made them star-crossed lovers.

They would never be a whole until each of them could appreciate the other's unique singleness.

I'd like to think they got to that whole in the end.
 
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Spideyman

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Jul 10, 2006
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Just north of Duma Key
Very nice observations and comments.

I'm not sure I have much to add to what you said so perfectly. (shock!)

I will say, the first bit of reading, I felt overpowered by all the detailed and descriptive adjectives. The story felt forced and overpowered. But, that quickly changed. I'm not sure why it hung me up at first, but the author continued the pattern throughout the story and it didn't bother me. After I finished it, I went back and reread that beginning again and did not have the same reaction. Strange little hiccup that didn't last.

The age difference and the fact they were different seasons as Spidey pointed out, made them star-crossed lovers.

They would never be a whole until each of them could appreciate the other's unique singleness.

I'd like to think they got to that whole in the end.


Romantic here, so yes, I am taking away they become whole. I want happy happy.
I think that is his style- the detailed and descriptive adjectives. And yes, you just get into the story and they are no longer an issue.
 

Dana Jean

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Romantic here, so yes, I am taking away they become whole. I want happy happy.
I think that is his style- the detailed and descriptive adjectives. And yes, you just get into the story and they are no longer an issue.
Exactly. Stephen gets very descriptive, but I'm never taken out of the story by them. So I'm not quite sure why I was at first on this. It just felt a tad trying-too-hard.

But again, once I got going, it was a good story and I didn't feel that way at all.
 

cat in a bag

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I had a slightly different take on their love story. He lives in summer, she in winter, Spidey said. I love that. I think maybe his way of making a living (hunting) was at odds with her need to see, feel, experience what we all wonder is at the clearing at the end of the path. And she could actually do it and used it to help people. I think she helped the animals she touched as well to find their way.

Also I fixated more on the death side of the story. I thought it bookended last week's story very nicely. Last week, there was dread and sadness. This story was full of hope to me. Hope that there is something nice waiting for all of us. It left me feeling good at the end. So I believe they did find a way to come back together with their summer/winter lives.

I have also read All the Light We Cannot See by this author and can second Spidey's recommendation.
 

Dana Jean

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I had a slightly different take on their love story. He lives in summer, she in winter, Spidey said. I love that. I think maybe his way of making a living (hunting) was at odds with her need to see, feel, experience what we all wonder is at the clearing at the end of the path. And she could actually do it and used it to help people. I think she helped the animals she touched as well to find their way.

Also I fixated more on the death side of the story. I thought it bookended last week's story very nicely. Last week, there was dread and sadness. This story was full of hope to me. Hope that there is something nice waiting for all of us. It left me feeling good at the end. So I believe they did find a way to come back together with their summer/winter lives.

I have also read All the Light We Cannot See by this author and can second Spidey's recommendation.
Great additional thoughts.
 

fljoe0

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Oh and I meant to say too that I loved all the descriptions of the land and the winter, how hard it is sometimes. I felt that keenly.


I thought the description and imagery of the harsh winters was beautiful.

I liked this story very much. I think her young age at the beginning was used to show how deep his love was for her. He was willing to wait 3 years to be with her (he probably didn't have to but I'm glad the author chose to keep it nice and legal :)).

I thought it was very bizarre near the end where the coffins are brought in for her to put her hands in. I'm not sure what to make of that. (I mean that it seems like a pretty extreme way to use her talent)
 

Dana Jean

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I thought the description and imagery of the harsh winters was beautiful.

I liked this story very much. I think her young age at the beginning was used to show how deep his love was for her. He was willing to wait 3 years to be with her (he probably didn't have to but I'm glad the author chose to keep it nice and legal :)).

I thought it was very bizarre near the end where the coffins are brought in for her to put her hands in. I'm not sure what to make of that. (I mean that it seems like a pretty extreme way to use her talent)
It was President O'Brien's family -- but what happened to them? Were we told?

She must have been brought there to read his family, give him peace. But why the audience? A fund raiser?
 

Dana Jean

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But I'm just talking about the bizarreness (I made a new word) of having a formal dinner with the coffins of your family members brought in.
I took it she was the guest of honor to read his family in the coffins, to give him peace. That's what she was known for, so people sought her out. Obviously something really awful happened, maybe he needed that final moment with them.
 

Dana Jean

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But I'm just talking about the bizarreness (I made a new word) of having a formal dinner with the coffins of your family members brought in.
I took it she was the guest of honor to read his family in the coffins, to give him peace. That's what she was known for, so people sought her out. Obviously something really awful happened, maybe he needed that final moment with them.

And he threw a wake/dinner party?
 

Spideyman

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Dana Jean /fljoe0

saw this in a blog
It is not until twenty years later that they reunite. He writes her a letter and she invites him to an event where she is to touch the bodies of a university president’s wife and two daughters, killed in an accident. While the hunter watches, she tells the president to “think hard about something you would like resolved, some matter, gone now, which you wish you could take back—perhaps with your daughters, a moment, a lost feeling, a desperate wish.” In response, the hunter thinks of the moment when his wife forced him to touch the deer and he turned away from her. The wife continues speaking to the president: “Think now … of some wonderful moment….” And as all the people in the room—it is a large reception—join hands, the hunter feels “a strange warmth, a flitting presence … She was inside him now,” and he and all the others joined by their hands have a beautiful vision of the chancellor with his family.
 

GNTLGNT

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....another week and another new “taste”....surprisingly, the adjective salad didn’t choke me...the images drew me and spawned a certain yearning.....Winter/Spring relationship, seasonal hearts and spirits and the underlying current is of natural vs spiritual magic....felt the ending was hurried yet poetic....her gift reminded me of Koontz’s Odd Thomas, but giving peace to those left wondering rather than guiding those who had passed....this was a nice choice and I say thank ya.....
 

fljoe0

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Want to go weird and funny for next week? The Kentucky Derby is a week from Saturday and I think it might be fun to read Hunter Thompson's, The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved. It was his first gonzo journalism article (so it's at least half fiction). I haven't read it in a long time and I just scanned the first couple of paragraphs so I will give a warning that's it's probably not very PC.



Let me know if this sounds good. If not, I'll pick something else but I think this could be fun.