Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press
Publication Year: 2002
Paperback: 274 pages
Learn to love the questions themselves.
The spaces between words. Between thoughts. The interval
The pressures of the tide. At night.
What's Germany like?
Surely you must somehow sense it: my heart –
What happened to us, Francesco?
Is breaking.
- Maso
Things you can expect from this novel:
- To be very, very confused
- To lose all knowledge of what you think is scholarly, academically "correct" writing
- Beautiful, lyrical writing that you can only describe as inspiring
Things you cannot expect from this novel:
- Coherent writing (in the very best, this-shouldn't-be-making-sense-but-it-does kind of way)
This novel follows the narrator, 39-year-old Ava Klein, and the thoughts and experiences that run through her mind on her last day of life. Her narration starts off as explaining she is dying of cancer and continues on to show the reader all of the experiences she has had over her entire life.
These scenes include traveling abroad, intimate scenes with her lovers, and her relationship with the environment around her. What makes Maso's writing so much more authentic is the fact that she wrote the entire novel in fragments. It is very rare that there are full paragraphs, and when there are, they usually are in the voice of her previous husbands. It is this aspect, with the broken sentences and the endless white space on the page, that makes Ava's narration seem real. The reader is experiencing the inner workings of Ava's mind as she lives out her last day.
Even though there is not one over-arching plot, I would say the major theme of AVA is to experience and appreciate life at the earliest possible moment. This novel is spread out over one day, August 15th, and is separated into three parts: morning, afternoon, and night.
With lines like, "Often there is nowhere to go but forward or back. It is hard to stay here in one place and especially at moments like these," Maso suggests that even though Ava is dying, she wants to get the most out of the rest of her days (15). She can't stay in one place, she's going to keep moving because she has to. Even though the speaker's attitude towards being diagnosed with cancer, and later, her being upset with dying, does not always remain positive, I found the theme of making the most out of life to prevail.
This text varies greatly in positive moments and depressing moments but I found the tone of the text, as a whole, to be inspirational. I was very moved with Ava's tales and her will to live her life out to the fullest. For example, Maso writes, "If you had one wish. Blow out the candles. One hundred mored days" (170). The author seems to be referencing a birthday cake, with candles, and a person blowing out the candles with the wish to live longer. I found this as an obvious reference to Ava's dying. It is inspirational to me because she wishes, so much, to live longer as she remembers all of her life experiences. The emotional distance between author and reader in these particular lines (and most of the novel) is quite close. The author makes it very clear that Ava wishes not to die and she would give anything, just one wish, to live.
With lines like, "Often there is nowhere to go but forward or back. It is hard to stay here in one place and especially at moments like these," Maso suggests that even though Ava is dying, she wants to get the most out of the rest of her days (15). She can't stay in one place, she's going to keep moving because she has to. Even though the speaker's attitude towards being diagnosed with cancer, and later, her being upset with dying, does not always remain positive, I found the theme of making the most out of life to prevail.
This text varies greatly in positive moments and depressing moments but I found the tone of the text, as a whole, to be inspirational. I was very moved with Ava's tales and her will to live her life out to the fullest. For example, Maso writes, "If you had one wish. Blow out the candles. One hundred mored days" (170). The author seems to be referencing a birthday cake, with candles, and a person blowing out the candles with the wish to live longer. I found this as an obvious reference to Ava's dying. It is inspirational to me because she wishes, so much, to live longer as she remembers all of her life experiences. The emotional distance between author and reader in these particular lines (and most of the novel) is quite close. The author makes it very clear that Ava wishes not to die and she would give anything, just one wish, to live.
Why I read this book: Yet another novel I was "forced" to read. I was assigned this in my prose writing seminar my freshmen year of college and hated it. All throughout high school, I (like many others) was taught that no writing was proper and acceptable unless it was in five-paragraph format. This class disrupted everything I knew about writing and has made me a much stronger writer to this day. This novel is among one of my favorites; my high school self would be shocked.
Seriously, give AVA a read. You won't regret it.
Up next week: The Maze Runner: the Novel vs. the Film
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