Saving the World (Audible Audio Edition) Julia Alvarez Blanca Camacho Recorded Books Books
Download As PDF : Saving the World (Audible Audio Edition) Julia Alvarez Blanca Camacho Recorded Books Books
A finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award with In the Time of Butterflies, author Julia Alvarez is a beloved voice in modern fiction and poetry. In Saving the World, she weaves the stories of two courageous women-separated by two centuries-into a breathtaking novel of love and idealism in an increasingly troubled world.
A best-selling, Latin-American author living in Vermont, Alma stays behind when her husband travels to the Dominican Republic to help fight AIDS. She needs the time to work on her latest book, but she has terrible writer's block. Soon, her focus is diverted to an entirely new story, that of the early 19th-century anti-smallpox expedition of Dr. Francisco Balmis. Accompanying Dr. Balmis was Doña Isabel, who cared for the orphan boys serving as living carriers of the smallpox vaccine. It is the narrative of the courageous Doña Isabel that provides hope and inspiration when Alma's husband is taken captive. Mesmerizing and poetic, Saving the World is a visionary tale that raises profound questions about the world we live in-and whether or not it is beyond redemption.
Saving the World (Audible Audio Edition) Julia Alvarez Blanca Camacho Recorded Books Books
Saving the World (Shannon Ravenel Books) is made up of two stories. First we have the novelist Alma, depressed and a few years overdue with her latest manuscript. Her publisher and agent phone regularly to ask about the family saga she is contracted to write; Alma lies about her progress and whiles away her time writing a different story. Her husband, Richard, is a project manager at a company funding third-world initiatives; when he has the chance to front a project in Alma's native Dominican Republic, she refuses to go with him--until he is taken hostage in a revolt against the AIDS research being conducted at the clinic run by Richard's aid organization.The second story is the one Alma is writing. She had become intrigued by a little-known 1804 adventure: the Spanish Royal Philanthropic Expedition of the Vaccine. Charles IV of Spain commissioned a physician, Francisco Xavier de Balmis, to take the newly-discovered smallpox vaccine to the Spanish colonies of the New World; Balmis sailed with two dozen orphan boys and their guardian, Isabel, and grew the serum from one boy's inoculation to the next during the voyage. Alma brings Isabel's trials and relationships to life in this, the more interesting part of the book.
Readers often respond well to novels that contain stories within stories. Some involve literary mysteries, such as THE DAUGHTER OF TIME by Josephine Tey, or the brilliant POSSESSION: A ROMANCE by A.S. Byatt. Sometimes the main story is simply framed by a narrator, as in Emily Bronte's WUTHERING HEIGHTS. Whatever the format, the two stories are generally connected by some linking principle.
In SAVING THE WORLD, that linking principle feels thinly drawn. Both Alma and Isabel are associated with men whose work may exploit innocent victims in the name of a greater good, but there is not enough bridging the two centuries. In Alma's world, at least, there are too many loosely-drawn characters and questions left unanswered. The reader has little sense of Alma actually writing Isabel's story, nor is it easy to understand what motivates her actions with her friends and husband. At the very end of her story Alma finds strength and resolve; it would have been a more satisfying read if she had done so earlier.
Like Alma, Julia Alvarez was drawn to writing about the Expedition of the Vaccine (which is a real historical incident). This, to me, was the more successful of the two stories. Four stars for the royal voyage, three for Alma; do the math and round to four, but only if you don't need all the loose ends tied up in your novels.
Linda Bulger, 2009
Product details
|
Tags : Amazon.com: Saving the World (Audible Audio Edition): Julia Alvarez, Blanca Camacho, Recorded Books: Books, ,Julia Alvarez, Blanca Camacho, Recorded Books,Saving the World,Recorded Books,B006959W5O
People also read other books :
- Leave Nine Lives Book 1 eBook Kirk Graham
- Plinky Golden Branch edition by Zane Stephens Amanda Luster Children eBooks
- Knave of Spades (Audible Audio Edition) Alan Titchmarsh Peter Wickham Hodder Stoughton Books
- Inside the Mind of BTK The True Story Behind the ThirtyYear Hunt for the Notorious Wichita Serial Killer (Audible Audio Edition) John Douglas Johnny Dodd Jason Klav Audible Studios Books
- Geometry SparkCharts SparkNotes 9781411470279 Books
Saving the World (Audible Audio Edition) Julia Alvarez Blanca Camacho Recorded Books Books Reviews
For me this book really dragged the first half...almost gave up. The last half improved with more action and quicker pace. But overall it Judy didn't interest me that much...characters not that well developed and plot too slow.
I loved this book. I thought the alternating chapters between the centuries worked well. I found both stories equally riveting.
I would say however, that I did not feel that the stories were really connected. Before I read the book, the reviews seemed to indicate that both women were involved in ridding the world of disease, one of small pox and the other of AIDS. I would classify it more as a modern writer who becomes fascinated with a story. A story that she was researching while going through what could be described as a midlife crisis. The only similiarity that I could see was that both women had "children" though neither had given birth.
Overall, the fact that the stories didn't seem connected didn't have a negative impact on the fact that both stories were well written and compelling.
I felt that I was reading two separate books at the same time. The action was jumping too much from the current life of the protagonist, Alma, and the novel she was writing about the smallpox epidemic 100 years earlier. I have read better books.
I had to read this for a college literature class, something I never would have picked up on my own. This book was fairly well written (though the story arc a bit jumpy what a disappointing climax in Alma's story!), but the themes are well-presented and supported. The story's alternation between the two main characters is a good structure for the story, but I could relate to neither of them - Isabel was too reserved and distant (and her language was stiff, time period notwithstanding) while Alma was a completely shallow, emotional, and whiny character. Her actions don't make sense in the story and I hated her from the beginning. One thought and action after another of hers was obnoxious, contrived, and self-centered. Her journey nowhere near balances the scope of Isabel's - I think Alvarez intended the stories to balance but wound up with each story detracting from the other.
Still, I'd be curious to read more of Alvarez's work - I have heard good things about her other books.
Saving the World (Shannon Ravenel Books) is made up of two stories. First we have the novelist Alma, depressed and a few years overdue with her latest manuscript. Her publisher and agent phone regularly to ask about the family saga she is contracted to write; Alma lies about her progress and whiles away her time writing a different story. Her husband, Richard, is a project manager at a company funding third-world initiatives; when he has the chance to front a project in Alma's native Dominican Republic, she refuses to go with him--until he is taken hostage in a revolt against the AIDS research being conducted at the clinic run by Richard's aid organization.
The second story is the one Alma is writing. She had become intrigued by a little-known 1804 adventure the Spanish Royal Philanthropic Expedition of the Vaccine. Charles IV of Spain commissioned a physician, Francisco Xavier de Balmis, to take the newly-discovered smallpox vaccine to the Spanish colonies of the New World; Balmis sailed with two dozen orphan boys and their guardian, Isabel, and grew the serum from one boy's inoculation to the next during the voyage. Alma brings Isabel's trials and relationships to life in this, the more interesting part of the book.
Readers often respond well to novels that contain stories within stories. Some involve literary mysteries, such as THE DAUGHTER OF TIME by Josephine Tey, or the brilliant POSSESSION A ROMANCE by A.S. Byatt. Sometimes the main story is simply framed by a narrator, as in Emily Bronte's WUTHERING HEIGHTS. Whatever the format, the two stories are generally connected by some linking principle.
In SAVING THE WORLD, that linking principle feels thinly drawn. Both Alma and Isabel are associated with men whose work may exploit innocent victims in the name of a greater good, but there is not enough bridging the two centuries. In Alma's world, at least, there are too many loosely-drawn characters and questions left unanswered. The reader has little sense of Alma actually writing Isabel's story, nor is it easy to understand what motivates her actions with her friends and husband. At the very end of her story Alma finds strength and resolve; it would have been a more satisfying read if she had done so earlier.
Like Alma, Julia Alvarez was drawn to writing about the Expedition of the Vaccine (which is a real historical incident). This, to me, was the more successful of the two stories. Four stars for the royal voyage, three for Alma; do the math and round to four, but only if you don't need all the loose ends tied up in your novels.
Linda Bulger, 2009
0 Response to "[EUX]≡ PDF Gratis Saving the World (Audible Audio Edition) Julia Alvarez Blanca Camacho Recorded Books Books"
Post a Comment