A scholar of Emily Dickinson rents a farm in Wales. She
calls herself Emilie. She eats, she sleeps, she walks around the countryside,
and she goes to villages for food and other supplies. She begins to make paths
and plant shrubs and flowers. She sees that there are 10 white geese in the
field, and they begin to disappear, one by one.
Gradually, we learn that she is ill, and that she fled
Amsterdam because she had an affair with her student. She told no one that she
was leaving.
This is a book club selection for me, and I found it really,
really boring. There is no character development; the characters for the most
part aren’t even named. They are: the husband, the wife, the mother, the
father, the policeman, etc. There is no
real plot; we get glimpses of her life before Wales, but never the story. I
like stories! And I like to know about characters: who they are, how they think, what makes them who they are.
There is no story here, and the characters are cardboard cutouts.
Not a book I will be recommending.
241 pages
