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A Map of Glass
by Jane Urquhart
Product Group: Book
Publisher: MacAdam/Cage Publishing (2007-03-15)
ISBN: 1596922133
EAN: 9781596922136
Dewy Decimal #: 813
Paperback: 375 pages
Release Date: 2007-03-15
SKU: 00-R22L-0FFO
Condition: Good
Comments: Former library book with one stamp inside front cover, otherwise clean and unmarked. Binding is tight.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
From the author of the best-selling, award-winning The Stone Carvers and The Underpainter comes a new novel that explores love, loss, and the transitory nature of place. After Jerome, a young artist on a remote island retreat, discovers Andrew Woodman s dead body frozen in the ice, he meets the elderly man s former lover, Sylvia, who is curious about the circumstances surrounding Andrew s death. Together, Jerome and Sylvia uncover both the secrets of their own pasts and the breathtaking story of Andrew s ancestors.
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Customer Reviews
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By the end I really liked it
Rating  (4)
Date: 2008-04-23
I had mixed feelings about this book, but by the end I really liked it. It was a very interesting exploration of memory, loss, impermanence, and the fragmentary nature of life. It was a very atmospheric book, evocative and descriptive, not a driven by twists and turns of plot or dialogue, but it is thought provoking, and multi-layered. I am surprised by how long it has stayed with me, and how many times I find myself thinking about it and recommending it to others...
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A CANADIAN MASTERPIECE
Rating  (5)
Date: 2006-05-30
4 out of 6 customers found this reveiw helpful
Jane Urquhart's new novel, A Map of Glass, is a richly rextured and complex work of genius. Magnificent descriptive passages illuminate and delight.
This novel is deeply insightful,exceptionally thought provoking and remarkably moving.
Intelligent readers eveywhere, will be delighted by this rare literary jewel.
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Pretentious and contrived
Rating  (3)
Date: 2006-04-12
6 out of 10 customers found this reveiw helpful
The first chapter of this book is unusual and interesting, describing a photographer, Jerome, and the photos he takes on an island near Lake Ontario. Then the story switches to the other main character, Sylvia, an autistic woman in her 40s or 50s. Both characters' stories eventually become preposterous, told in a poetic language that got on my nerves.
Everyone speaks as if they were characters in a pretentious novel. What a surprise -- they are!
I also couldn't make sense of all the "meaningful" descriptions of scenery and all the metaphors about maps. And who is Sylvia's friend, Julia? Why does this character need to be blind? Must be another metaphor I missed. We never meet Julia. As far as I could tell, she's just an excuse for revealing things about Sylvia.
Then, in the middle of the book, I encountered a 140-page "novella" about people living in the same area in the 19th century. This cursorially told tale is full of cliches including the rich family's son who impregnates the maid, and the old maid sister who has a sudden, intense ridiculous love interest. This novella is like a sketch for a real book.
Then we're back to the future, so to speak, with Jerome and Sylvia, who continue to speak in either stilted or unnatural language. Plus Jerome's too-good-to-be-true girlfriend, Mira, and Sylvia's pompous not-believable-as-a-real-person husband, Malcolm.
Come on. What is this stuff? The author does everything possible to connect up all this baloney in some meaningful way. The reader is left to guess whether Sylvia's story is true, and to accept Jerome's sudden, cathartic realizations about his childhood.
The whole thing is far from believable which, for me, is a real problem.
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A wonderful tale - please read this book!!!
Rating (5)
Date: 2005-11-05
3 out of 11 customers found this reveiw helpful
As always, Jane Uquhart is a master story teller. She writes like an angel. I don't want to give "too much of the plot away" but it's set in both modern day Toronto and in the 19th century. You will love it...
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