Books read in 2009: The Bone Sharps

I've finished one book from my "official" list, and another book I started late last year.

Here's the review of the first book: The Bone Sharps: A Novel, by Tim Bowling. (I'll write about the second book tomorrow.)

The thick paper cover and the feel of the inside paper of this book tell you that it's a bit out of the ordinary.

Reading it confirms that impression.

What's it about? World War I; dinosaur bones in the badlands of Alberta; Native issues; love, loss, and God. Very much about God.

The war parts are about as gory as you're going to get, so don't say I didn't warn you. But it's all necessary, and it all comes together in the end. Well, kind of, because everything ends in fragments.

Actually fragments are an ongoing motif of the book. Dinosaurs gone to pieces, a world gone to pieces, peoples' lives told in pieces. The question in life--as our Sunday School speaker said yesterday--is how you try to put it all back together, or how you see how things fit together. If you think they fit together.

Samuel Pane wrote a good Canadian Literature review of the book here.

And here's a neat thing: Tim Bowling is a homeschool dad! (From this interview)

"LP: In our memoir you indicate your dissatisfaction with the school system so I’m assuming your kids are home schooled? How does that affect your writing, what special allowances do you have to make to your writing schedule?
TB: Yes, my kids are home schooled. Not only do I think school is one of the great brainwashers into North American culture and capitalism (a culture not entirely repellent, of course, but one that could be resisted a bit more seriously), I just don’t want not to see my children for six hours a day, five days a week. I mean, I really enjoy them. I’m selfish that way...."