January 2010: The Whole World Over (Glass)

Post date: Jan 11, 2010 5:0:14 PM

10 or so of us gathered at Maggie Seeley's home in Berkeley on Tuesday 1/19/2010 to discuss The Whole World Over by Julia Glass.

Catherine Carr described the book as a gentle roller coaster or rolling hills, nothing dramatic or wonderful but if you gave into the wordy language and long lists, quite enjoyable. Unfortunately for author Julia Glass, Catherine was one of the few who enjoyed the book. The general consensus was that the book was just too long. In comparison to our December read As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner, we realized that Faulkner painted a richer picture of his characters and a more genuine story in a short novel than Julia Glass accomplished in a very long novel. In thinking about how and why the author received grant funding for the writing of this book we are at a loss. The only notable uniqueness we could locate in the novel was the excessive use of lists. Lists of the contents in drawers, lists of recipe ingredients, lists of pros and cons about having a baby etc.

On that note, Pros & Cons of The Whole World Over, as discussed by the SC EB Book Club:

Pros: Easy to read, great for airport reading

Cons: Long (though an abridged version is available for download on itunes), wordy, under-developed story lines, unbelievable circumstances