<p>Me too. At first, I liked it because it seemed so lyrical and imparted such a strong sense of place. Then I got bored during the long section of the girls’ pregnancies. Then I got caught up in wondering what the heck was going to happen in the story, so I sped through the rest of the book…after which I put it away and have scarcely thought about it since.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Same here. They didn’t seem like real people. In addition, many plot elements and even many of the details of the narrative seemed contrived and far-fetched. I kept wondering to what extent certain phenomena could ever plausibly have occurred, e.g. the existence of a group of Native American men who caught, tamed and sold wild horses and also picked fruit, and let a wild young girl ride with them…hmmm.</p>
That pretty much describes my experience with this book. Somewhere in the middle, I found myself thinking, “Is there a direction to this or will it continue to meander around? When will it end?” I found the dialogue stilted, an unsatisfactory conclusion, & there were many missed opportunities for character development. I’m glad I read it but I didn’t love it.</p>
<p>I was never bored. I enjoyed reading the entire story. I missed Jane, though. I was surprised she exited the book so early. I found her more interesting than Della and wondered more than once what life would have been like for Talmadge and Angelene had Jane lived.</p>
<p>I agree about the historical placement of the story. I had to remind myself a few times that the setting was 1900. </p>
<p>NJTheatreMOM, that’s an interesting question you raise about the veracity of the Nez Perce apple pickers/horse trader plot. I was caught up enough in the story that I didn’t notice. Coplin’s description of the orchard, the trees, the planting, etc. are probably pretty accurate, as she grew up in her grandfather’s orchard in Wenatchee, Washington, and lives with “her partner, a forestry ecologist, who, she says, ‘helped with all the trees in the book.’” [Amanda</a> Coplin, THE ORCHARDIST & Rowan Jacobsen, AMERICAN TERROIR | Writers Voice](<a href=“http://www.writersvoice.net/2012/09/amanda-coplin-rowan-jacobsen/]Amanda”>Amanda Coplin, THE ORCHARDIST & Rowan Jacobsen, AMERICAN TERROIR | Writer's Voice) </p>
<p>I am not bothered by the accuracy (or more likely, lack of accuracy) regarding Clee and his band. To me, the story was like a folk tale, or a family legend passed down orally through the years, which contains more magic than facts.</p>
<p>Although this interviewer doesn’t specifically mention the horse traders, he may have had it on his mind when he asked the following of Amanda Coplin:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Wikipedia on magical realism: “The term is broadly descriptive rather than critically rigorous: Professor Matthew Strecher defines magic realism as ‘what happens when a highly detailed, realistic setting is invaded by something too strange to believe.’" One of the elements is that “the reader must let go of preexisting ties to conventional exposition, plot advancement, linear time structure, scientific reason, etc., to strive for a state of heightened awareness of life’s connectedness or hidden meanings…. ‘to seize the mystery that breathes behind things.’” [Magic</a> realism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_realism]Magic”>Magic realism - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>Here is one person’s observation, from an Amazon reader review:</p>
<p>
*</p>
<p>That statement reinforces little niggling feelings I kept having that Coplin was fudging the details of the workings and seasons of the orchard to fit the demands of the story. This would have been okay…maybe…if she hadn’t gone into such detail about so many things. Where there is so much concrete description, you (or I, at least ) would like to trust that there is some degree of accuracy.</p>
<p>Cold Mountain is another book with many detailed descriptions of rural life in another era. To me, every sentence of the book rang true.</p>
<p>Regarding magical realism, I think there are conventions whereby the author signals that the reader is supposed to suspend disbelief (by describing “impossible” occurrences, etc.), and I didn’t see Coplin adhering to those.</p>
<p>Here’s some commentary from Amanda Coplin on the subject:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I wasn’t distracted because I don’t know a thing about harvesting fruit, but I can see how someone more in the know might find the errors very off-putting.</p>
<p>I felt the need to suspend disbelief in a magically realistic kind of way when considering the relationship between Talmadge and Clee. It’s interesting to ponder…Could two people really become such close friends when one has never spoken a word? </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I didn’t see this as a flaw or an inaccuracy in the novel—just as something impossibly wonderful that I, as the reader, had to simply accept.</p>
<p>I wasn’t bored, but I was sometime impatient. I stayed up way too late to finish the last few chapters. </p>
<p>I can see why someone might be reminded of magical realism even though there really isn’t anything fantastical about the plot. There’s something about that very strong sense of place and the language that makes it seem very mythic. I’ve never had much patience at all for it as a genre. (I can’t tell you how many times I tried to read* A Hundred Years of Solitude*!)</p>
<p>mathmom, how awful that must have been – must still be. </p>
<p>I was looking at a website that supports families whose loved ones are missing. Although the site was focused on war disappearances, it seems like the description would apply in any similar situation:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The DOJ puts out a guide for families of missing children. One parent is quoted: “I had no rational thoughts, they were all irrational.”</p>
<p>I think Talmadge has both the above reactions following the trauma of losing Elsbeth and then Della.</p>
<p>So another question, any thoughts about chapter lengths? I found myself quite distracted by the really short ones vs. much longer ones. It seemed so consciously arty, but given that they distracted me more than added to the experience I’m inclined to think they were counterproductive.</p>
<p>I thought I’d have the same reaction to the lack of quotation marks, but blipped right by those. But I’ve still always wondered why do writers do this? </p>
<p>Do you like it when writers break conventions? Does it add to your experience?</p>
<p>The short chapters stood out to me because they were so brief—could hardly even be called chapters. I think that was on purpose, to provide a contrast between the two stories that were being told (Della’s tortured wandering vs. Talmadge’s life in the orchard). </p>
<p>For example, the chapter on p. 191 is only three sentences:</p>
<p>It was November, and there was much work to be done. Angelene helped Talmadge in the apple orchard, and in the evenings studied at the kitchen table while he dozed in the chair in the corner. He seemed more tired than usual, she thought.</p>
<p>This glimpse into a peaceful life of normal activity—a blessed life where essentially nothing happens—is dropped between two longer chapters about Della, traveling through the rugged mountains, suffering from graphic nightmares, and nearly freezing to death. The contrast is bittersweet. Talmadge is physically present in a life where he has rewarding work and much love, but emotionally he is with Della: “every time he did not give in to his urge to go look for her, he resented the moment that came in its place. Even if the moment was beautiful and was something he valued, and made him who he was” (p. 206).</p>
<p>As for the breaking of conventions, I don’t care for stories that fly off into strange fantasy (had to quit on Mark Helprin’s Winter’s Tale ¾ of the way through), but I can live with unconventional punctuation.</p>
<p>Cormac McCarthy doesn’t use quotation marks (or semi-colons). He says, “It’s to make it easier, not to make it harder…I believe in periods, and capitals, and the occasional comma and that’s it.” Brief but interesting exchange with Oprah: [Cormac</a> McCarthy on James Joyce and Punctuation - Video - Oprah.com](<a href=“Oprah.com”>Cormac McCarthy on James Joyce and Punctuation - Video)</p>
<p>LOL, James Joyce is someone else I have very little patience for!</p>
<p>I like your example of how the super short chapter works. I kept thinking I should try to figure out what’s up here, but never did decide what the idea was. I think some of the chapters do have multiple locations separated by space, don’t they? I had to return my copy to the library as there was a hold on it.</p>
<p>^ My senior seminar in college was on James Joyce’s Ulysses. That’s the only book we read for the entire trimester. It was one of the best classes I took because I would never, ever have tackled Ulysses on my own, but our little group had a great time reading it together. I haven’t read any James Joyce since. That was enough for one lifetime. :)</p>
<p>Faulkner does use quotation marks (at least in my dusty 1964 Vintage Books set of his works).</p>
<p>Amanda Coplin mentions in the Seattle Times interview (that ignatius posted) that William Faulkner’s Light in August is one of her literary influences. However, I think there’s far more dialect in Faulkner’s works than in *The Orchardist<a href=“and%20more%20brilliance%20and%20complexity,%20but%20that%20goes%20without%20saying”>/i</a>.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I don’t know but I’m curious! That’s the sort of question for which a Kindle is utterly useless. I need a real book to browse through. :(</p>
<p>Hi everyone again! I thought this book was beautifully written and haunting. I did feel frustrated after having finished the book.
I found Talmadge to be a wonderful loving man. However, because he was so solid and stable I found him less compelling as a charactor. I felt that he did do a good job in trying to balance his caretaking of Angelene and Della.
I found I wanted more backstory on the characters. Really wanted to know how Della and Jane-two sisters came into that situation with Michaelson. I was expecting to discover that they were his sister’s daughters.
I actually liked Della. She was reaching for something and didnt even know what it was.
I wanted to know more of a backstory about Caroline and Cree also-not just glimpses.
Mathmom-sorry for what your family has gone through with the disapearance of your cousin.</p>
<p>I had a strange thought when I was reading that Jane and Della were somehow not real. They appeared out of nowhere and their dialogue was so minimal and strange…as if they were Elsbeth reincarnated. I was reminded of the character of Beloved from Toni Morrison’s book–Sethe’s murdered daughter who comes back in the body of a young woman who isn’t “normal,” and whose backstory, like Della and Jane’s, involves childhood abuse by a man. If no one has read Beloved, then I probably sound crazy (or maybe I sound crazy even to those who have read it :)).</p>
<p>My point (I sort of have one ;)) is that The Orchardist builds expectations and makes you want to keep turning the pages (maybe why mathmom stayed up too late reading?). We all wanted…something…to happen, but Coplin didn’t quite deliver. Almost, but not quite.</p>
<p>I agree with you on the Beloved analogy, Mary. The mood or tone of this book also reminded me of Cormac Mccarthy’s All The Pretty Horses, with the dreamy settings in the orchards. </p>
<p>I wanted more, as well. More about Clee, more about the missing sister, more about the girls’ mother, more about Caroline, or even the father of the girls’ children. I loved parts of this book–but I felt bogged down with the ending and the details of Della’s prison stay. I don’t feel the story resolved itself, and I don’t think Coplin provided enough information to even imagine satisfactorily what happened.</p>
<p>First, let me say that I know nothing about Washington produce, but I wondered about the seemingly egregious errors, particularly since the author supposedly spent so much time in her grandfather’s orchard.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>from the same county as the anonymous Amazon reviewer: