Serena: A Novel (P.S.)

This novel opens with a bang. Pemberton brings his new wife, Serena, home to Appalachia and his logging camp. Waiting for him as the train stops is the father of the young woman who is pregnant with Pemberton's child. The girl's father plans to kill Pemberton as his pregnant daughter watches. Things turn out differently, however. Pemberton, with the blessing of his wife Serena, duels with the father and kills him. Serena gives the daughter the knife from her father's body and tells her that she will never get any help from them for her child.The book progresses as the couple builds a logging empire, razing the land all around them to stumps and polluting the environment. This is told in the back-drop of the Great Depression and FDR's starting up of National Parks. Naturally, the Pembertons are opposed to parks and they buy up all the land they can to log while buying off all the people they can to turn the outcomes in their favor. Those in their way, they kill or have killed. There is no compassion forthcoming from these two.Many others die due to the horrible conditions in the logging camp. As soon as someone is injured they are fired and replaced. If they die, the next person waiting for a job gets hired. There is no compensation and certainly no compassion. Everyone is expendable to the Pembertons.Even in love there is a visage of portending evil. Serena wants Pemberton to be satisfied in life with only her - the two of them together against the world. She describes their lovemaking as 'annihilation'. This is symbolic of the two of them needing only one another and the rest of the world being expendable if they do not fit into Serena and Pembertan's plans. Unfortunately, Serena can not produce an heir and she begins to worry whether Pemberton is secretly helping his illegitimate son and his mother.Serena goes around on her white Arabian horse with an Eagle trained to kill rattlesnakes and other enemies. As she begins to suspect that Pemberton might have some interests that are not solely her, the balance of love and power begin to shift.I found this a powerful book, beautifully written with wonderfully developed characterization. The sense of time and place is superb. I highly recommend this book.

Serena plays out like a Shakespeare play, complete with chorus of loggers commenting on the story, tragedy, despair, a little hope, and it's even divided into four acts. The novel itself is very well written with wonderful imagery of the Smokey Mountains and the impact the Permbertons wrought on the landscape. The characters are all very well drawn out and fully realized, Serena and her husband are easily two of the most despicable and bizarre couples you could ever imagine. Serena herself serves as the catalyst for much of the story, she is driven purely by ambition and greed and will do anything or kill anybody to achieve her dreams--she is very much, as the plot description implies, a reimagining of Lady Macbeth.As for the bits that don't work so well. There's splattering of mysticism thrown into the plot and it doesn't work as well as other bits of the book. It felt a bit forced and smacked of the whole mountain people having mystical powers stereotype. The book also drags early on and doesn't pick up until about half way through. Then there's the ending itself, while harrowing and, and to its credit it ties up the main plot line, it leaves a couple of the characters fates up in the air.Despite some flaws "Serena" is a good read that will get exciting about half way through. I could have done without the mysticism and it would have been nice to see what happened to some of the characters afterwards, but these points are negligible to say the least. I debated giving this book three or four stars (primarily because amazon won't let you do half stars), but settled on four mostly because of the writing, characters, and the exciting ending.

This book had a bunch of rave reviews. The main character of Serena is hard to connect with. I feel like the author (who is male) did not do a great job of developing her. I also feel like his writing is hard to get into. It's an interesting story, but it certainly wasn't one of my faves.

No problem

Spell bounding- very hard to put book down.

Meine Rezension bezieht sich auf die oben gezeigte Ausgabe(ecco Verlag), die vermutlich nicht mehr im Handel ist, was ich schade finde. Dieses Buch weist einen rauen Buchschnitt (Rough Cut) auf. Hierbei handelt es sich um unregelmäßig geschnittene, ausgefranste Seitenränder. Diese sind beabsichtigt, um handgeschnittenes Papier nachzuempfinden und sich von maschinengeschnittenen Büchern abzusetzen. Dadurch wirkt das Buch sehr wertig.Ich bin noch nicht ganz mit dem Buch durch (ca die Hälfte)- kann es aber kaum aus der Hand legen. Obwohl ich lieber in deutsch, als englisch lese, merkt man das der Autor eine sehr angenehme und plastische Erzählsprache verwendet. Es fällt einem leicht in die 20ger Jahre in North Carolina gedanklich einzutauchen, in den George und Serena Pemperton ihr Holzfällerimperium aufbauen und scheinbar vor nichts zurückschrecken, was ihren Weg stört. Mit Serena baut Ron Rash eine brilliante und ehrgeizige aber auch berechnend und mysteriöse Hauptfigur auf, deren Geschichte man einfach bis zum Ende erfahren will.In anderen Kritiken wird die Novelle mit Macbeth-artigen Motiven beschrieben, was treffend erscheint.

Troisième roman de R Rash que je lis, et toujours autant de plaisir. Écriture très belle, très forte, de beaux personnages, de superbes paysages, et l'histoire captivante. On apprend beaucoup sur la vie si rude des gens dans ces regions montagneuses après la crise de 29, sur la société en Caroline du nord.J'ai conseillé ce roman à des amis et je suis curieuse de voir le film qui va en être tiré. J'espère ne pas être déçue.

Interesting reading, especially for its unique characters. Serena will make you fall in love and Pemberton will surprise you... wether in a good or bad way, it'll be up to you. It was a good way, for me.