I didn't care for Tomorrow. I didn't dislike it because the entire novel is an interior monologue by a woman lying in bed. I wasn't put off by the premise of her interior address to her children, the twins Kate and Nick, who're to be told something tomorrow that'll change forever the way they look at themselves and their parents. The most serious shortcoming in the novel is the voice of Paula Hook, the mother. It's too self-conscious, too aware it's speaking a narration in someone's head. Her voice--and the narration we receive--is a performance and Swift fails to make it otherwise. The result is a woman speaking in false notes and forced articulation. Because there's an air of deliberately withheld mystery, as there is, in fact, all the novel's information arrives in ways that seem contrived. It's all clumsy and unimaginative. I've read a couple of very good novels by Swift, Waterland and Last Orders. But I'd been disappointed by his last, the noir-aspiring The Light of Day and should have been alerted. Here, with Tomorrow, I wondered if Swift was having delusions of grandeur. It's a novel of the night like the final chapters of Ulysses. The date of Paula's monologue is June 16th. As everyone knows, as Swift knew when he chose the date for Paula, that's the date of Molly Bloom's masterful soliloquy at the end of Ulysses and is one of the most famous dates in literature. Any reader will make the comparison. But Paula's no Molly and Swift's no Joyce. It's not that every novel has to attempt an art on a par with Joyce. There's room in the world for fiction of this particular caliber. The fault's not so much Swift's as mine for setting my own bar so high. I did the choosing and therefore left myself open to disappointment. Failing like this makes me want to look with a more critical eye at the books I've assigned myself to read. A gnarled, bookish bonsai, I'm tempted to sink deeper, tighter roots of judgement into the garden of books waiting to be plucked and read.
I didn't like the narrator of Tomorrow, a mother musing at three a.m. about her family on the 'eve' of the BIG ANNOUNCEMENT to her sixteen year old twins (SPOILER ALERT) that they were products of (gasp) artificial insemination. She's not evil. And I spent quite some time trying to put my finger on what I didn't like about her. I think it's that she seems to be viewing her family, indeed her life, as figures in a dollhouse. I am the mommy. I work for an art firm. Here is the daddy. He used to study snails; now he owns a magazine. We had a cat. We have twins. One boy, one girl. They are my little shrimps. This is the story of how we had them. The narrator, if you will, is the product of the author's artificial insemination.There were, however, two very poignant moments. One is when our narrator introduces the man who will become her husband to her father, a judge and oenophile, a vignette of particular significance to me at this moment of my life. The second is when she recalls herself as a child in some Shakespearean play, looking out in the audience, and seeing an empty seat next to her father's.Anyhow, this is a very quick read, only $2 from a clearance shelf, and a welcome interlude during a more dense reading effort.
What do You think about Tomorrow (2007)?
I actually had to create the bookshelf "quit" for this book, because I very rarely legitimately quit reading a book once begun. But I did, and I can't front like I really did turn all those endless pages. Also, having read it would say something about me that I don't want said, because (and here it comes) the whole crappy thing is blahbittyblah filler leading up to a "big secret" that will be revealed... when? WHEN? When I looked at the page number for the 40th time on page 54 and decided that I couldn't possibly care enough about the revelation to keep on until it actually. fucking. happened. so i found this http://books.guardian.co.uk/digestedr... and got all the (unutterably lame) secret with none of the ineffable boredom.
—Sarah
This was my introduction to this author, possibly through a book review clipped and thrown in a bedside table drawer. I found it to be lyrical and wise:"We all have more than one creature inside of us perhaps. And there are some moments in our lives that make us ripe for metamorphosis".The book is narrated by the thoughts of a woman/wife/mother who is lying in bed thinking about a conversation that will happen in their family the next morning. The children are twins and the parents feel that they are old enough to understand their unique family origins. Now I must confess that , the similar circumstances of my family and pending discussion werewhat pulled me in after reading the dust jacked synopsis. Indeed, our family discussion as previously planned, took place while I was in the middle of this book. But the writing, the characters, the relevant and graceful transitions from present to past would not let me put the book down. The questions and answers about family, love and bonding would keep any reader. The choice of the incident at the beach to illustrate what makes a family a family was brilliant. I am eager to read more of Swift's work.Just one question...what was the point of Alan Fraser?
—Oona Stieglitz
Expands upon the idea of what/when to tell kids that they are from invitro fertilization AND artificial insemination.Problem is, i just kept wondering through most of the book, WHEN is this narrator going to get around to it... i just kept thinking : GET AROUND TO IT ALREADY!!! (most of the book she just "alludes" to the fact hey ahve somthing big to tell the kids tomorrow...) maybe i just have no patience right about now, but even though it was an interesting idea, this book kindof dragged for me. At one point with only about 30 pages to go i actually just threw it down and exclaimed "I'm not even FINISHING this book!"of course my husband looked at me like I was mad and I felt stupid because after all, who did i think i was "exclaiming" to, anyway...Sorry if I wrecked the book by divulging the ending.... you get the idea pretty quick into it anyway.Actually, my recommendation is just dont bother with it...
—anna
