For the book chosen off of the
list, I decided to read Memory Keepers
Daughter, written by Kim Edwards, and for a book of my choice I chose A Company of Liars, written by Karen
Maitland.
I do
not believe that The Memory Keepers Daughter
was a novel of high literary merit. One of the reasons was because of the
characters and their lack of personalities. Their personalities were directly
given to the reader throughout the course of the book, and I am not claiming
that they don’t have separate characteristics, but Edwards gives the reader all
of their characteristics directly. There is no real need to analyze their separate
traits because the author clearly states them. A book of literary merit would
make the reader analyze the indirect characterization that the author gave them
and develop the characters through the entire novel. The thoughts and ideas of
the characters is also clearly stated towards the end of the book; in the
middle I questioned why Paul enjoyed music so much and why David took so many
pictures, but Edwards gave us specific reasons. Edwards said that “David took
pictures to give another moment (other than Phoebe’s) similar substance and
equal weight.” And Paul liked music because “he wanted to make his parents look
up from their lives and hear the beauty and joy je had discovered.” The plot
and climax of the story leave nothing for the readers as well. The characters
were the main focus and everything was explained about them. There was no
question about endings and nothing left the reader questioning more. Those are
some of the reasons why The Memory
Keepers Daughter is not of literary merit.
A Company of Liars, I believe, is a book
of more literary merit. Although it is a historical fiction novel, there are
pieces that a reader can analyze and question. There are many characters in
this novel, and through the course of the book, many of them are murdered, with
only the faintest details told about them. It makes the reader question why
they were killed off, because they were important to the text, but not greatly
described. On the other hand though, there are characters that do not seem to
have a large influence on the text, that are greatly described. Discussions
could be held about the reasoning’s of this, and not one answer can be
pinpointed for it. Another reason this is of some literary merit is because of
the ending. A young girl was supposed to be killed at the end of the book, and
the novel ends with her returning to her murderer’s house. The author gives no
other information, which leaves the reader questioning what occurred afterwards
and what will happen in the long run. This cannot be described as a high
literary merit book though because it was written for the pleasure of the
readers. There are portions of the book that are not there for literary
purposes, but for the entertainment of the reader.
Although
there is a strong theme occurring in both novels, I believe that the book A Company of Liars has more literary
merit than the Memory Keepers Daughter.
I decided this based on how well a reader could analyze the plot and the characters
and how much direct and indirect characterization was given from the author.
