A Thousand Acres is by far my favorite book we've read in Lit. I loved the writing style, and the characters. Or, as Hannah put it, I hated the characters, but still loved them. They all seemed so innocent in the beginning, but it eventually became clear that this wasn't the case. Because we saw everything through Ginny's eyes, it took a while to see the bad in some characters. I wonder how different it would be if we had seen everything through Rose's eyes. My guess? A lot different.
Which makes me wonder why Smiley chose to write from Ginny's perspective. In King Lear, Goneril really didn't have much of a role. Sure, she had some important parts, but she was definitely not the main character by any means. Shakespeare showed Goneril and Regan as pretty much carbon copies of each other; they were the evil sisters. Not much more to them. When you just read A Thousand Acres, your first thought is something along the lines of "What? They're totally different! Rose is the evil sister, and Ginny's innocent! Rose abused Ginny!" Well, some of you might not have thought that. You might have just skipped to my next point. If you did, kudos. If you take the time to try and view A Thousand Acres from the third point of view, things look a little different. As readers within Ginny's head, we were charmed by Jess right with her. Who cares if she was married? Her marriage was falling apart! And Jess is hot! And Rose just went and stole him from Ginny! She deserved to be poisoned!
Woah. Slow down. Ginny cheated on Ty, who really wasn't such a bad guy. And, yeah, Rose "stole" Jess from her, it shouldn't matter, because Ginny was married! Even if you say it did matter, does that really condone Ginny poisoning her sister? What it all comes down to is that Ginny really isn't so innocent. Maybe she and Rose are a lot alike. After all, they are sisters and best friends who have lived right next to each other their whole lives.
That all being said, I loved this book. A whole lot. The character dynamics are great, and it's a fabulous way to tell a Shakespeare play in a modern setting.
Who knew a book about a family on a farm could be so interesting?
