Schooling

Reading and then re-reading this book last year was a thrilling literary experience. I picked up the book just on the strength of the cover - I hadn't read the reviews, which is the way I prefer it - and although I found it tricky to get into, am so glad I stuck with it. The stream of consciousness narrative draws you in so expertly that I felt nostalgic for a world I'd never inhabited. I'm British but to see the UK through American eyes was incredibly interesting - stuffy, old-fashioned bunch that we are - but to also see it through the eyes of a stroppy teenager and want to be there is an amazing skill on the part of Heather McGowan All I can suggest to the negative reviewers below is to suggest that you try again, unless you want your literature on a plate. Astonishing piece of work.

I read this book when it was first released, it did not make a great impact on me immediately, but over time "Schooling" has reappeared in my thoughts numerous times. So, I had to write this review after reading that miserable griping below. Yes this book can seem a bit pretentious (i.e. inaccessible) at times, but "Schooling" is nonetheless fey, witty, and unforgettable. Yes, fey and witty. No kidding. This is not your typical coming of age adolescent girl coming of age novel about (...) boyfriends. Thankfully, McGowan's heroine is clever and vulnerable-- and the adults (her father, a teacher who has an inappropriate interest in her) surrounding her possess a combination of longing and nostalgia that is at times heartbreaking. And the other kids in the novel are, well, like kids. funny, brutal, smart, goofy. like we all were or are at one time or another. Yes there are moments when McGowan's words will seem foggy, you may need to re-read a passage here and there, but it is ultimately rewarding. A beautiful novel. Buy it and put a little money in this wonderful novelist's pocket so she will write another.

Some authors step up boldly, attempt a new style, a new kind of character...they don't worry about whether they "baby" the reader through the story, or whether the story itself pulls the reader along on a trip that the reader either accepts or denies. Like Joyce, Woolf, and Pynchon, McGowan tries and succeeds at bringing a new and innovative voice to fiction. If you don't like it...well too bad.

i read a review of this book in my newspaper. they called it 'jane eyre on mushrooms.' i had to check it out. and it rocks! i loved it so much. i'm only seventeen but this book really captured how #$%^ it is when you're a smart, curious girl and you're surrounded by people who want you to shut up. i mean there was more going on than that. it was just really beautiful amd intense and i think you should all read it and weep!!!! peace out.

I wrote the starred review of Schooling in Booklist Magazine (you can read it above in the 'editorial reviews' section), and I have to take issue with people who say that the book is too difficult, or that it offers little in the way of ample rewards. Schooling was as good as any first novel I can remember reading in all of my time reviewing at Booklist.The complaint that's always made about literary fiction, and that has been leveled at everyone since James Joyce, is that it's just pure ostentation, a sort of "look ma no hands" linguistic showmanship. That's not, however, why McGowan's book is difficult. The book is difficult to read -- at least at first -- because it is an entirely refreshing reading experience. Because the novel's central character Catrine, is young, and because she is scared and small and growing into an understanding of herself, she is inarticulate.But despite her inability to articulate words or thoughts, we come to know Catrine very intimately, and MacGowan manages to make her inarticulate thoughts and words the stuff of great literary fiction.The book can be difficult to read, because it is unlike most books (more challenging in structure than even, say, DFW's Infinite Jest). But eventually McGowan gets you inside Catrine's head, and once that happens, it's no different than any other absorbing reading experience.Is there adequate payoff for the challenge? I'd say so. I'd say that Ms. McGowan is an enormous literary talent, that her explorations of memory, childhood, and life ont he outside are as compelling as any I've read. If the final message fails to deliver a knock out punch to some readers, I'd say that maybe that's because the messages we can garner from living and schooling are, like Catrine, utterly inarticulate.