Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman

BookTalk

The Owen’s women have always been different. From the of their line, Maria Owens, these women have inherited a penchant for love, beauty, grey eyes, and magic.

Our story opens with the generation of Sally and Gillian. Sally is a prim and proper utterly boring vegetarian who desires nothing more from life than to obtain the ever cultivated status of ‘normal’. While, Gillian is a living Venus, a beauty whose impetuous nature lead her to three marriages that last about the length of a minute. Two sisters who are nothing alike, and yet, who both are the epitome of an Owens woman.

Sally finds and loses her normal as Gillian searches for love and finds abuse. As women the girls are about to learn that to run away from the Owens tradition will only lead them straight back to their roots to fix their problems.

Told in four parts Hoffman’s magic pervades each page with fantastical flower gardens, and lessons of love we’d all do better to head.

Review

If your first introduction to Practical Magic was the movie, Step Away from the book. [for a second anyway] Have no fear in picking up the novel…But, I’m here to tell you it is nothing, NOTHING, like the movie. So much so that I found myself distracted while reading…

What do you mean the main story doesn’t take place in the Aunt’s house?

What do you mean half of the book is about Sally’s teenage daughters?

Will Sally ever catch a break in love?

Seriously I could go on and on. The differences are so vast as to make me wonder how Alice Hoffman ever sold the movie rights. She must have been fuming with the final product!

That being said…I really should have known better. Anyone who has read Hoffman in the past knows that a chick-lit story like Practical Magic (the movie) would not have been written by her. Hoffman’s tales are always more broken up, more cryptic and yet seriously detailed. In the book, the Owens’ tale is broken up into four parts. Sally’s daughters are teens and just as involved in their own life/love stories as their mother and aunt.

The book is really about how three generations of women adapt to life. How they run away from things, run into things, miss things, and hit the nail right on the head. It’s also a novel about sisters. How they interact and love each other. How no one will be there for you like a sister will. But mainly this book is about love its dangers and its beauty.

As always it’s Hoffmann’s ability to use magical realism to point out universal truths that really sings. While I’ve never seen air change color or plants react to my emotions. We’ve all felt the magic of the evening air, and had the scent of a flower bring out a longing for love. While in real life we find inspiration in nature…rather than nature finding inspiration in us! But Hoffmann’s writing is so expressive I dare you not to start to look for changes in the world around you.

What I love best is that Hoffmann leaves me with so many delicious quotes. The beauty is in Hoffman’s writing more than in her plot. That being said I’d like to complete this review with some of my favorite quotes…Because I love Hoffmann’s writing…

“A woman who was head over heels and wanted to make certain her love was returned would be happy to hand over a cameo that had been in her family for generations. One who had been betrayed would pay even more.” (19)

“They could see how love might control you, from your head to your toes, not to mention ever single part of you in between” (19)

“Certain facts of love she knew for certain” (30)

“Anyone else might assume Gillian is lying or exaggerating or just goofing around. But Sally knows her sister. She knows better. There’s a dead man in the car. Guaranteed.” (57)

“Antonia would be completely and utterly mortified to know that I’M A VIRGIN is printed across her back in black letters” (78)

“He wants it all to be the same and all to have changed.” (133)

“But not a day goes by that she doesn’t think about the boy she loved. Not a moment passes that she doesn’t wish that time were a movable entity and that she could go backward and kiss that boy again” (176)

“Although she’d never believe it, those lines in Gillian’s face are the most beautiful part about her. They reveal what she’s gone through and what she’s survived and who exactly she is, deep inside” (178)

“There are some things, after all, that Sally Owens knows for certain: Always throw spilled salt over your left shoulder. Keep rosemary by your garden gate. Add pepper to your mashed potatoes. Plant roses and lavender, for luck. Fall in love whenever you can.” (190)

Rating: 3/5 I can’t help it Alice Hoffman…I fell in love with the movie first…

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The Red Garden by Alice Hoffman

Review:

The layered tales in The Red Garden start as magical stories and culminate in a history of a town full of depth and feeling. It’s wonderful to see how stories from the beginning of the collection end up mentioned less and less realistically, less and less clearly, until they are part of the collective vocabulary of the town. To the modern resident they are ever-present and yet indefinable in their origins. As a reader you’ll begin to remember your own hometown folk stories. The rumors of a whirlpool in the lake, that road you didn’t drive on after midnight, even holding your breath as you biked past a certain house. Reading how Hoffman’s fictional town earned it’s legends you’ll wonder about the origins of your own.

Hoffman’s collection of stories present an extremely realistic view of a town. That being said, Hoffman’s tales do include her ever-present magical realism. A garden that turns all plants red. No matter what color a plant started as, they become blood-red for reasons exposed in the in the titular story. In another we meet a woman who may or may not have originated as a creature of the sea. Yet, while Hoffman’s blatant use of magic is enchanting, for the most part the magic in the stories is sutble…a woman and a bear who have a mother/child-like connection…a Johhny Appleseed who subsists on almost nothing…a woman who always brings you exactly what you need when you need it (like showing up on your doorstep with a basket of tomatoes when the craving hits). It’s truly the every-day magic that makes most of the stories special rather than common place. It’s that little bit of sparkle that makes a well told tale last through the generations.

Beyond the quiet enjoyment of watching a town history grow it’s the love that will keep you reading. Many of the tales follow stories of love lost and love taken. “Owl and Mouse” was one of my favorites, telling of a woman who walked her way into town and found the love of her life. The main character is a woman with her head in the clouds and her love is a blind man looking for the last adventure of his life. They have their day, and the memory of the dog forever. In “The Truth about my Mother” a child recounts the history of her mother as well as the tale of her entrance into the town and the beginnings of her second marriage. The daughter’s view is unique as she is at once a part of the story and yet, relegated to the edges of the town. Finally, my last favorite was “The Monster of Blackwell”. A love story in the theme of Beauty and the Beast with a more realistic ending. This one broke my heart in the best way possible.

This collection is a quiet work meant to be read with a cup of coffee and a comfy chair. Stories can be read singularly, but are best read continuously to build up the feeling of history…as well as remember each story correctly. At times they interlace and because many of the characters are named the same/from the same families, keeping everyone straight does present a problem. As does being aware of the passage of time. Hoffman skips around the years in a generally chronological manner, but heeds no structure to how long the gaps between stories are. Warning to the wise: take a note of the dates that start each story, it’ll help to orient you in time and with the family generations.

Rating: 6/10

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