Holy Angels

In Fall on Your Knees a lot has happened, James has gone off to train for the war, Kathleen is singing in front of thosands of people, Materia is able to support her daughter now. Now that Kathleen is singing in front of thosands of people she is getting quite nervous and her singing coach is forcing her to become louder. Kathleen tells her coach that her father forbade her from singing anything with intercourse wuth the Romanist ladies. Finally she did continue and she managed to finish but was not happy with herself. Kathleen and I are the same kind of person, when we dont believe in something we stick up for it. Even though at times we have to put our feelings aside and just do what we are told even if we do not believe in it.

Summary #3

This critic believed that Fall on Your knees was a "Work of Art". Anne Marie Macdonald is a master storyteller. She is able to keep you right into the story, make you feel like you are one of the characters. You can actually see Cape Breton Island when you are reading this book, you can see the rocky cliffs over the ocean to the houses all in a row. You should not ignore this masterpiece. "Buy a copy for yourself and everyone you know. It's that good".

Summary #2

Oprah Winfrey stated to her audience that the book Fall on Your Knees was “What a wild ride—I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough”. Oprah believed that the book Fall on Your Knees was very dark, insightful and hilarious.

Summary #1

In this critical article the critics are comparing a few of Macdonalds novels that she has written to Fall on Your Knees. This book is all about young girls and teaching them how to be apart of the world. People like Jennifer Andrews and Hilary Buri said that this book had opened up a new world of abuse, oppression, and despair. It shows that "traditional girlhood" by showing young girls as abusers and murderers. The article shows that this book is dealing mostly with racism, incest and abuse which are three very serious issues in the world.

Critical Reviews of Fall on Your Knees

Ann-Marie MacDonald's novel Fall on Your Knees pays homage to the tradition of girls' stories that teaches young females how to accommodate happily to the world around them.2 MacDonald is no stranger to revising literary traditions. In her award-winning play, Good Night Desdemona, (Good Morning Juliet), MacDonald rewrites two of Shakespeare's most famous heroines, allowing them greater power and substance. Similarly, in the process of creating the four Piper girls who read and imitate girls' stories, MacDonald's novel shows how the girls inevitably revise the cultural scripts which they inherit. The Piper girls necessarily comprehend and articulate their own circumstances through the models of girlhood available to them, particularly Louisa May Alcott's An Old-Fashioned Girl (1870) and Little Women, and L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables. Inevitably, as the girls attempt to emulate the model, they remodel it. MacDonald's narrator highlights how the retelling of the story necessarily alters it by pointing out that "Every time Frances tells the true story, the story gets a little truer" (249). As critics such as Jennifer Andrews and Hilary Buri have noted, Fall On Your Knees opens up a world of abuse, oppression, and despair. In doing so, it locates new scripts for articulating that which has been typically elided in girls' stories: abuse, incest, and racism. MacDonald's latest novel, The Way the Crow Flies (2003), also revisits and revises an ideology of traditional girlhood by depicting young girls as abusers and murderers. Unlike the cruel and almost hopeless world of The Way the Crow Flies, Fall on Your Knees may present a bleak world of intolerance as Sheldon Currie suggests (111), but, in diverging from the girls' story traditions that it acknowledges as sources, it also suggests a successful method for change-continually remodeling inherited traditions. Unlike the overt message of its predecessors, FaW On Your Knees does not encourage or allow the heroines to rest content with their lot; they must actively seek to change it.
http://elibrary.bigchalk.com/elibweb/curriculumca/do/document?set=literature&groupid=3&requestid=literature&resultid=1&urn=urn%3Aproquest%3AUS%3BCH%3Bpqllit_crit_lib%3Bcriticism%3B943411091%3B

“What a wild ride — I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough,” Oprah Winfrey told her viewers as she announced Fall on Your Knees as her February 2002 Book Club selection. Set largely in a Cape Breton coal mining community called New Waterford, ranging through four generations, Ann-Marie MacDonald’s dark, insightful and hilarious first novel focuses on the Piper sisters and their troubled relationship with their father, James. Winner of the 1997 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book, it was a national bestseller in Canada for two years, and it has been translated into 17 languages.
http://www.randomhouse.ca/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780394281780

 actually got this book on accident from some shady book club that mysteriously sent me five books and then tried to charge me for them. I have the hardcover version, and the cover art looked... boring. I neglected this book for a year.
The old saying "never judge a book by its cover" has never been more concise.
This book is an absolute work of art. The incredible depth of each character is unparalleled by anything else I have read. While "Fall On Your Knees" does contain some very controversial subjects, such as child molestation, it does not present itself in a distasteful manner. I was reminded of "Bark of the Dogwood" with its similar themes and great writing. The frailty and emotions of humankind are exquisitely revealed here. Cape Breton Island is painted into your mind, you can see it perfectly, from rocky cliffs over the ocean to clapboard houses all in a row. MacDonald is a master storyteller. She manages to completely envelop you in the lives of those whom she writes about, to the point that if you tell me I wasn't there to see all of this happen, I would have to catch myself before I told you that you were mistaken. Absolutely enthralling. Don't be like me and ignore this masterpiece. Buy a copy for yourself and every other person you know. It's that good.
http://www.amazon.ca/Fall-Your-Knees-Ann-Marie-Macdonald/dp/0394281780

 
 

Exploring The Garden

I am on Book 1 named The Garden I have read the first three chapters in this part of the novel and it has been interesting. James had met Materia, they were forbidden to see eachother but then got married. I think everything that is going on in this story reminds me of Romeo and Juliet. Romeo meets Juliet they fall in love, they are forbidden to see eachother etc. Though what is different from Romeo and Juliet is that Mr Mahmoud allows them to get married as long as he converts to Christianity. I think that James and Materia will go far together since they are now living together in their dream home.

Fall On Your Knees

For this Independent Study i have chosen the book Fall On Your Knees. I chose this book because what i read in the overview interested me. This book has topics such as racial tension, isolation, passion and forbidden love. It will also involve incest, death in child birth and Murder. I believe that this book will be very interesting and i hope that i will enjoy it. This book takes place in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada. I am hoping that i will be able to follow along a little bit easier because i know this place quite well because i have been there and i know it very well.