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The Age of Hope
Born in 1930 in a small town outside Winnipeg, beautiful Hope Koop appears destined to have a conventional life. Church, marriage to a steady young man, children - her fortunes are already laid out for her, as are the shiny modern appliances in her new home. All she has to do is stay with Roy, who loves her. But as the decades unfold, what seems to be a safe, predictable existence overwhelms Hope. Where - among the demands of her children, the expectations of her husband and the challenges of her best friend, Emily, who has just read The Feminine Mystique - is there room for her? And just who is she anyway? A wife, a mother, a woman whose life is somehow unrealized?
This beautifully crafted and perceptive work of fiction spans some fifty years of Hope Koop's life in the second half of the 20th century, from traditionalism to feminism and beyond. David Bergen has created an indelible portrait of a seemingly ordinary woman who struggles to accept herself as she is, and in so doing becomes unique.
This beautifully crafted and perceptive work of fiction spans some fifty years of Hope Koop's life in the second half of the 20th century, from traditionalism to feminism and beyond. David Bergen has created an indelible portrait of a seemingly ordinary woman who struggles to accept herself as she is, and in so doing becomes unique.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published August 24, 2012
17 people are currently reading
1,153 people want to read
About the author
David Bergen
24 books99 followersBorn in Port Edward, British Columbia, author David Bergen worked as a writer and high school English teacher in Winnipeg, Manitoba, before gaining a great deal of recognition in Canada when his novel The Time In Between won the 2005 Scotiabank Giller Prize, one of Canada's most prestigious literary awards. The novel also received a starred review in Kirkus Reviews and was longlisted for the 2007 IMPAC Award.
Bergen's debut novel, A Year of Lesser, was a New York Times Notable Book, and a winner of the McNally Robinson Book of the Year award in 1997. His 2002 novel The Case of Lena S. was a finalist for the Governor General's Award for English language fiction, and won the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award. It was also a finalist for the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award and the Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction.
Additionally, Bergen has received the 1993 John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Manitoba Writer, and the 2000 Canadian Literary Award for Short Story.
In 2008, he published his fifth novel, The Retreat, which was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and which won the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award and the Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction.
Bergen currently resides in Winnipeg, Manitoba with his family.
Bergen's debut novel, A Year of Lesser, was a New York Times Notable Book, and a winner of the McNally Robinson Book of the Year award in 1997. His 2002 novel The Case of Lena S. was a finalist for the Governor General's Award for English language fiction, and won the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award. It was also a finalist for the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award and the Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction.
Additionally, Bergen has received the 1993 John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Manitoba Writer, and the 2000 Canadian Literary Award for Short Story.
In 2008, he published his fifth novel, The Retreat, which was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and which won the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award and the Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction.
Bergen currently resides in Winnipeg, Manitoba with his family.
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January 24, 2013
Hope Plett is born in 1930 in the small town of Eden, a predominantly Mennonite town outside Winnipeg, Manitoba, to a baker father and a school teacher mother - their only child. After high school, she lives in Winnipeg to study nursing, and on the weekends where she goes home to Eden, she meets Roy Koop, four years older than her, at a Sunday School class for adults at the Mennonite church. Their relationship moves along steadily, and Hope likes that Roy is such a gentleman and patient, yet she still worries that he won't wait for her to finish her nursing course, so she quits in order to marry him.
Roy works at his father's Chevrolet car dealership in Eden, with plans to take over the business. He's able to build a large, fine house for his wife and growing family - they have four kids: Judith, Connor, Penny and, later, unintentionally, Melanie. It is when Melanie is a young baby that Hope succumbs to her depression, leaving the baby on the floor of her car on a country road when she wanders into a field, lies down and passes out.
Voluntarily living at Winkler, a mental health facility, for several months, Hope gradually gets better with time, counselling and electric shock therapy. But she still feels immense, though numbed, guilt that she doesn't feel love for Melanie. And when she rejoins her family, things have changed. It's like they don't need her anymore. Over the years, she watches her children grow up, all so different from each other, not close to any of them. Increasingly dis-satisfied with her life, Hope looks into going back to school, or learning some kind of skill and getting a job, but even the career counsellors laugh at her.
Throughout her life, through the ups-and-downs of her children's lives and her own struggles with depression and feelings of guilt, she strives to be a good mother, all the while wondering just what that is.
The Age of Hope is a plot-less novel, a portrait of a woman in the prime of her life, a study of the classic housewife figure of the fifties and sixties and beyond. As such, it is an interesting work, almost like an artefact, and a curious choice for a male writer - I couldn't help but wonder whether a man, forgive me, but whether a man can really know what it's like to be a woman like Hope, or any of the other housewives in her community. Certainly she was believable. But perhaps because the narrative style is that voice-over, slightly omniscient kind - from Hope's perspective, but with a great deal of telling and very little showing - it is easy to start reading, keep reading, and suddenly, almost abruptly, find yourself at the end.
Books like this one make me very ambivalent, which is never a pleasant feeling. It makes you feel indecisive and confused. I'm torn, because I did like the novel Bergen wrote: I found it easy to read, interesting, I liked the flow of time and seeing how things changed, the golden post-wars years and then the crash, watching Hope's kids grow up and become adults who treat her something like a child, and so on. It's very easy to sit back and let the story tell itself, because that's the way it's written. But I don't like being a passive reader, and I didn't feel a very strong connection to Hope because I never felt like I ever understood her properly or got close to her. The prose told me exactly what it wanted me to know, with arm outstretched and hand on my chest, saying between the lines, "That's close enough, now." That's not the kind of reading experience I look for, desire, hope for. It's a case of the author being in too much control of the story, and not trusting the reader to be able to infer, interpret, analyse, discover the meanings and insights you can incorporate, subtly, into a story.
So Hope was always a woman I pitied, but couldn't really empathise with. I could barely sympathise with her. She is a product of another time, beholden to social expectations that never applied to me, but because of the way it is written, I never managed to really relate to her in that way stories can make you relate to people who are so unlike you. And without that, it was an interesting story but nothing more. Considering that this book was chosen to represent the Prairies and North of Canada in CBC's Canada Reads 2013 - to be debated in February - I was expecting something, well, more. A story that was more profound, or more deeply emotional, or even more intellectual.
Certainly, it casts an astute eye on the plight of women during the first wave of feminism, with Hope's lot contrasted with her best friend Emily who reads feminist texts and leaves her husband, Paul, to raise their daughter, Angela, in a small flat in Winnipeg. And I appreciated that someone wrote a story in which nothing actually happens, not in the way we're used to in books, about someone who was so decidedly ordinary. She's that figure in the background, the woman with the apron on who hovers when you come home from school - or not even hovering, just vaguely there, and completely unimportant. Even in the 80s, when I was a child, most of the kids in my year - my entire school really - had mums like that. Not very many of them worked, and they were non-entities. They did aerobics in front of the telly and took their kids to Little Athletics on the weekend. They had no life themselves, or none that anyone was at all interested in. "Taken for granted" would be putting it mildly. Defined by her children's existence. Identified by her husband's name. But what goes on in their heads? Reading Hope's story casts some light on that:
Hope never feels like she fits in, and indeed, precisely because she questions things so much and suffers from depression, it's clear that she's a waste of life. By that, I mean that if she'd been born in our time, allowed and encouraged to get an education, follow her interests, do something for herself before she thinks of getting married, having fewer than four kids, and going back to work, Hope could have had a fulfilling life. That was the depressing thing about this story: it's clear that Hope is not fulfilled, that she's deeply unsatisfied - her attempt to do something else with her life when her kids are older show that clearly. But she doesn't achieve anything, in the end. You could say that every woman like Hope is successful, for didn't she raise four kids by herself? That's a lot of work, and it's not easy. I have one eighteen-month-old and it's exhausting. But when no one else values that work - it's not taken into account in a nation's measurement of its wealth, for instance (women's unpaid work never is) - how can you expect women to not feel unimportant, in the scheme of things?
I was surprised at how different all of Hope's kids were. Like, drastically different. I have four siblings - I'm the second youngest of five - and while we're all different, we're still alike. We each have dollops in various amounts of characteristics of our parents. I'm more like my mum than my dad, which is possibly one of the reasons why I get along with him so well. He's a perfectionist (not an uptight one), and so is one of my sisters, and they rub each other up the wrong way quite frequently (though good-naturedly, for the most part). My point is, I can recognise the attributes in each of us that we have in common, and identify the parent we got them from. Hope's kids weren't only radically different one from the other, they didn't seem to have anything in common with their parents. This created a family dynamic that was uneasy and even a bit scary. I never liked a single one of the kids, at any age - perhaps Hope's own insecurities filtered through in how we see them, but they're like little aliens who grow up into strange adults. I pitied Hope again, for that.
And then there is Roy. If Hope is your typical overlooked, unhappy housewife, then Roy is your typical quiet, absentee husband and father. He seems to love the kids more, or more honestly, than Hope does, and he's a good man. But he's hardly ever there, and he doesn't make much effort to understand Hope, even though he does support her. There's a noticeable lack of genuine love in the story. Roy loves, but this isn't Roy's story. Hope seems completely overwhelmed by her children, and doesn't cut much of a mother-figure. I found her to be a bit of a shadow. A hovering shadow. It made me pity her even more, but it's a futile pity. It's quickly apparent that this isn't a story about a woman growing up and taking control of her life, seeking out happiness, making the most of things. Hope never really learns that lesson, and it's depressing to get to the end and find that out. Depressing, but true to life for many people - lots of things in life are depressing, like that. It's not that I wanted to project onto Hope my own expectations of what a fulfilled life should or could look like, it's that it's just sad, watching someone go through life, so unhappy and unfulfilled, and apathetic too.
It isn't a sad book, though. It's has a tone of acceptance, of reality. It memorialises women like Hope, giving them a voice. Perhaps the trouble was that that voice never quite rang true for me, woman to woman. Again, I had to wonder how different Hope's story would have been if it had been written by a woman. I wondered whether my inability to connect with her - which I should have been able to do fine - was because her voice felt... repressed, somehow. Clouded. Unsure. Hope almost, almost felt like a woman who had once been a man who had switched over, but maybe shouldn't have. She felt out-of-sync with her own womanliness, is what I'm trying to say. It was a little thing, but it did affect the whole story. Perhaps if Bergen had chosen to write this in a more intimate style, rather than standing back and recording pertinent thoughts, feelings and descriptions from Hope and her life, she would have felt more real to me.
As a portrait of a trapped, guilt-riddled housewife who feels alienated from her own kids, prone to depression, always trying to fit in and never quite managing it, it's a fine one. It does the job. As a story about a woman who lets life go by her, never taking a risk or a leap or doing anything new and different, it's sad and realistic. As a novel that can really engage the reader and speak to you on different emotional and intellectual levels, I found it disappointing. Worth reading, but unsatisfying.
Roy works at his father's Chevrolet car dealership in Eden, with plans to take over the business. He's able to build a large, fine house for his wife and growing family - they have four kids: Judith, Connor, Penny and, later, unintentionally, Melanie. It is when Melanie is a young baby that Hope succumbs to her depression, leaving the baby on the floor of her car on a country road when she wanders into a field, lies down and passes out.
Voluntarily living at Winkler, a mental health facility, for several months, Hope gradually gets better with time, counselling and electric shock therapy. But she still feels immense, though numbed, guilt that she doesn't feel love for Melanie. And when she rejoins her family, things have changed. It's like they don't need her anymore. Over the years, she watches her children grow up, all so different from each other, not close to any of them. Increasingly dis-satisfied with her life, Hope looks into going back to school, or learning some kind of skill and getting a job, but even the career counsellors laugh at her.
Throughout her life, through the ups-and-downs of her children's lives and her own struggles with depression and feelings of guilt, she strives to be a good mother, all the while wondering just what that is.
The Age of Hope is a plot-less novel, a portrait of a woman in the prime of her life, a study of the classic housewife figure of the fifties and sixties and beyond. As such, it is an interesting work, almost like an artefact, and a curious choice for a male writer - I couldn't help but wonder whether a man, forgive me, but whether a man can really know what it's like to be a woman like Hope, or any of the other housewives in her community. Certainly she was believable. But perhaps because the narrative style is that voice-over, slightly omniscient kind - from Hope's perspective, but with a great deal of telling and very little showing - it is easy to start reading, keep reading, and suddenly, almost abruptly, find yourself at the end.
Books like this one make me very ambivalent, which is never a pleasant feeling. It makes you feel indecisive and confused. I'm torn, because I did like the novel Bergen wrote: I found it easy to read, interesting, I liked the flow of time and seeing how things changed, the golden post-wars years and then the crash, watching Hope's kids grow up and become adults who treat her something like a child, and so on. It's very easy to sit back and let the story tell itself, because that's the way it's written. But I don't like being a passive reader, and I didn't feel a very strong connection to Hope because I never felt like I ever understood her properly or got close to her. The prose told me exactly what it wanted me to know, with arm outstretched and hand on my chest, saying between the lines, "That's close enough, now." That's not the kind of reading experience I look for, desire, hope for. It's a case of the author being in too much control of the story, and not trusting the reader to be able to infer, interpret, analyse, discover the meanings and insights you can incorporate, subtly, into a story.
So Hope was always a woman I pitied, but couldn't really empathise with. I could barely sympathise with her. She is a product of another time, beholden to social expectations that never applied to me, but because of the way it is written, I never managed to really relate to her in that way stories can make you relate to people who are so unlike you. And without that, it was an interesting story but nothing more. Considering that this book was chosen to represent the Prairies and North of Canada in CBC's Canada Reads 2013 - to be debated in February - I was expecting something, well, more. A story that was more profound, or more deeply emotional, or even more intellectual.
Certainly, it casts an astute eye on the plight of women during the first wave of feminism, with Hope's lot contrasted with her best friend Emily who reads feminist texts and leaves her husband, Paul, to raise their daughter, Angela, in a small flat in Winnipeg. And I appreciated that someone wrote a story in which nothing actually happens, not in the way we're used to in books, about someone who was so decidedly ordinary. She's that figure in the background, the woman with the apron on who hovers when you come home from school - or not even hovering, just vaguely there, and completely unimportant. Even in the 80s, when I was a child, most of the kids in my year - my entire school really - had mums like that. Not very many of them worked, and they were non-entities. They did aerobics in front of the telly and took their kids to Little Athletics on the weekend. They had no life themselves, or none that anyone was at all interested in. "Taken for granted" would be putting it mildly. Defined by her children's existence. Identified by her husband's name. But what goes on in their heads? Reading Hope's story casts some light on that:
She understood that Roy, like all men, believed circumstances and events could be controlled. This is why men went to war, and this is why they married, and this is why they invented machines, and all of this in order to stave off a fear of failure. The failure of marriage or a business, or the failure of a child, was a symptom of some deeper personal collapse. Hope, on the other hand, was quite capable of accepting her limitations, her insignificance - though it wasn't exactly insignificance, which implied irrelevance. She wasn't irrelevant. She just wasn't that important in the larger world, which was spinning faster. She felt helpless. True, she had her children, but Judith ignored her, and when she didn't ignore her, she treated her as invasive and disgusting. And Conner was always outside riding his dirt bike or snowmobile, or he was down in the basement tearing an engine apart. And Penny deliberately and neatly disappeared between the cracks of the house, silently sliding from room to room, always with a book in hand. And so Hope tried to focus on Melanie, who was six and had just started school, and who seemed willing to listen to her mother talk. Hope made a point of baking cookies and making tea for an after-school snack, and when Melanie arrived home, the two of them would sit at the kitchen table and talk about their days. [p. 122]
Hope never feels like she fits in, and indeed, precisely because she questions things so much and suffers from depression, it's clear that she's a waste of life. By that, I mean that if she'd been born in our time, allowed and encouraged to get an education, follow her interests, do something for herself before she thinks of getting married, having fewer than four kids, and going back to work, Hope could have had a fulfilling life. That was the depressing thing about this story: it's clear that Hope is not fulfilled, that she's deeply unsatisfied - her attempt to do something else with her life when her kids are older show that clearly. But she doesn't achieve anything, in the end. You could say that every woman like Hope is successful, for didn't she raise four kids by herself? That's a lot of work, and it's not easy. I have one eighteen-month-old and it's exhausting. But when no one else values that work - it's not taken into account in a nation's measurement of its wealth, for instance (women's unpaid work never is) - how can you expect women to not feel unimportant, in the scheme of things?
I was surprised at how different all of Hope's kids were. Like, drastically different. I have four siblings - I'm the second youngest of five - and while we're all different, we're still alike. We each have dollops in various amounts of characteristics of our parents. I'm more like my mum than my dad, which is possibly one of the reasons why I get along with him so well. He's a perfectionist (not an uptight one), and so is one of my sisters, and they rub each other up the wrong way quite frequently (though good-naturedly, for the most part). My point is, I can recognise the attributes in each of us that we have in common, and identify the parent we got them from. Hope's kids weren't only radically different one from the other, they didn't seem to have anything in common with their parents. This created a family dynamic that was uneasy and even a bit scary. I never liked a single one of the kids, at any age - perhaps Hope's own insecurities filtered through in how we see them, but they're like little aliens who grow up into strange adults. I pitied Hope again, for that.
And then there is Roy. If Hope is your typical overlooked, unhappy housewife, then Roy is your typical quiet, absentee husband and father. He seems to love the kids more, or more honestly, than Hope does, and he's a good man. But he's hardly ever there, and he doesn't make much effort to understand Hope, even though he does support her. There's a noticeable lack of genuine love in the story. Roy loves, but this isn't Roy's story. Hope seems completely overwhelmed by her children, and doesn't cut much of a mother-figure. I found her to be a bit of a shadow. A hovering shadow. It made me pity her even more, but it's a futile pity. It's quickly apparent that this isn't a story about a woman growing up and taking control of her life, seeking out happiness, making the most of things. Hope never really learns that lesson, and it's depressing to get to the end and find that out. Depressing, but true to life for many people - lots of things in life are depressing, like that. It's not that I wanted to project onto Hope my own expectations of what a fulfilled life should or could look like, it's that it's just sad, watching someone go through life, so unhappy and unfulfilled, and apathetic too.
[Roy] kissed her neck. Her ear. And then he made love to her again. As she closed her eyes the second time she was no unhappy, but she was wondering if this was what Emily meant by the world falling all over you. It wasn't so bad, was it? At least she had someone who wanted her. [p.145]
It isn't a sad book, though. It's has a tone of acceptance, of reality. It memorialises women like Hope, giving them a voice. Perhaps the trouble was that that voice never quite rang true for me, woman to woman. Again, I had to wonder how different Hope's story would have been if it had been written by a woman. I wondered whether my inability to connect with her - which I should have been able to do fine - was because her voice felt... repressed, somehow. Clouded. Unsure. Hope almost, almost felt like a woman who had once been a man who had switched over, but maybe shouldn't have. She felt out-of-sync with her own womanliness, is what I'm trying to say. It was a little thing, but it did affect the whole story. Perhaps if Bergen had chosen to write this in a more intimate style, rather than standing back and recording pertinent thoughts, feelings and descriptions from Hope and her life, she would have felt more real to me.
As a portrait of a trapped, guilt-riddled housewife who feels alienated from her own kids, prone to depression, always trying to fit in and never quite managing it, it's a fine one. It does the job. As a story about a woman who lets life go by her, never taking a risk or a leap or doing anything new and different, it's sad and realistic. As a novel that can really engage the reader and speak to you on different emotional and intellectual levels, I found it disappointing. Worth reading, but unsatisfying.
January 23, 2013
Read as part of the 2013 #CanadaReads (Canada Reads goes regional) faceoff, I was terribly disappointed by this book. Have never read any David Bergen before and wasn't encouraged by this one to read more. As the prairie/north regional nominee for the contest, this is sure to be the first book voted off the literary island (I'll update to let you know whether my prediction is right or not).
The writing is pedestrian, the characterization is weak, and the structure is hideously conventional (i.e. linear). We follow Hope Koop's life for more than 80 years, but despite the relentless focus on a single character, it's an amazingly superficial and very implausible portrait of a woman, a marriage, and an era. Those of us who are 50+ know many Hope Koops - they were our mothers. Raised by parents who struggled for survival through the Great Depression and for whom World War II was the formative event of their late adolescence and early adulthood, they embraced the consumerism of the 50s and 60s in a variety of ways: some remained frugal, wary that the deprivations of their youth might return, others embraced the halycon years (in economic terms) of the 50s and 60s with gusto. They were caught offguard by the sexual and social revolutions of the 1960s. The fundamental premises of the lives they'd built were challenged by new divorce laws, the availability of birth control (and abortion), as well as the civil rights movement in the US. and the women's movement in the developed world. But little of this affects Hope in any kind of meaningful way. Her friends, her children, and her husband are all tangential to her. If she were a character with a rich interior life the novel might work. But she isn't. She's vain and shallow, and I'm tempted to describe her as a Not Sure She Wants to Be a Rebel (Without a Ball).
In the #CanadaReads book club discussion on Twitter of this novel, someone mentioned Mad Men's Betty Draper character. It's an apt contrast and a sad indictment of this book that Betty Draper is a far more interesting and nuanced character than Hope Koop. So is April Wheeler of Revolutionary Road (both the book and the film). For a portrait of a mother who cannot bond with her children, invest your reading time in Lionel Shriver's We Need To Talk About Kevin. And for a portrait of a woman who has to deal with catastrophic economic shifts, watch Gone With the Wind.
Moment at which I almost threw this book at the wall: when a joking prediction regarding one of Hope's children's careers actually comes true.
Ah - Quill and Quire reviewer has the same reaction as I did: http://www.quillandquire.com/reviews/...
The writing is pedestrian, the characterization is weak, and the structure is hideously conventional (i.e. linear). We follow Hope Koop's life for more than 80 years, but despite the relentless focus on a single character, it's an amazingly superficial and very implausible portrait of a woman, a marriage, and an era. Those of us who are 50+ know many Hope Koops - they were our mothers. Raised by parents who struggled for survival through the Great Depression and for whom World War II was the formative event of their late adolescence and early adulthood, they embraced the consumerism of the 50s and 60s in a variety of ways: some remained frugal, wary that the deprivations of their youth might return, others embraced the halycon years (in economic terms) of the 50s and 60s with gusto. They were caught offguard by the sexual and social revolutions of the 1960s. The fundamental premises of the lives they'd built were challenged by new divorce laws, the availability of birth control (and abortion), as well as the civil rights movement in the US. and the women's movement in the developed world. But little of this affects Hope in any kind of meaningful way. Her friends, her children, and her husband are all tangential to her. If she were a character with a rich interior life the novel might work. But she isn't. She's vain and shallow, and I'm tempted to describe her as a Not Sure She Wants to Be a Rebel (Without a Ball).
In the #CanadaReads book club discussion on Twitter of this novel, someone mentioned Mad Men's Betty Draper character. It's an apt contrast and a sad indictment of this book that Betty Draper is a far more interesting and nuanced character than Hope Koop. So is April Wheeler of Revolutionary Road (both the book and the film). For a portrait of a mother who cannot bond with her children, invest your reading time in Lionel Shriver's We Need To Talk About Kevin. And for a portrait of a woman who has to deal with catastrophic economic shifts, watch Gone With the Wind.
Moment at which I almost threw this book at the wall: when a joking prediction regarding one of Hope's children's careers actually comes true.
Ah - Quill and Quire reviewer has the same reaction as I did: http://www.quillandquire.com/reviews/...
November 16, 2012
Yes, once again, I've read a book that I love! I'm either on a quite a streak of reading only good books, or I've completely lost any standard! (Maybe a little from column A and a little from column B)
But I loved The Age of Hope. I've been trying to recall the last time I read a novel written my a man who explored the emotional landscape of a woman as thoroughly as David Bergen has in this novel and I cannot come up anything. Not that there aren't any, I admittedly have a poor memory.
Hope is a woman born in 1930, in a small town near Winnepeg, Manitoba, Canada. So, this is a novel about my mother (who was born in 1929 in Quebec) and her generation. Hope marries Roy, a man driven by ambition: with his expanding car dealerships he easily provides for his growing family through the nineteen-seventies. Hope and Roy Koop and their four kids live well and Hope's family is as happy as they can be.
Except for Hope.
Mr. Bergen offers many reasons why Hope is unhappy in her humdrum life: for one thing, she is nothing like her recently emancipated girlfriend, a woman who gets caught up in the wild seventies movements, experimenting with pop psychology, drugs, and sex.
Although The Age of Hope focuses exclusively on Hope's life, Hope doesn't have lots of exciting experiences. She just goes along and lives her life; she cares for her family, whom she usually loves, but sometimes hates, and at other times cannot fathom why she should care about them.
Hope gets depressed when she learns that she is pregnant with her fourth child and she ends up receiving electro-shock therapy for her depression. One result of the shocks, besides bringing her back to an even keel psychologically, is that she can no longer bring herself to cry about anything.
Don't get me wrong, lots of things happen in this narrative: women get abortions, people lie, they cheat on their spouses during wife-swapping key parties, they run away from their families... but none of these things happen to Hope.
Yet, I offer a couple reasons as to why I love this novel: the first is that David Bergen (and his editors) let the characters shrug. A lot! I love it! As a writer, I love the shrug, it so easily and realistically conveys so many indeterminate emotions.
The other reason I love The Age of Hope is that, like a Seinfeld episode, nothing happens to Hope, yet she has an interesting life and a life well worth reading about. The reason is that Mr Bergen lets her breathe. He takes the time needed to document life in rural Manitoba and the rest of the world, to examine the sixties, seventies, and eighties eras, and to explore Hope's inner life as she goes from a nursing student to an elderly woman.
I highly recommend this novel to anyone who has never read David Bergen. And when you're done reading this one, read The Time in Between.
But I loved The Age of Hope. I've been trying to recall the last time I read a novel written my a man who explored the emotional landscape of a woman as thoroughly as David Bergen has in this novel and I cannot come up anything. Not that there aren't any, I admittedly have a poor memory.
Hope is a woman born in 1930, in a small town near Winnepeg, Manitoba, Canada. So, this is a novel about my mother (who was born in 1929 in Quebec) and her generation. Hope marries Roy, a man driven by ambition: with his expanding car dealerships he easily provides for his growing family through the nineteen-seventies. Hope and Roy Koop and their four kids live well and Hope's family is as happy as they can be.
Except for Hope.
Mr. Bergen offers many reasons why Hope is unhappy in her humdrum life: for one thing, she is nothing like her recently emancipated girlfriend, a woman who gets caught up in the wild seventies movements, experimenting with pop psychology, drugs, and sex.
Although The Age of Hope focuses exclusively on Hope's life, Hope doesn't have lots of exciting experiences. She just goes along and lives her life; she cares for her family, whom she usually loves, but sometimes hates, and at other times cannot fathom why she should care about them.
Hope gets depressed when she learns that she is pregnant with her fourth child and she ends up receiving electro-shock therapy for her depression. One result of the shocks, besides bringing her back to an even keel psychologically, is that she can no longer bring herself to cry about anything.
Don't get me wrong, lots of things happen in this narrative: women get abortions, people lie, they cheat on their spouses during wife-swapping key parties, they run away from their families... but none of these things happen to Hope.
Yet, I offer a couple reasons as to why I love this novel: the first is that David Bergen (and his editors) let the characters shrug. A lot! I love it! As a writer, I love the shrug, it so easily and realistically conveys so many indeterminate emotions.
The other reason I love The Age of Hope is that, like a Seinfeld episode, nothing happens to Hope, yet she has an interesting life and a life well worth reading about. The reason is that Mr Bergen lets her breathe. He takes the time needed to document life in rural Manitoba and the rest of the world, to examine the sixties, seventies, and eighties eras, and to explore Hope's inner life as she goes from a nursing student to an elderly woman.
I highly recommend this novel to anyone who has never read David Bergen. And when you're done reading this one, read The Time in Between.
February 16, 2013
I think the author hit the mark in creating a portrait of a guilt-riddled 1950’s housewife who feels alienated from her own family, struggling with depression, never feeling like she fits in or is really good enough. Despite her beauty and the comfortable lifestyle she experiences, life is a stuggle. This physcial reality, the setting works as the right contrast to her messy inner life.
I read this in practically one sitting, wondering about Hope Koop as she quietly, uneventfully moves through life. Like others, I too felt frustrated with Hope at times and her response to her life. But then I would remind myself that this is the portrait of a woman dealing with mental health challenges…and at the dawn of change for women, the early days of the feminist movement. She is perpetually guilt ridden, always questioning everything and never comfortable in her own skin. Yet other times she is independent in her thinking not following the crowd, expectations just to fit in. So at times a contradiction, another messy human….she doesn’t of course always endear with her struggle and take on life or people….perhaps she is too realistic to bear.
Given Hope’s circumstances I did not find it such a stretch to experience her as somewhat distant or disconnected. Sometimes those who appear to be “well off” are in fact the most trapped or challenged to experience transformative change. She is a woman who lives the stigma of mental illness, and the impact of so called mental health treatments based in a much earlier time; along with changing expectations of women and their “place” in the world. There is no question that the mental health treatments of the 70’s were not what they are now. Might this reality make anyone act disconnected no?
It is painful to walk through life never feeling good enough. Not everyone gets the support they may need and considering the place and time, even less likely that supports were readily available for Hope.
But on a positive note, Hope never gives up trying to figure herself and her life out. Despite a crippling guilt she tries to be a better parent even though her over analysis has her constantly questioning what a good parent is. Who is to say that this wasn’t a life…it might not be what someone would choose, but not everyone gets to be fulfilled in the same way…not everyone “achieves” fame and fortune.
I was just glad for her that at the end of her story when she wakes from a dream about her mother she comes to understand there is nothing to be frightened of.
September 14, 2012
This is a Prairie Story
There is no doubt in my mind that David Bergen has outdone himself with his Age of Hope. If you grew up on the Canadian prairies then you must treat yourself to this truly insightful and honest story of living one's life on the prairies. David Bergen's dialogue strikes many familiar chords. What a hard time it was. To have to had put on such brave faces and to carry on through it all. Character matters and David Bergen has created a great gal with a grand sense of fashion, ever hopeful that she would, in fact, find her own little piece of heaven at some stage or point in her life. You'll root for Hope, when push comes to shove. If, like me, your mother's (and many of her friends) age is the same as David's character Hope -- born at the beginning of what's well known and now documented as having been the dirty 30's -- you will relate. David's text is crisp and clear and clean and concise. You'll recognize the strength of the women and the sacrifices many of them made in their need for affection and attention during this insecure and unstable period. It was a decade of quiet and resolute men and their stalwart and ever optimistic women whose choices were extremely limited, due in large part, to the times. Many had difficulties and suffered extreme humiliations, hopeful that they would, in fact, manage to keep their heads above water. Thank you, David Bergen, for conceiving this great notion. This story, does in fact, honour the women of Hope's generation in the nicest sense of the word. The male characters, in a matter of fact way, aren't too bad (or all that bad) either. As this tale progresses, you'll see that it all starts with faith, and then along comes hope, and then the author does not disappoint when, near the end, charity makes an appearance. My long deceased grandfather, and (not so long) deceased father, kind sir, tip their hats to you.
There is no doubt in my mind that David Bergen has outdone himself with his Age of Hope. If you grew up on the Canadian prairies then you must treat yourself to this truly insightful and honest story of living one's life on the prairies. David Bergen's dialogue strikes many familiar chords. What a hard time it was. To have to had put on such brave faces and to carry on through it all. Character matters and David Bergen has created a great gal with a grand sense of fashion, ever hopeful that she would, in fact, find her own little piece of heaven at some stage or point in her life. You'll root for Hope, when push comes to shove. If, like me, your mother's (and many of her friends) age is the same as David's character Hope -- born at the beginning of what's well known and now documented as having been the dirty 30's -- you will relate. David's text is crisp and clear and clean and concise. You'll recognize the strength of the women and the sacrifices many of them made in their need for affection and attention during this insecure and unstable period. It was a decade of quiet and resolute men and their stalwart and ever optimistic women whose choices were extremely limited, due in large part, to the times. Many had difficulties and suffered extreme humiliations, hopeful that they would, in fact, manage to keep their heads above water. Thank you, David Bergen, for conceiving this great notion. This story, does in fact, honour the women of Hope's generation in the nicest sense of the word. The male characters, in a matter of fact way, aren't too bad (or all that bad) either. As this tale progresses, you'll see that it all starts with faith, and then along comes hope, and then the author does not disappoint when, near the end, charity makes an appearance. My long deceased grandfather, and (not so long) deceased father, kind sir, tip their hats to you.
January 29, 2013
Hope is a woman living through years of the Women's Liberation movement in Manitoba. She questions herself, as a woman, a daughter, wife and a mother. She wonders if there's more to life than what she experiences everyday. She loves her children, even though at times she doesn't recognize them (especially during the teenage years), she loves her husband, but is that enough.
I was pleasantly surprised on how much I enjoyed this book. For some reason I was expecting something darker. Yes, there are turmoils in Hope's life, depression, there's a breakdown that leaves her hospitalized, a bankruptcy and a run in with a religious cult. I found it understandable her envious feelings towards her teenage daughters, the freedom they had in comparison to her...she just couldn't pick up and leave. I found those emotions believable and real. I guess you can call this book, a real life novel. I enjoyed how well the book flowed, it didn't have any plot hiccups in my opinion.
I was pleasantly surprised on how much I enjoyed this book. For some reason I was expecting something darker. Yes, there are turmoils in Hope's life, depression, there's a breakdown that leaves her hospitalized, a bankruptcy and a run in with a religious cult. I found it understandable her envious feelings towards her teenage daughters, the freedom they had in comparison to her...she just couldn't pick up and leave. I found those emotions believable and real. I guess you can call this book, a real life novel. I enjoyed how well the book flowed, it didn't have any plot hiccups in my opinion.
February 11, 2013
The book is beautifully written and I sat and read it all in one afternoon BUT the characters were insipid and Hope was whiny to the point where I wanted to tell her to just smarten up. Her kids are annoying, her husband is a push-over and she mopes through the 60+ years this book shares with us. I can see why it has been picked as a Canada Reads selection for 2013 because of its literary merit but the story was blah. I would not recommend it or vote for it.
ETA Feb 11: first one gone from Canada Reads. Not surprising!
ETA Feb 11: first one gone from Canada Reads. Not surprising!
June 11, 2012
Interesting journey through the life of one woman. Avoided veering into cliche - interesting contradictions existed within Hope. Evocative of the changing times. No stand out moments, but narrative carries you through.
October 27, 2012
I loved this story of Hoop Koop, who in small town Manitoba struggles to keep her sanity and independance in a time when women where expectd to be happy at home raising the kids.
October 20, 2018
Hope was born in 1930. She was fairly young when she married Roy. They lived in the small Mennonite town of Eden, Manitoba. They had four children, and we follow Hope’s thoughts and feelings throughout her entire adult life, as she marries, becomes a mother to her four children, while Roy is mostly working. She feels lonely and Roy doesn’t understand since she has four kids around. But, Roy loves her; he is a nice man and treats her well. But, sometimes Hope has trouble and needs some help. The story follows Hope through her entire life.
There is not a whole lot to the story, ultimately, and definitely not fast-paced, but it was still really good. The (male!) author does a really good job of bringing us into Hope’s world, I thought.
There is not a whole lot to the story, ultimately, and definitely not fast-paced, but it was still really good. The (male!) author does a really good job of bringing us into Hope’s world, I thought.
January 12, 2020
I really enjoy reading books that are set in Manitoba where you can place where the characters are however that is all that I really enjoyed about this book. David Bergen does a good job as portraying a housewife in the fifty/sixties struggling to find her identity while raising four children, but it lacks a big plot or twist.
January 28, 2013
This is a story of Hope, who we first meet in the book when she’s 18. We discover she has (or had) a boyfriend Jimmy, who tragically dies as he flies over her home waving to her from the cockpit. In the first few pages of The Age of Hope, I pictured the protagonist as somewhat of a rebel, perhaps living a vivid life just outside of Winnipeg, who doesn’t conform to the norm (after all her first boyfriend flies a plane and not long after she rejects a marriage proposal by an eligible bachelor planning to settle in Africa as a missionary). But as this story unfolds as somewhat of a fictional memoir, disappointment sets in as we realize Hope Koop is someone who is far from vivid and contradictory.
Hope is in fact quite normal. If I were to put my critical thinking hat on, I’d say perhaps a bit too normal. She never seems to be happy in the present moment, always hoping and wishing for something bigger, better and more interesting. “Hope wished that she had some of her roommate’s nerve, her devil-may-care attitude.” As she ages, Hope’s constantly worries about everything, from analyzing if she’s doing anything wrong in raising her four children, to wondering if her future will be laden with the comforts she has become used to. It is endearing to see a mother worry so much and go through life as we would imagine – complete with the same hardships, challenges and friendships that we perhaps have experienced in our own lives.
Even though The Age of Hope is a simple story, one with nothing really new or inspirational, the book does a good job in holding the reader’s interest right to the end. David Bergen’s characters have a voice and a personality that is real and relatable. “In her most dire moments Hope saw how bleak the future was becoming. The world was spinning out of control and it was scooping up her children, one by one.” Whether The Age of Hope should be a Canada Reads contender is debatable, but perhaps that is something for each reader to decide. You never know why one book tugs at the strings of your heart more than another.
Hope is in fact quite normal. If I were to put my critical thinking hat on, I’d say perhaps a bit too normal. She never seems to be happy in the present moment, always hoping and wishing for something bigger, better and more interesting. “Hope wished that she had some of her roommate’s nerve, her devil-may-care attitude.” As she ages, Hope’s constantly worries about everything, from analyzing if she’s doing anything wrong in raising her four children, to wondering if her future will be laden with the comforts she has become used to. It is endearing to see a mother worry so much and go through life as we would imagine – complete with the same hardships, challenges and friendships that we perhaps have experienced in our own lives.
Even though The Age of Hope is a simple story, one with nothing really new or inspirational, the book does a good job in holding the reader’s interest right to the end. David Bergen’s characters have a voice and a personality that is real and relatable. “In her most dire moments Hope saw how bleak the future was becoming. The world was spinning out of control and it was scooping up her children, one by one.” Whether The Age of Hope should be a Canada Reads contender is debatable, but perhaps that is something for each reader to decide. You never know why one book tugs at the strings of your heart more than another.
January 4, 2016
hmmm....this one is a bit tricky for me, in comparison to the other books for this year's canada reads debates. unlike the other books i have read for the event already (two solitudes and indian horse), the age of hope did not suck me in from page one. bergen did a wonderful job with hope (i am always impressed when an author has success writing in the opposite gender) but it wasn't until i was nearly 2/3 of the way through that things clicked for me. i appreciate quiet stories, internal stories examining a life. but i had a hard time connecting with hope. which is a cheeseball thing to say, i know. i had empathy for hope but i was frustrated with her a lot of the time too. there were some scenes later on in the novel that, should ron maclean talk about them, well it's just gonna be icky and awkward. it was skeeing me out a bit just imagining this scenario. i think depression and post-partum depression are amazing issues to have addressed in fiction...i just don't know how true bergen's version is ringing and i am very curious how people who live with these illnesses feel about his specific interpretation.
of interest (to me): so far all three books - indian horse, two solitudes and age of hope feature quiet stories, loneliness/isolation, internal conflict and lots of literary references. the characters are very bookish. i find it fascinating that, from the options of five books per region, the people representing their choice each went with stories that reflect these ideas. so i am wondering what this says about canadian writers and readers?
on page 2 of hope, ..."she began to understand his death as something that happened to him, not to her." was also addressed in a section within two solitudes.
of interest (to me): so far all three books - indian horse, two solitudes and age of hope feature quiet stories, loneliness/isolation, internal conflict and lots of literary references. the characters are very bookish. i find it fascinating that, from the options of five books per region, the people representing their choice each went with stories that reflect these ideas. so i am wondering what this says about canadian writers and readers?
on page 2 of hope, ..."she began to understand his death as something that happened to him, not to her." was also addressed in a section within two solitudes.
December 12, 2012
David Bergen uses only telling in this story. It made me wonder right away who the narrator was. It might be one of Hope's daughters who near the end of the novel claims to be writing a book only 'slightly based' on her mother's life. But again I can't be sure.
Also Hope as a character is completely uninteresting. At one point she worries she's too passive in life (after being told this by a friend) and I think that's exactly what she is. Bergen might be making the point that women of that era were raised that way (to abide, not question etc), but I think grouping a whole generation of women into that tiny box is not just unrealistic, but insulting. As a member of a family with several strong women of that generation I disagree entirely. This bland character coupled with the telling style Bergen chose to dictate the novel made it seem that things just happened to Hope, instead of the other way around. I like characters who are flawed and make choices, not seemingly perfect ones who allow things to happen to them and then moan on about it.
The scale of events that happen in this one woman's life made it seem very melodramatic as well - it was just as if Bergen was throwing all these things into a pot, hoping that he could reach more readers this way. It did not work on me.
As a portrayal of life in the prairies, I think this novel does poorly. I felt I wasn't given anything really tangible about life in the prairies (probably because of the telling.) If you want to read about life in the prairies do yourself a favour and pick up As for Me and My House or Wild Geese or The Stone Angel instead.
Anything good to say? I guess it's always nice to see Canada in text. This book read like one giant obituary and I like obituaries so for an obituary it wasn't too bad. As for a Canada Reads nomination, I'm appalled this even made the cut.
Also Hope as a character is completely uninteresting. At one point she worries she's too passive in life (after being told this by a friend) and I think that's exactly what she is. Bergen might be making the point that women of that era were raised that way (to abide, not question etc), but I think grouping a whole generation of women into that tiny box is not just unrealistic, but insulting. As a member of a family with several strong women of that generation I disagree entirely. This bland character coupled with the telling style Bergen chose to dictate the novel made it seem that things just happened to Hope, instead of the other way around. I like characters who are flawed and make choices, not seemingly perfect ones who allow things to happen to them and then moan on about it.
The scale of events that happen in this one woman's life made it seem very melodramatic as well - it was just as if Bergen was throwing all these things into a pot, hoping that he could reach more readers this way. It did not work on me.
As a portrayal of life in the prairies, I think this novel does poorly. I felt I wasn't given anything really tangible about life in the prairies (probably because of the telling.) If you want to read about life in the prairies do yourself a favour and pick up As for Me and My House or Wild Geese or The Stone Angel instead.
Anything good to say? I guess it's always nice to see Canada in text. This book read like one giant obituary and I like obituaries so for an obituary it wasn't too bad. As for a Canada Reads nomination, I'm appalled this even made the cut.
March 31, 2013
This is the last of this year's Canada Reads books that I read (yes, well after the contest ended), and I wasn't sure what I expected considering the fact that it was the first book eliminated.
I rather enjoyed it, considering it was a book that didn't really have a plot.
Instead, we basically follow Hope through her life from her teenager days through to her senior citizen days. Her marriage, her motherhood, her bouts of depression, including hospitalization for it with electroshock therapy, widowhood, and adjusting to life as an older woman.
Like I said, there really isn't much that can be called a plot here, but I found Hope fairly likable (although most of her kids not so much). It's also a look at how society changed through those decades.
So nice, but nothing terribly earth-shattering.
I rather enjoyed it, considering it was a book that didn't really have a plot.
Instead, we basically follow Hope through her life from her teenager days through to her senior citizen days. Her marriage, her motherhood, her bouts of depression, including hospitalization for it with electroshock therapy, widowhood, and adjusting to life as an older woman.
Like I said, there really isn't much that can be called a plot here, but I found Hope fairly likable (although most of her kids not so much). It's also a look at how society changed through those decades.
So nice, but nothing terribly earth-shattering.
January 25, 2013
This book was well written and I believed the characters but.... I found it depressing. The message seems to be women are stuck - always hoping for more or better but stuck in behaviours and relationships that mimic every generation's and every woman's situation. At the end, I was just plain sad about Hope, her life and her hope. If that was the point, then I would say, the author did hid job well.
November 3, 2012
This is a stunning book. Rich in story and magnificently written. Hope's journey through early love, marriage, parenting, mental illness and finally acceptance of self is a wonderful ride. David Bergen is one of my favourite writers. I'm particularly moved by his clear insights into the female psyche. Brilliant!
February 1, 2022
Beautifully written! My favourite David Bergen novel so far.
Some readers may find the protagonist Hope Koop too boring to be spotlighted in such a lengthy book. Call her a dinosaur, one of those stereotypical stay-at-home housewives from the fifties who sacrificed her life for others.
And yet, I marveled at Bergen’s ability to accurately portray such a female character trapped in her lonely roles as woman, wife, mother, and widow and her numerous attempts to make a change and to better understand herself. These were not easy times with the book divided into five sections: Age of Innocence, Age of Despair, Age of Profit, Age of Longing, and Age of Hope.
SPOILER ALERT!!
As Hope eventually discovers, “her whole life had been one of disappearance, of slipping silently through the world, unnoticed.” (p. 220)
Bergen draws the reader’s attention to Hope and gives her a voice to share her troubled story.
A true portrait of one woman’s unique viewpoint and the quiet pain and eventual celebration of her life from her birth in 1930 to her golden years.
Some readers may find the protagonist Hope Koop too boring to be spotlighted in such a lengthy book. Call her a dinosaur, one of those stereotypical stay-at-home housewives from the fifties who sacrificed her life for others.
And yet, I marveled at Bergen’s ability to accurately portray such a female character trapped in her lonely roles as woman, wife, mother, and widow and her numerous attempts to make a change and to better understand herself. These were not easy times with the book divided into five sections: Age of Innocence, Age of Despair, Age of Profit, Age of Longing, and Age of Hope.
SPOILER ALERT!!
As Hope eventually discovers, “her whole life had been one of disappearance, of slipping silently through the world, unnoticed.” (p. 220)
Bergen draws the reader’s attention to Hope and gives her a voice to share her troubled story.
A true portrait of one woman’s unique viewpoint and the quiet pain and eventual celebration of her life from her birth in 1930 to her golden years.
March 20, 2018
Loved this book. A completely satisfying read.
November 16, 2013
i'm about one-third into the novel and so far am remarkably unimpressed. i'll keep going cause it's my book club's November read, but i'm thinking we might have picked the wrong David Bergen novel to read. oh well.
two-thirds of the way in and i feel like the story is yet to begin. it all feels like preamble .... here's some background information to set the stage before getting into the real 'meat and potatoes' of the story. there is no substance ... nothing to sink my teeth into. unless something radically changes this will be one of those books -that in a year's time- i won't remember a thing about it.
final thoughts ... i think i get what the author was after and i like the idea of exploring the 1950 / 60's housewife. is there anything more stereotypical -and unexplored- as the 1950's housewife? i think Bergen is trying to illustrate the complexities of life ... everyone's life, no matter their gender, the years in which they lived, no matter their role in life. we are all far more resilient that we thing we are. things happen. things -that at the time- feel like they will be our undoing, but life goes on. and so do we. most of us anyway. there are definitely things that break us and we are beyond fixing ... but for most of us, most of the time, we manage to go on. so i'm all for that as a theme of a novel .... it's just all the curious or remarkable anomalies that he includes in Hope's life are left unexplored. they are mentioned as if part of an itinerary. this happened. that happened. and than life was ordinary for a while and then something else happened.
and i will take some responsibility for my poor reception of this book. i don't care for stories that take the broad view. or one that covers many years. i like the kind of novel that takes just one of those exceptions to Hope's otherwise mundane life and focuses on it alone, so that i feel i have some intimacy with Hope ... that i understand how she felt and what motivated her and how she changed because of that single incident. that's just a personal preference and it makes this a poor choice for me not a bad book. still i'm only giving it two stars.
two-thirds of the way in and i feel like the story is yet to begin. it all feels like preamble .... here's some background information to set the stage before getting into the real 'meat and potatoes' of the story. there is no substance ... nothing to sink my teeth into. unless something radically changes this will be one of those books -that in a year's time- i won't remember a thing about it.
final thoughts ... i think i get what the author was after and i like the idea of exploring the 1950 / 60's housewife. is there anything more stereotypical -and unexplored- as the 1950's housewife? i think Bergen is trying to illustrate the complexities of life ... everyone's life, no matter their gender, the years in which they lived, no matter their role in life. we are all far more resilient that we thing we are. things happen. things -that at the time- feel like they will be our undoing, but life goes on. and so do we. most of us anyway. there are definitely things that break us and we are beyond fixing ... but for most of us, most of the time, we manage to go on. so i'm all for that as a theme of a novel .... it's just all the curious or remarkable anomalies that he includes in Hope's life are left unexplored. they are mentioned as if part of an itinerary. this happened. that happened. and than life was ordinary for a while and then something else happened.
and i will take some responsibility for my poor reception of this book. i don't care for stories that take the broad view. or one that covers many years. i like the kind of novel that takes just one of those exceptions to Hope's otherwise mundane life and focuses on it alone, so that i feel i have some intimacy with Hope ... that i understand how she felt and what motivated her and how she changed because of that single incident. that's just a personal preference and it makes this a poor choice for me not a bad book. still i'm only giving it two stars.
July 29, 2015
I was a little worried when this was suggested for our next book club pick, because it was the first one voted off the island during Canada Reads, and there were so many negative Goodreads reviews. However, I ended up liking it a lot. At the end of the book, Hope's daughter is planning to write a novel with a main character a lot like her mother, but Hope protests, saying that her life did not have a plot. To an extent, this is true, but I enjoyed the book anyway, because David Bergen writes well and I found Hope to be a surprisingly sympathetic character. I'm finding it difficult to articulate what I liked about the book, so I guess I'm not surprised that Ron McLean wasn't able to defend it on Canada Reads, but I did like it.
It's funny, several reviews mention that Hope is difficult to like, that she is vain and shallow, and wishy-washy or passive. All of this is true! She is all of these things, and in equal measures, she's guilty about feeling this way. I actually found her more realistic because she admits to herself that she likes the fact that she's considered a beauty, and that she starts to feel bad when she feels she's losing her beauty. She's not obnoxious about it, she just likes feeling admired. I think that's pretty realistic. She worries about not being a good mother after suffering from some episodes of post-partum depression. I'd think that would be normal. She's fairly conventional in many ways but then she does something surprisingly progessive that shows she has more going on under the surface than it appears.
It's funny, several reviews mention that Hope is difficult to like, that she is vain and shallow, and wishy-washy or passive. All of this is true! She is all of these things, and in equal measures, she's guilty about feeling this way. I actually found her more realistic because she admits to herself that she likes the fact that she's considered a beauty, and that she starts to feel bad when she feels she's losing her beauty. She's not obnoxious about it, she just likes feeling admired. I think that's pretty realistic. She worries about not being a good mother after suffering from some episodes of post-partum depression. I'd think that would be normal. She's fairly conventional in many ways but then she does something surprisingly progessive that shows she has more going on under the surface than it appears.
August 8, 2012
As reviewed in Localiez magazine (by me)
The Age of Hope by David Bergen chronicles the life of Hope Koop. Raised in western Canada in the 40’s, Hope was an educated woman enrolled in nursing school. However, like many women in that era, Hope abandons her studies to marry and raise a family. As time passes Hope’s life is consumed with domestic duties. She struggles to find her true identity. She ambles through life very passively but continually wrestling with herself to define her own self-worth. Eventually, when Hope’s children are all grown and her husband gone she learns to embrace her true inner self and no longer focuses on what others expect of her. Only then does she experience true personal growth.
The Age of Hope is subtly thought-provoking. It sneaks up on you…once you have finished reading it you’ll continue to think about it. You’ll find yourself analyzing Hope’s actions and thinking about what truly defined women in the 40’s. David Bergen does a miraculous job at conveying the inner thoughts of his female character. (I don’t know about you ladies, but I haven’t met too many men that understand women in the way that David Bergen appears to.) The Age of Hope makes for a wonderful book club selection which is sure to prompt great discussion on women’s issues, life stages, and personal growth. A perceptive and intelligent read.
The Age of Hope by David Bergen chronicles the life of Hope Koop. Raised in western Canada in the 40’s, Hope was an educated woman enrolled in nursing school. However, like many women in that era, Hope abandons her studies to marry and raise a family. As time passes Hope’s life is consumed with domestic duties. She struggles to find her true identity. She ambles through life very passively but continually wrestling with herself to define her own self-worth. Eventually, when Hope’s children are all grown and her husband gone she learns to embrace her true inner self and no longer focuses on what others expect of her. Only then does she experience true personal growth.
The Age of Hope is subtly thought-provoking. It sneaks up on you…once you have finished reading it you’ll continue to think about it. You’ll find yourself analyzing Hope’s actions and thinking about what truly defined women in the 40’s. David Bergen does a miraculous job at conveying the inner thoughts of his female character. (I don’t know about you ladies, but I haven’t met too many men that understand women in the way that David Bergen appears to.) The Age of Hope makes for a wonderful book club selection which is sure to prompt great discussion on women’s issues, life stages, and personal growth. A perceptive and intelligent read.
December 3, 2012
Mini Book Review: It's always hard to write a review for a book that you just couldn't get into even-though you appreciate the talents of the author. I don't want to turn people off of the book, but at the same time I cannot lie and say I loved it. Beautifully written, which kept me reading even-though I wasn't really enjoying Hope's story. I just found her wishy washy and the storyline just left me feeling depressed. I also think I had a problem with it because it was based in Winnipeg & just brought back memories of High School English. Which also makes me feel as stupid as I did back than trying to figure out why someone was interested in reading about some women who survives through it all. I do that everyday, I'm a survivor, but I don't want to read about women like me. I'm just a simple girl and need something more than a character study, I want adventure or at least to learn something. He's an extremely gifted writer and I think this will be a big hit. But as I said before, it's just not my thing. Mr Bergen you are a talented writer with a true insight into the human psyche and I applaud you for that
3 Dewey's (Based on my enjoyment not on the talents of the author)
I received this at the HarperCollins Indigo Insiders event & didn't have to review
3 Dewey's (Based on my enjoyment not on the talents of the author)
I received this at the HarperCollins Indigo Insiders event & didn't have to review
April 20, 2013
David Bergen is a a very talented writer so I am not surprised that he could successfully write a book about an ordinary woman, living in a small town, in the middle of Canada. There is really no plot to the novel, however he does touch on some very important issues such as depression and feminism. Although I enjoyed the book, upon reflection I think I would have found the story more gratifying if the author had explored these issues in depth. Or, maybe I was simply expecting more after reading a couple of his other novels, my all time favourite being "The Time in Between", which was truly a masterpiece. Despite these assessments, I was still captivated by Bergen's smooth, easy writing style and finished the book in one sitting. That in itself, speaks volumes. Although I am unable to give it a five star rating, I would still highly recommend it.
March 19, 2017
I picked up this book for a book club .... maybe I will like it more following our pending discussion but I don't think that will happen. I am eager to hear why it was picked in the first place.
The book was bereft of any meaningful emotion, or better put, any emotion was stated as a neat and clear fact, detached and dry, and having no effect on the main chacter. She didn't seem to have any real relationships, including those with her husband or children, which made it very difficult to believe.
Compounding matters, the story lacked plot and no large revelations or life lessions were revealed at the end. "We live through lots of everyday stuff, then we die" seemed to be the only theme here.
I just kept hoping it was going to get better but the ending fizzled as well.
Sigh.
The book was bereft of any meaningful emotion, or better put, any emotion was stated as a neat and clear fact, detached and dry, and having no effect on the main chacter. She didn't seem to have any real relationships, including those with her husband or children, which made it very difficult to believe.
Compounding matters, the story lacked plot and no large revelations or life lessions were revealed at the end. "We live through lots of everyday stuff, then we die" seemed to be the only theme here.
I just kept hoping it was going to get better but the ending fizzled as well.
Sigh.
March 19, 2017
When I read a book, I need to feel like I can identify with the character or situation in some way. This book grabbed me from the beginning, and didn't let go until the last page. I identified profoundly with Hope, and I felt as if the author, a male, had some crazy kind of insight into the workings of a woman's mind. In fact, I kept turning back to the author's flap in the back cover to make sure it hadn't been written by a woman.
Another test I have for a book is that after turning the last page, will I want to read the book again. I cannot give five stars for a book for which the answer is "No". I give this novel five stars.
Another test I have for a book is that after turning the last page, will I want to read the book again. I cannot give five stars for a book for which the answer is "No". I give this novel five stars.
January 5, 2013
David Bergen eloquently and compassionately captures what life was like for a married woman on the prairies during the fifties and sixties, a time when women like the main character, Hope Platt, were expected to be satisfied with staying at home looking after their husband and their children and yet who began to have their consciousness raised by feminists who believed they should be demanding more from their lives.
September 16, 2016
I loved this unfussy account of a woman's life. Born in 1930 Hope Koop is the same generation as my mother, also born in the midwest. There are many similarities to her story, as well to countless others born in this time and place. The coming to terms in the sixties and seventies also rang true. I love Bergen's straightforward style and admire his insights. I recommend this novel strongly, especially to my prairie friends.
March 3, 2013
I'm torn between loving the book and not really understanding it. I enjoyed experiencing Hope's life in her own words. Her thoughts are similar to what I and other young women experience. I'm sure many mothers can relate to her! I didn't feel as though there was much of a plot or storyline. Still, I was unable to put the book down and I read it in record time. For that reason - 4 stars!
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