tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-223968772024-03-16T13:52:23.024-05:00The Book Blog of EvilOutside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside a dog it's too dark to read.Amy Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00085705321950169094noreply@blogger.comBlogger177125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22396877.post-64472174571007070582021-01-24T21:50:00.001-06:002021-01-24T21:50:21.277-06:00The Book of Longings, Sue Monk Kidd--the finale<p> I am wondering about whether this book is really this disappointing, or if it has to do with my expectations of it. Because what I had heard definitely set my expectations, and then the book profoundly failed to meet them.</p><p>Let's pick up the story after the first quarter previously reviewed. When last we left Ana, she was being stoned in the marketplace for being an unmarried widow--her betrothed died before the actual marriage ceremony. Jesus stands between her and the mob, and promises to marry her, which takes the wind out of the sails of the mob and they leave. </p><p>There is some plot I left out here--Ana was being groomed for seduction by Herod Antipas. That's the King Herod you know from the Bible. Is this the one who ordered the Slaughter of the Innocents? Kidd doesn't accuse him of that particular atrocity, but everything else? Yup, that's the one.</p><p>For some reason, Herod sees her, decides to use her as the model for a new mosaic he is having installed. This is how you know that the Romans are bad--because their love of interior decor has led Herod astray from the commandment against graven images. Herod is also a creepy dude, so since he's in service (and inspired by) the Romans, they must be terrible. Thus Judas is entirely justified in his terroristic/guerilla warfare. Which is less "war" and more "random violence and property destruction."</p><p>There is some mishegas where because Ana is this unmarried widow/spoiled goods situation, it's not clear that she can have any kind of respectable marriage. So her father brokers a deal with Herod where Ana will be taken in at the royal palace as a concubine. But she is Too! Good! For! This! and she rebels, insults Herod, steals some valuable hammered ivory to write on, and runs away from the palace. This is the accusation that nearly gets her stoned to death before Jesus appears in her life again. (Somehow in all of this she meets Herod's first wife, and they become soul sisters or something, which becomes important later.)</p><p>So having ruined this politically and economically advantageous match--Herod isn't interested any more--there is nothing left but for Ana and Jesus to marry off-screen, and she goes to Nazareth to start her new life.</p><p>Nazareth turns out to be a pretty impoverished village. Joseph has died, Jesus is pretty much considered to be illegitimate, so he has to go find work in other places. Ana is left alone (with Yaltha still) with Jesus's family--two brothers, a bitchy shit-stirring woman married to one of the brothers, a widowed sister, and his mother Mary. Mary is--of course--wonderful and loving. The sister is named Salome, but not THAT one. </p><p>As rushed and this section is, it does contain some bits of realism that seem to be missing in the rest of the book. Ana turns out to be terrible at domestic chores expected of her--because she has literally never done any of that before. Jesus is gone a lot, picking up odd jobs where he can, and his absences create tension between Ana and this family she doesn't actually know. </p><p>The book fast forwards through about seven years of impoverished domesticity. There is the whole "Ana doesn't want to have children, but 1st century contraception isn't fool proof, Ana gets pregnant, baby is born prematurely while Jesus is away, baby is born dead, Ana has an abbreviated crisis of identity--does she want to have more children or not? And will she ever have time again to write?</p><p>This is where you get the sense that Kidd has set herself a task she is just not up to executing. Seven years of close quarters domesticity would be where the book could really dig into Jesus as a man, as a Jew, as a 1st century Galilean, as seen through the eyes of the woman closest to him. This is where I was hoping learn about how traditional Jewish practices informed his ministry, and how it differed from them. There are enticing nuggets--how in his search for work, Jesus met other gig economy types, and forged relationships with the men who would eventually become his disciples.</p><p>But so much of what happens with Jesus happens off-screen. We get some cute antics--Jesus and Ana go to the temple and release the sacrificial animals and run away, clearly foretelling the incident with the moneychangers. But for the most part, Jesus is absent from the narrative during this time. There is very little sense of how Judaism is practiced, how Jesus struggles with his understanding of God and his role. I strongly suspect that Kidd ships him off to look for work so she can avoid doing precisely this work. </p><p>After about seven years of this, the Big Events happen. Ana introduces Jesus to her brother Judas, who has shown up to tell her that their mother has died. And Jesus and Ana meet "John the Immerser," and both get baptized. This sets up Jesus to confront his own destiny and launch his own ministry.</p><p>But Kidd is also not really equipped to handle this either. So Ana is left at home while Jesus follows John into the wilderness. "It's not that I think women shouldn't come along, Ana, but it's John's followers who are going to hate it...." Sure Jan.</p><p>So--more plot to the rescue! When Judas comes to Nazareth, he has political gossip! Herod wants to be elevated to "King of the Jews" by the Romans, and Ana's father recommends that Herod needs a well-connected Roman wife. So he's got to get rid of that inconvenient first wife, possibly by murdering her. So Ana writes a letter to her BFF warning her to flee, <i>signs her name to it </i>(!), and sends it off. </p><p>First wife flees the palace and returns to her home country. Since the marriage was designed to stave off a war with that country, her returning touches off renewed hostilities, in addition to being a big humiliation for Herod. Servants get tortured, and Ana's part in this gets revealed. So Ana has to go run off to Egypt to avoid arrest <i>just</i> as Jesus starts his own ministry.</p><p>So everything that I thought a book about "Jesus's wife" might do--doesn't happen. Ana has faffed off to Alexandria, engages in challenging the patriarchy, puts other people at risk for her own sense of rightness, finds Yaltha's long lost daughter, and ends up hiding out in a spiritual retreat center, where she is immediately recognized as a Towering Talent and has all the time and materials she needs to write. She hangs out there until she gets word that Jesus has been arrested. </p><p>So now it is Back To Jerusalem with all deliberate speed. People are put at risk of arrest and death to get Ana to Jesus, (it never occurs to her that this is maybe too high a price to pay to see a husband she has basically abandoned for 3 years) and she arrives in time to watch him on his walk to Golgotha. She reconnects with the Nazareth crew, sees Jesus die, and then hightails it back to Egypt before Kidd has to deal with any inconveniences around resurrection.</p><p>There is an epilogue where all the women join this spiritual retreat community and spend decades being at peace and Ana eventually makes copies of everything she has been writing (not clear what all that was, but I'm pretty sure I will be disappointed in that too, so I'm not really complaining) and seals them in jars and buries them. Maybe they will turn up, like the Dead Sea Scrolls did!</p><p>So did I hate it? I started there, but by the time I got through the first 25%, it was just a mild dislike. Is it because the book is not good, it is because my expectations were mis-set, or am I just impossible to please? Here are some questions I am asking to address that.</p><p><b>What does having Ana married to Jesus actually do for the book?</b> Having the story framed as "the wife of Jesus" certainly affected how I came to this book. And a lot of my disappointment comes from the squandering of that premise. If it had instead been a book about a a first century Galilean woman, whose life brushes occasionally across Jesus's but is only incidentally connected--I might have had more patience with it. If Ana had met him as she did in the first quarter, but NOT married him, then it would have been more clearly HER story, not her perspective on him. </p><p>I think the "married to Jesus" aspect threw the book out of balance for me. For example, I had zero patience or interest in what was happening in that retreat center, because it felt like a dodge to get the protagonist away from having to witness, interpret, and recount the life of Jesus. </p><p>If the book had not been about their marriage, then I might have been interested in the account of a non-Jewish, non-Christian tradition that was in existence at that time. As it was, it felt like a plot contrivance rather than anything meaningful.</p><p><b>What does having Ana be Judas's sister do for the book?</b> Again, this is a potentially explosive relationship that the book just does not address. Judas spends most of the book somewhere else--there is very little relationship between him and Ana. Nor do we see much of the interaction between Judas and Jesus--they are constantly walking away so they can talk without Ana overhearing. So why make the relationship so close? Why not make the meeting between them accidental? If Ana doesn't actually provide any insights into the relationship, there isn't any reason to make this relationship exist at all.</p><p><b>Is this just the weaknesses of historical fiction? </b> So many historical fictions are saddled with the protagonist having to meet every single famous historical person in the time period, and this felt like an egregious example of that. It's also more loaded because this isn't like Johnny Tremaine working for Paul Revere and being at Valley Forge during the American Revolution. This is taking two of the most seminal figures of a major world religion, and inventing the closest of relationship ties.</p><p>The problem pervades the book. It's Ana's father who sets up the marriage between Herod and Herodias, which leads to the beheading of John the Baptist. It's Ana who precipitates the conflict between Jesus's peaceful ministry and Judas's preference for armed insurrection--because without her, they wouldn't have met and Jesus would not have been betrayed. </p><p>While I am hugely skeptical of this sort of Narrativium overdosing, I am willing to allow it if it illuminates something. If we got to see how Jesus's domestic life informed his ministry. If we saw how Jesus and Judas disputed over time, and how Judas came to betray his friend. What remorse did Judas have--or maybe he didn't? Did he hang himself, or was he lynched? Really digging into how these people might have interacted as humans, rather than as the mythic figures they are in the Bible--well, that's what I was hoping for.</p><p>Instead, almost all of these big moments are just reported. Ana has no more insight into them than we do.</p><p><b>The Verdict</b></p><p>I would not recommend this book as a story of the wife of Jesus and the sister of Judas. I might recommend it (with some significant reservations) if it had been about a young woman's search for spiritual meaning in the context of first century Galilee. I would not recommend it if you have already read The Red Tent--it felt very much the same.</p><p>Nor is "Jesus was married" all that interesting in this context. More minds were blown by the possibility that Jesus was married by The Da Vinci Code, which came out about 17 years earlier. </p><p>Ultimately, by using major religious figures, Kidd is playing with explosive material she is not equipped to handle. If she had stripped down the story to minimize the representation of Jesus, it would have been a novel that was slightly better than average mildest fiction designed to appeal to women.</p>Amy Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00085705321950169094noreply@blogger.com55tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22396877.post-32267064568330494252021-01-19T13:56:00.003-06:002021-01-19T13:56:26.309-06:00The Book of Longings, by Sue Monk Kidd (The first quarter)<p> I liked <i>The Secret Life of Bees</i> when I read it ages ago. I liked the formal structure, where the facts about bees and their social structure and the science of beekeeping served as a framework for the story being told about a girl growing up in a largely female society. It resonated. It felt like Kidd was taking metaphors and examining them for the wisdom they could offer, but was also aware of the limitations of strictly equating bee and human behavior.</p><p>So I was willing to consider that she could do the same with her most recent book. <i>The Book of Longings</i> is described as a book about a first century Jewish woman who is married to Jesus and is sister to Judas. Based on the promotional materials, it promises to show Jesus as a fully human man, viewed through the filter of domestic life in turbulent times.</p><p>As of this writing, I have finished the first section of the book, and so far, I am not encouraged.</p><p>The first quarter of this book covers about a year, in which our protagonist Ana approaches the transition from a child in her parents' home to marriage. Structurally I expect this part of the book to show us the status quo--what is the social/economic/religious foundation that Jesus arises from, and which his teachings challenge. What are the attitudes and experiences that form the basis of daily life, as well as the exceptional experiences? What are the benefits--tradition, stability, power, wealth--and the draw backs--oppression, poverty, fear, violence? Who is our protagonist, how is she situated in this culture, and how does that affect what we will see about the value of the change Jesus and Judas are fighting for?</p><p>So far, the picture painted is not encouraging. I do not feel that I am in the hands of an insightful guide. (A quick search of the internet shows me that Sue Monk Kidd was raised Baptist in Georgia, but has moved to mystic Christianity over her life. Not necessarily the background of someone who can explain the soil from which the figure of Jesus was grown.)</p><p>In the first quarter of the book, Ana is 15. Her father is highly placed in society, a scribe to Herod Antipas, the tetrarch (ruler of a quarter) we know from the Bible as King Herod. Ana is not like other girls (have you read this book before, because I have) because she doesn't care for jewelry and shopping, she doesn't want to get married, she holds her traditional mother in contempt. Unlike other girls, her father has allowed her to learn to read and write, and that is all she wants to do. Which seems fine to me--it's not like we see that she has anything else to do in this book. She doesn't participate in any running of the household, seems to have no chores, no social life...honestly, no wonder she is bored.</p><p>But now she is 15, so it's time to get married I guess. Not clear why this is such a surprise to her, or why she doesn't seem to have any interest in getting away from the parents she obviously despises. I guess since she doesn't seem to know any other people, or have any siblings, she doesn't have any ideas about it.</p><p>Oh, there is this aunt who lives with them in the compound, who is herself a disgrace and is supposed to not be around Ana or give her dangerous ideas. Yaltha is a widow (which is a Bad Thing to be) whose husband beat her regularly until he died suddenly and she was suspected of poisoning him. Her brother has taken her in out of family obligation, but Ana's mother hates Yaltha and forbids Ana from spending time with her.</p><p>Not clear what Yaltha does all day either, but the two of them sneak out at night and sit on the roof and talk about how unfair the world is to women. Which--it is. No question. But they are the only ones who see it I guess. Because they are special and everybody around them are just sheep. Or evil. Or evil sheep (Ana's mother, I guess.)</p><p>Because Ana's big crisis is in this part of the book is that she is betrothed to an old man who has some kind of quid pro quo with her father and she is collateral damage. (Dad wants to own property, Husband-to Be wants to leverage Dad's proximity to Herod. HtB doesn't actually want to get married to Ana, and it's not clear why Dad threw her into the mix. What does he get out of it?) The day she first sees her betrothed is also the day she meets Jesus in the marketplace, and it is chemical attraction and love at first sight for her with Jesus. </p><p>Look--these stories happen! They get told over and over because they can be powerful. But because of that, it is important HOW they are told. Pride & Prejudice, Shakespeare in Love, Tristan and Isolde, Monsoon Wedding, the entirety of Arthurian legend. Probably also many of the stories referred to in Ana's writings (she allegedly is writing out the stories of the women of the Torah.) Many women are given few choices in life, and the conflict between who they are allowed to marry and who they love is powerful! Economic uncertainty, the struggle of the individual to find fulfillment with the strictures of their society--these are stories that surround us. But given that I have so many options to encounter this story, I don't want to waste my time with a dull and irritating version.</p><p>Which so far, this is. Ana doesn't actually do anything interesting--she is defined mostly by the awfulness of the people around her. Her mother is terrible--because her mother basically just tells Ana not to do the things that Ana wants to do. There is no explanation or understanding of WHY her mother doesn't want Ana to wander around the hills and caves with only a single servant in tow. Or why she doesn't want Ana spending her days reading the writing, or talking to Yaltha. Or why she is so anxious to get Ana married off.</p><p>But Ana manages to do all these things anyway, and then the two women just glare daggers at each other. And sure, I want everybody to get what they want--I am generally in favor of self-actualization! But Ana's condescension and reflexive opposition doesn't seem principled, or understanding of others. And this is a problem with the book, because while a 15 year old girl in first century Galilee might not understand much of anything, I want the author to! </p><p>For example, compare this to Pride and Prejudice, where Lizzy is witty and smart, a bit rude, condescending her self, but also periodically redeemed by her love and admiration of Jane, her worry and care for Lydia, her kind ness to her father, and Austen herself makes fun of Mrs. Bennett, but you understand why she is so fixated on getting her daughters well-married. The economic anxiety is real. Mr. Bennet is not rising to the occasion, and Mrs. Bennet is ill-equipped for the job that has been dumped on her.</p><p>Austen shows empathy even while being quite cutting to people and their weaknesses. You don't actually like all her characters, but they have appealing moments, they have nuance. Wickham is appealing until his true colors are revealed. Lydia is obnoxious, but also pitiable. Mr. Collins is a subject of mockery and distain, until Charlotte marries him and then even Lizzie has to find something good in him.</p><p>But <i>The Book of Longings</i> so far doesn't trade in any such nuance. Ana is the smartest, richest, most educated and most beautiful girl in all of Sapphoris and so she is obviously the victim here. Oppression is fine for all the sheeple around her, but she is too good for this. Sure, she goes out to the hills with a single servant, and breaks all the social rules by meeting Jesus alone and eating with him. So--her mother was right then?</p><p>And when her repulsive betrothed actually dies of a plague, Ana is now "damaged goods." Betrothal is nearly the same as being married, and so now she is a widow, but also a harlot and a whore. So Jesus has to step in and prevent her from being stoned to death by a mob, by promising to marry her. "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."</p><p>(So we get Jesus's Greatest Hits too.)</p><p>Let's not forget Judas. Judas is fighting to get the Romans out of Galilee. He's part of a guerrilla/terrorist organization that has forced him into hiding. But he's a Good Guy, as he shows up and promises to get his sister (half-sister?) out of her betrothal to the old man Nathaniel. Judas burns down Nathaniel's date farm, while being very obvious and declaring who he is. </p><p>Of course, this is dangerous--it threatens the entire family's income if Herod feels he can't use a scribe whose son goes around committing terrorist acts. But Dad disavows Judas and Dad is cast as the Bad Guy here, rather than Judas. Mostly because the book is entirely filtered through whether Ana gets what she wants or not. Judas is against Ana marrying Nathaniel, Dad is in favor, and so that's the moral calculus. </p><p>I know that everything is much more complicated than that, and I want this book to acknowledge it and explain just how complicated everything is. I fear I am going to continue to be disappointed.</p><p>Judas is fighting to get rid of the Romans. So far, the evil presented by "the Romans" has been limited to inciting Herod to install figurative decorations inside his palace in contravention of the Second Law of Moses (no graven images). I can't keep this scene out of my head. From Monty Python's <i>Life of Brian.</i></p><p style="font-family: Calibri;"><span class="name" style="color: #003399; font-weight: bold;"></span></p><blockquote><p style="font-family: Calibri;"><span class="name" style="color: #003399; font-weight: bold;">REG:</span> They've bled us white, the bastards. They've taken everything we had, and not just from us, from our fathers, and from our fathers' fathers. </p><p style="font-family: Calibri;"><span class="name" style="color: #003399; font-weight: bold;">LORETTA:</span> And from our fathers' fathers' fathers. </p><p style="font-family: Calibri;"><span class="name" style="color: #003399; font-weight: bold;">REG:</span> Yeah. </p><p style="font-family: Calibri;"><span class="name" style="color: #003399; font-weight: bold;">LORETTA:</span> And from our fathers' fathers' fathers' fathers. </p><p style="font-family: Calibri;"><span class="name" style="color: #003399; font-weight: bold;">REG:</span> Yeah. All right, Stan. Don't labour the point. And what have they ever given us in return?! </p><p style="font-family: Calibri;"><span class="name" style="color: #003399; font-weight: bold;">XERXES:</span> The aqueduct? </p><p style="font-family: Calibri;"><span class="name" style="color: #003399; font-weight: bold;">REG:</span> What? </p><p style="font-family: Calibri;"><span class="name" style="color: #003399; font-weight: bold;">XERXES:</span> The aqueduct. </p><p style="font-family: Calibri;"><span class="name" style="color: #003399; font-weight: bold;">REG:</span> Oh. Yeah, yeah. They did give us that. Uh, that's true. Yeah. </p><p style="font-family: Calibri;"><span class="name" style="color: #003399; font-weight: bold;">COMMANDO #3:</span> And the sanitation. </p><p style="font-family: Calibri;"><span class="name" style="color: #003399; font-weight: bold;">LORETTA:</span> Oh, yeah, the sanitation, Reg. Remember what the city used to be like? </p><p style="font-family: Calibri;"><span class="name" style="color: #003399; font-weight: bold;">REG:</span> Yeah. All right. I'll grant you the aqueduct and the sanitation are two things that the Romans have done. </p><p style="font-family: Calibri;"><span class="name" style="color: #003399; font-weight: bold;">MATTHIAS:</span> And the roads. </p><p style="font-family: Calibri;"><span class="name" style="color: #003399; font-weight: bold;">REG:</span> Well, yeah. Obviously the roads. I mean, the roads go without saying, don't they? But apart from the sanitation, the aqueduct, and the roads-- </p><p style="font-family: Calibri;"><span class="name" style="color: #003399; font-weight: bold;">COMMANDO:</span> Irrigation. </p><p style="font-family: Calibri;"><span class="name" style="color: #003399; font-weight: bold;">XERXES:</span> Medicine. </p><p style="font-family: Calibri;"><span class="name" style="color: #003399; font-weight: bold;">COMMANDOS:</span> Huh? Heh? Huh... </p><p style="font-family: Calibri;"><span class="name" style="color: #003399; font-weight: bold;">COMMANDO #2:</span> Education. </p><p style="font-family: Calibri;"><span class="name" style="color: #003399; font-weight: bold;">COMMANDOS:</span> Ohh... </p><p style="font-family: Calibri;"><span class="name" style="color: #003399; font-weight: bold;">REG:</span> Yeah, yeah. All right. Fair enough. </p><p style="font-family: Calibri;"><span class="name" style="color: #003399; font-weight: bold;">COMMANDO #1:</span> And the wine. </p><p style="font-family: Calibri;"><span class="name" style="color: #003399; font-weight: bold;">COMMANDOS:</span> Oh, yes. Yeah... </p><p style="font-family: Calibri;"><span class="name" style="color: #003399; font-weight: bold;">FRANCIS:</span> Yeah. Yeah, that's something we'd really miss, Reg, if the Romans left. Huh. </p><p style="font-family: Calibri;"><span class="name" style="color: #003399; font-weight: bold;">COMMANDO:</span> Public baths. </p><p style="font-family: Calibri;"><span class="name" style="color: #003399; font-weight: bold;">LORETTA:</span> And it's safe to walk in the streets at night now, Reg. </p><p style="font-family: Calibri;"><span class="name" style="color: #003399; font-weight: bold;">FRANCIS:</span> Yeah, they certainly know how to keep order. Let's face it. They're the only ones who could in a place like this. </p><p style="font-family: Calibri;"><span class="name" style="color: #003399; font-weight: bold;">COMMANDOS:</span> Hehh, heh. Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh. </p><p style="font-family: Calibri;"><span class="name" style="color: #003399; font-weight: bold;">REG:</span> All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us? </p><p style="font-family: Calibri;"><span class="name" style="color: #003399; font-weight: bold;">XERXES:</span> Brought peace. </p><p style="font-family: Calibri;"><span class="name" style="color: #003399; font-weight: bold;">REG:</span> Oh. Peace? Shut up!</p></blockquote><p style="font-family: Calibri;"></p><p><a href="http://montypython.50webs.com/scripts/Life_of_Brian/10.htm">http://montypython.50webs.com/scripts/Life_of_Brian/10.htm</a></p><p>Will this get better? Will I even read it? As of now, there is no way to tell!</p>Amy Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00085705321950169094noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22396877.post-13049586940224192722020-11-16T00:55:00.006-06:002020-11-16T00:55:34.437-06:00A Murder Is Announced, by Agatha Christie<p><span style="font-family: arial;"> What a classic, escape-room-y set up! In the tiny fictional English village of Chipping Cleghorn, the local Gazette publishes a personal ad. "A MURDER IS ANNOUNCED... Friends are advised to accept this, their only intimation."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Date (doesn't matter), time is 6:30, location is "Little Paddocks" because Agatha Christie houses all have names!</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">A group of about 12 people end up gathering out of curiosity, thinking it might be a "murder game." At the appointed time, as the clock finishes chiming the half hour, the lights go out and the front door opens. A man's voice yells "Hands up!" as a dazzling flashlight plays around the room. Two shots ring out, chaos erupts, the man spins and a third shot is heard.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">When the lights are restored, the owner of the house is bleeding copiously from her ear, while two bullet holes are visible in the wall behind her head. The robber is dead in the doorway.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Who would have wanted to murder Miss Letitiia Blacklock? Did the robber die by accident or suicide?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">In order to remember this plot, a cast of characters is recommended.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The Suspects:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Living at Little Paddocks:</span></p><ul style="caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34); color: #202122; list-style-image: url("https://en.wikipedia.org/w/skins/Vector/resources/skins.vector.styles/images/bullet-icon.svg?d4515"); margin: 0.3em 0px 0px 1.6em; padding: 0px;"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Letitia Blacklock, lady of the house, in her 60s (also the main character)</span></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Dora Bunner, her elderly fluttery childhood friend, usually known by her nickname, "Bunny"</span></li></ul><ul style="caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34); color: #202122; list-style-image: url("https://en.wikipedia.org/w/skins/Vector/resources/skins.vector.styles/images/bullet-icon.svg?d4515"); margin: 0.3em 0px 0px 1.6em; padding: 0px;"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Patrick and Julia Simmons, Miss Blacklock's spoiled and foolish young cousins (who call her "Aunt" due to the difference in ages)</span></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Mitzi, Miss Blacklock's foreign housekeeper and cook, a young refugee</span></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Phillipa Haymes, a young widowed paying guest/gardener with a young son at boarding school</span></li></ul><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34);"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34);">Neighbors:</span></span></div><ul style="caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34); color: #202122; list-style-image: url("https://en.wikipedia.org/w/skins/Vector/resources/skins.vector.styles/images/bullet-icon.svg?d4515"); margin: 0.3em 0px 0px 1.6em; padding: 0px;"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Colonel Archie Easterbrook, blustery old colonel just returned from India</span></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Laura Easterbrook, his considerably younger, glamorous wife</span></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Mrs Swettenham, elderly lady who dotes on her son, Edmund</span></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Edmund Swettenham, cynical young writer</span></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Miss Hinchcliffe, physically fit, tough lady farmer</span></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Miss Amy Murgatroyd, Miss Hinchcliffe's sweet-dispositioned, giggly companion</span></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Belle Goedler, dying widow of Letitia's former wealthy employer</span></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Julian Harmon, the vicar</span></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Diana "Bunch" Harmon, the vicar's wife</span></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Tiglath Pileser, the vicarage cat</span></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Rudi Scherz, a young man of Swiss extraction, the receptionist at a local spa</span></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Myrna Harris, girlfriend of the latter, waitress at local spa</span></li></ul><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34);"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34);">The Detectives:</span></span></div><ul style="caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34); color: #202122; list-style-image: url("https://en.wikipedia.org/w/skins/Vector/resources/skins.vector.styles/images/bullet-icon.svg?d4515"); margin: 0.3em 0px 0px 1.6em; padding: 0px;"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Miss Jane Marple</span></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Inspector Dermot Eric Craddock</span></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Chief Constable George Rydesdale, Craddock's superior</span></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Detective Sergeant Fletcher, assisting Craddock</span></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Constable Legg</span></li></ul><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34);"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34);">(Cast of characters copy pasted from Wikipedia)</span></span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34);"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;">Published in 1950, the book has that timeless Christie quality. There are some references to "the War" probably, but was that WWI or WWII? There is Colonel Easterbrook, just returned from India--3 years AFTER partition? No mention of that horror having any effect. No, the colonel could have been posted at anytime, back at any time, Britain could still be the raj for all this book acknowledges the actual time period. This book could be set at any time from 1924-1976--basically the scope of Christie's career.</span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;">THIS IS HER 50TH NOVEL!</span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;">So, what happens?</span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;">Classic Christie format: We begin with vignettes of the various households, reading the newspaper. We get a sense of who the assembled parties will be--what we don't know is who will be a victim, and who will be the perpetrator. It's rather the fun of a book like this to try to spot the plot before the plot is actually set into motion.</span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;">The murder is announced via newspaper personals advertisement. Various characters intrigued. Letty Blacklock, the owner of Little Paddocks, is particularly surprised, but certain that the neighbors will turn up, she puts together a little party set up, and indeed, people arrive. At 6:30, the clock chimes, the lights go out, a door swings open, someone yells "Stick 'em up!" and a flashlight swings around the room. Two shots are fired, the flashlight is dropped, a third shot is fired, then all goes quiet. Very exciting!</span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;">When the lights are back on (somebody had to find the fuse box), the burglar is dead, and 2 bullet holes are in the wall behind Letty Blacklock's head! She is bleeding from the ear--she was the target, but why?</span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;">Bunny recognizes the "burglar" as a receptionist from the nearby hotel--a man named Rudi Scherz, who had approached Letty for money recently. She turned him down--was that the motive for the burglary? And how did he die? Did he accidentally fall on his gun?</span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;">Of course, it's much more complicated than that. There is a legacy--Letty had worked as secretary to a very successful financier, himself dead for quite some time. But his widow Belle. is still alive--but once she dies, the money comes to Letty.</span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;">Or, if Letty pre-deceases Belle, the money goes to "Pip and Emma" a pair of twins who are the niece and nephew of the financier. So there is motive to kill Letty?</span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;">Much is discovered--Patrick and Julia are pulling a scam--"Julia" is actually Emma, one of the missing twins who stands to inherit if Letty predeceases Belle. Philippa turns out to be "Pip"--the other twin. </span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;">Other people die--Bunny takes an aspirin from Letty's bottle, is found dead the next morning. Hinchcliffe and Murgatroyd (coded lesbians!) try to <span style="caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34);">reenact the drama of the night, Murgatroyd realizes "She wasn't there" and is soon found strangled.</span></span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34);"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;">Miss Marple happens to be staying at the hotel where Rudi Scherz was working, and she. comes in and figures it all out. Letty is not the intended victim, she is the perpetrator! </span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;">Because Letty is NOT Letty, she is actually Letty's sister, Charlotte. Letty and Lottie went to Switzerland during the war, where Lottie had goiter surgery, and met Rudi Scherz there. After the war ended, "Letty" returned to England, saying that "Lottie" had died. The inheritance, you see. </span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;">But Rudi recognized her, and he had to be silenced. Letty set up the situation, exited the room and shot twice at where she had been standing, then killed Rudi with the third shot. She nicked her own ear and returned to her spot by the time the lights came back on.</span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;">In acting out the scene, Murgatroyd realized that Letty wasn't in the spot she was supposed to be, so Letty killed her.</span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;">Bunny--dear, dotty, Bunny--wasn't able to remember to always call her friend "Letty." A few times she slipped, calling her "Lottie," so Letty gave her one last wonderful birthday day, and killed her with a narcotic in the aspirin bottle.</span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;">Letty is finally caught in a trap set by Miss Marple and Inpsector Craddock, where they accuse Edmund of being <span style="caret-color: rgb(32, 33, 34);">Pip, and trying to kill Letty for the inheritance. (Here, Philippa reveals that she is Pip, so they have to quickly pivot to claiming Edmund did it to marry a rich wife.) Mitzi claims to know a secret, and Letty is caught trying to drown her in the kitchen. She breaks down when Miss Marple imitates Bunny's voice.</span></span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;">As someone who has binged on quite a few of Christie's works in the past few months, it is amazing how she managed to ring so many changes on this cozy format. The trick of this one is that the bulk of the book is spent tricking the reader into seeing Letty as the intended victim, when she is the perpetrator. At some point, you have to realize you have been looking through the wrong end of the telescope.</span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;">Christie has quite a number of variations on the cozy scheme. There is one where the first person narrator turns out to be unreliable--is the perpetrator. There is one where ALL of the suspects committed the crime, and they are all covering for each other. There is one where all the suspects end up dead--so who was the murderer? There is one where the murder to be solved happened a decade before--and Miss Marple has to even figure out what she is investigating. </span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;">Much of the novel is written as dialogue--characters are sketched briefly, with only a few characteristics to distinguish them from each other. They aren't exactly memorable, but you can usually tell them apart. There are 15 suspects, after all, in addition to the detectives, the victim, and a couple of witnesses. For a book of about 100 pages, that requires deftness!</span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;">Do you really care about any of them? I submit that you don't. There is pleasure in the unraveling of the puzzle, but it's not really wrenching to deal with all these deaths. They aren't real enough to be affecting.</span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #202122; font-family: arial;">But they are entertaining, and it's rather comforting to read these during the covid upheaval. There is order, and it can be restored after a major social disruption--murder and war can be overcome, so why not a pandemic?</span></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Amy Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00085705321950169094noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22396877.post-83620966072414207872020-01-02T01:57:00.002-06:002020-01-06T21:08:07.182-06:00The Dutch House, by Ann PatchettJust listened to this from Audible.com, and Tom Hanks is a delightful reader. He has certain cadences that feel very true to him, idiosyncratic even. Not that I can recall any at the moment, of course. But even when I can predict how the sentence he is reading will end, I was frequently surprised by <i>how</i> he said it.<br />
<br />
Of course, I don’t just listen to any book from Audible—I listen to the 5 minute sample, which is plenty long enough to decide if the voice is going to be irritating. In that case, I usually get an ebook instead.<br />
<br />
So Hanks’ reading is why I listened to The Dutch House, and as a first person narrative, Hanks gives the main character the best chance of being likeable. I mean, who doesn’t like Tom Hanks? (Other than QAnon I guess?) I have liked Tom Hanks since back in his “The Man With One Red Shoe” days. I remember a profile article (VF maybe?) that celebrated his Hasty Pudding award, and his infectious joy with everything.<br />
<br />
So I don’t hate this book, and I don’t hate Danny Conroy.<br />
<br />
I feel the need to put that out there as soon as possible, because apparently I hate everything.<br />
<br />
I have also followed Ann Patchett since before she published Bel Canto. I really enjoyed The Patron Saint of Liars, and The Magician’s Assistant, although I read those decades ago now. I was less in love with Bel Canto, but thought Commonwealth was better.<br />
<br />
In fact, somehow, Patchett managed to capture the exact quality of late afternoon light, slanting into a child’s bedroom at nap time, while adults outside were getting genially day drunk—-the first part of Commonwealth was an amazing evocation of a specific time and place and the book deserves to be read for that alone.<br />
<br />
So, I also don’t hate Ann Patchett.<br />
<br />
But I don’t like The Dutch House. And I can’t tell if it’s just that I don’t get it, or that I want more from Patchett than she gives.<br />
<br />
The Dutch House is a story of a broken family, and the maturation of the narrator, one Danny Conroy, as he describes his life from the age of 5 until his 50s. It is a character description of his fierce and powerful older sister Maeve, and I guess also an exploration of unresolved grief?<br />
<br />
<b>Plot Summary</b><br />
<br />
Although the plot spans decades, the focus is the singular trauma of the broken family, represented by The Dutch House—the extravagant mansion the Conroy family acquired before Danny was even born. It is called that because the family that built the house in the 1920s were Dutch—the Van Hoebeeks—rather than because of the architectural style. As central as the house is, Patchett is sparse with description, allowing the reader to imagine their own version of a magnificent house. There are at least 6 bedrooms, a ballroom on the 3rd floor, large “windows” (French doors) that open front and back, allowing one to see straight through from the front walk to the pool in the back. There is an observatory (really? I don’t think they mean a place with a telescope, since it’s on the first floor), a small kitchen, an embarrassingly ostentatious dining room, and two enormous full length portraits of the Van Hoebeeks.<br />
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Danny’s father, Cyril Conroy, purchased the entire house and furnishings at an auction in 1946, after the last of the Van Hoebeeks died. He bought it as a surprise for his wife Elna, transferring the family from a tiny house on a military base, to the ridiculous grandeur of this showplace.<br />
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Elna was overwhelmed by the house, by the new lifestyle, by her husband’s sudden and surprising excess. Elna had intended to be a nun, and was retrieved from the convent by Cyril who had decided that life was “not for her.” Elna believed they were poor, and spent her time frugally rationing even the light that illuminated the tiny house. She and Maeve would read inside a closet, with towels stuffed under the door to keep the light from leaking out and being wasted. She soaked pinto beans in water—cheap ingredients, but filling, until the day Cyril said “I’ve borrowed a car, let’s go for a ride” and presented her with the house.<br />
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He had apparently been saving money, perhaps already launched on his career of real estate management? The book is not terribly clear. The family moves in, Danny is born, and they acquire a staff—Sandy as housekeeper, Jocelyn as cook, and Fiona (“Fluffy”) as nanny. Cyril imports a famous painter from Chicago to paint Elna’s portrait with the intention of replacing the Van Hoebeeks with the Conroys.<br />
<br />
Elna refuses.<br />
<br />
Elna ultimately refuses everything, but she starts with refusing to be painted, so the painter (who had already been paid) paints 10 year old Maeve instead. Elna eventually refuses the entirety of the nouveau riche fantasy concocted by Cyril, and leaves the family entirely to go work with the poor in India. Danny is about 5 years old, and Maeve steps up and parents him as she is all of 12 at this point.<br />
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Before too long, in swoops Andrea and her two young daughters, and over time she displaces both Maeve and Danny from the house. Andrea marries Cyril during Maeve’s first year of college, and moves her older daughter (Norma ?) into Maeve’s room. Maeve is displaced up to a 3rd floor bedroom, and basically never comes home again. Cyril dies when Danny is 16, and Andrea evicts him from the Dutch House. Neither Danny nor Andrea goes back into the house for another 40 years, more or less.<br />
<br />
They do go haunt the house, however. Whenever Danny comes home from school (Choate, Columbia for undergrad and medical school, all courtesy of an educational trust, which is all they inherit from their father, so they attempt to bleed it dry so it doesn’t go to Andrea’s daughters along with everything else), they go sit across the street and look at the house and reconstruct their lives, and nurse their grudges.<br />
<br />
When Maeve hits her 50s, she has a stroke, and Elma Conroy returns. Danny has married, has a couple of kids, has never practiced medicine in favor of a real estate development career—the same one Cyril had. Elma moves in with Maeve, and for a year they both bask in a mother-daughter relationship that Danny resents. Then...Andrea again.<br />
<br />
Elna suggests that they actually go and ring the doorbell at the Dutch House, make a visit. It turns out Andrea has some sort of brain degradation—dementia, or Alzheimer’s, something where she doesn’t know where she is. She sees the now middle-aged Danny, and believes it’s Cyril back. Elma volunteers to help care for Andrea, who is running through home health aides, and Norma had to give up her career in California to come back to talk care of her mother.<br />
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In an abbreviated coda, Elna moves back into the Dutch House, this time as a form of service. Maeve dies of a heart attack in her mid-50s, Danny and Celeste divorce, May becomes a successful movie actress. Andrea eventually dies, and neither of Andrea’s girls want the house. Danny’s daughter May buys it and reinstates the Gatsby-style parties that the Van Hoebeeks used to hold in the actual 1920s.<br />
<br />
<b>Analysis</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
What is this book about? Danny is not self-reflective enough to see his own arc, so it’s not really about the growth of the narrator.<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>He describes the moment he realized that Sandy and Jocelyn were sisters, and he comments a couple of times about how it never occurred to him to wonder about their lives outside caring for him. He does reach this understanding when he is about 11, which seems developmentally appropriate, so I was anticipating that this might be a book about how he grew in empathy and understanding about his place in a larger social system.</li>
<li>But when he gets divorced several decades later, he is surprised that his wife never liked the house he bought “for her.” Just as Cyril never understood that Elna didn’t like the Dutch House either.</li>
<li>So he repeats the pattern, to a slightly better outcome? In that Celeste stays around until the kids are mostly grown? </li>
</ul>
<div>
This is kind of a character study of Maeve, the indominable and constant family presence in Danny’s life. But we don’t get any sense of her internal life. Patchett gives her a house, a job, a degree, and sets her to caring for Danny. Which is not really enough. What she primarily does is lurk outside the Dutch House in the car.l<br />
****<br />
<br />
I started to re-listen to this book, as I finished it so long ago, and I am starting to see the shape of the book. Patchett is a thorough novelist, but I'm still wondering if I like this book.<br />
<br />
The book is divided into three parts, and each of the parts really centers a different woman. Part 1 is the story of Danny and Maeve's stepmother Andrea. Her insinuation into their lives, capped by the death of Cyril and Andrea's insistence that Maeve take Danny out or the house.<br />
<br />
Part 2 is Danny's beginning adulthood, meeting and marrying Celeste, learning about his parents from Fluffy. Part 3 is the return of Elna. Maeve binds these stories together, because Danny never really sees what is going on around him, what roles the women have in shaping his life. He never sees them clearly. He doesn't spot that Sandy and Jocelyn are sisters, he is totally blind-sided by Andrea's dislike of him, he doesn't understand why Maeve responds to Elna's return.<br />
<br />
The book starts with "The first time Andrea came into the house"--an excellent starting sentence. Textbook even. There are other wonderful lines. Danny describes sitting in the car with Maeve, outside the Dutch House as "We pretended what we lost was the house. Not our father and mother." (Roughly.)<br />
<br />
But I'm still bothered by this book. There doesn't really seem to be any reason for it to exist. Why read it? Why write it? Why is Danny the narrator? Why does the book end the way it does, compressed time jump, to the unlikely result of May being a famous and rich movie actress? What happens to Norma and Bright, and why? Do things just happen, one after the other? Why does Danny tell this story? Why does Patchett?<br />
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<br />Amy Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00085705321950169094noreply@blogger.com138tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22396877.post-31913146151549961142016-11-19T19:26:00.000-06:002016-11-19T19:26:07.532-06:00Five Quarters of an Orange, by Joanne HarrisI would never have found this book if not for book club, and I really rather liked it. Let's dig into the nuances of that assessment, shall we?<br />
<br />
Joanne Harris hit the jackpot with her book <i>Chocolat</i>, a bit of magical realism with a decidedly hedonistic bent. Made into a movie starring the luminous Juliette Binoche and a delicious Johnny Depp, it was a delightful fairy tale that was completely grounded in the petty feuds and the judgmental religiosity of a small French town. The time period is left charmingly vague--it looked vaguely mid-20th century, but could have been set in almost any decade.<br />
<br />
<i>Chocolat </i>dealt with women's roles in a male dominated village, issues of racism, domestic violence, and moral rigidity enforced by religious intolerance, but a happy ending was engineered by the protagonist's magical chocolate shop. As I said--a fairy tale grounded in reality.<br />
<br />
<i>Five Quarters of an Orange</i> revisits that format, although less successfully over all. We are back in a rural French village, but in two specific time periods--the Occupation by the Germans in WWII, and the present day. The narrator is Framboise Dartigan, who was a nine year old during the events of the war, and who returned as a widow to reclaim her childhood home, while hiding her identity from the villagers who are largely the same people as when she was a child.<br />
<br />
There are hints of a terrible secret from the past, and family conflict in the present day that threatens to unmask her true identity. There is a fairy tale element--the existence of a giant pike that lurks in the depths of the Loire. Local legend says that whoever catches Old Mother will be granted one wish. Framboise is determined to catch that fish.<br />
<br />
The Dartigan family are named after fruits, and there is a lot of space devoted to Framboise's mother's recipes and Framboise's cooking--food is again a major element of the book.<br />
<br />
Parts of this work very well, parts are frustratingly underwritten.<br />
<br />
Once untangled from the bouncing around in time, the plot is rather straightforward. Framboise and her brother and sister fall under the sway of a charismatic young German officer named Tomas Leibniz. They pass all the village gossip to him, in return for luxuries that he can procure for them. Framboise doesn't care for the movie magazines and cigarettes--she imagines that she is bonding with Tomas on a more authentic basis. They are both fishers, after all.<br />
<br />
<i>Here is where I have to call for a time-out, because this seems like a major miscalculation. Framboise is nine years old. NINE YEARS OLD. It is 1942, in rural France. This is NOT a case where children are immersed in hyper-sexuality and I just don't accept that a nine year old has sexual feelings for an adult male.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>I WOULD accept that she was love-starved, was looking for a father figure, or validation, or something. I am not okay with her being presented as romantically interested in a Nazi.</i><br />
<br />
Back to the plot--there is a brief moment of concern that maybe the gossip they are feeding to Tomas is getting people sent to concentration camps, but that tension lasts about a half a page before being dissipated. Tomas is using the dirt the kids give him to blackmail the residents and he is skimming from the requisitions to pad his own accounts.<br />
<br />
Things start to fall apart--Framboise's older sister is (almost-but-not-quite) raped by the Germans, an old man ends up dead. The nascent village Resistance is revealed. Mother Dartigan's migraines require morphine that she gets from Tomas--possibly as a payment for her silence about the assault. Tomas makes plans to leave the village, Framboise is determined he should stay (or run away with her) so she catches the Old Mother pike, wishes that Tomas would stay forever, and the wish backfires. Tomas drowns while helping Framboise pull in her trap--the one that Old Mother is actually caught in. So technically she gets her wish--Tomas does not leave.<br />
<br />
The three kids panic about the body being linked to them, so they shot Tomas in the head so it looks like an execution. The Germans believe this story, round up the Resistance members and shoot them all in the village square. The locals blame Mother Dartigan, accuse her of being Tomas's mistress, and storm the farm and torch it. The family escapes and flees.<br />
<br />
This is the climax of the book, which is as it should be dramatically, which means that all the contemporary family drama is incredibly mundane in comparison. Framboise's older brother sold the family farm to her and then died, leaving a son and daughter-in-law who offer a kind of existential threat to her anonymity. This second generation wants the recipes, wants a career, wants to publish the "true story" of what happened in 1942, none of which Framboise wants. At best, this is a tool for creating tension and mystery--what happened that was so terrible that Framboise is hiding?<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, the larger question is: Why does Framboise even want to live in this stupid small village? Once she is there, she is misanthropic in the extreme, operating a tiny restaurant where she refuses to talk to the patrons even. The mechanics of the story are too visible. It's like Harris needed her narrator to be in the village in order to tell the story, but never created a character-based reason for that decision.<br />
<br />
This is an ongoing problem with the book--it just needs to bake longer or something? The elements are good, the story is worth telling, the structure is sound, but the whole does not even equal the sum of the parts.<br />
<br />
Part of the problem is that the characters are underdeveloped, so it is hard to care--or even remember them. The various townspeople are generically "rural" and "petty" with no real reason to care about them one way or another. Ten people are shot by firing squad due to the blundering of Framboise and her siblings, but they never really came to life so it is hard to care.<br />
<br />
I have already expressed my problems with Tomas and Framboise's passion for him. Her siblings are not served by the time jump. Cassis is casually cruel but also dangerously exciting when Framboise is nine, but in the contemporary sections, he is just feeble. None of the characteristics of his youth survive the transition, and there is no explanation of why. Reinette is even more poorly served--she exists to be young and sexy, to be interested in movie glamour magazines, and then to be assaulted. Once that plot obligation is fulfilled, she disappears. In the contemporary sections, she is in a nursing home, apparently completely senile.<br />
<br />
There are hints that Harris had more in mind for these characters. She details conflict among the there of them due to the inequality of their mother's bequests. Reinette inherited a cellar of wine that is worth a great deal of money, that Framboise won't touch, that might be the object of Cassis's grasping son. . .a plot element that goes nowhere.<br />
<br />
It's frustrating, because this book should be better than it is. It has all the ingredients, but the execution is poor--which is a fitting metaphor for a book that spends a lot of time talking about food.<br />
<br />
I wish I liked this better than I do.Amy Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00085705321950169094noreply@blogger.com56tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22396877.post-84336114375723722862016-11-04T18:00:00.000-05:002016-11-04T18:00:25.552-05:00The Confession, by Charles ToddI read this on the recommendation of my mother, who has excellent taste in reading material. However--and this is an important caveat--she consumes her Inspector Rutledge books in audio format, where they are read by the excellent actor Simon Prebble, and his mellifluous tones soothe her to sleep. I can imagine how delightful that is, and has given her many hours of enjoyment of this series.<br />
<br />
Which is to say that this is not a book for reading, this is a book for sleeping through.<br />
<br />
It's not actually terrible, and it has the bones of a much better novel. There are dangerous secrets worth killing for, there is emotional anguish and class resentment and the terrible beauty of the English marshlands. Sadly, the writing manages to rob the action sequences of any excitement, flattens the characters to the point of them being fundamentally indistinguishable, which makes it hard to keep track of the suspects or the victims. Which makes the plot nearly impossible to keep track of--I think the mystery might be clever, or interesting, but since I could never quite tell who was dead and who was under suspicion, the whole is less than the sum of its parts.<br />
<br />
Spoilers below--as I try to figure out what happened.<br />
<br />
First off, I recognize that this is the fourteenth book in a series, and I have not read any of the others. It is unfair of me to complain that things that happened in other books aren't explained in this one, and I will try to avoid doing that. The central character is Inspector Ian Rutledge, of Scotland Yard, who has returned to the force after a traumatic experience in The Great War (WWI). It is now 1919, and he continues to wake from his nightmares screaming on a regular basis. He is a broken man who pushes himself to hide the PTSD so he can continue working. Work is the only thing he has to live for now.<br />
<br />
A seminal event of his wartime was the death of a soldier under his command. Hamish MacLeod had been Rutledge's closest confidante, but when he refused a direct order, Rutledge was obliged to have him shot. Rutledge himself had to administer the final shot. Now he hears Hamish in the back of his mind, as real as if Hamish still lived. There are other recurring characters, but they don't play much of a role in this particular mystery--Rutledge's sister Frances, various members of Scotland Yard, and an official at the War Office who can be used to gather background information. None of them were really called on to do much, so I'll just assume they are old friends from earlier installments.<br />
<br />
Rutledge himself is fine. He's not terribly interesting as a character, but that's fine as he's the glass through which we watch the murder investigation unfold. He's competent, he's got a back story with emotional resonance, he's fine.<br />
<br />
Hamish is--a problem. At least in this book he is. I could accept him as the disembodied manifestation of Rutledge's guilty conscience, as a way to illuminate Rutledge's struggle to re-integrate into civilian society. But he's used in a strange way to advance the plot, commenting on the motivations of the suspects, warning Rutledge of things that Rutledge himself can't see. Hamish is basically Rutledge's ride-along partner, being Watson to his Holmes. Which means he is more than just the symptom of PTSD--he is a character separate from Rutledge. In my opinion, he needs to be either explicitly supernatural, an actual ghost who is literally haunting his killer, or Rutledge just needs a constable to ride around with him that he can talk to. <br />
<br />
It's the nature of the mystery genre. Clues have to be revealed slowly, and the reader has to be shown the detective's thought process without showing the solution too early. Questions like "Do you believe this suspect's story?" and "Do you think this person is guilty?" have to be asked and answered. For practical reasons, a mystery novel needs that character to keep the plot on track. In theory, it could all be done with internal dialogue, and Hamish is apparently an attempt to do that. As written, however, his comments are just too different, too independent to be the product of Rutledge's own thought processes.<br />
<br />
Basically--Hamish needs to pick a lane. Either be a straight-up supernatural presence, and acknowledge that. Or, be a manifestation of Rutledge's trauma, but then you have to be less substantial ( and also--the attempts to render the Scottish accent is decidedly off-putting). Or just give Rutledge somebody to talk to--his Boswell, his Watson, or have him bring different people along. "Hamish" is just weird.<br />
<br />
PLOT SYNOPSIS<br />
<br />
(Or, In which I try to tell several 2 dimensional silhouettes apart.)<br />
<br />
The book begins with a "sensational" inciting incident--a dying man comes to Scotland Yard to confess to a murder. He quickly becomes evasive when pressed for details, then decides that this was a mistake. Rutledge is skeptical, but can't really do much in the absence of a body or a case. This man turns up dead a few days later, shot in the back of the head. Hurrah! Now there is a case!<br />
<br />
In a surprise that shocks no one who has read a mystery novel before, the man isn't who he said he was. WHAAAAAT? You mean, men with fatal cancer diagnoses who decide to confess to vague crimes <i>might not be totally truthful in all aspects?</i><br />
<br />
In order to even <i>begin</i> to understand the convoluted story, we now leave the summary of the book and reconstruct the events in chronological time. All the the suspects and victims and most of what passes for investigation happen in and around a country manor house in Essex known as River's Edge. Owned by the Russell family, the patriarch (who is mostly skimmed over and ignored in the book) had a disastrous first marriage to an apparent gold digger who had a child after the divorce. Was that child Russell's son? Probably not, but also not definitively established.<br />
<br />
He eventually became wealthy, married another woman-- mostly known as "Mrs. Russell," occasionally as Elizabeth--and they had a single son, Wyatt. They also acquired two wards/surrogate children/extended relation/cousins that they took in and raised as their own. Justin Fowler is a tragic boy whose parents were brutally murdered and was himself attacked and left for dead. After months in hospital recovering from multiple knife wounds (all three Fowlers were attacked in their beds while asleep), Elizabeth Russell brings him to River's Edge, and no one ever speaks of his trauma.<br />
<br />
The second ward is Cynthia Faraday, who lost her parents to an accident while they were traveling. Despite this, she is well adjusted, a bit of a "spitfire" (which basically translates to rude, impulsive, but pretty enough to get away with it). You know what? Don't bother with Cynthia Faraday. She's mostly pointless. Everybody was in love with her, she didn't love anybody, she's the damsel in distress in the final boss battle. Other than that, no point to her.<br />
<br />
There are two other boys, roughly the same age as Wyatt and Justin. There is a village boy, named Ben Willet, born to be a fisherman, but with aspirations to be a writer. He left the village to become a footman before the war. There is also a Mrs. Russell's driver named Harold Finley.<br />
<br />
The plot begins with the disappearance of Elizabeth Russell in the summer of 1914. She was seen headed to the marshes, and never returned. Search parties failed to turn up any sign of her. The assumption was that she died due to depression caused by Wyatt and Justin going to WWI.<br />
<br />
Justin Fowler and Harold Finley go missing in 1915, presumed deserters.<br />
<br />
In 1919 (the book's present day), we get a shell game of identity swapping. "Wyatt Russell" turns up at Scotland Yard, and confesses to killing his cousin, Justin Fowler, in 1915. "Wyatt Russell" turns out to actually Harold Findlay? Can I keep these characters separate? No, because so far they are indistinguishable; just names.<br />
<br />
So Ben Willett is the cancer riddled former footman who wrote a couple of books after the war. He <strike>confessed</strike> accused Wyatt of killing Justin in 1915. His body turns up shot in the head. Who did that? Why is he wearing Elizabeth Russell's locket around his neck? (Mostly in order to give Rutledge some clues to follow up, basically.) Did he engineer her disappearance in 1914?<br />
<br />
Let's just skip to the resolution, rather than try to tease out all the clues and the red herrings. Everybody was killed by a madman. The anonymous child of that first disastrous Russell marriage? Grew up a resentful sociopath, convinced that he should have been the Russell heir. (Again--not clear he was even related, but whatever.) His life is <i>literally</i> devoted to destroying the Russell family. He becomes the rector at the local village church (<i>????</i>) where he hides in plain sight for the duration of the war I guess?<br />
<br />
He killed Elizabeth Russell in 1914, tied her body to some rocks and sank her in the marshes. He also killed the Fowlers, failed to kill Justin as a lad, but managed to do it in 1915 when Justin was at River's Edge (along with Harold Finlay), recuperating from war wounds.<br />
<br />
Finlay finds Justin's body, swaps clothes with the corpse, and dumps the body into the river to confuse identification. (He is apparently afraid that Cynthia will be blamed for the murder. No clear reason why.) He then fails to go back to the war in either identity, thus becoming a deserter, and sets up a new life for himself in Northern England or Scotland or somewhere.<br />
<br />
Wyatt is in a nursing home somewhere, his mental stage swinging from clear to befuddled, mostly depending on what clues have to stay hidden. Rutledge plants a story that Wyatt had died, to lure the killer.<br />
<br />
Who is the rector, going by the name of Morrison. But why does the rector want to kill all these people? To the extent there is any "reason" given, it's that he's SO resentful of Wyatt having the life he thinks he should have had, that he plans to kill everybody, leaving Wyatt for last so Wyatt is as miserable as possible.<br />
<br />
Okay. This is not a theme or a trope or a leitmotif or an atmosphere or anything that has been running through the book. In fact, to the extent that there is a thematic emotion running through the book, it's that WWI sucked, and everybody's life is worse because of it. In fact, the sheer scale of the WWI carnage is such that it's hard to get worked up about a few hand crafted murders, really.<br />
<br />
BUT--from a mystery perspective--this is a lot of carnage for not much payoff for Morrison, don't you think? I mean, these are all the people he has killed:<br />
<br />
Mom and Pop Fowler<br />
Justin Fowler (attempted)<br />
Elizabeth Russell<br />
Justin Fowler (successful)<br />
Ben Willett<br />
Wyatt Russell (he thinks, but not really)<br />
Cynthia Faraday (attempted)<br />
Ian Rutledge (attempted)<br />
<br />
What did any of this do for him? He's still a rector in a tiny little village, where everybody hates him because he is an outsider, he doesn't get any of the Russell family money, nobody acknowledges him as family, he doesn't seem to get any satisfaction out of revenge. . .<br />
<br />
There is no meat to this character at all. There is no reason for him to have been the murderer, except that in Mystery Writing 101, they tell you that the perpetrator has to be the most unlikely character. And he is, because this whole story of the "first marriage to a gold digger who dumped you when you were poor but then raised her child to be resentful of the eventual wealth" is only barely covered in this book. Because why tell that story when instead you can spend pages and pages talking about the emptiness of the marshes, and have people just looking out on the landscape.<br />
<br />
THE MOST ANNOYING PART<br />
<br />
The most irritating thing about this book is that there are scenes and secrets and dramatic occurrences that are basically shoved into the cracks of the plot like so much binding agent--everything is flattened into a sort of formless mess.<br />
<br />
Let's talk about the single most dramatic thing in the book--the tragic story of the village.<br />
<br />
This river village is overtly hostile to strangers--obnoxious to the point of caricature. Rutledge shows up in the tea room, and the operator would rather kick out the regulars and close up than let an outsider eat there. NOT THAT THIS IS SUSPICIOUS IN ANY WAY?<br />
<br />
There is dialogue that amounts basically to this:<br />
"Why are you so hostile to visitors"<br />
"Because we are hiding a Deep Secret and we don't want people to hear about it!"<br />
<br />
What is that Deep Secret? It's actually the most compelling story of the book--far more upsetting and emotionally scarring than the Mad Rector. Back a generation or so ago, river smuggling was a pretty big part of the economy. (Still is, although the presence of British soldiers nearby patrolling the coast has caused some fluctuation in the market.) A rich ship came up-river, got stuck on a sandbar, and the locals rowed out to investigate (loot) it. There was nobody aboard!<br />
<br />
(Cue spooky music! OooooooooOOOOOOoooOOOooo!)<br />
<br />
It was a plague ship, and there was a diary by the last survivor explaining what happened. One of the greedy villagers just tossed the diary overboard so as not to interfere with the looting. BUT THE PLAGUE CAME ALONG WITH THE LOOT! Some of the villagers became ill, and the then-rector started caring for them in the church, turning it into a makeshift hospital. The healthy villagers panicked, nailed the doors shut and burned down the church, killing everybody inside.<br />
<br />
This is incendiary stuff. The toxic stew of emotions--the fear, the cruelty, the horror, hearing your family members dying inside the church, the long tail of guilt and misery. Why did the son of one of the arsonists went and named his pub after the plague boat? That is a story worth telling! The emotions! The visuals! The charred bodies and the destroyed church! The dancing flames and the rifts that grew up among the survivors!<br />
<br />
But no.<br />
<br />
This story does get told, but in a weird third-hand way that robs it off nearly all its power and majesty. Ian Rutledge reads about it--actually in Ben Willett's unpublished manuscript. But we don't get the manuscript either. We get the omniscient narrator reporting that Ian read about Ben's novelization of a scene he only heard about because it happened before he was born. I count that as something like fourth level hearsay.<br />
<br />
Which is just so frustrating! There are the bones of a fascinating story here! The village history is still affecting the people who live there, a more traumatic experience than the entirety of WWI on the collective spirit of the village! That is a story worth telling!<br />
<br />
Ben Willett might also have been interesting to get to know--a son of a river fisherman, who wanted something different out of life, and left to become a footman to an aristocrat, only to be mustered up and sent to France to fight WWI. He caught a glimpse of an even better life (than that of a footman!) and after the war, lived in Paris and wrote books! But his family never forgave him for getting above himself--so much so that he never came back after the war. That is a story worth telling!<br />
<br />
Even the crazy story of Rector Morrison, maybe, if we saw the mix of the bright and the dark. I mean, the character of the Rector is constantly being kind and helpful to Rutledge, and feeling hurt by being left out of the life of the village--well, they are keeping the secret of what they did to the LAST rector (more or less last one? The chronology is unclear here). How can this character be combined with the life-long-sociopathic-murderer that the plot requires? The book didn't do it, but that might be a story worth telling!<br />
<br />
FINAL ANALYSIS<br />
<br />
I should just quit farting around and write my own damn novels. I am so frustrated by the fact that a book like this gets published--actually, "Charles Todd" has written NINETEEN Ian Rutledge novels, and a further 7 with a different main character. WHAT THE HELL AM I WAITING FOR, thinking that I don't have anything to offer.<br />
<br />
Is it too late to start NaNoWriMo this month?<br />
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<br />Amy Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00085705321950169094noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22396877.post-40178792311873941752016-06-28T19:43:00.001-05:002016-06-28T19:43:55.815-05:00Circling the Sun, by Paula McLainHonestly, I didn't like this book, but I am going to try to be fair.<br />
<br />
I mean, McLain scored a big hit with <i>The Paris Wife</i> that I didn't much care for either because it failed to do what I thought was a necessary thing. In a book about Ernest Hemingway's first wife, it failed to convince me of Hemingway's genius, and it didn't entice me into reading an either.<br />
<br />
In conjunction with this book though, perhaps I need to rethink McLaine's objectives. In some ways, she is trying to reclaim women who have been shortchanged by history. I can certainly get behind that. I mean, Hadley Hemingway's story has mostly been cast as her husband's story, or the story of the first wife where the later wives were much more glamorous. Or she was merely a minor attendant to the glamorous figures who also populated Hemingway's life in Paris. Poor Hadley, home with the baby while Ernest and the Fitzgeralds and the other glamorous expat were drinking it up in the bars of Montparnasse.<br />
<br />
Beryl Markham might also be a similar project. While she was an early British settler of Kenya--moved there by her parents when she was 4 years old in the very early days of the 20th century, she was a remarkably modern woman--she married three times, trained horses, learned to fly, had affairs, was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic from east to west (harder due to prevailing winds). Her story is somewhat of an adjunct to the story of Isak Dinesen and her lover Denys Finch-Hatton, told so cinematographically in the Oscar winning <i>Out of Africa</i>.<br />
<br />
Markham also has a famous memoir called <i>West with the Night</i>, which even Ernest Hemingway praised for it's writing (and Ernest hated praising anyone who wasn't himself). So her story was told the way she wanted to tell it, but there are presumably gaps? And to give her credit, it seems that McLain did a fair amount of research into the minutae of Markham's past and life of the British in Kenya in the 1920s.<br />
<br />
And yet.<br />
<br />
Maybe this book needs to be read as a companion piece to Markham's own work (which I have not read). Maybe the tedious focus on her early teen years, the dreary digging into the names and habits of many of the horses she trained, while at the same time the near failure to cover her famous fltrans-Atlantic flight or anything after that--was because all that was well covered by Markham herself.<br />
<br />
It's just--so boring. She was a wild and obstreperous child, allowed to run wild with the local population of Gikuyu after her mother returned to England when she was about 5. Her father was a horse man, training, breeding and racing thoroughbreds in African races. At some point, when she was about 12, he brought another woman to live as his wife, and Beryl was sent to school (which she hated) and some effort was made to civilize her. She married a few days before her 17th birthday to a local landowner when her father's business went bankrupt. She remained in Kenya; her father and semi-step-mother moved to Cape Town.<br />
<br />
Not surprisingly, the marriage didn't work out very well, but it took some seven years or so for it to fail to the point of divorce. Meanwhile, Beryl had a few affairs, got certified as a horse trainer, met Isak Dinesen and Denys Finch-Hatton, fell in love with Finch-Hatton, had an abortion, felt torn between her desire for Finch-Hatton and her loyalty to Dinesen, remarried, had a child, lost the child to wealthy in-laws, returned to Kenya and learned to fly. Denys Finch-Hatton died in a plane crash. The epilogue is the last 50 miles of her trans-Atlantic flight, where she doesn't die in the crash landing.<br />
<br />
There might be some beautiful writing about Africa of the 1920, but she is not a very interesting character to describe it to us. She loved the farm of her childhood, and so she actively resisted learning anything new that wasn't about being on the farm. She fell in love with Finch-Hatton who's most salient characteristic seems to be that he is beautiful. Her life had incident, but ti is hard to shape it into any kind of narrative arc. Things happened, and then I kissed Denys/my husband divorced me/my reputation got damaged and it was the end of everything except then it wasn't.<br />
<br />
McClain seems to want to rescue Markham's reputation from the scandalmongering of nearly a century ago. There was some whispering that she had an affair with Henry, the Duke of Gloucester (fourth in line to the throne, younger brother of both David who abdicated for Wallis Simpson, and George the father of the current Queen Elizabeth). So McLain shows us scenes where they are perfectly platonic and lets Beryl rail against gossip. She is known to have had an affair with Denys Finch-Hatton, even while Denys was involved with Isak Dinesen (Baroness Karen Blixen) so McLain shows us Beryl wracked with guilt but also a better match than Dinesen was.<br />
<br />
Beryl was linked a little bit with the "Happy Valley set"--the African version of Waugh's Bright Young Things, people with too much money and too little to do, who drank and drugged and swapped partners. Beryl is dragged along by a man, but refuses to take any of his cocaine and while she sleeps with him, won't change partners when everybody else does.<br />
<br />
Do we know these things to be true? I don't know. Do I like her better for not having done the things she was "accused" of? Not necessarily. She comes off as priggish and reflexively anti-drug, reflexively unwilling to accept a different sex partner, not out of any particular aspect of her character. She's drawn as weirdly hedonistic and then moralistic, with no real explanation of why the lines are drawn where they were. Why is champagne acceptable, but cocaine is not? Why is it okay for her to sleep with some men but not others?<br />
<br />
Perhaps it was the reader--I listened to the book and the distanced, mostly monotone reading leeched any nuance out of the character. Written in first person, a gifted reader would have shaded Beryl's character, made me root for her. Instead, I just got tired of her.<br />
<br />
At several points, she discusses poetry with Finch-Hatton, or waxes lyrical about the effect of his death on her, and I just got irritated. Glittering vaguenesses, basically.<br />
<br />
I mean, I think I respect McClain for the research she did, and it's not easy to write an book, but I wish there had been more of a point of view, more of a point at all. It was barely worth the time, and mostly I listened while doing other things anyway.<br />
<br />
In short, I can not recommend it on it's own terms. Maybe if one has already read <i>West with the Night</i>, this would be a worthwhile addition. It did make me somewhat curious about reading that book, to be fair.<br />
<br />Amy Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00085705321950169094noreply@blogger.com182tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22396877.post-82480685759029100912016-06-20T02:29:00.000-05:002016-06-20T02:29:01.915-05:00The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This book was all the rage a few years ago, and I did not read it then because I have a hard time reading non-fiction. One of my bookclubs picked it for the end of this month, so I bought it back in April. I finally finished it. I do have trouble with non-fiction.<br />
<br />
This is not, however, the book I expected. I thought it was going to be much more rigorously scientific. Instead, it highlights the messiness that constitutes concepts like "progress," "science," and "understanding."<br />
<br />
In brief, a young black woman was admitted to Johns Hopkins hospital in Baltimore in 1951 with aggressive cervical cancer. So aggressive that she was sent home multiple times as "well" until she showed up and never left the hospital again. The autopsy showed that in a matter of weeks, the cancer had invaded her entire body.<br />
<br />
At some point, a doctor took a sliver of the cervix--the book is not terribly clear about whether the sample was healthy or malignant (until the end, when Skloot clearly articulates that the sample was cancerous)--and used it as another attempt at his frustratingly unsuccessful quest to grow human cells in culture. These cells turned out to be vigorous and rapid growers, and a medical industry of tissue culture was launched.<br />
<br />
Skloot has several points she is making here, and to her credit, she makes them clearly without beating the reader over the head with them. Instead, she leads us gently into the morass of medical ethics and challenges our assumptions about what "science" is.<br />
<br />
Henrietta Lacks had the misfortune of having a terrible, aggressive, painful cancer that killed her at a time when the treatment for cancer were scarcely better than the disease. As a black woman in 1951 Baltimore, she was lucky to get any treatment at all--de facto segregation and poverty were enormous barriers to adequate care, even if the state of cancer treatment were any better than it was. Patients were not encouraged to question doctors generally, especially when black, poor, and female.<br />
<br />
So Skloot sets out to do a number of things with this book. One is to recover who Henrietta Lacks was as a person--to reclaim the human being in her full humanity. This turns out to be very difficult, because the family has closed ranks and doesn't trust anyone, and even as Skloot gains their trust, not many people knew her. She had been dead for nearly 50 years when Skloot began asking about her, and many of the people were just too young to know anything about her.<br />
<br />
She perseveres, and manages to sketch a woman whose life was severely circumscribed by poverty. Yet she was loved, she married, had five children, before dying at 31. Her death is particularly graphic and tragic.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, the "science" of cancer treatment and tissue research was far from rigorous. So the poverty of Henrietta Lack's life is weirdly mirrored by the doctor who first grew her cells. George Gey had theories, and ideas, and almost no funding and no support. He built his own lab equipment, often from salvaged junk, and basically invented cell growth medium from scratch. There is no reason to suspect that Henrietta Lacks's cells would do anything but die like all the rest of them.<br />
<br />
These were the wild and wooly days of tissue research, when scientists traveled to labs carrying samples in their coat pockets and briefcases. These cells (labeled "HeLa") ended up being subjected to any number of strange manipulations as people attempted to figure out how to even test cells. Cells were sent into space, were subjected to nuclear testing, were treated with any number of possible toxins and vaccines, even as there was no system for keeping samples uncontaminated.<br />
<br />
This lackadaisical approach to sterility is ridiculous to read about now, but is clearly part of the learning process of how to understand tissue research. It is how scientists learned--they made a lot of mistakes, but made an amazing number of discoveries using these new cells.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, Skloot interleaves these chapters with chapters about Henrietta Lacks's children and extended family. One daughter in particular, Deborah, keenly feels the loss of her mother and becomes emotionally volatile as she learns hthe fate of her mother. The Lackses remained poor and ill-educated after Henrietta's death, and it would be easy to mock their failure to understand what happened (and continues to happen) with Henrietta's cells.<br />
<br />
Deborah in particular seems to feel that her mother exists inside those cells, and she asks people if they could use those cells to raise her mother from the dead, or to clones an exact replica. This might sound "crazy" but isn't that the same kind of question that scientists are asking in different contexts? What does it mean that these cells keep reproducing, a half century after Henrietta's death? Who owns that information? Does science owe Henrietta anything? Is there a financial obligation owed to her children--who are themselves so poor they can't usually afford health care?<br />
<br />
In the end, the cells themselves seem to be immortal, is Henrietta also? Is it only fair that the woman herself be recognized? What does it mean to be immortal?<br />
<br />
Perhaps the most meaty portion of the book is the Afterward, where Skloot lays out a number of ethical questions about tissue research. Matters of informed consent, monetization, genetic patents raise important questions that have not been definitively answered. Why shouldn't Henrietta's children get some payment for the use of her cells? An early court challenge to the use of human cells was decided against the donor, based on the concern that allowing donors to demand financial compensation might slow scientific research. The reality is that this decision simply moved the financial issues to the actual researchers. Genetic patents mean that science is held hostage by other scientists and biomedical companies--isn't this classist?<br />
<br />
Fundamentally, it feels wrong that there should be so much money sloshing around the HeLa cells, and yet Henrietta Lacks's children and grandchildren should continue to be too poor to afford health care.<br />
<br />
In the end, the book stands as an argument that not just the cells are "immortal" but the woman should be remembered as well, and should be immortal in her own right. TL:dr--the issues that underlie the book are clearly and cogently laid out in the Afterword, which might be the only really necessary reading. The issue is complicated, but is clearly articulated in it's complexity.<br />
<br />
Skloot contrasts the questions scientists raise with the questions raised by Henrietta Lacks's family. They really are only different in detail--what does it MEAN to conduct experiments on human cells?<br />
<br />
<br />Amy Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00085705321950169094noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22396877.post-36398234128658903352016-03-21T02:27:00.003-05:002016-03-21T02:27:54.888-05:00The Botticelli Secret, by Marina FioratoAs travelogue and art detective mystery in the vein of Dan Brown, this book is both light-weight (in the sense of being a beach read--not too taxing) and a heavy-weight (in that it clocks in at over 500 pages.) It's well-written enough that it passes pleasantly, although it suffers from a Pot-Boiler Syndrome.<br />
<br />
Pot-Boiler Syndrome is a term I just made up to describe a book that adheres to the conventions of a pot-boiler plot, with gruesome murders and near miss disasters to keep the stakes high for the protagonists, that has a central puzzle that leads the characters to Important Discoveries and fuels the plot development--but at the end, simply makes no sense.<br />
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Let's start with a plot synopsis, shall we?<br />
<br />
The story is set in Florence, Italy, beginning in 1482. The narrator is a 16 year old prostitute named Luciana Ventra, who is beautiful enough to be asked to model for the figure of Flora in Sandro Botticelli's famous painting <i>Primavera</i>.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.uffizi.org/img/artworks/botticelli-primavera.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.uffizi.org/img/artworks/botticelli-primavera.jpg" height="210" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Flora is just right of center, in a dress covered with flowers.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<i><a href="http://www.uffizi.org/img/artworks/botticelli-primavera.jpg" target="_blank">Source.</a></i><br />
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For reasons, she is cheated of her fee, and ends up stealing a <i>cartone</i>, a miniature version of the larger work, small enough to roll up and hide in her bodice. She leaves the studio, and by the time she makes her way home, the bodies have started piling up.<br />
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First, she actually hears as the older prostitute with whom she shares a hovel is murdered. She flees to her wealthy patron (the one who recommended her for the painting) and <i>he's</i> murdered too. Improbably, she has met a handsome young novitiate from the monastery of Santa Croce that she believes might help her, so as she asks him for help, another monk is <i>also</i> murdered. So that's three deaths in only a few hours.<br />
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Luciana and her monk, Brother Guido, determine the deaths are related to the <i>cartone</i>, and their only chance at safety is to solve whatever secret is hidden in the painting.<br />
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What follows is a whirlwind tour of the major cities of Italy. First they flee to Pisa, where Brother Guido is the nephew of the current ruler. (The ruler is also murdered that night.) They discover the existence of a massive navy, built secretly, and they are captured and forced to go with the fleet to Naples. In Naples, they meet King Ferrante, who drags them to Rome, where they meet Pope Sixtus IV, holding court in the newly completed Sistine Chapel, and then back to Florence, where they attend the wedding of Lorenzo Pierfranco de' Medici, the nephew of the the Lorenzo "Il Magnifico" de' Medici, and the recipient of the <i>Primavera</i> painting.<br />
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Periodically, the two protagonists unroll the miniature, and try to solve the clues. The figures mostly stand for various Italian cities, the number of flowers in Flora's skirt has numeric significance of some sort, the names of the flowers falling from Chloris's mouth spell out a word. . .time and again, the details of the painting give some clue to a vast conspiracy of great importance. If only they can solve it in time!And if only Brother Guido weren't going to be a monk, then they could fall in love!<br />
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The eventual conspiracy turns out to be a plot to unify the peninsula into a single political entity: Italia. Who all is involved? Oh, just Rome, Florence, Naples, Milan, Pisa, Venice, and a place I had never heard of before (and can't look up because the book is back at the library).<br />
<br />
Which raises several questions. First of all--if the leaders of all those city-states have agreed to unify, isn't that a done deal? I mean, if they all agree to terms, and a name, and a single currency, and a single leader (Lorenzo is not "Il Magnifico" for nothing, you know?), what is left to do? Why do they have a giant navy (seriously--thousands of ships?) and why is Leonardo da Vinci building his war machines underground in Milan? Who are they planning on attacking?<br />
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Late in the book, it seems that question has finally occurred to the author, and it turns out that it's--Genoa? Because The Seven (very inventive conspiracy name, isn't it?) somehow knew that one city wouldn't join in, so they were building up their armaments in order to attack Genoa.<br />
<br />
How did they know this? According to the plot, the Doge of Genoa had no idea this was going on under his nose, and he had to be convinced in the short few hours before the navy attacked from the sea while the army came over the mountains. Which Luciana and Brother Guido managed to do (don't ask) just in time! And the conspiracy was defeated! Italy did not unify! Huzzah!<br />
<br />
So, the next obvious question to ask is--was that a good thing? Fiorato devotes about two sentences to the glorification of "the independence of the city-states" and that's it. The conspiracy goes down in flames (literally)(Brother Guido puts a torch to the Navy and it all burns immediately) and the conspirators are forced to sign a treaty that is the kept secret so no one will ever know. (Why?) But what if Italy had unified in 1483, instead of 1870? What would have been lost? What might have been gained? That's 400 years of history where Italy might have been a major player--and it's not clear why it was so important to Luciana and Guido that this conspiracy be foiled. Rather it seems that "well, there's a puzzle here, and a bunch of murders, so it must be bad. Therefore we should stop it."<br />
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Raising yet another question--who was doing all this murdering? And why was he so bad at hitting his actual targets? The immediate answer is that there is a really tall, creepy looking leper, who follows Luciana around Italy, and even ends up nearly killing her in the finale in Genoa. He is apparently in the employ of Il Magnifico, but why does Il Magnifico need her to be murdered? And why isn't this leper assassin ever able to actually get to her. It's not like she's trained at avoiding attempts on her life. And part of his creepiness is that he's silent--the disease has literally destroyed his ability to speak. So who was talking to Luciana's roommate and then killed her?<br />
<br />
I mean, sure, she had this miniature reproduction of the paining, but the painting itself was put on display at the big wedding? So it's not like they were really trying to hide the content.<br />
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Which raises <i>yet another</i> question. Why the <i>hell</i> would Lorenzo--or anybody--sit down with a <i>painter</i> and give him all the details of what is supposed to be a massive secret? And have him PUT ALL THE INFORMATION about it into it? Do you think that the King of Naples is just going to <i>forget</i> why all those ships are sailing into port? Is the Pope going to get distracted and forget the date of the attack? Why does Lorenzo need to have the flowers spell out the word "faro"--to remind him to go climb the lighthouse in Genoa in order to watch the naval battle?<br />
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It's not like Botticelli has any <i>role</i> in the conspiracy, other than painting the picture, and so why risk an information leak? I mean, not even that somebody might steal the miniature, but that Botticelli himself might let the information drop. And if you can figure out a plausible reason why all the information had to be encoded into a painting, why put it into a painting being given to Lorenzo Pierfrancisco? Shouldn't it go to the actual conspirators? Or somebody who has anything at all to do with the plan?<br />
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Which is ALSO the basis for yet ANOTHER question--how did they keep all this a secret? There had to be hundreds and hundreds of ship builders, and sailors, and suppliers for the navy alone. There was an army as well (from Milan, I think) which means again--armor and weapons and Leonardo's war machines required materials and builders and training. Literally thousands of people had to know at least some of what was going on. How is it that nobody ever let any of it slip? Only Luciana and Guido ever caught wind of it?<br />
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And if you are Seven clever conspirators, why do you all wear identifying rings on your thumbs? It's not like Lorenzo and Ferrante and Ludovico Sforza and the Pope wouldn't have recognized each other and needed the equivalent of a secret handshake to identify themselves to each other. In fact, the rings ONLY served (as far as we saw) to tip of Luciana and Guido who was and was not in on the plot.<br />
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When you try to reconstruct the plot itself (rather than how the protagonists learn of it), it just doesn't make any sense that the ringleaders would act that way.<br />
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Which is the big problem with the book, but there are little details that popped up that were just bad research on the author's part. In Florence, there are several moments where Luciana looks at the city and notices some of the main features. She comments on the filed marble patterns on the Duomo--the Basilica of Santa Maria del Fiore--marble that wasn't installed until after 1870, when Florence was briefly the capital of the newly unified Italy.<br />
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Il Magnifico hosts King Ferrante and his wife in the "Medici palace" which she describes as having a "toothed tower." Well, no, in 1482, the Medici were living in the Palazzo Medici, near the church of San Lorenzo. The building with the tower was the Palazzo dei Signoria--it wasn't inhabited by a de' Medici until Pope Clement (himself a de' Medici, son Giuliano who was murdered by the Pazzis) established Florence as a hereditary dukedom some 30-40 years later.<br />
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There is a awkward tendency to drop as many names and cameo appearances as possible. So while the characters are awaiting their audience with Pope Sixtus IV, in the Sistine Chapel, a helpful exposition character explains that Botticelli painted the wall frescos (along with some other Florentine artists and their workshops as well) and that "soon," Florence's own Michelangelo Buonarroti will come to paint the ceiling.<br />
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Except in 1482, Michelangelo was about 7 years old. . .so not only was it not going to be "soon," no one would have any idea of who he was or that he was going to be an artist.<br />
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Do you wonder what happened to the doomed passion of a Florentine whore for a Franciscan monk? Can a man and a woman save Italy from a massive conspiracy (that goes <i>all the way to the top!</i>) without falling in love?<br />
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Well, of course not! In fact, it turns out that Luciana is actually the daughter of the doge of Venice! She was sent away to escape some other plot (never really explained) and put in a convent in Florence to be kept safe. She ran way from the convent by accident, but since she was 12 by then, and still couldn't read, its not clear it was a very good place to be anyway. As the daughter of the doge (except "doge" is not a hereditary title, we are told, and is only held for a few years before being rotated, so basically she wasn't the doge's daughter when she was born?) she had been betrothed to the heir of the ruler of Pisa, who happened to be Brother Guido's cousin. A venal, gluttonous, homosexual cousin, whose weak chin was possibly the worst flaw of all.<br />
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BUT! He conveniently was at the mountain battle during the attack on Genoa (which was NOT set up at all as something he would do), took an arrow to the leg and conveniently died of gangrene. Off stage. So that on her wedding day, Luciana walks into the church and sees her Guido as the groom! (And nobody bother to tell her.) As for him, Guido had not yet taken his final vows, and when he found out the Pope was part of the conspiracy, he lost his faith in the church so now he gets to marry her! And they get to be rich and powerful and nobody ever tries to assassinate them and they all live happily ever after the end.<br />
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I mean, that happy ending kind of came out of nowhere and happened really really fast, but whatever. That's the kind of novel it was.<br />
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The most interesting parts are the art detecting--what CAN you see in that picture? And there were some interesting places they ended up during their adventure--Roman catacombs, the Pantheon, the major public buildings of Naples and Venice. . .b ut the thing that got them moving from place to place was ridiculous.<br />
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So maybe a B+ read if you aren't asking for internal consistency, believable characters, etc. If you know much about Italy, this will read like a seek=and =find came of locating all the errors of history.<br />
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<br />Amy Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00085705321950169094noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22396877.post-39796595961281146492014-11-21T23:39:00.001-06:002014-11-21T23:39:35.190-06:00Raising Steam, by Terry PratchettI love the breadth and depth of the Discworld novels, and this is the 40th book in the series. Terry Pratchett is a treasure, and his books have brought me great joy. He is also dealing with Alzheimers, joint book projects, and what appears to be some high level administration of his creative empire. If we didn't know about the illness, this book would probably get a great deal of negative review along the lines of "rushed to publication."<br />
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All of these things matter, because this book felt like a not-quite-finished draft of the book it should have been.<br />
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The expected Pratchett plot structure is certainly present. The multiple plot threads, that work at cross purposes, are there. The work of structuring the book has been done--it's the layers that live on top of the plot outline that feel not quite finished.<br />
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Someone (no one we have ever met before, Dick Simnel) has invented the steam engine (just as in past books, someone has invented movable type and the printing press, or stamps, or moving pictures) and the Discworld is not going to be the same any more. Meanwhile, the Koom Valley Accord is not accepted by everybody, and this time it's the conservative faction of the dwarves who are trying to turn the clock backwards by destroying clacks towers and stopping the railway, while ousting the Low King as well. We have schisms in the dwarf community, we have religious differences, we have conspiracy and plotting, we have political maneuvering and a chance to see all the different types of dwarves.<br />
<br />
Simultaneously, we have the opportunity to get a history lesson told by Uncle Terry, who highlights the humorous elements of what is basically the story of How Britain Got The Railroads. And the thing about bringing railroads to Discworld, is there are many many towns we haven't seen yet. What happens when Two Shirts is suddenly only a day from Ankh-Morpork? It's kind of like a revisiting of the early novels when Rincewind (who was never a great character) used to run from place to place and we'd get a travelogue of a place that was kind of like Australia or China, but wasn't quite.<br />
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So the bones of the story are absolutely there. Three very big plot strands--railroads, political intrigue among the dwarfs, and either new locations on the Disc, or new interactions among the places we already know. Next important element is--who is our protagonist? Who is going to lead us through these various threads?<br />
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Personally, I like Moist von Lipwig. His two novels (Going Postal and Making Money) were certainly full of lots of interesting details on the nature of money and finance. Stamps are actually paper currency--well, of course they are, I just hadn't really thought about those similarities. Financial crimes are based on "the idea of money" which seems to be what Wall Street is about these days. What do you do when it costs more to make a penny than the penny is worth? So Raising Steam as a Moist von Lipwig novel means it's going to be about the way a steam engine affects the financial world, right? Questions of financing such an undertaking, fortunes made by cleverly anticipating how the railroad might be used to move people and commodities, buying up land for the right of way, negotiations of contracts and the effects of the rail gaining <i>here</i> rather than <i>there</i>.<br />
<br />
Of course, it could be a story like The Truth, which followed William de Worde and the creation of journalism in Ankh-Morpork, in which case, it would be about Dick Simnel and how he comes to understand the vast scope of his little invention. Instead, we get a story about a bunch of things that happened that just didn't matter and in the end there is a battle that doesn't happen. Moist doesn't behave much like Moist, Dick Simnel fails to come alive as a character, and mostly the story goes too fast. It doesn't slow down for the kind of wonderfully observed details that are the reason you read Pratchett books.<br />
<br />
The story focuses mostly on the creation of the railroad. Dick Simnel shows up in Ankh-Morpork pretty quickly with a working steam locomotive. He immediately gets financed by Harry King. Vetenari strong-arms Moist into being the official city representative, and then orders the rail to be built to Uberwald as fast as possible. This shouldn't probably take much much longer than it does, as negotiating agreements with landowners really needs to happen before they know you are desperate to get to a particular destination. Also, the creation of steel hasn't really been clearly achieved in Discworld, much less enough to build the kind of infrastructure necessary for a continent spanning railway. But Vetinari has put Moist onto the job in order to get it accomplished, and it gets accomplished. With very little memorable about the project.<br />
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Unlike in the previous Moist-centric books, he is not actually trying to achieve anything other than the success of the railroad. He has no cross purpose or ulterior motive, so we don't see him wrestling with his own divided nature--his crass desires for personal advancement and freedom against his better nature and recognition of the value of his undertaking. Instead, Moist has to make the railway work in order for the climax of the novel to happen in Uberwald, so it gets built with very little in the way of effective obstruction, or colorful characters. There is the marvelously named Marquis of Aix en Paines, but he's not memorable except for the name.<br />
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There is no real joy in the project for Moist either. Nothing like the colossal scam he pulled in Going Postal to fund the rebuilding of the torched Post Office building. Nothing like the deft handling of difficult people to his own advantage like the characters of Tolliver Groat and Stanley. He is basically an efficient executive for the building of the railroad. So, he isn't recognizably Moist.<br />
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There is a moment--just a brief few lines, where the old Moist shows up. He's on the train, expecting sabotage from the Deep Down Dwarves and grags, so he goes up to top of the cars and gets used to the motion. He dances. Compare it to the generous description Pratchett gave of Moist scaling the outside of the Post Office (was that in Making Money?) You can see what Pratchett used to put into his writing, and what is tragically missing from this effort.<br />
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There are many other elements that seem only partially completed. There is a scene where Moist goes to the maquis outside Quirm, where hundreds, possibly thousands, of impoverished goblins are barely surviving. One gives him a potion, and he becomes basically a berserker, killing several of the rebelling dwarves in a scene that is only vaguely sketched. And then he basically gets over it. But this is <i>Moist von Lipwig</i> who used to take such pride in only scamming people who tried to scam him first. Moist von Lipwig who never used violence, and was offended by the implication that his scoundreling could have had fatal consequences. This is a man who lived by his wits, never violence. So why make him be violent now? Shouldn't that have had consequences? But the dead dwarfs are universally treated as bad guys who deserved what they got so there are no effects of the battle. Later, as the book approaches it's climax, there are fights with dwarfs who are either killed outright, or dropped off cliffs, or apparently run over by the train. Many of these dwarfs are described as young ones who were too naive or unthinking to realize the evil of their actions (so why did they have to be killed by Moist?) or were deep downers who were just bad (but then why were they above ground at all?)<br />
<br />
In the end, the Low King gets to Uberwald in time (of course he does! There was never really any doubt) but there is no real confrontation with the conspirators and usurpers. There is a pale imitation of the scene from Fifth Elephant, when the leading conspirator is revealed to be sad and broken. In this case Ardent is grasping for power, but his methods are pretty much inconsistent and nonsensical. Why is he suddenly a grag, when in Thud! he was an administrator for them? He is agitating for the return to the old ways of the world, where dwarfs weren't expected to be friends with trolls, and goblins had no rights, so in theory, dwarfs had more power and prestige in the world? But now tearing down clacks towers was going to undo those changes is completely unexplained. Then, by the end of the book, he is described as being so ideological that he has progress to a place "beyond sanity" but the book doesn't really show it.<br />
<br />
Finally, Raising Steam ends with the Low King of the Dwarfs reclaiming his throne from Ardent with basically no battle, and then awkwardly declaring her gender as female and insisting on being their Queen rather than their King. This had been clearly communicated in Fifth Element, but with the practical political recognition that it was not yet time to lead/force dwarfs into recognizing gender yet. There is literally nothing about dwarf gender in Raising Steam that would lead you to think things had changed. Why would the proper response to Ardent's coup, based as it was on the diminishing role of dwarfs (compared to trolls and goblins) and the Luddite distrust of clacks and railways, why would that the the impetus for gender identity?<br />
<br />
So many places where I expected to get some character byplay, some conversation between characters (new ones even) that would make them feel vital--and those either didn't happen, or happened only in truncated form.<br />
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Of course, I didn't initially care for Monstrous Regiment at first, and came to love it after re-reading it later. There may well be more in Raising Steam than we would get from anyone else writing this story. But it feels like a diminution of the titanic talent that is Pratchett at his best, and that is our loss.Amy Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00085705321950169094noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22396877.post-15216217360124919852014-09-03T08:14:00.000-05:002014-09-03T08:14:05.452-05:00Introducing Agatha Raisin, by M.C. Beaton<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
I picked this up because the name M.C. Beaton sounded familiar. This compendium of two mysteries was on the shelf in the breakfast room of the small hotel where I was staying in Paris. In short, cannot recommend.<br />
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Agatha Raisin is a pugnacious Londoner in her mid 50s with a Birmingham background of which she is ashamed. After a successful career in PR, she has sold her firm and bought a cottage in the Cotswolds for the life she has always imagined. Of course country life is a poor fit for a pushy city woman, and alleged hijinks occur as she uses her PR techniques to force her way into acceptance.<br />
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The set up is strong, the execution is very poor. Agatha is appallingly inconsistent in her characterization, pushy one moment, then weirdly shy and adolescent the next as the plot requires. Her two sidekicks in "The Quiche of Death" are offensive stereotypes: a (literally) screaming queen of a gay character who by the end of the book is looking for a suitably docile and stupid woman to marry, and an inscrutable but wise half-Chinese police officer who teaches Agatha about herself despite being a good thirty years younger than she is. Fortunately, these two characters are mostly abandoned by the second book, to be replaced by a handsome and single male neighbor who (predictably) runs from any threat of commitment and who Agatha pursues in un-funny ways. Thus Beaton hits a two-fer of mid-life cliches with one "comic" pairing.<br />
<br />
The mysteries are not well constructed. In fact, in both cases, the actual murderer is the most obvious suspect and the only real mystery is why the police haven't solved the cases well before Agatha even realizes the deaths are suspicious.<br />
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The first mystery "The Quiche of Death" centers around a village competition that Agatha enters in order to get the village to accept her. Of course, she can't cook, so she buys a quiche from a specialty store in London and enters it as her own. She doesn't win, and is so angered by the obvious favoritism (the competition judge awards the prize to the women with whom he has been having an affair for years--she always wins) that she storms out and leaves the quiche behind.<br />
<br />
That night, the judge's wife leaves Agatha's quiche as supper for her husband, who dies immediately after eating it. Who could the murderer be? Will the police arrest Agatha? Well, obviously not. Agatha is not going to keep claiming she made the damn thing, and it's obvious that she is no baker. So who is the next logical suspect.<br />
<br />
Well, who is ALWAYS THE FIRST SUSPECT IN A MURDER--THE SPOUSE MAYBE? And, it is. Of course it is. And she killed him by baking a quiche with cows bane in it and substituting it for Agatha's spinach one. And she did it because she was sick of his philandering. And the only reason--literally, the ONLY reason that this "mystery" lasted almost 200 pages is because the police couldn't find any evidence that she had baked the poisoned quiche in her kitchen. It takes Agatha 200 pages to realize that THERE IS A FULLY EQUIPPED KITCHEN IN THE BUILDING WHERE THE COMPETITION TOOK PLACE AND LITERALLY EVERYONE IN THE VILLAGE BAKES THERE. So the wife didn't bake it at home, she baked it in the community kitchen, which even the most bumbling police officer should have noticed in one of the 300 times they had been in that same damn kitchen themselves. Stupid plot for a mystery.<br />
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Next book, "The Vicious Vet," a new vet arrives in the village and starts playing all the middle-aged single women who fall over themselves in humiliating fashion and give him money for his dream of an animal hospital. He promises to marry them all, of course. Turns out, though, that he's got a mean streak and hates house pets. He euthanizes one woman's cat without her consent, and otherwise alienates almost all the women within two weeks, then turns up dead while performing a vocal cord operation on a racing horse at the local aristocrat's stables. He's stabbed with the syringe of horse tranquilizer.<br />
<br />
Who could the murderer be? No chance of it being Agatha this time, thank god. Well, let's see, if I were going to do some basic police work, I'd look at who benefitted from the death. Turns out the vet has a partner in the clinic, who is also the beneficiary of the dead man's will. So if you follow the money, it leads to the partner. If you follow the means--who knew what was in the syringe and that it could be fatal, it leads to the partner. Guess who it turns out did the crime? The partner. Nothing clever about it at all.<br />
<br />
So why do we even need Agatha to solve these murders anyway? We don't, unless following Agatha around is either more entertaining than the police (it isn't, because she's a horrible person with no redeeming features other than being the main character), or because it gives us a way to explore the world of the village. Except it doesn't do that, since everyone is basically a cliche or a character that disappears after being interviewed the one time. Agatha is bored by village life, she is self-centered, she is routinely stupid and bumbling--too stupid to have been any kind of a PR success, and she manages to irritate me enormously.<br />
<br />
The most egregious example of this is in "The Vicious Vet" when she manages to get her handsome neighbor James to join her for dinner in a pub after they do some amateur sleuthing. On the drive to the pub, she feels a pimple growing on her nose, so she goes through some allegedly hilarious maneuvers to keep him from seeing it. She stops at a drug store to buy cream, concealer, and lipstick, then runs to the ladies' room to deal with it. But (ha ha ha) the light is too dim, but she just happens (?) to have a 100 watt lighbulb in her car, so she sidles in and out with her face averted so James won't see her pimple, ha ha. He thinks she's odd, ha ha, but waits for her. She can't reach the light fixture so she stands on the sink, which rips out of the wall and floods the room. So she walks out, closes the door (like that's going to do anything) and takes James to a different pub, where she heads straight for the ladies' room again.<br />
<br />
Are you laughing yet? It gets worse. By the time she comes out of the second restroom, the police are already waiting for her, because the first pub owner has already discovered the damage and realized she did it. (Village mysteries are just not that hard to solve, is what we are learning here.) So she caves and offers a check for an obscene amount of money to cover the damage, which the pub owner is refusing to accept, preferring to make a scene and humiliate her. He also insists on filing a criminal charge. So James steps in and does some basic damage control along the lines of "you don't have that kind of money, Agatha" and "why was that sink such a hazard anyway--I think you could sue for negligence and emotional distress Agatha" which causes the pub owner to accept a much smaller check for the whole thing to go away.<br />
<br />
And way--who is supposed to be the PR professional in this scene? Why are we humiliating Agatha and simultaneously stripping her of any professional competence as well? Why does she have to be <i>rescued by a man</i> anyway? This was published in 1992! It would have been just as offensive in 1892, frankly--Irene Adler is appalled at such an incompetent woman is being foisted on the public at this late date.<br />
<br />
Too bad, really. I won't be reading any more of these. And there are <i>twenty-five</i> of them!Amy Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00085705321950169094noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22396877.post-4527435026895393292014-04-12T00:10:00.001-05:002014-04-12T00:10:46.070-05:00Tapestry of Fortunes, by Elizabeth BergI am on vacation in Florida, escaping the grinding slog that has been this winter. I am also the general factotum for my parents, who have crossed into their eighties. I am the primary driver due to cataracts and residual weakness following chemotherapy.<br />
<br />
I am spending far too much time looking at screens, and so I went out to Target to buy a book. This is the one I came back with.<br />
<br />
I have read several of Berg's books, and I have liked them. I picked up <i>The Beautiful Ruins</i> and paged through it, remembering that it had been pretty well reviewed, but it just felt so--male. It was about men, men's problems, men's interest in women, men being manly while wanting beautiful women, and it just made me tired after sampling only a few pages. I wanted to read about women.<br />
<br />
Thus, the Berg.<br />
<br />
The copy on the back of the book was promising. The protagonist is a motivational speaker who can't take her own advice. She moves into an old house in my actual home town, with three other women, and they embark on their own growth journeys. All of them have lived quite a while, enough that they are reassessing their choices and trying to find peace with their pasts.<br />
<br />
Sadly, I cannot recommend this book at all. It feels so entirely half-baked, as if Berg turned it in before really working through the final draft. The bones are the plot are in place, the set pieces are arranged, the characters and locations mapped out. But all the machinery shows, and the whole thing churns along without actually taking the time to convey the emotions it seeks to evoke.<br />
<br />
Our Protagonist, Cece (short for Cecilia) has lost her best friend as the book opens.(*) Penny is dead before we even meet her, and the short flashbacks to their friendship feel perfunctory in the extreme. Oddly, Penny is married, and Cece is not, but the three-leggedness of the relationship is kind of glossed over. Supposedly this is her one and only friend (and the husband is kind of a BOGO), but the interactions between them are kind of generic.<br />
<br />
(*Actually, there is a sort of prologue, where the pre-teen Cece gets her fortune told by a friend of her mother's. The fortune is kind of ambiguous, not at all compelling, and the friend disappears for the rest of the book. There is also a short chapter which is supposed to establish Cece's bona fides as a motivational speaker, but it's not actually very motivating. It's like the outline for the novel called for "Chapter One, Cece On The Job"but Berg's heart wasn't really in it at all. Perfunctory.)<br />
<br />
"We lived next door to each other. We ate dinner and watched movies. Sometimes I didn't want to go home, but then I did. I kept their gifts to each other at my house. We had a fight once, where Penny accused me of buying too much stuff and not paying attention to my own motivational speeches. Then she died."<br />
<br />
Generic, like I said. Oh, Penny thought her husband should remarry, and suggested Cece. They both declined. This is it--the great relationship. I'm not touched by it, because it's not dramatized, it's listed. People who are truly soulmate friends would have all of these elements on the checklist, but the checklist doesn't actually convey the nature of the relationship. There were no inside jokes, no moments of emotional connection. Supposedly the two of them wanted to travel together (conveniently, the husband didn't want to travel at all), but they never did. No guilt, no emotional repercussions at all for Cece--not even when, later in the book, she does exactly that with the roommates she has just met.<br />
<br />
Subsequently, Cece decides it's time to sell her house, take a break from working, and change up her life. A postcard from an old flame arrives and he becomes the catalyst for change. Of course, everything works out perfectly in zero time. Cece mentions to her mother that she's thinking of selling her house. "Oh, there's a woman I know who's looking for a housemate, I'll just call her and set up an appointment for this afternoon."<br />
<br />
Cece goes to the house, and it's perfect, the residents are all ladies of a certain age, she decides immediately that she wants to live there, they decide they want her to move in, the relator sells her house and all the extra furniture for cash at the asking price in one day.<br />
<br />
Do you think any of the other conflicts will work themselves out as well?<br />
<br />
Let's list them. The owner of the house, Lise, is a doctor. She is divorced, and has a prickly relationship with her adult daughter. Mostly, they don't speak to each other, so the readers don't see the reality of the relationship. Renie is a lesbian with a chip on her shoulder, and a daughter she gave up for adoption when she was 19 and hasn't seen since. Joni is a chef. Cece has this old flame. They decide to take a road trip to meet everybody from their past.<br />
<br />
First up is Renie, who is able to Google her daughter (what???) and sends a few emails. Daughter doesn't want to meet her and is pissed at being abandoned, while also apparently having ended up in a pretty decent family. Despite being warned off by the daughter, she decides that she's going to go sit in a cafe for an hour and let the daughter decide to approach her, or not. Daughter writes a nasty note in response, but seconds later repents and they have an unseen reconciliation of sorts. Plans are made to see each other again.<br />
<br />
Next is Lise, who is going to visit her ex-husband. He charms her, she realizes they have both mellowed, they make plans to try the relationship again. Joni, who has been fired by her jerk of a boss at the chichi restaurant where she works, decides she's going to open her own restaurant. (Her story has about zero stakes or conflict.)<br />
<br />
Finally Cece goes to meet the first man she ever slept with, who also never married and apparently pined for her all these decades. At first, she misses him, as he is called away unexpectedly, but he flies back to see her and they realize they are The Ones for each other.<br />
<br />
Also, Cece starts volunteering at a hospice--Penny made her promise before she died--and in the space of about a week, manages to get a dying 30 year old man to reconcile with his fiancee, serves as "best man" in their hospice room wedding, and is named the godmother of the subsequent (artificially inseminated) baby. Because of course--apparently, the bride and groom are orphans and hermits and have no one else in their lives but the hospice volunteer who works a couple hours a day for a week….<br />
<br />
The descriptions of the rooms, decor, flowers, food and clothing all smack of glossy magazine spreads. Vintage cocktail pitchers hold hydrangeas on low coffee tables, while decorative pillows abound. Flowers seem to bloom in the gardens all at once, making it hard to pinpoint the time of year.<br />
<br />
The whole thing comes in at a tidy 220 pages, slightly fleshed out, but far from fully executed. Kind of a disappointment. I'll be leaving this at a paperback exchange.Amy Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00085705321950169094noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22396877.post-37316500010925322852014-02-12T19:26:00.002-06:002014-02-12T19:26:51.268-06:00A Discovery of Witches, by Deborah Harkness<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<br />
This book has been popping up into my field of vision for a solid two years, and the first sequel is already out and keeps showing up as well. Goodreads connections have read it, it shows up on lists of "Best Of" books, and frankly, once something has managed to make itself heard over the usual noise of cultural recommendations, I feel like I need to check it out.<br />
<br />
The timing on this one is entirely coincidental--it was sitting on top of the "Leave One, Take One" bookshelf at the hair salon I go to, and I figured that there was literally no way it would be easier to read this book.<br />
<br />
The backstory is kind of intriguing--the author is herself an academic with a number of non-fiction books on her C.V. What does a professor of European history and history of science write about when writing successful fiction?<br />
<br />
Turns out--she writes Mary Sue Meets The Dreamy Vampire.<br />
<br />
Honestly, there is obviously intellect at work, and some lovely passages about the lure of old libraries and the pleasures of intellectual pursuits. Obviously, the scenes set in Oxford are drawn from her own experience. And I am not philosophically opposed to supernatural novels--mixing witches, daemons and vampires into academia is not necessarily a deal breaker. I am willing to go with someone who handles this well. But this main character--Diana Bishop? She positively reeks of Mary Sue-ism to the point where I had what amounts to an allergic reaction and gave it all up.<br />
<br />
Our Heroine is a witch. Actually, a Salem witch, the descendant of the Salem Bishop witches, who are supposedly the most powerful ones in America, as well as the daughter of the Proctor line as well. This means that she is Sooper Speshully Powerful, the culmination of the two most powerful magic families in the country. But! She refuses--on principle!--to use magic! Because her parents were killed mysteriously when she was a child, so obviously (?) that tragic backstory explains why she has to do academia like a non-magical person would. Except when she does use magic, but she tries to limit it! And fixing the washing machine shouldn't count, because it might have caused water damage to the apartment below hers! (This is an actual thing she says.)<br />
<br />
So, now she is in possession of an honestly earned Ph.D. in history from Harvard, and she's got tenure at Yale. So no privilege or snobbery there at all. Because she didn't get it from using magic! It's all her own intellectual effort! (Because Harvard and Yale are completely meritocratic, and have no Old Boy Networks, or tendency to admit and reward family connections or anything.) So trust us--even though she is Magic, she didn't use it (unless she did?)--she is just one of the top 1% of intellectuals in the US all by herself! Nothing special about her at all!<br />
<br />
Now, she's at Oxford doing research for a keynote address on alchemical history. Because that's not magic! She insists it isn't, so it mustn't be! And she calls up a number of books each day, including one called Ashmole 782, that is odd. It's not willing to give up its call slip to the librarian until Diana touches it. She feels the tingle of a spell on the cover. She opens it, and it's all palimsest and magical writing and odd non-standardized alchemical imagery, and since she is so principled (the washing machine doesn't count, I tell you!) she decides she would be too tempted to use magic to understand it, so she sends it back to the stacks.<br />
<br />
But somehow, her touching it breaks a magical seal, and now all the magical creatures are aware that Ashmole 782 has been found. It starts asserting a magnetic draw, and all kinds of magical creatures start showing up in the library and trying to get their hands on it, using Diana if possible.<br />
<br />
Fortunately, the incredibly handsome and debonair 1500 year old vampire Matthew Clairmont shows up before anybody else does. Even though magical creatures hide their nature from humans, Matthew has managed to become a world renowned expert on genetics and Norwegian wolves, and a couple of other areas, without looking more than 35 and without raising any suspicions. (He is also apparently not worried about having his fame follow him and cause any suspicions in the future either, when his seminal work is still being taught and he still looks 35 decades from now.)<br />
<br />
Matthew and Diana are both gorgeous, both Sooper Speshully Powerful, and so of course Diana is absolutely not going to fall in love with him or anything. She even calls home to tell her psychic aunt that. And then she falls asleep in her chair with the window open, and wakes up in the small hours of the morning with the taste of cloves in her mouth.<br />
<br />
What? Did you suspect that Matthew the Sooper Speshul vampire came in through the window and watched her sleep? Is this what vampires do now? Thanks, Stephanie Meyer. Thanks a whole lot. But--he had an excuse! He thought maybe she had smuggled Ashmole 782 out of the library, against all the rules and conventions of academic research! So he had to search her apartment! (But mostly he just stood there and watched her sleep, while seeing Powerful Magic seeping out of her skin.)<br />
<br />
Powerful magic you say? She is more powerful than she knows? Maybe you have to teach her how to accept her power and control it so it doesn't break loose and wreak havoc. (Substitute the word "sexuality" for "magic" just to make the dynamic between these two characters as creepy as it is.) We are in vintage romance novel territory here--back in the old days of the late 1970s, when the formula required that the heroine be under the age of 22 and a virgin, while the hero had to be wealthy and a good 15 years or more older, as well as sexually experienced but wounded….<br />
<br />
Of course, he starts putting the moves on her--I mean, hanging around the library to intercept all the other magical people who want to find that book and think she may have it. Nobody seems to have tried just putting in a call slip, nobody seems to be trying to track what happened to that book after she sent it back. Everybody just seems to assume that she's got it? Like with her at all times, even when running or rowing on the river?<br />
<br />
I lost it when the big set piece of the first part of the book is the two of them finding they have something in common, which is--yoga? Seriously? Matthew the 1500 year old vampire puts on yoga pants and puts a mat into his Lamborghini and goes to do downward dog poses?<br />
<br />
It's worse than that. The class is for all sorts of magical people--vampires AND witches AND daemons, who we have been told have strict taboos against mingling together. But magical wonderful Matthew has managed to use yoga class (!?!?!) to get these several dozen beings to overcome their natural revulsion in order to--take a yoga class. I am so not buying this at all.<br />
<br />
But I stuck it out for about one more chapter, after Diana flounces around at Matthew, then finds out that he built the enormous country home where the class was held--back in 1590, using the architect who had built Hampton Court for Cardinal Wolsey. Then Matthew goes to Scotland to meet with a friend of his and to brood darkly over a chess board--because he is In Love With Diana. Because of COURSE he is--who wouldn't fall in love with someone with exactly zero personality, and who has been nothing but snide and bratty to him?<br />
<br />
It's that Sekkrit Power she has (hint: it's really sex) that she doesn't realize she has (really, it's totally sex) and that he knows he can teach her how to harness and use (sex, ya think?)<br />
<br />
So at that point, I gave up. You know where this is going, right? They are going to both be in love with each other, but not say anything because reasons. Or they are going to be Forced by Magical Society to be apart, until they overcome the oppressive system from the Sooper Speshulness of their Love (the greatest love story of all time and history, of course.)<br />
<br />
I did look up a plot synopsis to see if I was missing anything--and nope. There is a whole lot more Sooper Speshul Magick Powers nonsense, and then. . .time walking? Also a lot of Diana being rescued by her white knight, which--ugh.<br />
<br />
Well, at least I know I'm not missing anything. So many other books are already lined up to fill up this particular spot!<br />
<br />
<br />Amy Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00085705321950169094noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22396877.post-36361979868611783382014-02-02T01:29:00.004-06:002014-02-02T01:29:59.869-06:00Mockingjay, by Susanne Collins<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br /></div>
<br />
This is the final book of the <i>Hunger Games</i> trilogy, and there is no mistaking that fact. Collins is so over this series that it's painfully obvious that she could barely be bothered to write this one.<br />
<br />
To be fair, I don't have the writing and publication history at hand. I do have some vague recollection that after the first novel hit (and hit HUGE!) Collins went back and wrote two more novels, that were released very quickly in order to meet the demand for more of the story. Which is quite an achievement, and not something I feel that I could do, so Major Kudos to Ms. Collins. Seriously. Seriously bad ass, ma'am!<br />
<br />
And I have to say that I admire many many parts of the trilogy, and this book in particular. I especially admire how she opened up the story from the very narrow focus of the first book, and how she took the idea of Hunger Games and recast it for this last book.<br />
<br />
I just feel like the whole is kind of half-baked, as if it was rushed through production before it was fully thought through.<br />
<br />
Quick synopsis:<br />
<br />
In the first book, Collins establishes a post-war dystopian North America of indeterminate size. (Does Canada still exist? Mexico?) The Capitol of the nation of Panem has defeated the Districts, and compels them to send two tributes each year to the arena where they are forced to kill each other for the viewing entertainment of the Capitol. The classical Greek and Roman parallels are intentional.<br />
<br />
Our Heroine, Katniss Everdean, is not chosen for the Games, her younger sister is. Katniss cannot bear to let this happen so she volunteers. The Capitol's fascination with the tributes leads to silly fashion shoots and chariot rides and the vapidity of celebrity culture up to the very evening before the Games, and then the tributes are released into a controlled location and forced to fight for their lives. Katniss manages to seem very powerful while not actually killing anybody. In the end, she and the other tribute from her District are the only ones left alive, and they both prepared to poison themselves with berries--which would leave no victors for the Games. The rules are changed for them, and they are both allowed to live.<br />
<br />
In the second book, <i>Catching Fire</i>, the 75th anniversary Games have a different format, and the tributes are to be chosen from past victors. As the only female victor from District 12, Katniss is sent back to the arena. There is a Victory Tour, which gives the reader glimpses of all the Districts, as well as more strategy and backstory about the lives lead by previous victors. Collins gives Katniss the additional challenge of not only staying alive through the Games, but also coming to understand how the Games function in the political life of Panem. It's really pretty savvy plot construction, broadening the scope of the story and adding more complex world-building, while also not simply repeating the first book. Katniss has to survive again, and this time it requires different skills and even trusting others.<br />
<br />
By the end of <i>Catching Fire</i>, Katniss has been rescued (abducted?) from the arena and flown by a rebel alliance to the mythical District 13. Of course, it's not just a myth, it's a real place that refused to surrender to the Capitol and threatened to use its nuclear capacity to destroy Panem. It was driven underground and cut off from the rest of the country, forced to provide all it's own needs. It is, conceptually, the Sparta to the Capitol's decadent Rome. Everyone is disciplined, rationed, conscripted to service the needs of the whole. There is little margin of any sort, all material goods are strictly inventoried and allocated sparingly. Katniss hates it. She is rarely allowed outside, she spends a lot of time passive-aggressively avoiding the obligations. This puts her in conflict with the leader of District 13, President Alma Coin.<br />
<br />
This goes on for a very long time, as Katniss shifts the tiny distance between traumatized victim and bratty teen. Her partner in the Hunger Games, Peeta, was left behind in the Capitol, and she feels guilty for that. Gale, the boy she spent her time with back home, is slowing becoming militant in his opposition to the Capitol. Stuff happens with her family as well, as Prim is growing up but Katniss doesn't want to see it.<br />
<br />
(Katniss is such an angsty martyr at this point, it would be funny if it weren't so dull.)<br />
<br />
Eventually, a plan is developed to use her as the face of the rebellion, which means even more boring grooming sequences and photo shoots. Admittedly, I appreciate the fact that Collins is making a point of how much work goes into making someone camera ready and looking "naturally" beautiful--I do! Female beauty standards require a fair amount of work and attention, and Collins gives it to us at full volume. Katniss is also amazingly bad at acting, and the videos of her pretending to fight are risible.<br />
<br />
Eventually, a plan is hatched that Katniss and her team--including camera operators and beauticians--will be taken to the Capitol where rebels are fighting a guerrilla style war. The plan is to drop her into areas that have already been secured, do some mock fighting, and then pull her out. Propaganda, pure and simple. What could go wrong?<br />
<br />
Well, obviously, EVERYTHING could go wrong, and does. The team ends up watching atrocities and experiencing deaths, they find themselves in real battles, and the death toll grows. The President has booby trapped the Capitol with Games-like weapons, and the team ends up working their way through basements and apartments. At one point, they end up hidden in the basement of a former Games stylist for days, doing absolutely nothing while the war advances to a climactic moment. They join the assault on the President's palace, where Katniss witnesses the moral bankruptcy of the regime. A concrete enclosure/bunker has been erected in front of the palace, and filled with children. Any attempt at storming the gates will kill the kids. Then from somewhere a fighter jet strafes the kids--is it a rebel plane, or a double feint from the President? The rebels respond by sending in medics--and <i>of course</i> the first medic killed by the booby trapped kid enclosure is Prim.<br />
<br />
Katniss is once again deeply traumatized, and also in the middle of things while not actually doing very much. She ends up inside the palace after it has been taken by the District 13 forces. President Snow is a captive--kept very nicely in a comfortable set of rooms, which offends her deeply. Strategy sessions are held, and Katniss has a seat at that table. A proposal is bruited about that a final Hunger Games be staged, using the children from the Capitol. And despite her experience of the horror, Katniss votes to hold them, to spread the pain around. It's a jarring choice, and not one well supported by the author.<br />
<br />
Things keep happening off stage, and finally, Katniss is called upon to serve as President Snow's executioner. She stands on the balcony of the palace along side the new President Coin, and she has managed to discern that the new system is going to be a corrupt and horrible as the old one. Not sure what gives her this insight--perhaps she's just delusional at this point. In any event, she shoots the new president instead of the old one, but Snow obliges everybody by dying via cyanide capsule or something like it.<br />
<br />
Then Katniss goes home to District 12, where Peeta comes too. The district had been bombed to the ground earlier, so almost no one is there, and in the end, Katniss marries Peeta because really, she's too tired to do anything else? This epilogue is weirdly tacked on, serving primarily as a declaration that Collins is done, <i>done, </i>DONE with this series and she's going to tie it all up so nobody can make her go back to it. After "10 or 15 years" Katniss caves in and has a couple of kids with Peeta, because she's pretty sure they won't be sucked up into a rebooted Hunger Games, and anyway, Peeta really wanted them.<br />
<br />
Gale is given a "very important" job in District 2 and disappears from her life and the epilogue. Shippers--you have been told. No Gale/Katniss pairing will be allowed.<br />
<br />
Kudos to Ms. Collins for tweaking the formula with each sequel, so they aren't quite the same story over and over again. On the other hand, it's clear that she was ready to be done, and did whatever she needed to to end the saga.<br />
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<br />Amy Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00085705321950169094noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22396877.post-23543566806623117172014-02-01T23:42:00.003-06:002014-02-01T23:42:46.645-06:00The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches, by Alan Bradley--a Flavia de Luce Novel<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">I rated this 3 stars, although it might be a 3.5. </span></div>
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First of all--what happens? The overarching pall of the series is lifted--we learn the fate of Flavia's mother Harriet. Harriet's absence has been of major importance to the family generally and to Flavia specifically. Flavia was so young when Harriet disappeared that she has no memories of her mother at all. Meanwhile, her older sisters have tormented her with this fact, alternatively accusing her of being the reason Harriet left, or claiming that she was adopted. In either case, Flavia feels the lack of her mother acutely, and she dreams of the possibility that Harriet will someday return.</div>
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More broadly, Haviland de Luce has mourned his lost wife for ten years, remaining remote and unapproachable, leaving his daughters to essentially raise themselves. The family estate is also in limbo, as Harriet's presumed death and lack of a will have created such a tax burden that the family lives basically in poverty. Harriet's absence makes the entire premise of the series possible. At the end of the previous book, the de Luces receive a telephone call, which Father reports "Your mother has been found."</div>
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The first five chapters of this book describe the preparations for her return--a special train, military escort, etc. etc. Which seems odd, until you realize that Harriet is, in fact, dead and it is her body being returned to Buckshaw. And, of course, that was exactly what you expected, except that you hoped otherwise. </div>
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Harriet is also obviously more than just a "missing mum." The military honors, the security provided by the British Home Office, the special train, and Winston Churchill on the platform. Up until now (if I am recalling correctly), Harriet's disappearance has been treated as if it were the unfortunate result of an adventurous spirit who couldn't remain at home tending to children when there were mountains to climb and Tibet to explore. She was an aviatrix, an English Amelia Earhart, who simply never returned. Now, however, we are learning that she had an official role--and she disappeared while on a mission for England during WWII. This is not just a domestic tragedy, and the world beyond Bishop's Lacey and Buckshaw has entered the picture.</div>
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This coincides with a deeper focus on Flavia's character as well. <span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Flavia is nearing her 12th birthday, and without trying, seems to be maturing. She has begun to see behind the surfaces of her family members and is beginning to show some real empathy. It's a welcome development--she remains fixedly eccentric as ever, but is somewhat less combative.</span></div>
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Regularly throughout the novel, she notices things about her family that had escaped her before. Watching her father navigate the funeral arrangements in his deep grief, she realizes that "the more he felt, the less he showed." He was not merely an absentee parent even while present--he was a complicated man dealing with enormous sadness. Flavia also stops to notice that her eldest sister Ophelia is quite beautiful, and she shares a hug with Daphne as they each find comfort in the other. </div>
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Other family members arrive as well, including Haviland's sister Aunt Felicity, and Harriet's sister Lena, who also brings her young and precocious daughter Undine to Buckshaw. Undine is less a character in her own right than a reproduction of Flavia--young, bright, bored, and obnoxious. She exists almost entirely to show how Flavia has grown, since rather than recognize herself in the child, Flavia is annoyed by her. Instead of responding sympathetically, Flavia begins to adopt the tactics her sisters used against her, engaging in a battle of one-upmanship. And not always winning.</div>
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The book begins to reveal the backstory of Flavia's parents, both fighting in the Pacific, where Haviland was captured by the Japanese and subjected to the horrors of the POW camps. Harriet toured those prisons and the two managed to meet without giving themselves away. Harriet never made it home; Haviland did, a broken and grief-paralyzed shell. These are the stories that Flavia is hearing for the first time, expanding her world and changing her perception of her place in it.</div>
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It is no coincidence that this is the book where she flies in her mother's old Gipsy Moth plane as well. Bradley describes how the world looks different, and smaller, from the air, familiar and changed at the same time, without hammering the metaphor. Flavia's vision has expanded.</div>
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As a character study, this book is far more successful than I would have expected. The changes are not forced, and are scattered among the reliable standards of the series--her fascination with poison, battles with her sisters, extra-long descriptions of recondite chemical tests and facts. <br style="background-color: white;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">However, the book as a whole feels clumsily stitched together--there are set pieces that remain well written and engaging, but they fail to connect with each other either logically or emotionally. This is especially damaging to the mystery aspect of the book--too often the book drops narrative elements and fails to pick them up again, or fails to treat them consistently.</span></div>
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This most egregious example happens at the end of the novel, during the funeral service. Earlier, Flavia found Harriet's oil skin wallet, which happened to contain her will. While running chemical tests on the wallet itself, Flavia found invisible writing that seems to spell "Lens Palace." Then,<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> while sitting in church and gazing at a stained glass window of Samson and Delilah, Flavia notices that the gothic script under the window is hard to read--the M looks like a W, for example. With that, she realizes that "Lens Palace" is actually "Lena de Luce," and her aunt is the one who killed Harriet. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">The service then requires that she walk to the chancel, where she stumbles, and when she looks up after catching herself, she sees three police officers advancing on the murderer, who then bolts.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">But we don't know why this is happening now. How did the police suddenly decide that Lena needed to be arrested? Flavia hasn't told them her thinking, nor have they seen the clues she has. The murderer hasn't done anything to give herself away, and the stumble is not a prearranged signal or anything. There is no reason why the police are acting at this particular point in the funeral service, rather than before or afterwards. Whatever logical method the police used to solve the mystery remains unexplained, while Flavia's solution is also not communicated to anybody either. So why does the murderer suddenly lose nerve and bolt? No reason is given, which feels like a cheat. I mean, Sherlock Holmes wouldn't solve a mystery, only to be told that the criminal has already been arrested for some unconnected matter. Like littering? </span></span></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Which is too bad, because while the series is certainly an exploration of Flavia's character growth, it is also a murder mystery series, and solving the murder needs to remain satisfying.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">There is also a scene where Flavia walks out of her house (Buckshaw) and across the lawn to where two characters are working on an airplane. There is no reason why she goes at that particular time, and once she is there, she simply looks at them and then walks away. As far as I can tell, there is no reason for the whole scene. Why is it there? It doesn't amount to any sort of clue, it seems oddly out of character for Flavia to just walk out of the house at that moment for no reason.</span></span></span></div>
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There are a couple of other clunky matters as well. The first is the death of the man at the train station. As Harriet's coffin is being unloaded, a strange man in a long coat approaches Flavia, recognizing her as the spitting image of Harriet. He attempts to give her a warning: "Tell your father that the Gamekeeper is in trouble. The Nide is under…" something interrupts him, and then he is pushed beneath the train to his death. Flavia is the first to his side, and describes the sad sight of his arm above the platform, the golden hairs blowing in the breeze. </div>
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So despite this chilling experience, and the clear invitation to investigate (who is the Gamekeeper? What is a Nide?) Flavia doesn't even think about the event much at all. I accept that she doesn't tell her father, allowing him to grieve without distraction for a while, but I find it very hard to believe that she doesn't even think about what it all might mean, or try to figure out who to interview who might have some information. She never even tries to figure out what the police might know about him. She just lets an obvious murder drop--this is not the Flavia we have known for the last five books.</div>
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Another oddity is her quest to revive her mother. Nuts, of course, her belief that she might be able to concoct a chemical mixture that would restore Harriet to life, but she takes it seriously, and Bradley devotes quite a large chunk of narrative to her quest. One chapter is spent detailing her research into the use of thiamine, based on some cryogenic experiments of her great uncle Tarquin, detailed in the notebooks in her chemistry lab. There is a short sequence where she learns a jujitsu move from her father's "man" Dogger: a blow that she believes will jolt a corpse back to life. There is another chapter spent trying to obtain the chemicals, first from the apothecary and then from the local doctor. The apothecary refuses her, but his reclusive sister (wife?) slips her the substance, claiming it is repayment of a debt to Harriet. The doctor happens to be carrying the other chemicals in his bag when he nearly hits Flavia at an intersection. It was a dosage for a patient who just died, so he simply hands it over.</div>
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These are almost suspiciously easy, and Flavia speculates that perhaps Harriet herself is assisting the project, supernaturally.</div>
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This is about four chapters of preparation, and doesn't include all the logistics about the family standing vigil with Harriet's coffin, what hours they are on duty, how Flavia manipulates Ophelia into switching shifts, and then how Flavia runs the line of mourners off. There is yet <i>another</i> chapter of Flavia opening the coffin, cutting through the inner zinc liner, and seeing her mother's face for the first time. (There is an explanation of how this is even possible after ten years, involving the body being originally preserved on the icy glacier, then packed in dry ice for transport and preservation.)</div>
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At this point, we have followed this plot for dozens and dozens of pages, with all its numerous steps and Flavia's confused motives--she would like to have the chance to have a mother, she would like to return Harriet to Haviland to ease his sadness, she would like to be a hero--this is a major component of the book. Sure, it's nuts to think that she could actually succeed, but the quest has become narratively hefty.</div>
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Which makes the denouement of it so disappointing. Just as she has looked at her mother's face, there is a knock on the door of the room, and (after some swift tidying up of the area) Flavia opens the door to find her father and two Home Office officials who insist on taking over the area and ejecting the family.</div>
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And Flavia doesn't even seem bothered in the least. This whole plan, the whole emotional need for a mother, all the work she has put into trying to revive her mother--gets foiled by the intrusion of a couple of goons, and Flavia simply walks away. She doesn't try again later, she doesn't try to snoop on the officers to find out why they are there (and we never learn it either)--in fact its only after quite a few scenes that she mentions that she lost her chance to try. And it's treated off-handedly, shrugged off as a missed chance.</div>
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I just can't believe that. Flavia wouldn't ignore the murder of a man on the train platform, <i>especially</i> after he gave her such a cryptic warning. Nor would she just walk away from the kind of major project that revivifying Harriet became. Maybe--just <i>maybe</i>--she would give up if she doubted it was possible--but the book doesn't make that case either. </div>
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These feel like authorial slips to me, rather than evidence of Flavia maturing. It's as though Bradley crafted the chunks of the story, but ran out of time to link them together convincingly. Which is frustrating, because the elements of greatness are there! Flavia is a fascinating character, and the mystery is gripping. </div>
Amy Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00085705321950169094noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22396877.post-64788058212524594612014-01-31T22:29:00.003-06:002014-01-31T22:29:33.179-06:00The Goldfinch, by Donna TarttStraight up--I really liked this book. Which is unusual enough that I might as well say so up front.<br />
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This is a very long book, beautifully written, nicely observed, and generally absorbing. To be honest, I think it got a bit flabby toward the end, and a <i>leetle bit</i> self-indulgent in the last 50-ish pages. but overall definitely worth the time and effort to read. In fact, as distracted as I am by shiny things ( a word which here means "the internet") I have found it hard to read actual physical books. But this one was hard to put down.</div>
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At the heart of the novel is an exquisite painting by Carel Fabritius called "The Goldfinch," a real painting by a Dutch master painted in 1654.</div>
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Because this work actually exists, but its loss and recovery detailed in the book are fictional, one has to suspect that the painting has a symbolic/metaphorical value. This sense is heightened by the heavy debt the book owes to Dickens generally, and <i>Great Expectations</i> specifically. (Of course, it's been ages and ages since I've read <i>Great Expectations</i>, so someone else will have to do a better job than I can, tracking the influences).</div>
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So, the book moves in four great sections, giant blocks of narrative that carry us through the narrator's life from about age 13 to roughly his late twenties. The first sets up the baseline of his life, the normal that is irrevocably disrupted. The narrator, Theo Decker, lives in New York City with his mother, his father having recently abandoned them, mostly to Theo's relief. However, he has gotten into trouble at his prep school, and the book opens on the morning he has been called to a meeting with the principal and his mother to face suspension or expulsion for some breaking and entering of homes he has been doing with a classmate. The meeting is for late morning, and on the way they stop at the Met Museum to see an exhibit of Northern European master paintings--one of which is the Goldfinch.</div>
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These details are efficiently sketched but not dwelled upon--we get a feel for the pace of Theo's life, with glimpses of the stressors: his father's alcoholic unpredictability, his devotion to his mother, his chafing need to act out, his fundamental decency…when the bomb goes off.</div>
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Because the bomb is the engine that starts to plot, I had been aware of it and was waiting for it. If I hadn't known, I might have been surprised, just as Theo was. After all, the scenes in the museum are not obviously leading up to a Major Event like that--there is detail about some of the paintings, description of some of the people, the minor logistics of Theo staying in one gallery while his mother goes somewhere else. And there is a girl, roughly his own age, who Theo is fascinated by but afraid to speak to. All of this beautifully observed quotidian activity doesn't obviously point to a suitcase bomb, which would certainly be unexpected in real life, and maybe wasn't obviously telegraphed…</div>
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The gallery is destroyed, Theo is knocked unconscious, and when he comes to, he has a confused conversation with the grandfather of the girl he saw earlier. Both of them are likely concussed, if not lightheaded by blood loss. Somehow, the man convinces Theo to take the canvas of <i>The Goldfinch</i> for safekeeping (it had been blown out of its frame), then gives him a ring and cryptic directions: "Hobart and Blackwell. Ring the green bell" before he dies.</div>
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Somehow, Theo finds his way out of the museum by a side door, and goes home to wait for his mother. Tartt is very careful about the details of how this happens without Theo being stopped by police, or given any emergency medical care. It is this careful writing that makes the outrageous plot device absolutely believable--and it shouldn't be--but has to be for the book to work. And the book does work.</div>
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Tartt carefully handles his dislocation and grief. He ends up staying for months with the Barbours, the WASPy family of an old school friend. The glamorous apartment, relentless achievement, and chilly emotional life of the family is reminiscent of a J.D. Salinger book. Meanwhile, Child Protective Services tries to find living relatives, including a father who clearly did not wish to be found. (Child support evasion do you think?) During this time, Theo makes the pilgrimage to "Hobart and Blackwell" where he finds the girl from the museum, Pippa, and Hobie, a gentle giant of a man who restores the antiques that Blackwell bought and sold.</div>
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Theo falls in love with Pippa (echoing Pip's love for Estella from <i>Great Expectations</i>) without actually spending much time with her. She was seriously injured in the blast, and is soon shipped off to live with an aunt. Theo finds a soothing peace in the furniture repair shop, and spends increasing amounts of time there with Hobie--they share an appreciation for old things, and they both miss Pippa. </div>
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Just as Theo is about to fully integrate into this new life, his father shows up and again his life is disrupted. Larry Decker has a flash style, a Las Vegas girlfriend who goes by "Xandra," and sells everything from the apartment Theo shared with his mother in a matter of days. Theo is roughly transplanted to Vegas, where the Deckers live in a shoddy McMansion in an unfinished housing development. Theo's house is the only one occupied on the street, and the stink of the burst housing market is conveyed through the rotting garbage--no trash service, no pizza delivery, no buses, and the desert threatens to creep back in and reclaim the place.</div>
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Theo's father remains both flash and unpredictable. He claims to have stopped drinking, by which he means now he drinks only beer and he takes many different types of drugs. He gambles for a living, moving from baccarat to bookmaking on sports events, his manic behavior muted only by the odd hours he and Xandra keep. Theo is essentially abandoned in the house, feeding himself mostly on bar food Xandra brings home from her job at a casino. </div>
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Theo manages to find another inappropriate friend--Boris, the son of a Russian mining engineer, who has lived all over the world. Boris enables Theo's genetic addictive personality, and soon the two of them are spending most of the next two years drinking and taking drugs, watching old movies and being wasted. </div>
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Matters here come to a head as Larry's gaming losses mount. A couple of visits from an urbanely threatening enforcer embodies the looming catastrophe. One day, Larry screams and threatens until Theo calls a lawyer about transferring his inheritance into an account--presumably so Larry can pay off his debts. The lawyer (the Dickensian "Bracegirdle") says the money can't be transferred, only used to pay education bills, and Larry's transparent scheme is foiled. The next day, Larry dies in a one-car accident (suicide or murder?) and Theo panics. Unwilling to fall into the clutches of Child Protective Services again, he grabs Xandra's dog, the well-wrapped <i>Goldfinch</i>, and a few personal items and buses back to New York, where he turns up on Hobie's doorstep again.</div>
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Again, Tartt carefully describes the maneuverings that make this arrangement believable. Bracegirdle recommends boarding school, but instead, Theo manages to get into an early college program that allows him to stay in the city. Tartt describes this period as a time when Theo has the raw talent to succeed, but is so damaged by the combination of dislocation, trauma and drugs that he puts in the bare minimum of work, failing in a very believable way. But he's got a family of sorts--Hobie and the occasional visit from Pippa.</div>
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The book then skips ahead eight years. Theo has graduated from college, and has taken over running the antique sales business that Blackwell ("Welty") ran before his death. He has become a full partner in the firm, and is now engaged to Kitsey Barbour. The Barbour family has declined in the intervening years, and Theo's friend Arthur was killed in a boating accident with his disturbed father. (This section smacks rather of <i>Brideshead Revisited</i> in the way the family is less dazzling, and the narrator now feels enough of a social equal to marry into it.)</div>
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Theo has the good eye and reassuring manner necessary to be a successful antiques dealer--and seems to be so- but he remains morally corrupt. Pressured by the business's unpaid taxes and precarious finances, he begins to sell rebuilt pieces as original antiques. Carefully priced high enough to be believable, but low enough to be tempting as "a steal," he primarily sells these pieces to the nouveau riche--movie produces from California, oil men from Texas. Theo begins to exhibit the jittery megalomania of his father, torn between pride and guilt. </div>
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Predictably, Theo is found out, by someone far more unscrupulous than he, who seems to be playing a larger game, and refers obliquely to <i>The Goldfinch</i>, which Theo still has, taped up in a mess of newspaper and packing tape, sitting securely in a archival storage room. This is when Boris reappears and Theo's life is again significantly disrupted.</div>
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Because Boris stole the painting back in the old days in Vegas, and now has a dodgy international business career that involves mob members and drug deals. The painting has been used as collateral on a number of major deals, and recently disappeared in a bust. At Theo's glittering engagement party (where he is mostly marginalized) Boris whisks him away to Amsterdam to retrieve the painting.</div>
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Theo ends up being driven around the city, disoriented, frequently drunk or stoned, and eventually sting armed by Boris into a confrontation in an after hours deli, where one man ends up dead. Subsequently, another set of thugs attack Theo and Boris in an empty parking garage, and Theo ends up shooting one of the men. He and Boris split up, and he spends the next several days in a fog of terror and foreboding, waiting to be arrested for the murder, and unable to leave, since Boris has his passport. The painting is once again missing, snatched by one of the criminals during the shoot-out.</div>
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Ultimately, and decidedly off-stage, Boris locates the painting and manages to lead the "art police" to its location, where a number of other important stolen works were stored. Boris delivers a suitcase full of reward money to Theo, who (in the epilogue) uses it to repurchase all the faked antiques he had sold. </div>
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He doesn't quite get the girl--Kitsey is cheating on him with the man she really loves, Tom Cable, the schoolmate who got Theo into the breaking and entering at the beginning of the book. She still wants to get married, even though she doesn't love Theo, because they are well matched. It's not clear what Theo is going to do about that. Pippa remains his true love, but she is very clear that she doesn't love him. Theo is forced to realize that his feelings for Pippa are tied up with his grief over losing his mother, and that he needs to let them go.</div>
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The last 50 pages or so are the flabbiest of the book--the plot has been tied up, Theo is flying around the country doing penance by buying back furniture, and Tartt indulges in a sort of moralizing about the meaning of art and why it is Important. Skip those.</div>
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Luxuriate instead in the lovely writing she dedicates to the tempos and textures of Theo's life. The cold rainy winter morning in the City, where the miserable weather is redeemed by the beauty of the museum as a place of respite. She evokes the mote-filled light of a quiet antiques shop, as well as the frosty discomfort of an immaculate apartment that is photo ready and superficially chic, but not comfortable. Even the way the desert sunlight is different from the weaker sun of New York is deftly described. Theo's life is believable down to the details, because Tartt is so careful to observe and report all those details.</div>
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Looking back on this book, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Tartt is a maestro of the altered consciousness. Theo spends almost all of the book in some sort of clouded state, either through grief, concussion, drugs and alcohol, or fear. Perhaps that is Tartt's real subject--the way perception is impaired. Her first novel, <i>The Secret History</i>, had as its central showpiece the hazy perceptions of a Dionysian rite, followed by the corrosive effects of guilt on the participants and their relationships. <i>The Goldfinch</i> revisits many of those same emotions.</div>
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Why is this such an enjoyable book? What is the point of over 770 pages of this man child's life? I'm not sure I can answer that. Perhaps the secret is in the pacing, deliberate but not slow, and the smoothness of the writing. I thoroughly enjoyed it.</div>
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Amy Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00085705321950169094noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22396877.post-31392542628981655822013-12-06T16:07:00.003-06:002013-12-06T16:07:54.397-06:00S., [The Ship of Theseus], by JJ Abrams and Doug DorstSo this book--is not so much a novel as it is--something else? A project, perhaps? An artifact? An exercise in multi-genre literary enhancement? The sort of set dressing that pervades visual media?<br />
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All of the above.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKx4ktURtH_RV5SREeXF0VugviWjIBLDlnA6jP18Z7zgP5v6Kcsf4pgCRBhXJGtXrYAUse1QMh-KbBcgtoiqTVlsQUWS0yrwrPVn-4j1owUs3E5acuqM0hdYMtMF6_PPeRUvGgvg/s1600/image.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKx4ktURtH_RV5SREeXF0VugviWjIBLDlnA6jP18Z7zgP5v6Kcsf4pgCRBhXJGtXrYAUse1QMh-KbBcgtoiqTVlsQUWS0yrwrPVn-4j1owUs3E5acuqM0hdYMtMF6_PPeRUvGgvg/s1600/image.jpeg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
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At its most basic, <i>S. </i>is sold as a book. It comes as a book inside a slipcover, sealed in cellophane. The slipcover is black with a large, gothic "S." printed on it--also in black. there is a sticker that holds the book inside the cover, printed with a monkey on the front side, with the names of the co-creators. On the back is an impressive masted ship. These are not random images.<br />
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Inside is a book that has been carefully constructed to look like a vintage library book. The cloth cover is drab, the graphics are definitely mid-century. <i>Ship of Theseus</i>, by V.M. Straka. There is even a Dewey Decimal sticker on the spine, listing it as "813.54 STR 1949."<br />
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<i>[But this might be an error! Dewey number 813. 54 is for "American literature in English, 1945-1999," but the whole point of the book is that Straka is unknown--but none of the leading "candidates" for being Straka is American. Furthermore, the book was translated by the mysterious F.X. Caldeira. So the call number is wrong for <u>Ship of Theseus</u> (should be somewhere in the 890s perhaps), although it is closer to right for<u> S.</u> Of course, the number for S. should be "813.55 ABR 2013." Hmmmmm.]</i><br />
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The library motif continues inside, with browned pages, a "stamp" printed on the inside cover "BOOK FOR LOAN" and a replica of due date stamps in the back, showing desultory borrowing from 1957 and ending in 2000. Patrons are instructed to "KEEP THIS BOOK CLEAN"--pencil marks or other defacement to be reported to the librarian.<br />
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<i>[I distinctly remember being told by the school librarian at my elementary school that we were expected to wash our hands before reading library books. We were even issued oil skin book bags to carry our books home from school to keep them safe from the weather. Even then, I thought it was nuts--and I continued to read library books at the table while I ate lunch.]</i><br />
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Already, this review has become even more digressive than most of my others. I am chalking this up to the power of the physical object--the book, not just the words inside it, is really the topic of this project. It is a love letter to the book as object.<br />
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Take a look at a "typical" page.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8-ajFSs2Sr6K3MEjbeKDtRDPCulySTpNtNPa_Q_-wNqhPDNTuVNMEQqjkkZ_AkHgFd792nE2-CSLDF1FmaQCzS-xTinhe38uwmIv3I6nPVvOp6gHWjGUirCWGEbnYVNnfTw-7nw/s1600/Unknown.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8-ajFSs2Sr6K3MEjbeKDtRDPCulySTpNtNPa_Q_-wNqhPDNTuVNMEQqjkkZ_AkHgFd792nE2-CSLDF1FmaQCzS-xTinhe38uwmIv3I6nPVvOp6gHWjGUirCWGEbnYVNnfTw-7nw/s1600/Unknown.jpeg" /></a></div>
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The text of the novel "Ship of Theseus" is the work of mysterious author V.M. Straka, a writer of 19 books whose real identity is unknown. The authorship controversy is more popular than the actual novels. <i>Ship of Theseus</i> is his last book--he reportedly died in 1946, in Havana, and some of the last chapter of this book was lost. He may have been killed. The book was originally written in Czech (I think?), and translated by F. X. Caldeira, who wrote an introduction and the footnotes. Caldeira was the sole translator of Straka's works from 1924 on, but never met the writer in person. Caldeira is supposed to be a Brazilian who died in his own home town in 1964.<br />
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The margin notes come in five different sets, representing five different time periods.<br />
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<ol>
<li>First are penciled marks and brief remarks, made by Eric at about age 16. He stole the book from the library--so presumably his is the last due date stamped in the back, October 14, 2000. </li>
<li>Twelve years later, Eric's book is found by Jen Hardway, an undergraduate at the (fictional) Pollard State University, who works at the library. Jen found the book, read a few chapters and returned the book to a library workroom with a note. She and Eric begin passing the book between them, making notes in blue cursive (Jen) and black block letters (Eric).</li>
<li>Later, Jen switches to yellow, and Eric responds in green.</li>
<li>Still later, Jen writes in purple, Eric in red.</li>
<li>Finally, they both write in black ink.</li>
</ol>
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At any given time on the page, you might be reading from any of these five time periods, plus Caldeira's editorial notations. Add in the original text, and suddenly as a reader, you are keeping track of seven different time streams. </div>
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It's almost like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Joseph_Minard" target="_blank">Minard's famous map of Napoleon's Russian Campaign of 1812</a>.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2ErrW2wOOClDwy-NVvQWfbIBY19T4S-Mexc8LI0Nh6e5q-3F2YKIs2x__RBRZRRxRRemahO50pspLxvKqxMWmmgC3F4TGCikJHXkfOrLRzHG3BgcgH0sSI9Wa2R8ruj4oIef1xA/s1600/Minard.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2ErrW2wOOClDwy-NVvQWfbIBY19T4S-Mexc8LI0Nh6e5q-3F2YKIs2x__RBRZRRxRRemahO50pspLxvKqxMWmmgC3F4TGCikJHXkfOrLRzHG3BgcgH0sSI9Wa2R8ruj4oIef1xA/s1600/Minard.png" height="190" width="400" /></a></div>
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The timeline is even more complicated, if you accept that Caldeira and Straka exchanged drafts of the work, translating even before the book was complete--and that Caldeira finally ended up reconstructing or inventing parts of the incomplete final chapter.</div>
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So what is this book? What has V.M. Straka written that has caused academics to search for his true identity? It intrigued Jen enough that she started corresponding with Eric (the owner of the book) and soon burned through all nineteen of Straka's works.</div>
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Good question. What Dorst has done is create a convincing pastiche of early 20th century modernist political literature. <i>Ship of Theseus</i> is, on it's surface, the story of the amnesiac "S," a man who arrives in the Old Quarter of a town identified only as "B--." He is wet, has apparently just come out of the sea, and has nothing but a stack of papers in his coat pocket, marked with the gothic "S." </div>
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<i>[Later, we learn about "Santorini Men," named after the first one discovered on a beach on the Greek island--anonymous, unidentifiable men found murdered, dumped into the sea, and containing only pages from Straka novels in their overcoat pockets. S. is probably a Santorini man who managed to survive--a fact that is not explained to the reader. S's page is folded and wet, soaked into an indistinct mass, marked with the Gothic S. He believes if he could read those pages, he might discover something of his identity and past. He might, if S is a fictionalized Straka--it's perhaps a clue to who S is supposed to be, but one he never solves for himself.]</i></div>
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He lurches through an eccentrically populated town, ending up in a bar where there is a <i>very</i> ominous and unsettling bit of writing describing the brutal form of capitalism practiced in this world: </div>
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Several hundred yards ahead, a recent immigrant who speaks the language only haltingly enters a storefront to return a rented barrel organ. The owner. . .takes the organ from the immigrant, and leans it against a wall along with the eighteen other organs that he rents each morning to other just-as-recent and just-as-tone-deaf immigrants. He holds out his palm for his half of the organ-grinder's take.</blockquote>
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The organ-grinder does not yet understand the local currency, so eh hands his cigar box of coins to the owner, asks him via hand gestures and sentence fragments to do the stacking and splitting for him. The owner makes two piles. He pushes the taller stack across the table to the organ-grinder. The shorter stack, which is worth much more (this, apparently, being a city of ancient and flawed arithmetics as well), he sweeps into an open drawer.</blockquote>
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The organ-grinder, who understood when he rented the organ that this unscrupulous man would cheat him at any opportunity, has anticipated such a trick and has stashed away a portion of the day's take. Those coins, wrapped inside a handkerchief, are snug in the pocket of the tattered red coat worn by his capuchin monkey….The owner, of course, suspect that the organ-grinder has done this. It's not a new trick to him. Once the immigrant leaves the shop, the owner will direct his slow-witted but strong armed sons to follow the man through the night, as long as it takes, until he gives himself away--perhaps when he ducks into an alley beside a tern and empties the monkey's pockets, at which point the sons will hold him down in the street and crush his wrist bones to dust with led pipes. They will catch the fleeing monkey by it's rope and try to sell the beast inside the tavern. No one will want it, of course. . .Eventually, the brothers--now quite drunk--will go out to the docks, tie something heavy to the other end of the rope, and test how well monkeys can swim.</blockquote>
A spiral of deception and greed, then ends to no one's benefit. The owner gets additional coins, but no further rentals from this man, the man's ability to work is destroyed, and the monkey dies. Only the brutish sons benefit, in that they get to become drunk.<br />
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<i>[This is, in miniature, the theme of Straka's work. It is no coincidence that there are nineteen organs to rent--nineteen is a recurring number that stands for Straka's group of radical labor activists, who constitute a group called (confusingly) "The S" in Straka's "real" life. So the Ship of Theseus novel is in some ways Straka's project to document the history of "The S" with it's losses and turncoats. The story of the organ renter is replicated in the larger story of the protests against the arms manufacturer Edvar Vevoda--which is itself a fictionalization of Straka's efforts against arms manufacturer Bouchard.]</i><br />
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S enters a tavern, sees a beautiful woman reading <i>Don Quixote</i>, and then gets shanghaied onto a boat. The boat has nineteen sailors, who all have their mouths sewn shut, but who spend their off duty time writing. Time passes differently on the boat, so when S next lands, several years have passed. He gets swept up into a demonstration against Vevoda which turns deadly. Vevoda's own brown coats plant a bomb to discredit the labor movement. S escapes with four labor organizers (who are versions of Straka's own compatriots). In their attempt to escape, the other four are all killed. Only S survives, and when he returns to the ship, there are only 15 sailors.<br />
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The story continues with eerie occurrences, semi-magical locations, and S's own obsession with the woman from the tavern who has several names. S muses on his own identity--will he be able to remember who he is, or is he only who he has become? "Ship of Theseus" is a philosophical conundrum, like "my grandfather's axe"--if you replace all the pieces of the ship, is it still the same ship? ("This is my grandfather's axe--I replaced the handle and my father replaced the head." Is it?) If S replaces whoever he had been with all the actions he takes in the book, does the old S even exist any more?<br />
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If is were a "real" novel, really written by a writer named Straka, it's not something that would interest me particularly, because it's a justification of why labor has to take up arms against capitalists, and Straka apparently murdered a fair number of people in his day. It reads like early 20th century political struggles that ended with the recognition of the right to unionize. Important, certainly. Timely again, as "right to work" laws proliferate and union membership drops. It's kind of an extended self-justification, and not a topic I would pick to read myself, even with the eerie fantastical elements.<br />
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But that is not the whole story.<br />
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There are several other stories superimposed on this one--"Palimpsest upon palimpsest" as the book puts it at one point. The first additional story, chronologically, is that of F.X. Caldeira, the translator of the book. Popularly supposed to be a man, over the course of the book Jen and Eric discover that F.X. is actually <i>Filomena</i> Caldeira, a woman who apparently carried an unrequited love for Straka for decades, despite never having met him. Her footnotes in this volume are eccentric, and are revealed to be coded messages for Straka, published in the belief that his Havana death in 1946 was a hoax and that he might look for her. She passes on some information about who was the mole in "The S" who gave away some of their members. She codes her love for Straka and where she might be found. She "reconstructs" the final chapter of <i>Ship of Theseus</i> to give her doppelgänger a happy ending with S.<br />
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Eric tracks her down, as she is still alive and alert, and answers some of Eric's questions. In the course of the Jen/Eric correspondence, she dies, perhaps the last living link to Straka.<br />
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There are other stories, all conveyed in the Jen/Eric marginalia. Chronologically, the earliest is the story of Eric, a grad student working on the question of Straka's real identity. There is apparently no locatable biographical evidence of Straka's existence, and the authorship questions has grown to eclipse the study of the novels themselves. Eric's advisor is a professor named Moody, and he had a relationship with a fellow grad student named Ilsa. By the time the J/E correspondence begins, Eric has been disgraced and expelled from the school. Moody has apparently stolen Eric's scholarship, with Ilsa's help, in order to bring out his own work on the authorship question. Eric acted out, vandalized one of the buildings on campus, and ended up in a mental hospital for a while. Now, he haunts the campus, trying to avoid being reported, while he continues to work on the question of "who was Straka?"<br />
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After getting interested in Straka's works, Jen becomes his co-conspirator. She is suffering from a serious case of senior slump, and finds renewed passion in reading Straka's novels and working out Caldeira's embedded ciphers. Her coursework suffers, her parents worry and attempt to intervene. Her interest in Straka gets Ilsa's attention, and there are some threats to her own safety. Jen reports that a barn on her parents' property was burned down, and that she is being spied on and followed. Ilsa suspects her of academic dishonesty and she is called to a disciplinary hearing. J/E interpret this as being orchestrated by Moody to silence them and promote his own theory.<br />
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I felt this part was pretty unbelievable. It parallels the way Vevoda chased S, but S really did pose a threat to Vevoda's business model. I'm not sure the stakes of academia are convincingly high to justify such cutthroat tactics. (I'm not convinced they <i>are</i> that high, especially in literature departments, but I don't think Dorst has written this believably enough to cause me to suspend my skepticism.)<br />
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The academic espionage continues with Straka artifacts going missing from international archives, and the mysterious death of a French professor soon after his own book on Straka's real identity is published. There is a mysterious "Serin Institute" that starts funding Eric, but it's not clear who they are or why they care about Straka at all.<br />
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Jen and Eric parse the text of <i>Ship of Theseus</i>, drawing the parallels between characters and real life Straka associates. They notice the number of them who died from mysterious falls--perhaps Bouchard is still in business and still sending agents to silence them? Are those same agents after J/E? Is "Straka" just the pen name of all the members of "The S," and are the nineteen novels ascribed to him each written by a different person? If so, does this make Filomena Caldeira the real organizer?<br />
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Meanwhile, Jen and Eric use phrases of the novel to spark their own conversations, revealing their histories, arranging secretive meetings (in the back row of a theater showing noir films, of course!) and ultimately falling in love. In deliberate counterpoint to the Straka/Caldeira story, J/E get a happy ending. Jen finishes her coursework, doesn't get disciplined, and graduates. She and Eric move to Prague to pursue writing their own book about Straka's identity. Their last marginalia is written with a shared pen, in a shared apartment--sort of a nostalgic activity.<br />
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In addition to all of that, of course, are the many pieces of ephemera interleaved in the book. This is where the valentine nature of this product really shows through--all the different types of materials are faithfully reproduced. A campus map drawn on a cafeteria napkin is <i>really</i> on a napkin, one printed with the fictional logo of Pollard State University no less. Business cards feel different from postcards, which are different from the several pages of lined notepad paper. This is not so much a "love letter to the written word" (as it says on the back of the slipcover), but a love letter to the idea of a <i>BOOK</i>--the physical artifact. The differing colors of ink, the different handwriting styles, the way it physically holds their letters and postcard to each other--this is something that simply cannot be replicated by an ebook.<br />
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(There is apparently an ebook, which does allow for erasing the marginalia, if you want a clean copy of the Straka novel for some reason. There is also apparently an audiobook, and I have NO IDEA how they are going to pull that one off!)<br />
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So in the end--what do we have? We have a commitment to the idea of the book as a physical object. We have a demonstration of how a book (and writing) can contain multiple time streams, how it conveys and preserves ideas and personalities over time. It offers explicit and implicit puzzles, recording and enacting (for real readers in real time) how stories can engage us and how we work to solve the puzzles of literature.<br />
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I have some questions that I don't have the answers to yet.<br />
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<ul>
<li>Does each chapter have a cipher? Several of them are solved by Jen and Eric in the margins, but there are several where they indicate that they suspect a cipher, but can't find the key to unlock it. S.Files22 has catalogued the known ciphers, and is working on finding and solving others, including one using the Eotvos Wheel that comes in the back of the book but isn't used by Jen or Eric. <a href="http://sfiles22.blogspot.com/">http://sfiles22.blogspot.com</a></li>
<li>Does the book solve the mystery of Straka? It's clear that J/E have their own belief, but isn't that ambiguous? Is that a solvable mystery within the game of "S."?</li>
<li>Were there agents after Jen? Is there a conspiracy of violence to keep Straka's identity hidden, even in 2012? If so, who is it?</li>
<li>What happened to the nineteen pieces of obsidian that disappeared from international archives? </li>
<li>Is there some master intelligence behind the happenings of the book?</li>
</ul>
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In the end, it may boil down to the messiness of human effort. Even S realizes that the distinctions between the good guys and the bad guys is blurred. Both have adopted the Santorini Man gambit, leaving their enemies dead with Straka pages in their pockets. One side intended it as a message, the other side adopted it to demonstrate their ability to contaminate the message. By the end of the book, there is no way to tell which is responsible for which murders. Identity is unknowable. </div>
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I suspect this is a message about Straka--his identity is unknowable, but what is on the page can be loved. Not a bad meta-message at all.</div>
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__________</div>
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P.S.</div>
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In a book as full of explicit puzzles as this, there will of course be internet communities and commentary that will serve as a locus for like minded readers who are examining the mysteries. So far, these are the two most interesting that I have found.</div>
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The Eotvos Wheel: what appears to be created in conjunction with the book--ostensibly amateur scholarship on V.M. Straka, with crime scene photographs of the Havana hotel room where Straka [may have] died in 1946, a list of the candidates for the "real" Straka. Interestingly, the blog has a few entries dated 2009, and then lay fallow until new postings began in November 2013, after the publication of the book. <a href="http://eotvoswheel.com/">http://eotvoswheel.com</a><br />
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S.Files22: apparently a reader created site which documents many of the idiosyncrasies of the book and is working to find and solve any additional ciphers not revealed in the Eric/Jen notes to the text. <a href="http://sfiles22.blogspot.com/">http://sfiles22.blogspot.com</a><br />
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<br />Amy Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00085705321950169094noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22396877.post-17337607486658330702013-10-05T17:29:00.003-05:002013-10-05T17:29:44.827-05:00Eleanor and Park, by Rainbow Rowell<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Technically, this is a Young Adult novel. Maybe I'm not remembering well, but YA wasn't as sophisticated back when I was reading it. This is a lovely, carefully observed novel, about the way in which we move from strangers to intimates, and vice versa.<br />
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Eleanor is the new kid in school. Her mother has recently remarried, her step-father is a violent and controlling drunk, her biological father has done a slow fade from their lives. Eleanor has four younger siblings, and they all share a single small room in a tiny house in Omaha Nebraska.<br />
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Park is half-Korean, exotic and out of place in Omaha, sensitive to his oddity. Even his younger brother looks whiter than he does. He hides behind headphones and comic books on the noisy bus ride to school.<br />
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The two of them meet when Park takes pity on the new girl, and offers to share his seat on the bus.<br />
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Slowly, Rowell builds their budding friendship and growing attraction. Most of their interaction occurs on the bus at first, although they share English and History classes. It is the careful, delicate shifting of their relationship that is the book's amazing talent. Awkwardly, they maintain a six inch space between them, studiously ignoring each other, but eventually finding things that connect them. Eleanor finds herself reading Park's comics over his (metaphorical) shoulder. Park notices the names of songs and bands written on her notebooks.<br />
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These characters are placed in families that are also drawn with the same careful specificity. Eleanor's home life bursts with the details of poverty--the bathroom attached to the kitchen, with only a curtain to offer privacy, the safety pins that hold her clothes together since there is no money for new ones. The criminally cheap food her mother feeds them--beans and rice mostly, and the violence that causes all five of the children to learn to be still as statues as the fights happen. I fully believed in her misery and her resentful protectiveness of her siblings.<br />
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Park lives a more middle-class existence, with his own room, and only one brother. His father insists on the boys learning martial arts; his mother refuses to allow swearing or girlfriends. Park's house is run by his mother, and smells of potpourri. I liked how Park uncomplainingly went to his grandparents' house for Sunday dinner in nice clothes, he set the table, but he was still in conflict with his parents over his driving, his wearing eyeliner. He feels like a misfit, just differently than the ways Eleanor does. He also experiences Eleanor as not fitting in differently than she does. He thinks she is "trying too hard to be different" and is sensitive to what she wears in ways that she just doesn't seem to be. It makes for some interesting textures in their characterizations.<br />
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The book captures the ways teens try to find themselves in the context of their families--what do they accept as normal, what do they chafe against. Exquisitely Rowell describes the growth of the relationship: the electric kick of the first time you hold hands with someone, the fear of being awkward at kissing, the fear of meeting the family, the way you become desperate for some privacy so you don't have to enact your entire life in front of other people.<br />
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Some things don't quite ring true: the way that Eleanor and Park are quickly honest with each other feels a bit facile. They never seem to misunderstand each other. They spend a lot of time checking in on their feelings. "Are we okay?" "Are you okay?" "Are you mad at me?" they ask each other repeatedly, and it's not clear why they never feel comfortable enough in the relationship to stop asking that. I found myself doubting that 16 year olds in their first serious, proto-sexual relationship would be <i>that</i> aware of something outside their own feelings.<br />
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The plot? Well, there isn't much, which is exactly right. It's about how Eleanor and Park develop their relationship in the context of high school culture, and that is really enough. There is some nasty pranking pulled on Eleanor--ostensibly by Tina, which isn't really well explained. I understand that as the new kid in school, the early gym class pranks might have been pulled, although that one seemed disproportionately nasty (maxi pads colored with red marker stuck all over her gym locker) unless you believe that Eleanor was considered a threat of some kind to Tina. Also not sure why Tina would steal all Eleanor's clothes out of her locker as late into the year as that happened. In retrospect, it felt like a plot device to get Park to see her in her gym suit, kicking their physical relationship up a notch.<br />
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Personally, I wish Rowell had dropped Eleanor's body shame a bit. I mean, she's got red hair and untamable curls, she's the new kid, she's wicked poor, gets her clothing from Goodwill, and has to wear that to shreds--isn't that enough? Did you have to make her obsess about feeling fat too? It's not like she gets much food, even, so it just feels like it's normalizing an incipient eating disorder/body dysmorphia.<br />
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Finally, there is the climax of the book. All throughout the book, nasty sexual messages have been showing up on Eleanor's books (which are covered with brown paper bags, which is exactly correct). She has been ignoring them, assuming they are by Tina and the Mean Girls. Can you spot the plot? Of course it isn't--it's her nasty rat-faced stepfather, and when she figures this out, she runs away from home. This is the end of Eleanor and Park, because the only place she has to go is to an uncle's house in Minneapolis. The threat was well done and completely credible to me--the way her stepfather insists on dominating family life, the casual cruelty and narcissism he displays, the way Tina turns out to be an ally when things get really serious.<br />
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The end of the book felt true--when Park drives Eleanor to her uncle's--it's an opportunity for them to be together and alone for hours, and yet, it's the end of their ability to be together. She isn't going to be able to come back, he's not going to be able to follow her. That bitter experience that the timing is just wrong--if they were only a year or two older, they would be able to go to college together, or possibly elope (which Tina does with her boyfriend in the coda). But by virtue of being just 16, they have to separate. Is it possible to sustain a long distance relationship at that age? Is it wise? Does it hurt too much? Do they have a choice, given how strong their feelings for each other are?<br />
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It's a good book. It's worth the read. I would recommend it to my own teen daughters, if this was the kind of book they liked right now. It has a lot to discuss about poverty and privilege, and about respectful relationships. Definitely recommended.Amy Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00085705321950169094noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22396877.post-72761515807461824552013-08-22T23:27:00.001-05:002013-08-22T23:27:18.159-05:00Life After Life, by Kate AtkinsonIt is a truth universally acknowledged by science fiction writers that if time travel becomes possible, there are narrative problems that have to be resolved via reference to the "multiverse"--the idea that at every point where there is more than one possible action to be taken, there is a universe in which ALL possible actions are taken.<br />
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This is often explained as a fundamental principle of quantum physics, and I certainly can't prove it one way or another. But the possibility of alternative outcomes is like catnip to writers--as it would have to be. What would happen, one can easily imagine a writer thinking with fingers hovering over the keyboard, if instead of THIS happening, THAT happens instead?<br />
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We see it a lot in science fiction--the movie <i>The Butterfly Effect</i>, for example, or the classic Ray Bradbury story <i>"</i><a href="http://www.lasalle.edu/~didio/courses/hon462/hon462_assets/sound_of_thunder.htm" target="_blank">The Sound of Thunder</a>" depend on this idea. There are plenty of other examples--I am personally very fond of the way Terry Pratchett describes it as the "Trousers of Time." That the future travels down one leg or the other, depending on what choices are taken.<br />
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What is less popular is to take this science fiction trope, and convert it into literary fiction. But that is what Kate Atkinson does. To date, her Jackson Brodie novels have elevated crime fiction into something more demanding and genre-bending. Here, she takes the life story of Ursula Todd, and repeats it, showing all the different ways she could die, and then returning to the moment of her birth and replaying the story with different outcomes at critical moments.<br />
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So, in the beginning, Ursula's mother Sylvie goes into labor as a snowstorm hits, making the doctor and the midwife unavailable. During the birth, the umbilical cord gets wound around the baby's neck, and she dies immediately. In the next chapter, the doctor manages to get to the home before the snow, and saves the baby's life. She survives until about age five, when she climbs out an attic window to retrieve a doll her older brother has thrown out onto the roof, and then slips and falls to her death.<br />
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The book then returns to her birth, and reprises the attic scene, but Ursula makes a different choice--either she doesn't go to retrieve the doll (in one iteration), or else she hides her doll so her brother throws her sister's doll out the window instead.<br />
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These are not strict repetitions, but variations on a theme--every time we return to Ursula's birth, there are different conversations, different experiences reported. And, brilliantly, even when Ursula's life takes different paths, there are some similar experiences, some fundamental questions that arise over and over.<br />
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For example, in one terrible life path, Ursula's older brother Maurice--who nobody likes, not even his parents--brings home from friends from Oxford on Ursula's sixteenth birthday. The grossly physical American named Howie, forces a kiss on Ursula that she finds unpleasant and disturbing. Later, he traps her against the wall in the upper stairway and rapes her. She predictably becomes pregnant, and is such a naive that she cannot understand what has happened or why. She wonders whether there is something in her that Howie could see, something that she herself did not understand about herself, that made him believe that she deserved this treatment. (That is a paraphrase of Atkinson's beautiful writing--don't blame her for my awkwardness.)<br />
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Later, after the sad and miserable life that plays out following this rape, Ursula punches Howie when he tries to kiss her, and averts the rape. Her life moves forward, and as an independent woman in her late 30s, she wonders about how she has several love affairs, but never marries, and she repeats the thoughts that came to her at 16 in the earlier life--was there something in her that men could see that made her good enough for a mistress, but not a wife?<br />
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Or, twice she begins to self-medicate with alcohol, and wonders if it would be so bad to just die--the first time in her early 20s as she is stuck in a boring shorthand course, the second time after she has retired in her late 50s from a job in the Home Office. One life is much more bleak and appalling than the other, but in both, she remains the same character with the same ideas and thoughts.<br />
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I greatly admire Atkinson's writing--I've read everything of hers from <i>Case Histories</i> on--but I can't say I loved this book. To be fair, I listened to it as an Audible.com book, read by Fenella Woolgar, who I have liked as an actress since I saw her in <i>Bright Young Things</i>. Perhaps it was the narration rather than the writing, but the whole book took so very long for anything to happen. I found Ursula's infancy to be mostly boring, frankly, and so I started to be in the uncomfortable position of rooting for her to just go ahead and die already so something would happen!<br />
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Not attractive of me, I know.<br />
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I struggled through the first several years, and then things got better. Perhaps I am just bored with the English pastoral scene setting, when I really wanted Ursula to have some relationships and character development. I did like her older sister Pamela and the way they interacted in all the various lives, and even in their childhood, Pamela and Ursula were interesting. Unfortunately, the book felt like it took months to describe the specifics of Ursula's wooden doll for example, and the specifics of Edwardian housekeeping just bored me.<br />
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Things got much livelier once Howie showed up, and the sequelae of that horrible experience were enraging. Poor Ursula had no idea what had happened to her, and had no idea that she could become pregnant. When it became obvious, her mother became terribly hateful about it, and poor Ursula didn't understand enough to defend herself. She ended up with an illegal abortion, which she also didn't understand. In a heartbreaking scene, she asked if the baby had been adopted by a nice couple--because she was completely ignorant about the entire process. (Ignorant= innocent in this time period I guess.)<br />
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She ended up in a terrible marriage with a violent and deceiving man who ended up killing her in a terrible scene of domestic violence. And in every scene, I was emotionally involved, rooting for Ursula to escape somehow.<br />
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Then there what felt like the bulk of the novel--Ursula's years in London during the Blitz. She served as a warden, whose job was to travel to bombed out buildings and rescue the living and tally the dead. This is a moving literary portrait of an important period of British history, but that's not really the novel I thought I had signed up for. So I got impatient. Her various lovers weren't particularly distinguishable from each other, nor were they terribly charming. There were perhaps too many characters, all of whom died in various iterations of war damage, none of whom I found I had much investment in--and neither did Ursula, particularly.<br />
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Maybe this was the problem for me--that the character of Ursula wasn't really visible or vivid, and the rest of the many (many many MANY) characters were even less developed. For example--the Todd family has five children: Maurice, Pamela, Ursula, Teddy and Jimmy, along with the parents (Sylvie and Hugh), the cook and maid, their husbands and sons, and an every rotating roster of family dogs.. Jimmy doesn't make any impact at all. and we are told that Teddy is everyone's favorite, but it's not clear why. In fact, if Teddy has any personality other than ownership of a train set, I don't remember it. Maurice is unlikeable, but it's not clear why he is any worse than anybody else--and I have to say that makes me wonder about Sylvie and Hugh. What kind of parents raise a child that they don't like?<br />
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Things get worse, as Maurice and Pamela marry and have children--Pamela ends up with five kids herself, and they are indistinguishable too. With all the jumping around in time, the reader has to keep up with so many dates, so many neighbors, so many co-workers and bomb shelter co-habitants, that it just gets hard to care about much of anybody.<br />
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This book raises an ontological question about its own existence. Is Atkinson trying to make a point about the nature of fiction? About the nature of religious belief? About the circumscribed choices available to women in the middle of the last century--that no matter how many times Ursula lives her life, she cannot avoid the damned shorthand secretarial course, because women really didn't have that many choices?<br />
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Each time Ursula dies, she simply returns to being born--there is no afterlife, no religious meaning. It's not really reincarnation, because she doesn't move through time, she just goes back to her own beginning. Death is cold and black, and then she is born on a cold, snowy night. There is a hint toward the very end of the book that other people also experience this serial living--in the last iteration of her birth story, Sylvie pulls out a pair of surgical scissors and cuts the strangling cord herself, saying "Practice makes perfect." I think Sylvie--and possibly others--have this same cyclical experience of life. Nancy Shawcross (one of the far too many Shawcross children who also mostly make no impression) is molested and killed by a limping tramp at about age 10--but in several iterations, Ursula manages to save her, so obviously she experiences alternative time lines too. We never know if she has the <i>deja vu</i>/precognition experiences Ursula has.<br />
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It's a great experiment in plot and genre bending, and it's worth reading. For me, it is fatally flawed because the characters are not engaging enough to make the slog through the period detail worthwhile. <i>Downton Abbey</i> is less fetishistic about the details of Edwardian life (and that's saying something!) while also keeping the story moving.<br />
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Two final notes. It appears that this book has been nominated for the Women's Prize (formerly the Orange Prize) alongside Hilary Mantel's <i>Bring Up The Bodies</i>--another book rife with period detail, but livelier in it's characterizations. In the end, neither one won--A. M. Holmes won for <i>May We Be Forgiven</i>, which was a complete surprise to me as I hadn't even heard of that book or that the award had been given already.<br />
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Also--<i>LIfe After Life</i> is being developed as a movie. I will watch that with interest to see what happens.Amy Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00085705321950169094noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22396877.post-89259741423450113412013-06-25T13:05:00.001-05:002013-06-25T13:05:38.630-05:00The Ocean at the End of the Lane, by Neil Gaiman<br />
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A lovely book, and lovely evocation of what it is like to be a child in a large world with rules a child doesn't really understand. And that applies to the world of adults as much as to the supernatural world that is the actual story.<br />
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The unnamed narrator has returned to his childhood landscape in Sussex. Now middle-aged, he is there for a funeral, but cannot bring himself to attend the reception afterwards. He finds himself at the old Hempstock farmhouse, where he slowly recovers the memory of what happened to him when he was seven, and he met Lettie Hempstock, who was eleven and had been for a very long time.<br />
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The titular ocean is a duck pond on the Hempstock farm which Lettie called her ocean. Of course, it is too small to be an ocean, because duck ponds are duck pond-sized, and oceans are ocean-sized. So says the narrator's father, and the book is designed to prove that practical view wrong. Because things are so much deeper and broader than they appear on the surface, and the Hempstocks' pond is only one of many such things.<br />
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This book has a lot in common with Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching books; the bucolic English setting, the uncanny things that lie beneath the surface of what can be seen, the way that the ordinary world is only a small part of the universe that it contains. Even the vague descriptions of the Big Bad are evocative of the way Pratchett only sketches things that aren't of this world, leaving the rest to the reader's imagination.<br />
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There are also "hunger birds" that bear a striking resemblance to the "reapers" from Doctor Who (the episode called "Father's Day").<br />
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However, I think this is fair to ascribe to a generic "English fairy tale" common ancestor, rather than any sort of plagiarism. Because on a small island with so much history, there IS a lot that is hidden under the surface, and it's more a cultural sensibility than a specific borrowing.<br />
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There are parts of this book that are absolutely stunning, mostly the specifically observed moments rather than the over-arching supernatural elements. The boy's fear and panic when his father dumps him into a cold bath and seems willing to drown him (the book blames this on the Big Bad, but maybe not?) There is a scene of cold-blooded practicality when the boy tries to dig something out of the sole of his foot that made me wince in sympathy and horror. I would have looked away if it had been a movie, but that doesn't work with a book!<br />
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My favorite part is probably the end, and the kindness Mrs. Hempstock shows to the middle-aged narrator. Being a child is hard, even when one is already grown up.<br />
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Definitely worth reading.<br />
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I do have a serious objection to the image on the cover, however. Both the seven year old narrator and Lettie get submerged in the ocean. Neither of them is a twenty-something woman wearing a hospital gown. </div>
Amy Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00085705321950169094noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22396877.post-20916257889203257322013-01-13T01:09:00.000-06:002013-01-13T01:09:10.331-06:00The Leftovers, by Tom PerrottaI gotta admit, I was kind of disappointed by this one.<br />
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A "Rapture-like event" has happened about three months before the opening of the novel, and millions of people around the world have simply disappeared. It's not generally accepted that this is <i>The</i> Rapture, since many of the taken weren't even Christian, or weren't especially good people even.<br />
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But they are gone now, and this is about the people who are left.<br />
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There is a short introduction that takes place three months after the event, while people are generally still stunned by their losses and trying to figure out What It All Means in a cosmic sense. Chapter One opens three years after that, after the failure of the world to be destroyed in Biblical fashion. Now those left behind simply have to carry on, however they can.<br />
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The plot is slight. The book focuses on the Garvey family, who hasn't actually lost anybody. A neighboring family lost their teen-aged daughter and the mother became unhinged by grief. She joined a cult, one of many that sprung up in the aftermath. Laurie Garvey drove her friend to the compound, then joined the cult herself a year later, leaving her husband Kevin, and two teens, Tom and Jill, to find their own way.<br />
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In some ways, the title and the Rapture-like event are really misleading. The book doesn't really grapple with religion at all, which you would think would be the case. I mean, if you are a Biblical literalist, you are going to have to figure out what your religion means. If people were literally taken up into heaven, but they weren't (for the most part) even Christian--what does that do you your understanding of the universe? Then, when the promised final days apocalypse doesn't happen, how do you reshape your way of life?<br />
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The Garveys are not even a little bit religious, and so their "loss" isn't the kind of immediately visceral kind that others in the book experienced. Laurie's friend's daughter disappeared. Laurie lost her own bearings, but we don't even see that, because she leaves her family and joins the cult in the time that doesn't get covered by the narrative.<br />
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So the Garveys' stories really aren't tied to this whole Revelation thing either. Which makes their story feel rather banal--Laurie might as well have left for another man, discovered she was gay, run off to find herself, or some other more quotidian type of family disruption. Merely a divorce would have been enough to cause Tom to lose his bearings in college. Jill fell in with a disruptive friend, and her school work suffered. Nothing apocalyptic necessary there either.<br />
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It feels like a bait and switch--that the whole Rapture thing is just a device to get to some stories about grief, stories that could have been told perfectly well without the Rapture being invoked at all. Dramatically, I don't think the book actually benefited from this high concept conceit.<br />
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Kevin finds himself lonely in the house of his marriage, with wife and older son gone. His teen aged daughter isn't around much, and the friend she invites to stay with them turns into a (brief) sexual temptation that he recognizes as inappropriate. Tom leaves college to follow a charismatic religious figure who turns out to be a serial pederast. His story about shepherding a pregnant "spiritual wife" of the disgraced figure is a blatantly obvious working of the Nativity, but with little or no point to it. Tom is already disenchanted with the leader by the time he gets the job, he's not suffering any spiritual crisis, and the girl is lovely but not really a fully realized character. She's got no real spiritual journey herself, and it's no real loss when she runs off and leaves the baby behind.<br />
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Kevin tries to have a relationship with a woman whose whole family disappeared in the rapture, but it doesn't work out. Post-divorce dating stories look a lot like this generally. Jill drinks and sleeps around in adolescent acting out ways, then gives it up as unfulfilling. Honestly--this is the kind of stuff that women write about all the time, and they don't get the kind of build up this book got.<br />
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The only plot that skirts religion is Laurie's, but her story is just incomprehensible. Perrotta doesn't really give us any insight as to why this particular woman would join a cult, especially one as fanatical as the Guilty Remnant. The members live together in overcrowded conditions, never speak, smoke constantly, and follow people around town to, I'm not sure, "shame" them for going about their normal lives? It's not clear what the belief system is for this group, or why an upper middle class middle aged woman would leave her family and join them.<br />
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The GR offer a sort of plot, in that one of them has been murdered, "execution style." Several months later, a second one is also found dead. There is apparently almost no crime in this particular town, so it's kind of sensational. It turns out that the GR hierarchy (of which there doesn't seem to be much--we don't ever learn who they are or how this gets decided) has decided to order these murders to be committed in the hopes of scaring the general population? Not sure what the end game is here, or how well this plan has been thought out. If GR cult members are getting murdered, why would anybody want to join this cult?<br />
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Of course, it's well written, of course there are touches and scenes that are well crafted and even touching. But the same can be said of books by Elizabeth Berg, or Anne Tyler, or any number of other writers. This book sells itself with a Big Idea, then buries the story in favor of a fairly ordinary family drama. I would probably have liked it better if it had been brave enough to understand that was all it was.<br />
Amy Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00085705321950169094noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22396877.post-9274031470098400332012-08-13T21:40:00.004-05:002012-08-13T21:40:46.644-05:00The Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I've had this book on my shelf for nearly a year, and just couldn't push past the first chapter. It was distanced, somehow, as though the characters were just not interesting to her. There was little of the exuberance of language I associate with her, and the people at the center of the story were so boring, unpleasant, aloof. It was hard to engage with this book.<br />
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I persevered, and finished it, but I'm not really willing to recommend it. Kingsolver is attempting some new things in this book, there are some formal innovations that are different from other works, and there are parts that zing with the obvious interest the topics have for her. However, too much of it feels like scaffolding designed to support those zingy sections, and it's a lot of work for not much pay-off. "Not much pay-off" being scaled entirely in relation to the other books of hers I have read.<br />
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The book follows the life of one (fictional) William Harrison Shepherd (1916-195?), the son of a (mostly absent) American father and a social climbing Mexican mother. Shepherd's mother has launched an affair with a wealthy Mexican landowner and has dragged her young son to the hacienda where she tries to divorce her American husband and entice her Mexican lover to marry her. Young Shepherd is left to his own devices mostly, so he learns to cook from the kitchen staff, he swims in the ocean, and he reads books in lieu of school. This is the dreary life of the first chapter, and it's really not promising. I had hopes for the titular "Lacuna" which Shepherd finds while swimming--there is a cave opening just below the surface of the water that goes through a small island and ends in a small natural well in the center of the island. It requires significant breath control and the assistance of the full moon to make the journey without drowning.<br />
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Of course, a "lacuna" is a gap, a space, a void, and Shepherd is himself the embodiment of a void, a character so devoid of character or action as to nearly be missing from his own life story. Because this book is his life story, told through the device of his life-long personal journals, most of which chronicle the world around him while failing to include his own thoughts and feelings. As such he moves through history, the cut-out of a human figure, conveniently turning up wherever Kingsolver wishes to record a historical event. After far too many pages chronicling Shepherd's lack of education and his dysfunctional mother, Kingsolver packs him off to a short stint in boarding school in DC in order to have him witness the Bonus Army riots. That accomplished, he's sent back to Mexico City, where he meets Diego Rivera and uses his baking techniques to mix plaster for Rivera's monumental murals. He ends up as a cook in the Rivera-Kahlo household and subsequently a typist as well during the residency of Leon Trotsky. He witnesses Trotsky's assassination, and again ends up in the US in time to be disqualified from active service in WWII due to (mostly theoretical) homosexuality.<br />
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Eventually he ends up a confirmed bachelor in a small house in Ashville, North Carolina, and he writes three novels drawn from the folklore of Mexico's past--Cortes versus the Aztecs, the Mayan migrations. These are presented as thrillers, but they are also barely veiled social commentary: soldiers bear the brunt of war, any improvement in weapons technology will foster an arms race, the kind of obvious "message" that the worst of third season <i>Star Trek</i> used to carry. During this period, he hires a secretary named Violet Brown who is a sassy Scottish hillswoman. It is this vaguely presented national background that (barely) saves her from being a cliche--she is neither a Sassy Gay Best Friend nor a Magic Negro/Sassy Black Woman only because she is an asexual white woman of a certain age. However, it is appallingly easy to imagine her being played by Octavia Spencer in Minnie Jackson mode (from <i>The Help).</i><br />
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Predictably, Shepherd runs afoul of the HUAC during the Red Scare--he lived and worked with several of the most internationally well-known communists outside of the Soviet Union--and he gets hauled up before a Congressional Committee. He arranges his affairs, takes Violet on a trip to Mexico, and dies while swimming in the place he lived as a child.<br />
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Yes, of course there is no body. Kingsolver doesn't bother to be very subtle about making it plan that Shepherd fakes his own death and goes back to cook for Frida Kahlo. (He escapes by swimming into the lacuna he found as a child, and then presumably hides until the search for his body is called off, then works his way back to Mexico City and Frida.) Violet returns to North Carolina, where she prepares all the diaries into the book we are reading.<br />
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So, that's the plot--Everyman experiencing several major events of Historical Import. But there is surely more going on--this is <i>Barbara Kingsolver</i> we are talking about, and she doesn't just do pot-boiler, or survey of early 20th century Mexican-American relations. In the addenda at the back of the book, there is a brief interview with the author, in which she describes what she is doing as exploring the nexus of art and politics. How is it that Diego Rivera can be overtly political, while Shepherd is not? How do the shifting winds of political fashion affect the reception of art? The book is at its sharpest (and is most worth reading) in the passages where Shepherd muses on how the shared sacrifice of war efforts molded America into something closer to Trotsky's imagined utopia than the Soviet Union ever achieved. The end of the war is painted as an inevitable return to class strife, as manufacturers strive to grab the dollars that went unspent during the war. Shepherd realizes that as consumer goods become available again, they will go first to the wealthy who will pay premium prices for new refrigerators and cars, leaving behind the camaraderie of the war years where everybody shared in sacrifice for a better future.<br />
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The other section that is really worth reading are the years of the Red Scare. Kingsolver is very very good at capturing the ease with which public opinion is spun, how a quiet gentlemanly writer of light fiction can suddenly become a threat to the nation. A single line of dialogue in one of his books is pulled out of context and used to make Shepherd look like an incendiary revolutionary. How does this happen, Shepherd asks, bewildered by the sudden shift in the culture? Violet Brown describes it as the inevitable aftermath of winning a war, a need grown out of the fear of war to define what it means to be "American."<br />
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The testimony Shepherd is called to give before the HUAC captures beautifully the way hearings are staged to look like fact-finding inquiries, but are political theater designed to allow Congressmen to score rhetorical points in front of a national audience. Poor Shepherd is peppered with multi-part questions dripping with innuendo, and then commanded to answer only "yes" or "no." For example, this colloquy on Shepherd's role in accompanying several of Frida Kahlo's paintings to New York to assure their safe arrival.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Mr. Ravenner. Did you know precisly what you were transporting? Did you pack these crates yourself?<br />
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Mr. Shepherd: No. I had a roster with the names of the paintings.<br />
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Mr. Ravenner: You smuggled large crates of unknown content into this country? From the headquarters of some of the most dangerous Communists in any country touching our borders. Is that correct?</blockquote>
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Of course the questioning goes on to cast Kahlo's paintings (which were not "smuggled" but legally transported, but these are theatrical times) as "Communist propaganda" and "concealed objects." Obviously, the purpose of these hearings is to make Congress look like it is successfully protecting the nation against dangerous criminals. And you have to <i>find</i> these criminals in order to look effective, even if you have to manufacture their misdeeds. Of course it is frightening to see how easy it is to use innuendo and charged words to change the meaning of whatever actions are being examined. With the assassination of Trotsky, Kingsolver points out how easily the newspapers could accept a story that Trotsky planned his own death in order to gain publicity for his cause. This twisting of "fact" to fit political fashion of the time not new, and Kingsolver tries to mine the abuses of yellow journalism for outrage, but doesn't quite manage it (for me) until the FBI starts "finding" enemies of the state.<br />
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There are clues that Kingsolver wants to connect the Red Scare to more current events--probably to the build-up to the Iraq War after 9/11 and the false case of WMDs. Certainly, Shepherd's books about the ancient Aztecs include commentary on the then-current issues like the use of nuclear weapons, and so one looks for ways in which this book uses the events of 1920-1950 to comment on 21st century politics. However, the parallel doesn't quite gel. The vivid way she writes about the perversion of mid-century witch-hunting and the twisting of fact to fit a political agenda should make us wary of what in the book is "true" and what is "interpretation"--yet I never got the sense that she intended Shepherd's impressions to be anything but honest reportage. He is too boring to be an unreliable narrator, at least in a literary sense. His view of world events might be limited, but they are never less than unbiased and clearly reported.<br />
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Which is a bit too bad--the themes of politics and art might have been more fun to sort through if her characters were slightly more twisty themselves. On the whole, the book rather suffers from being just too earnest--Trotsky was <i>such a nice</i> man, surely his political theory would have been a nicer way to live--and straightforward.<br />
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There are hints that the book was perhaps a little bit rushed as well. Specifically, I sensed a missed opportunity for the kind of lush writing I go to Kingsolver to find. In the last quarter of the book, Shepherd travels to Chichen Itza to research Mayan culture for his third novel. There is a brief travelogue, with some rushed descriptions, but none of the lovingly detailed prose that she gave us in <i>Prodigal Summer</i> for example.<br />
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Then, sometime later, Violet Brown summons up a moment in flashback. Remember, she says, how we sat at the top of El Castillo at Chichen Itza, and suddenly the light changed. Everything was still the same, all the buildings, all the trees, but it suddenly all looked different. (Obviously, this is paraphrased.) Imagine how this scene might have been rendered if Kingsolver had shown it to us as it happened, not a rushed memory used to make a point about McCarthyism, but if she had really described how the view from the top looked, and then what the shifting light did--how the shadows changed color or direction, how things that had been foregrounded seemed to efface themselves and revealed new mysteries, new perspectives. The woman who wrote about the lush flora of Appalachia in <i>Prodigal Summer</i> really could have brought this scene to life and made it a deeply memorable experience. Instead, she evoked it and discarded it only a few words. <br /><br />I wish she had given us that scene. That would have merited her talents.<br />
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It's a fine book, it has some ideas to present, but it just doesn't shimmer like I expect a Kingsolver book to do. I enjoyed it as I read it, but it's definitely a lesser achievement from a writer who can do much more wonderful things.<br />
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I see that she has a new book coming out this fall, called <i>Flight Behavior. </i>It is set back in Appalachia, and has been described as taking on matters of faith and climate change. I'll probably read that one too, eventually, but I'm not going to put it on pre-order, not after the middling experience of <i>The Lacuna</i>. Amy Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00085705321950169094noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22396877.post-12984224175884313192012-08-05T01:56:00.000-05:002012-08-05T01:56:08.337-05:00Broken Harbor, by Tana FrenchThe fourth book of the Dublin Murder Squad series, this book follows French's M.O.--select a secondary character from the previous book, and feature him/her; and use a murder investigation to document the psychological unraveling of that character.<br />
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In her brilliant debut novel <i>In The Woods</i>, French gave us the double mystery of what happened to Rob Ryan, as he tries to solve a murder with his partner Cassie Maddox. The current murder takes place in the area where Rob lived as a child, where he was found traumatized and bloody, where his two best friends disappeared and were never found. <i>The Likeness</i> gave us Cassie Maddox going undercover to impersonate a woman who was found dead, trying to solve that murder by recreating the dead woman's life and then living it. <i>Faithful Place</i> took Cassie's boss Frank Mackey, and force him to confront the fact that the woman he planned to elope with stood him up. Except she didn't. (Yeah, spoiler. Technically. There is no way Tana French wasn't going to twist <i>that</i> plot up.)<br />
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Now we have Mick "Scorcher" Kennedy, who I don't remember at all from <i>Faithful Place</i>. He's a rules guy, straight and narrow, which we learn over the course of the book is his way of dealing with the chaos of his life. It's almost talismanic, the way he counts on rules to keep him safe. Of course, over the course of a French book, the hero is going to find out that what he counts on to make sense of the world isn't going to work when placed in the pressure cooker of a murder investigation.<br />
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This one is hard, because there are kids. Two young kids, maybe 6 and 4, smothered in their beds, their parents stabbed in the kitchen downstairs. Against the odds, the mother may survive. Scorcher has a rookie partner, Richie Curran: he likes having rookies for partners, because they allow him more control over the investigation. He also has a past in this location--Broken Harbor was where his family would camp for two weeks at the end of each summer until the summer his mother walked into the water.<br />
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Twenty some years later, it's been renamed "Brianstown" by the developers who planned a glamorous multi-purpose, all-inclusive community until the market collapsed in 2008 and the left, leaving most of the estate unfinished and uninhabited. Only four families remained on the property, prisoners of a housing market where they owed more than the houses were worth, the developers cut corners and can't be located. And now the multiple murders of the Spains, Pat and Jenny and their two kids, haunt the eerie location.<br />
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Part of the pathos of the Spains' deaths is that they obviously were people who "tried." The house was beautifully furnished and maintained, they themselves were lovely, they seemed to be doing everything they were supposed to. So why were there holes cut into the walls all over the house? Why were there baby monitors scattered around?<br />
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As in her other three books, French is less interested in "whodunnit" or even "whydunnit" as teasing out the slow psychological disintegration that makes the unthinkable something that someone can think--and can actually do. What forces make decent people stop following the rules for civilized behavior and cross their own lines?<br />
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For Scorcher, it's the accumulation of pressures. Not only does he have this creepy case, which would be bad enough, he's also got the echoes of his own traumatic loss that resonate throughout the case. Plus he's got a younger sister who has an unspecified "madness" who shows up and demands his attention. In the four days covered by the book, he gets only a few hours of sleep, and he becomes increasingly disoriented as the pressures build. He needs to lean ever harder on his fundamental belief that if he toes the line, follows the rules, everything will turn out right.<br />
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But the Spains disprove that belief, because they did everything "right," they invested deeply into the way people are "supposed" to live. They met and married young, they adored each other, they had two beautiful children. Pat had a prestigious job that earned enough that Jenny could stay home with the children. They drove the right cars, had the right parties, wore the right clothes, invested in home ownership so they could get onto "the property ladder" because kids need a house and a yard to play in. Jenny made herself into the perfect housewife, even switching out scented candles with the seasons. Then the economy collapsed, Pat lost his job and couldn't find another one, and they ended up dead.<br />
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By my estimate, French uses the first two thirds of the book to establish the set up. We follow the police procedures as they try to make sense of the Spain puzzle. We get the slow buildup of threat--the way the house was beginning to collapse from its shoddy construction is a metaphor for Scorcher's life and the Irish economy. Shaky foundations can't be corrected by scented candles. But Scorcher can't confront the shaky foundation of his own life--he doesn't dare to. He has to believe that his younger sister's mental condition was caused by their mother's suicide. He needs to believe in cause and effect to keep faith in his own sanity, and so he begins to identify with Pat Spain, the man who played by the rules. So Scorcher resists the evidence that would implicate Pat as the murderer, and insists on pinning the deaths on a loner, Conor, who had loved Jenny since they were teens. Conor had his own personal financial crisis, and had taken to hiding in an empty building on the estate where he could watch Pat and Jenny enact the kind of perfect life he dreamed of for himself. Early on, he is arrested and then he confesses to the murders.<br />
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Even as he celebrates the solve, Scorcher can't stop questioning. There are too many loose ends, and anyway his partner doesn't think Conor did it. Curran wants to keep investigating Pat as the killer, and the pressure he puts on Scorcher isn't helping. Why are there holes in the walls, anyway? Who wiped the browser history from the computer and why? Why did the killer use a kitchen knife rather than bringing his own weapon? Scorcher begins to deviate from his rules--instead of accepting the simplest explanation, he spins a baroque fantasia about Conor launching a campaign to drive Pat insane, involving remote control mp3 players and speakers run into the walls of the house. Scorcher doesn't quite see that Curran is beginning to pity him, worry for him, and that compassion ruins everybody.<br />
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Because, of course, it wasn't Conor who killed the Spains, and it wasn't Pat either. It was Jenny. Jenny who caved into the psychological pressure of watching her husband become unmoored. Pat became convinced that there was an animal living in the attic, and he began posting at various websites trying to get some advice. And because this is the internet, as well as a French novel, the responses are indeterminate. As the months go by, Pat stops searching for work and slowly falls into his own obsession. He becomes convinced that his own worth as a husband and father is inextricably bound up in capturing this animal. Not boarding up the access hole in the attic, but capturing it. First he wants to protect his family, but as the weeks go by with no physical evidence of the animal, he needs to demonstrate to Jenny that it is real. He needs to show her that he is fighting a real wild animal, and as he hears it moving in the walls, he cuts holes and sets up video baby monitors hoping to catch sight of it. Obviously he has moved away from protecting his family--if this animal is in the walls, now it can get out at reach the family.<br />
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But Pat can't see that. He has become completely absorbed in this one-on-one battle with the wilderness, exemplified by this animal. Soon he moves into territory that would frighten me to death if I were Jenny. He buys a leg trap and sets it up in the attic. He buys live bait--a mouse from a pet store that he sticks to a glue trap and then places in the attic with the trap door open. His plan is to capture the animal in this enormous trap and watch it as it dies. This is where Jenny should take the kids and move to her sister's house, honestly. Pat is completely divorced from family life, chasing this animal and staying up all night watching the monitors and haunting internet chat rooms. Although they have almost no money left, he starts buying electronic equipment to capture this animal.<br />
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The final straw comes when Emma comes home with a picture of her house, and she has drawn a large black animal with glowing eyes in a tree in the yard. Jenny does not believe in this animal, and while she has indulged her husband's weird hobby, now he has tainted the children with it, and she no longer has any emotional reserves left. She snaps, and the mantra she has is "we have to get out of here." So she goes upstairs and smothers the children. She then goes into the kitchen, where Pat has stuck his own hand into one of the holes he's cut into the walls, using himself as live bait. In his other hand, he has a large kitchen knife. Jenny takes the knife and begins to stab Pat. They struggle, and although she is physically outmatched, she is determined and she gets lucky and kills him. However, she's exhausted, and she can't finish the job on herself. This is when Conor rushes in--he's seen the struggle from his hide-out, and he's too late to save his friend. Jenny doesn't want to live, and she asks him to finish her off. There is time pressure, you see--she wants to join her family before they move on without her.<br />
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He loves her, he loves Pat, and so he tries. But he's not ruthless enough, and so she survives. It is Conor who also tries to save Pat's posthumous reputation by wiping the computer history. His final act is to confess to the murders, to save Jenny the horror of realize what she has done.<br />
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Richie Curran has also traveled a morally ambiguous road. He knows that there is nothing the justice system can do to Jenny that is worse than her having to live with the deaths of her family.She is "already writing the note." At the first chance, she will finish the job and kill herself. Scorcher won't allow that--he's got his own issues with suicide, and he's determined to arrest her and convict her, in the hopes that she will get medical treatment and can come out the other end with something to live for. Richie wants to let her go, let her kill herself.<br />
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This is an interesting debate to have, as it completely reversed the "Golden Age" detective novel approach. In particular, there is a Dorothy Sayers novel where Lord Peter Wimsey asks the murderer to "do the right thing" to spare his wife and children the horror of being revealed as a murderer. The man walks into traffic and dies--and the clear authorial stance is that this was the Right Thing to Do. There is some nonsense wiht a piece of evidence--one of Jenny's fingernails and a thread from her daughter's pillow turned up in Conor's apartment. Curran found it, but didn't turn it in as he debated with himself the "right thing to do." He doesn't share Scorcher's fervent believe in the proper operation of the system, and he thinks that it might be better to let Pat be blamed for the deaths, and leave Jenny free to take her own life.<br />
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Of course, we already know that Scorcher has over-identified with Pat, and he simply cannot allow Pat to be thought of as a murderer--even through the man is dead and really, what would it matter to him? And this is where it all unravels. Because Curran got the evidence tainted, and that was enough to bust him back into uniform. Harsh and a great loss, since Curran was a very very good detective, very good at figuring out what happened. However, he was not a good murder cop, because he was not willing to play his role in the larger system. He wanted to act on his own recognizance, his own belief as to the "right" thing to do. You really can't have that or the system collapses.<br />
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So now Scorcher has to manufacture his own evidence, in order to put the case back on teh right path. He has to enlist Jenny's sister in the play of "discovering" a piece of Jenny's jewelry and "remembering" she had picked it up at the crime scene. And this is the destruction of Scorcher's career, because now he knows how easy it is to cross those lines, and he can't trust himself not to cross them again.<br />
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French is really up to more than merely writing a well-crafted detective story, and I kept sensing parallels to her break-out <i>In The Woods</i>, most powerfully the use of the unseen animal. In the first book, the young Rob Ryan was found frozen against a tree, his fingers digging into the bark. There was blood in his shoes, that soaked into his socks, and four tears in his shirt but no marks on his skin. There is some hint that perhaps an animal may have made the scratches, and that animal may have killed his friends, but the solution is never spelled out. Similarly, in <i>Broken Harbor</i> there is the unseen animal that Pat is chasing, there are even sets of scratch marks on the beams in the attic, but no corresponding animal tracks or scat. They are both traumatized by something nobody else can see. They have both engaged in a life-and-death battle with the unseen and lost.<br />
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What can we make of this? To be honest, my memory of <i>In The Woods</i> is pretty spotty, and I find I didn't blog any of these books when I read them. But there is something edging around the procedurals, something that is entirely the opposite of the nature of a detective novel. There is wildness and disorder, and while the police bag and tag and assemble the facts, there is a spirit that can't be contained in the sterile procedures of forensics. I suspect that some of this is truly metaphorical--that these men stand as a last defense of order in the face of chaos, and their bespoke suits and natty ties are a means of rebuking the wildness of things with claws that scratch. I also think there is an element of wordplay here. Were the Spains killed by an outsider? No, their destruction came from "within their own walls." Similarly, <i>In The Woods</i> forced Rob Ryan to excavate his own forgotten past as he investigated a murder <i>on an archeological site</i>. That's almost straight past literary construction and right back to being literally obvious.<br />
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What makes killers strike? What is going on inside their heads that they can lose touch with civilization to such a degree? Pat lost his family when he began to ignore them and obsess over "beating" this animal that only he could see. What led him to that level of madness? Would it have happened if he hadn't lost his job? Probably not. So once he lost the ability to protect his family financially, he had to protect them physically--but there was no solid enemy he could confront. It was a creature of smoke and mirrors.<br />
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There is a rot at the heart of both books, a corruption of the surrounding systems. It's the politicians and land developers who stand to make fortunes from land speculation and bribes when an expressway is planned. The past has to get out of the way of the future, as the archeological site is going to be obliterated by the new road, and no one will authorize moving the road to protect their history, because there is too much money at stake. Similarly, in <i>Broken Harbor</i>, the land developers sold a promise that they did not deliver, and they disappeared with the money. There is something venal and greedy at the heart of both these books that preys on the unwitting people who wander into its path. This could be what the elusive animals refer to as well.<br />
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Rob Ryan never understands what happened in his past. Scorcher Kennedy never looks at the video recordings to see if there ever was an animal at the Spains. I'm not entirely sure what Franch means by these undocumented animals, but she definitely means <i>something</i>.<br />
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I completely recommend the entire series of books. There is a lot going on in each of them, and I suspect there is a lot going on between them. Right now, I'm not smart enough to fully recognize what all that is.<br />
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<br />Amy Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00085705321950169094noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22396877.post-36353900202788021012012-08-03T22:22:00.002-05:002012-08-03T22:22:39.737-05:00Because I Am An IdiotBack when velociraptors ran Blogger, I used to get an email of any comments posted to the blog. Somehow I didn't notice that had changed, and until I clicked on something I have never clicked on before, I didn't realize there were such thoughtful commenters reading this blog!<br />
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So I want to say thank you for reading, and thank you for posting. I would love to respond--now that I know you are there! I read every comment, and I will try to answer any questions.<br />
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But most of all--thank you!Amy Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00085705321950169094noreply@blogger.com44tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22396877.post-39846022998084466312012-07-30T23:59:00.000-05:002012-07-30T23:59:12.287-05:00Sharp Objects, by Gillian Flynn<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I had heard good things about this book <i>before</i> <i>Gone Girl</i> came roaring out of the chute. After devouring that book, I picked this one up too.<br />
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Not as good as <i>Gone Girl</i>, but nicely astringent and a solid fast read.<br />
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Camille Preasker is a middling reporter on a fourth rate newspaper in Chicago, not quite living up to her potential when news of two sensational murders in her small Missouri hometown comes across the wires. Her editor sends her off, hoping to inspire her to the greatness he believes her capable of, and boosting the paper's reputation as well. The murders--two thirteen year old girls, killed about a year apart, and all their teeth pulled out. To secure her future, Camille has to return to her past.<br />
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It's a nasty place, Wind Gap, Missouri, in the boot heel of the state, full of generations of nasty cliquey girls who grow up to be nasty, cliquey women, travelling the same roads as their mothers had. Really, there are hardly any men in this story at all--it's like a cross between <i>Mean Girls</i> and the ABC Family show "Bunheads" with murder thrown in.<br />
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Flynn is a taut writer, and she doesn't tip her hand too early generally. We learn that Camille has a distant relationship with her mother, but we experience the odd formality between them before Flynn gives us the downlow. We are gently teased with hints of the family pathology--just who is this "Marian" that appears in a photo with a young Camille? What is the story with her father? What is going on in this town and this family?<br />
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There is a little flabbiness--the town sheriff mostly disappears after having been introduced and doesn't seem to be very engaged in solving these murders. There is a detective on loan from Kansas City who becomes a love interest, but the attraction between them is not really well developed to the point that when Camille accuses him of using her to get information you can't help but think "Well, duh!" And also, "I'm rubber, you're glue." Because really, there was no softer feeling between them--they drank hard together, tried to get information without giving to much away, and had sex. Pretty much equal opportunity opportunism.<br />
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Slowly, Camille reacclimates to the town, and as she does, she loses her precarious confidence, sliding back into her childhood role at home and by the end, basically doing whatever she is asked in hopes of being loved and accepted by her mother and half sister. And so we see her move from simply writing words on her arm, to having to actively resist cutting, to hacking at the last bit of unmarked skin (other than her face). She wrestles with unresolved grief over the death of her sister Marian two decades before, with meeting her much younger half sister (born after Camille moved away to college) and developing a relationship with her. Flynn takes her time, showing the rampant alcohol, drug, and sexual abuse that everybody seems to engage in to deal with the overwhelming dreariness of small town life.<br />
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Meanwhile, the murder investigation takes place mostly off-stage: Camille isn't tasked with solving the case, just with finding stories to report. It's a decent solution to the "amateur detective" problem, which is that police don't tend to allow just anyone to meddle in an investigation--because they have to preserve the integrity of the evidence in order to get a conviction. (Most mystery novels are concerned with just solving the puzzle of whodunit--police actually have to know the "truth" and be able to prove it up in court.) So Camille wanders around town, talks to different people, giving us a view into the hierarchies that get established in middle school and play out the rest of these people's lives.<br />
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In the end, we see the madness that dominates Camille's mother--it's Munchausen's by Proxy, the systematic infliction of illness of a child so the mother can look like a saint and benefit from the attendant approbation and attention. Of course, Camille's mother is a textbook case of it, and that's what killed Marian. Adora (the mother) is also arrested for the murders of the two girls, and Camille takes her young half sister Amma back to Chicago with her.<br />
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There is a brief coda in Chicago that really could have been fleshed out more, and would have been in something that was attempting to be more literary than this book, where Camille has to confront her own potential for repeating her mother's pathology. Amma gets sick, and Camille wages an internal battle over whether to give the girl aspirin for her fever. Is there an unhealthy joy she is experiencing from being able to take care of this girl? Amma makes a friend in her new school, but that friendship quickly sours and Amma starts remaining in her room when Lily comes around. Then Lily is found dead, six teeth missing, shoved in a space similar to that of the second girl back in Wind Gap.<br />
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That's right--Amma killed those two girls with her clique of three precocious blonde minions. There were a lot of hints that it must have been Adora, which is obviously not the answer, since this is a <i>novel</i> and so there has to be a twist. The teeth? Amma had a dollhouse that was designed to be an exact replica of Adora's house, and Adora's bedroom had an ancient and rare ivory floor--Amma used the teeth to replicate the tile in the corresponding room of the dollhouse.<br />
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This last twist was fast and sharp, but not entirely satisfying because it was presented as an epilogue, including the confessions of the other three girls. In contrast, the last section of <i>Gone Girl</i> was the most harrowing--after all the twists, Flynn spent time exploring the emotional resonances in the aftermath of her characters' sociopathy. That would have been the Real Meat of this book as well--after Camille comes to the realization of just how messed up her own childhood was, she has to untangle Amma's culpability and her own feelings about it as Amma's deeds come to light.<br />
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So--definitely a fun read, and an exciting debut, but not the sure-footed work that <i>Gone Girl</i> is. If you only have time for one Gillian Flynn book--read that one.Amy Adamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00085705321950169094noreply@blogger.com21