This book is funny, vivid, disturbing, heartrending, illuminating, and definitely worth putting on your to-read list. I'm not sure I'm going to get aroThis book is funny, vivid, disturbing, heartrending, illuminating, and definitely worth putting on your to-read list. I'm not sure I'm going to get around to reviewing it, so here's a (really interesting) interview with the author instead. http://vietnguyen.info/2015/viet-than......more
Definitely not the best of the Gunther series, but it got me reading up on the Cambridge Five. I'm not sure what to make of the portrayal of W. ~3.5.
Definitely not the best of the Gunther series, but it got me reading up on the Cambridge Five. I'm not sure what to make of the portrayal of W. Somerset Maugham and associates. I can't believe he was really so caricatured and camp, and I found myself thinking less of Kerr for following such extreme stereotypes for all of the gay characters in the book. I'm getting tired of Guther's womanizing, and the ending was somewhat predictable, if only because it follows the pattern set out by the rest of the books in the series.
While I personally believe Gunther and his subversive viewpoints wouldn't have survived ten minutes in Nazi Germany in real life, it's always interesting to read of the Nazi regime through his eyes. This story focuses heavily on the MV Wilhelm Gustloff and the prelude to the Battle of Königsberg, as well as the lost Amber Room of Russia....more
"It's not in the facts we live, but in the memories."
House of War and Witness was suspenseful in a unique way: from the outset, I could predict how th
"It's not in the facts we live, but in the memories."
House of War and Witness was suspenseful in a unique way: from the outset, I could predict how the story would end, who would live and who would die, yet even so, I found myself thoroughly engrossed, the plot made no less suspenseful by an outcome foreseen. (view spoiler)[The ghosts, Magda in particular, make Drozde's eventual fate clear from the outcome, when they talk about what she always says and say it's so good to see her "like this...this is a special time, and it's so short."(hide spoiler)] While the setting is very different, thematically, it reminded me strongly of Steel Seraglio: like Seraglio, it is a story about storytelling, the greater plot fueled by smaller tales.
The story starts gently enough. A regiment of Austrian soldiers is sent to a rural village on the border of Austria, ostensibly to shore up support for Archduchess Maria Theresa, but also to ensure that the village does not change its allegiances. Another regiment had been posted to the village, but had disappeared, and the frail and rather ineffective Lieutenant Klaes is tasked with discovering unearthing the secrets that the village is concealing. Drozde, a camp follower and mistress of the regiment's quartermaster, Sergeant Molebacher, sets out to make the old mansion that the regiment will use as a home base livable. Although Drozde is used to ghosts--she has seen them all her life-- she is shocked by the number and vividness of the spirits inhabiting the old house. As the ghosts begin to share their stories with her, tensions between the regiment and the village begin to mount, and the true natures of the characters are revealed.
The larger plot naturally wraps itself around the stories of the town, for Drozde's very business is stories. While she receives protection and legitimacy by selling her body, most of her earnings come from the daring and raunchy puppet shows she puts on for the regiment. As she thinks:
"Of all the stories she told, the most important was the story that her stories were indispensable. Without that, she was just a grown woman who'd never put away her dolls."
Chapters told by ghosts and townsfolk intersperse sections told from the perspectives of Drozde and Klaes, and these tales both break up and propel the main plot. Not all of the storytellers are good people; as one puts it:
"This is a story about choices, and I'll never know whether the choices that were made were right or wrong."
All of the stories are vivid and varied, ranging widely over time and tone, yet many are unified by a common theme: that of violence stemming from possessiveness and control. The repetition of choking fear, of victimization, of violence against women, can make for a difficult narrative, and I was often frustrated by the obtuseness of the characters and their inability to realize the dire and damaging nature of their situations. (view spoiler)[In the opening pages, Drozde's coquette puppet is damaged, her face scratched and nose broken. Molebacher tells her she should be more careful with her things, and yet she doesn't pick up on the obvious threat. (hide spoiler)] For me, the true stifling agony of the book was the invasive sense of powerlessness shared by the protagonists. As one character thinks,
"That was life, in small [...] you spent it grubbing desperately for the physical things that would prolong it. For food mainly, and then if you were lucky enough to be fed, for shelter. And all the time in between you spent dreaming of places you couldn't go and things you could never have. You used it up trying to fit yourself into the spaces that would work, instead of unfolding yourself into the space that was yours and then seeing where that took you."
Even though many of story's scenes are comic, the other overarching themes are often dark and intense. Apart from the choking aspects of possessiveness and powerlessness, it deals with the corruption of authority, the construction of an enemy, and the definition of duty. Yet even here, the characters' lack of agency reverberates. Within the hierarchical structure of the military, there are stringent limits to what one man--or woman-- can achieve. As one character tries to explain to another who seeks to choose "the path that leads to the least bloodshed":
"That's not in your power to choose."
Yet despite poignancy and tragedy, the story is ultimately uplifting: their agency may be limited, but indirectly, they have the power to change the world. Even when all choices appear to be blocked, the characters find a way to move the world around them instead. The House of War and Witness is a story that glories in the power of stories, and I was utterly captivated.
~4.5
~~I received an advanced reader copy of this ebook through Netgalley from the publisher, Diamond Book Distributors, in exchange for my honest review. Thanks!~~
In Sorcerer to the Crown, comedy of manners meets fairyland, and the result is pure unadulterated fun. The story takes place in an alternate reality wIn Sorcerer to the Crown, comedy of manners meets fairyland, and the result is pure unadulterated fun. The story takes place in an alternate reality where magic, once a primary occupation in the best of families, is slowly falling out of favour as England’s atmospheric magic dries up. While the nonmagical part of society may be preoccupied by their victories and failures in the Napoleonic war, magical society is engrossed by scandal. Sir Stephen, the old Sorcerer to the Crown, has died under mysterious circumstances, his familiar has disappeared, and the man who has taken up the staff is none other than an emancipated slave Sir Stephen picked up on his travels and raised as a thaumaturge. Zacharias himself never wanted to be Sorcerer to the Crown; he’d much rather continue his research into restoring England’s atmospheric magic. Instead, his new role throws him into imperialistic politics, plots against his life, meetings with the Fairy Court, and, most frightening of all, giving a speech at a school of gentlewitches on the dangers of magic.
Sorcerer to the Crown is definitely a comedy of manners, and I think it very successfully integrates some shoutouts to authors such as Austen, Wodehouse, and even Hornug. Although the entire sequence of events is triggered by a speaking visit to a girl’s school (Yes, I see what you did there), the greatest influence upon style and plot is definitely Austen. I’m not generally fond of Austenesque alternate magical realities, but Cho really did her research and has created a charming book with much of the amusing commentary as the authors she references:
”Can you conceive of anything more absurd? [...] He might as well seek to persuade us that a pig can fly--or a woman can do magic!” The friend observed that so could pigs fly, if one could be troubled to make them. “Oh, certainly!” replied the first. “And one could teach a woman to do magic, I supposed, but what earthly good would a flying pig or a magical female be to anyone?”
It’s been over a decade since I’ve read it and the book is exceedingly dim in my memory, but I think if you enjoyed Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell and are (still) waiting anxiously for the sequel, Sorcerer to the Crown is definitely worth a look. From my very vague recollections and a helpful recap from a friend, there are certain similarities in the plot, including the heavy focus on parties and politics and the ways in which these familiar themes are altered by the presence of magic. Sure, Regency or Napoleonic fantasy stories are dime a dozen, but I think Cho’s story is elevated from the rest of the rank and file by her examination of political issues surrounding racism and sexism. In Zacharias’s world, women are considered “too delicate” for magic, and are strongly discouraged from practicing it. The other major character, the “inconveniently magical” Prunella, is forced to make a decision between practicing her craft and finding a functioning place in society, and she is coldly pragmatic about her options. Both Prunella and Zacharias are pioneers for their minority in the area of magic, and Cho deftly presents the pressures they face to be “model minorities.” Zacharias, in particular, has been subject to endemic racism all his life, exoticised, belittled, and dismissed. Sir Stephen’s advice to him was always to simply take it, to never lose his courtesy, and to outperform and defy expectations. Cho touches upon the stifling weight of responsibility that Zacharias lives under. As he says at one point,
"I would not have been rescued from my bondage if not for Sir Stephen’s conviction that he could make of me something extraordinary. I was told that I must prove the African’s ability to English thaumaturgy."
As a pioneer in diversity, Zacharias is tasked with the responsibility of the magical reputation of his entire race. Prunella faces similar issues, but she is far less willing to accept such an unfair burden and instead uses all the ”amoral ingenuity” she possesses to remove such obstacles in her path.
If you’re looking for a gentle, often silly story of Napoleonic-era magic that still manages to dip into some more interesting themes, then Sorcerer to the Crown is definitely worth a look.
~~I received an advanced reader copy through Netgalley from the publisher, Penguin Group, in exchange for my honest review. Quotes were taken from an advanced reader copy and while they may not reflect the final phrasing, I believe they speak to the spirit of the novel as a whole.~~...more
“People are what they do, and what they leave behind.”
If you’re ever in the mood for a cute, light, fluffy, heartwarming story, then you should really
“People are what they do, and what they leave behind.”
If you’re ever in the mood for a cute, light, fluffy, heartwarming story, then you should really think about picking up Dodger.
The book’s eponymous protagonist is an orphaned street urchin who lives in Victorian London and works as a “tosher”--that is, someone who goes into the sewers to find treasures in the trash. When he pops out of a sewer to be ”the knight in soaking armor” to a lady in distress, he suddenly finds that one small act of kindness will change his life in ways he could not have imagined.
Dodger is quite different from the typical Pratchett book, and not just because it doesn’t take place in a flat world travelling on the back of a giant turtle. It’s a gentler story than his other books, even including his young audience books like Amazing Maurice or Wee Free Men. The plot and humour are a bit softer around the edges, and while Pratchett’s love of footnotes and wordplay are still apparent, they’re a little less incisive. Even so, there were a few quotes that stood out in my memory:
“I recall, if you go around telling people that they are downtrodden, you tend to make two separate enemies: the people who are doing the downtreading and have no intention of stopping, and the people who are downtrodden, but nevertheless -- people being who they are -- don't want to know. They can get quite nasty about it.”
The plot itself rather reminds me of the vintage heartwarming variety of nineteenth- or early twentieth- century children’s stories--Cheaper by the Dozen, The Secret Garden, The Little Princess, Enchanted Castle--that sort of thing. Like those stories, Dodger isn’t particularly suspenseful--it’s clear from the first scene that Dodger will triumph over all adversity-- but it’s fun watching him stumble into serendipitous good fortune. Almost all of the characters are nice people, and they’re not just nice; they’re the type of people you’d enjoy being around. I especially loved Solomon, Dodger’s housemate and unofficial guardian. Much of the enjoyment of the story comes from watching how circumstances conspire to bring about favourable outcomes for the protagonist. It’s the type of book that brings an unconscious smile to your face.
Some of my favourite parts of the story were the cameos from various famous Victorian figures, both historical and apocryphal. The book is practically a Who’s Who of famous and infamous Victorians. As one might expect, a certain Charles Dickens plays a prominent role, but we also have everyone from Robert Peel to Angela Burdett-Coutts to Benjamin Disraeli to Henry Mayhew to the Queen herself. (Guess whether or not she is amused.) Jack the Ripper appears to be active, and Dodger runs across a shellshocked barber named Sweeney Todd. Solomon has a tendency to tell stories about the friends he met on his travels, including a guy named Karl who had an obsession with proletariats.
This isn’t a great choice if you’re in the mood for suspense or shock or enlightenment, but if you’re looking for a light, fun, and above all, cute story, then Dodger is well worth a look....more
“When they dreamed of turning iron and metal into gold, they called it alchemy. The much more far-fetched dream of turning bound sheafs of plain paper
“When they dreamed of turning iron and metal into gold, they called it alchemy. The much more far-fetched dream of turning bound sheafs of plain paper into fortunes, they call publishing.”
Fergins may be only a lowly book-cart seller now, but in a not too long distant past, he was the assistant to one of the greatest bookaneers--pirates who profit on the "high seas of literature"-- in all of Europe. With the copyright laws of Europe and the United States woefully inconsistent, there are plenty of opportunities for an unscrupulous man to make a legal pile of money. The famous bookaneers don’t always stop with the legal capers: they also find, steal, and forge manuscripts, then auction them off to the highest bidders. But now the era of copyright free-for-all is coming to an end. The great bookaneer Pen Davenport embarks upon his last mission: to travel to the island of Samoa and steal a manuscript from the reclusive and sickly author, Robert Louis Stevenson. Accompanied by his faithful friend, Davenport must engage in a battle of wits with his greatest bookaneer rival--and with the author himself.
Given that my blog username is “bookaneer,” there was no way I could resist a book with “bookaneer” in the title. In The Last Bookaneer, the bookaneers aren’t just book-borrowers or library users a la Edward Bernays; they’re true criminals, even if inconsistent copyright laws mean their actions aren’t necessarily illegal. But the more I thought about it, the more I began to wonder about the lines we draw between borrowing books and stealing them. I find these bookaneers’ willful defrauding of the authors to be despicable, but given that the bookaneers’ activities were (mostly) legal, were their activities really so morally distinct from an inveterate library user? After all, both cost the author their profits, and both are legal. I think the difference is that Pearl’s bookaneers profit from their crimes and make a business out of defrauding authors. But does that mean that the only difference is in scale? It’s all a bit uncomfortably tenuous, and the book repeatedly explores that theme. As Pen Davenport, bookaneer extraordinaire, puts it:
“People in the book world always hated the bookaneers because our operations forced them to be honest with themselves about what the whole thing really is--that literature and money were two edges of a single sword.”
Pearl’s ability to create a Victorian voice borders on genius. The story reads like a Wilkie Collins novel. In fact, Pearl is so expert at creating a Victorian perspective that I found the book’s tone quite uncomfortable. Much of the story takes place in Samoa and explores the tensions between various colonizers, the seething unrest of the native and slave populations, and Stevenson’s own interactions with the native Samoans. While Stevenson was certainly very broad-minded for his time period, the “great white chief” flavor of his household setup is certain to leave a bad taste in the mouths of the contemporary reader, even though it would be completely anachronistic to write the story differently. Even though the narrator cannot shake his own racism, the book does present several interesting Samoan characters, and a secondary narrator even hints at Fergins’ biases.
Fergins is a sympathetic narrator, and his interactions with the famous bookaneer Pen Davenport have an amusing Holmes-Watson rhythm, although I think Davenport himself is far more similar to Hornig’s Raffles. I’m not much of a fan of Raffles, and I don’t really understand Davenport’s belief that stealing an author’s manuscript can be considered some laudable venture. All the same, I enjoyed the way in which Davenport’s arrogance and lack of empathy become a running gag throughout the book. The rest of Fergins’ narrative is also full of plenty of gentle humor; for example:
“Ingenious, really.” “It did not work, though.” “That is the problem with ingenuity.”
Each of the characters, including Davenport himself, tries to live up to the image that others have of them, and their inability to turn fiction into reality is their ultimate tragedy.
Most of the story is an adventurous Wilkie Collins-style romp, but a twist so bizarre that it feels like something out of a scifi short story highlights the core theme of the novel: an exploration of the true nature of books. Are they captured ideas or text-bound physical objects? Are they ideas that can be owned or are they meant to be shared? This duality of the concrete and the abstract is utterly mindbending, and even more confusing in the era of e-books. At what point does the author become distinct from his creation, ideologically or financially? As one character concludes:
“The moral is this: authors do not create literature; they are consumed by it.”
**Note: this review is of an uncorrected advanced reader copy. While the included quotes may not reflect the final phrasing, I believe they speak to the nature of the novel as a whole.**
~~I received an advanced reader copy of this ebook through Netgalley from the publisher, Penguin Group, in exchange for my honest review.~~...more
“I’m born from countless journeys chained tight in the bellies of ships. Born from hope vibrant and hope destroyed. Born of bitter experience. Born of
“I’m born from countless journeys chained tight in the bellies of ships. Born from hope vibrant and hope destroyed. Born of bitter experience. Born of wishing for better.”
It’s hard to describe The Salt Roads. It’s an interweaving of three disparate historical legends and an exploration of gods and archetypes, but it uses these fragments to try to construct a far larger story. The story starts with Mer, a slave in Saint Domingue, but later weaves in two more, with the goddess Ezili as the link between the characters. It was only after the introduction of Jeanne Duval that I realized that the novel not only involved historical settings but also women who became legends themselves.
In the novel, salt is not only the taste of blood and sweat and tears, the essence of the sea that carried the slave ships, but also as “the white man’s obeah” that bound the slaves to the new land. In reality, the salt roads were trade routes, essential connections between distant lands. In the same way, the gods travel the salt roads within the “storystream”:
“I, we, flow out of the ebb, tread the wet roads of tears, of blood, of salt, break like waves into our infinite selves.”
The writing alternates between the strong dialectic speech of the characters and vivid lyricism. The chapters of the novel are framed as a chant that carries the themes of the story.
I tend to shy away from novels that use real people as protagonists, partly because I have some sneaking sense that it is disrespectful to so fully appropriate another person’s life, but mainly because it is so very restrictive. For me, this became an issue in the novel, and with Jeanne’s story in particular. I found Jeanne a very static and not particularly likeable or interesting character. She seemed far more enslaved than either Thais or Mer, though she is the only one who is free. She is a victim, but her chains are of her own making.(view spoiler)[My view of Jeanne as an agentless puppet was not improved by the way Ezili kept taking her over. I loved the way that the salt road blockage was in some ways tied to silencing women--in Mer’s case, quite literally--but even so, Jeanne’s story just didn’t feel satisfying. (hide spoiler)] Thais’ story had an ironic twist I enjoyed to the full, but like Jeanne, she felt flat to me. Mer’s parts of the story were the ones that enthralled me. Unlike the others, Mer is not herself a historical figure, at least as far as I can tell from a bit of Wikipedia-hunting. As she is a nameless shadow on the outskirts of Francois Makandal’s story, Hopkinson had far more freedom in constructing Mer than Jeanne or even Thais, and I think that this might be why Mer has so much more dimensionality. In some ways, I think the story is an uneasy blend of history and fiction; constrained by the truth, few of the stories came to a satisfying climax, and though I understand the framing concept, the stories still felt disconnected. (view spoiler)[Jeanne’s story seemed particularly out of place. I get that Ezili got in via the bowl of piss, but why was she trapped in Jeanne? Why was Jeanne’s story even so significant? How is it emblematic of the greater story Ezili seeks to tell? Similarly, I found Mer’s interactions with Lasiren vastly disappointing. The salt road blockage is thrust aside and forgotten, then handwaved away. Similarly, while I loved the idea of Thais as Mary of Egypt, she didn’t seem a good fit for Ezili to visit in the first place. (hide spoiler)]
In some ways, I think the book might have been too ambitious; I would have loved to see Hopkinson abandon the attempt at universality and instead focus only on Mer’s story, which is rich enough for a novel in itself. Even so, Hopkinson is a talented writer with a fascinating story to tell, and in The Salt Roads, she displays her gift for combining suspense and symbolism, history and heartache.
I received this ebook through Netgalley from the publisher, Open Roads Integrated Media, in exchange for my honest review. Thanks!...more
Ye Wenjie lost everything in the Cultural Revolution: her home, her job, her parents, her hope. She watched silently and helplessly as her father was Ye Wenjie lost everything in the Cultural Revolution: her home, her job, her parents, her hope. She watched silently and helplessly as her father was beaten to death during a struggle session for his refusal to renounce Einstein and science. She agreed when she was sent off to a logging camp that stripped an ancient forest into a muddy no-man's-land. And when another comrade's false charges gave her the choice between prison and work in a dangerous top-secret facility, she acquiesced to that too.
Nearly half a century later, Wang Miao, a hardworking nanotech scientist, is facing the end of physics. An inexplicable epidemic has quietly struck China's scientists. Again and again, physicists have apparently committed suicide, their only explanation a variation on the theme
"Physics has never existed, and will never exist."
As Wang attempts to discover what is affecting the scientists, he is introduced to a peculiar and mysterious game, the Three-Body Problem, a virtual world of chaos and confusion that begins to bleed into his reality.
The three-body problem referenced in the title is simple to state: given three points' locations, starting velocities, and accelerations, where will they be at a given time? But the problem is surprisingly difficult. Hundreds of years ago, Poincare proved that there is no analytical solution via integrals. A few years ago, a solution was found via infinite sums, but convergence is so slow that estimation from this technique is essentially impossible. The novel extends this principle: put enough events into motion, and even if you understand their individual trajectories, no one can predict their outcome.
The Three-Body Problem is an interesting fusion of cultural commentary and science fiction. Much of the core of the story takes place during the revolution, and I was fascinated to see how deeply politics managed to worm itself into every aspect of life. For instance, during the heat of the revolution, the revolutionaries argue that Einstein's theory of relativity is too reactionary to be taught in schools:
"Its static model of the universe negates the dynamic nature of matter. It is anti-dialectical! It treats the universe as limited, which is absolutely a form of reactionary idealism."
Initially, the story is slow-paced and reflective, focused on the changes that the revolution wrought upon society. Although I have never read the story in its original language, I think the translation captures the evocative lyricism of the novel:
"She waved the battle banner as though brandishing her burning youth, trusting that the enemy would be burnt to ashes in the revolutionary flames, imagining that an ideal world would be born tomorrow from the ardour and zeal coursing through her blood."
"Is it possible that the relationship between humanity and evil is similar to the relationship between the ocean and an iceberg floating on its surface? Both the ocean and the iceberg are made of the same material. That the iceberg seems separate is only because it is in a different form. In reality, it is but part of a vast ocean."
As the story's political elements collide with the scientific ones, the plot begins to take some utterly bizarre turns. The plot examines themes of classism and nationalism, of faith and nihilism, and above all, of choices and their consequences. Wang is a likeable protagonist, and I especially enjoyed his interactions with the sarcastic and irascible policeman Da Shi. I also enjoyed the absurd, illuminating, almost hallucinogenic moments inside the Game. Although the story became a bit too implausible and bizarre for me, I was captivated to the end, and I think one of my favourite aspects was the author's exploration of China's political evolution.
In the world that Cixin Liu creates, perspective is everything. Politics, economics, and science shift endlessly and unpredictably, and a great leap forward can too easily become a tumble. As one character puts it,
An adult and a child stand in front of the grave of a Red Guard who had died during the faction civil wars. The child asks the adult, "Are they heroes?" The adult says no. The child asks, "Are they enemies?" The adult again says no. The child asks, "Then who are they?" The adult says, "History."
As Wang and Ye begin to realise, like the points in a three-body system, small decisions cause tiny perturbations that can be "endlessly amplified," pushing events towards a destination that no one could have imagined.
Excerpted from my review on BookLikes, which may contain additional quotes and spoilers that I was too lazy to copy over.
~~I received this ebook through NetGalley from the publisher, Macmillan-Tor/Forge, in exchange for my honest review. ~~
**Note: All quotes are taken from an uncorrected proof. While they may not precisely reflect the final versions, I feel that they give an accurate portrait of language of the story.**...more
I wish I were In Carrickfergus Where the castle Looks out to sea...
But take my word for it, in 1981, you'd rather be anywhere else. In t**edited 01/30/14
I wish I were In Carrickfergus Where the castle Looks out to sea...
But take my word for it, in 1981, you'd rather be anywhere else. In the town of Carrickfergus, near Belfast, the Troubles are rampant: IRA terrorists and all sorts of other splinter groups bomb and murder at random, Irish prisoners are dying from hunger fasts, and the public outrage is mounting to the boiling point. It's a really, really bad time to be a Catholic police officer working for the British government, but Sgt Sean Duffy has not only embraced his career; he's hoping to make waves on a big murder case. But he quickly discovers that the case is a tangled mass of secrets, lies, and treachery--never a good combination in the volatile atmosphere of Northern Ireland.
I'm still not exactly sure how Roman army medicus Gaius Petreius Ruso made it out of the last book's frying pan, but in Semper Fideli**edited 01/24/14
I'm still not exactly sure how Roman army medicus Gaius Petreius Ruso made it out of the last book's frying pan, but in Semper Fidelis, with a little prodding from his British wife Tilla, he plummets right back into the fire. Travelling back from his hometown in Gaul with Tilla in tow, Ruso is briefly posted as medicus to the 20th legion, which is already gaining a reputation for unluckiness--and that's before it is landed with the hapless Ruso. Ruso quickly discovers that luck is the least of the 20th's problems: the native British recruits of the novice legion are being subjected to atrocities by their sadistic leaders. To make issues even more complex, the emperor Hadrian's planned visit to Deva takes an abrupt side excursion through the 20th's camp. Galvanized by his wife's reproaches, Ruso tries to help the beleaguered legion, but when his efforts are interrupted by a murder, the circumstances of both Ruso and the rest of the legion are about to get infinitely worse.
Great Sky Woman not only manages to completely avoid condescension and anachronism, but goes on to immerse its reader deep into the d**edited 12/08/13
Great Sky Woman not only manages to completely avoid condescension and anachronism, but goes on to immerse its reader deep into the detailed world and complex culture that it creates.
Silver is a cute and very close-to-canon continuation of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. If you check it out on audio, it i**edited 11/28/13
Silver is a cute and very close-to-canon continuation of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. If you check it out on audio, it is narrated by none other than David Tennant, alias The Tenth Doctor from the TV programme Doctor Who.
According to the story, Jim Hawkins of Treasure Island fame got his treasure, bought an inn, and settled down to what turned out to be very short-lived wedded bliss. His son, also Jim, who I will refer to as Jim#2 (although as far as I recall he's really Jim#3), grew up with a distant, grieving father whose main interaction was to tell story after story about his adventures on the high seas. One night, Jim#2 is lured out of the inn by a young girl, who turns out to be none other than the daughter of the infamous Long John Silver. And when Jim#2 meets Long John, the old pirate has a story of his own: he tells Jim#2 that the original treasure seekers only brought back the gold from the island, leaving...wait for it...all of the silver behind. Soon, Jim#2 is tempted to steal his father's map and start an adventure of his own.
Why? I strongly disapprove of GoodReads' new policy of censorship, so I will no longer post complete reviews here. (The link brings you to a summary of The Story So Far, which has facts and links so you can make up your own mind about the GR debacle.)...more
Frankie Silver was not quite what I expected from the description. It does indeed interweave the present-day with the past, but it is**edited 12/04/13
Frankie Silver was not quite what I expected from the description. It does indeed interweave the present-day with the past, but it is the past where McCrumb focuses her energy and narrative. The two present-day cases only add a frame of reference and a sense of immediacy and connection to that long-ago crime. In the present day, Tennessee Sheriff Spencer Arrowood, laid up at home due to injuries during a shootout, is brooding on the upcoming execution of a man he helped to put behind bars. Mentally, he begins to link the case to that of Frankie Silver, an eighteen-year-old girl tried for the murder and savage decapitation of her husband in the early 1800s. Frankie was subsequently found guilty hung by the neck until dead, but her death only added to the case's sense of incompleteness-- how could she have had the sheer strength to chop up her husband so brutally? What were her last words to be when they were silenced by her father? The book quickly delves into the past, and Frankie's story is told alternately from her own point of view and that of the clerk of the court.
As soon as I saw the ridiculously attractive cover-art and intruiging title, I couldn't wait to tear into the story. To my disappoint**edited 12/30/13
As soon as I saw the ridiculously attractive cover-art and intruiging title, I couldn't wait to tear into the story. To my disappointment, I found I really shouldn't have judged this one by its cover.
The story takes place in England in the late Georgian period--about twenty or thirty years before Jane Austen's time. The main character, a surgeon from Philadelphia, is brought into the case of a suspicious death by the beautiful Lady Lydia. Graphic death scenes, a shallow and improbable InstaLove romance, and generalized "historical atmosphere" follow.
Call me crazy, but one thing I tend to expect of historical novels is some level of historical accuracy. Harris clearly did some amount of research for this book, but in my opinion, she just didn't do enough.
It may be heresy (why is it always heresy to dislike a "classic" when a book's status as a classic mainly stems from its age?), but I'm not particularIt may be heresy (why is it always heresy to dislike a "classic" when a book's status as a classic mainly stems from its age?), but I'm not particularly fond of George Eliot. Granted, I read her books when I was rather younger, but I found her tone too moralistic and prescriptive, and the political overtones too strident. Adam Bede is perhaps one of my least favourite of the books of hers that I have read. We have our overly prim, proper, and holier-than-thou protagonists, Adam Bede and Dinah Morris, to teach us the proper path. Apparently the "right way" is, at the tender age of twenty, to go around preaching to everyone and providing moral guidance for those lesser beings from one's own tremendous heights of experience. The "right way" is to be uptight and silent, to enjoy nothing, and to purposefully inflict suffering upon oneself to mimic the humiliation Jesus endured. (Oh, and to be Methodist. Although Dinah is called alternately Quaker and Methodist--I really don't understand how these beliefs were confused. Were they more similar back in the day, or did Eliot simply conflate the two Welsh belief systems?) We also have our standard moral exemplars, the characters who behave badly and are duly punished. Interestingly, in this book it becomes clear that bad behaviour includes vanity, self-satisfaction, selfishness, infanticide(how dare women step outside the role of wife and mother?), and, most importantly, stepping outside one's social station. Jane Austen, most notably in Emma, also preaches the virtues of rigid social classes and the evils of interclass fraternization, but I can't help but feel that Eliot is far more dogmatic and obvious in shoving the message down her readers' throats. Unlike Austen, Eliot also demonizes the upper class as frivolous and amoral. In terms of tone, Eliot uses the same wealth of description and narrative commentary favoured by other writers of the period, including Dickens and Hugo. It's not particularly my favorite. She has a few sly barbs, but every one I caught is stated much more cleverly by the inimitable Austen. Overall, I found it a lugubrious and preachy read....more
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