A jaw-dropping exposé of the realities of American presidential politics and US voting culture!
The premise of NO SAFE PLACE is simplicity itself. It’A jaw-dropping exposé of the realities of American presidential politics and US voting culture!
The premise of NO SAFE PLACE is simplicity itself. It’s a fictional biography of Kerry Kilcannon from a rough and tumble youngster, the child of Irish immigrants, through to his election as a senator climaxing with his contesting the crucial battleground of the California primary as the Democrat nominee for president. It’s dramatic, provocative, evocative, frightening, gut-wrenching, compelling and awesome in its realistic depiction of the insanity that is the American electoral system.
A handful of quotations will serve to portray the flavor of Patterson’s brilliant achievement:
On the character, capabilities, and competence of 20th century politicians: “Politicians were … petty men taking small chances for selfish reasons, trying to manipulate just enough of a cynical public to keep themselves in office.” or “A candidate should make speeches … not decisions. Decisions are too important.” and the succinct characterization “… everything that’s wrong with politics in the nineties – cowardice masked as cleverness, leadership b poll, symbolic gestures, careful attention to special interests.”
One might go so far as to say that NO SAFE PLACE was a door-stopper size condemnation of the entire political process in the USA which, in my opinion, is eminently warranted and absolutely deserved.
On racism and illegal immigration: “You and I will never live to see the day that being a white guy isn’t a better deal. And you have illegals in California partly because whites want cheap labor.”
On the 2nd Amendment: “The notion that James Madison wrote the Bill of Rights so that racists and sociopaths and madmen could slaughter innocent men, women, and children with assault weapons or handguns is one of the most contemptible notions that an irresponsible minority has ever crammed down the throats of its potential victims.”
On electioneering and political campaigning: “ … we have a ‘shoot to kill’ political culture premised on permanent scandal, where people in both parties don’t just try to win but to destroy each other with charges and countercharges. And I’ve stopped counting the number of special prosecutors there are.” (Aileen Cannon, are you paying attention? But I digress!)
On the country’s attitude toward its own military and veterans: “One of the ugliest truths of Vietnam was that the Americans who died there were disproportionately poor, disproportionately black, disproportionately less educated. And one of its ugliest legacies is the elitist notion the only men and women who now need serve our country are those for whom the military is a jobs program.”
Electoral reform, abortion, right-to-life and evangelical Christianity (obviously) popped up their heads repeatedly for consideration in a novel that, in a single phrase, needs to be read.
“… never forget it, never – that the world’s greatest fool is a Welshman who trusts an English King.”
FALLS THE SHADOW is a fictionalized biography of“… never forget it, never – that the world’s greatest fool is a Welshman who trusts an English King.”
FALLS THE SHADOW is a fictionalized biography of Simon de Montfort, the 13th century champion of representative government who fought to the death for the Oxford Provisions, the natural descendant of Runnymede’s Magna Carta. De Montfort, now known as the hero of the people and a man ahead of his time who crafted the embryonic structure of a people's parliament, was the bitter enemy of Henry III, a man now known as one of England’s weakest and most incompetent monarchs and a fervent believer in the God-given right of kings to rule their feudal kingdom with complete, unquestioned authority.
As expansive as the historical canvas on which Sharon Kay Penman paints her recreation of 13th century England is - its politics, its landscapes, and its evolution, warfare, social customs, law and marriage, even its dietary proclivities – she keeps a firm and disciplined grip on all of the story lines, all of her characters, and all of the meaningful real-life historical developments. The reader of what is a door-stopper by any definition will never find themselves forced to re-read, or to stop to gather one’s thoughts. The lush drama, the thrill, the gripping re-creation of the real-life historical developments and the heart throbbing romance that Penman has chosen to create between Simon and his wife, Nell, is, to say the least, compelling.
On the horrors of medieval siege warfare, for example:
“The mangonels heaved boulders into the inner bailey, and the trebuchets hurled the dreaded Greek fire, which not even water could extinguish. The castle came rapidly to life; men appeared, yawning and cursing, upon the roof battlements, at the narrow arrow slits … he knew how unpleasant conditions must be for those mewed up within the keep, denied light or fresh air, unable to escape the pungent stink of the latrines, having to ration every swallow of water, to count every mouthful of food.”
Some wry humour on the vagaries of bathing and brothels:
“ ‘I’m just going out to take a piss. It’s sweltering in here; mayhap I’ll take another dip in the lake.’ ”
“ ‘Again?’ She was accustomed to humoring the quirks of her customers, but never had she encountered one so bizarre. In truth, the man was besotted with bathing, even insisting that she take a bath herself ere he’d bed her! Were all lords so daft about soap and water?”
Next up, of course, THE RECKONING, the final entry in Penman’s masterful Welsh Princes trilogy, in which Llewelyn, now reluctantly acknowledged by the English crown as the Prince of Wales, butts heads with Edward I, the willful and much more capable son of the mercurial Henry III. Sharon Kay Penman is a master of the historical fiction genre and her Welsh Princes trilogy deserves a strong recommendation and a place on the shelves of any lover of the genre.
The kindest word I can think of is "disappointment"!
If I hadn't so thoroughly enjoyed many previous novels by Karin Slaughter, I would have done the wThe kindest word I can think of is "disappointment"!
If I hadn't so thoroughly enjoyed many previous novels by Karin Slaughter, I would have done the wall-banger toss much earlier.
It is an unavoidable reality that prolific authors will inevitably pen what some readers think is God's gift to literature but they will also craft what readers will characterize as their worst effort. At three novels, it is obvious that one will be the best, one will be the worst, and one will fall somewhere in the middle. For Karin Slaughter's sake, I fervently hope that PIECES OF HER is that rock-bottom effort which will make anything else she produces look better by comparison.
This one was an absolute hot mess of indecipherable plot, names, motivations, and events that I gave up on as far along as page 480 out of 630. I no longer cared and, indeed, I found it was actually making me angry in the attempt to understand where it might possibly have been headed.
In late 1929, “ … the Depression began on that manic morning of October 29, to be known forever as Black Tuesday, …”
“… when the easy, buoyant era of In late 1929, “ … the Depression began on that manic morning of October 29, to be known forever as Black Tuesday, …”
“… when the easy, buoyant era of the twenties – the roaring, turbulent, high-flying twenties – came to a dead stop. Yet those fevered October days were more than symptoms of a deeper malady, undiagnosed and untreated.”
And I had absolutely NO idea of the magnitude and depth of those issues – hard-core right wing fascism that threatened to blossom into actual support of Hitler’s Nazism; a paranoid fear of socialism or public programs which knee-jerk reactionaries labeled as Communism; xenophobia and anti-immigrant racism; the enormity of the already well-developed divide between what Hugh MacLennan would characterize as THE TWO SOLITUDES, Quebec, French Canada and the Roman Catholic Church versus English Canada and all comers; the nasty, near criminal nature of Old Boy politics at municipal, provincial, and federal levels; the decade long (and more) domination of federal politics by RB Bennett and Mackenzie King; illegal right-wing police tactics from both municipal forces and the RCMP; work farms for unemployed men more properly described as prisons and military concentration camps; hunger marches, soup kitchens, protests and riots quelled with police batons and truncheons, endemic unemployment, grasshoppers, dust bowls and multi-year crop failures; … I repeat, I had NO idea!
And, suddenly, on September 8, 1939, “ … Parliament declared that a state of war existed between Canada and Nazi Germany. On that day, the Great Depression can be said to have ended. For war, which would bring mutilation and death, would also bring jobs … Suddenly a country that had been unable to provide work for a fifth of its people found work for all. The chronicle of the Great Depression is a catalogue of ironies, but that is the bitterest irony of all.”
The greatest irony of all is that Canada’s conversion to a left-leaning country with universal government paid health care, unemployment insurance, social welfare programs of all stripes, Old Age Security, Family Allowance, minimum wage laws, accident and sickness insurance, amended income tax laws to correct serious inequalities in wealth distribution, laws limiting hours of work, and a host of other ideas which in the twenties and during the Depression would have been reviled as much dreaded Communism is attributable to Canada’s decision to participate in World War II, to combat the Nazism which so many in Canada at the time seemed to genuinely support and believe in. The bullet that we dodged in our development of the policies of that new nation was not a mere infantryman’s bullet fired from the trenches. It was a full-fledged bomb that any tank in the coming war would have been happy to launch at a Canadian population well on its way to right-wing hatred and governmental autocracy.
THE GREAT DEPRESSION should be considered as mandatory reading in any Canadian history course. It’s not light reading and it’s not a short, easy read by any stretch but it’s informative, it’s compelling, it’s gripping, and it’s genuinely eye-opening. Thank you, Pierre Berton.
Paul Weiss
An interesting personal observation:
One of the developments of that decade was the formation of the CCF, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation – the precursor of today’s NDP - a left-leaning political party whose objective was to formulate and effect change through parliament in the manner of Britain’s still youthful Labour Party. With a rather rueful shake of my head, I can recall ever so clearly my deceased father’s (he was born in 1930) pejorative scornful reference to that party “CCFers? Common Cow F—kers!” I guess that will tell you clearly enough what he thought of any new-fangled socialist ideas at the time!...more
Some vintage Corey sarcasm, “The guy was a friggin’ camel jockey who probably couldn’t tell the difference between an ATM and a condom dispenser.”
At tSome vintage Corey sarcasm, “The guy was a friggin’ camel jockey who probably couldn’t tell the difference between an ATM and a condom dispenser.”
At the close of THE LION’S GAME, we all knew that Asad Khalil, a bloodthirsty and utterly ruthless terrorist, had made the Terminator pledge, “I’ll be back”. And here we have have it. In a nutshell, THE LION is John Corey vs Asad Khalil, aka The Lion 2.0, the grudge match. But the reality is that Khalil’s list is effectively a revenge packed laundry list of intended victims closing out with John Corey and his new wife, FBI agent Kate Mayfield. Then he can get down to business with his intended finale, a large scale fundamentalist Islamic takedown of American culture, a memorable piece of terrorism intended as a reprise of 9.11, if you will!
THE LION is a 500+ page doorstopper version of Tag (The Death Match version). But despite the fact that the ending is predictable before a reader has laid eyes on the opening paragraph, it’s solid gripping entertainment and more than compelling enough to hold a John Corey fan’s interest from first page to last. Vintage Nelson DeMille and John Corey stuff that is easy to recommend to fans of the suspense thriller genre. Beyond that, there’s some pretty compelling stuff that will give thoughtful readers pause to consider the actual roots of Islamic terrorism. For example,:
“It started on April 15, 1986, when Reagan sent a bunch of fighter-bombers to blow the shit out of Libya. Asad Khalil lost his whole family in that bombing.” … “No shit?” … “I guess he’s still pissed off.”
An already dying man strolls through death’s door a little earlier than expected! Natural death, suicide, assisted suicide, or capital first degree muAn already dying man strolls through death’s door a little earlier than expected! Natural death, suicide, assisted suicide, or capital first degree murder?
Fans of John Lescroart could certainly be forgiven for picking up THE MERCY RULE expecting a suspense or legal thriller. After all, that’s how Lescroart rolls and his body of work speaks for itself. But, for my money, it’s much more accurate to describe THE MERCY RULE as comparable to a Jodi Picoult work in which some “issue” is raised, explored and addressed with a provocative plot that simply puts questions before its readers and leaves them to mentally explore the options to find the answers for themselves. Well, maybe, maybe not!
In this case, the issue is the right to a dignified death in the face of terminal disease or incurable injury, pain, suffering, and the loss of dignity; the deterioration of the mental capacity for self-determination; the ethics and legality of assisted suicide; the question as to whether assisted suicide is legally murder, in fact, first degree murder and possibly subject to capital punishment; and, of course, the intransigent response from organized religion that assisted suicide flies in the face of the plans of a deity whose wishes are not subject to mere human opposition.
An interesting presentation of the opposing sides of the question:
First, assisted suicide was presented as a “liberty interest issue, not too dissimilar to abortion. Provided, of course, you’ve got cruise control … CRUIS – competent, rational, uncoerced, informed, stable.”
And then there is the typical opposition to suicide or assisted suicide from a zealous, dogmatic Christian community:
There is “great caring, great love, great sacrifice, and great nobility in the face of death. But the end of pain is a blessing from God, and ministering to that end is the true meaning of Christianity.” Or (in my considered opinion, even worse and, frankly, quite disgusting) the sanctimonious Mother Theresa approach which sees virtue, blessing, and even good fortune in the pain and suffering inflicted by an all-knowing God, “suffering was part of life. It had a purpose. It ennobled and strengthened the sprit, especially when offered up to the glory of God.”
No prizes for guessing which side of the issue I found myself cheering for as a compelling trial drama unfolded in the novel.
THE MERCY RULE is a long novel – indeed, a door-stopper by most any reader’s standards. If you’re looking for the “suspense” or the “thrills” of a typical suspense or legal thriller, my guess is you’ll be disappointed and find the novel unduly long or even dragging. If you let it be an exploration of a pertinent 21st century issue, it’s a sure-fire winner.
I’m generally not a fan of the horror genre. That and my brother’s firmly stated dislike of Stephen King’s work Yes, Virginia, there IS a multiverse!
I’m generally not a fan of the horror genre. That and my brother’s firmly stated dislike of Stephen King’s work (our tastes seem reasonably closely aligned) kept me from trying anything by King for until I was firmly ensconced in my eighth decade of reading. Other than serendipity and finding a free copy in one of our Local Free Library boxes, I can’t imagine what prompted me to start with an immense chunkster like 11/22/63! But start it I did … and my reaction is hands down “WOW”! 11/22/63 is a page turner for every one of its 1100 pages.
If somebody suggested to me that it was possible to create a novel that dumped historical fiction, science fiction, fantasy, dystopia, alternate history, and romance into a genre blender to create a credible and completely compelling novel that would have me holding my breath through the length of a 1000+ page doorstopper, I would in turn have suggested that they get their head read. 11/22/63 fits the bill.
A time portal or an alternate world portal is a well-worn fantasy trope. Indeed a reader of fantasy and science fiction would not raise many eyebrows if they suggested it was over-used. But once Jake Epping, a high school English teacher in small town Maine steps through a time portal and finds himself in a very racist, very misogynist, very McCarthy-esque anti-Communist mid-20th century USA, Stephen King’s awesome story-telling ability will carry you away.
The pathos in King’s description of an essay from one of Epping’s students describing his father’s sledge-hammer slaughter of their entirely family was heartbreaking. The heartwarming evolution of Epping’s love for fellow teacher Sadie Dunhill (in the past, mind you) would put to shame any efforts by any romance author you care to name. There’s a fabulously clever twist. Epping’s presence in the past invokes the well known butterfly effect and changes his subsequent future BUT any return visit to the past resets everything to where it was before his first step through the portal. Now THAT would put a smile on any successful sci-fi or fantasy author’s face. The new past and alternate future history created by Epping’s interference in the events in 1963 Dallas is disturbing and completely terrifying.
Taking a cue from Alfred Hitchcock’s working manuals and his perennial cameo appearances in his movies, King manages to squeeze in any number of sneaky references to Pennywise, the evil clown of IT fame. (I’m betting there were other references to previous novels sprinkled throughout the story but – as I said – I haven’t read any other King novels so, if they were there, they went right over my head).
Did I say that I hadn’t read any other King novels? That’s a situation I plan to change very quickly.
“Her father did not know – she held to it from that time – how much she loved him”
There really can be no other suitable word. DOMBEY AND SON is, “Her father did not know – she held to it from that time – how much she loved him”
There really can be no other suitable word. DOMBEY AND SON is, in many respects, a stereotypical Dickensian tale. It’s dense, it’s long, it’s hilarious, it’s heartwarming, it’s heartbreaking, it’s shocking, it’s complex, it’s multi-thematic, it’s plot-driven, it’s character driven, it’s forward thinking and generally left-wing – in short, it’s Dickensian. And, despite the fact that if general readers, or even confirmed Dickens fans, are asked to name a Dickens title, few will think to mention DOMBEY AND SON, I think it’s one of his best.
Consumed with the desire and the need to see his family name, his wealth, and his business success continued through his only son, Dombey ignores, and indeed comes to bitterly hate, his dedicated, loving daughter who blames herself for her father’s failure to love her. The themes that Dickens tosses into the DOMBEY AND SON kettle are legion – parental, filial, and romantic love; friendship and loyalty; patriarchy and misogyny; evil, theft, and embezzlement; feminism; family; wealth versus poverty; marriage, divorce, and the societal expectations and laws that govern them; and much more.
I can only ask, as a confirmed Dickens fan, what was I thinking of waiting so long to pull this one off my shelf. Definitely recommended.
The Lord Ruler has been defeated and his thousand year rule has ended.
For many of the people living in the final empire, Mistborn Vin, rising from herThe Lord Ruler has been defeated and his thousand year rule has ended.
For many of the people living in the final empire, Mistborn Vin, rising from her lowly status as a street urchin, is the Hero of the Ages.
“Who are you?” the man asked. “Nobody of consequence.” He hesitated. “You’re her, aren’t you?”
Much as a pacifist-minded Vin would love to be otherwise, she was an awesome killing machine, a veritable one-man army and probably the finest practitioner of the allomantic arts that the residents of Sanderson’s extraordinary fantasy universe have ever seen. Sazed’s study of history, religion and prophecies would seem to suggest that she and the man who loves her, Elend Venture, would raise up a phoenix, a new empire based on tolerance, freedom and fairness from the ashes of the old. But Sanderson’s novel is nothing so simple as a childlike allegorical fantasy of good versus evil. Nor is it simply a potential screenplay for lovers of swordplay, magic, and special effects. Oh, make no mistake, there is heaps and gobs of that, brought to life in such awesome detail that you’ll find your heart in your mouth on more than one occasion. The Deepness and the Mists make for a very creepy and very powerful enemy.
But, “It seems that the rebels found the chaos of transition more difficult to accept than the tyranny they had known before. They joyfully welcomed back authority – even oppressive authority – for it was less painful for them than uncertainty.”
And therein lay the first two of Sanderson’s three themes for the discerning, inquisitive reader to chew on while they are enjoying the extraordinary battle scenes afforded by his imagination of the powers of metals and Mistborn allomancy and feruchemistry. First, that government opposition and revolution is easy, whereas governing and governance is difficult and demanding. And, second, that failure to learn from history is to doom one’s self to repeating that history.
The third and least obvious of Sanderson’s themes might be the most important in terms of driving the plot and creating the climactic twist that provides the impetus for a third novel in the trilogy.
“… at that moment he realized he was the most profane of men. He was a creature who knew three hundred religions, yet had faith in none of them. So when his tears fell – and nearly began to freeze to his face – they gave him as little comfort as his religions.”
He had come to know that organized religions, ALL organized religions and their doctrines, their dogma, and their theologies were fabricated fables aimed at the control and subjugation of docile adherents.
THE WELL OF ASCENSION is unquestionably a classic doorstopper that blends fantasy, mysticism, and thematic moralizing that will not allow a reader’s mind to wander. Nor will it allow itself to be enjoyed or understood by a reader who insists on reading purely on the surface. You will be challenged. But if you’re willing to rise to that challenge, you will be rewarded with an awesome novel that demands you move on to the third installment of the trilogy, HERO OF THE AGES.
“That nighttime slaughter of six at the height of the war was only one of her crimes. There were others … they called her die Jägerin”
THE HUNTRESS is “That nighttime slaughter of six at the height of the war was only one of her crimes. There were others … they called her die Jägerin”
THE HUNTRESS is a story of a hunt for a Nazi war criminal based on the 1973 acknowledgement by the US Immigration and Naturalization Service to Congress that there were fifty-three known Nazi war criminals living in the USA at that time. The seed that germinated and became THE HUNTRESS in Kate Quinn’s imagination was a composite of one Hermine Braunsteiner,
“a brutal female camp guard at Ravensbrück and Majdanek, in Europe, then married an American and became a US citizen living in Queens, New York”
and Erna Petri,
“an SS officer’s wife who during the war found six escaped Jewish children near her home in Ukraine, brought them home to feed them a meal, then shot them.”
The plot, such as it is, is quite straightforward– the history of the development of a Nazi war criminal, those who would hunt for her, and the ultimate resolution of their lives in the capture of that target, die Jägerin – the Huntress. THE HUNTRESS is not a short novel and its thematic coverage is extensive – feminism and the use of women in combat roles in war (and the flip side of that coin – misogyny); the treatment of prisoners of war; life under Joseph Stalin in Marxist Russia during World War II; bisexual love in the mid-20th century; photo-journalism; the techniques and ethics of finding, arresting (and extraditing?) Nazi war criminals; gifted children; and more.
Kate Quinn has done an extraordinary job crafting an evocative, moving, and totally gripping novel with a tightly constrained list of characters that are lovingly, intricately, and credibly developed to an astonishing degree. This strength, surprisingly, is also its sole weakness.
(view spoiler)[SPOILER: The list of characters is so small that no reader could fail to plumb the identity of THE HUNTRESS long before Quinn deigns to reveal it to us in the narrative. But, surprisingly, even that is a strength in its own way because I really, really, really wanted there to be either a mistake or some factor mitigating an evil war criminal’s conduct. In other words, a reader will become emotionally involved in some way with every single character. END SPOILER (hide spoiler)]
If you’re a fan of historical fiction, THE HUNTRESS deserves a place on your reading list and some shelf space in your library. Definitely recommended.
In Mississippi “between 1818 and 1940 … approximately six hundred black men were lynched by mobs operating outside the legal system and thoroughly immIn Mississippi “between 1818 and 1940 … approximately six hundred black men were lynched by mobs operating outside the legal system and thoroughly immune from any of its repercussions”
John Grisham’s THE RECKONING is not the typical legal thriller that we have come to expect from him. It is a legal procedural drama and historical fiction centered around themes of war and violence, hatred, xenophobia, racism, misogyny, and jealousy. As you might imagine, it is not a pretty novel. It is not uplifting and it is not easy to read.
The first part – Act I if you will – tells the story of Pete Banning’s return from the Philippines, an acclaimed war hero, a successful cotton farmer, and a prosperous landowner, well known and greatly respected in his church and around his small southern community. Then, out of the blue, he walked into the church and calmly murdered the Reverend Dexter Bell. If he had a motive, he wasn’t saying and he was obviously prepared to face hanging or the electric chair before he would tell anyone the reason he felt that Dexter Bell deserved to die.
Act II was a look in the rear view mirror, the jaw-dropping and horrifying story of Banning’s capture by the Japanese in the Philippines and his amazing survival of the Bataan Death March. If other readers are like me, they will come to the close of this section of the novel a little mystified at having received no further clue as to what Banning's motive might be for the murder that we know will happen when he returns home after his service in the war.
THE RECKONING was written by John Grisham so it should come as no surprise to hear that Act III was Pete Banning’s trial for capital murder. What did, however, come as a bit of a shock to me was the fact that the trial itself and the final revelation as to Banning’s motive was plausible but melodramatic – an anticlimactic, venal, and simple unadorned illustration of the nasty, ugly power of small minded and all too human traits such as xenophobia, jealousy, and racism.
THE RECKONING was a readable novel but its interest was primarily in the historical reality of the story, particularly the details of the Pacific war against the Japanese. It was definitely not gripping in the sense one normally applies the word to suspense thrillers or legal thrillers such as Grisham has written in the past. I’m afraid I can recommend it only to those anal readers who like to say that they’ve read everything a particular author has written.
“Death’s Mistress? We have no need of further death.”
Seventeen novels (depending on who’s counting)! That’s what it took for Richard Rahl to subdu“Death’s Mistress? We have no need of further death.”
Seventeen novels (depending on who’s counting)! That’s what it took for Richard Rahl to subdue the evil Emperor Jagang and, presumably bring peace and stability to the world. But all is not as it seems. When Nicci, former merciless Sister of the Dark whose blood lust earned her the title DEATH’S MISTRESS, sets out with Nathan Rahl to find new challenges and to spread the good news of Richard’s peaceful world order, she finds herself charged – not once, but twice!! - with the impossible task of saving the world. And Nathan, by the bye, having completely lost his powers of magic when prophesy vanished from the world, must find the hidden city, Kol Adair, in order to make himself whole again.
Battles, magic, life versus death, good versus evil, hate versus love, a sprinkling of lascivious nudity and love-making, lost languages, bigger and better villains, a traveling “fellowship” (Where have I heard that before?) – DEATH’S MISTRESS is pretty standard stuff as epic quest fantasy goes. It’s entertaining but, for my money, I’d say it was overwritten, overwrought, melodramatic and , while not derivative, it doesn’t exactly plow any new furrows either. Lifedrinker is the first nasty on the prowl for world domination - DEATH’S MISTRESS’s version of Sauron, Voldemort, Grindelwald, or She Who Must Be Obeyed (wait … maybe not that last one!). And the second ugly on Goodkind’s world horizon is to Lifedrinker as Saruman is to Tolkien’s Sauron.
Some solid editing and winnowing of the novel’s length would make it considerably more palatable. I’d probably have held out for just 1- or 2-stars but, being completely honest, there were some definitely entertaining moments. The conduct of the young girl, Thistle, in the final few chapters leading up to the climactic battle is genuinely heartwarming. Soooo … DEATH’S MISTRESS gets rounded up to 3-stars.
Recommended for those fans of THE SWORD OF TRUTH series who want to complete the story and absolutely NOT recommended for those who haven’t read it. The characters and the references to the past simply wouldn’t make any sense to you.
“His children were meant to be a breed apart, outside the framework of history. He alone would set their course for them, not the revolution, the t“His children were meant to be a breed apart, outside the framework of history. He alone would set their course for them, not the revolution, the times, or the rest of humanity.”
Al-Sayyid Ahmad is a self-righteous, misogynistic and totally domineering bully and tyrant whose ultra-conservative Hanbali sect of Islam rides roughshod over his family like a prison warden. His wife has not been out of the family home and in contact with any men other than her sons for twenty-five years.
“A woman doesn’t know what virtue is, unless she’s denied all opportunities for adultery.”
His three sons, including one who is now considered a man by virtue of his age and employment, turn to weak-kneed jelly in the face of his disapproval and will literally kiss his hand to re-establish what they sadly perceive as paternal love. And as for his two daughters? Ahmad’s attitude says it all,
“A girl is really a problem … Don’t you see that we spare no effort to discipline, train, preserve, and care for her? But don’t you also see that after all of this we ourselves hand her over to a stranger and let him do as he wishes with her? Praise to God who alone is praised for adversity.”
Al-Sayyid Ahmad is also a heavy-drinking, serial womanizer who in today’s terms would be characterized as a party animal. He wields the Qur’an like his own personal weapon and with hypocritical finesse and outrageous self-indulgence cherry picks those verses and lines which justify, forgive and overlook his deviance from the demands of Islamic doctrine.
PALACE WALK is a historical drama that purports to tell the story of a 1920s Egyptian family set in Cairo shortly after WW I and just prior to Egypt’s unilateral declaration of independence from Britain’s “veiled protectorate”. It’s considered a classic masterpiece and I’ll admit to finding it compelling, evocative and quite gripping but I’d also rush to add that, not for a second is it uplifting, pleasant, or cheerful in even the slightest degree. But informative, shocking, evocative, and eye-opening ... oh my word, yes!
There is no love lost between me, a rather hard-core and quite outspoken atheist, and organized religion – regardless of which flavour might be the topic of discussion. In this case, of course, it’s early 20th century Islam as observed by an Egyptian author writing in the mid 1950s. The fact that religious fanatics of the day attempted to kill Mahfouz would suggest that the author’s intention was to clearly portray what he saw as the intensely problematic characteristics of a problematic religion and fervent Muslims refused to accept that criticism. But I also see no reason to think that his intent was other than to portray the Ahmad family in an open, realistic narrative and to expose the manner in which they lived their lives - lives in which their conduct and motives were driven by all-consuming thoughts of Allah and the prophet. Viewed through this atheist’s modern lens, that story was shocking and profoundly disturbing if not verging on disgusting.
Then there was the Islamic preacher who, on those rare occasions on which he was honest with himself, Ahmad viewed as even more debauched than he knew himself to be,
“He believes in two things: God in heaven and adolescent boys on earth. He’s such a sensitive type that when he’s in al-Husayn, [the local temple], his eye twitches if a lad moans in the Citadel.”
Hmmm … plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose, n’est-ce pas?
PALACE WALK does, to a limited extent, tell the story of the political demonstrations of March 1919 that ultimately came to be known as the 1919 Revolution. Those “riots” were an integral, indeed critical part of the story of the Ahmad family but, frankly, I thought they were the weakest part of Mahfouz’s narrative and were the reason that I chose to withhold a fifth star.
“Once the revolution knocked on his door, threatened his peace and security and the lives of his children, its flavor, complexion, and import were transformed into folly, madness, unruliness and vulgarity. The revolution should rage on outside.”
That said, I have no doubt that I will be eagerly moving on to PALACE OF DESIRE, the second installment in Mahfouz’s CAIRO TRILOGY. Definitely recommended.
“Where did it start … how did the world ever get this crazy?”
I AM PILGRIM is a top flight, first class, genre-crossing thriller that will take your br“Where did it start … how did the world ever get this crazy?”
I AM PILGRIM is a top flight, first class, genre-crossing thriller that will take your breath away. It’s an espionage thriller, it’s a crime thriller, it’s a police procedural, and it’s a human drama. Two “investigations” run simultaneously. The first is a murder in which the murderer, drawing instructions in effect from a manual written by a retired top level US intelligence agent, has eliminated every possible piece of forensic evidence or clue to their identity. The second is a global battle of wits between a radicalized ex-Mujahideen Muslim terrorist and the most intuitive, most savvy, master spy that the USA has ever created (the author of that manual, wouldn’t you know!). The clock is ticking and the terrorist MUST be stopped before he releases a bio-weapon that is a literal existential threat for mankind!
I AM PILGRIM is a little heavy-handed in its use of stereotypes – misogynist, radicalized Muslims; über-wealthy Saudi-Arabians; sweaty, uncouth, sadistic Turkish police and jailers à la MIDNIGHT EXPRESS; brilliant US spies capable of deciphering the most obtuse puzzles and problems and their heroic ability to withstand torture that collapses mere mortals within seconds. But that said, the back-story outlining the reasons for the anti-hero’s radicalization and the love he clearly shows for his son through the novel’s climax make him a real person. For me at least, that mitigated the concerns I might otherwise have had for the Muslim stereotyping and only made me re-rate a superb novel down from five stars to four.
Sit back and relax. You’re in for a long ride. I AM PILGRIM is a doorstopper but it’s enjoyable from front to back. The details of intelligence tradecraft, by the way, are eye-opening and quite jaw-dropping. At the mid-way point of the novel, author Hayes takes the time to drop in a cautionary note that Saudi Arabia, the USA, and the Muslim world at large would be well advised to think about:
“A writer called Robert Louis Stevenson once said that ‘sooner or later we all sit down to a banquet of consequences.’ He was right – so I say, pull up a chair and pick up your forks; the time is coming when we’ll all be chowing down.”
There is simply so much to unpack in THE WAY THE CROW FLIES, that it’s all but impossible to imagine the author actually mana“Ah … what’s up doc?”
There is simply so much to unpack in THE WAY THE CROW FLIES, that it’s all but impossible to imagine the author actually managed to weave it into a credible novel that made sense – a Canadian Air Force teaching base; the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban missile crisis; MI6, British espionage and control of the defection of a Soviet scientist through Canada to NASA; the hot and heavy final stages of the space race between the USA and the USSR; a Jewish survivor from an underground Nazi labour camp; sexual assault, pedophilia, child rape and ultimately murder; the mistreatment of children at aboriginal residential schools; the clash between Parisian, Québécois and Métis variations of French; cerebral palsy; Canadian volunteers to the American armed forces who served in Vietnam; homophobia, homosexuality, bisexuality and lesbianism; the production of ad lib and staged stand-up comedy; military families and children; Diefenbaker’s political mishandling of Canada’s alliance with the US during their stand-off against Khruschev; the cuteness, friendship, brattiness, aloofness, and animosity arising between young girls in school and at play; the grooming tactics of a sexual predator; a murder investigation, a gripping trial and a life sentence based on a wrongful conviction (riffing on the real life Ontario story of Stephen Truscott’s murder trial); and more.
More power to Ann-Marie MacDonald. Although THE WAY THE CROW FLIES comes perilously close to flying off the rails on a couple of occasions, most notably during the collapse of the main protagonist’s lesbian relationship and her ultimate coming to grips with the understanding that her friend had been wrongfully convicted, the story ultimately holds together and closes with a tense and surprising conclusion. Whether or not that conclusion is satisfactory is a decision that will have to be left to individual readers.
Canadian readers who are old enough to have lived through the events in MacDonald’s tale will be thrilled to see that her novel is positively awash in cultural references – song lyrics, cartoon quotes, current events, place names and location descriptions, references to television shows and movies. What an experience to be transported back in time so completely by weird and wonderful memories being hauled to the surface that my own life had buried so deep for so long!
What a delight! A selection of 500 works of art, paintings and sculptures alike, from 500 different artists w“… a whole new way of looking at art”
What a delight! A selection of 500 works of art, paintings and sculptures alike, from 500 different artists with no reference to nationality, school of thought, medium, date or topic. The works are presented alphabetically by artist and each work is accompanied by explanatory information on it and its creator. THE ART BOOK is “an unparalleled visual source book and a celebration of our rich and multi-faceted culture.” For those fans particularly taken by any given work of art who might like to find an opportunity to see it in the flesh, each work and, of course, each artist, is cross-referenced with an international directory of galleries and museums to visit.
A sublime bit of toilet reading for me. At two or three paintings per trip to the washroom, the enjoyment will last for the better part of a year! How nifty is that?
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