It is no secret that I fan-girl over Robert Jackson Bennett’s books, and the Founders trilogy has kept me just as enthusiastic as the Divine Cities haIt is no secret that I fan-girl over Robert Jackson Bennett’s books, and the Founders trilogy has kept me just as enthusiastic as the Divine Cities had: this man has an incredible talent and I can’t believe he is not a much, much bigger deal than he is. The conclusion of Sancia’s story did not let me down, and just like “City of Miracles”, I am almost sad that it is over because there isn’t another instalment to look forward to.
“Locklands” is very difficult to summarize without dropping spoilers from the first two books. Sufficed to say that eight years after the events of “Shorefall”, Sancia and her friends have been fighting a war the likes of which their world has never seen: they fight for their survival, but also for the freedom of those who have been forcibly absorbed by a terrible force which aims to re-write all of reality. The stakes are incredibly high, and while the former thief has managed quite a feat, not only of surviving, but of giving her compatriots the tools to survive and thrive, she knows they can’t keep this up for ever. Winning this war and saving their people might require steps they had never imagined possible, and the consequences might be heartbreaking.
This novel is action packed, and very fast-paced compared to the first two books. It makes for a rather breathless read, as you are constantly baited into reading the next chapter, which is very fun but also exhausting! And if you got annoyed with Bennett’s explanations about how the scriving magical system functions, forget it: you will hate this book. While this system is unlike anything else I have ever read in fantasy before, it requires a lot of explanation, and I can see that getting tedious for some readers. I enjoyed it, but I can also see the clear parallels between scriving and computer programming, and I awed by the way this huge nerd turned coding into magic for the purpose of this story. “Have you tried turning it off and on again?” is actually a concept touched upon in this book and that made me squee out loud.
This was a very emotional and satisfying conclusion to this unique fantasy series, and I really appreciated the afterword, in which Bennett discussed writing this book during the pandemic and how bizarre an experience that was, while also being a precious life-line of sanity. If you liked the “Foundryside” and “Shorefall”, you will not be disappointed by “Locklands”. I highly recommend the whole series, and anything penned by this brilliant man....more
Little personal anecdote in lieu of introduction to the book review; feel free to skip if you aren’t interested.
Back in May, I was browsing at the recLittle personal anecdote in lieu of introduction to the book review; feel free to skip if you aren’t interested.
Back in May, I was browsing at the record store when I stumbled upon something that made me squeak incredulously: a brand new record by… the Used. That took me back, as the Used’s record “In Love and Death” was the soundtrack to the worst heartbreak of my life, when I was twenty, but I had stopped keeping track of their new releases a long time ago. Also, at the time, I would have died rather than admitted listening to them, for fear of damaging my punk “cred”; now, at almost forty, I am – let’s say – unapologetic about listening to what I want, so I picked it up and brought it home. And. I. Freaking. Loved. It. Which felt so odd because it definitely had a time warp quality to it: their sound is still very much theirs, and Bert McCraken’s lyrics are still intense and deeply felt, but they are also clearly not twenty anymore either. After listening to it a few times, I started building a playlist that I called “Geriatric Emo”, because I guess that’s what bands like the Used and dweebs like me are now: geriatric millennials who still need music that can bring us to an emotional cathartic place in order not to go full bat-shit. And sometimes, we just want to bop our heads to some Paramore, and you can fuck off if you disapprove (whoever said my language would clean up as I got older was sadly mistaken).
The Used is only briefly mentioned in this book, but a lot of bands that they toured with and were contemporary to when they got started have a chapter dedicated to them (I actually saw them live once, opening for Rise Against, hence preserving my oh-so precious “cred”), and I have records by most of those bands, many of which I still listen to. This era was my early college years, and music was the glue to my mind. Against Me!, Rise Against and the Distillers were huge inspirations, making fun of My Chemical Romance was mandatory and begrudgingly listening to At The Drive In was… a thing. And obviously, as mentioned, there were bands you simply had to sneer at if you wanted to be seen as a real punk, and that is very much what Green Day and Blink 182 were: the sellouts. The bands that had made it big and were, somehow, too “pop” for some people’s sensibilities, and were considered to have traded their authenticity for a sound that would mean more commercial success (I am happy to admit that once I relaxed a bit, I ended up enjoying Green Day and Blink exactly for what they were without feeling weird about it).
The concept of selling out is about an ideological purity that has its limitation: no one wants to compromise their artistic vision and turn their work into just a product, which is why the punk scene was (rightfully) very skeptical of what major labels could and would do for them. On the other hand, bills need to be paid, musicians need to eat, and the buying power behind larger labels has created records of amazing quality that would simply not have been as good had they been done on the cheaper and smaller scale. It’s easy to throw the words “sellout” as a slur when you are part of an anti-corporation subculture, but what’s behind it is often pettiness and jealousy – and not simply concerns about artistic integrity. This was something that was such a huge concern in the 90s and the 2000s, but I feel like it’s no longer the raw nerve it used to be, given how different the landscape of the music industry is from what it was then. It’s also ridiculous to expect an artist’s work to never change or evolve: how would that keep the work interesting? Not to rip on Rancid forever, but spending two decades trying to recapture the glory of “… And Out Come the Wolves” has not made them more interesting musicians.
So of course I enjoyed it: I love nerding out about music, and a lot of the music mentioned in this book is stuff that is very dear to my little heart. Some of the stories I knew, but I also learned a lot of new info, that re-contextualized some of what I knew about bands I love, and what they went through to make art. Like, I knew Rancid were total assholes, but they are even worst than I thought. I’ve had direct experience of the sexism that goes with being a girl in a band, so the stories from the Donnas were no surprise, I just wished they had been able to enjoy themselves a bit more. I went to listen to some Thursday, out of curiosity, and I still don’t like them, sorry – but they had a weirdly unique experience of a major actually believing in them and getting screwed over by an indie label! I still rolled my eyes at My Chemical Romance’s song titles; while “Famous Last Words” remains a guilty pleasure of mine, pretty much all their other work makes me want to bash my head on a wall - but their story is still an interesting case of appealing to a broad demographic and knowing how to work the online aspect of their work.
I appreciate that the chapters are laid out chronologically, with regards to when the major label album came out for each band: you can see a certain evolution in the marketing methods, the way the audience connects with the bands, as you go from the mid-90s to the early 2000s, and things become a lot more about social media presence and a band’s capacity to navigate that intelligently. It also illustrates very well that there is no magic formula for a band to make it: Green Day and Jawbreaker were on the same label, same producer, same music video director, and one had insane success while the other one imploded. Art and success is not a muffin recipe!
I wish they had done a full chapter on Anti-Flag, because I love them and because they have an interesting tale of making an (arguably) iconic record on RCA and then taking the big label money to go on and start their own label to support their local scenes, and that is fucking awesome.
But over all, a very interesting book about a special time in the history of rock in general, punk rock specifically - and if you are in the throes of nostalgia like I have been recently, you will love this!
Also, this is my 1000th review on Goodreads! HOLY SHIT!...more
This book’s subject is both fascinating and very weird, and I wonder if one’s enjoyment of it doesn’t hinge entirely on how one reacts to the idea thaThis book’s subject is both fascinating and very weird, and I wonder if one’s enjoyment of it doesn’t hinge entirely on how one reacts to the idea that there are such objects as books bound in human skin (anthropodermic bibliopegy is the standardized formula regarding this… practice). My curiosity towards bizarre and, let’s face it, morbid subject matters made this book kind of irresistible, though I must say it didn’t turn out how I expected!
This horror story loving gal was hoping for a book about cultists who bind their grimoires in the skin of their sacrificial victims under gibbous moons… No such luck! Lovecraft, “Hocus Pocus” and “Supernatural” greatly exaggerated the prevalence of books bound in human skin – and got the context in which such books ended up being made all wrong – as it turns out (why am I surprised/disappointed by this?). As we soon learn following Megan Rosenbloom, a medical archivist who works with a group devoted to testing alleged anthropodermic books for authenticity and working to understand their stories – these books generally seem to have a direct relationship with the medical establishment rather than Hannibal Lecter types.
First of all, Rosenbloom’s writing is both very clear and engaging, making this book a breeze to read. She is clearly passionate about her topic, and wants to make accessible to anyone curious enough – and I think she succeeds in doing that! She also wants to get rid of the common misconceptions that exist regarding anthropodermic books: rumours about French Revolution and Nazi death camp human books manufactures turn out to be just that – rumors. The real stuff has much stranger and more complicated stories than one could expect.
It must also be noted that she navigates an ethically tricky terrain: of course, the idea that some people would use human skin to bind books is horrifying, and she takes great pain to gives us context, not to exonerate the doctors who did (whatever their motives), but to illustrate the value of such books as artefacts and important learning opportunities in regard to how medical science treats humans. I learned a few things reading her summary of the birth of modern medical training and how it resulted in what is commonly known as the clinical gaze.
As a very tattooed lady, I also found her chapter on tattoo preservation and the interesting work being done with this aim, quite interesting. I’m not sure what I’d like done with my ink once I’ve kicked the bucket, but now I certainly have stuff to think about and add to my death-plan (more paperwork, yay!).
Book and history nerds with a penchant for the creepy will certainly find this a fascinating little book: I only wished she would have dwelled more on other rumored anthropodermic books in her final chapters on the French “market” of occult book collectors....more
Isaiah Coleridge’s third investigation since he relocated to the Hudson Valley cranks the darkness factor a solid notch, and had me reading way past mIsaiah Coleridge’s third investigation since he relocated to the Hudson Valley cranks the darkness factor a solid notch, and had me reading way past my bedtime. It also had me chuckling: this investigation takes Isaiah to Western New York, and I never thought I’d read a references to “white hots” is a mystery horror novel…
Still reeling from the fallout of his investigation about the Croatoan, Isaiah is trying to figure out two things: how to handle the possibility of moving in with Meg, and how to make a lot of dirty cash a bit less dirty. But he’s not given much time to mull those things over: an ex-cop turned bodyguard for a senator with a weird background gives him a retainer to look into the death of his nephew. While it was ruled a suicide by the powers that be, the bereaved mother is not so sure, and a quick look at the original inquiry shows that some corners were cut rather sloppily. Isaiah’s curiosity is snared further by the dramatic setting of the death: a shaft on the construction site of a large particle collider, the building of which was halted rather abruptly soon after the so-called suicide took place with zero explanation for the workers or the community. Not that the community is anything less eerie without factoring in the strange abandoned site…
More intelligent, and certainly very carefully and thoughtfully written that your average murder mystery, the Isaiah Coleridge novels bring to mind eating dark chocolate and chasing it down with some smokey bourbon: not everyone will like it, but those who do will relish it. If you have read some Laird Barron short stories before, you know that very rarely do any of his characters fall into holes by accident… As usual, his distrust of large corporations (which he obviously sees are carnivorous monsters) and corrupt and insane politicians is on full display here, along with his wordy dialogue and unnerving side-characters. He had cracked the door open for his cosmic mythology in “Black Mountain”, and here, they push the door wide open and made themselves comfortable just at the corner of Isaiah’s vision – and I loved it!
This installment also has Isaiah confronting something potentially scarier than cheerleaders who like to eat rancid meat: his own inevitable vulnerability. He is not getting any younger, and a life of violence and abuse has taken a massive toll on his body, which he finally has to recon with. For the first time in a long time, his future – both having one and having to prepare for it – becomes a real concern to Isaiah, and I appreciate that in spite of the intense masculinity of his work, Barron has enough guts to admit that big tough guys also have softer spots, whether or not they are any good at dealing with them.
If you have enjoyed this series so far, and if you like it weird AF, this third installment won't let you down!...more
John Langan is so freaking good at what it does that it’s almost annoying. He’s one of those authors who’s new books I’ll buy without having read evenJohn Langan is so freaking good at what it does that it’s almost annoying. He’s one of those authors who’s new books I’ll buy without having read even a single review, because I implicitly trust that I’ll love it, and “Children of the Fang” confirmed that my trust is well-deserved. Langan writes literary horror that is erudite and sophisticated, and I can’t get enough.
This most recent collection is best read with keeping the story notes at the end of the book in mind: for each story, Langan looks a which author, book or movie planted the seed that he nurtured and turned into a creepy tale. I’ll be honest: I prefer his longer stories, the ones where he really takes time to flesh out a world for his bizarre and macabre events to unfold, but do not discount the shorter stories, which are interesting muscle flexing and stylistic exercises. I especially loved the following titles:
“With Max Barry in the Nearer Precinct” “Into the Darkness, Fearlessly” “Children of the Fang” “Ymir” “The Horn of the World’s Ending” "The Underground Economy" "Inundation"
Even if this collection does not clear the bar set by “The Wide, Carnivorous Sky” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) and “The Fisherman” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) – which is still, in my opinion, one of the best horror novels ever written – it is still a treasure trove of creepy wonders that really shows of Langan's range, and also the eclectic muses he draws from. Obviously, the classics are there, but he is also a shamless fan and supporters of his friends and fellow writer Laird Barron and Stephen Graham Jones, and is not too proud to admit that their work is cross-polinating.
Also, perhaps bizarelly, Langan makes me fall in love with the Hudson River Valley, even if he uses it as a setting for haunting and scary creatures. The cover of his books should be Thoms Cole paintings - which I find to invoke a similar feeling of beautiful yet ominous landscape.
Highly recommended for fans of flavorful horror writing! ...more
Maybe this book is a case of the “it’s not you, it’s me”… Every review I see is over the moon enthusiastic, and here I am with my lukewarm “I liked itMaybe this book is a case of the “it’s not you, it’s me”… Every review I see is over the moon enthusiastic, and here I am with my lukewarm “I liked it!”. And I did, I really did! Just not as much as I thought I would. And believe me, I live for fucked up family sagas and monster stories, so I can’t exactly put my finger on what went wrong here.
The small town of Perdido, Alabama is almost entirely flooded after a big storm, and once the rain stops, young Oscar Caskey goes around the town in his little boat to see if anything can be salvaged, or anyone rescued. That is show he comes to meet the mysterious Elinor, who seems to have escaped the waters by staying put on the second floor of the hotel she was staying at. When Oscar finds her, she is neither wet, nor starving, nor afraid. Almost as if she knew he’d be there soon to rescue her. And thus begins the long saga of Elinor’s life and how she joins the Caskey family. I won’t try to summarize the 800 pages story, separated into six novellas. It spans the first half of the twentieth century and four generations of Caskeys, their fortunes and misadventures, their strange lives and their sometimes even stranger deaths.
The prose is nice, but it didn’t blow my socks off, and the pacing is strong, keeping up a really good rhythm that made me look forward to every new corner this strange story would take. But I didn’t warm up to any of the characters, with the notable exception of Frances (more on her a bit later), and the horror elements were a little too quaint for me. I know I have a tough hide when it comes to creepy stuff, but I struggled to lose myself in the atmosphere of this book.
One thing that I can give McDowell entirely is that he is amazing at building dysfunctional family relationships. If there is a proper monster in this story, it’s Mary-Love Caskey, the matriarch who governs her family with an iron grip and does not like it one bit when Elinor shows up and shakes up the established order of things. The way she controls, manipulates and drives everyone crazy actually felt too realistic for comfort at times, and I have to wonder what kind of woman McDowell’s mother was like.
The only character I really warmed to was Frances Caskey, and even then, I only started finding her interesting when she began becoming more aware of her nature and realizing who she really is. I would have loved it if this aspect of the story had been explored more deeply, but that thread of the tapestry was snipped off much too soon for my taste.
I think that the label of “Southern Gothic family saga” had me expecting something more along the lines of Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches saga, and “Blackwater” turned out to be a lot quainter than what I had been looking forward to. It will be a 3-star read for me, mostly because I think it’s unlikely I will revisit it in the future, but I see why is it as beloved as it is....more
Things I have learned about being a Queen while reading this excellent biography of Elizabeth I:
-The marriage question is tricky, but ultimately, not Things I have learned about being a Queen while reading this excellent biography of Elizabeth I:
-The marriage question is tricky, but ultimately, not getting married is the best call, because you make all your own decisions and drive your counsel up the wall by periodically pretending to be interested in marrying then changing your mind – which is just fun. -Brush your teeth. Seriously. -Nip conspiracies against your reign in the bud, or they will drag on for twenty years and cost you untold amounts of money, not to mention anxiety. Beheadings are messy, but alas, occasionally unavoidable. -Let people practice whatever religion they want. Even if its not the same as yours, your liberal attitude will make them less likely to be riled up by weird fanatics. Its not that important anyway. -Pirates are hot and know how to party. Make friends with them. -Dress the part, and never let anyone paint a bad portrait of you if you want to be a literal icon of your country’s history. -Get a good spymaster: he’ll save your bacon more times than you can count. -Let your subjects see you, walk among them, listen to them, talk to them. See previous point about them being less likely to get riled up and try to depose you.
Alison Weir wrote a wonderful book about the remarkable Elizabeth Tudor, humanized a lot of the famous stories and ideas about her and those close to her. I have always been fascinated with the image of this pale face, red-headed, outrageously dressed queen – who seemed to be the smartest person in the room wherever she went and who, while occasionally given to fits of rage, was a generally benevolent, peaceful and responsible monarch. I wondered if this job, of being England’s most famous queen, had been as lonely as it sometimes seemed, if she had had a good life, despite all the complications, intrigue and assassination attempts. She would not have liked this book, as it exposed some of her weaknesses, but personally, it made me like her more to know she gave ridiculous nicknames to her favorites, went out of her way to make her subjects feel cared for, and inspired life-long loyalty in those close to her.
This book is very well researched, the writing is engaging and never drags; Weir cares for her subject deeply, sharing quotes of personal correspondence and contemporary accounts of those who knew her, to reveal a very strong, extremely smart but also very human queen, who had an uneasy job in an uneasy time, and often had to make difficult decisions for herself and the country she was in charge of. Her parents’ legacy was a heavy burden, but she was determined to prove to everyone that she was worthy of her station.
If you are curious about Elizabeth, her reign or the time period and its politics, this is an excellent book. I’ll be looking for more works by Alison Weir....more
Julie and Charles: you guys may have broken my bad book curse. I have infinite gratitude for selling me this weird and brilliant little thing!
The subtJulie and Charles: you guys may have broken my bad book curse. I have infinite gratitude for selling me this weird and brilliant little thing!
The subtitle to “Marry Me” is “A Romance”, and clearly, Mr. Updike had his tongue planted firmly in his cheek when he chose that, because this is the most twisted version of a romance I can imagine.
Jerry, who is married to Ruth, is having an affair with Sally. They are in love, and are struggling with finding ways to be together without wrecking their lives. Eventually, Jerry confesses his infidelity to his wife, who, unbeknown to him, had a fling some time ago with Sally’s husband Richard. Ruth requests of Jerry that he put his affair on ice until the end of the summer, in order to make up his mind about what he wants to do. Will he leave her and their 3 children and marry Sally, or will he stay and try to save his marriage?
Idealized love and the fact that it’s 100% a delusion is not a new topic, of course. But in this little story of a marriage falling apart because of an affair is one of the rawest depiction of that annoying reality that I have ever read. The timelessness of the theme of desire vs. duty means that some aspects of Jerry and Sally’s story are horribly predictable, especially as their behavior is a product of the 1970s American middle class (read: deeply repressed) morality. But how deeply Updike explores the layers of their summer makes up for the clichés.
I had never read any Updike before and the prose, my God, the prose! One might as well be writing poetry with a scalpel! You get a wonderful sense of the heavy and frantic nature of everyone’s feeling, the thrill and anger somehow contained and palpable at the same time. I can’t believe I had never picked up a book by him before, because this little taste makes me feel like running straight to the book store! Updike is merciless and evocative, which somehow works perfectly to show the ugliness and vulnerability of his characters.
I will echo Charles’ thoughts, that while this is completely alien to my own experience of relationships and marriage, I also absolutely believed that the events on the page really happened, to real people. Rather insufferable and terrible people (they reminded me of the Wheelers and their little Connecticut life on “Revolutionary Road”), but definitely real people. I was really struck by the emotional immaturity of almost everyone involved in this vaudeville (except maybe Ruth, who is apparently the only adult and lucid person in this story): the childish need for instant satisfaction, the avoidance of conflicts, the impulsive and self-destructive behavior, the need to have the last word and be the “good guy”. Alas, I also know that’s much more common than the honesty, sacrifice and acceptance that makes healthy marriages. As a child of divorce, it’s also really fucking depressing to read a story like this and see how little anyone is concerned with the welfare of any of the children caught in this mess. At best, they are ignored; at worst, weaponized to manipulate a spouse.
I see from reviews that a lot of readers were unhappy with the ending. I can see why, but given that this is the story of four (OK, maybe 3 ½) human disasters colliding, I expected messy, so it didn’t frustrate me nearly as much as the fact that the world is full of real-life Jerrys frustrates me. The maddening back and forth is still hypnotizing, regardless of how it ends, and I highly recommend this little novel.
Thanks again, Big Sis, your recommendations are dead-on, as always! ...more
My first introduction to punk was a couple of used records I found at a garage sale: the Clash’s “London Calling” and the Cramps’ “Songs the Lord TaugMy first introduction to punk was a couple of used records I found at a garage sale: the Clash’s “London Calling” and the Cramps’ “Songs the Lord Taught Us”, both absolute masterpieces, but they were already “old” records by the time I got my hands on them. The punk music I actually grew up on is the stuff this book is about: Bad Religion, Rancid, the Offspring, NOFX, Green Day. That was the newest wave of punk rock at the time, the bands whose records I hunted down at the woefully understocked record shop of the shitty burb I spent my teenage years in (most riot grrrl stuff had to be inexplicably special ordered from Europe: it was a cultural wasteland!). It is only in hindsight that I realize why they were so relevant to me: most of those bands came from the same environment I did, North American suburbia and it’s weird veneer of conformity that felt all wrong. My parents were not conservative, but they were a bit checked out (as a lot of parents were at the time) and really didn’t get why I felt alienated, which means music made by people who felt the same was a source of live-saving comfort. I know that can seem odd, but that comfort means I have a visceral attachments to bands and records from that era, so this book was just irresistible.
This book is very California-centric: additionally to the other bands mentioned above, Ian Winwood talks about X, Social Distortion and Pennywise – but the emphasis on Green Day seems disproportional to the amount of page-space dedicated to other bands (the author’s picture on the dust jacket is of him with Billie Joe Armstrong…), so I think it could have been more balanced (if you name a book after an Offspring record, it could easily lead one to assume the book was about them!), but this was simply too much fun for me to rate lower than this. I am still very fond of the records discussed, I will always love those bands to death, and the story of Epitaph Records is fascinating to me; I remember picking up random records from bands I had never heard of because they were on Epitaph, which was basically a badge of excellence I could trust with both eyes closed.
Books like this one and like “Sellout” bring me a lot of joy because if there is anything I love geeking the fuck out about, it’s music, especially that genre. It makes me dig out some records and build playlists I can bang my head to as I read. It makes me want to take out my dusty guitar! Obviously, I recommend listening to the bands and albums mentioned as you read this book: the minute Operation Ivy came up, I had “Knowledge” on repeat.
Definitely a must-read for fans of that era of punk rock!...more
“For anybody who doesn’t know where they’re going.”
Becky Chambers, thank you! Thank you for the comforting hugs that are your books, they always fall “For anybody who doesn’t know where they’re going.”
Becky Chambers, thank you! Thank you for the comforting hugs that are your books, they always fall into my hands at the perfect time!
So, just in case you are wondering, yes, I loved it, from the dedication and opening sentence to the last page. And I drank it up like a warm cup of honey-sweetened golden milk. I don’t know how Ms. Chambers does her magic, of putting her gentle touch right on a raw spot and making it feel better, but I don’t need to know the mechanics, I just enjoy the process.
In this second instalment of her Monk & Robot series, we follow Sibling Dex and Mosscap out of the wilderness and into villages and settlements along the road, as Mosscap fulfills it’s wish to meet humans and try to understand what they need. This question, which it thought simple, turns out to be much more nuanced than expected. This new turn in their travel also gives Sibling Dex a lot to ponder, as they aren’t quite sure about their own purpose at this stage of their journey. Mosscap’s questions, concerns and view points send their thoughts in unexpected directions and I must say that the characters’ inner process are just as interesting as the external events.
I liked this one as much if not more than the first book: we are now in a more established world, and that gives Chambers the freedom to dig deeper at her wonderful characters, something she is particularly good at. Her empathy, her sharp yet gentle humor and the relatable things her characters go through make all of her books feel like a soothing balm on my very world-weary nerves, and I always flip the last page feeling moved and comforted. And thanks to “The Venture Bros”, in my head, Mosscap’s voice is Rhys Darby – which makes me smile a lot.
In other words, if you are a fan of Chambers’ work, don’t hesitate to pick this newest novella up, it might be just what the doctor ordered....more
Not as good as I wanted it to be, not as bad as I thought it would turn out… Sigh. I think the problem is that once you have fallen in love with CountNot as good as I wanted it to be, not as bad as I thought it would turn out… Sigh. I think the problem is that once you have fallen in love with Count Rostov, the bar has been set too high, and now the expectation to see it cleared is just a set up for disappointment. So my review of this (objectively) very decent book is essentially me whining about the fact that it wasn’t, in fact, “A Gentleman in Moscow”. Apologies.
“The Lincoln Highway” is a lot closer to “The Rules of Civility”, with multiple characters’ lives colliding and pushing each other around. Emmett Watson finished serving a sentence for involuntary manslaughter. As a minor, he served in a work farm, where he met Duchess and Woolly, who are not really truants themselves, just two young men who do not fit in the role the world has assigned them. When he gets home, Emmett only has one plan: to take his little brother Billy in his beloved Studebaker and head out West, where he wants to put his builder’s skills to use to make a better life for them than they can hope to get in Nebraska. What he did not expect was for Duchess and Woolly to have managed to stowaway out of the work farm before the end of their time and follow him along… Emmett’s plan is quickly derailed, and while Duchess is full of good intentions and Woolly’s innocent perspective on the world are far from malicious, they send the Watsons very far off course and lands them in some places they had never expected to see.
There is a blurb on my copy that compares this book to Steinbeck and Kerouac; I’m sorry, but no. This is certainly a fun and unexpected road trip story, but Steinbeck and Kerouac it is not. Towles creates really great characters and ties them up together in very creative ways, but in this case, none have the Count’s charisma and charm, or Katey’s pluck. Emmett is a doormat, Duchess deserves every beating he gets, and while I appreciate Billy’s precociousness, the character I felt for the most was Sally, who seems to be the only one with an ounce of common sense and who has to manage all these silly boys. This is probably part of why that book sits weird with me: I hate it when there is that one smart female character who’s entire function is holding the bag while the men literally run riot. While she’s there making sure the bottom doesn’t fall out, her own life and stories are totally stunted, and that grates me. I think my favorite bit were the sections about Ulysses, and the brilliant way his journey home mirrors that of his famous namesake.
The prose was also less interesting than in Towles’ previous work, which surprised me. I do think I’m having a weird reading year, and I wonder if it has made me especially critical and hard to please. But all means, if you enjoyed Towles’ previous work, check it out, but do not hope for another séjour at the Metropol....more
“Every decent friendship comes with a drop of hatred. But that hatred is like honey in tea. It makes it addictive.”
Move over, enormous pile of books I“Every decent friendship comes with a drop of hatred. But that hatred is like honey in tea. It makes it addictive.”
Move over, enormous pile of books I’ve been meaning to read, the new Heather O’Neill novel has arrived! I wonder sometimes if books get jealous of how much attention other books are getting; in which case, most of my library would probably roll it’s eyes at the Heather O’Neill corner incessantly… See, she is an author for whom I will not wait for the paperback to come out, I will just want to hold a copy of it in my hands as soon as I can. I love her characters who are so flawed and so full of love and dreams, I love the way she turns my city into a glittery but dirty fairy tale landscape and I love the way she rips me apart with her stories. O’Neill is a romantic, but she is also a sensualist, and her books capture an irresistible overlap of ethereal dreams and earthly desires.
Two little girls grow up in the Golden Mile, an opulent neighborhood in Montreal; while they are neighbors, they could not be more different. Marie is a golden girl, only daughter of widowed Louis Antoine, who loves his child so much that he indulges her every whim, and has had her portrait printed on every bag of sugar that leaves his large factory. Sadie Arnett is the raven-haired, youngest of two in a family of political social climbers, who hope that her friendship with the little mademoiselle Antoine will help them. Unfortunately, a violent incident forces the families to separate the little girls, but distance will only strengthen their longing for each other. In parallel, Louis’ love child, Mary, hatches a plan to exact revenge on those who derailed her life when she was too young and powerless to do anything about it.
When you pick up a book by Heather O’Neill, you have to expect sex, cats, magic, violence, whimsy, intoxication and an underlying feminist commentary that manages to never be didactic – but stays sufficiently graphic for you to understand the suffering splattered on the page. This book is probably her most overtly feminist work yet, as her heroines are not equipped to meet their time’s definition of respectable women.
“The female body was particularly absorbent when it came to shame. If you wrung out any woman’s body, you would discover it was soaked in shame.”
There are multiple and obvious references to the French Revolution and its prominent actors, which can give you little hints as to where things are headed if you are familiar with that slice of history. Marie Antoine and her father Louis, Sadie Arnett, Mary Robespierre, George Danton, Jeanne-Pauline Marat… I appreciate those little winks at certain historical figures and their mystique, which are well integrated in this very different setting of the Gilded Age. O’Neill has known poverty, and she has learnt perseverance and resilience, which she breathes into her characters, but her past books did not make the statement that this one does about inequality – and women’s power.
I’m not sure this is a perfect novel, but its gorgeously written, moving and fascinating, with a satisfying and thought-provoking ending. A must read for fans of the author’s previous work, and a stunning place to start if you are not familiar with Ms. O’Neill....more
This short, beautifully written yet incredibly straightforward novel shocked everyone when it was published in France in thTeenage girls. I hate them.
This short, beautifully written yet incredibly straightforward novel shocked everyone when it was published in France in the 50s. It had been written by a woman still in her teens and spoke frankly and plainly of sex and atheism, the narrator’s voice detached and amoral. Now, it’s no longer shocking – it’s mostly sad, a quick glimpse into the selfish and decadent life of post-war upper class Parisians. The story could be melodramatic, but somehow, Sagan doesn’t allow that easy mistake to happen. It is much more a product of the literature of the era, unaffected and matter of fact. That she wrote it at 18 goes to show that teenage girls have always had a fascination for tragedies, but she had the brain and talent necessary to turn the tale of a disastrous summer vacation into a melancholy story about the discovery of the nature of love and its consequences.
A seventeen year old girl named Cécile, and her widowed father Raymond, go spend the summer in a villa by the sea on the Côté d’Azur. Raymond is a womanizer who has never bothered to hide his lifestyle from Cécile, and he brings along his younger mistress Elsa with them. Cécile meets a young law student named Cyril and begins a budding romance with him. This could have been a perfect summer if Cécile’s late mother’s friend Anne had not decided to join them…
Anne is everything Elsa is not: she is very cerebral, she has a career, she is divorced and independent - she is very "comme il faut", respectable. Cécile at first can’t believe that Anne and her father would be interested in each other, but lo and behold, not only do they get together, but they quickly announce their engagement. Cécile, resentful to find that Anne won’t tolerate her indolent and spoiled lifestyle any longer, hatches a cruel plan to separate her from her father, by manipulating both Elsa and Cyril.
This book does not have a happy ending, and made me think both of Duras and Camus in the resigned attitude of their conclusion. One is tempted to close this book, raise a glass of wine and sadly toast: “C’est la vie!”.
The prose is gorgeous, vivid and quite sensual. If you can tolerate terrible teenage girls, this is absolutely worth a few hours....more
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