You Can't Win Them All

Shortly after I finished my previous post, I came across a new book by an author whose previous book was critically acclaimed.  Of course, I immediately took it out and began reading it.  Alas, it's difficult to churn out magnum opus after magnum opus, as City of Fortune:  How Venice Ruled the Seas proved.  By Roger Crowley, the author of Empires of the Sea, this new book seems to be merely a magazine article plumped out by arcane factoids.  Empires of the Sea was a masterwork illustrating the lever on which the fate of the western world turned; City of Fortune is a biography of a city (a beautiful and important city, but just a city).

I had a similar experience with one of my favorite mystery authors, P.D. James.  She recently published Death Comes to Pemberly, presented as a murder mystery sequel to Pride and Prejudice, and I was very anxious to sample it.  Well, after a long wait, it became available and I read it in one sitting.  What a disappointment.  Not only is it mostly a rehash of Austen's original work, with little original material, the mystery is not terribly mysterious.  I'm not in the habit of trying to figure out the endings, but I had the culprit, the situation, and the deadly secret all figured out halfway through the book.  Stick to Adam Dalgliesh, P.D. James.

I did manage to find some decent reading material, however.  Turn Right at Macchu Picchu, by Mark Adams, is a nonfiction account of his travels in Peru, combined with a history of the discovery of several hidden Inca cities.  The Inca still inspire fascination; a mountaintop people, rich in gold, who fought bravely and to no avail against the Spanish conquistadores.  Adams includes the story of Hiram Bingham, whose (pigheaded) determination led him to the discovery (and, possibly, pillaging) of these beautiful and mysterious empty cities. The writing is readable and comfortable, and Adams is even humorous at times, calling to mind Bill Bryson's brand of travel writing.

Last of all, I'll come to this week's fiction selection.  It gets more difficult to find decent fiction every week; if any of you have recommendations I'll be thrilled to try them.  This book, The Flight of Gemma Hardy, is by Margot Livesey, and I started reading it without looking at the blurb at all.  I think it actually made the reading experience more interesting, because it wasn't until chapter two that I realized that this is a book written exactly in the pattern of Jane Eyre -- and it's meant to be a "homage and modern variation" of it.

Jane Eyre's story lends itself well to parts of Gemma's life tale, but other parts make less sense.  This story takes place in the modern era, and situations in Bronte's book that were obviously morally problematic seem less so here.  Nevertheless, it's a good read.

On the End of Children's Literature

No time for a post -- things are a bit hectic (in a good way) and I'll resume posting in a week or two.  However, I read this New York Times article this morning, and it gave me food for thought:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/10/opinion/no-more-adventures-in-wonderland.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212

What do you think?

Magical Reading

If it were possible to lock C.S. Lewis, J.D. Salinger, Terry Pratchett, and J.K. Rowling into a room and force them to collaborate on a book, the result might possibly be a lot like Lev Grossman's The Magicians and The Magician King.  These are, strictly speaking, fantasy, but they do seem to bridge the gap between that genre and regular fiction.

The Magicians introduces the reader to the character of Quentin Coldwater, who is a familiar figure -- a teen with no clear direction.  Through an odd sequence of events, he lands at Brakebills, a Hogwarts-like institution of magic.  However, the similarity to Hogwarts is quite superficial -- Grossman's books, while lighthearted (and really funny) at times, lack the fairy tale/happy ending/hope for the world moods that underlie the Harry Potter series.  The sequel, The Magician King, builds on the foundation of the story told in the first book, and has its share of surprises. These books are about people who seem real in their characters and have a greater share of flaws and faults, and while their choices do have a great impact, there are situations in which the characters cannot win, and simply have to deal with in their own ways.

I don't really give a blanket recommendation for these books, even though I have reread the first one several times and intend to do so with the sequel.  If you really don't like fantasy, these books aren't for you.  These books can be graphic at times, disturbingly so for some readers.  This is not crossover kids' fantasy; these are real grownup books.  But if you enjoyed  any of the writers listed in the first paragraph of this post (with the possible exception of Rowling) you will probably enjoy these books as well.

I Win Again!

For the third time this year, I have managed to beat the New York Times Book Review -- I've read at least two books a week or more before the NYT has had a chance to publish its review.

Last week I spent most of my spare time (when I wasn't grading papers or reading essays) reading The Storm of War, a  new history of World War II.  By Andrew Roberts, this book covers the topic admirably, and I should know by now, having attempted to read nearly everything I can get my hands on within this topic.  Roberts puts forth the thesis that Hitler's war was a war fought for ideological as opposed to political reasons; he proposes this as the answer to why this war was lost as well.  This is a very thorough treatment of the events of World War II, and Roberts manages to combine this thoroughness with a brevity and concision of writing which is a pleasure to read.  This book would make a good companion to Richard J. Evans' Third Reich series, which delves much more deeply into the psyche of Hitler's Germany, and you can read about these books here.

Another book in the NYT spotlight this week is State of Wonder, by Ann Patchett.  Patchett originally rocketed to the top of the bestseller lists with her beautifully written Bel Canto; its odd plot notwithstanding, it is a wonderful book.  State of Wonder is set in a different type of world than Bel Canto, but one similarity is how Patchett seems to enjoy pushing together characters from vastly different worlds almost just to see what will happen.  This sometimes feels a bit like experimental cookery.

In this story, a dispassionate letter informing a pharmaceutical company of the death of an emissary catapults another employee into actions she wouldn't normally take.  It's important not to give anything away, though, because the reader will enjoy this book far more coming into it with complete ignorance.  I would recommend not even reading the jacket blurb.

Laughter: The Best Medicine

As one grows older, those occasions in which a good, long belly laugh occurs grow fewer and farther between.  As children, so much of what we saw and read and experienced was just so funny! Like the knock-knock jokes we told endlessly, to very very patient parents who concealed their rolling eyes and giggled politely.  Where did the humor in life disappear to?

It hasn't gone anywhere, but if you are normal (or approximating normal) you have matured to the extent that what seemed hilarious at age 7, or 12, or 16, seems gross, or dumb, or sophomoric in your 20's or 30's.  This is a bit of a disappointment, in a way; kids have it so easy when they need a laugh.  Pick up a volume in the My Weird School series, and they're laughing all the way home.  Whereas mature adults such as ourselves will seldom find that kind of satisfaction in a book anymore; hence, this post.

Donald Westlake has been around for years; I haven't read all of his books yet but I've read most of the Dortmunder series.  These books, centering around a group of bumbling thieves, is as close to slapstick as one gets in literature.  Dortmunder is just so pathetic -- but the situations he falls into are ridiculously amusing, and so are his friends.  I especially like Stan.

If you want to be amused in a useful sort of way, the nonfiction of Bill Bryson is the way to go.  Whether expounding on hiking the Appalachians (A Walk in the Woods), the English language (Mother Tongue), or the history of the home (At Home), he is relentlessly funny.  The only one that disappointed me was the one about the Royal Society; unfortunately he is capable of writing serious nonfiction when called to do it.  I, however, was unprepared for it; expecting a funny book I hurled it at the wall in disgust.  It didn't deserve that kind of treatment, as it was an excellent book of its kind, but it's all about expectations, you know.

This would really fall under the fantasy genre, but it's just too funny to leave out:  A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams.  Some people actually think this is philosophy, so that's funny too.  Another fantasy author who is belly-laugh worthy is Terry Pratchett; his books are mostly based in the Discworld, a sort of parallel universe.  My favorite is Monstrous Regiment; I also loved The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents, which is a young adult book.  It's actually the Pied Piper with a talking cat and some genius rats.  Just fabulous.

The difficulty here is that once one has read this supremely amusing book, it's never as funny the second time around.  So now it's your turn -- can you recommend any funny books for me?

Asperger's in The Kitchen Daughter and The Way Things Look to Me

I've noticed an odd phenomenon -- occasionally, I'll take out a load of books from the library's 14-day bookshelf (new and bestseller list), choosing quite randomly because I'm rushed.  Then, I'll read my new stash, and gradually I'll find some odd similarity -- for example, all the books might feature abductions, or addictions, or dead pets.  Sometimes the connection is even more odd, and most of the books will feature a combination of events (Jews living in Northern Italy during the German occupation).  These similarities are never noted by me before I read the books; they're usually not notable enough to be included in the jacket blurb.  This week I read two books, actually quite dissimilar (both in quality and in plot) which shared one important characteristic:  both featured a prominent character with Asperger's Syndrome, and the plots both revolve around this character.

I read The Way Things Look to Me first; I've read Roopa Farooki's previous book, Bitter Sweets, and I thought it was excellent.  Her books feature characters who are Indian or Pakistani in ethnic origin, but who no longer live there.  The character in The Way Things Look to Me around whom the whole story (and all the characters) revolve is Yasmin, a teenager with Asperger's Syndrome.  Having lost both parents, Yasmin lives with her brother, Asif, who gave up his Cambridge education to return home and care for her after his mother dies.  Her sister, Lila, is more distant but also deeply tied to Yasmin; she bears the emotional scars of growing up in a home where the other siblings were sacrificed to the one with special needs.

I found this book to be very moving.  The characters aren't always likeable; at times Lila comes across as downright unbearable and Asif pathetically stuck in his role as martyred caregiver.  But it is a story that rings true, from Yasmin's narrated selections, which really do sound like those of a person who has great difficulty connecting to other people, to the raw pain and bitterness of her siblings.

The Kitchen Daughter did not provide the same experience.  In this book, the narrator has Asperger's Syndrome, which the reader is not made aware of in so many words.  Also, it seems that neither the narrator nor the narrator's family have any idea why she is different, which I find unlikely -- she apparently made it to adulthood with no diagnosis at all, even though she periodically hides in her parents' closet and has tantrums in public if people touch her.  The pivotal event in this book is the death of both her parents (yes, another coincidence) and Ginny turns to cooking for solace.  As she cooks from the recipes of her dead relatives, they appear to her on her kitchen stool with messages from beyond the grave, none of which make too much sense.  This story does not build up to much of anything, and it just did not ring true to me.  I did enjoy reading about the food she cooks, but she just doesn't come across as the character she is meant to be.

Mysteries and Whodunits

Sometimes your head needs a little bit of a workout, but not the sort of exertion you'd need for, say, Kant or Sartre.  You've had a long day, you're tired, but you want a book to sink your teeth into and get the cerebral wheels turning.  That's when you really need a mystery to read.  There's so much variation out there that you'll find a lot of cross-genre mysteries to suit any taste, even chick lit! 
Start with the classics of mystery fiction --  one can't mention mystery without a bow to the master, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  Author of some dubiously sci-fi books, his career really took off when he created Sherlock Holmes.  Holmes and his sidekick, Watson, live eternally in Doyle's short-story series, as well as his novels, The Hound of the Baskervilles, A Study in Scarlet, and The Sign of Four.  Doyle also provided subsequent generations of mystery writers with the pattern of genius detective and somewhat dopey friend to serve as a kind of straight man.
Of course there's Agatha Christie as well, who created the characters of Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot.  I've always loved Miss Marple -- it's so easy to underestimate the scatty old lady knitting in the corner; however, she's nosey as anything and has a wealth of knowledge that no one would imagine her having at all.  Christie wrote prolifically, but the quality is a bit uneven.  (She was quite mysterious herself; she disappeared at some point during her adult life, reappearing later with no explanation).  I recommend as a start Murder on the Orient Express (with Poirot), At Bertram's Hotel (Miss Marple), and then you can take it from there.
I've mentioned Dorothy Sayers and her Lord Peter Wimsey before, so I won't get too fulsome here.  I'll only mention that The Nine Tailors is considered by many to be the finest and least solvable mystery ever written.
Other classic mystery writers include Josephine Tey, who didn't write enough of them to make me happy -- I've reread her Brat Farrar until it fell apart, and The Daughter of Time, in which Richard III has his character rehabilitated by a police detective stuck in the hospital, is generally considered one of the best mystery/historical novels ever written.
Not to neglect the American classic mysteries, it's worth trying Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe mysteries.  A more unpleasant, more brilliant, and fatter detective you will not find, but these books take the reader straight to 1920's New York City.
Moving along to our times, P.D. James has, at this point, donned the crown of mystery queen in Christie's place.  Also British, her mysteries feature Adam Dalgliesh, who is a far more complex character than any ever created by Christie.  James, I think, is really a very sophisticated writer who has chosen to write mysteries.  Sometimes a bit horrifying, her stories are the kind that keep you guessing, but not wildly.
I also like Robert Parker's books, which are not too complicated (anyone can pretty much solve them by the end of the first chapter) but are a delight to read.  The dialogue is hilariously written, and by the end of the book the reader thinks Spenser is a real person.  Last time I went to Boston I looked for him every time I saw someone walking a large black dog (in the books she's called Pearl).  Sadly, he died recently, so you'll have to make do with what he's written already.  Another similar writer is Bill Pronzini, whose Nameless Detective novels are terrific.  Interestingly enough, he's married to Marcia Muller, another well-known mystery writer, but I can't say I like her books as much as I like his.
This weekend I read Martha Grimes's latest, Fadeaway Girl.  I really prefer her Richard Jury series, but she's such a hoot to read that I enjoyed it anyway.  Grimes creates terrific characters -- each one has bizzare idiosyncrasies.  One doesn't read Grimes for the mystery; I think her books are more about the process.  Fadeaway Girl is the sequel to Belle Ruin, and is narrated by a twelve-year-old girl who works in her mother's hotel.  Among other responsibilities, she mixes novel cocktails for her Great-Aunt Aurora, who lives on the top floor.  Oh, and there are two characters, brothers called Ubub and Ulub (after their license plates -- don't ask) with speech impediments.  If you like Grimes, you're lucky -- she's written a lot of books.
A new mystery series I've gone through recently features Flavia De Luce, a ten-year-old growing up in '50's Britain who makes her debut in The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie.  No, it's not for children.  Flavia plays with chemicals as a hobby.  There are at least two more of these by Alan Bradley, and he seems to be on a roll.
I'll stop here, because otherwise I could go on all day, but if you have comments, questions, or special requests, please post in the comments section.  Also, try to think of any contributions you could make to my Guilty Pleasures post!

What I Read This Weekend

This post is going to present a sort of smorgasbord of reading material; I had some themes in mind, but I got wrapped up in several books I read over the past two days.  Which reminds me -- before I launch into the meat and potatoes of this post, I would like to address a personal issue.  Since I began this blog, I've been frequently asked, "When do you find time to read?" and variations of that question, many asked in a borderline insulting way, have been getting to me.  I've said this before:  people make time for the pastimes they most want to do.  Some of you crochet, cook fiddly and complicated meals, carve watermelons (if you don't know what I'm talking about, don't ask, you'll never understand), exercise at the gym daily, paint, shop obsessively, surf the net -- you get my point.  If those are your favorite pastimes, you find time to do them, and more power to you.  I like to read.  I like reading better than any of the above.  So put a sock in it, please.

Back to business -- I started my weekend reading with Suffer the Children, by Marilyn Wedge.  A family therapist, Wedge proposes a whole new way of viewing the psychological maladies that are so often diagnosed in children today.  While I found her writing style to be a bit self-aggrandizing, her methods seem so sensible and down-to-earth when compared to the veritable frenzy of medicating that we seem to be doing lately.  In many cases where a child is displaying behavioral symptoms, Wedge finds that it is often a function of how the family is doing holistically.  For this reason, Wedge often meets with the parents alone after initially meeting the child, and she has, in many cases, treated a child successfully by addressing problems in the parents' marriage, for example.  Other situations included a child who was on the verge of being diagnosed as ADHD and on the autistic spectrum, whom she discovered was simply very nearsighted and no one had noticed.  It's a must-read for any educator, and if you're a parent, it will really make you think.  I know it gave me much food for thought.

A couple of fun books I got through this afternoon included The Peach Keeper,  by Sarah Addison Allen, and Friendship Bread, by Darien Gee.  Friendship Bread is a fluffy confection of a feel-good book; it features estranged sisters, more than one character with a tragic loss, a flood, and lots of talk about cake.  I can't resist books that talk about cake; it's almost as good as eating it.  Of course there's a lovely happy ending, but it's a worthwhile read just for the occasional funny parts -- Gee does a great job of spreading out the laugh-out-loud bits while keeping the tone fairly serious.  You don't want to miss the part where two characters are having a pregnancy-test marathon, one thrilled and the other disbelieving.
The Peach Keeper, on the surface, seems to be much the same, but a few pages in it becomes evident that this book has a touch of something different.  In a way it reminded me of Chocolat, which had an undercurrent of magical menace; The Peach Keeper has this supernatural vein running just below the surface; blink and you might miss it.  It's the story of a southern town, ladies' society and all, where an old mansion is being regentrified into a posh bed-and-breakfast, and old classmates return and reunite in unexpected ways.  Sounds familiar, no?  Throw in a corpse under a peach tree, and some weird poltergeist-like events, and that's the book.  I enjoyed it, even though I didn't expect to like it much.

I just put down another new book I wasn't wild about, but I'll mention it here because I have a feeling it will be talked about -- these types of books that feature historical figures, weird characters, and lots of subtext usually are.  Mr. Chartwell, by Rebecca Hunt, features the about-to-retire Winston Churchill.  If you're into that period of history, you may know that Churchill was prone to periods of depression; he called it his "black dog."  Well, Mr. Chartwell is the physical manifestation of that Black Dog.  He's on the cover as well.  At the opening of the story, Mr. Chartwell rents a room in the house of a widow, Esther Hammerhans, whose own loss is not immediately revealed.  Over the course of the story, Esther and Churchill are drawn together, albeit briefly.  It's not a comfortable story to read.  Some parts are downright disgusting (he is a large black dog, living in a house); but for the most part, it's not really a book to inspire and exalt the spirit.  Like the Black Dog, it depresses one.  However, because this shows every sign of being an Important Book, you may as well read it and seem to be up on things in the literary world.


I'm planning a post on Guilty Pleasures in reading -- I'd appreciate any comments and suggestions you'd send my way.  Think of the books that you feel a little sheepish reading, that you wouldn't necessarily flaunt but are just the thing for a bubble bath or with cake and tea late at night.  Thank you!

To Be Filed Under "Whatever"

As you can see, I'm not really sure how to classify this series of books.  By Jasper Fforde, the Thursday Next series features Thursday, the eponymous heroine, as a Jurisfiction agent.  She does live in the real world, but can also pass into the BookWorld.  By the way, the real world in this series is a parallel universe to begin with.  The parallel England in which the stories take place is one in which literature is highly valued; Shakespeare plays (especially Richard III) are considered the epitome of popular entertainment.  People so often wish to change their names to famous authors that they require a number after each name to differentiate. 

These books are really bizarre.  Sorry, I can't think of any other word that defines this genre.  Part mystery fiction, part fantasy, part horror (if your idea of horror includes fictional characters erasing other fictional characters from other books), the line between reality and literature here is very thin to begin with, and gets thinner.

In The Eyre Affair, Thursday pursues a master criminal through the pages of -- what else? -- Jane Eyre.  One of the results of this is Thursday's inadvertent adjustment of the plot line.  This, the first Thursday novel, is just the beginning of a romp through a BookWorld peopled with literary characters, and peppered with literary allusions.  Those of you who feel lovely and superior when you pick up on one of those will love these books.  The Eyre Affair is followed by Lost in a Good Book, The Well of Lost Plots, Something Rotten, First Among Sequels, and the most recent one, One of Our Thursdays is Missing.  I will admit being a little disappointed with the last one, as the real Thursday does not appear at all and the book is narrated by the character who plays the fictional Thursday in the books written about her.  I know, this makes very little sense.

Fforde is also the author of a spinoff series starring Jack Spratt as an investigator in the same world.  This series is called, unsurprisingly, the Nursery Rhyme Series, and it begins with The Big Over Easy.  The second one, The Fourth Bear, is actually better than the first, and I believe a third is in the works.

Just as an aside, if you love a book full of literary allusions, you shouldn't miss the mysteries of Dorothy L. Sayers.  Her primary character, Lord Peter Wimsey, never misses a chance to show how well-read he is, and her mysteries are both immaculately crafted and beautifully written.  I believe she is a classical scholar as well; she translated Dante.  This explains a lot.  Enjoy!