Thoughtful, introspective and slow-paced story of the middle Bennet sister, Mary, who’s studious and priggish in Pride and Prejudice. She’s a lot moreThoughtful, introspective and slow-paced story of the middle Bennet sister, Mary, who’s studious and priggish in Pride and Prejudice. She’s a lot more nuanced and complex in this novel, which begins some time before P&P and ends a few years after.
With some help from Mrs Gardiner and others, Mary begins to find herself and develop self-confidence, and possibly find some romance along the way. Her time staying at Longbourne with Mr Collins and his wife Charlotte was one of the more intriguing interludes in this novel.
It’s interesting, reasonably well-written, and pretty true to the Regency era, but slow-moving. It has some amusing callbacks to the original story. Recommended mostly for Jane Austen fans who want to revisit that world. ...more
This is the true story of the narrow escape of William and Ellen Craft, a young married couple, from slavery in Georgia in 1848, written by them in 18This is the true story of the narrow escape of William and Ellen Craft, a young married couple, from slavery in Georgia in 1848, written by them in 1860 (though told from William's point of view). Ellen (who was a "quadroon" or one-quarter black, due to masters' tendencies to sleep with their female slaves) was fair-skinned enough to pass for a white person. But since a white woman wouldn't travel attended by a male slave, she and William cut her hair and disguised her as a white man, complete with bandages on her face to hide her lack of whiskers. Because they were both illiterate (it was illegal to teach slaves to read in Georgia), Ellen also had a bandage on her hand to create an excuse for not writing or signing her (his) name.
They headed initially for Philadelphia, but knew that they would need to travel farther to be safe from slave hunters. Even though they had enough money for the journey, there were several heart-stopping moments in the narrative as they met people they knew on the train, or were stopped by suspicious officials. It's a story of courage and love between the couple, blatant hypocrisy and hateful behavior by slaveholders and slavery supporters, and some kindly assistance by abolitionists. But mostly William and Ellen were on their own.
5 stars for their actual story, but it's a little tough to wade through at times. William goes off on many digressions while telling his story, and likes to spice it up with old-fashioned poetry. I did love how he called out by name and shamed several pastors and religious leaders for their support of slavery. And it's amazing that he had only learned to write and read twelve years before writing the history of their escape.
$2.99 Kindle sale, Nov. 17, 2017. This Pulitzer Prize winning novel, a collection of interrelated short stories, has been on my TBR list for a long wh$2.99 Kindle sale, Nov. 17, 2017. This Pulitzer Prize winning novel, a collection of interrelated short stories, has been on my TBR list for a long while. But the GR reviews are all over the map, from 1 star (boring, depressing) to 5 enthusiastic stars. And those are from friends and reviewers that I trust.
This is a chilling story — hard to believe it's actually true, hard to believe I've never heard of this before. And mostly, hard to believe so many peThis is a chilling story — hard to believe it's actually true, hard to believe I've never heard of this before. And mostly, hard to believe so many people could be so cruel and callous. David Grann, a journalist, has done an excellent job investigating and chronicling the terrible story of the Osage American Indian murders in the 1920s.
In about 1904, the Osage tribe had negotiated a contract with the U.S. government; significantly, their lawyer was able to slip in a clause that all oil, gas and other mineral rights on their land were "reserved to the Osage Tribe." By 1917, there were huge oil strikes on the Osage land, and the "headrights" — each tribe member's share of the oil lease royalties — were worth many thousands of dollars. Tribe members became hugely wealthy.
But then the vultures moved in: Congress required most of the Osages to have an appointed guardian to manage their wealth; most of these guardians were intent on fleecing and defrauding their charges. Local businesses would jack up their charges for the Osages. Banks charged usurious interest rates on loans. Some white people would marry the Osages for their money ... and some would kill to get their hands on their fortunes.
[image] Three sisters: Minnie, Anna and Mollie
Anna Brown mysteriously disappeared one night in May 1921; her decomposed body was found about a week later, with a bullet hole in the back of her head. About the same time, the body of Charles Whitehorn was found near the base of an oil derrick. More deaths followed: some clearly murders, some unclear but suspicious (Anna's mother died soon after her of a mysterious wasting disease). Too soon, Mollie Burkhart was the only one in her family still alive, along with her white husband, Ernest Burkhart, and their three children.
Government and private investigators came up with almost nothing (how many of them were complicit, and how many were threatened into silence, is a question that may never be fully answered). And sometimes, too often, important witnesses or persons who were helping with the investigation would be found dead as well. It became known as the Reign of Terror.
Grann unfolds the story in a clear and logical way, with some fascinating and chilling details. When the Bureau of Investigation (the precursor to the FBI) finally gets involved, things start to look more hopeful. But the web of conspiracies and silence isn't so easy to take apart.
Highly recommended. This is a historical event that deserves never to be forgotten. Grann deserves praise for helping to bring it back to light, and for taking the extra steps to investigate and report on what may have happened to some of the forgotten victims. It makes you want to weep for humanity, but there are a few shining lights in the story.
"To believe that the Osages survived intact from their ordeal is a delusion of the mind. What has been possible to salvage has been saved and is dearer to our hearts because it survived. What is gone is treasured because it was what we once were. We gather our past and present into the depths of our being and face tomorrow. We are still Osage."
Initial post: I've borrowed this from a friend for a December book club read.
I read this whole book in just two days - it was that gripping....more
[image] I've always had a thing for books that use the Scarlet Pimpernel trope: the intelligent, capable person who hides behind a mask of inanity. So [image] I've always had a thing for books that use the Scarlet Pimpernel trope: the intelligent, capable person who hides behind a mask of inanity. So Emma Orczy gets extra points from me for popularizing this secret identity plot device in her 1905 book The Scarlet Pimpernel.
It's 1792, the early days of the French Revolution, and the Reign of Terror is at its peak: thousands of French aristocrats, men, women and children, are sent to the guillotine, regardless of actual fault. But a group of brave English noblemen, led by the mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel, are rescuing many of the condemned French aristocrats and spiriting them away to England. French authorities are outraged.
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Meanwhile, Marguerite St. Just, a lovely French actress who inexplicably married the slow-witted, foppish but extremely wealthy Sir Percy Blakeney, is having issues in her marriage: she thought her rather foolish husband adored her, but they've drifted far apart, ever since she confessed to him that her accusation against a French noble family resulted in their deaths, while being too proud to explain the whole story to him. She's not quite sure why, but now she finds she misses the adoration of the big galoot.
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But Marguerite has worse problems: the French envoy to England is blackmailing her into spying for him, so he can find out who the Scarlet Pimpernel is and make sure he dies the next time he sets foot in France. If she doesn't cooperate, her beloved brother Armand will be guillotined.
This is an old-fashioned adventure/romance novel, not all that well written and not terribly deep, but an easy, enjoyable read, for a hundred year old book anyway. It frequently gets high on the melodrama (I about lost it when Sir Percy passionately kisses the places Marguerite's feet and hand have touched, half-crazed with frustrated love) and it's incurably pro-aristocracy, though Baroness Orczy reluctantly admits that some of the French nobility had caused much suffering for the common people. And Marguerite, for a person who's supposed to be the cleverest woman in all of France and England, sure got smacked hard on the head by the Oblivious Fairy's wand.
But the exploits of the Scarlet Pimpernel and his merry band are well-plotted and exciting to read, and the romantic relationship is unusual: can two married people who don't really understand each other and have become estranged, ever work things out?
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I totally got sucked into it and was all, d'awww! at the end. Good times!...more
3.5 stars. This is a dual-timeline historical fiction novel, about the arrests of Jewish families in France during WWII and their terrible experiences3.5 stars. This is a dual-timeline historical fiction novel, about the arrests of Jewish families in France during WWII and their terrible experiences, focusing on the actual historic Vel' d'Hiv' roundup in July 1942, and a modern journalist's investigation of that event and her search for some of the people involved.
[image] The inside of the Vélodrome d'Hiver bicycle stadium, demolished in 1959
In the 1942 timeline, in Paris: a 10 year old girl is arrested with her Polish mother and father in the middle of the night. Her 3 or 4 year old brother, terrified, hides himself in their secret hiding place, a hidden cupboard. Sarah locks him in, assuring him that she'll be back in a few hours. Instead her family is taken to the Vélodrome d'Hiver, a bicycle stadium, where they and thousands of other Jewish families, including many children, were held in deplorable conditions, without enough food, water or sanitary facilities, for 5 days before being sent on to prison camps. The family, frantic to get their little boy, plead with the police, but nothing is done.
In the other timeline, the year 2002, also in Paris: Julia Jarmond, an American journalist married to a Frenchman, who has lived in Paris for about 25 years, is asked to write an article about the Vel' d'Hiv's roundup on its 60th anniversary. As she investigates, she finds that her husband's family home is where Sarah's family lived before they were arrested. Julia feels compelled to investigate this particular aspect of the tragedy, and gets involved deeper and deeper, despite resistance from her husband and others.
This book had a major impact on me, and when I first finished it I thought it was an easy 4 stars, despite some significant weaknesses in characterization and what felt like author manipulation. But in the cold light of morning those things are bothering me more. The characters, especially the present-day ones, are mostly stereotypes: the suave, cheating French husband, the wise-beyond-her-years daughter, the over-eager nurse at an abortion facility, people hiding old secrets with a stiff upper lip. It's pretty well written, but they're still thin. It's also an emotionally manipulative book, from Sarah's experiences to Julia's love life. I felt like the author was too obvious in pushing the reader to feel in certain ways.
But there were a couple of unexpected twists for me in the plot, and the Vel' d'Hiv' plotline is truly compelling. It brought tears to my eyes. I don't regret reading it at all, if only because I'm glad to know more about this tragic historical event. ...more
Ross Poldark, published in 1945, tells the story of Ross, a British man in his twenties, from the time he returns from the war in America in 1783 untiRoss Poldark, published in 1945, tells the story of Ross, a British man in his twenties, from the time he returns from the war in America in 1783 until about four years later. It's the first of a series of a dozen Poldark books that has spawned a couple of BBC miniseries, one in 1975 and a remake in 2015:
[image] I think it's safe to say that Ross v. 2.0 was a serious upgrade. Even though someone at Cosmopolitan magazine disagrees:
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Ross is landed gentry, but not particularly wealthy. In fact, he's skirting the edge of poverty, and his father had let their home and land fall to pieces in his later years, especially in his final illness. When Ross returns from the war, with some lingering physical injuries, he's further injured when he finds out that his childhood sweetheart Elizabeth, with whom he had an "understanding," is about to marry his cousin Francis. If this were a historical romance his love would prevail in the end, but this isn't that kind of book. Elizabeth says sorry, she's really going to marry Francis, and Francis is so in love that he doesn't see how deeply he's hurt Ross. The wedding goes on as planned, and Ross is left to pick up the pieces and try to put his life and his estate back together.
This is the story of how that happens.
It's told in a very leisurely manner, and more than one reader has foundered on the slow pace. I almost did myself. But it's well-told, if you don't mind the pacing, and it gives you a real feel for living in the area of Cornwall, England in the late 1700s. Winston Graham really did his research. This is a warts and all type of tale; bad stuff happens and it's not always made right. But this volume, at least, has an ultimately hopeful feel to it.
A soft 4 stars for me. Even if the plot is rather slow and meandering (and leaves a few plot threads hanging for resolution in later books), Ross Poldark has some lovely moments and great, detailed characters and settings that suck you in. I don't regret the time I spent with it. It wasn't entirely my cuppa tea so I probably won't read the sequels, but I paged through some of them in the library to see what happened with a couple of those loose plot threads. :) (view spoiler)[Verity and Captain Blarney, and Jim Carter the poacher (hide spoiler)]...more
$1.99 Kindle sale, Sept. 6, 2018. A strong 4 stars. This is a semi-factual novelization of the life of Sarah Grimke, an actual abolitionist and women'$1.99 Kindle sale, Sept. 6, 2018. A strong 4 stars. This is a semi-factual novelization of the life of Sarah Grimke, an actual abolitionist and women's rights advocate born in Charleston, S.C. in the early 1800s. It's also a tales of slavery, as the novel alternates each chapter between the voices of Sarah and her slave Hetty, or Handful (who was very loosely based on an actual person).
[image] Angelina and Sarah Grimke, southern ladies, sisters and early abolitionists.
Sarah, an intelligent, introspective daughter of one of the wealthy slaveholding families in Charleston, South Carolina, is given a slave of her own when she is eleven years old. Hetty, the slave (named "Handful" by her own people), is a year younger than Sarah. Sarah immediately tries to free Handful, but Sarah's parents quash that move. So begins the uneasy relationship between Sarah and Handful: one living a life of privilege, the other suffering the life of a slave, but both wanting so much more. Sarah wants to do things (like going to college and becoming a lawyer) that women were barred from in that day; Handful grows more and more unwilling to accept a life of slavery. Sarah is an adamant abolitionist, and teaches Handful to read and allows her some small freedoms, but in an oddly self-righteous move, gives Handful back to Sarah's parents, even though her mother is especially harsh to slaves, because she "doesn't want to own a slave." (Apparently freeing a slave in this time and place was not an easy thing to do.)
I was almost halfway through The Invention of Wings before I looked at the back of the book (I may or may not have been peeking at the ending) and saw the afterword by the author, explaining the factual basis for this novel, and realized that Sarah Grimke was a real person. Sue Monk Kidd does play a little fast and loose with the facts - for example, she invents a stammer for Sarah based on the fact that she was known to have difficulties speaking in public, and the actual slave Hetty died as a young girl - but Kidd doesn't try to present this as a biography, and I did appreciate that she explained at some length in the afterword what was and was not historical fact.
Casting this as a fictional work also allowed Kidd the freedom to create a truly memorable character in Handful. In one memorable scene, Handful and her mother sneak into the library to find the records where their owners assigned all of their assets a dollar value, including their slaves, so they could see what it would take to buy their freedom:
Goods and chattel... We were like the gold leaf mirror and the horse saddle. Not full-fledge people. I didn't believe this, never had believed it a day of my life, but if you listen to white folks long enough, some sad, beat-down part of you starts to wonder...
When mauma saw my raw eyes, she said, "Ain't nobody can write down in a book what you worth."
Handful and her mother are skilled seamstresses, and one of the recurring themes in the book is the quilt her mother creates, telling the story of her life, the terrible experiences as well as the good ones.
[image] An actual slave quilt.
Another theme is the metaphorical wings that both Sarah and Handful develop, as they both experience hardships and loss in their lives and grow through their experiences. Though Sarah's life was immeasurably more privileged than Handful's, she had to navigate major personal trials, including loss of her dreams and love, and deep anger from her family and from society in general over her abolitionist beliefs sorrow, as she grows into the strong woman she eventually becomes. Sarah is a bit of a frustrating character to read about. She's almost paralyzed at times by her fears and uncertainties, but she overcame so much in her life, and was a major influence in her much younger sister Angelina's life, who also became devoted to the abolitionist cause.
I truly appreciated learning more about this early pioneer of both women's rights and abolitionism, as well as learning more about the many large and small cruelties suffered by slaves in this time....more
Not as horrific as I thought it was going to be after reading the first chapter, in which a female character is burying something incriminating in theNot as horrific as I thought it was going to be after reading the first chapter, in which a female character is burying something incriminating in the woods. I whipped through this dual (or more) timeline mystery in a couple of days when I found out my book club is meeting to talk about it at the end of this week. :)
The Lake House starts with a tragedy - the disappearance of a one-year-old boy, Theo Edevane, from his crib in the country home of a wealthy English family in 1933 - and examines it from the viewpoints of several characters, particularly his mother Eleanor and his 16-year-old sister Alice. Seventy years later. a temporarily suspended police detective, Sadie Sparrow, finds the Edevane family’s abandoned lake home that Theo disappeared from, and begins investigating the case. Theo's older sister Alice, now in her 80's, is still around, a famous crime novelist ... but she's not at all sure she wants to cooperate with Sadie's informal investigation. Because Secrets.
There are lots of red herrings, and an interesting resolution that relies too much on a far-fetched coincidence and some questionable decision-making. But the story is well-told and sucked me right in....more
3.75 stars. This book is basically a series of vignettes from a six month period in the life of a spunky, independent 11 year old girl living in Texas3.75 stars. This book is basically a series of vignettes from a six month period in the life of a spunky, independent 11 year old girl living in Texas in 1899. Calpurnia Virginia (Callie Vee) Tate yearns for more than the life of a debutante and housewife that she already sees her mother herding her toward. She unexpectedly finds a kindred spirit in her scientifically-minded grandfather, who encourages her inquisitive character and teaches her, not just about scientific observation, but about great women scientists. The quotes from Charles Darwin at the beginning of each chapter have an interesting and often amusing connection to the events occurring in that chapter.
When Callie first looks into her grandfather's microscope at a drop of river water, you can see the world opening up for her:
A teeming, swirling world of enormous, wriggling creatures burst into my vision, scaring the daylights out of me. ... Something with many tiny hairs rowed past at high speed; something else with a lashing tail whipped by; a tumbling barbed sphere like a medieval mace rolled past; delicate, filmy ghostlike shadows flitted in and out of the field. It was chaotic, it was wild, it was . . . the most amazing thing I'd ever seen.
"This is what I swim in?" I said, wishing I didn't know.
This middle grade book reminds me of the Little House books of Laura Ingalls Wilder, but with more of a feminist slant. There's not much of a plot here, and what there is of it is kind of meandering and unresolved, but Callie is a sympathetic and engaging character, her brothers were a hoot (even if they seemed pretty much interchangeable to Callie's grandfather and to me), and her life and experiences in a small town in turn-of-the-century Texas felt very real.
Some fine research went into the writing of this book. I particularly liked the scenes of celebrating the turn of the century, Callie and brother drinking the new drink Coca-Cola (back when the "Coca" part of the name really meant something!), and winning ribbons at the county fair. Callie and her friend Lula have a hilarious talk about getting married, from an eleven year old's perspective:
"You have to let your husband kiss you once you're married. And you have to kiss him back."
"No," she said.
"Yes." I nodded, as if I knew everything there was to know about husbands and wives kissing. "That's what they do together."
"Do you have to?"
"Oh, absolutely. It's the law."
"I never heard of that law," she said dubiously.
"It's true, it's Texas law."
I wish Callie and the novel hadn't been quite so dismissive of homemaking--Callie's mother has seven children and regularly resorts to imbibing a tonic with a high alcoholic content to get her through the day, and Callie can't imagine anything worse than being a debutante and then a housewife, even though her family is wealthy enough to have several servants--but on the other hand I'm a firm believer in opportunities and choices for women, and deeply appreciate the sacrifices made by women in prior generations that have enabled us to have so many more rights and options for our lives today. This book is a good reminder for young readers, and for all of us, of the importance of having opportunities to pursue our dreams....more
Sometimes you just have to say, this is not the book for me. I could plow through it for the sake of my book club, but why put myself through 3 or 4 hSometimes you just have to say, this is not the book for me. I could plow through it for the sake of my book club, but why put myself through 3 or 4 hours of angst and misery, reading about a wildly dysfunctional family trying to create their own utopia in the jungles of the Honduras?
In an intellectual way I appreciate that the father, Allie Fox, is an amazing character, but he's just painful for me to read about. It was like fingernails on a chalkboard. He pursues one scheme after another, with his family deep in poverty. He thinks society and technology are degenerate (unless it's something he himself has invented). He's brilliant, loud-mouthed, rude, abusive to his family, mentally unbalanced, a know-it-all, and doesn't listen to anyone. It's a combination guaranteed to drive me nuts in real life, and I just can't enjoy reading about him, or what he puts his poor wife and kids through.
So I skipped to the end and read the last few pages. Don't tell my husband -- he hates when I do that. #sorrynotsorry
This was a fascinating SF novel! 4.5 stars. Harry August lives his life, over ... and over ... and over. His memory gradually returns to him when he'sThis was a fascinating SF novel! 4.5 stars. Harry August lives his life, over ... and over ... and over. His memory gradually returns to him when he's a toddler in each life. The first time his prior memories reawaken, in his second life, he thinks he's insane and ends up committing suicide when he's only about seven, only to find himself starting all over again in a third life. Since clearly the suicide route doesn't solve his problem, he gets down to the business of trying to figure out how to best live his life lives.
One of the beauties of Harry's repeated lives is that it lets us explore how many different directions this type of time travel could go, and all the wrinkles that would develop: How much can you gamble on sure things and get away with it? Do you look for the same person to love each time? Do you try to assassinate Hitler or save JFK? Would it work? Should you even try?
In his fourth life Harry tries sharing his secret with others and ends up tangling with people who want to use his knowledge of future events for their own purposes. The one good thing that comes out of this process is that he discovers that there are others like him. They call themselves the Kalachakra, which is a Buddhist wheel of time concept:
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or Ouroborans, after the snake eating its own tail: [image]
The Kalachakra have formed secret clubs and try to help each other out, especially during their difficult early childhood years. Club members can (very slowly) pass questions back and forth through time: a young person will give a message to another member when he's old, so that when he is born again he can in turn pass the message to another member who is at the end of her life - and vice versa. And so future connects to past, older to younger. Like any society, they have their rules - which include not doing anything that will drastically change the future. But someone, somewhere, is breaking the rules, and the message is passed down the line from the future: "The world is ending, sooner and sooner. And we don't know why."
The first half of the novel is more of an exploration of the ramifications of this type of life, but it takes an interesting turn in the second half, into kind of a multi-life espionage thriller, as Harry tries to find out the reasons for this looming global catastrophe. But his involvement leads to more trouble than he could have imagined, and there's an extremely tense and exciting cat-and-mouse hunt in the later chapters that kept me up far too late.
It’s interesting that the premise here is so similar to Life After Life - it even takes place roughly during the same time period in the early to late 1900's - except that in this book we have the Groundhog Day aspect of no loss of memory with rebirth. This book isn't as "literary" as Life After Life and I’m sure that many readers won’t like it nearly as well as that one. But this novel did have a fair amount of unexpected depth that was welcome, and - despite a number of plot weaknesses - I just had so much more fun reading this book than the much bleaker (and far more repetitive) Life After Life.
The plot weaknesses are pretty spoilerish, so read at your own risk:(view spoiler)[
1. You have to be able to accept the premise that too-early technological development invariably leads to disaster. 2. One of the characters is trying to develop a machine that will, in some nebulous way, give all the answers to Life, the Universe, and Everything; this machine is compared to finding or becoming like God. It was a bit of a stretch for me. 3. You can permanently erase an Ouroboran’s memory by a type of electroshock therapy; which is fine, except that the erasing process doesn’t work for characters like Harry who have photographic memories. 4. And finally, a major plot point turns on the idea that if you kill a ouroboran while he or she is in utero, before birth, that person will never be reborn again. (hide spoiler)] These last two plot elements definitely struck me as more convenient than plausible.
So these pulled my rating down. I keep thinking that logically this is closer to a four star book than a fiver, but it just captured my imagination and reading it gave me a lot of joy. So I'm rounding up, just because I want to.
Content advisory: Frequent violence (including torture, murder and attempted murder) and a fair number of F-bombs. Lots of amoral and immoral characters....more
It's entirely possible that I'm as much of a curmudgeon as A.J. Fikry.
Reading a book about a bookstore and books and the people who love them seemed It's entirely possible that I'm as much of a curmudgeon as A.J. Fikry.
Reading a book about a bookstore and books and the people who love them seemed like a can't-miss proposition. And, in fact, there were parts of this book that I liked very much: the police chief who unexpectedly turns himself and most of his force into readers; the subplot with the theft of Poe's Tamerlane: Poem; the brief chapter intros where A.J. talks about various stories.
But overall the novel just felt a lot more superficial and clichéd than I was expecting or hoping. And then the ending doubled down on the sentimentalism with an overused trope ((view spoiler)[death of a main character from cancer (hide spoiler)]).
I'll confess that I'm a person who cries way too easily in sentimental scenes in movies or books. (One of the more embarrassing moments of my life was when I was on a date and we were watching one of those silly old Arnold Schwarzenegger Conan the Barbarian movies and laughing about how dumb it was, and then the girl dies and Conan is sad and I start to leak tears, hiding my face from my date because I was so mortified that I was crying over this idiotic movie). Just so you know this is coming from someone who easily gets sucked in by sentimentalism. But the ending of this book? Didn't move me in the slightest. I was just mildly annoyed at the over-familiar direction the plot took.
Still, there were some good moments and several delightful scenes, like this description of the book club started by Police Chief Lambiase:
Years ago, Lambiase had had to institute a "leave your weapons" policy after a young cop had pulled a gun on another cop during a particularly heated discussion of The House of Sand and Fog. (Lambiase would later reflect to A.J. that the selection had been a mistake. "Had an interesting cop character but too much moral ambiguity in that one. I'm going to stick to easier genre stuff from now on.")
3.5 stars.
Content notes: a handful of F-bombs and some characters sleeping together, but nothing explicit....more
I now know more than I ever expected to about fossil-collecting by English women during the Regency period.
[image]
This historical novel is somewhat loI now know more than I ever expected to about fossil-collecting by English women during the Regency period.
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This historical novel is somewhat loosely based on several people who actually lived, and either hunted or collected fossils, in England in the early 1800s. It alternates between the viewpoints of Elizabeth Philpot, a genteel spinster in reduced circumstances who moves to Lyme Regis by the sea (a hotbed for fossil-hunters) and discovers a passion for fossils, and Mary Anning, the daughter of a destitute cabinetmaker's widow, who supplements the family income by finding and selling fossils. Despite their differences in age and social status, the two form a friendship based on their mutual fascination with fossils that lasts for many years and survives some ups and downs.
I knew that Regency-era society had its fads and fascinations with ancient history, but fossils and the attendant religious controversy were new for me. (How can we believe in animals that are extinct if God never makes mistakes? How can we rationalize dinosaur fossils with the belief that the earth was created only a few thousand years ago?) Tracy Chevalier manages to address these questions without sounding too disrespectful of religious beliefs, other than those that advocate a very literal reading of the Bible's 6-day creation period story, allowing no room for debate.
The other major theme running through the pages of the book is the role of women. It was extremely difficult for Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpot to get any respect or recognition for their accomplishments. And with all the Regency romances that are so popular, it's good to see a more realistic take on what women at that time could expect for love and marriage.
[She] sank into spinsterhood beside Louise and me. There are worse fates.
I was mildly irked by one plotline that seemed like a modern imposition on Regency society (and there's nothing in actual history to support this part of the story):(view spoiler)[Mary and Elizabeth both fall for the same older guy. Mary hopes that he'll ask her to marry him, but eventually realizes that's simply not going to happen. After she figures that out, she decides to sleep with him just one time, just for the experience of having sex, because she's realized she's not likely to ever marry him or anyone else. It just seemed like late 20th century kind of thinking to me. If she'd slept with the guy hoping to get him to marry her, that would have made more sense for those times. Plus the guy is kind of a cad, but that's a whole 'nother story. (hide spoiler)]
Overall, not quite as deep or fascinating or insightful as I would have liked, but still worth reading....more
This WWII-era novel tells the interlocked stories of two radically different main characters. The first4.5 stars. Review posted on Fantasy Literature:
This WWII-era novel tells the interlocked stories of two radically different main characters. The first: Marie-Laure LeBlanc, a young French girl whose loving father goes to extreme lengths to help her compensate for her blindness, even building detailed models of the cities they live in so she can learn her way about. The second, Werner Pfennig, an orphan destined to work in the coal mines where his father died, who is unexpectedly plucked from poverty because of his mechanical genius and sent to a select school for Hitler youth. The chapters alternate between these two characters, following them as they grow up in the 1930s and 40s in France and Germany.
Marie-Laure and Werner don’t know each other, but they are connected by scientific radio broadcasts made by Marie-Laure’s grandfather, and in other ways that become apparent as the story goes along. They will both wind up in the French town of Saint-Malo, bombed by the Allies in August 1944: Werner trying to find the source of radio broadcasts made by the underground resistance, and Marie-Laure as part of that resistance. Anthony Doerr makes the interesting choice of interspersing scenes from Saint-Malo in 1944 throughout the book, so in a sense we’re seeing the end from the beginning, at least in part.
[image] Saint-Malo, France
All the Light We Cannot See contains lovely, lyrical writing and intriguing symbolism and connections. The symbolism is pervasive, including literal and spiritual blindness, radio broadcasts that connect people in the darkness, and Marie-Laure’s and Werner’s last names (“White” and “Penny”). But Doerr doesn’t beat you over the head with it, and I enjoyed trying to suss out all the hidden meanings.
My main issue is that I tend to be the type of reader who likes things explained and wrapped up with a nice neat bow at the end, and the ending of this book felt ― and still feels ― inconclusive. With all of the connections and ties that permeate All the Light We Cannot See, it felt like a lovely sweater that unexpectedly was snagged by a mischievous cat and got half-unravelled in the end.
I had to sit on it for about a week, and then go back and read the last 50 pages again, before I felt like I understood, at least in part, why Doerr wrote the ending of his novel the way he did. Life isn’t nice and neat, but it goes on, and people continue to touch each other long after the main part of the story has ended. Even after death, there are connections. I’m still not entirely satisfied with the ending, but overall it was a memorable novel and well worth reading. [image] Initial reaction: Lovely writing, but a little slow in parts, and the ending left me underwhelmed. Hmm. I'm going to read the last 15 or 20 pages again and think about it some more before I try to write a full review....more
Grendel, the famous monster from Beowulf, tells his side of the story here. Philosophies clash, along with monsters and men. [image]
This story of GrenGrendel, the famous monster from Beowulf, tells his side of the story here. Philosophies clash, along with monsters and men. [image]
This story of Grendel, told from his point of view, is an unusual amalgamation of Grendel's stream-of-consciousness thought (which becomes more clear and organized as Grendel grows and develops) about his loneliness and self-centeredness, his attempts to make sense of the world, and his cruelty and hatred toward men, while being drawn to them at the same time. Grendel watches the Danes at Heorot at night, eyeing the old king, his young wife and family, and his thanes (warriors), and listening to the heroic songs sung by a bard.
Grendel seems to toy with different philosophies: nihilism, religion, existentialism, and solipsism all seem to be part of his worldview at different times in the story. It helps - a lot - if you're familiar with these and other philosophies. I'm really not; the only reason I can throw all those words around in my review is because I've been doing a little studying the past few days and reading some of the analyses of this book. :D I could tell a lot of the writing was going over my head. More erudite readers than I will probably get a lot more out of this book than I did.
It will also help if you're familiar with Beowulf, or at least the first part of that old poem. I re-read it (well, the first 40% of it) in preparation for reading Grendel, and being familiar not only with the plot and the characters, but with the way people spoke and thought back then, was tremendously valuable in helping to understand and appreciate this book. [image] But I still think that knowing more about various philosophical ways of thought would have been even more helpful.
One cool thing was that each of the twelve chapters of this book takes as its theme the signs of the zodiac. A ram appears in the first chapter, a bull in the second. In the third chapter (Gemini) there is talk of animal twins and a two-headed beast, along with more symbolic discussion of double-talk and the bard's creation of a second (and false) reality through his songs. Along with re-emphasizing the cyclical reality of Grendel's life and life in general, it was just plain fun to track how each zodiac sign appeared and was handled in the text. It helped to amuse me when I was getting bored with the philosophical discussions. I'm kind of simple that way.
I feel a little guilty for giving this book three stars.* It's a brilliant book in a lot of ways; I appreciate it but I just didn't particularly love it. If this sounds like it might be your cuppa tea, though, I strongly encourage you to read it.
* ETA: A funny thing happened. A week or so after finishing it, Grendel is still creeping around in my thoughts, lurking in corners and jumping out occasionally to surprise me. And his final words continue to haunt me. So I've decided it deserves 4 stars.
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Content advisory: Lots of violence (it's Grendel, people). One or two F-bombs. Some crude sexual talk....more
This is a memoir of childhood days, growing up in the 1960s and 70s in the small town of Mooreland, Indiana (pop. 300). Lots of quirky or downright ecThis is a memoir of childhood days, growing up in the 1960s and 70s in the small town of Mooreland, Indiana (pop. 300). Lots of quirky or downright eccentric characters populate the town and the pages of this book. There's no real plot here; it's pretty much a collection of small town stories and anecdotes. Some of the stories involve animal neglect or abuse, the thoughtlessly cruel kinds of things that many small town people didn't consider really wrong back in the day, so sensitive readers beware. People's foibles, faults and troubles, like her family's poverty, her mother's depression and her father's alcoholism, are all seen through the childish eyes of the narrator.
Even at a young age, Zippy is dubious about her religious beliefs, especially when she's forced to go to her mother's Quaker congregation every Sunday; she'd rather worship in her father's Great Church of the Outdoors. How you feel about someone questioning Christianity in humorous ways is another thing that may affect how you feel about this book. It occurs to me, in fact, that this book has a lot of different possibilities for offending people.
There are also a lot of stories involving teasing and small cruelties that may strike you as terrible or humorous, or both, like when Zippy's older sister (falsely) tells her that she's adopted, and Zippy, who's maybe 8 or 10 years old, goes to ask her mother:
"How could you not tell me I was adopted! Don't you think I have a right to know? And who were my real parents anyway?" I was trying to be mature, but periodically spit flew.
"Gypsies, honey." She still had not looked up from Isaac Asimov Explains the Whole of Reality and Then Some.
"Gypsies? Really?" This was somewhat compelling. I sat down.
"Yes, I thought we managed a very wise trade. . . Plus, you were born with a tail."
I looked at her, completely speechless, my mouth hanging open exactly like a creature with a tail.
"We had it removed so your pants would fit."
The most poignant story, for me, was near the end of the book (this isn't really a spoiler because there is no real plot, but if you want to read the book yourself, you may want to skip this next part): A local man, Mr. Sewell, begins to teach some of the elementary students how to play various band instruments. He volunteers to give Rose, one of Zippy's friends, private lessons after school once a week. A little later Zippy is spending the night at Rose's house:
We were mostly not talking, when Rose scooted over closer to me and whispered, "I'm scared of something."
I whispered back, "What?"
"I don't want to do private lessons with Mr. Sewell any more."
This didn't surprise me, because I never would have wanted to do it in the first place. "Why? Is it boring and stupid and you'd rather be outside?"
"No." Rose didn't say anything for a long time. "I told my mom, but she thinks I'm making it up or being silly."
"Making what up?"
"I'm just afraid. He . . . never mind. Forget it."
The next time Mr. Sewell comes, Zippy stays after school, telling him that she's required to wait for Rose and walk home with her. At the end of the private lesson he offers the girls a ride home, "but we turned it down, even though we had a long, long walk ahead of us." The capper is that Zippy tells another friend, a devout Christian, that she's a failure at doing good deeds and helping others. "Good works just aren't for me."
This memoir is often humorous, occasionally ironic, sometimes poignant, frequently insightful.
In the year 1800, Jack Aubrey sits next Stephen Maturin at a musical performance in Port Mahon, Minorca, a basThe classic high seas adventure!
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In the year 1800, Jack Aubrey sits next Stephen Maturin at a musical performance in Port Mahon, Minorca, a base of the British Royal Navy in the Mediterranean Sea between Spain and Italy. They immediately rub each other the wrong way. Both are snappish because of other issues in their lives, and they part planning on next meeting for a duel. But when Jack is given his first command of a ship, all is forgiven, and he needs a ship's surgeon: who better than Stephen? Stephen, down on his luck, is happy to accept. And so begins the first Aubrey/Maturin voyage, with Stephen conveniently playing the role of landlubber who needs to be informed of everything naval, so the reader can be informed along with him.
I have to say this book was pretty rough sailing for me in parts. The massive amount of naval and nautical jargon about sank me, and I got a bit lost in some of the battle descriptions. My book club pretty much unanimously felt the same way; we all floundered a little.
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(The funniest part of the book club meeting was when one of the ladies was excitedly telling the rest of us about her favorite scenes in the book, and we didn't remember any of them. I finally asked her to show us the cover of her book: it was The Far Side of the World, the 10th book in this series!)
This 1969 book is the first in a series of 21 books and, though it doesn't end on a cliffhanger, the novel felt a little unfinished to me, more like a set-up for an ongoing story than a self-contained book. It's also very episodic, kind of like you're on a real-life journey with the characters.
But I can't in good conscience rate Master and Commander less than 4 stars: the amount of research that went into this book was incredible, even if O'Brian could have done a better job of making it accessible to the reader. ("Patrick," said one of his friends, "can be a bit of a snob.") The characters were well-rounded, with some very human flaws. Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin are very different from each other, but they complement each other well. Jack is brash and bluff, a womanizer in port, and just a little shallow at this point in his life, although he can be a genius at sea. Stephen is intelligent, curious and a gifted natural scientist, with a hidden past. It will be interesting to see how their personalities develop in following books.
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The plot was complex, with the author doing that sometimes frustrating thing (Dorothy Dunnett does the same) where something happens or someone says something and you can tell it's significant, but you can't figure out why because the author isn't spoonfeeding you everything.
There's a lot of humor in the story, some of it so dry that it's "blink and you miss it." At one point Jack and Stephen are at a fancy dinner party held by Captain and Mrs. Harte. Mrs. Harte is sleeping around on her husband. Stephen loses his napkin and dives below the table to get it:
He beheld four and twenty legs ... Colonel Pitt's gleaming military boot lay pressed upon Mrs Harte's right foot, and upon her left — quite a distance from the right — reposed Jack's scarcely less massive buckled shoe.
Course followed course... But in time Mrs Harte rose and walked, limping slightly, into the drawing room.
In a 1991 New York Times book review, Richard Snow called this series the best historical novels ever written. "On every page Mr. O'Brian reminds us with subtle artistry of the most important of all historical lessons: that times change but people don't, that the griefs and follies and victories of the men and women who were here before us are in fact the maps of our own lives."
Highly recommended for readers who want a mentally challenging historical novel.
Bonus content: There's a fantastic interactive map of the journeys of the ship Sophie in Master and Commander at Cannonade.net. Spoilers ahoy!
Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽
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