Archives - April 2005

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1 April 2005

Rumer Godden has a gift for writing books about religious subjects in a way that interests even non-religious me. Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy is one of those books (along with the marvelous In This House of Brede and the very good Black Narcissus). Lise is an English girl who falls into bad company in Paris after the end of World War II and becomes madam of a successful brothel; eventually, she commits a crime and is sentenced to prison for fifteen years, where she encounters the Sisters of Béthanie, a religious order devoted to work in prisons and among the lower classes, and decides to join them. The Sisters are a real order, and Godden apparently researched them extensively for this book; it shows in her in-depth portrayal of Lise's life at the convent. I didn't like as much as In This House of Brede (which I can feel myself wanting to reread), but it's a beautifully told story, well worth reading.

Books read: 1

2 April 2005

Clare B. Dunkle's The Hollow Kingdom is apparently the first book of a planned trilogy, but it's easily read on its own. When orphaned Kate and her sister Emily come to live at Hallow Hill with their guardian, Kate discovers that a sinister magic lurks about the place and that she is intended to be the bride of the magician, the frightening Goblin King. However, this is no ordinary "clever, plucky heroine defies her fate and outwits her enemy" plot; Dunkle throws in some intriguing twists which make it much more than that. I'm looking forward to the next book very much.

Books read: 1

3 April 2005

Gillian Bradshaw is one of my favorite historical fiction writers, so I look forward eagerly to new books from her. Sadly, Alchemy of Fire was a disappointment (and I say that with great reluctance). Set in Constantinople in the 7th century CE, it tells the story of Anna, a perfume maker whose daughter is the product of Anna's union with the now-dead brother to an emperor, and of Kallinikos, a Syrian who has fled to Constantinople to escape the Arab invasion and is now working on a secret weapon with which to fight the Arabs.

Bradshaw is usually skilled at bringing other times and cultures to life in her fiction, but this time, the characters and setting fail to come completely alive. The dialogue is wooden (and filled with italics -- so many that I counted nineteen italicized words on two consecutive pages at one point), and I never really cared about the characters or the plots they were caught up in. Having been reading lately about medieval Islam, I was intrigued to see what Bradshaw might make of its clash with Byzantium, but unfortunately, the answer was: not much. Skip it and go read The Beacon at Alexandria instead, if you haven't read Bradshaw before; you'll get a much better sense of what she can do with historical fiction.

Books read: 1

4 April 2005

Fay Vincent was not only commissioner of baseball from 1989 to 1992, he is also clearly a true fan of the game and shows it in his "baseball valentine", The Last Commissioner. Vincent's book is jam-packed with fascinating anecdotes about players from DiMaggio and Williams to Vincent's close friends Ralph Branca (who famously gave up the "Shot Heard Round the World" to Bobby Thomson in 1951) and Slick Surratt of the Negro Leagues. Vincent makes no bones about his fannish joy in meeting baseball legends; he refers to a breakfast invitation from Ted Williams as "an invitation to the Church of Hitting...you can't -- or the twelve-year-old in you, anyhow, cannot -- pass it up", and it's endearing to see his enthusiasm. I was less enthused about the whole half chapter on the Bush family, which seemed rather more about Vincent's political inclinations than about baseball, but the chapters on Vincent's predecessor, Bart Giamatti (subjective though it obviously is, the two having been the best of friends), and the Pete Rose betting scandal were as interesting as the player anecdotes. The Last Commissioner is a little self-indulgent at times, but Vincent's love for the game makes it a very appealing book.

Books read: 1

5 April 2005

I think Black Mischief is the only book I've read of Evelyn Waugh's that I've actually disliked. It's set in the fictional African country of Azania and tells of the efforts of its Emperor, Seth, educated in England, to modernize his country, with the inimitable help of the Englishman Basil Seal. As always with Waugh, there are many hilarious moments, but the lack of any characters I found sympathetic left a bad taste in my mouth. Yes, I know, it's Waugh, it's satire, but it just didn't work for me.

Put Out More Flags is a sequel of sorts, as it also features Basil Seal, returned to England at the beginning of World War II, after the events of Black Mischief. The dishonest Seal figures out ways to get himself ahead in wartime, of course, but there are also surprisingly serious and sympathetic portraits of other characters: Basil's mother Cynthia, desperate to find him a good career; his married lover Angela, descending into alcoholism; Alastair Trumpington, an aristocrat who enlists, and his wife Sonia. Put Out More Flags is extremely funny, and at the time, it's a searching portrait of England in wartime. I enjoyed it a great deal, far more than Black Mischief.

Books read: 2

7 April 2005

Anya Seton's Devil Water is set during the early 18th century, during the period when the Jacobites were attempting to restore the Stuarts to the English throne after the death of Queen Anne and the accession of the Hanoverian George I. (I should note here that like Katherine, Devil Water is what Seton calls in the author's note a "biographical novel", about real people and based on years of research.) The Radcliffe family are ardent Jacobite supporters, particularly James Radcliffe, the Earl of Derwentwater, and his younger brother Charles; not only are they Catholic, they are descended (on the wrong side of the blanket, of course) from Charles II. Though Seton spends a lot of time with James and Charles, the story largely belongs to Jenny, Charles's daughter by a village lass, who travels from the north of England to London and from France to colonial Virginia in pursuit of love and happiness. Devil Water still wasn't quite Katherine, but it was darned good, and I'll read it again with pleasure.

Books read: 1

8 April 2005

The Serpent on the Crown is the seventeenth book in Elizabeth Peters's Amelia Peabody, and you know what? It shows a little. World War I is over, and Amelia, her husband Emerson, and their son Ramses and his wife Nefret, with their two children, have returned to Egypt for a season of digging, when their archaeological activities are interrupted by the dramatic entrance of a well-known authoress who brings them a golden statuette she claims is cursed.

Though the recurring characters are always fun and their interactions amusing, I found my attention constantly wandering from the plot, which was just too similar to earlier entries in the series. Again, as I did after reading the previous Peabody (Guardian of the Horizon), I finished the book wishing that Peters would leave Amelia and her family alone for a while and go write a new Vicky Bliss or Jacqueline Kirby mystery; as she's neglected those series for years now, perhaps she'd find fresher material there. However, The Serpent on the Crown did kill a couple of hours pleasantly, and I expect anyone who's a fan of the series will find it worth reading.

Books read: 1

9 April 2005

Where There's a Will is another good installment in Aaron Elkins's mystery series about Gideon Oliver, physical anthropologist. Here, Gideon visits Hawaii by his longtime friend John Lau, FBI agent, and gets involved in mysterious goings-on in the family of John's friends the Torkelssons. As always, the forensic anthropology is fascinating, and Elkins has chosen a particularly attractive setting (at least from my point of view); I kept running across places I'd visited in Hawaii and feeling a thrill of recognition and nostalgia. The mystery is reasonably intriguing, and the characters, particularly Gideon and John, are interesting. Overall, I'd call this one of the better installments in a generally good series.

Books read: 1

12 April 2005

The Gideon Oliver books by Aaron Elkins are a good, consistently entertaining mystery series about a physical anthropologist who helps to solve crimes by analyzing bones. Having just read the new book in the series, Where There's a Will, I decided to reread the others: in order, they are Fellowship of Fear, The Dark Place, Murder in the Queen's Armes, Old Bones, Curses!, Icy Clutches, Make No Bones, Dead Men's Hearts, Twenty Blue Devils, Skeleton Dance, and Good Blood.

If you're new to the series, Fellowship of Fear is actually not the best book to start with. Elkins was feeling his way into the series, and the focus on the fascinating forensics wasn't yet there; instead, there's a fairly pedestrian spy plot. Besides Gideon himself, it does introduce one of my favorite recurring characters, FBI agent John Lau, so it's certainly worth reading. However, for first-time Elkins readers, I'd recommend starting with the second book, The Dark Place, which takes place in the Olympic National Park; here, Gideon comes into his own as he investigates hints of a mysterious Native American tribe while romancing a park ranger, Julie Tendler. After that, go back to read Fellowship of Fear, and then take the other books in order. Old Bones is a particular favorite of mine; it deals with the secrets of a French family, dating back to World War II, and won the Edgar in 1987 for best mystery of the year.

Books read: 11

13 April 2005

Rebecca Tingle's The Edge on the Sword is a imaginative, speculative tale of the early life of Aethelflaed, eldest daughter of King Alfred the Great of England, who grew up to govern Mercia (and be known as the Lady of the Mercians) after the death of her husband Ethelred of Mercia. Aethelflaed is an independent and intelligent fifteen-year-old, accustomed to freedom, so when her father tells her of her betrothal and assigns her a guardian, she does her best to escape from her newfound loss of liberty. When her escape leads to trouble, her guardian begins to teach her to fight and ride, training her to lead her people.

This is a very accomplished first novel. Aethelflaed is a wonderful character, strong-willed, smart, and sympathetic, and her setting is thoroughly researched and detailed (though not in an overwhelming way). The plot is tight and the climax nicely paced and exciting. Tingle apparently has a sequel, about Aethelflaed's daughter, and I'm definitely going to look that one up as well, as The Edge on the Sword was easily one of the best young adult historicals I've read.

Books read: 1

14 April 2005

After a long wait, Rebecca Wells has come out with another Ya-Ya book, Ya-Yas in Bloom. Unfortunately, it wasn't worth the wait. The Ya-Yas are a group of four Southern women, lifelong friends and rebels, whose escapades Wells first chronicled in Little Altars Everywhere and then Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. This entry in the series begins rather promisingly with the story of how the Ya-Yas first became friends, but then it becomes oddly disjointed, skipping back and forth between narrators and time periods without ever really settling down to an overall story arc. It does end with a longer sustained narrative about the kidnapping of a Ya-Ya granddaughter, but even this more pulled-together story doesn't really fit in with the rest of the book. Perhaps it's time for Wells to abandon the Ya-Yas and find another story to tell.

Books read: 1

15 April 2005

I'm reviewing Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful and Turning the Storm together because it would be tough to review the second without spoiling the first. Eliana is a violin student at a conservatory in a land ravaged by war and famine and controlled by the Circle, a group of fire-wielding mages, and the Fedeli, a religious order devoted to stamping out the heresy of the Old Ways. When Eliana gets a new roommate with a mysterious past, she is suddenly catapulted into the conflict between the old and the new religion and embarks on a journey that takes her from the southern wastelands to the northern capital city of Cuore.

Besides liking Eliana, the strong heroine, I particularly liked the setting of this book, which is reminiscent of Renaissance Italy without being a slavish imitation; the culture Kritzer creates is distinctive and the political machinations intriguing. I was a little bothered by the black-and-white dichotomy between the old and new religions; the old religion is clearly Christianity, and I felt uncomfortable with its portrayal as "the one true faith" and with the portrayal of adherents of the new religion (with its worship of the Lady) as generally wrong-minded and evil. The second book was more balanced, though, with positive and negative aspects of both religions.

Books read: 2

16 April 2005

In The Blue Rose: An English Garden Mystery, Anthony Eglin has attempted to marry horticulture with suspense, with mixed results. Alex and Kate Sheppard have just moved into their new home, an old house with a large garden. Soon after moving in, they discover a horticultural miracle: a blue rose. (There are currently no truly blue roses, because roses lack the necessary pigment, though there are many people doing genetic manipulation to try to produce one.) The rose leads Alex and Kate into excitement and danger, as mysterious factions vie to possess it. Although I thought The Blue Rose was horticulturally interesting, the characters never felt very real to me, and thus I never felt much suspense or emotional engagement. I'd probably recommend it for rose lovers, but perhaps not for mystery lovers.

Books read: 1

17 April 2005

Edited by E.O. Parrott, How to Become Ridiculously Well-Read in One Evening is a very funny collection of encapsulations of some of the best-known works in the English language. It ranges from Beowulf ("Grisly old Grendel / gulped guys in his greed") to The Wind in the Willows ("The Diary of A. Mole", an extremely funny take-off on both The Wind in the Willows and Sue Townsend's Adrian Mole books), taking in Shakespeare, Dickens, Joseph Conrad, and a host of others along the way. And yes, you really can read it in one evening, allowing you to, as the back cover says, "savour the wealth of great literature without the time-consuming tedium of having to read it." Whoo-hoo, now I never have to read Ulysses! (Though I must admit that I found the summaries for the books I'd read funnier than those of books I hadn't.)

Books read: 1

18 April 2005

Persepolis is the riveting story of Marjane Satrapi's childhood in Iran during the time of the Islamic revolution and the war with Iraq. I was actually expecting not to like it (I read it for my book club), because it's a graphic novel, and because I read so fast, I generally tend to miss most of the art in graphic novels (my failing, not theirs). However, I liked it very much. Satrapi's art is minimalist and stark, which I think enabled me to take it in more easily. The text is understated as well, but taken together with the art, it paints a powerful picture. Satrapi shows the details of daily life along with the hardships of war and revolution, and though the subject is serious and often grim, the book is full of quiet humor and family affection as well. Persepolis is funny, poignant, tragic, and truly eye-opening. I would recommend it highly even to those (like me) who don't generally like graphic novels.

Books read: 1

19 April 2005

Patricia A. McKillip's writing is always gorgeous and full of wonderful images, and Song for the Basilisk is no exception. Sometimes, though, the plots of her books take a back seat to the imagery, and I have a hard time following what's going on; here, happily, that isn't true. Rook Caladrius was brought to the bards' island of Luly as a child, after escaping a fiery death with his parents and siblings; given a new name by those who discovered him, he has no memory of his childhood or real name but faint nightmares of fire. After traveling to the hinterlands in search of his past, he returns to the island and has a family, but years later, a mysterious student calling himself Griffin Tormalyne sets off a chain of events which cause Rook to return to the city where he was born, there to face Arioso Pellior, the enemy who destroyed his childhood house and family.

I often describe McKillip's work as a tapestry, a weaving together of images; Song for the Basilisk could just as well be described as a musical composition, with different themes, images, and characters entwined together to make a harmonious whole. Though Rook's story is the main theme, McKillip also follows the stories of others: the rebels who plan to overthrow Arioso; Rook's son, Hollis, who wants to join in his father's revenge; and Luna Pellior, mysterious daughter of Arioso, who is perhaps the most intriguing character in a book full of wonderful characters. Song for the Basilisk is one of McKillip's best -- if you like her, don't miss it, and if you've never read her, this would be a good place to start.

Books read: 1

20 April 2005

The Masqueraders is set in a slightly earlier period than Georgette Heyer's usual Regency novels, just after the Jacobites' failed attempt to put Bonnie Prince Charlie on the throne of England. Prudence and Robin are sister and brother, children of a charming rogue who was mixed up, along with Robin, in the Jacobite uprising. Wanted for treason, they disguise themselves as members of the opposite sexes -- Robin as the charming Kate Merriot and Prudence as Kate's brother Peter -- but their masquerade is sorely tested when they each fall in love.

I found the plot of The Masqueraders on the implausible and contrived side; too much of it revolved around the machinations of Prudence and Robin's father. Although I liked Prudence and Robin very much (and their roguish, arrogant father), I wasn't as enthralled by this book as by The Grand Sophy or A Civil Contract. Still, it was entertaining as always, and the slightly different period was an interesting change.

Books read: 1

21 April 2005

Debra Doyle and James D. MacDonald's Knight's Wyrd is the story of Will Odosson, who is about to be knighted when he meets a mysterious man who tells him his wyrd, or destiny: he will meet death before he succeeds to his father's title. Naturally, Will is appalled, but he bravely rides off to visit the girl to whom he's betrothed, to tell her that he can't marry her after all, because it would be unfair to marry her knowing that he's going to die. What begins as a simple quest turns into something much more complicated, full of politics, monsters, and battles, as Will follows his destiny. Knight's Wyrd is full of action, and Will is a sympathetic character whose confrontation with honor, magic, and death makes an excellent and gripping read.

Books read: 1

22 April 2005

It's been years since I liked an Alice Hoffman novel as much as I liked The Ice Queen. The narrator (never named) suffered a tragedy as a girl, and ever since then, she has encased her emotions in ice -- that is, until she is struck by lightning and almost dies. Recovering, she meets a man who is also a lightning survivor and whose heat starts to melt her protective layer. Mirroring her heroine's life, Hoffman's prose is clear, cool, and spare, so that the vivid passages of description and the heroine's transition from cold to warmth are even more striking. The Ice Queen resonates with fairy tale themes, from "be careful what you wish for" to the awakening of a sleeping beauty, with a steely edge of tragedy and despair which made this book, for me at least, far more emotionally powerful than Hoffman's last few novels.

Books read: 1

24 April 2005

I'm of two minds about C.J. Cherryh's The Paladin. It starts out promisingly, with the peasant girl Taizu arriving at the mountain hideaway of Saukendar, exiled swordmaster, and begging him to teach her to fight. Unwillingly, he accepts her as a pupil, and the first half of the book explores the training and their growing relationship. I found this section entirely engrossing. It's all from Saukendar's point of view, and it's fascinating to watch him reluctantly grow to accept and even care for Taizu, and to watch her develop from an untrained girl into a woman warrior.

Then, about halfway through, Saukendar and Taizu leave his retreat in order to carry out Taizu's revenge on the Emperor's Regent, who despoiled her homeland. For me, it was all downhill from there. The book lost its tight focus on the relationship which was the center of the first half, and although it remained important, of course, it was replaced with politics and geography that just never made sense to me (though it's perfectly possible that this was merely a visualization problem on my part). I was so enthralled by the beginning of The Paladin that the less focused (or differently focused, I suppose) ending was a disappointment, but I'd recommend it nonetheless, at least for the first half.

Books read: 1

26 April 2005

Elizabeth Bowen's The Heat of the Day is a difficult but engrossing book. I read in snatched dribs and drabs throughout the day, and it was so hard to dip into and then out of The Heat of the Day that I ended up reading it only at night, when I could sink deeply into it. The story of a love affair in London during World War II, Bowen's narrative is full of slow, contemplative passages rich with sensuous, vivid detail about the world about us, touching on all the senses, like this passage from the first chapter:

"In this state, drugged by the rainy dusk, she almost always returned with sensual closeness to seaside childhood; once more she felt her heels in the pudding-softness of the hot tarred esplanade or her bare arm up to the elbow in rain-wet tamarisk. She smelt the shingle and heard it being sucked by the sea."

It's gorgeous stuff, but definitely a challenge to get into, though deeply rewarding. I particularly loved the description in Chapter Five of wartime London (especially as the setting is what caused me to want to read the book). Don't expect an easy read, but do expect a compelling one, if you can take the time to submerge yourself.

Books read: 1

27 April 2005

Poul Anderson's A Midsummer Tempest is a fantastical Shakespearean romp, in a universe where what the Bard wrote was literally true. In the early 17th century, Prince Rupert fights for King Charles against the Puritans; when he's captured, he is unexpectedly aided by his captor's niece and, more unexpectedly, by the fairy monarchs Oberon and Titania, who direct him to Prospero's island. Anderson's language is wonderful, and if you read closely, there are poetic surprises in the narrative and in the dialogue. This is a very enjoyable romp with engaging characters and lovely writing - I liked it very much.

Books read: 1

Total books read this month: 34
Total books read this year: 144


Last updated 29 November 2005. All text and photographs © George Mitchell and Margaret Johnston, unless otherwise noted Comments, questions, suggestions to margaret@lonelymountain.net.