Archives - June 2004

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1 June 2004

Kij Johnson's Fudoki is an entrancing fantasy set in medieval Japan. Johnson skillfully interweaves the reminiscences of an aging princess with the tale the princess is writing of a woman turned into a cat, who may or may not exist outside the princess's imagination. The language is exquisitely precise, with never a wasted word, and the portrayal of medieval Japan brilliantly vivid. Fudoki is Johnson's second novel; I haven't read the first, The Fox Woman, but you can bet I'll be seeking it out eagerly.

Books read: 1

2 June 2004

Alison Plowden, Lady Jane Grey: Nine Days Queen is a readable biography of Lady Jane Grey, who was briefly queen of England in the 16th century, but it's far too short and lacking in substance. Events are discussed only at the level of a general overview of the history of the times, with almost no analysis, and there are not nearly enough details about the life of Jane herself. This one would probably serve as a decent introduction to the subject for someone who isn't well-versed in Tudor history, but it was a disappointment for me.

Books read: 1

3 June 2004

Amelia Peabody's Egypt: A Compendium, edited by Elizabeth Peters and Kristin Whitbread, is a lively and informative companion to Peters's Amelia Peabody mysteries, well worth reading if you're a fan of the series.

Books read: 1

4 June 2004

Diana Mosley, Jan Dalley's biography of the third Mitford sister is interesting and well-written, but it feels constrained and paints what seems a rather white-washed picture. Diana Mitford was one of the famous Mitford sisters, who came to prominence in England in the early 20th-century. Diana was early on distinguished by her beauty and became a member of the Bright Young Things, a group which also included her sister Nancy and their friend Evelyn Waugh, as well as Diana's first husband, Bryan Guinness.

When Diana met Oswald Mosley, the leader of the British Union for Fascists, she divorced Guinness in order to be Mosley's mistress, eventually marrying him and becoming Lady Mosley after his wife Cynthia died. Through her sister Unity, a devoted Nazi sympathizer, Diana met and became friends with Hitler (in fact, he and Goebbels were present at her wedding to Mosley, which was held at Goebbels's own house). Because of their obvious fascist and Nazi leanings, Diana and Mosley were both imprisoned for several years at the beginning of World War II; when they were released, they were kept under house arrest for the remainder of the war. Finding life in Britain intolerable, they eventually relocated to France.

Dalley gives a detailed account of Lady Mosley's life up until after World War II (only a few pages are devoted to the time after WWII), but where she fails is in examining the motivations and causes of Lady Mosley's acts and beliefs. Perhaps this is because although Dalley interviewed Lady Mosley extensively, she was denied access to her diaries, letters, and other unpublished writings. Whatever the cause, Dalley has written a biography which is certainly interesting and valuable for its wealth of detail, but which in the end left me a little unsatisfied.
Jessica Mitford's A Fine Old Conflict is the second of her lively and witty autobiographies; Daughters and Rebels covered her childhood as the fifth of the Mitford sisters and her elopement with and marriage to Esmond Romilly, and A Fine Old Conflict picks up the story just before Romilly's death in action in World War II. In an astonishing contrast to her fascist and Nazi-sympathizing sisters, Diana and Unity, Jessica was a committed Communist (causing a lasting rift in the family), and this book is largely about her experiences in the American Communist Party, as well as her marriage to American attorney Bob Treuhaft and the publication of their famous muckraking book about the American undertaking industry, The American Way of Death.

Books read: 2

5 June 2004

Nancy Mitford's The Blessing is on my favorites page.

Books read: 1

6 June 2004

Jasper Fforde's Lost in a Good Book is the second book in his Thursday Next series. Thursday has married her true love, Landon Parke-Laine, and finds out early in the book that's she pregnant. She still works as a LiteraTec, investigating literary crimes, but then she is recruited as a Prose Resource Operative, working inside books and apprenticed to Miss Havisham (of Great Expectations). When her husband is erased from the present, Thursday must fight the giant and corrupt Goliath Corporation to get him back.

Lost in a Good Book is a fun read, but it suffers from setup syndrome. Whereas The Eyre Affair is reasonably complete within itself and thus has a fairly cogent plot and resolution, Lost in a Good Book is clearly the beginning of a longer plot arc; it takes a while to connect up the various plot threads and doesn't provide quite enough punch at the end. Still, I'm looking forward to further books set in Thursday's wildly inventive, pun-filled, and literary universe; now that Fforde has set up the new plot arc, I imagine that subsequent books will have more action and less set-up.

Books read: 1

7 June 2004

Mary S. Lovell's The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family is a group biography of the Mitford sisters. I was particularly interested in more information about the lives of Pamela and Deborah, the less famous sisters, and although they're necessarily less in the spotlight than Nancy, Diana, Unity, and Jessica, I still felt as though I'd learned far more about them than I'd gathered from any other source.

Lovell states up front in the introduction that she was trying "to explore the richness of the personalities, not to judge them"; in this she has succeeded, presenting a balanced picture and allowing the reader to form her own opinions. Occasionally Lovell stumbles in weaving the threads of the six lives together to form a logical and coherent progression, but that would be difficult with any group biography and particularly with one of such widely varying people as this. Well-written and thoroughly researched, this is a valuable addition to the Mitford canon.

Books read: 1

8 June 2004

I thought I should probably swear off Austen sequels after my recent, largely negative experiences with those by Joan Aiken, but Pamela Aidan's An Assembly Such as This (the first volume of a projected trilogy entitled Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman) has gotten such good reviews that I gave it a shot - and it was surprisingly good.

An Assembly Such as This is a retelling of Pride and Prejudice from Darcy's point of view, up to the point where he and the Bingleys leave Netherfield for London. The characters and plot are consistent with the books, although of course Aidan adds events which didn't occur in the original; largely these fit well, although the addition of historical figures such as Lady Caroline Lamb and Beau Brummel are distracting at best. The language is convincing and the style witty but not a slavish imitation of Austen. All in all, I enjoyed it and will read the rest of the trilogy when it's published.
Eleanor Perényi's Green Thoughts: A Writer in the Garden is an excellent collection of gardening essays, vividly written and helpfully organized by topic for later reference.

Books read: 2

9 June 2004

Philippa Gregory's historical novel Earthly Joys follows the life of John Tradescant during the time of James I, Charles I, and the English Civil War; Tradescant was a renowned gardener and collector of plants and served Lord Robert Cecil, the Duke of Buckingham, and finally Queen Henrietta Maria. Gregory presents a vivid and enthralling version of his life and of the turbulent period in which he lived; Tradescant's loyalties are constantly torn between his love for his masters (particularly the irresistible but erratic Duke), his family, and his gardens, which are glowingly and accurately described. I look forward to reading the sequel, Virgin Earth, which follows Tradescant's son (also named John) to the New World.

Books read: 1

10 June 2004

Continuing my Mitford streak, I thought I'd try The Duchess of Devonshire's Counting My Chickens and Other Home Thoughts; the Duchess, Deborah Cavendish, is the youngest of the Mitford sisters (and the only one still living, after the death of Diana Mosley last year). This book is a collection of short pieces on a range of subjects: her upbringing and childhood, the care and administration of Chatsworth, the Devonshires' family home, and various aspects of modern life. Though the pieces suggest the Duchess's wit and charm, the book as a whole feels slight and unsatisfactory, particularly the very short bit near the end about Deborah's childhood; I would have loved to read more of her thoughts on that, as opposed to the apparently rather exaggerated pictures drawn by her sisters Nancy and Jessica. The section on Chatsworth is the best, conveying clearly her deep love and knowledge of the place.

Books read: 1

13 June 2004

Pamela Belle's The Moon in the Water, The Chains of Fate, and Alathea are a trilogy set in England during the 17th century (the period of the Civil War, the Interregnum, and the Restoration). They follow the fortunes of the Heron family, of Thomazine Heron (in the first two books) and of her daughter Alathea (in the last). They're rich with historical detail and with memorable, lively characters. I didn't like these quite as much as Wintercombe, the first book of Belle's I read (also set during the Civil War period), but they are fine historical romances, engrossing and exciting.

Books read: 3

14 June 2004

Like her excellent Girl with a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier's The Lady and the Unicorn tells the story behind the creation of a famous work of art, in this case the "Lady and the Unicorn" tapestries. The narrative is woven like a tapestry from the voices of several characters, from the artist who designed the tapestries to the wife and daughter of the nobleman who commissioned them to members of the family who wove them. Unfortunately, although I like how this emulates the warp and woof of weaving (as the luminous and simple style of Girl with a Pearl Earring resembled Vermeer's painting style), the brevity of the book combined with the multiplicity of character viewpoints meant that I was never very engaged with any of the individual characters, and so for me, the book, although lively and interesting, lacked the emotional resonance of Girl with a Pearl Earring and wasn't as successful.

Books read: 1

16 June 2004

Edith Pattou's East is a young adult retelling of the fairy tale "East of the Sun and West of the Moon", a lesser-known but interesting variant on the "Beauty and the Beast" and "Eros and Psyche" tales. Rose lives in Norway with her family; when one of her sisters becomes dangerously ill and the family is about to be evicted from their farm, a white bear appears at the door and tells the family that if Rose will come with him, their troubles will end. Of course she goes with him and becomes entangled in the enchantment he's under and his connection to the mysterious Troll Queen.

Though I love this fairy tale, with its strong and determined heroine, and I was happy to find a retelling of it, East didn't quite succeed for me. The narrative shifted between the first-person viewpoints of Rose, her father, her brother, the white bear, and the Troll Queen, and the shifts felt abrupt; also, the voices of Rose, her father, and her brother were insufficiently differentiated - the events were enough to keep me remembering who was telling the story, but the speech and narrative patterns should have been more individual. The white bear's passages were nicely evocative, though, of how a human turned into an animal might think, in the constraints of an animal's mind. On the whole, the story was engrossing and the reworking of the fairy tale reasonably convincing, so it was worth the read.

Books read: 1

18 June 2004

Robin McKinley's Beauty and Rose Daughter are on my favorites page.

Books read: 2

20 June 2004

Philippa Gregory's Virgin Earth is a worthy sequel to her earlier Earthly Joys, following the fortunes of the Tradescant family of gardeners, in the tumult of 17th-century England. The story focuses on John Tradescant the Younger and his struggle to choose between duty and desire, between his life in England, with his second wife and two children, and his life in the New World, in Virginia with his Powhatan wife, Suckahanna. Like Earthly Joys, the characters are strongly portrayed and sympathetic, and the historical background, of the colonization of America and the English Civil War and Restoration, is well drawn.

Books read: 1

25 June 2004

Pamela Belle's Wintercombe and Herald of Joy are on my favorites page.

Books read: 2

27 June 2004

Having finally seen the movie, I decided to reread the third Harry Potter book by J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. (On the movie: loved the new, darker tone; thought they left out too much of the backstory and explanations to make the plot really understandable. Yes, I know that most people who are seeing the movie have read the book, but the movie's plot needs to be complete and intelligible in and of itself, and it wasn't, quite. See Roger Ebert's review, which just about exactly expresses my feelings.)

Azkaban is my favorite of the (book) series so far, largely because the emotional undertones are more serious than the first two without being as bleak as the last one; we learn more about Harry's parents and their background, and Harry's adventures are more affecting because of the intimate connection with his parents and their friends. Also, Hermione starts to develop as more than just a know-it-all, and the relationship between her and Ron begins to evolve as well, so that the book gives more depth to all three of the characters who are its heroes.

Books read: 1

28 June 2004

Making a Cottage Garden, by Faith and Geoff Whiten, is a practical little book on traditional English cottage gardens. The style is a touch pompous at times, but the quotations from old herbals are a nice touch, and the lists and descriptions of traditional cottage garden plants are quite useful.

Books read: 1

29 June 2004

The Duchess of Devonshire's The Garden at Chatsworth is a guide to the history and design of the 400-year-old gardens at Chatsworth, the seat of the Dukes of Devonshire, with lovely photographs and other illustrations. The Duchess's narrative is lively and interesting, and her horticultural and historical knowledge obviously wide. I'm not sure it has much reread value, as it's more of a coffee table book than a practical gardening book, so I'm glad I got it from the library, but it's certainly worth a read if you're interested in Chatsworth itself or gardening in general.

Books read: 1

30 June 2004

Hide and Seek was Wilkie Collins's third novel, after Antonina and Basil. While it pales in comparison to later works like The Woman in White or Armadale, I found it oddly engaging - a blend of domestic comedy and melodrama. The plot was rather predictable, but the touches of humor give Hide and Seek a charm entirely absent from Basil; in particular, I liked a scene in which the artist Valentine Blyth is floridly presenting his new works of art, to the sotto voce accompaniments of the two critics he's invited. Hide and Seek is not one of Collins's finest novels, but it's a pleasant diversion for those who have already read his more famous novels.

Books read: 1

Total books read this month: 26
Total books read this year: 203


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