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2 March 2005

• Helen Cresswell's Bagthorpe Saga comprises nine books (there's a tenth, but I haven't been able to find it): Ordinary Jack, Absolute Zero, Bagthorpes Unlimited, Bagthorpes V. the World, Bagthorpes Abroad, Bagthorpes Haunted, Bagthorpes Liberated, The Bagthorpe Triangle, and Bagthorpes Besieged. They are a chronicle of the adventures of the eccentric Bagthorpe family: Mr. Bagthorpe, an irritable, paranoid scriptwriter; Mrs. Bagthorpe, juvenile magistrate and problem solver; their four children, William, Tess, Jack, and Rosie, all except Jack multi-talented; Grandma, the trouble-making matriarch of the clan; Aunt Celia and Uncle Parker and their four-year-old daughter Daisy, a pint-sized catastrophe waiting to happen; and Mrs. Fosdyke, the Bagthorpes' crotchety but talented cook.
  
  These are hilarious books; I've read the first four at least ten times since I discovered them twenty years ago (the later ones are more recent acquisitions), and they still make me laugh out loud. The first four are the best; they're largely told from the point of view of Jack, the only ordinary one in the family, and his common sense and normality help to anchor the antics of the rest of the family. Also, there's a sense of family affection that's missing from the later books (though those are still funny and worth reading).
  
  I do hope Cresswell has plans to continue the series, as Bagthorpes Besieged ends in the middle of an involved plotline; I gather the book I haven't been able to find, Bagthorpes Battered, continues but doesn't resolve the plotline.

Books read: 9

4 March 2005

• In Oxford, Jan Morris examines the culture, history, traditions, people, and setting of that storied and enigmatic city, focusing particularly on the relationship between city and University. It's chock-full of marvelous information, amusing anecdotes, and striking images, and a joy to read -- one of those rare non-fiction books which are every bit as absorbing as the best fiction.

Books read: 1

5 March 2005

• Sense and Sensibility was Jane Austen's first published novel, though she'd already submitted early versions of Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey to publishers. The sisters Elinor and Marianne Dashwood represent the "sense" and "sensibility" of the title; while Marianne is outgoing and impulsive, Elinor is reserved, concealing her emotions. Austen contrasts their responses to their experiences in the marriage market, as she also shows the limited choices given to women of the period. Sense and Sensibility isn't my favorite Austen novel, as it lacks the sparkle of Pride and Prejudice and the deep feeling of Persuasion, but I like it very much for its two very different heroines.

Books read: 1

6 March 2005

• Maria Edgeworth's Belinda made interesting reading as a followup to Sense and Sensibility. Edgeworth was a major influence on Austen, and the contrast between the two main characters in Belinda (the sensible eponymous heroine and her mercurial mentor Lady Delacour) clearly prefigures the theme Austen took up in Sense and Sensibility. Austen aside, though, Belinda is good reading in its own right; although it suffers a little from Edgeworth's determination to write a "Moral Tale" rather than a novel (as she specifies in the foreword) and thus from the moral rectitude of Belinda herself, often unsympathetic in her virtue, the characters (particularly Lady Delacour) are generally winning and the writing witty.
  
  What I found most interesting, though, was Edgeworth's treatment of gender and racial issues. She examines courtship conventions, female independence, and even mixed marriage, which is certainly not a topic I've often come across in novels of the period. A warning: the edition I have is the Oxford World's Classics edition, which uses the text of the second edition of Belinda. Edgeworth edited the novel heavily for the third edition, removing particularly much of her treatment of racial issues (the mixed marriage was entirely removed), so if you're interested in reading Belinda, do seek out the Oxford edition or another that uses the earlier text.

Books read: 1

7 March 2005

• Like Journey to the River Sea, The Star of Kazan is a departure from Eva Ibbotson's usual mix of fantasy and humor in her children's books, but that doesn't make it any less beguiling. Annika is an orphan, found in a church and adopted by Ellie and Sigrid, who are cook and housekeeper to a family of three unmarried professors in Vienna. Annika dreams that her mother will someday appear to claim her, but when her dream comes true, it turns out very differently than she imagined. I found the plot a little predictable, but Ibbotson's detailed evocation of Vienna (where she lived as a child) is lovely, and as always, her characters are vivid and sympathetic, particularly the practical but imaginative Annika herself. There's not one of Ibbotson's books I haven't enjoyed, but I found The Star of Kazan especially winning.

Books read: 1

8 March 2005

• In Victoria Hanley's The Seer and the Sword, the Princess Torina is the seer, who glimpses visions in a crystal given to her by her father, the king of Archeld, who wrested it from the conquered kingdom of Bellandra. Along with the crystal, the king took Bellandra's legendary sword and hid it -- but he also took the prince of Bellandra, Landen, who longs to recover the sword and his kingdom. Eventually, Torina's fate is woven with Landen's, as her kingdom is endangered as well and they must turn to the high king, Dahmis of Glavenrell, for help.
  
  Unfortunately, for a story that's full of political intrigue, the worldbuilding isn't quite deep enough to sustain interest; the many kingdoms are sketchily detailed, and there's little sense of their history or culture, which makes the interactions between them less compelling than it should be. On the plus side, Hanley has created several very engaging characters -- the bold Torina and the thoughtful Landen are an interesting couple, as she learns wisdom through the crystal and he learns to take action, and many of the supporting characters are nicely sketched out as well. This is Hanley's first novel, and I know she's written at least one more in the same world; The Seer and the Sword was promising enough that I'll seek out the second book in the hopes of a little more worldbuilding and the same good characterization.

Books read: 1

9 March 2005

• The Face in the Frost is the only adult novel by John Bellairs, best known for his wonderful children's books (the best known of those being probably The House with the Clock in Its Walls), and it's good enough to make me wish very much that he'd written more. This is no epic fantasy, but a deeply atmospheric and magical tale of the wizard Prospero and his friend Roger, who are attacked by a mysterious evil power. It's charmingly written, the dialogue particularly full of witty allusions; yet much of it is spine-chillingly creepy, to the extent that I wished I were reading it during the day (which is much the same way I used to feel about The House with the Clock in Its Walls and its sequels). Although it's widely considered a fantasy classic, The Face in the Frost is sadly out of print; if you run across a copy, snap it up and consider yourself lucky.

Books read: 1

10 March 2005

• Paul Collins's Sixpence House: Lost in a Town of Books is a warm and funny memoir of his stay in Hay-on-Wye, the British town known for having forty bookstores. Collins and his wife Jennifer and small son Morgan packed up and left San Francisco for Hay, intending to settle down there; upon arrival, they plunge into the book-filled life of the town. Sixpence House is packed with amusing book anecdotes, and Collins's love of books pervades its pages. I did occasionally get a little tired of his rambles on British vs. American customs, which struck me as a little insular, but overall, this was a charming book, well worth picking up if you're a bibliophile like Collins and me.

Books read: 1

11 March 2005

• Peter Gay's Mozart is one of the series of Penguin Lives, short autobiographies meant to present the life of each subject in a succinct, yet informative way. Gay's life of Mozart succeeds admirably at this goal, conveying the facts of Mozart's life with a sparkle reminiscent of his music. I may well end up reading a longer biography at some point, but for now, Gay's was a treat.

Books read: 1

12 March 2005

• Georgette Heyer's The Unknown Ajax is perhaps more of a family story than a romance, though of course it does contain a romantic plotline. The eldest son of the autocratic, elderly Lord Darracott has died, and Lord Darracott must summon the new heir -- the unknown son of Darracott's rebellious second son, who married against his father's wishes and died years ago. Hugo Darracott's entry into his new family is a challenge for everyone, but particularly his cousin Anthea, who Lord Darracott is determined will marry Hugo. The family dynamics are nicely done, but the real page-turner is the subplot concerning Anthea's younger brother and the local smuggling trade, which develops into a remarkably suspenseful climax. Heyer's usual lively characters and dialogue combine with the unusually tense plot to make this a particularly good read.

Books read: 1

14 March 2005

• Can You Forgive Her? is the first of Anthony Trollope's great political series of Victorian novels, also called the Palliser novels after the family whose career ties the novels together. I decided to reread it after reading Sense and Sensibility, because Trollope is also investigating not only the contrast between those two qualities, but also, as he does in so many of his novels, the plight of women in nineteenth-century England and their limited choices. Instead of two heroines, Trollope presents us with three: Alice Vavasor, who convinces herself that she must break her engagement with John Grey; her cousin, Lady Glencora Palliser, who was persuaded to marry for position and regrets it; and her aunt, Mrs. Greenow, a widower who must choose a suitor. Each heroine has two suitors, who are also a study in contrasts, and Trollope creates an intricate pattern as Alice, Lady Glencora, and Mrs. Greenow make the decisions which will affect the rest of their lives.

Books read: 1

15 March 2005

• In Nobody's Son, Sean Stewart picks up where fairy tales leave off. The commoner Shielder's Mark has just broken a thousand-year-old curse on the castle of Red Keep, but when he travels to the king's court to claim his reward, everything is more complicated than he expected: he gains the king's youngest daughter, but loses the sword he won in Red Keep -- and even winning the princess is more trouble than Mark could have guessed. Stewart's characters are vividly alive, and he traces their relationships and travails with keen insight; although there's a continuing plot involving the broken curse, it's Mark's quest for self-knowledge that's the real story of the book.

Books read: 1

16 March 2005

• Sean Stewart's Resurrection Man begins stunningly, when Dante, his sister Sarah, and his adopted brother Jet discover Dante's dead body; naturally enough, Dante takes this as a sign that he's about to die and starts to investigate. The setting is an alternate America, where magic started to return to the modern world during WWII, when golems appeared in concentration camps; Stewart builds his picture of the world piece by piece, taking it steadily further and further away from our own world and creating a creepier and creepier atmosphere. As with Nobody's Son, however, though the world and the magic are intriguing, it's the characters that really matter, and the relationships in Dante's family: Dante himself; Jet, his dark other half; Sarah, tormented by her past; and their parents and Aunt Sophie. Stewart's powers of invention are remarkable; the three books of his that I've read (this, Nobody's Son, and Mockingbird) are all quite different from each other, but all very effective in their own ways.

Books read: 1

20 March 2005

• After a few months' break, I've resumed reading Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles with the third and fourth books, The Disorderly Knights and Pawn in Frankincense. I thought the second book, Queen's Play, moved a little more slowly than the first (The Game of Kings), but I'd heard that the pace would pick up in The Disorderly Knights. Boy, was that the truth. After a brief section in Scotland, the story picks up in Malta, where Francis Crawford of Lymond is assisting the Knights Hospitaller of St. John against the invading Turks. There he discovers that the real threat is the dissension within the ranks of the Knights and the evil genius who is plotting against Lymond in secret. The revelations at the end of the book are genuinely shocking, and the villain provides Lymond with an opponent worthy of his steel.
  
  Pawn in Frankincense picks up directly where The Disorderly Knights left off, so it's impossible to discuss the plot without spoiling the earlier book. It suffices to say that Lymond, accompanied by Philippa Somerville, travels to the Ottoman Empire on a quest for something he must recover, which is hidden from him by the enemy he discovered in The Disorderly Knights. Although Pawn in Frankincense carries on the story arc thrillingly and has a gorgeously described setting, I can't really comment on it objectively, because the climax of the book contains perhaps the most distressing scene I've ever read. The scene may well not affect everyone the same way as it did me, so please don't let this turn you off trying the Lymond Chronicles if they sound interesting, but do be warned that it exists. Almost a week later (as I'm writing this), I'm just about ready to start the fifth book; when I finish the series, I'll try to post a review of the whole shebang.

Books read: 2

24 March 2005

• Maud Hart Lovelace's Betsy-Tacy and Deep Valley books are on my favorites page.
  
  

Books read: 13

30 March 2005

• After the intensity of Pawn in Frankincense, I needed to take a break before going on to The Ringed Castle and Checkmate, the final two books of Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles. Fortunately for me, the emotional level went down a notch, largely because Lymond himself begins The Ringed Castle by journeying to Russia in an attempt to block himself off from the emotions aroused by the events of Pawn in Frankincense; in Russia, he becomes advisor and general to the half-mad tsar, Ivan (known as the Terrible). I loved the setting for this section of the novel, but I wasn't terribly interested in Russian politics and found myself frothing to have Lymond and Philippa meet again. Happily, they do in the last half of The Ringed Castle, and Checkmate is essentially an exploration and resolution of their relationship, intertwined with many revelations about Lymond's family.
  
  Overall, I find myself somewhat ambivalent about the Lymond Chronicles. They're undeniably great historical novels; Dunnett paints a marvelously detailed and fascinating picture of the period and of all the countries Lymond visits, from Scotland, France, and England to the more exotic Turkey and Russia. The Game of Kings starts out with a very dense style, full of quotations (many in foreign languages) and allusions, and though this is a slog to get through, the prose does become clearer (either that or I got used to it, but I think it's the former). I could never get very fond of Lymond himself -- too perfect of accomplishment, too frustrating of thought -- but I love many of the other characters, particularly the women. But with all that on the plus side, it's hard to imagine rereading Pawn in Frankincense again (though it may be easier now that I know what will happen). I guess I'll just have to reread the whole series in a couple of years and see what I think.

Books read: 2

31 March 2005

• I think I did John M. Ford's The Dragon Waiting a disservice by beginning it immediately after finishing the Lymond Chronicles, which continued to engage my brain and kept me from devoting valuable brain cells to Ford's fascinating alternate history. In an inn in the Swiss Alps, four people form an alliance to fight against the Byzantine Empire, which in this world never went into decline and now controls most of Europe, save for England and the small buffer state of France. These characters -- Cynthia, a Florentine physician; Dimitrios, a Byzantine mercenary; Hywel, a Welsh wizard; and Gregory, a German vampire -- eventually end up in England, where they join forces with Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who will become Richard III.
  
  I liked Ford's world very much. With the addition of magic, the differences from our history made sense, and the way he slowly revealed information was masterful: no big info-dumps, just bits and pieces which coalesced into a big picture. For instance, it takes two hundred pages before we find out what happened to Christianity, which is only a small sect in Ford's pagan, pantheistic world (formed to a great extent by the emperor we call Julian the Apostate, who was apparently far more successful in this version of history).
  
  The characters were vividly drawn, so much so that I really wanted to learn more about the four protagonists than I did, and the historical personages convincing (even Richard, about whom I have read a lot and so am picky about). (Though as frequently when reading alternate history novels, I kept wondering how the same people as in our history could be produced by a world that's so different from ours. However, Ford wove the historical and non-historical characters together well enough that I was usually at least distracted from that issue.)
  
  I did occasionally feel that I wasn't quite getting what was going on (and was very glad for my knowledge of English history of that period, which really helped), but that's just as likely my fault as Ford's (my brain having been not quite detached from Dunnett yet). I'm very much looking forward to rereading The Dragon Waiting in a year or two, as I think it's clearly a book which I'll get more out of the second time through (one of the signs of a Good Book, in my estimation).

Books read: 1

Total books read this month: 39
Total books read this year: 110

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