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1 October 2004

• Georgette Heyer's A Civil Contract is a very enjoyable Regency, about an unusual couple in an arranged marriage. When Captain Adam Deveril inherits his father's title and estate, he finds that he is on the brink of financial ruin; although he's in love with the beautiful Julia Oversley, he consents to an arranged marriage with Jenny Chawleigh, the plain daughter of a wealthy merchant in order to save his estate and family. Heyer creates a refreshing look at a relationship between interesting people, particularly the down-to-earth Jenny, who's a much more attractive character than the beautiful but hysterical Julia; it's nice to see the plain girl get her dues.

Books read: 1

3 October 2004

• I'm ambivalent about Nancy McKenzie's The Child Queen and The High Queen (recently reprinted as Queen of Camelot); they're reasonably good retellings of the Arthurian legends, with Guinevere as the viewpoint character, but they have some serious flaws. McKenzie does a good job making Guinevere into an appealing character in her own right, and she gives us a strong Arthur to go with her, creating a passionate and compelling relationship. At the same time, McKenzie spends so much effort on showing that relationship that she fails to make Guinevere's love for Lancelot believable, which undermines the love triangle aspect of the story (and since McKenzie does use the love triangle as an important plot point, it needs to be credible).
  
  Though I like McKenzie's version of the storyline (particularly the role played by Elaine, here Guinevere's cousin before becoming Lancelot's wife), the writing is somewhat amateurish. The High Queen starts with a conversation between Bedwyr and Guinevere, which McKenzie tries to use as a way to remind the reader of what happened in the first book; however, having Guinevere explaining to Bedwyr (one of Arthur's oldest friends) basic plot details such as the identity of Morgause is simply not convincing. The dialogue is often too modern and the language awkward (for example, Guinevere "flinging" her hands to her ears"). Infelicities of language aside, though, these are a good addition to the body of Arthurian legends, with strong characterization and plot.

Books read: 2

5 October 2004

• Nancy McKenzie's Grail Prince is a continuation to her Queen of Camelot books, telling the story of Galahad, Lancelot's son, and his quest for the Holy Grail. McKenzie sets the quest after the death of King Arthur, which is an unusual choice, but a good one; Galahad is hoping to use the Grail to bring the great king back, which provides interesting motivation for him. The narrative weaves together the story of Galahad's quest with the story of his childhood and the last years of King Arthur, with Galahad's love for his mother, Elaine, and his hatred of Lancelot and Guinevere for betraying Elaine. Galahad's journey is not only a quest for the Grail, but also the evolution of his character from the fanatical boy of Queen of Camelot, obsessed with his idea of honor, to a more mature and wiser man who has learned the real meaning of honor; McKenzie portrays his maturation with insight and compassion, in a truly original version of the Grail legend.

Books read: 1

6 October 2004

• The latest in Nancy McKenzie's series of Arthurian books is Prince of Dreams, which retells the tale of Tristan and Iseult (here called Essylte). The essential story follows the legend: when King Mark of Cornwall dispatches Tristan to escort Mark's promised bride, Essylte, to Cornwall, Tristan and Essylte fall in love, and when she marries Mark anyway, many disasters ensue. McKenzie does manage to create compelling characters out of Tristan, Essylte, and their supporting players (particularly Essylte's companion, Branwen), but the truth is, I've always found the story simply annoying, and my reaction to this version wasn't any different. The lovers repeatedly vow to stay away from each other, and repeatedly (sometimes within a few pages) they break their vows. They bring disaster and tragedy upon themselves, and I can never really feel sorry for them. I admired McKenzie's conception of the story and her skill at bringing the characters to life, but in the end, it just isn't a tale that I enjoy reading, in any incarnation.

Books read: 1

7 October 2004

• If you're looking for a detailed biography of Charlotte Brontë, go elsewhere (I'd recommend Rebecca Fraser's book), but if you want a lively revisionist interpretation of Brontë's life and writings, try Lyndall Gordon's Charlotte Brontë: A Passionate Life. Elizabeth Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë, written immediately after Brontë's death, makes her into a tragic figure, mourning for her dead sisters and brothers and trapped in a life of duty to her stern father: "a figure of pathos in the shadow of tombstones", as Gordon puts it. In contrast, Gordon shows the vivid, intelligent, and most of all passionate woman who wrote Jane Eyre and Villette, a woman who was far stronger than the suffering martyr she's been seen as for many years. Together with Lucasta Miller's The Brontë Myth, Gordon's biography sheds new light on a marvelously talented woman.

Books read: 1

8 October 2004

• G.H. Lewes is best known for being the married man with whom George Eliot lived for years, but he was a fascinating figure in his own right. Rosemary Ashton's biography, G.H. Lewes: An Unconventional Victorian is, oddly, the only full-length biography of Lewes, though of course he's much discussed in books about Eliot. Lewes was a man of many talents: journalist, novelist, playwright, actor, and scientist. Though he wasn't successful in all of these fields (his novels were regarded as notably bad - I'd love to read one), he was admired for the breadth of his knowledge and interests. His personal life was scandalous, from his open marriage to Agnes Jervis to his long liaison with Eliot, whom he could not marry because by registering Agnes's four children by her lover Thornton Hunt as his own, he had condoned her adultery and thus couldn't divorce her. Ashton's account of his life is scholarly and well-researched, uncovering previously unknown facts about Lewes's life (e.g., that he was illegitimate), and her prose is engaging and readable.

Books read: 1

9 October 2004

• I recently picked up the Penguin Classics edition of Frances Hodgson Burnett's A Little Princess, because I thought it might be interesting to read a critical edition of it. It was, but more for the appendices than the introduction and notes (though they were fine). The appendices included an early story of Burnett's, "Behind the White Brick", which has an early version of an imaginative child like Sara Crewe (heroine of A Little Princess), and excerpts from the original novella of A Little Princess and from the stage play; these were really fascinating to read, to see how Burnett developed the story and characters from one version to another.
  
  As far as the book itself, I still find Sara in many ways almost too good to be true, in spite of the occasional outburst of temper, which is why I prefer The Secret Garden with its more realistic heroine. Yet Sara is engaging and very likable, and what I love about A Little Princess is how her power of imagination is presented in a positive light: not as mere escapist fantasy, but as a talent that enables her to survive deprivation and near-starvation.

Books read: 1

12 October 2004

• George Eliot's Scenes of Clerical Life is her earliest attempt at fiction; it comprises three novellas, "The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton", "Mr. Gilfil's Love-Story", and "Janet's Repentance". I found the novellas a little on the melodramatic side (particularly the latter two) compared to her later works, but they show Eliot's developing artistry as a writer of fiction: subtle characterization, quiet humor, and most of all, interest in searching out and presenting truths about humanity. Scenes of Clerical Life wouldn't be my first recommendation for a reader new to Eliot, but for those who have already read her more mature works, Scenes is well worth reading.

Books read: 1

13 October 2004

• The Grim Grotto is the latest in Lemony Snicket's dark but witty Series of Unfortunate Events, which follows the (mis)fortunes of the Baudelaire orphans, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny. Having escaped the evil Count Olaf in the Mortmain Mountains, the Baudelaires are floating down the Stricken Stream on a toboggan when they are picked up by the submarine Queequeg, whereupon they have underwater adventures (featuring an encounter with a killer mushroom in the eponymous Grim Grotto). A few books ago, the overarching plot of the series had started to falter, but Snicket has picked it back up nicely, with new tidbits about the mysterious V.F.D., the Snicket siblings (Lemony, Jacques, and now their sister Kit), and the fate of the Baudelaires' parents. All of the books end on cliffhangers, but The Grim Grotto's is particularly intriguing.

Books read: 1

14 October 2004

• Phyllis Ann Karr's The Idylls of the Queen is an odd thing: an Arthurian murder mystery. It's based on an incident from Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, the death of Sir Patrise, who dies after eating a poisoned apple at Queen Guenevere's dinner table. When Guenevere is accused of the crime, the loyal seneschal, Sir Kay, sets out to prove her innocence (with Mordred as his companion, of all people). The investigation bogs down a little into a series of episodes with the knights and ladies visited by Kay and Mordred, but it's still a good read, particularly for the characters: the sarcastic, loyal Kay (rarely a character who gets much screen time in Arthurian retellings); the bitter, enigmatic Mordred; and the whole Orkney clan.

Books read: 1

15 October 2004

• Stefan Fatsis took a year off from his job at the Wall Street Journal to explore the sometimes bizarre world of national and international Scrabble competition, and Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players is the compellingly written result of his odyssey. Fatsis meets a host of brilliant, oddball players and examines the history of Scrabble, from its invention by the quiet Alfred Butts in the 1930s to its acquisition by the toy giant Hasbro. Along the way, Fatsis becomes a player himself, and his personal quest to achieve an expert rating is the thread that binds the book together, providing emotional investment and even a bit of suspense (as Fatsis strives to reach a 1700 rating before a big tournament).

Books read: 1

16 October 2004

• Juliet Marillier's Foxmask is a sequel to last year's Wolfskin, which I liked but not as much as Marillier's Sevenwaters Trilogy (starting with Daughter of the Forest). Foxmask begins twenty or so years after the end of Wolfskin and introduces the children of Wolfskin's main characters: Creidhe, daughter of the Viking Eyvind and the priestess Nessa, and Thorvald, son of Margaret. When Thorvald finds out that he isn't the son of Margaret's dead husband, the Viking chieftain Ulf, but of his brother Somerled, exiled from the Light Isles years before by Eyvind, he begins a quest to find Somerled, on which he is accompanied by his friend Sam and by Creidhe, who stows away on Sam's boat.
  
  The story starts very slowly (after fifty pages, I was wondering whether I was going to finish it), but the pace picks up nicely after Thorvald, Sam, and Creidhe are marooned in the mysterious Northern Isles, and the rest of the book is every bit as engrossing as Marillier's earlier novels - in fact, I ended up liking it even more than Wolfskin. Marillier is very good at creating compelling characters, and she vividly portrays Thorvald's struggle against the dark nature he feels he has inherited from his father and Creidhe's maturation from a slightly shallow girl into a strong, passionate woman.

Books read: 1

17 October 2004

• Terry Pratchett's The Fifth Elephant is a Discworld novel and part of the subseries about the Ankh-Morpork City Watch (falling between Jingo and Night Watch). Commander Samuel Vimes (who is also the Duke of Ankh) is sent by the Patrician as ambassador to Uberwald, a country largely inhabited by werewolves, vampires, and dwarves, who are bickering about who should run the country. Pratchett takes the opportunity to put his familiar characters - Vimes, his wife Lady Sybil, Captain Carrot, the werewolf Angua, Sergeant Colon, Corporal Nobbs - into unfamiliar environments and circumstances, which sheds new light on old character. Add to this Pratchett's usual wit and interesting plot, and you have an excellent addition to the Discworld series.

Books read: 1

18 October 2004

• Another of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels I inexplicably didn't read when it first came out is Monstrous Regiment. I thought the plot had promise - Pratchett's take on the old "girl dresses up as man and joins the army" story, this time with the aid of not only a haircut but also a cleverly placed pair of socks - but the story never really came together for me. Perhaps it was that knowing the source of the title enabled me to figure out too early part of the plot that I expect should have been more of a surprise. Perhaps it was the rather gratuitous appearance of Sam Vimes; since he's one of Pratchett's most written-about characters, I kept expecting more scenes with him, and it threw me off that there weren't (and that the scenes he was in were distractions from the main plot). I didn't dislike Monstrous Regiment, and Pratchett fans should certainly read it, but I doubt I'll be reading it again.

Books read: 1

20 October 2004

• Okay, Going Postal is my last Terry Pratchett for a while, now that I've caught up again. It's a Discworld book, but a stand-alone, rather than part of one of the internal series (like the City Watch books); it does take place in Ankh-Morpork, though, so there are familiar characters around, notably the city's tyrant ruler, Vetinari, as well as the City Watch and the wizards of Unseen University. Vetinari reprieves Moist von Lipwig, a con man who understandably goes by many other names, from a sentence of death so that Moist can take over the Postal Service, which has been moribund for years, since the advent of the telegraph-like clacks system (run by the corrupt Reacher Gilt). Moist is an engaging character, forced into his new job but unwillingly attracted to the challenge of it, and as usual, Pratchett provides an entertaining supporting cast and lots of witty dialogue and narrative. I usually find that Pratchett's standalone Discworld novels are better than the series ones (other than the consistently good City Watch series), and unlike Monstrous Regiment, Going Postal is no exception to this rule.

Books read: 1

21 October 2004

• Rafael Sabatini's Captain Blood is, as the sadly now defunct A Common Reader would put it, a Thumping Good Read, featuring vivid characters, lots of action, and a colorful historical setting. When Peter Blood, a young doctor, goes to the aid of a wounded rebel against King James II (during the Monmouth Rebellion), he is wrongly convicted of treason and sold into slavery in Jamaica. Eventually, he escapes (but not before falling in love with Arabella Bishop, the spirited niece of his so-called master, Colonel Bishop) and becomes a pirate captain. Though I could have wished for a little more of Arabella's presence, Sabatini's tale is rousing and well-paced - an exciting and quick read.

Books read: 1

22 October 2004

• The Time of the Ghost is a walk on the darker side for the usually light-hearted Diana Wynne Jones. The titular ghost is one of a family of four sisters - only she doesn't know which one. As the ghost observes her family (richly characterized by Jones), she slowly figures out which sisters she is and what happened to her, and she discovers that she has the power to prevent something terrible from happening: the fulfillment of a bargain the sisters made with the mysterious goddess Monigan, whom the sisters thought they imagined but who is terribly real.
  
  The Time of the Ghost is distinctly more grim in tone than most of Jones's other work. The sisters are neglected (and occasionally abused) by their parents, one of them ends up with an abusive boyfriend, and the Monigan parts are very creepy. I read this first a couple of years ago and was put off by the tone; this time, expecting it to be a little darker, I liked it much more. The story is skillfully woven together, as the reader and the ghost pick up clues about what's happening, and it's alloyed with Jones's usual wit, even as she deals with some disturbing issues. Don't expect the lighthearted charm of The Lives of Christopher Chant or Charmed Life, but read it anyway: it's well worth it.

Books read: 1

24 October 2004

• William Goldman's The Princess Bride is on my favorites page.

Books read: 1

28 October 2004

• When I picked up Sunshine for the first time last fall and realized that Robin McKinley had written a vampire novel, I was almost horrified: it seemed a far cry from Damar and retold fairy tales, and vampire novels are certainly not usually my thing. But McKinley is easily one of my top ten favorite writers, so I sat down with it one night and got so sucked into it (pardon the pun) that I stayed up most of the night finishing it (which is a bigger deal than it used to be, with a toddler who gets up when he feels like it rather than when I do). On this reread, I managed to avoid staying up all night, but it was a real test of my willpower.
  
  Sunshine is set in an alternate universe, where there are vampires, demons, and weres as well as humans, those who survived the Voodoo Wars but are now threatened by the increase in the vampire population. Rae Seddon, a baker nicknamed "Sunshine" for her affinity for sunlight, has an unusual interest in the Others, but no real contact with them...until the night she's kidnapped by a group of vampires. Her fellow prisoner is also a vampire, and their joint captivity creates an uneasy alliance. Even after their escape, Sunshine and Con are still linked, and Sunshine (another of McKinley's typically strong, practical heroines) discovers more about her world, her past, and her own powers as she and Con work together to defeat the vampire who captured them.
  
  McKinley excels at creating richly detailed worlds, and she's done that again with Sunshine. The world is like ours in many respects (Sunshine describes something at one point as "half Quasimodo, half Borg"), but chillingly different in others -- in one memorable passage, Sunshine wonders about whether phoenixes exist: "I think the phoenix has at least a fifty-fifty chance of being true, because it's nasty. What this world doesn't have is the three-wishes, go-to-the-ball-and-meet-your-prince, happily-ever-after kind of magic. We have all the mangling and malevolent kinds. Who invented this system?" Con himself is Other: not just a human with long teeth, he is inhuman, which makes Sunshine's unwilling attraction to him particularly intriguing (and yet another of McKinley's variations on the "Beauty and the Beast" theme, which she makes even more apparent by having Sunshine retell the fairy tale to Con during their imprisonment).
  
  Altogether, Sunshine is an unusual outing for McKinley in its subject matter and world, but her wonderful writing, worldbuilding, and characterization are fully evident and as compelling as ever. Oh, and you might want to have a couple of good cinnamon rolls lying around, because believe me, you'll be hungry for them by the time you're done with the book (I wish McKinley had included Sunshine's recipe for those). By the way, if you've read Sunshine and are wondering about a sequel (as I did, since there certainly seems room for one), check out McKinley's web site for the answer to that question.

Books read: 1

Total books read this month: 20
Total books read this year: 325

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