Warning, this will probably read as harsh and snooty:To be fair, I rarely read things that get the label "romance." VERY rarely. Sometimes if they cross with mystery, I can take it (Iris Johansen in limited doses, the Eve Dallas books, and, yeah, I read the Twilight books). But I'm not a romance person. I'm rarely even a chick lit person. To be fair, I have also been reading REALLY good books lately. But given that I have not yet read EVERY really good book, it is very hard to justify spending time on this one. So much so that I bailed about 10% of the way in. And I also almost never bail on books. I feel it is not fair to judge them unless you know where they are going. I wanted to use this book for one of my Oceania reads in my 6 books, 6 countries, 6 regions challenge, and Oceania books are hard to find at all. But I just couldn't do it. I couldn't.
After reading passages like"Better the peak of art than the slough of sex. Contrary to the popular notion of his wantonness, the artist, Mother believes, must forget about sex. If he can’t, then he’s a mere mortal; but he shouldn’t be a mere mortal. He should be divine! Unfortunately, biographies of artists, which are the most important things about artists, teem all too often with the sexual ruses and abuses of their protagonists. They inveigle the reader into thinking that the cucumber bed of pure harmony grows upon the compost heap of sex." which is just a randomly selected passage from The Piano Teacher,
to then read "As Susannah continued reading, the forbidden thoughts returned. This time they were even more intense and exciting. Her pulse raced and her breathing became labored as she imagined strong hands caressing her body," just doesn't work for me. There have to be better ways to spend my time. Actually, I was already getting skeptical when the authors referred to a Bible "translated from the Hebrew in 1583." Ok, only the first half was ever in Hebrew in the first place. I know I'm being picky, but I was afraid these details would pile up. If you can overlook that the New Testament was in Greek, what else will you gloss over?
And if cultural insight is depicted like this "Looking into the eyes of the old Fijian, Nathan reminded himself he was looking at the end result of thousands of earlier generations. He wondered what claims to fame the old man’s forebears had.," I'm, again, not feeling really hopeful. I kept feeling like I was reading something written by a good but not truly talented high school student. Again, maybe if you are looking for a steamy island read about a not-so-repressed daughter of a missionary, then maybe this will work for you. I'm looking for something more than that. So I will have to find my next Oceania read somewhere else.
This is a fascinating non-fiction account of the crash of a small American military plane in an inaccessible valley in Dutch New Guinea in the waning days of WWII. The plane was carrying soldiers and WACs (Women's Auxiliary military staff) on a sightseeing flight on a day off. The story follows the adventures of the small group of survivors as they encounter local cannibalistic warrior tribes and as they are supplied by paratroopers, treated by Philippino medics, and eventually rescued in a complex and daring effort. The reporter worked with interviews with a survivor of the crash and others involved in the rescue, as well as diaries, military records, and even video made in the valley by an actor-turned-jewel-thief-turned-military-film-maker who parachuted in to document the situation. This book is worth reading just for the amazing cross-cultural misunderstandings that ensue between the natives and the strange creatures who fall from the sky.
As always, I really enjoy reading Anne Perry's mysteries. I enjoy the characters: surly amnesiac detective William Monk, Crimean War nurse Hester Latterly, distinguished barrister Oliver Rathbone, whose relationships, while often testy, are also intelligent, passionate and loyal. I also enjoy the plot twists, which always have a foundation laid, but which are nonetheless not given away earlier in the novel, making things interesting to the end. I also like the vision of 19th century European society that comes through in each case as it unfolds, whether it is a commentary on medical conditions in London hospitals, as in one book, or the political intrigues surrounding the possible unification of the various German states, as in this one. One measure of historical fiction is whether it makes you want to go read history, and this one definitely did. It also made me want to visit Venice, where a portion of the action takes place. The basic plot is this: Countess Zorah Rostova seeks the assistance of Rathbone in her defense against a slander accusation by the widow of the exiled former Crown Prince Frederich of Felzburg, a small German state. Zorah has accused Princess Gisela of murdering Frederich, in what was initially simply dismissed as death from internal injuries after a fall from his horse. She has no proof of her accusation, simply an instinctual knowledge that it must be so. As Rathbone investigates, with help from Monk and Hester (who is nursing an paraplegic son of a family from the same German state), it seems that murder has in fact taken place, but that Gisela may be the one person who has an ironclad alibi. Possible suspects and motives are many, related both to personal jealousies and potential political plots related to Frederich's possible return to Felzburg to lead an independence movement on the eve of potential German unification. During the investigation, Monk travels to Venice, home of the exiled royal family, and to Felzburg, while carrying on a flirtation with a married Baroness from Felzburg, whose husband is a viable suspect. As I said, the solution is not clear until the very end, when critical questions are answered and the investigative team succeeds in bringing about a satisfying resolution to the case.
The Hanged Man's Song
As always, I enjoy John Sandford as a quick break from my more "serious reading." I always grab his books when I see one I haven't read, and I squirrel them away for a time when I have time or a break or just need to get unstuck in my reading. This was one of the Kidd novels. The plot was fairly interesting and fast paced. I started the book last night and finished it this morning. I always enjoy Sandford's characters, and this involved several folks from earlier novels.
1785: GuanajuatoSilver Portrait
Using the language of fluttering fans, ladies chat in the leafy gardens. Somebody pees against the wall of the church and on one side of the plaza two beggars, sitting in the sun, pick at each other's lice. Beneath the stone archway a distinguished doctor in a huge cloak talks of the Rights of Man, and a monk moves down the lane muttering eternal condemnations against the drunks, whores, and rowdies who cross in front of him. Not far from the city, collectors hunt Indians with lassos.
Guanajuato has long since dethroned Potosi. The world queen of silver is hungry for labor. The workers, free wage earners, don't see a coin in all their lives, but are prisoners of debt. Their children will inherit the debts and also the fear of pain in prison and hunger, and of the old gods and the new.
1785: Lisbon
The Colonial Function
The Portuguese crown orders Brazil's textile workshops closed down; in the future they must only produce rustic clothing for slaves. In the name of the Queen, Minister Melo e Castro issues the orders. the minister observes that in most of the captaincies of Brazil have been set up, and are spreading ever more wildly, various factories and manufactories of cloth with differing qualities, including even gold and silver braid. These, he says, are pernicious transgressions. If they continue, the result will be that all the utilities and wealth of these most important colonies will end up as the patrimony of their inhabitants. Brazil being such a fertile land, so abundant in fruits, said inhabitants will become totally independent of their dominant Metropolis: consequently it is indispensably necessary to abolish said factories and manufactories.
Above are two vignettes from Faces and Masks. The material that is not italicized in the selection is italicized in the original text to show that it comes from historical documents that Eduardo Hughes Galeano has used as his sources. If you have not discovered Galeano, I recommend you do it soon. He takes what might have been dry in history books, and brings it poignantly to life. His Memory of Fire trilogy chronicles the Americas from the native creation myths through the 20th century, turning snippets of historical record from hundreds of disparate sources into a moving episodic narrative. I learned little about South and Central American history in school, and I am happy to have been taught by this master. Galeano is no fan of the colonizers and enslavers who had little time for human rights, but he is a sympathetic advocate of the voices in the wilderness who fought for education, cultural preservation, and equity in the history of the new world. Last year I read and loved Genesis, and I just finished Faces and Masks, which brings the narrative of the New World to the year 1900. I await the final volume, Century of the Wind, which I will read next year, both eagerly and with trepidation, as I know that the 20th century in the Americas has been no less brutal than the preceding centuries. Still I want to visit this era with Galeano as a wise and eloquent guide, to learn what is dangerous to leave forgotten.
The tragedy that is Kashmir is portrayed beautifully in this novel. Early in the novel, a Jewish Alsatian-born American former-Ambassador to India is murdered by his chauffeur, who goes by the name Shalimar. The murder leaves the ambassador's daughter India to reconstruct the reason for his death and to figure out how to cope with his loss and the complexities of her own history. We are transported back in time to the start of the Ambassador's career when he was an economics student and a fighter in the French Resistance. We learn of his marriage to a British resistance hero and his eventual fateful assignment to the post in Delhi. Similarly, we are given a window into the quiet days spent by Shalimar learning to walk a tightrope as part of his Muslim father's acrobatic troupe and watch his village embrace his marriage to his childhood love, a dancing beauty from a Hindu family in the same village. Then we watch in horror as their personal lives unravel while at the same time the battle between Pakistan and India for Kashmir changes the village from a place of beauty, culture, and mutual respect to a place of devastation, intolerance, and hatred.This novel made me grieve for a place that no longer survives, except perhaps in the memories of a few who survived the physical and cultural ravages of a region, while at the same time keeping me completely engaged in the personal tragedies of people for whom the political context provides a backdrop, but not a complete explanation, for the decimation of personal relationships and individual lives. This is not a happy novel, but it is a beautiful one, and I am very glad to have read it. The magical realism for which Rushdie is known is present in this novel, as in his others, but it is present in manageable doses which enhance rather than obscure the narrative. Likewise, the movements backward and forward in time fuel curiosity and interest in the tale, rather than creating confusion. Unlike my recent experience of reading The Satanic Verses, during which I was frustrated and confused by the plethora of characters, the leaps in time and into and out of dreams and movie plots, and the extensive use of the magical at the expense of the realistic, my experience in reading this book was one of interest, emotional connection, appreciation of Rushdie's craft, and deep satisfaction at my decision to reengage with the work of an author who remains one of my favorites. Repeated attempts to get into and through Satanic Verses kept me stalled in Rushdie's oeuvre for too long. Now I am eager to read his other books that are waiting for me on my shelves.
I read this final book of the The Mutiny on the Bounty Trilogy first, and it has made me want to read the rest, despite it being a heartbreaking book in many ways. It is a novelized version of the real events that comprised the lives of the mutineers who fled from Tahiti to escape potential capture and punishment along with a few Tahitian men and women. They find their way to a beautiful, secure hiding spot, rich in resources. If not for human nature, it could have been a peaceful permanent haven. However, this book gives evidence that human nature is devastatingly flawed. Many of the men who settle this island are wise, level-headed, and kind, and while everyone is busy settling the island, things go along quite well, for all except the women who had the misfortune of traveling to the island as mates of the least kind and judicious of the men, and even they seem to be coping fairly well because of the companionship of the other women. However, once there is potential for idleness amid plenty, things fall apart in a very rapid series of events, the tragedy of which evoked Shakespeare for me. A few of the men and all of the women and children survive two very awful days, and there is potential, again for peace to reign, but this time alcohol and mental illness lead to several more years of disintegration from which the women eventually flee with the children, to form their own fortified society at the other end of the tiny island. By the time an Americans in the Topaz happen past in 1808, shocked to be greeted by English-speaking teenagers in a canoe, just one mutineer survives in the community of women and children to provide a history of what has transpired. The society the Americans discover is a peaceful, organized, beautiful, and literate one, but it has been hard-won.
Miss Lonelyhearts
Miss Lonelyhearts is the tale of a male advice columnist in Depression Era New York City. Though the column is intended to be fluff, and is seen as such by the editor to whom Lonelyhearts reports, for the people who write seeking advice, it is serious. The columnist finds himself overwhelmed by the many versions of tragedy that he must respond to, becomes depressed, and turns, on one hand, to drink, fights, and affairs, and on the other to a Christianity he deeply believes in, but which is mocked by those around him. Lonelyhearts himself is an ethicist's nightmare, violating boundaries with those who write to him for advice. This novel paints a bleak picture of Depression Era New York, and does so in crisp clear language. Little empathy is generated for the protagonist, and there is no hopeful vision of a functional alternative to either the ineffective religious fervor or the empty hedonism portrayed.It is hard not to see parallels to The Golden Notebook: Perennial Classics edition which I recently read and reviewed. Both portray protagonists who are affected by the bleak letters to advice columns, both present unrewarding sexual relationships as the norm, and neither offer much hope to counteract the critiques of the societies they portray. On the other hand stylistically, they are vastly different. Nathanael West's prose is spare and he does little to deepen his characters and create emotional connection to them. Doris Lessing, by contrast, builds a rich, sometimes even lush, world, lingering over details, creating beauty and depth, despite the similarly pessimistic overall viewpoint. Lessing encourages the reader to engage deeply with her themes, whereas there is something almost aggressive in West's approach to the reader. It is not simply the spare masculinity in the style of West that has this effect, since Ernest Hemingway's prose has those qualities, and yet, at least for me, Hemingway uses the style to create profound connection and meaning.
Many appear to find this book brilliant and darkly funny, but I came away cold. If you want dark and funny, I'd go with Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger. He provides an angry, funny critique of a society, but builds firm connections to characters, and provides a sense of hope that makes for a much more enjoyable experience.
Funny account of life in one of the remotest places on earth. The author and his girfriend go to live on Tawara, a tiny atoll which is part of the country of Kiribati. Kiribati, as he tells us, has the land mass of the Baltimore metro area, broken up in 33 pieces, and scatter across an expanse of ocean the size of the continental US. This is not a good book to read in bed if you partner is asleep, since you will wake said partner when you can't help laughing outloud. It is a funny book, but it will probably not make you want to move to Kiribati--at least not to the atoll on which they spent 2 years. I actually found J. Maarten Troost's second book (Getting Stoned with Savages: A Trip Through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu) even funnier, but you can't go wrong with either one!
The Compassionate Life
In The Compassionate Life, the Dalai Lama XIV describes a method for honing one's capacity for compassion for all sentient beings. If you have spent time around Buddhists trained for much of their lives in the monasteries of the East, you will have noticed the tremendous joyful equanimity with which they face the world, in sharp contrast to our typical Western irritability. This peaceful approach to the world is the product of tremendous concentrated efforts to retrain the mind.Much of the wisdom in this book is tremendously consistent with the work of cognitive therapy. I think to be really useful, this book must be read over and over and used as a guide to daily practice. I certainly plan to come back to it to work on altering my perspective to one that is kinder, gentler, and less judging.
Some of the book is very didactic and relates to traditional Buddhist texts, but at other times, when the Dalai Lama speaks of his own practice, it is very accessible and even amusing. I particularly liked the line where he notes that whenever he starts to feel self-important, he has only to consider computers, and then he is humbled.
I did not expect Moll Flanders, written in the 1720s, to be such an easy read. Moll Flanders, which she tells us is not her real name, started life in the early 17th century with no advantages. The child of a woman arrested while pregnant, she was given into the care of strangers from the start. As would be expected, her life did not go smoothly, although her beauty and intelligence allowed her to make the most of opportunities that presented themselves. At first, she was simply unfortunate, and the victim of circumstances and the less-than-pure motives of those around her. Later, she began to survive illegally and by her wits, and even later, she comes to enjoy her life of cunning and crime. However, she is never without conscience or without an ability to connect meaningfully with others. By the end, she is able to build an honest life for herself. Daniel Defoe's prose is clear and direct. There are a few usage differences: "backwards" had a meaning then that we don't use now, but really, the book reads quite easily even to a 21st century reader. The plot is not gripping, but it moves along, and Moll is a sympathetic enough character that it is worth following her convoluted journey to see where it ends up. One of the things I really enjoyed, was the writing about the American colonies of the period, not from a historical fiction perspective, but from a contemporary voice.