WWW Wednesday!

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It’s the first Wednesday of the month, so it’s time for WWW Wednesday, an idea I borrowed from David Chazan, The Chocolate Lady, who borrowed it from someone else. For this feature, I report

  • What I am reading now
  • What I just finished reading
  • What I intend to read next

This is something you can participate in, too, if you want, by leaving comments about what you’ve been reading or plan to read.

What I am reading now

Right now, I am reading a book by one of my favorite cozy thriller authors (if that’s not an oxymoron), Catriona McPherson. I am not very far along, but it is already mysterious. McPherson is one of a few authors whose books I preorder as soon as I know they are coming out. This one is called The Dead Room, about a young widow who moves home to Scotland, where she has not been for years. Difficulties with family are hinted at, and there are intermittent sections in which she appears to be a prisoner.

What I just finished reading

My last book was just terrific, a historical novel set in far northern Sweden in the 19th century. It’s partially a mystery, but it features a famous pastor, a real person, who instigated a religious revival in the region. Most of the novel is narrated by the pastor’s Sami assistant, almost his son. It’s To Cook a Bear by Mikael Niemi.

What I will read next

I think I’ll be reading The Captain’s Daughter by Alexander Pushkin. I have read a small quantity of Pushkin’s poetry, but I feel I’ll get along better with prose. I found this novella when looking for ideas for Novellas in November. It’s an NYRB edition, and I usually find those to be good.

That’s me, but what have you been reading?

Review 2723: The Three Musketeers

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My reading rate really slowed down in late January to mid-February because I read two real chunksters one after another. This one was the second, and A Fortunate Man was the first. This one was a lot more fun.

D’Artagnan is a youth on his way to make his fortune in Paris, carrrying an introduction to Monsieur de Tréville, who leads the King’s musketeers. D’Artagnan is a truculent lad, and he rubs up against two people who are going to affect his life. One is a stranger who makes fun of D’Artagnan’s peculiar horse, and the other is a beautiful, mysterious woman known as Milady. D’Artagnan is attacked by the man’s underlings and his letter is stolen.

Nevertheless, he presents himself to de Tréville upon his arrival, and he almost immediately meets the musketeers Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. They are being rebuked for having been in a dispute with Cardinal Richilieu’s guards.

Although D’Artagnan has been taught to revere both King Louis XIII and the Cardinal, he quickly learns of the rivalry between the supporters of the King and of the Cardinal, whose machinations are the focus of much of this book. Then there is Anne of Austria, the Queen, who is at odds with both, but especially with the Cardinal.

When D’Artagnan tells de Tréville about the loss of his letter, de Tréville is very interested and tells him he will help D’Artagnan get a place with the Cadets. Almost immediately upon leaving, D’Artagnan falls afoul, separately, of each of the three musketeers and agrees to meet them one after another. I felt as if the whole of Paris at this time (1625) must have been overrun by swordfights, as these guys are all so ready to fight. Somehow, instead of killing or being killed by these men, D’Artagnan ends up their fast friend.

The plots and adventures in this novel are too complicated for me to describe in this review, but it’s the musketeers against the Cardinal, who employs the treacherous Milady as his agent. There is a plot to incriminate Anne of Austria and the Duke of Buckingham, and D’Artagnan’s mistress, who conveys messages to and from the Queen, is kidnapped. And there is a plot to assassinate the Duke of Buckingham, who is helping defend some Huguenots holed up in la Rochelle, by combining an attack of France with the Spanish (although this part of the plot does not match with what I read in Wikipedia about how Buckingham was killed).

In any case, most of the novel is a battle of wits between the four men and Milady, who is truly evil. Although she is the Cardinal’s tool, he comes off as a little more balanced, although ruthless.

This novel moves right along from one adventure to another. Dumas has to remind his readers a few times that the men’s behavior was acceptable at the time, and that is an even bigger reminder for readers today. However, in general, this is quite a fun book to read. It was a pleasure to read it for my Classics Club list.

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Review 2722: If I Survive You

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If I Survive You is the next-to-last book for my 2023 Booker Prize shortlist project. It is a novel of linked stories centered around Trelawny, a young man of Jamaican heritage, and his family.

This novel is about identity. First, racial identity, as Trelawny’s school friends try to fit him into the categories they’re familiar with in Miami. He looks like one of the Cuban kids but can’t speak Spanish. He’s too light to be black. And what language is his mother speaking, anyway? (It’s English.)

Then, it’s family. His parents split up when he’s still young, and his father takes his older brother, Delano. His father has always been awkward around him anyway, because Trelawny prefers reading to sports and has no friends. Much later, when he is living with his father after his mother returns to Jamaica, his father calls him “defective.”

Family is also an issue for his cousin, Cukie, whose father left when he was a child. Later, when Cukie is a teenager, his father begins to take him for the summer and he learns to catch lobster. He begins to believe he can do this for a living until he learns what kind of man his father really is.

And place is also a theme. Trelawny doesn’t feel at home in Miami, but he certainly doesn’t blend in at his midwestern college. After college, he bounces around between his father, his brother, and homelessness, but neither of his relatives seem to want him around. Then he becomes obsessed with buying the family home from his father even though it is falling apart.

This novel seems dire at times, but it is also darkly funny at times. It is probably autofiction and also slightly whiny. He certainly hasn’t grown up with any advantages except an education, but he also makes some spectacularly bad decisions.

By the way, most of the book is written in second person, but not second person addressing someone else as “you,” rather the narrator addressing himself. I got used to this, but I could see that it might be irritating.

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Review 2721: Beggar’s Choice

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I had difficulty reading this book after the first few pages, because it was so obvious that someone was trying to frame the main character, without him realizing it, that it was painful to read.

Car Fairfax is down and almost out. First, his father lost the family fortune, and then Car took a job with a man who mishandled other people’s money. Since then, every time he’s landed a job, he’s been let go.

He is out walking after losing his latest job when someone puts a leaflet in his hand about an opportunity to earn £500. He notices right away that the boy is handing out leaflets for something entirely different, so he figures he was purposefully given the one he got. Shortly afterward, he gets two requests for £500. His friend Peter’s wife Fay asks him for it and his cousin Anne, whom he distrusts, tells him she has forged a check for that amount and wants him to go to jail for her. He says no to both women but responds to the job. He has also run into Isobel, with whom he is hopelessly in love.

The writer of the ad, calling himself Z10, sets an assignation, which Car keeps. He is driven out to his uncle’s neighborhood, where someone shines a light in his face just as the doctor drives past to see his uncle, and later Anna shows the doctor apparent evidence that there’s been a break-in at her house.

Car hasn’t met Z10 on the rendezvous, but he thinks he has until he actually meets him and Z10 apologizes for missing the meeting. Z10 puts him on retainer and gives him money to buy new clothes and socialize.

Although it was clear to me that Anna is trying to set Car up and Fay seems to be in on it, I wasn’t sure of Z10. I was still dreading what was coming until a new character appears—an American friend of Peter’s named Corinna. She is a breath of fresh air. She immediately begins wondering why Car keeps losing jobs. The only problem with Corinna is that she is a much more interesting character than Car’s love interest, Isobel.

This novel becomes a complex adventure story as someone is clearly out to get Car and he remains mostly oblivious for a while. Once I got over my initial dread, I enjoyed it a lot.

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Review 2720: An Historical Mystery [A Murky Affair]

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I think a friend gave me this book, or perhaps I bought it, because I occasionally buy old books, and this one is dated 1891. It is the 59th book in the series Balzac called La Comédie humaine.

The novel is based on a true incident. It begins in 1803 with Michu, a bailiff with an evil appearance who is feared by many and called a Judas to his previous employers. In reality, he has been working for them the whole time. His previous master, the Marquis de Simeuse, had been unable to secure his estate of Gondreville before it was taken from him and sold to Senator Malin, the current owner. The Marquis’s two young twin sons are in exile working for the return of the Bourbons. With them are the two sons of the D’Hauteserres, the guardians of young Mademoiselle Laurence de Cinq-Cygne, who, near the beginning of the novel, hides the four young men in a ruin in the middle of the forest.

The revolt is defeated, but the authorities are searching for the young men, and Laurence is under suspicion. Eventually the young men are able to get a pardon in exchange for their oath that they will not work against the regime.

The young men all go to live at Cinq-Cygne, where the two twins are both in love with Laurence. Laurence cannot choose between the new Marquis and his younger twin brother, however.

The young people are prideful and incautious, saying things in front of people that can be misunderstood. After the young men’s release, an old relative, Monsieur de Chargeboeuf, comes to warn them to stay away from Gondreville, as they have enemies and something is going on there. However, the young people are heedless. They have learned that Michu is in danger, so he sells his property prior to leaving, and the four young people and Michu spend the day in the forest retrieving the family fortune from where Michu has hidden it. On the last trip they ride too near Gondreville, which they tend to treat as their own property, and Laurence is seen.

Later, the young men are arrested, because while they were moving the money, five horsemen who look very much like them attacked Gondreville and kidnapped the Senator.

We know they are innocent, but the representatives of justice are prejudiced against them, and they have been foolhardy in their words and actions.

I didn’t really understand all the ramifications of the political situation but still found this novel really interesting. Although Napoleon, in a brief appearance, comes off fairly positively, Balzac is cynical about the honesty of government officials in general. He handles the trial with a good sense of suspense, although in the explanation of events that finally comes at the end, he takes some time to make the connection with the events of the novel.

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Review 2719: The Bewitching

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Maybe this isn’t fair, but I make it a practice to write up every book I read, even if I don’t finish it. In this case, I didn’t get very far in at all.

I liked Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic well enough to finish it even though it was a slow starter and had a frankly ridiculous concept. (At least it was original.) However, it did maintain a suspenseful atmosphere. So, I picked up The Bewitching by impulse at the library.

This story, set in two time frames and two countries, is really a slow starter.

In 1998, Minerva is a graduate student at a New England university who is having trouble getting access to the information she needs about the life of horror writer Beatrice Tremblay for her Master’s thesis. (As a former graduate student in English, I would like to point out that biography is not a usual focus of literature theses.) Oh well, unexpectedly she gets a chance to talk to the woman who has the source material she needs.

In 1908 Mexico, Minerva’s grandmother Alba lives what she considers a provincial existence and is entranced by her sophisticated but apparently ne’er-do-well uncle.

This was such a slow starter, and I thought I could foresee at least part of silly Alba’s story. Each time the novel went back in time, her story kept slowing down whatever pace the more modern story managed to accumulate. I only made it about 50 pages but decided to quit when the narrative again slowed down to a slog. I generally am patient with slow-moving novels, especially if I’m being entertained in some way, but in this case, I just didn’t feel as if my patience was going to pay off.

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Review 2718: Who Would Have Thought It?

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Who Would Have Thought It? is the first book written by a Mexican-American woman in English. And it is a spoof. Published in 1872, it ridicules the attitudes of New England puritans and mocks politics and religion in Civil War Washington, D. C.

It begins with two Presbyterian ministers, Rev. Mr. Hammerhard and Rev. Mr. Hackwell, on their way to the train station to pick up Dr. Norval, who is returning home after five years away on a geological expedition. The jokes these two tell seem oddly inappropriate, but we aren’t yet to know that they, especially Mr. Hackwell, are going to grow in importance and wealth through their chicanery.

Dr. Norval brings home a surprise—a ten-year-old Spanish girl he has rescued from a Southwestern native tribe. Although he tries to explain that her skin has been dyed black and that she is pure Spanish and wealthy and although Mrs. Norval is supposedly religious and an abolitionist, she insists on calling Lola names, like darkie, and treats her with abhorrence. She is also appalled that her husband has promised the girl’s dying mother to raise her as Catholic until her father can be found.

The Civil War breaks out soon, and Dr. Norval is forced to leave the country because although he supports the Union, his opinions get him in trouble with the government. By this time, Lola is almost grown and she and Julian Norval are in love. Dr. Norval has observed his wife’s attempts to get her hands on Lola’s fortune, so he makes Julian promise not to marry until he returns. Then he goes to Africa. During this time, for some reason or another, very little effort has been made to find Lola’s father.

While he is gone, the Norvals spend Lola’s money like crazy, only Mrs. Norval aware that it is not theirs. Mr. Hackwell has risen in the Union army principally through running away from battle, and when the family receives a report that Dr. Norval is dead, Hackwell is already romancing Mrs. Norval. But actually, he is after Lola, still very young but now beautiful and of course, rich.

There are some positive characters in this novel, including Dr. Norval, Julian, and Mattie Norval (Dr. Norval’s sister), and Lavinia and Isaac Sprig, Mrs. Norval’s siblings. But the two Reverends and the Cackle family, who all owe their success to early help from Dr. Norval, turn out to be first-class grifters, and Mrs. Norval is horrible.

This novel is melodramatic but also funny and zips along in a quite modern way. I started it thinking it was a doorstopper but finished it very quickly.

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Review 2717: Death in Ambush

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I think I intended to review this book at Christmastime, but somehow it got lost in the pile.

Death in Ambush is particularly enjoyable, because it is narrated by Lee Crauford with a particularly light touch. She has apparently been a major character in at least one other mystery by Gilruth at the start of this novel.

Lee’s friend Betty Sandys invites her and her husband Bob for Christmas, but Bob can’t leave work until Christmas Eve, so Lee goes on ahead. On her first evening at Staple Green, Lee meets several people at a cocktail party. They are Betty’s good friend Lady Metcalfe, Diana, whom everyone likes, and her much older husband Judge Metcalfe, whom everyone dislikes for his general rudeness and cruelty to Diana. There is Judge Metcalfe’s son Michael, who wants to be an actor against his father’s will, and his fiancée, Ann Quathough, who is an actress and has an unguarded and sometimes nasty tongue. Ann’s father Lewis Quathough, an eccentric art dealer, is there, as well as John Wickham, the Metcalfe’s agent, whom everyone knows adores Diana. Finally, Sonia Phillips, a new arrival in town and a quite glamorous woman, appears late and comes in through the surgery, as Howard Sandys is a doctor. There is a lot of wandering around that evening, and sure enough, Judge Metcalfe becomes ill of an apparent stroke and dies a few days later. But Howard has his doubts, and it turns out Metcalfe was poisoned with morphine, apparently at the party.

Soon Lee’s friend Detective-Inspector Hugh Gordon is on the case. Things begin looking bad for Diana even though everyone who knows her insists she couldn’t have done it.

I was fairly sure I knew who did, although I couldn’t puzzle out the alibi issue, and I was right. But I think it was more of an instinctual than reasoning guess, and once one character was ruled out, I knew I was right. But this is a mystery with a really light touch and mostly likeable characters. I enjoyed it very much. Interestingly, Lee’s husband Bob doesn’t even appear in the book, and there are some hints that the detective is in love with her. I would quite like to see where this goes, if anywhere, but I understand that Gilruth’s books are hard to find. And indeed, Abebooks only has this edition.

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Review 2716: #1961Club! Revolutionary Road

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Nineteen sixty-one must have seemed like a year of great let-down across the world. At least it would seem so based on the books I chose for the 1961 Club, which were uniformly depressing—except for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, which has its own sting.

Frank and April are a young couple who have moved out to the suburbs in Connecticut for the sake of their two young children. There, they speak almost unceasingly about the dreary lives and people around them, implying their superiority as cultured ex-New Yorkers.

We meet them at the performance of an amateur play—clearly an attempt to bring a little culture to the drab lives of their neighbors. April has the lead, and at first everything goes well even though the leading man called in sick. But the pathetic attempts of his substitute throw her off. The play is a disaster. What was striking to me was that April doesn’t want to talk about it, but Frank talks and talks.

Frank is a talker. He’s developed a reputation as a thinker because of his talking. But as the book progresses, he continually uses this type of badgering to get his way.

April seems to be trying to find her way back to something more than being a wife and mother. At one point, she suggests that they all move to France in the fall. She can take secretarial work at an embassy, and he can use the time to discover what he really wants to do, because it’s certainly not the job he has.

Frank has taken a position in the most boring job he can think of as a sort of elaborate joke and assurance that he won’t want to stay there more than a few years. He spends his days shoveling paperwork around and pretending to be working. But it’s a little brochure he throws together to get someone off his back that changes the possibilities of work.

I felt as if Frank was never really serious about going to France while April is steadily working toward that goal, but then a hitch appears.

I really disliked these characters and their superior attitudes until I began to feel a little sorry for April. Certainly, the novel evokes the sterility of suburban living, but it made me dislike Frank especially, as he turns his arguments against even April’s mental well-being.

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