Author: whatmeread

Day 188: The Nature of Monsters

~ whatmeread ~ Leave a comment

Cover for The Nature of MonstersClare Clark seems to be fascinated with shit. Her first book, The Great Stink, featured a mystery during the digging of the London sewer system, and it seemed to revel in descriptions of filth. The Nature of Monsters also spends a great deal of time describing the sanitary conditions of 18th century London.

The novel begins with a description of the 1666 Great Fire of London and the subsequent birth of a disfigured child. This opening is perplexing, and it takes you awhile to figure out the connection to the rest of the novel.

It is 1718, and Eliza Tally has essentially been sold by her mother to a wealthy man’s son, although they first perform a semi-legal marriage ceremony. When Eliza gets pregnant, her mother goes to the man’s father to negotiate a settlement. The results are not what she expects, as Eliza is sold into servitude in London as a maid for an apothecary, whom she thinks is supposed to rid her of her child. But he has other plans.

Eliza is trapped in a bizarre household. She is never allowed to see the apothecary. His wife, Mrs. Black, is intimidating and maintains an iron control over the household. The apothecary has a slimy assistant, and the only other servant is Mary, a mentally handicapped girl. The atmosphere of the house is dark and creepy.

Convinced that he is a scientist and that he is making scientific experiments, the apothecary believes that what a pregnant woman experiences determines the formation of her child. Since he has a handy pregnant woman in his house, he decides to use her for his experiments. Clark has written another disturbing but well-written and suspenseful novel.

Day 187: A Perfect Spy

~ whatmeread ~ Leave a comment

Cover for A Perfect SpyWhen I was younger, I used to confuse John le Carré and Ken Follett, but last year I went to see the excellent movie Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. After that, I began reading le Carré again (my review of the novel is here) and have realized that he is the real spellbinder.

Although le Carré writes about espionage, these are not your typical James Bond novels. Le Carré is interested in the moral ambiguity of the work and in psychological drama rather than action. Nevertheless, his novels are extremely suspenseful.

At the beginning of A Perfect Spy, Magnus Pym has escaped his bosses in the British government and the Americans who are investigating him and has arrived at his secret rooms in a small British seaside town to write his novel, he says. As the British search for him feverishly and his boss Jack Brotherhood reluctantly begins to wonder if he is the traitor the Americans claim, Pym writes the sad story of his life.

Pym’s father has recently died, and Pym feels himself finally free to be himself, but perhaps even Pym doesn’t know who he is. His story begins with his charismatic father–a man who is beloved by many but who is also a liar, a cheat, a con man, and a thief. Pym learns to lie and pretend everything is fine from a master, and he goes on pretending for his entire life. But Pym’s motivating force, unlike his father’s, is never money. It is love. He will be anyone and do anything to make people love him.

Is Pym a traitor or isn’t he? As his boss and his wife frantically try to find him, Pym recalls the circumstances and tangled events that lead him to where he is in the present time, alone in his rooms contemplating the next step.

It is difficult to convey, without giving much away, just how compelling this novel is. Le Carré’s genius is that he can make you care for this deeply flawed character and keep you riveted by his story. A Perfect Spy is said to be the most autobiographical of le Carré’s books. It is certainly an involving novel.

Day 186: The Red House

~ whatmeread ~ Leave a comment

Cover for The Red HouseI really enjoyed Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, so I was looking forward to reading The Red House. Curious Incident employs unusual narrative techniques, such as including math games, to try to re-create the thought processes of an autistic teen. The Red House also plays with narration, only not as effectively.

After being estranged for years, siblings Angela and Richard have met again at their mother’s funeral. In an impulsive attempt to restore ties with his sister, Richard rents a holiday house in Herefordshire and invites the other family to join his for a week. Richard’s family consists of his second wife Louise and her teenage daughter Melissa. Accompanying Angela are her husband Dominic and their children Benjy, Alex, and Daisy.

Each of the characters is dealing with issues. Angela had a miscarriage 18 years ago, and she has dwelled on this lost child ever since, naming her Karen and neglecting her teenage daughter Daisy as a result of this obsession. Dominic is having an affair. Daisy has become very religious and fights with Angela about it. Teenage Alex is yearning to have sex with Melissa. Richard is dreading a possible lawsuit from a patient. Louise barely knows the other family and is having problems with Richard. Melissa is awaiting the time when her parents learn that bullying by her group of friends has caused another girl to attempt suicide. Only young Benjy does not seem to have some sort of obsession.

The book jumps among the narrations of all eight characters. The voices are not always so distinct that you can immediately tell them apart. The one that is distinct is expressed as disjointed lists of things, but it is difficult to attach to anyone. For awhile I thought it might be that of the dead daughter and later I thought it may be Angela having a nervous breakdown. Most often, to figure out who the narrator was, I had to relate the narration to something that was already going on. One technique Haddon uses is to interject part of what each person is reading, which at first helps you know which person it is, but after awhile becomes tedious.

Virtually plotless, this dour novel consists of the characters struggling with their own thoughts and with each other. Generally, I disliked most of the characters and thought the novel was a frustrating reading experience.

Day 185: Haunt Me Still

~ whatmeread ~ Leave a comment

Cover for Haunt Me StillHaunt Me Still (published as The Shakespearean Curse in Britain) is another enjoyable literary mystery by Jennifer Lee Carrell. Shakespearean scholar and theatre director Kate Stanley visits Lady Nairn to discuss a production of Macbeth. Lady Nairn, once a renowned actress, plans a production of the play at the foot of Dunsinane Hill using some props from her own collection and wants Kate to direct.

Once the cast arrives at Lady Nairn’s Scottish castle, though, Kate sees a vision of Lady Nairn’s fifteen-year-old granddaughter Lily being murdered and finds the body of a local woman dead at the scene of what appears to be a pagan sacrifice. Then Lily is kidnapped. The ransom demanded is an earlier version of Macbeth that is reputed to include actual magical ceremonies.

On the romantic side, Kate and Ben Pearl have broken up, but Ben reappears, dating an actress in the play.

This novel is loaded with action, as well as witches, curses, cauldrons, crazed killers, some 16th century history, and an exploration of the myths surrounding the play. In other words, it’s a lot of fun.

Day 184: Caleb’s Crossing

~ whatmeread ~ Leave a comment

Cover for Caleb's CrossingBest Book of the Week!

Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks is a wonderful novel about life in 17th century Martha’s Vineyard and Cambridge. The novel is focused around Caleb Cheeshahteaumauk, the first American Indian to take a degree at Harvard. It is narrated from the point of view of Bethia Mayfield, a girl whose thirst for knowledge is only slaked with great difficulty in Puritan New England.

Bethia meets Caleb when they are both twelve. She is wandering around the beaches of her home island, Noepe, later to be called Martha’s Vineyard, in a small act of rebellion because she is not supposed to be alone. She has already been halted in her education by her father, a minister and missionary to the Indians, who sees how her superior abilities humiliate her brother Makepeace.

Caleb is not one of the “praying Indians” who have adopted Christianity and moved closer to town. By all rights Bethia should avoid him. But she loves nature and is happy for Caleb to teach her about the island’s wildlife and learn his language while she teaches him English, reading, and writing. Although their relationship is perfectly innocent, it remains a secret and is naturally broken off as they grow older.

In learning more about English ways, and particularly about writing, Caleb decides he can best help his people by becoming more educated. His path continues together with Bethia’s, as a series of tragedies result in Bethia’s agreement to sacrifice herself for Makepeace’s tuition by working as an indentured servant for the teacher who is preparing Caleb, his friend Joel, and Makepeace to enter Harvard. As Caleb struggles with his adoption of the English culture, Bethia struggles with her own desires for an intellectual life in a culture that only recognizes one path for her–marriage and motherhood.

Although a few historical figures appear in the novel, little is known of Caleb and Joel–both historical figures–so the account is completely fictionalized. For example, Bethia’s father Thomas Mayfield is based on Thomas Mayhew, Jr., who did not have a daughter.

This is an enthralling novel, an evocative picture of the place and times, and Bethia and Caleb are memorable characters.

Day 183: The Greek Myths

~ whatmeread ~ Leave a comment

Cover for The Greek MythsThe Greek Myths is classicist and writer Robert Graves’ well respected and unconventional translation and interpretation of a comprehensive collection of Greek myths. Graves explains that rather than interpret the myths psychologically (i.e., Oedipus), which he appears to have some disdain for, it is more useful and accurate to look at them in combination with the findings of archaeology, as a sort of historic record. Graves relates each myth, with all its variants, and then provides sometimes copious notes to explain each facet. He also points out the many similarities among world myths, showing the relationships between Greek myths and those of the Celts, Sumerians, Jews, and others.

It is Graves’ contention that most of the Greek myths with which we are familiar were manipulations and distortions by the Hellenes of the religious beliefs of the people they conquered. There were four migrations of the Hellenes into Greece. After the first two, the patriarchal Hellenes adopted the matriarchal religions of their hosts, but in the last two, the Hellenes forced the existing tribes to follow their beliefs and then consciously distorted their mythologies to reflect this change.

For example, there are many instances where Zeus chases and rapes various nymphs. In the earlier myths, the three-headed goddess in one of her forms would have been chasing the king as part of a ritual ceremony, so the myth has been turned on its head. Similarly, many a Greek hero’s exploits that involve fighting and killing an opponent are a perversion of the ritual whereby the king is “killed” by his tanist–or alternate ruler (“twin” or “son”)–at the end of his reign and then in turn actually kills the tanist to take up his reign again. Grave states, “Like Aeschylus, Euripedes was engaged in religious propaganda.”

The ideas Graves espouses are very interesting and the book is extremely well written. However, the sheer number of names and places and similar incidents can be overwhelming. Some deities or other figures go by six or eight names, for example. And there’s only so much killing and rapine a person can take. I finally bogged down over Heracles, who has more than 100 of the 600+ pages devoted to him (and whose adventures are very similar to those of Gilgamesh). Heracles, I feel, was a thug, and round about his tenth labor, which was particularly rambling, I gave up on him.

My intention in reading this work was to come out with a more coherent idea of the whole of Greek mythology, but ironically, I feel this book is too comprehensive for me to meet that goal–that something simpler would have worked better for me. However, for serious students of mythology, this is probably required and interesting reading.

Day 182: Chocolat

~ whatmeread ~ Leave a comment

Cover for ChocolatI decided to review Chocolat today because I just started reading The Girl with No Shadow, Joanne Harris’s sequel. Even though I have always enjoyed reading Harris’s books, I didn’t read Chocolat until long after seeing the movie, perhaps because I saw it first. The movie is pleasant enough but anemic and inexplicable, and as I found later, does nothing to convey the magic of the novel.

Vianne Rocher and her six-year-old daughter Anouk blow into the small village of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes with the wind. They are distinctly odd. Vianne wears red skirts with bells on them, and Anouk has an imaginary friend, a rabbit named Pantoufle, that some folks occasionally think they’ve glimpsed.

Vianne opens a chocolate shop, making her own wonderful confections. She seems to have an almost sixth sense about which chocolate will be each person’s favorite, and she creates miraculously inventive window displays for special days. She also begins befriending some of the village’s misfits.

This all sounds very pleasant, but Pére Reynaud, the local priest, hates Vianne on sight. She has opened a chocolate shop during Lent! Right across the street from the church! He begins a campaign to try to force her out of town. When Vianne plans a chocolate festival to celebrate Easter, he believes she is being sacrilegious and vows to ruin the festival.

Vianne herself has lived like a vagabond her entire life and wants to settle down. Her witch mother died on the streets of New York, and she wants her child to have a better life than hers has been.

The novel is colorful and teems with eccentric characters, as well as lovely descriptions of food. It is beautifully written. As I read it, I was able to understand why the book is so beloved.

Day 181: Clara and Mr. Tiffany

~ whatmeread ~ Leave a comment

Cover for Clara and Mr. TiffanySusan Vreeland’s Clara and Mr. Tiffany is a novel about Clara Driscoll, a real artist who headed a woman’s workshop designing the most complex lamps and screens for Louis Comfort Tiffany. The novel details the ups and downs of a long professional relationship, including Driscoll’s frustration at not being recognized as the designer of some of Tiffany’s most famous pieces. A lot of the interest in the novel resides in the tension between the women’s division and the men’s division, which was only allowed to work on the more mundane pieces.

Right now I am reading some of Vreeland’s own comments about the captivating woman she found depicted in Clara’s own letters. Unfortunately for the novel, Vreeland does not do a great job of making her characters interesting in this book or of conveying the woman she found in those letters. Several important but minor characters are so undefined that I couldn’t keep them straight.

I believe that Vreeland is hindered rather than helped by the fact that she is fictionalizing the lives of real people whose relatives are probably still alive. She has written more successful books about artists who lived farther in the past–Monet in Luncheon of the Boating Party and Artemisia Gentileschi in The Passion of Artemesia, for example. There are certainly interesting aspects to the story–Driscoll had an unusual life featuring at least one bizarre event–but the novel is written more like a series of incidents than a narrative with an arc.