Reviews, reviews, and more reviews
FictionFan and I are hosting a Henrik Pontoppidan Review-Along that begins now and ends March 16. We are both reading A Fortunate Man, but if you want to participate, you’re welcome to read any book by Henrik Pontoppidan (hint: the shortest one readily available is The White Bear.) See FictionFan’s announcement post for more information! I hope you’ll join us.
A Registry of My Passage upon the Earth is a collection of short stories that I read for my Pulitzer Prize project. I sometimes have problems reading short stories, but I found most of these engrossing. Most of them were about scientific curiosity and the characters’ actual or potential legacy.
“Death of the Pugilist, or the Famous Battle of Jacob Burke & Blindman McGraw” is set during the early 19th century. It is about how a burly lad becomes a prize fighter. These were the days of no-holds-barred bare-knuckle fights.
Another historical story, “The Ecstasy of Alfred Russel Wallace,” is about an early collector of bug specimens who begins to draw conclusions similar to Darwin’s about the survival of the fittest. He writes to Darwin hoping for a scholarly exchange, but perhaps Darwin is worried about which of them thought of the theory first. This one has really beautiful prose.
“For the Union Dead” is a contemporary story about the narrator’s uncle, who became involved in Civil War re-enactments.
“The Second Doctor Service” is a letter to a medical journal from a 19th century man who begins having periods of blackouts and thinks another self is trying to take him over.
“The Miraculous Discovery of Psammetichus I” is based on a story by Herodotus. It’s a series of descriptions of experiments supposedly performed by a curious Pharoah, most of which involve having children raised by animals.
“On Growing Ferns and Other Plants in Glass Cases, in the Midst of the Smoke of London” is set in the 19th century during the height of the industrial revolution and major air pollution. A widow’s young son begins suffering from severe asthma, and the doctors fail to treat it successfully. She eventually gets a better idea.
“The Line Agent Pascal” is set in the 19th century South American jungle. Pascal is a telegraph operator who likes the isolation of his position but forms a sort of family with the other operators. There is one in particular whom he has never met but for whom he feels an affinity.
“On the Cause of Winds and Waves, &c” is a letter to her sister by a 19th century balloonist in France. Observing a strange phenomenon in the heavens, she is asked to report about it to the scientific Académie, but she doesn’t realize she has only been asked to be ridiculed.
“A Registry of My Passage upon the Earth” is a record by a man who has been incarcerated in an insane asylum but is probably OCD or on the spectrum instead of insane.
Most of these stories have some kind of uplifting ending. Maybe I enjoyed them so much because many of them felt like short historical novels. I liked them a lot.
The Best Book for this period is Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips!
Fenwomen is the very first book printed by Virago, an ethnographic study of women living in a remote village in the English fens in the 1970s. By interviewing women of all ages and situations, Mary Chamberlain, now Emeritus Professor of History at Oxford Brookes University, recorded memories of conditions for women as far back as the late 19th century.
The timing of this book isn’t a coincidence, because it came about along with a new movement toward women’s liberation when some colleges and universities were beginning to set up departments in women’s studies. In fact, I found the updated Introduction, written in 2010, just as interesting as the book itself. It tells the story of the original reception of the book and how some journalists and critics so misrepresented its contents that it broke the trust Chamberlain had gained with the inhabitants of the village. I assume the men did this because they felt threatened by the idea of a feminist study.
The work explores women’s lives—their work, religion, entertainments, family life, and so on—in this isolated village, very primitive living conditions in the past, limited work opportunities, isolation from transportation, etc. It’s not a very long book, and my Full Circle Editions edition ends with about 20 beautiful photographs of the area and people by Justin Partyka.
I’m really liking the Highway 59 series by Attica Locke. I think the mysteries are fully imagined, and black Texas Ranger Darren Mathews is interesting and appealing. I have a few problems with some ongoing issues, but I’ll talk about them later.
Nine-year-old Levi King has gone missing, and his father Bill King, a racist and murderer, has written from prison asking for help finding him. Darren’s boss needs him to help out, as there is hope that King can offer insight on other cases.
Levi lives with his mother Marnie, sister, and Aryan Brotherhood wannabe Gil Thomason, Marnie’s boyfriend, in Hopetown on the edge of Caddo Lake, a huge lake that used to be a major transportation route down to Louisiana. Hopetown is barely a crossroads, a trailer park full of racist trailer trash, and closer to the lake, the much nicer homes of the original black and indigenous settlers.
The reactions of some of the people involved to the disappearance are strange. Levi’s mother and sister are clearly upset, but no one else, including Levi’s wealthy grandmother, Rosemary King, seems to be worried. Darren hears that Levi had been harassing the black and Caddo indigenous population, and when he visits Leroy Page, he learns the old black man owns all of the property and hasn’t tossed out the trailer park residents because the lease with Marnie’s recently deceased father, Leroy’s friend, is not up for a year. Leroy isn’t very cooperative, but Darren is disturbed to learn from his best friend Greg, a federal agent, that Leroy Page’s harassment by Levi is being turned around as a motive for murder, especially because Leroy was the last to see Levi. In fact, the Feds want to show the new Trump administration that they are as ready to prosecute black people as white, so they are pushing hard even though there is no proof that Levi is dead.
Darren thinks there is something else going on here, but he has several personal problems in addition to hostility from the local authorities and the federal goals.
The only things I don’t like about this series are the ongoing plot that has Darren suppressing evidence to protect an old family friend and his drinking, which is such a cliché. He is on the wagon and repairing his marriage at the beginning of the novel, but things go south pretty fast (although his wife’s professional goals for him do not match his own, so I don’t prophecy success at that).
Although I’ve read more than one biography of Jane Austen, this graphic biography contained insights I hadn’t read before. That’s probably not surprising, since Janine Barchas is an internationally renowned Austen scholar.
Using information from letters and quotations from Austen’s novels, this graphic biography follows Austen from 1796 until her death. In brighter colors, it contains a few scenes from her novels as in Austen’s imagination and some “Easter eggs’ of scenes from movies. I caught a couple of obvious ones, but I’m sure there were more.
The illustrations are in a naïve, slightly ugly style, but the characters are clearly identifiable, which isn’t always the case in graphic books.
I found this work entertaining and informative. It contains a “glossary” that provides more information for the interested.
I really enjoyed Griffiths’ Ruth Galloway series and have liked her Brighton and Harbinder Kauer books well enough, so I was interested in her new series. However, my interest dropped precipitously when on about page 3, I found it involved time travel.
Ali Dawson is a member of a cold case team dealing with top-secret experimental technology—time travel. She is preparing to travel back to 1850 London as part of an investigation requested by Isaac Templeton, a member of Parliament. He wants the team to try to clear the name of his ancestor, Cain Templeton, who was rumored to have murdered three women and belonged to a club the admission to which supposedly involved a dead body.
By coincidence, perhaps, Isaac is the boss of Ali’s son Finn.
Ali travels to 1850 in time to find Cain Templeton standing over the body of a dead woman in the rooming house he owns. He says he did not kill the girl but thinks an artist named Thomas Creek did. Ali is only supposed to be gone an hour, but when she returns to her pickup point, she isn’t picked up. She’s stuck in 1850.
Already I was having problems with this story. What kind of investigation is Ali supposed to conduct with a one-hour time limit? It’s a ridiculous idea.
With Finn having no word from Ali, he begins trying to find her. He discovers that Ali is on a mission originated by his boss and has an argument with him about it. The next day, Isaac is dead and Finn, who spent the evening drinking with Ali’s boss Geoff and the night passed out, is suspected of his murder. Ali returns from several days in 1850 to find him in trouble.
Besides the issue I mentioned, I had several more issues with this book by this time:
The series is clearly set up to continue a plot line involving Thomas Creek and Cain Templeton. My disbelief having refused to suspend, I won’t be following it.
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
This is something you can participate in, too, if you want, by leaving comments about what you’ve been reading or plan to read.
I am reading The Town House by Norah Lofts. It’s the first book in Lofts’ Suffolk Trilogy. It begins in the 14th century with a serf escaping serfdom, much like Cathedral of the Sea. I looked for a book by Lofts after finishing her book Lady Living Alone, which I really enjoyed.
I just finished reading Beggar’s Choice by Patricia Wentworth. Although I had difficulty getting started because it was so obvious that someone was trying to frame the oblivious main character, it turned out to be a pretty good read.
I guess I’m on a roll with classic novels, because the book I will probably read next is Death in Ambush by Susan Gilruth. I think I bought this book to read for the Christmas season and apparently forgot to do that!
Having accidentally plunged into the middle of the Julia Probyn series by Ann Bridge, I already knew some of the plot points of this book from reading a later one. So far, I find the two non-series books by her that I read first to be better than these Cold War thrillers.
This book begins with the British authorities in Lisbon being concerned with the release of Countess Hetta Páloczy from Communist Hungary. The countess was only ten years old when her father had to flee Hungary with the advent of the Russians. Hetta, suffering from scarlet fever, had to be left in her convent school, and her father tried for the rest of his life to get her out of Hungary. Now she is being released to her mother.
And my first question is, why would they make a person leaving the Eastern Bloc travel across Europe to Lisbon to be received? Surely, at least one person would have got on the train with her as soon as they crossed the Iron Curtain.
Anyway, once the convents were disbanded, Hetta stayed with one of the nuns, who became housekeeper to a theologian, Father Antal Horvath. At least, Hetta was doing the work, because the nun was so incompetent.
At the beginning of the novel, the situation is being discussed by Richard Atherley, the First Secretary at the British Embassy and Townsend Waller, who is in the same position with the U. S. Embassy. Both of them also discuss the girl’s mother, whose biggest concern seems to be not the arrival of her long-lost daughter but getting an invitation to an upcoming royal wedding.
Hetta turns out to have a good but rigid sense of values and doesn’t get along with her mother at all. However, others are much taken with her, including both First Secretaries and Julia Probyn, a reporter in town to cover the royal wedding.
Soon, though, another Hungarian arrives, this one an agent being brought West with information about conditions in the East. It happens to be Hetta’s beloved former employer, Dr. Antal Horvath. Hetta is asked to identify him at the airport to make sure he is legit. Horvath is in danger, because the Communists want him back, and so is Hetta, because she knows where he is. Julia helps them by arranging with her former employer, the Duke of Ericeira, for him to stay there.
From this rather slow start-up, the book eventually becomes about protecting Father Antal, rescuing Hetta from the Communists, and a budding love affair between Hetta and Richard Atherley. It’s a little slow moving for a thriller, and I was especially astonished when Bridge began describing the scenery while several of the protagonists were chasing after Hetty, who has been kidnapped. I found both girls’ various suitors to be a little tedious, but Hetty is very likable, and some of the secondary characters, including the Duke, his daughter, her nanny, and Julia’s old friend Mrs. Hathaway, are delightful.
I bought this book a couple of years ago in Ashland while attending the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and it has taken this long to come to the top of my pile.
This is an unusual book. It’s not exactly a memoir, although it certainly recounts some of Dench’s memories. It is rather a series of interviews with her friend, director Brendan O’Hea. O’Hea explains in the Introduction that it was intended as a series of interviews with Dench about Shakespeare roles for the archives of Shakespeare’s Globe. He had no idea they might be of general interest until friends made comments and expressed curiosity.
The book is divided by play, more or less in chronological order of her career except when she repeated a role or took on a different part in the same play. The interviews discuss the plays in depth but only from the point of view of the role, so that entire plot points are not covered if they didn’t involve that character.
Dench shows her love of Shakespeare clearly in this book. Anyone who loves Shakespeare or is interested in acting will get a lot from it. And Dench’s personality shows through strongly, particularly her sense of humor. She also mentions the names of many of the actors and directors she worked with and tells a lot of stories.
The Shakespeare Thefts: In Search of the First Folios
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