Category: books

Day 1106: Unnatural Habits

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Cover for Unnatural HabitsPhryne Fisher meets Polly Kettle, a journalist on the track of a story about pregnant women disappearing from the Abbotsford convent, where they work in the Magdalene laundry. Phryne thinks that Polly is too naive and foolhardy and that she will soon run into trouble. And she is right—almost immediately, Polly disappears.

When Phryne looks into it, she learns that several girls have disappeared from the laundry. She also hears that a shady employment agency is offering actresses parts overseas and that her friend, Doctor MacMillan, has been asked to verify the virginity of a surprising number of young women lately. Could a white slavery ring be practicing in Melbourne? But why would they want pregnant women?

link to NetgalleyI am finding with Greenwood that things that appear to be related usually aren’t. As with the other Phryne Fisher novels I’ve read, there is more than one criminal involved, which I feel is a cheat.

Also, Phryne is beginning to seem a bit cartoonish to me as she battles evil and sexism. For light reading, these novels are enjoyable, but I think I have read enough of them.

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Six in Six

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Six in Six logoI wasn’t aware of the Six in Six meme until this year, but it sounded like something fun to participate in for July. I read about it on She Reads Novels, but it is hosted by The Book Jotter. The idea is to pick six categories under which you list six books you have read during the first six months of the year and post these lists any time in July. If you would like to participate, too, you can see a fuller description with suggestions of categories on The Book Jotter’s post. Here are my categories and books. I don’t have all of my reviews posted, but I’ll try to remember to add the links to this page as I post them.

Six Tales of Peril

Six Delightful Classics

Six Classic Murder Mysteries

Six That Disappointed

Six Historical Novels

Six Different Countries

  • The Trespasser by Tana French (Ireland)
  • The Shadow Land by Elizabeth Kostova (Bulgaria)
  • Pure by Andrew Miller (France)
  • Number9Dream by David Mitchell (Japan)
  • A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (Russia)
  • The Gustav Sonata by Rose Tremain (Switzerland)

Day 1105: Fludd

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Cover for FluddAll of Hilary Mantel’s writing has some sort of edge, but I’m beginning to feel that I enjoy more her work that isn’t quite as satirical, her historical fiction, for example, as opposed to some of her earlier, blacker works. Fludd was written in 1989 and fits firmly into the latter category.

Mantel’s note states that she depicts a 1950’s-ish Catholic church that never existed, but having read her memoir, I would venture to say that there are seeds of her childhood both in the setting and in her depiction of the church.

Father Angwin is a well-meaning, old-fashioned sort of priest working in an ugly church stuffed with statues of saints in a dismal working-class town called Fetherhoughton. He has long ago lost his faith, but he is struggling along as best he can. The bishop, whom he calls His Corpulence, wants him to make the church more “relevant:” modernize the service and get rid of the saints. He also says he is sending Father Angwin a curate.

Although Father Angwin thinks the people need the saints, he reluctantly buries them in the church yard. Shortly thereafter, a man appears at the door of the presbytery whom everyone assumes is the curate. People find themselves confiding their innermost secrets to him. He never seems to eat, but his food disappears. No one can recall his face when he’s not there.

Sister Philomena is a young Irish nun in the convent. She was evicted from her Irish convent because her mother claimed her skin rash was stigmata, and she went along with it. Her days are tormented by Mother Perpetua, the terror of the convent. She also finds herself confiding in Fludd.

But who is Fludd? Is he the curate, a demon, an angel? In any case, he’s an agent for change.

I don’t think I understand Catholicism, or indeed any religion, well enough to grasp the theological issues or even everything Mantel is poking fun at. I think this novel would be a much more pointed weapon if read by a lapsed Catholic. Mantel claims to have seen a demon, and demons lurk throughout her work. This is a funny but peculiar one.

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Day 1104: Vanity Fair

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Cover for Vanity FairVanity Fair is a reread for me for my Classics Club list. It has been a long time since I’ve read it, though, and I was curious about whether I would have the same reaction to it.

The novel, of course, is Thackeray’s famous satire of society that follows two English girls through their launches into society and later lives. One is Amelia Sedley, the gentle, conventional heroine who has been the only girl to befriend Rebecca Sharp, the charity student. Amelia is only eager to marry George Osborne, her long-betrothed fiancé. Rebecca is determined to be a success and marry a rich man.

It may be perhaps predicted that good, honest Amelia suffers much more than conniving Becky. Early in the book, Amelia’s marriage to George is threatened when her father loses his fortune. Even though we readers already know that George cares for no one more than himself, Amelia goes into a decline.

Meanwhile, Becky makes her own improvident marriage. She runs off with Rawdon Crawley, the heir to her employer’s fortune, thinking that she will be able to bring Miss Crawley around.

The early days of both marriages are set against the backdrop of the battle of Waterloo, as both George Osbourne and Rawdon Crawley are serving officers. With them is George’s best friend, Dobbin, who falls madly in love with Amelia at first sight and helps her throughout the novel.

As a girl, I thought Amelia was completely insipid and admired Becky Sharp. But it must be said—Becky has no morals. This time through, although I still found Amelia a bit tiresome, I found myself sympathizing more with Rawdon and Dobbin.

In any case, this novel is often funny and always entertaining. Although Thackeray presents us with a conventional heroine for the time in Amelia, you can’t help thinking he had some admiration for the unsinkable Becky. By following her adventures, Thackeray shows us the foibles of members of polite society: the fights over inheritance, the sycophancy, the treatment of people as their fortunes wax and wane.

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Day 1103: A Man Called Ove

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Cover for A Man Called OveI avoided reading A Man Called Ove for some time, because I had a feeling about what kind of book it would be. But my curiosity won out. Sadly, I was right the first time.

This is another one of those novels I put under the “heartfelt” category. Not that there is anything wrong with something that is truly heartfelt. But I think there is a rash of novels like this lately that manipulate us into sentiment.

Ove is a sad man with many tragedies in his life, which he handles by presenting a curmudgeonly exterior. Most recently, he has been given early retirement six months after his beloved wife Sonja died. He decides his life has no purpose.

The plot of this novel is predictable, as Ove gets pulled out of his self-absorption by the troubles of various neighbors and acquaintances. All of these characters are stick figures, and Ove himself only has two sides to his character. In fact, he is really just a caricature of a grumpy old man, as I can’t imagine there is actually anyone on earth this extreme.

The novel is supposed to be funny, but the humor is forced and cumbersome. And we’re supposed to find it funny that Ove’s repeated attempts at suicide are always interrupted by his neighbors. Ha ha. As you can tell, this one was not for me.

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Day 1102: The Essex Serpent

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Cover for The Essex SerpentBest Book of the Week!
In 1885, Cora Seabourne is a recent widow and is happy to be so, as her husband abused her. For the first time, she feels free and is not eager to remarry, even though surgeon Dr. Luke Garrett is in love with her.

Cora is interested in fossils and has made a heroine of the early fossil finder Mary Anning, so she moves with her son Frankie and her friend Martha to Essex, where she can explore the sea coast. Soon after arriving, she hears rumors of the Essex serpent, a monster that has been supposedly terrorizing the area. There are rumors of slain farm animals and lost children. Cora hopes to find a living prehistoric animal. The villagers are more superstitious, and an aura of dread soon develops.

Cora finds happiness rambling around the countryside, so she delays introducing herself to the Ambroses, Reverend William and his wife Stella. But when she finally meets them, they become fast friends. In particular, Will and Cora enjoy debating such subjects as science versus religion, a topic made even more controversial since Darwin’s discoveries. Sadly, it soon becomes obvious that Stella has tuberculosis.

This novel evokes the ideas and preoccupations of the Victorian age. Although it has quite a few characters, they are all convincingly portrayed. I was deeply interested in the novel. It presents a fully realized world, vividly imagined and described.

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Day 1101: Thomas Hardy

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Cover for Thomas HardyThomas Hardy has long been one of my favorite Victorian writers, so when I learned that Claire Tomalin had written his biography, I set about getting a copy. Tomalin has made a career of writing interesting and readable but meticulously documented biographies of mostly literary figures and has become one of my favorite biographers.

Tomalin shows that Hardy was a contradictory man—shy but eager to socialize in intellectual circles, resenting early snubs but nevertheless a snob himself, an inner-living man who still welcomed all who came to see him. Hardy was the son of an uneducated builder and a house servant, both of whom encouraged him in his efforts to gain an education and better himself. But in those days this was difficult, and he never achieved his dream of a Cambridge education. Instead, he went to work at 16 in an architect’s office.

Above all else, Hardy became a writer who challenged conventional attitudes toward women, sex in literature, and religion. Almost from the beginning of his career, while still writing formula novels, he ran into trouble with editors wanting to censor his work. His publication of Tess of the D’Urbervilles, with its subtitle “A Pure Woman,” caused an uproar. Although I have read many of his novels, it was fascinating to read about them in terms of events going on in his own life.

What I had not read much of is his poetry. Hardy always considered himself a poet rather than a novelist, and at the height of his career, after publication of Jude the Obscure, he caused another furor by quitting his novel-writing career to concentrate on poetry. Tomalin is obviously a fan of his poetry, and although I am not much of a poetry reader, the snippets she reproduces are musical and beautiful, and the context she gives them fascinating.

Tomalin begins her book with the story of Hardy’s regret after his first wife’s death that they had grown apart. The story of that relationship, as well as that with his second wife, is also very interesting.

Tomalin has a gift for breathing life into her subjects so that you feel as if you understand them, at least a little. If you have any interest in Thomas Hardy, you’ll find this a compelling book.

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First Classics Club List Complete!

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I have not posted all of the reviews yet, but with Henry VI, Part III, I just finished all of the books on my first Classics Club list. I completed my list almost two years ahead of my posted deadline of February 12, 2019!

That means that I am ready to post my second Classics Club list! I will continue to show my first list in my Classics Club page until all my reviews are posted, and then I will copy it off to a subsidiary page and post my new list.

My first list was an experiment, as I had never belonged to a blogging club before, so many of my selections were old favorites that I hadn’t read in a long time. I think a brief summary of my reading for this first list is called for.

Top Five Books from My First List

Least Favorite Books from My First List

My New List!

I can’t seem to bring myself to make a list of 100 books at a time for the Classics Club. I think it is more satisfying for me to finish shorter lists faster than to finish a long list more slowly. This list is different from my previous one in that I have only previously read about half a dozen of the books on this list. I am posting this list on June 30, 2017, and I plan to finish it by June 29, 2021.

I made this list some time ago, so I see that I have already finished one of the books, The Lark, by E. Nesbitt.

15th Century

  • Le Morte D’arthur by Thomas Malory (1485)

16th Century

  • The Prince by Machievelli (1532)
  • Edward II by Christopher Marlowe (1592)
  • Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare (1588-1593)

17th Century

  • Oroonoko by Aphra Behn (1688)
  • The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster (1612-13)

18th Century

  • Evelina by Frances Burney (1778)
  • The Expedition of Humphry Clinker by Tobias Smollett (1771)

19th Century

  • Mansfield Park by Jane Austen (1814)
  • Aurora Floyd by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1863)
  • The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë (1848)
  • The Haunted Hotel by Wilkie Collins (1879)
  • The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1880)
  • The Viscounte de Bragelonne by Alexandre Dumas (1848)
  • Letters from Egypt by Lucie Duff-Gordon (1865)
  • The Mystery of Mrs. Blencarrow by Mrs. Oliphant (1890)
  • Kenilworth by Sir Walter Scott (1821)
  • The Heir of Redclyff by Charlotte M. Yonge (1853)

20th Century

  • The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1907)
  • My Mortal Enemy by Willa Cather (1926)
  • The Old Man’s Birthday by Richmal Crompton (1934)
  • Consequences by E. M. Delafield (1930)
  • Vanishing Cornwall by Daphne du Maurier (1967)
  • This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1920)
  • The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford (1915)
  • Owls Do Cry by Janet Frame (1957)
  • The Winged Horse by Pamela Frankau (1953)
  • My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin (1901)
  • Three Weeks by Elinor Glyn (1907)
  • The Lady and the Unicorn by Rumer Godden (1937)
  • Harriet by Elizabeth Jenkins (1934)
  • Joanna Godden by Sheila Kay-Smith (1921)
  • The Victorian Chaise-longue by Marghanita Laski (1953)
  • Greenery Street by Denis MacKail (1925)
  • West with the Night by Beryl Markham (1942)
  • Anne of Avonlea by L. M. Montgomery (1909)
  • The Lark by E. Nesbit (1902)
  • Mary Lavelle by Kate O’Brien (1936)
  • The Last of the Wine by Mary Renault (1956)
  • The Sea Hawk by Rafael Sabatini (1915)
  • Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea by Teffi (2016, but written around 1920)
  • Challenge by Vita Sackville-West (1923)
  • Miss Buncle’s Book by D. E. Stevenson (1934)
  • August Folly by Angela Thirkell (1936)
  • I Go by Land, I Go by Sea by P. L. Travers (1941)
  • Madame de Treymes by Edith Wharton (1907)
  • Because of the Lockwoods by Dorothy Whipple (1949)
  • The Priory by Dorothy Whipple (1939)
  • The Wise Virgins by Leonard Woolf (1913)
  • To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf (1927)