Category: books

Day 641: Remarkable Creatures

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Cover for Remarkable CreaturesRemarkable Creatures is based on the true stories of Elizabeth Philpot and Mary Anning. These were two women of the early 19th century who collected fossils along the sea near Lyme Regis, beginning before fossil collections became wildly popular. Some of their finds resulted in discoveries about evolution and extinction. The novel is told in alternating chapters from the point of view of the educated upper-class Elizabeth and the uneducated working-class Mary.

Elizabeth Philpot already realizes she will be a spinster when her newly married older brother nudges her and her two sisters to look for a less expensive place to live away from the family home in London, perhaps in some genteel seaside resort. The women choose Lyme Regis, and their brother soon finds them a comfortable but small stone cottage.

Louise Philpot becomes interested in gardening and Margaret busies herself with the town’s social scene, but Elizabeth realizes she must find something to occupy herself. When visiting a carpenter’s shop, she meets Mary Anning, at the time a child, and sees the fossils Mary has collected and is trying to sell. She is fascinated particularly by the fish and decides to look for fossils herself, doing much to help label herself and her sisters as eccentric.

Mary Anning finds and sells fossils to support her family, but she is also fascinated by them. After she begins her acquaintance with Elizabeth, she starts learning more about the scientific theories behind her work. When she discovers the fossil of a previously unknown animal, she does not know that her discovery challenges the beliefs of conventional religion that every animal created by God is currently alive on Earth.

Philpot and Anning, who made significant contributions to the science, both eventually find themselves frustrated by the lack of recognition for their contributions. It is worse for Mary, for she is not only a woman and uneducated, she is considered just a fossil hunter.

I found the subject matter of this novel interesting but feel Chevalier was probably struggling with the difficulties of depicting real people in fiction. Although she depicts two distinct women, they do not seem fully formed to me. I couldn’t help contrasting this novel with the wonderful The Signature of All Things, which is a similar story although completely fictional. There I got a sense of a strong, fully realized individual. To contrast, Chevalier gives each of her main characters a few signature traits—for example, Elizabeth judges people by what part of their physique they “lead with”—and we don’t get a sense of fully formed individuals.

 

Day 640: The Enchantment of Lily Dahl

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Cover for The Enchantment of Lily DahlBest Book of the Week!
Lily Dahl is a 19-year-old making a living as a waitress in a small-town cafe and living in an apartment above it. Although she is saving for college, what she really wants to be is an actress.

Lately she has been fascinated by Ed Shapiro, an artist living in a room across the street. He is in his thirties, recently deserted by his wife. At night she can’t keep herself from watching as he paints in his underwear.

Lily’s next-door neighbor, an old lady named Mabel, is helping Lily with her part of Hermia in a local production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Lily has also made friendly overtures to Martin Petersen, even though he seems very odd, because she remembers they used to play together as children. Martin stares at her and stutters, but he becomes a different person when acting his part of Cobweb in the play.

As Lily gets to know Ed Shapiro, she becomes aware that someone is watching her apartment and has even entered it when she wasn’t home. She suspects Hank, the boyfriend she broke up with when she realized she liked Ed.

Odd things begin to happen around town. Martin has left her some bewildering gifts and told her things that don’t make sense. She has heard rumors of someone seen near the river carrying a body and people seeing something that looks like an angel. Lily begins to fear that someone may have been killed.

This novel is an eerie one, and Lily, although at times naive, makes a strong and daring heroine. Occasionally, the novel seem almost dreamlike as it explores the differences between appearance and reality. You may find it hard to put down the novel, which in its look at the underbelly of a small town in Minnesota, reminded me a bit of the movie Blue Velvet, although the novel is gentler.

Day 639: The Children’s Crusade

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Cover for The Children's CrusadeIt took me awhile to figure out the focus of The Children’s Crusade, which for some time just seems to wander backward and forward in time telling the story of a family. This is not really a criticism, though, as I was interested in the story.

It begins when Bill Blair discovers a piece of land outside San Francisco after his time serving in the Korean War. He envisions children playing there, so he buys the property, and eventually he marries and builds a house. He is a pediatrician, and he and his wife Penny have four children: Robert, Rebecca, Ryan, and James.

By the time the older children are nearing their teens, all of the children begin planning a Children’s Crusade. The purpose of the crusade is to try to think of activities that their mother will want to do with them. Although their father is warm and nurturing, their mother is distant and passive-aggressive, wanting, for example, her family to explicitly invite her on outings even though she knows they want her to come and will be disappointed if she doesn’t. When they don’t think to ask her, she stays home. She begins spending more and more time in a shed on the property working on art projects.

It is a usually unacknowledged fact within the family that the addition of James, large, obstreperous, and destructive, proved overwhelming for their mother. He feels this deeply, and it makes him more unruly. Affectionate and caring Ryan, closest to him in age, tries to make up for their mother’s neglect, but he is only three years older than James. Robert and Rebecca spend a lot of time keeping James out of their mother’s hair.

http://www.netgalley.comAs adults after their father’s death, the four siblings are forced to consider selling the house. No one originally wanted to sell, so they have it rented out, but then James forces the issue when he needs the money to make a home for his married girlfriend and her children. Even though Bill and Penny Blair were separated for years before Bill died, Penny must agree to the sale of the house. This arrangement forces James to talk to his mother for the first time in years after one of her art projects proved difficult to forgive.

The novel moves between the points of view of each of the siblings, only briefly touching on that of the parents. It is absorbing and well written and struck some chords with me. Its examination of the complexities of human relationships is thought-provoking.

Day 638: The Singing Sands

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Cover for The Singing SandsEvery once in awhile, I like to read a classic mystery, and I have only read a few by Josephine Tey. Tey’s novels acted as a bridge between the Golden Age of mysteries and the modern mystery, when the genre moved toward more realism.

The overworked Inspector Grant is on his way to a holiday in Scotland and is concerned because he has developed a debilitating claustrophobia. Upon leaving the train at Euston station, he comes across a porter trying to rouse an apparently inebriated passenger. Grant sees right away that the man is dead. When he examines the body, he drops some of his own papers, and while picking them up, accidentally removes the dead man’s newspaper.

Relaxing at his cousin’s house in the Highlands and preparing to go fishing, Grant checks the paper the next day to see what it says about the dead man. His face has stuck in Grant’s mind. He finds that the man has been identified as a Frenchman named Charles Martin. He has already discovered the man’s newspaper, with some verse scratched on it referring to animals that talk, streams that stand, stones that walk, and singing sand. He recognizes the man’s handwriting as the unformed style learned by British schoolboys, and he can’t imagine that the dead man was French. So, he decides to look into the death a bit more.

Except for The Daughter of Time, Tey’s most well-known book, I have only read a couple of Tey’s one-off novels, not her Inspector Grant mysteries. After reading this one, I think I’ll look for more. Inspector Grant is interesting and likable, as are the relatives he visits. The mystery is involving without being so overcomplicated as to be unlikely, as Golden Age mysteries often are. When Grant travels to the island of Claddagh (referred to as Cladda in the novel) in search of the singing sands, we also get to explore a new landscape.

Day 637: The Quick

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Cover for The QuickAt first, The Quick seems like a straightforward historical novel about a young writer in 19th century London. But it has a twist. To be honest, if I’d known what the twist was beforehand, I probably wouldn’t have chosen this novel to read, because frankly, I’m tired of this subject. That said, I’m glad I read the book, because it is absorbing, well written, and quite suspenseful.

James and Charlotte Norbury grow up neglected in a rambling house in Yorkshire. Their father rarely comes near them after their mother dies and seems to forget they might need attention or tutors or governesses. So, while the two children run wild, it is the older Charlotte who takes care of James and teaches him to read.

After their father’s death, James goes away to school while Charlotte stays in the care of Mrs. Chickering, an elderly relative. James eventually moves to London to try being a writer, but he is not wealthy and has difficulties finding acceptable lodgings he can afford. An acquaintance introduces him to Christopher Paige, a young aristocrat looking for someone to share his rooms. Although the more austere and shy James does not envy Paige’s life of frivolity, he slowly begins to realize that Paige is his first friend—then that he is more than a friend.

One night, though, a terrible event takes place. Christopher Paige is killed and James disappears. When James does not appear at Mrs. Chickering’s funeral, Charlotte travels to London to find him.

In London, Charlotte’s inquiries attract the attention of the members of a powerful and mysterious club, the Aegolius. There has been an unexpected event at the club, and other people are looking for James. Soon, Charlotte finds herself involved with a secret substrata of the city.

Owen depicts a wonderfully atmospheric London. Although I was at first disappointed with the direction the story took, I still was unable to put this book down.

Day 636: Their Eyes Were Watching God

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their-eyes-were-watching-godTheir Eyes Were Watching God was my selection for Classics Spin #8 for the Classics Club! Here is my review.

I had a complex reaction to this novel. On the one hand, I liked its protagonist, Janie Crawford, and was interested in her struggle to define her own identity. On the other hand, I didn’t much like any other characters in the novel. On the one hand, Janie’s struggles to define herself make the novel a landmark feminist book; on the other hand, Janie defines herself through her choice of husbands and her relationships to them. On the one hand, I don’t usually like tales in the vernacular; on the other hand, both the educated omniscient narrator and Janie’s vernacular third/first-person narration have moments of entrancing imagery. And speaking of that imagery, for a book written in 1937, the novel is occasionally startling in its sexuality.

A woman in her 40’s, Janie has recently returned home without Tea Cake, the man she left with. Having departed in some scandal, a well-off widow with a much younger, penniless man, she is figuring in a lot of talk. So, when her friend Pheoby comes to see her, Janie decides to tell her the story of her life.

Janie was raised by her grandmother in West Florida after her mother had her as a result of rape and then disappeared. Janie is a light-skinned black woman with long beautiful hair, and her appearance features in much of her story. When she is still an extremely innocent 16-year-old, her grandmother marries her off to a much older man, trying to give her stability. Janie thinks that marrying will make them love each other, but she is soon disillusioned and finds he is inclined to treat her like a work horse.

Then she meets Joe Stark, a flashy well-dressed man who seems to be going somewhere, and is. She leaves with him and they settle in an all-black town in “the new part of Florida,” where Joe soon becomes the mayor and store owner. But he defines his marriage by what he gives her and expects her to maintain a certain decorum as his wife, not allowing her to participate in many of the small town amusements. Also, he treats her with disrespect, publicly ridiculing her.

After Joe dies, under circumstances that have already started talk, Janie meets Tea Cake and eventually leaves with him to work in the Everglades. Although Tea Cake is in some ways an improvement over her other two husbands, there are some events that disturbed me. First, he steals her $200 and comes back with $12, but she is only upset when she thinks he has left her. Next, he earns it back but makes her put it in the bank and promise to live off what he can provide, a classic play for dominance that ignores the fact that she soon has to go to work next to him, manually in the fields. Finally, he beats her up once, not because of anything she does but because he wants to show everyone that she belongs to him.

Hurston was a trained ethnographer, and her fiction details a way of life in small-town Florida of her time. I found many of the details interesting. A fascination with skin color and Caucasian features is one theme that comes up several times. In fact, when Tea Cake beats Janie, instead of provoking a discussion of the fairness of the beating, the people are more fascinated by Janie’s skin being fair enough that they can see the bruises, which makes the other men envious.

Janie is often viewed harshly and unfairly by others. But it is part of her growing self-awareness that she doesn’t care. Although to me she sometimes seems too passive in her relationship to men—her gentle response to Tea Cake’s beating is seen as a good thing—she is otherwise a strong and resourceful heroine.

A Little Blogging Fun

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Inspired by the yearly summary by Alina of Literary Vittles, I decided to take a look at my blog’s search terms for the past year. The search terms are what people entered into search engines that brought them to my site. Although most of them made sense, I found a few things of interest or amusement.

Information No One Will Find on My Blog

Cover for Still LifeA few search terms fell into the category of things you won’t find on my blog, sometimes just because of spelling errors but also because I don’t give away key plot points or they’re about subjects I don’t cover on my blog:

  • “Desmond Seward wife”: okay, I have one book by Desmond Seward, but I have no idea who he’s married to.
  • “Villan in Peaches for Father Francis”: do they mean “villain”?
  • “How is Mary Stewart’s life reflect in her books”: good question
  • “What happens to Peter and Clara in Louise Penny’s Still Life” or “In the Louise Penny series are Clara and Peter reunited”: I’ll never tell.
  • “Nonfiction: a biography of Daphine du Morea”: I DO have one of Daphne Du Maurier.
  • “The secret life of the renowned storyteller”: this is mysterious, isn’t it? Does anyone understand this one?
  • “The Orphan Choir ending. I don’t get it”: I’m not going to explain it to you.
  • “Why are Rose’s fingerprints switched in the Pinkie Brown murder in The Red Road”: not telling
  • “Unbelievable happy ending in Lisette’s List”: I don’t think I found it unbelievable.
  • “All the Light We Cannot See hard ships”: okay, maybe I’m not being nice to point this one out, but I don’t think there are very many ships in this book. A few.

Terms That Don’t Seem Like They Should Lead to My Blog

These are terms that make me wonder how the people ended up at my blog:

  • to.a.daytrader
  • history of sexual orgy in Istanbul
  • cascade asa dez deal: when I translated this, I was even more confused

Cover for SaltMost Common Search Terms

This is an interesting list to me because with a couple of exceptions it does not reflect which books are being heavily read on my blog:

  • Dunnett “The Game of Kings” Druon “The Iron King” (yes, quite a few searches worded exactly the same way)
  • Walt Longmire and Vic Moretti relationship or Walt Longmire and Vic Moretti or Longmire
  • Erlandur
  • List of historical fiction novels
  • Saint Gilbert Entre les Loups
  • Charlie Zailer or Charlie Zailer Simon Waterhouse
  • All the Light We Cannot See ending
  • Candlemass Road
  • The Cruelest Journey
  • Luloecen
  • Abigail Adams
  • Is Salt: A World History a microhistory
  • Melisites
  • Burning heretics England Chaucer

Top Fifteen for This Year

Cover for This Rough MagicHere are the 15 most viewed books this year:

  • This Rough Magic (This has been the top book since I reviewed it, which I find really odd, although it is a good book.)
  • The Loon Feather
  • The Bones of Paris
  • I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
  • All the Light We Cannot See
  • King Hereafter
  • The Leaf Men
  • The World’s Wife
  • The Invisible Woman: The Story of Charles Dickens and Nelly Ternan
  • The Invention of Wings
  • Turn of the Tide
  • Wife 22
  • Anne of Green Gables
  • My Life in Middlemarch
  • Neverland: J. M. Barrie, the du Mauriers, and the Dark Side of Peter Pan

Day 635: The Secret Life of William Shakespeare

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Cover for The Secret Life of William ShakespeareAs I am interested in Shakespeare and recently enjoyed a Regency romance by Jude Morgan, I wanted to enjoy this novel a lot more than I did. There is of course a risk in making a historical figure a main character in a novel, and that is that no author truly knows the mind of the real person. The truly successful novel of this type bravely forges a persona. Morgan’s solution, however, is to make Shakespeare, about whom little is known, truly amorphous in character.

The novel centers mostly on the relationship between Shakespeare and his wife, Anne Hathaway, an interesting choice, since we know they lived apart for much of their marriage. Morgan explains the marriage between Shakespeare and his bride, almost ten years older, as a love match, which is perhaps more unlikely than many different explanations for it (although of course not impossible). He has Anne reluctantly agree to Will’s eventual decision to join a group of players only on the condition that he is never unfaithful to her. Anne does not understand Will’s fascination with the theatre and views it with jealousy.

To go along with the amorphous nature of Will’s character, the details of his London life are murky. Morgan hardly ever shows him at his work or refers to any of the events of his life. Instead, he has him in conversation with various players and writers, particularly Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson. The introduction of Jonson into the novel is particularly confusing, as often we side track to examine his life and career as a playwright. In fact, he is a much more definite character than Shakespeare is.

It felt to me as though, in being perhaps reluctant to misinterpret Shakespeare’s personality, Morgan just doesn’t interpret it at all. Wife and friends find him equally unknowable. I had a hard time reconciling my knowledge of the plays with this reticent character. In particular, it seemed as though a man who was so fascinated with language would play with it more in his speech, as he does in Anthony Burgess’s much more adventuresome book Nothing Like the Sun. I did not buy Morgan’s idea of Shakespeare’s personality at all.