Category: books

Day 529: The Interestings

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Cover for The InterestingsIt took me awhile to get interested in The Interestings. (I just had to say that.) Reading it was ultimately worth it, but I found the novel difficult to get into, beginning as it does with a situation and characters to which I do not relate.

Jules Jacobson is an awkward teenager when she arrives at a summer camp for the arts during the mid-1970’s. The campers are mostly rich New Yorkers. She is not rich, but received a scholarship for the camp after her father’s death. Jules feels inferior to these kids, but she is unexpectedly adopted by a small group who call themselves the Interestings.

Ethan Figman is an unattractive but kind boy. He spends most of his time at the camp learning animation and drawing. Jonah Bay is the beautiful but elusive son of a famous folk singer. Cathy Kiplinger is a talented dancer. Ash and Goodman Wolf are a wealthy, attractive sister and brother. It is not clear what Goodman does at camp besides flirt with girls, but Ash is studying drama.

Jules is entranced by her friendship with these people, so much so that her relationship with them becomes a preoccupation of her life. She is particularly attracted to the Wolf family, and Ash becomes her best friend. Ethan early on makes overtures to her of a different nature, but she is not attracted to him.

The novel follows Jules’ relationship with her friends over a period of forty years. It particularly focuses on Ash and Ethan, who marry and become extremely successful.

For Jules, the Interestings glow with a special aura long after most of them have not lived up to their promise. Wolitzer’s intent is to examine issues such as how much value to place on a constant striving for success and its link with the need to feel special. She also examines the life of art—how far do you go for art before giving up? After having little success, Jules abandons her own desire to be a comic actor. She also goes through a long period of envy for Ash and Ethan while she and her “ordinary” husband Dennis struggle financially.

My problem with this novel is that I don’t understand the attraction the group, and particularly the Wolfs, have for Jules. In truth, she seems dazzled by the wealth and privilege of this family, even if she doesn’t realize it. Ash is a nice enough person, although somewhat vaguely depicted. But somehow these fascinating Wolfs manage to raise a self-absorbed, uncaring son and a daughter who is too eager to please her family. Early on, Goodman is accused of a serious crime. The way his family handles this problem is very telling, as is the fact that they never seem to consider he might be guilty.

Wolitzer sometimes tells us other things I personally feel the novel does not demonstrate, for example, how witty Jules is. I saw very little evidence of wit in the dialogue, and when I did, it usually came from Ethan. Maybe the novel would have been more compelling if we could feel the attraction of the Interestings ourselves or hear the sparkling wit. Or has Wolitzer planned for us to remain detached, to see through everyone from the first?

This novel provides many ideas to ponder. After I stuck with it, I got interested in what happened to the characters, but I didn’t  love it.

 

Day 528: A Tale of Two Cities

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Cover for A Tale of Two CitiesIt has been a long time since I read A Tale of Two Cities, and I did not remember anything except its broadest outlines. The novel is unusual for Dickens in two respects. It is his only historical novel, and it is probably the grimmest. Although he handles some weighty subjects in other novels—the poor laws, the civil justice system, mistreatment of children, abusive schools—this novel about the French revolution shows little of his celebrated sense of humor.

The novel centers around a much smaller cast of characters than usual for Dickens. It begins with Dr. Alexandre Manette, long a resident in a French prison for reasons we do not learn until the end of the novel. When the book begins, he is free but severely disturbed from trauma. His daughter Lucie travels with his banker Jarvis Lorry from England to bring him back to London.

Five years later, he is living contentedly with his daughter in England. Their friend French émigré Charles Darnay is tried for treason on bogus charges, but he is released when his defense proves that the principal witness cannot tell him apart from Sidney Carton, a barrister. These characters will soon become well acquainted.

When the novel returns to France, it shows us the extreme poverty of the poor as well as grim depictions of their mistreatment by aristocrats. Darnay returns to France to meet his uncle, the Marquis St. Evrémonde, and renounce his inheritance. St. Evrémonde’s careless slaughter of a young child when he runs over him in his carriage and his disdainful treatment of his nephew are all we see of him before his murder.

Secretly, a revolutionary society is growing and taking note of atrocities such as those committed by Evrémonde. Wine shop owners Monsieur and Madame Defarge are involved, and at first we have sympathy with their cause.

Charles Darnay marries Lucie Manette in London, but Sidney Carton has fallen in love with her as well. Although he considers himself unworthy of her, he pledges to do anything he can for her or for anyone she loves.

Meanwhile, France falls into revolution and brutal chaos. It becomes a place where revenge is more important than justice.

The fates of the main characters reach a climax when Charles returns to Paris to help an old retainer and is denounced by the revolution. Although he has committed no crime, his relationship to St. Evrémonde puts him in peril. Dr. Manette’s sanity is also threatened when he, Lucie, and Jarvis Lorry travel to Paris to try to help Charles.

The novel is a little more melodramatic than I prefer, unleavened as it is by Dickens’ usual antics. Only a couple of major characters provide momentary relief, and Madame Defarge is like a heavy dark cloud hovering over everything. The novel is also a bit disjointed through moving back and forth between the two cities. Still, Dickens always manages to bring tears to my eyes.

Day 527: The Possibilities

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Cover for The PossibilitiesAfter her son Cully’s death in an avalanche near their home in Breckenridge, Colorado, Sarah St. John is having difficulties. She has returned to work as a host of a local TV show but finds it hard to raise the enthusiasm needed. She is angry at the loss of her son, who had only just graduated from college, and is upset with herself for nagging him about his recent aimlessness. She is suffering from grief and a loss of identity.

Then she begins discovering facts about Cully that she didn’t know. She finds paraphernalia for selling pot in his room, which jolts her. A young woman named Kit comes to see her, pretending to want a snow-shoveling job, but she is really Cully’s girlfriend. Sarah had never even heard of her before.

Sarah’s family and friends are planning to attend a second memorial for Cully in Colorado Springs given by his friend Morgan. Sarah is dreading it, as she does not know how to deal with the sympathy or attention. Feeling the need to discuss the drug discovery, she asks Cully’s father Billy, whom she never married, to come see her the day before the memorial.

This novel is a wise and heart-warming, sometimes humorous examination of grief and of life’s surprises. As in The Descendants, a disjointed and somewhat alienated family becomes closer and gathers new members after experiencing grief and making hard decisions.

http://www.netgalley.comI found myself liking all the characters. Sarah is handling her feelings poorly but is sympathetically human. Her father Lyle is a retired public relations executive for one of the resorts. He is not doing retirement very well, giving his ex-coworkers unsolicited advice and buying too many gadgets on QVC. He moved in temporarily with Sarah and Cully and somehow never left, but Sarah likes him being there. Billy is calm and supportive, quietly dealing with his own grief. Sarah’s friend Suzanne, in the midst of a divorce, is at once annoying, interfering, and caring.

I will soon be reviewing The Descendants, but in The Possibilities I find another satisfying and touching novel by Hemmings.

Day 526: King Hereafter

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Cover for King HereafterBest Book of the Week!
What most of us know of Macbeth, King of Scots, is taken from Shakespeare, from a play he wrote in honor of King James I of England. It is perhaps no coincidence that James I was a descendant of one of Macbeth’s enemies. King Hereafter presents an interpretation of Macbeth’s life from the master of historical fiction, Dorothy Dunnett, herself a Scot. You may well imagine that the Scots have a different version of the story than did the English and Shakespeare.

For some way into this novel, you may wonder when Macbeth will even appear, for it begins in Norway with a Viking and his foster son. Thorkel Admundason has left his foster son Thorfinn in Moray with his stepfather Findlaech for a few months while Thorkel attends the Norwegian court. Thorfinn is one of what had been three earls of Orkney—Thorkel recently killed one of them and is at court to learn his punishment. But Thorkel soon hears that Brusi, the other earl, has arrived to complain to the throne that Thorfinn has demanded half of the islands from him.

Thorkel is angry at the behavior of his 13-year-old foster son, who may have gained what he wanted if it was approached another way. In the end, not only does Thorfinn not receive more of Orkney, but he is forced to pledge himself as King Olaf’s vassal.

Thorkel has almost broken with Thorfinn entirely when he learns why Thorfinn fled to Norway. While Thorfinn was in Moray with his stepfather, Findlaech was burned to death in his hall by his two nephews. Thorfinn ends their conflict by begging Thorkel to teach him to think like a man.

Of course, Thorfinn is the young Macbeth, or rather Macbeth is the Christian name he takes later. In Thorfinn’s time of the 11th century, Christianity was not widespread in northern Scotland.

Thorfinn straddles cultures and religions. He is mostly of Celtic descent and was raised partly in his Celtic stepfather’s house, but as an Orkney man he is a Viking. He eventually comes to rule an area incorporating Scots, Norse, Irish, and Saxon subjects. He must speak Gaelic, Norse, and Saxon to rule them.

By the time his grandfather Malcolm, King of Alba, dies, Thorfinn is ruler of part of Orkney and of Moray. He has avenged his stepfather’s death by burning his enemies and has consolidated Moray by marrying Groa, the wife of one of his victims.

However, only when his cousin Duncan, by that time King of Alba, attacks Moray in an attempt to take it from Thorfinn does Thorfinn fight and kill him. With Alba part of Thorfinn’s dominion, he realizes he must learn to rule differently, to try to make of the entire territory of Scotia something resembling a nation instead of a collection of settlements with no towns or roads.

Fans of Dorothy Dunnett’s other novels will not be surprised at the meticulous research that went into this novel. Nor will they be surprised to find that Thorfinn is immensely capable and intelligent but frequently misjudged. This novel is wide ranging in scope, as Thorfinn masters the politics of Europe and struggles with the various intrigues between the Irish and Latin churches. For he must decide which religion will unify his people and serve them best.

Since Dunnett is a master of characterization as well as historical detail, the novel is full of vibrant characters. Thorfinn at first merits the respect and eventually the love of his followers. He has a handful of friends who are important characters. Although they misunderstand each other at first, he eventually enters into a deep love and partnership with his wife Groa.

No witches are part of this novel, but there is Luloecen, his stepson with second sight. He tells Thorfinn his fate very soon upon meeting him.

Yes, the woods of Dunsinane play a pivotal part in the plot. If you enjoy historical novels that are rich in detail and steeped in their time period, you will like this book. Like all of Dunnett’s novels, it is complex, yet full of excitement and adventure. King Hereafter is a clever, romantic, and intricately plotted novel.

 

Day 525: Nine Coaches Waiting

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Cover for Nine Coaches Waiting

In honor of Mary Stewart’s death earlier this month, here’s a review of another of her classic romantic suspense novels. She was really the master of this genre, writing literate novels with intelligent, plucky heroines and lots of excitement.

Linda Martin arrives in 1950’s France to take up a post as governess to a little boy, Comte Philippe de Valmy. Although Linda has been living in England since her poet father’s death, she has grasped this chance to return to France, where she was born. When the de Valmys stress that they want a governess who speaks only English, Linda decides to deceive them in a small way by pretending she does not speak French.

As Linda settles into her life at the Château Valmy, she occasionally feels some disquiet about events or comments she overhears. Philippe is an orphan whose parents died in an automobile accident. Until recently, he was living with his Uncle Thierry, an archaeologist, but Thierry went off to work on a dig. Philippe is a lovable boy, but he seems afraid of his aunt and uncle. Léon de Valmy is confined to a wheel chair. He was once a member of the international social scene, but since his polo accident he has focused his activities on the estate, which belongs by right to Philippe. Although he is a charismatic personality and Linda likes him, she thinks he treats Philippe with undue strictness. His wife Héloïse is beautiful but cool.

Linda has a dramatic meeting with Raoul, the de Valmy’s handsome and worldly son. He seems disposed to admire her, but she cannot believe he is serious. Despite herself, though, she finds herself falling in love.

A couple of disturbing near-accidents happen to Philippe. During a walk in the woods, he is almost shot, apparently by a careless hunter. Later, Linda notices a weakness in the railing of Philippe’s balcony and shoves something across it. This action keeps him from falling to his death when he runs out to the balcony to see who is arriving. Soon she becomes afraid that someone is trying to kill the little boy she has been hired to protect.

Photo of Mary Stewart
Mary Stewart

Stewart knows how to set a scene and build suspense. She is also an extremely good writer who is able to make you care about her characters. Because of its setting in the château, this is one of the more gothic of her suspense novels. It is also one of the most romantic. Nine Coaches Waiting is the first Stewart novel I read, and it has remained one of my favorites.

Day 524: Things Fall Apart

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Cover for Things Fall ApartThis book is another one for my Classics Club list. It is the late 19th century, and at the beginning of Things Fall Apart the Nigerian villagers have only heard of white men. They lead their agrarian life, counting wealth in yams and cowrie shells, and occasionally go to war.

The main character of the novel is Okonkwo. He is a proud man, once a great wrestler, who is intent on accumulating wealth and honor. His father preferred playing his flute to cultivating yams. Okonkwo did not respect him and has a secret fear of ending like him. To compensate, he is occasionally brutal and rigidly observant of the village customs, especially the “macho” ones.

After a woman from their village is murdered while visiting another village, the elders go to negotiate a settlement. They return with a hostage, a boy named Ikemefuna. He is handed over to Okonkwo and becomes part of his household. Okonkwo grows to care for him like a son and thinks Ikemefuna is a good role model for his own son Nwoye, in whom he fears weakness. After three years, though, the elders decide to kill Ikemefuna. An old man advises Okonkwo not to take part, but he does not want to look weak.

After Ikemefuna’s death, things begin to go wrong for Okonkwo. First, he is banished from his village for seven years for accidentally killing a man. Although he fares well in his mother’s village, he just wants to return home. While he is gone, though, missionaries arrive in his home village and a colonial government is set up. Nwoye and others convert to Christianity. Tragic cultural misunderstandings ensue between the Europeans and the villagers.

I was sympathetic to Okonkwo at times, but I did not like him. He is not fleshed out as a character, because he is more of a symbol for his culture. His tragedy stands in for the clash of cultures between the whites and the villagers. Certainly, the colonial government is arrogant and more interested in enforcing European concepts of law and morality than in trying to understand the local customs.

Things Fall Apart is a sparely written novel that is one of the most widely studied in African literature. Although I recognize its merits, I sometimes had difficulty staying with it.

Day 523: Corrag

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Cover for CorragBest Book of the Week!

Corrag tells two tales, both based in history. One is the story of the witch Corrag, a woman about whom little is known except in lore. The other is the story of the infamous massacre at Glencoe, where at the orders of King William, British soldiers attempted to murder an entire clan after accepting hospitality from them.

The Reverend Charles Leslie arrives in the town of Inverary looking for information about Glencoe, because he thinks that public knowledge of the event will help the Jacobite cause. He hears that the witch Corrag, awaiting her trial by burning, was present at the event, so he goes to see her. He is repulsed by her, a tiny young woman with pale eyes who is filthy, with matted hair. As a religious man, he is horrified to be in the same room with a witch. But she agrees to speak to him about Glencoe if he will hear the story of her life.

So, Corrag begins telling her story. She is a gifted story teller who loves the beauties of the world, and we can see Leslie’s changing attitude toward her in the letters to his wife that begin each chapter. She is the daughter of Cora, a persecuted “witch” of northern England. Sensing the end, Cora sends Corrag off to ride north and west for safety. After much hardship and poor treatment, Corrag finally arrives in the valley of Glencoe, where she is left alone at first and eventually earns a place because of her healing skills.

This novel is haunting and at times almost poetic in style. I was in tears most of the time I read it. Corrag tells affectingly about her feelings for the world and particularly for one man. Glencoe is the only community that ever accepted her, and she loves it. She is finally able to repay the people of the glen by saving some of their lives.

The real Charles Leslie anonymously published a pamphlet about Glencoe that struck the world with horror. This reimagining of the circumstances around the event is fascinating, especially for those interested in Scottish history. The novel is also extremely touching.

Day 522: Véra (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov)

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Cover for VeraBefore I start on my review of Véra, I just wanted to comment on the death of Mary Stewart, which I just heard about. I have been reading and re-reading Mary Stewart’s books since I was a young girl. Not only did she write some of the best romantic suspense stories ever, but she also wrote a much-praised historical-fantasy series about Merlin. Her works were well grounded in their settings and beautifully evoked places (some of which we will never see again, such as 60’s Damascus and Beirut). To my surprise, my post about her book This Rough Magic continues to be one of the most visited on my site. We are going to miss Mary Stewart. I have re-read Stewart’s books so many times that I can write reviews of them from memory. I’ll post another one soon.

***

I’ve read two biographies now by Stacy Schiff, and both of them are about elusive women. Cleopatra was elusive because most of the information about her life is available only from prejudiced sources. Véra Evseevna Nabokov was elusive because she wanted to be.

Véra considered Nabokov to be a genius and his work to be of sole importance. She never publicly acknowledged her own contribution to it. Even the subtitle of this biography reflects the way she presented herself, always as Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov.

I don’t know a lot about Nabokov. I have read only one of his books, Lolita, but I found it astounding. Despite my dislike of the subject matter, reading it was an amazing experience, and I found the use of language astonishingly beautiful. But you do not need to be familiar with Nabokov’s oeuvre to find this biography, which won the Pulitzer, fascinating.

The Nabokovs had a truly collaborative relationship even though they never publicly acknowledged it. Although Véra denied helping him write, he often called her his first reader. Visitors heard her tell him to reword phrases or even remark, “You can’t say that!” For years, she typed up his manuscripts from his note cards or his dictation. She oversaw the translations of his work into different languages, even laboriously correcting them in the several languages she spoke. She was exacting about the use of words. She took care of all Nabokov’s correspondence, even to friends and family, as well as his business and financial affairs. She was the gatekeeper for interviews and visitors. She also drove him everywhere (and carried the luggage). Her entire married life was dedicated to providing him time and peace to write.

In areas even more directly affecting the success of his literary career, it was at Véra’s suggestion that Nabokov begin to write fiction in addition to poetry. Once the Nabokovs emigrated to America, Véra convinced Vladimir to begin writing in English. She pulled the manuscript of Lolita out of the fire on three different occasions, and it became his most famous work. Students taking his classes at Cornell were bemused by his “assistant,” who provided quotations or page references just when he needed them, drew complex diagrams on the blackboard, and erased it after class. Véra also taught his literature and language classes for him on many occasions and was acknowledged as a better, more systematic Russian language teacher than her husband.

Véra never seemed to resent this role she had taken on; she fostered it. But she was in no sense a nonentity. In correspondence she was much more direct than her husband. Although they tended to share correspondence—he would start a letter, perhaps; she would finish it; he would sign it—she was always left to impart the hard news—the refusal of contracts, the dictation of terms, the correction of translations. Many people believed that she was a dragon who was screening Nabokov’s mail or keeping people away from him, but she was doing what he wanted.

The couple was seldom seen apart. Although Nabokov had an affair early in their marriage and liked to flirt with women, he dedicated almost all his books to Véra. They had an extraordinary marriage, and this is an extraordinary, surprisingly entertaining book.

Day 521: The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches

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Cover for The Dead in Their Vaulted ArchesThe tone of The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches is a little more somber than in the previous Flavia de Luce mysteries. Just as Buckshaw was about to be sold out from under the family in the previous novel, we learned that Flavia’s mother was found. Years ago lost in a mountaineering accident, Harriet de Luce was the owner of the house. Her fortune could not be passed along to her family without proof of her death. Now, her body is on the way home.

Flavia is surprised to find her mother’s remains have received a military escort. In fact, ex-prime minister Churchill is at the village’s small train station when the body arrives.

A tall man approaches Flavia at the station and asks her to tell her father that “the Gamekeeper” is in jeopardy. Moments later he is dead, having been pushed under a train.

I was a little surprised to find Bradley playing a few of the tricks that I associate with less skillful mystery writers. One of them is to spin out the story by having a character delay doing what is obviously urgent. Flavia waits quite awhile to convey this message from the tall man.

Part of the charm of these novels is always 11-year-old Flavia, who combines high intelligence with childish naïveté and some wild ideas. This time she decides to bring her mother back from the dead using some old chemistry experiments. While trying to do this, she finds her mother’s will inside her jacket. She doesn’t pass that on right away, either.

Flavia’s adventures this time include flying in a Gipsy Moth and getting involved in espionage. Of course, there is a murderer to capture and family secrets to explore.

Still, I didn’t find this novel as much fun as I usually do. Probably because of the subject matter, Bradley has to step back quite a bit from the humor.

Flavia is growing more thoughtful, although she is still as reckless. The novel hints at a change of scene in upcoming books, and although I think Buckshaw is wonderful, perhaps we need one.