Review 1687: The Sea-Hawk

~ whatmeread ~ 2 Comments

Sir Oliver Tressilian is in a good place. As one of Elizabeth I’s privateers, he has made a fortune and gained the Queen’s favor. He is also engaged to marry the woman he loves, Rosamund Godolphin, or at least she has promised herself to him. When he calls on her brother Peter to ask for her hand, though, Peter refuses it, determined to keep up the feud begun between their parents. Indeed, he is insulting to the proud Sir Tressilian, so much so that Oliver would have killed him had he not promised Rosamund he would not.

Peter’s refusal seems of little moment to Oliver, because Rosamund will soon be of age. When Oliver’s brother Lionel returns home, however, he has fought with Peter without witnesses and killed him. Oliver promises to protect him but later learns that the wounded Lionel left a trail of blood to his door and everyone thinks Oliver murdered Peter. When Oliver tries to speak to Rosamund, she refuses to hear him. He is able to prove he is innocent to a magistrate and a minister because he has no wounds, but Rosamund will not listen.

Lionel becomes frightened that Oliver will tell the truth, so he arranges with a shady sea captain, Jasper Leigh, to kidnap Oliver and sell him into slavery. Jasper Leigh actually intends to let Oliver buy himself back, but their ship is taken by Spain and both Oliver and Jasper end up as galley slaves.

When next we meet him, Oliver is named Sakr El-Bahr, the Sea-Hawk, for his famous acts of piracy. He has adopted Islam and is a chief of Asad-ed-Din, Basha of Algiers. He learns that his brother and Sir John Killigrew have had him declared dead and Lionel has taken over his property and his former fiancée. Upon hearing this, Sir Oliver sends a messenger to Rosamund with the proof of his innocence in her brother’s death, but she throws it unread into the fire. Oliver is overcome with anger against both Lionel and Rosamund. How will it end?

I thought this was a very interesting swashbuckler, mainly because both the hero and heroine have more dimensions than in the usual adventure tale. There are times when both of them behave very badly, and I especially disliked Rosamund for much of the book because she was so quick to distrust Oliver. However she is also more brave and self-possessed than the majority of adventure story heroines. They get into some seriously exciting situations.

This is my last book from my second Classics Club list, which I have finished a couple of weeks late, so I’ll be publishing another list tomorrow.

Related Posts

The Lovers of Yvonne

Blood & Sand

Treasure Island

If I Gave the Award

~ whatmeread ~ Leave a comment

Having just posted my review of the last book on the shortlist for the 2016 James Tait Black fiction prize, I am now posting my feature wherein I examine whether I think the judges got it right. In this case, of the four nominees, I liked two and disliked two.

I’ll start with the winner of that year’s prize, You Don’t Have to Live Like This by Benjamin Markovits. I felt that it handled its themes of racism and gentrification poorly and employed constructs of magazine writing that don’t really work in fiction. It also seemed bogged down by lots of ineffective and inconclusive conversations between characters and by an ineffectual main character.

The other book I didn’t really enjoy that much was Beatlebone by Kevin Barry, a fantasy about John Lennon visiting Western Ireland. Not much happens in this book, and what does happen, I didn’t find interesting. Although the novel is very well written, I thought it seemed like fanboy fiction.

The First Bad Man by Miranda July tickled my funny bone, with its plethora of eccentric characters. I found this novel bizarre but touching.

I would have given the prize to The Wolf Border by Sarah Hall. It’s about the isolation of an emotionally detached woman and events that allow her to open the door to the people in her life. I found it thoughtful and vital.

Review 1686: You Don’t Have To Live Like This

~ whatmeread ~ 2 Comments

Greg Marnier in his 30’s finds himself at loose ends. He has been in Wales teaching history classes as an adjunct during the last few years but has moved back home to Baton Rouge and can’t find a job. He is an overthinker, who seems generally clueless and inert throughout the novel.

Marny, as his friends call him, went to Yale with Robert James, who has made a fortune and now claims to want to do some good. It’s 2011, and property is cheap in deserted Detroit. Robert wants to buy a large number of houses and sell them to people who want to change their lives, fix up the houses, and create communities, thereby forcing urban renewal. Marny decides he’s in.

This idea is sort of interesting, but Marny right away struck me as deficient in something. For example, he doesn’t seem to think there’s anything wrong with Robert’s company having tried to force some of the original occupants in the five neighborhoods, most of whom are black, out of their houses, to displace them with newcomers who are mostly white. Marny makes tentative friends with an angry black Detroit native named Nolan, but when his friend Tony won’t let his small child play with Nolan’s small child because Tony is a racist, he says nothing and continues to be friends with both.

Marny half-heartedly pursues a black schoolteacher named Gloria romantically and then doesn’t seem to know what to do with her once he’s got her. But like all the conversations in this novel, their discussions of race seem strangely unfinished and unsatisfying.

In general, Markovits’s handling of the book’s themes of racism and gentrification seems deficient and naïve. Nothing much happens for a long time except an exhaustive retelling of Marny’s day-to-day life until there’s a series of events and a trial that change everything.

Markovits has a background in magazine writing, which I wouldn’t mention if it didn’t affect the novel. Just like in a magazine feature, Marny describes each character as he or she comes into the story and provides a short background. This is not an organic outgrowth of the novel, where it is more usual to find out about a character’s background through a conversation or some other organic construct (research on the part of another character, for example) unless the novel is omnisciently narrated. It seems very artificial in fiction as it does not in a magazine article, and frankly, some of the characters seem stereotypical. There are also a lot of them, as there are a lot of those unsatisfying conversations, many of which have little to do with the story.

I think that the subject matter of this novel is important, but I don’t think Markovits is the person to handle it, at least not judging by this book. Including its clumsy title (which seems to be a thing these days), his novel was not one of my favorites from my James Tait Black project.

Related Posts

The Long Take

We Need New Names

Broken Monsters

Review 1685: Our Endless Numbered Days

~ whatmeread ~ Leave a comment

Best of Ten!

In 1976, eight-year-old Peggy’s father James spends his time talking with his survivalist friends while her mother, Ute, prepares for a concert tour. Ute has been gone several weeks when James tells Peggy they are going on vacation. They travel from London to Germany camping in a tent, finally arriving at a small cabin that is falling down. James tells Peggy that everyone is dead and they are the only people left in the world, which has been destroyed.

In 1985, Peggy has been returned home to Ute and her brother Oscar, who was born after she and James left. She is struggling to adapt to the real world.

This novel reminded me very much of Paul Theroux’s Mosquito Coast, only with an added twist. Still, it is absolutely gripping, as James gradually loses touch with reality.

Bitter Orange

Swimming Lessons

Educated

Reading Thirkell’s Barsetshire Series in Order: #2 Wild Strawberries + #1 High Risings Wrap-up

~ whatmeread ~ 6 Comments
Cover for Wild Strawberries

Thanks to all who participated in yesterday’s round-up of book one in the series:

Please let me know if I missed anyone else and I will add them. I hope we will pick up more participants as we go.

Having chosen Wednesdays to announce each book in my project, I would normally have posted this on the first Wednesday in July, but that day is the 7th, which is quite a way into the month. So, I thought I’d give everyone a head start by announcing it today. The book for July is Wild Strawberries, and I will be posted my remarks on Friday, July 30. I hope a few of you will join me by reading along.

And here’s our little badge.

Review 1684: #ThirkellBar! High Rising

~ whatmeread ~ 22 Comments

I have long been saying I will read Angela Thirkell’s Barsetshire novels in order, but I just keep potting way at them as I encounter them. So finally, I decided to go back and read them all, in order, and I hope some others of you will join me at least part of the way. High Rising is the first one.

Mrs. Morland is a widow who has supported her three sons by writing what she calls “good bad books,” featuring skullduggery in the fashion industry. Her old friend, George Knox, is a widower and also an author, of serious historical works.

It is Laura Morland’s habit to work in London while her young son Tony is in school and come to High Rising when he is on holiday. When she and Tony arrive for the Christmas holidays, she learns there is a disturbing new resident at Low Rising. It is George’s new secretary, Una Grey, who is efficient and sweet to George but behaves officiously as if she were the mistress of the house even to George’s quiet adult daughter, Sybil. It is clear that Miss Grey is aiming at marriage with George, and she immediately treats Mrs. Morland as an enemy and rival.

The plot of High Rising is mostly concerned with this situation, but it also introduces more sympathetic characters. There is Miss Todd, who has been doing all the caretaking of her dying mother and works half-time as a secretary for Mrs. Morland. Dr. Ford is in love with her but thinks the difference in their ages makes him ineligible. Miss Todd herself believes she is the type of woman that men don’t marry.

Adrian Coates is Mrs. Morland’s editor. Although he is a good deal younger than she is, early in the novel he proposes. But Laura has no interest in marrying again and thinks he will make a much better match for Sybil Knox.

There are lots of characters, but one of the funniest is Tony, Laura’s single-minded young son. He is absolutely besotted with railways, and Thirkell does a great job of making him a believable motormouth of a boy.

Most of Thirkell’s books are notable for a subtle wit, but this one is a lot funnier than I remembered. I also felt really invested in the problems of these characters. This novel makes a nice start to the series.

So, who read High Rising along with me, and what did you think?

Related Posts

A Winter Away

Bramton Wick

The Native Heath

Review 1683: The Chalk Pit

~ whatmeread ~ Leave a comment

Forensic anthropologist Ruth Galloway is asked to look at some human bones that were discovered in old chalk mining tunnels below Norwich. Although at first glance she believes they may be medieval, they also show signs of having been boiled. Tests show them to be more modern, perhaps 10 years old or less.

Around the same time, a homeless man named Eddie visits DCI Harry Nelson because he is worried about his friend Babs, who has not been around for two weeks. As the team asks around for Babs, Judy talks to another homeless man named Bilbo, who says Babs may have gone underground. Within a day Eddie is found stabbed to death in front of the police station and Bilbo has disappeared.

The team’s attention is taken away from these events by the disappearance of Sam Foster-Jones, a suburban housewife who vanished from her home after someone came to the door, leaving her four small children alone. Nelson has a feeling that this disappearance is related to that of Babs and the deaths of Eddie and Bilbo.

This series, always entertaining, has improved steadily, especially in regard to the difficulty of guessing the solution. Ruth remains a likable character, and I still enjoy all the secondary characters in the series.

Related Posts

A Dying Fall

The Outcast Dead

The Woman in Blue

Review 1682: Titus Andronicus

~ whatmeread ~ 5 Comments

I knew nothing about Titus Andronicus except that it is a blood bath. And it is, too, with rape, murder, dismemberment, and a woman being served her sons’ corpses in a pie.

The introduction to the play in my Riverside edition points out that the play was long poorly regarded and even by some thought not to be the work of Shakespeare. But more lately its reputation has been rehabilitated.

Titus Andronicus is a Roman general who has been fighting the Goths for years—having lost 20 sons in battle—when he returns to Rome. The emperor has recently died, and the citizens of Rome want to elect Titus, but he gives his support to the emperor’s brother Saturninus, who is duly elected but resents Titus for this.

In rapid succession and a confusing first scene, Saturninus says he will marry Titus’s daughter Lavinia while openly ogling Tamora, the captured queen of the Goths that Titus has brought back with him. Titus has just sacrificed her son to thank the gods for his triumph. Then Bassianus, the brother of Saturninus, comes in and claims Lavinia as his own, supported by some of Titus’s sons. Titus kills his own son Mutius for acting against the emperor. Although Saturninus rebukes Titus for slaughtering his own son, he still banishes Titus’s other sons for supporting Bassianus’s claim to Lavinia.

Saturninus marries Tamora, and she begins to plot her revenge against Titus for killing her son, aided by her lover, the villainous Moor Aaron. Aaron convinces Tamora’s sons Demetrius and Chiron to murder Bassianus and rape Lavinia during a hunt. They improve upon this plan by cutting off her tongue and hands, and then they frame Titus’s sons for Bassianus’s murder. More villainy follows, but once Titus has had enough, he gets his own revenge.

There aren’t very many striking passages in this play, but it is very tightly plotted. I could see some similarities to Coriolanus, another Roman revenge tragedy. I think the play might be quite horrifying and effective when performed. This play is one of the last books on my second Classics Club list.

Related Posts

Coriolanus

Hamlet

King Lear

Review 1681: Mamma

~ whatmeread ~ 2 Comments

Diana Tutton only wrote three books. All of them feature dysfunctional families, although Guard Your Daughters is a quirky but relatively traditional romantic novel. Mamma is more unusual.

Joanna has been a widow for 20 years, because her husband died unexpectedly in the early days of their marriage. Although only 41, she has a 20-year-old daughter, Libby, with whom she has a close and loving relationship.

Joanna has just moved when Libby comes for a visit and informs her that she is getting married—to an Army major named Steven. The marriage is to be soon, because Steven expects to be deployed overseas within a few months.

At first, Joanna is not sure what attracted Libby to Steven. She finds him unattractive, and at 36, he is closer to her age than Libby’s. However, circumstances throw them together to live with her, and she begins to understand that she and Steven have more in common than Steven and Libby. With her feelings for Steven growing, Joanna must figure out how to navigate this emotional situation.

Tutton depicts these relationships skillfully, in a way that makes you feel only sympathy for the characters. It is an empathetic and emotionally astute portrayal.

I received a copy of this novel from the publishers in exchange for a free and fair review.

Related Posts

Guard Your Daughters

Expiation

Mary Lavelle