The Best Book for this period is The Wolf Border by Sarah Hall!
Review 1480: This Side of Paradise
I have a high opinion of The Great Gatsby, but I haven’t read any other Fitzgerald that I can remember. So, when I was making up my current Classics Club list, I put This Side of Paradise on it.
It isn’t a good choice for me, though. I have so far disliked almost every book about privileged males’ schooldays, especially when the boys think they are sophisticated (the exception being the beginning of Brideshead Revisited). The nostalgic tone they frequently take about boys behaving badly is especially grating. I don’t think This Side of Paradise is supposed to be nostalgic, but it is definitely smug.
The main character, Amory Blaine, is described as an egoist. He spends most of his time putting people into snobby little categories and working the system to be successful in school. Successful, of course, means socially, not intellectually.
It’s not too much of a stretch to think that Amory is Fitzgerald himself, only richer and with a childhood spent in Europe.
I would like to think that Amory evolves in the book, but my understanding is he doesn’t, much. I stuck it out for nearly half the book but didn’t find anything in it to interest me, so I stopped.
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Review 1479: Funeral Games
It may surprise some readers that (spoiler!) Alexander the Great dies at the end of the second book in Mary Renault’s Alexander trilogy. What, then, could the third book be about? Actually, I found it the most interesting of the three novels, as it deals with the intrigues and battles for power over his empire after his death.
Alexander died leaving no named heir and three unlikely possibilities—his half-witted half brother, Arridaios, and two unborn children by Roxane, the vicious daughter of a Baktrian hilltop chief, and Stateira, a Persian princess. Stateira was living with her grandmother, but before Stateira can find out about Alexander’s death, Roxane writes a summons purporting to be from him. When she and her sister arrive, Roxane poisons them.
This act of treachery is the first of many, as Alexander’s generals and surviving relatives struggle for power. His sister, Kleopatra, makes a play for power through marriage to one of the generals. His half-sister, Euridike, has been betrothed by Alexander to Arridaios. He is used as a pawn by various regents trying to grab power, but the downfall of Euridike and Arridaios comes when Olympias, Alexander’s mother, whom he always kept way from power, takes them prisoner.
The book follows Alexander’s legacy—what happens when the empire he reigned is taken by ordinary people. The best off of his former generals becomes Ptolemy, who sensibly retires to Egypt to form the Ptolemaic dynasty and writes a book about Alexander’s life.
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Review 1478: Literary Wives! War of the Wives
Today is another review for the Literary Wives blogging club, in which we discuss the depiction of wives in fiction. If you have read the book, please participate by leaving comments on any of our blogs. Be sure to read the reviews and comments of the other wives!
Eva of Paperback Princess
Lynn of Smoke and Mirrors
Naomi of Consumed By Ink
* * *
Selina Busfield thinks her husband Simon is working in Dubai when the police notify her that he’s been found drowned in Southwark. She can’t imagine what he’s been doing there, and the circumstances around his death are unclear. Did he commit suicide, was his death an accident, or was it murder?
But this concern is soon pushed aside when some complete strangers show up at the funeral, one of them claiming to be Simon’s widow. It appears that for the past seventeen years, Simon had two families, one with Selina and one with the much younger Lottie.
When we chose the last set of books for Literary Wives, I could tell by the description that this would be the one I liked least. And so it proved. I am always wary of any book that describes almost any outfit a woman has on except if it’s important to the plot. But worse, I thought that almost everything about this book was predictable except for the cause of Simon’s death, and that was too far out in left field. The wives were such extremes of direct opposites that they were almost clichés—Selina the society dame focused on appearances and Lottie the air-headed artsy girl. Then there was their immediate reaction of fury at each other when they were both victims of their husband’s deceit. Finally, the pileup of discoveries showing what a creep he was (and by the way, they never knew!). And then the finish, which I won’t reveal. Sorry. Absolutely not for me. I only finished it because it was for the club.
What does this book say about wives or about the experience of being a wife?
In the context of this book, I find this question almost impossible to answer because both marriages were a mirage. Although there have been a few disconcerting exchanges in the past, as far as Selina knew, she was the wife Simon wanted—organized, active, immaculate, still attractive, a good if reserved mother. He has frequently told her she is the perfect wife. As the book continues, Selina finds some reward in relaxing her standards a bit, including a more genuine relationship with her children.
As for Lottie, her marriage seems murkier to me. She is much more emotionally dependent on Simon even while being less financially so. She is also so engrossed in her romantic feelings that it’s hard to get an idea of their day-to-day life. Certainly, it seemed as though Simon was a warmer husband to her and her daughter than he was to Selina and her children.
But this novel has a lot more to say about life after marriage than about life during it.
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Review 1477: The Collector’s Apprentice
I find that as I read more, I have a lot less patience with mediocre fiction. Either a novel has to grab me immediately or I have to feel that I am reading good fiction. So, I had only about 50 pages of patience for The Collector’s Apprentice.
Vivienne has taken on an alias after her fiancé, George, scammed her father and other investors of their money. Even though she doesn’t believe George was guilty (he told her a Swiss banker cheated everyone), she has been blamed for it and ostracized from her family. She finds herself with no means of support in 1922 Paris.
She has to put up with about five pages of hardship before being hired as a translator for Edwin, a collector of fine art from the United States. As her ambition was to curate her father’s collection, this job is perfect for her.
I was willing to put up with the chick-lit-like features of this novel because of my interest in the art world it seemed to be approaching. However, soon it became clear that we were going to get entangled with George again, and I found that not at all interesting. So, I quit reading.
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Review 1476: Immortal Wife
Irving Stone was extremely popular in the mid-20th century for mostly biographical fiction. His most famous novels are The Agony and the Ecstacy about Michelangelo and Lust for Life about Vincent Van Gogh. Immortal Wife is his second book, about the life of Jessie Benton Fremont, the wife of explorer John C. Fremont.
Jessie Fremont certainly had an exciting life, even though a lot of her time was spent waiting. She was actively involved in her husband’s professional life. The work she did of helping her father write his reports when she was unmarried, she continued with the reports Fremont submitted after his explorations. She lived on an Indian reservation during his second expedition. She was one of the first white women to travel to San Francisco via a trek across Panama. She lived in untamed San Francisco and later Mariposa during the lawless days of the Gold Rush. When Fremont lost a fortune through unwise partnerships, she supported the family by writing stories.
Fremont was a controversial figure, and Jessie was partly to blame for a lot of the controversy. Upon his first command, she prevented him from receiving orders that would have made him turn back, and he was courtmartialed later partially because of this incident. Her advice resulted in more than one incident like this. Partially because of an attitude that the couple knew best, their fortunes underwent many ups and downs. Jessie was quite interfering in her attempts to help her husband, and they made many enemies.
I wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. Part of my problem with it wasn’t fair, because I don’t believe in judging a book out of its time. But it was so accepting of Manifest Destiny, the right of the United States to the lands of the west. Fremont essentially starts a war as an excuse to steal California from Mexico, stating that Mexico wasn’t doing anything with it. Comments after an expedition that he had stood on top of a mountain in the Wind River region where no one stood before obviously meant no white men. This kind of thing grated on me for the first quarter of the novel.
On the positive side, the novel is interesting and well researched. On the negative side, at 400 dense pages, it is a bit longer than it needs to be through many episodes of Jessie’s heart-rendings about her marriage. Finally, although Stone clearly meant Jessie to be a sympathetic character, I didn’t like her much.
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Review 1475: Dark Saturday
When I went looking in the library for something suitable for the end of October, I found one of Nicci French’s dark and disturbing mysteries featuring psychotherapist Frieda Klein. I have read all but the book before this one in this series. I missed the last book but did not feel that it threw me off in reading this one.
The Frieda Klein series began with a dangerous psychopath escaping justice by killing his twin brother. Only Frieda believes he is alive, and she knows this because he has been both harassing and protecting her. So, this ongoing plot is always mixed with one that is solved in each book.
Frieda is hired by a mysterious man named Levin, whose role I don’t quite understand, to look into the case of Hannah Docherty. Fifteen years ago, she was permanently hospitalized after being found guilty of the murders of her entire family.
In Frieda’s initial examination of the case files, she finds some discrepancies that are not explained by the theory of the case. After she goes to visit Hannah in the mental hospital, she begins to entertain the possibility that Hannah did not commit the crime.
During the course of the investigation, she finds an eccentric crime blogger who stole all of the Docherty’s possessions after they were thrown out. Frieda takes these possessions from her and shortly thereafter the woman is killed in a fire that burns down her house. Now, Frieda is sure that Hannah is not the murderer.
Frieda is an enigmatic character whom I find fascinating, and the other characters in the book are convincing. Although some of the books in this series are not really thrillers (some are), they never fail to send a chill down my spine.
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Review 1474: The Wolf Border
Best of Ten!
Rachel Caine is an emotionally detached woman who manages a wolf reintroduction program on a reservation in Nez Perce, Idaho. She prefers to keep her sexual liaisons brief and hasn’t returned to her home country of England for years. She takes the opportunity to visit her mother, Binny, when she meets with the Earl of Annandale about a project he has taken on to move wolves into a contained area on his huge estate and nearby national forest lands in Cumbria, near where she grew up. She isn’t interested in the job, but her brother Lawrence has told her that Binny won’t be around long.
After a meeting with the Earl, whom she doesn’t trust, she has a difficult visit with Binny and then returns home. Her personal circumstances change after Binny’s death, though, so she finds herself accepting the Earl’s job.
This is a thoughtful and vital novel that examines the nature of Rachel’s relationships with her family. Events allow her to open the door to people in her life. The novel is complex, not because of the plot but because of the tangle of human thoughts and feelings it examines.
The writing is clear and vivid. I read this book for my James Tait Black project—another winner!
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Review 1473: A Long Way from Home
A Long Way from Home is almost like two different novels, starting out as a light-hearted romp and finishing with the Australian treatment of its indigenous inhabitants. It is set in 1954 Australia, all over it.
Irene Bobs and her husband Titch are tiny people with a great will to succeed, but they are hampered by the activities of Dangerous Dan Bobs, Titch’s father, who seems to be working against them. When Titch, who is the best car salesman in Southeastern Australia, wants to open his own Ford dealership, Dan prevents it using his influence with his cronies at Ford. Having opened a junk yard, Dan continually drops off expensive objects at Titch’s and then charges him for them.
Irene always vigorously supports Titch against Dan, so when Dan scuppers the Ford dealership, she has already arranged something with GMC. Then, the two get the idea to compete with one of their cars in the Redex Reliability Trial, a grueling test of a car’s endurance on horrendous roads all around Australia. Irene and Titch will be drivers, and their neighbor, Willie Bachhuber, will navigate. Of course, Dan decides to compete against them.
Willie is a recently fired schoolteacher. He is also a competitor on a quiz show and a fugitive, who left his wife after she had a black baby and is wanted for child support. His quiz show work, after a long run, ends when his infatuation with his competitor interferes with his thought processes. He is a great reader of maps, however.
The novel starts out bright and energetic, with vibrant and quirky first-person narration by Irene alternated with that of Willie. It takes a darker turn, though, after an accident with Dan. Soon, Willie is separated from his companions in far Western Australia.
I was really taken with this book, especially at its zippy and vivacious start. I liked the characters, and I thought the ending covers important history about aboriginal abuse. However, these comments don’t convey how the novel zips along in its own quirky way.
I read this book for my Walter Scott prize project.
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Review 1472: Daisy Jones & The Six
Daisy Jones & The Six, about the rise and demise of a 70’s rock band, is written like the script for a documentary. I got the impression at first that it was trying to accomplish something like Jennifer Egan’s amazing A Visit from the Goon Squad.
In the beginning of the novel, we see the separate starts of Daisy Jones and of the band that became The Six. Daisy, a neglected 14-year-old, begins as a rock and roll groupie, while the band works its way up through the usual dances and bars. When they are each beginning to get a little attention, a record executive thinks it would be a great idea if they record a song together. They are a hit. The only problem is that Daisy and the band’s lead singer, Billy Dunne, don’t seem to like each other.
This novel does a pretty good job of depicting the drug- and sex-fueled 70’s rock scene, but I felt it was about 100 pages too long. It also signals where it is going a little too early. The format has its problems. It makes the reader separate from the book even while amusingly showing how different people’s versions of the same event can be.
Taylor Jenkins Reid seems to have ambitions to write more than chick lit, but this novel is essentially chick lit.
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