This week’s Best Book is Conspirata by Robert Harris!
Day 1060: Literary Wives: Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald
Today is another review for the Literary Wives blogging club, in which we discuss the depiction of wives in modern 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!
Ariel of One Little Library
Emily of The Bookshelf of Emily J.
Kate of Kate Rae Davis
Lynn of Smoke and Mirrors
Naomi of Consumed By Ink
My Review
I reviewed this novel about a year and a half ago, and I don’t want to repeat my review except as it applies to our subject. Overall, I thought that novel was interesting and painted a devastating picture of the Fitzgerald’s marriage. Here is my original review.
What does this book say about wives or about the experience of being a wife?
Although the Fitzgeralds start out with a loving relationship, their marriage goes sadly awry, mostly because of Scott Fitzgerald’s insecurities. A life full of drunken parties doesn’t help, nor does Fitzgerald’s friendship with Ernest Hemingway.
Fowler depicts Zelda as a creative woman whose work is robbed from her by her support for her husband. His “assistance” to her career of publishing several of her stories under his own name turns out to be a trap, whether planned or not. Afterwards she is unable to publish because her work is perceived to resemble Scott’s too much. When she finally writes a novel, he takes it over in the editing stage and butchers it.
Ernest Hemingway dislikes Zelda and feeds on Fitzgerald’s insecurities to destroy their marriage. Although Fitzgerald was an established author and Hemingway a newcomer when they met, Fitzgerald seems unsure about his own abilities. He starts out by taking Hemingway under his wing, but Hemingway pays him back by telling him that Zelda is ruining his life. At first, Scott dismisses such ideas, but after a while, he begins to believe them.
Being Scott Fitzgerald’s wife starts out fun but turns into a horrible life for Zelda. She struggles to express her own creativity. Aside from undercutting her career opportunities as a writer, when she is offered a lead role in a ballet, he threatens to take her daughter away from her. He returns her support by being a drunk, an unfaithful one, and by trying to control her. She finally ends up in a mental institution when she actually has nothing wrong with her mind.
Moral of the story: don’t marry insecure authors.
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Day 1059: In the Name of the Family
Just a short note about my Walter Scott Prize project. The committee has announced its short list for 2017, and I have updated my page accordingly, along with the links to Helen’s reviews at She Reads Novels. (I have read one of them but haven’t yet posted my review.) Do check it out if you are interested in historical fiction. So far, I have found most of the books on the short list to be excellent reading.
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In the Name of the Family is the follow-up to Sarah Dunant’s Blood & Beauty, about the Borgia family. It picks up in 1502, with Lucrezia’s marriage to Alfonso d’Este, the son of the Duke of Urbino. This marriage is political. Her beloved second husband was murdered by her brother Cesare, because an alliance with his family was no longer expedient.
Like the previous novel, In the Name of the Family is mainly concerned with Lucrezia and Cesare. This novel also brings in Niccolò Machiavelli as a secondary character in his role as envoy from Florence. This role for Machiavelli is familiar to me from Michael Ennis’s The Malice of Fortune, although that novel was a mystery. Machiavelli was famously inspired to write The Prince by his fascination with Cesare Borgia.
One of Dunant’s aims in writing these novels was to redeem the characters of the Borgias, particularly Lucrezia. Of course, the Borgia men were ruthless and greedy, but it seems that all the other powerful families in Italy at the time were the same. Lucrezia apparently was an intelligent and charming young woman who won over most of the people she met, even the hostile court of Urbino.
Cesare begins as a brilliant strategist but begins to deteriorate mentally from syphilis.
I gave high marks to Blood & Beauty, but In the Name of the Family seemed to drag a little for me. I am not sure why. It could be because I read it in ebook form, and I have a much more difficult time concentrating on electronic books. However, that has not stopped me enjoying other novels in ebook form. Certainly, Lucrezia’s part of the story was not as important, and that was what I was most interested in. Also, I’m not sure how effective it was to occasionally introduce Machiavelli’s viewpoint.
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Day 1058: The Second Life of Nick Mason
I’ve read and enjoyed several of Steve Hamilton’s Alex McKnight detective series, so I thought I’d give his new series a try. A big part of the appeal for me of the Alex McKnight books is their setting in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, whereas Nick Mason is set in Chicago. Another big difference, though, is that Nick Mason is a criminal.
Nick has been released from a 20-year sentence in prison after making a deal with Cole, a lifer who still controls much of Chicago’s underworld. Nick gets a fancy place to live, a car, and a job on paper, and all he has to do is whatever he is told.
Nick’s main reason for wanting out is Arianna, his nine-year-old daughter, but his ex-wife doesn’t want him to see her.
Slowly, Nick finds out that Cole wants him for very dirty jobs. He also finds out that he and his friends were set up and betrayed by the guy who talked them into doing the job that Nick has been serving time for.
This novel is a straight action thriller, but unlike, for example, the Jack Reacher series, Nick’s morals are not so clear-cut. Even though Hamilton has Mason going after drug dealers and dirty cops, I don’t think I can overlook this characteristic of the series. Although Hamilton somehow manages to make Mason a sympathetic character, I’ll take Alex McKnight any day.
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Day 1057: Conspirata
Conspirata is the second of Robert Harris’s Cicero novels, published originally as Lustrum, and is on my list of books for the Walter Scott prize. This series has been unexpectedly compelling for me. I had previously read Colleen McCullough’s series about Julius Caesar, and this series is such a contrast to it.
The novel begins at the start of Cicero’s four-year term as consul and ends shortly after it. During this time, Cicero is continually at odds with his enemies, who wish to dismantle the Republic. The most powerful of these enemies are the billionaire Crassus and Julius Caesar.
Although the intrigues in this novel are all political, that doesn’t make them any less thrilling. Harris depicts some of the most important figures in Roman history as men almost deranged by a need for power. We have strong sympathy for Cicero as he navigates the difficulties of Roman political life, forced into unpleasant choices but always trying to work for the good of Rome. This is a great series.
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Day 1056: The Owl Killers
In the 1321 village of Ulewic, England, a group of women have settled into a beguinage, a community of women who are committed to a life of celibacy and service but not one sanctified by the church. Some of them are from Belgium, and they are led by Servant Martha.
The village is experiencing dark days and some of the villagers are returning to a pre-Christian cult called the Owl Killers. When the beguinage takes in a leper and then the daughter of a lord, who has been raped, the villagers and the Owl Killers begin to turn against them.
Although this novel is atmospherically dark and seems well researched, I had a hard time sticking with it. This problem may have more to do with the fact that we were moving cross-country while I was reading it than with the book itself. But I frankly found few of the characters sympathetic. The village priest is so terrified that the truth of his affair with a man will come out that he is led into dastardly acts. Servant Martha seems completely blind to what is going on with some of the members of the beguinage. Beatrice is jealous and bitter. Osmana is sympathetic but one-dimensional.
I may try another Maitland novel at a better time. The novel blends a bit of the supernatural with a fairly straight historical narrative, which combination is interesting.
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Best Book of the Week!
This week’s Best Book is Benediction by Kent Haruf!
P. S. Sorry to those who got a link to The Owl Killers. I published it too early and so deleted my post. I will republish the review on Monday.
Day 1055: Benediction
Best Book of the Week!
Goodreads has Benediction listed as Plainsong #3, which makes me wonder what that means. The first two novels in the series, Plainsong and Eventide, were very closely related, but this one not so much. All three of them are set in Holt, an imaginary town in Eastern Colorado, but then again, all of his novels are set there. Yet, these three novels all have titles related to religious services and song.
Dad Lewis is dying. That’s the central focus of the novel. But this novel even more than the others provides a picture of small-town life by looking at the neighbors and others in touch with Dad during his last weeks.
Dad is loved by his wife Mary and daughter Lorraine, but his son Frank has long since disappeared from their lives. When Frank was a young man, Dad was not understanding at all about his homosexuality, and that conflict eventually resulted in a complete break.
Dad is also perhaps not being fair to his long-time employees. When he was 22, his boss gave him an opportunity to buy the hardware store, and he has owned it ever since. Now he wants a reluctant Lorraine to take it over instead of extending the same opportunity to his two employees.
There are other things Dad frets over and even hallucinates about, but the novel isn’t just about Dad. The Lewis’s next-door neighbor Berta May has taken in her granddaughter Alice after her daughter’s death. Lorraine lost her daughter years ago, and she and retired schoolteacher Alene take Alice under their wings.
Reverend Lyle has been sent to Holt after a problem in Denver. His wife and son John Wesley are unhappy in Holt, and soon Lyle begins expressing opinions that leave some of the town in an uproar.
This novel is written in Haruf’s lovely spare prose. In theme and plot, it seems more diffuse than his other novels, but it is profound and moving.
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Literary Wives: Announcing Next Year’s Books!
We have two more books to go in the list already selected for Literary Wives, taking us through June. So, a few weeks ago, the wives started discussing books for the upcoming schedule. We’re happy to announce that we have chosen the next seven books for 2017-18. Here are the new books we just added to our schedule:
August 2017: On Beauty by Zadie Smith
October 2017: Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill
December 2017: A Lady and Her Husband by Amber Reeves
February 2018: The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt
April 2018: The Headmaster’s Wife by Thomas Christopher Green
June 2018: Stay With Me by Ayobami Adobayi
August 2018: First Love by Gwendolyn Riley
As usual, if you would like to participate in the discussion, just take a look at the schedule posted on any of our blogs and read along, then post your comments on our reviews, which usually go up the first Monday of the month. Please join us on Monday, April 3, for a discussion of Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Theresa Fowler.
Day 1054: Room
Reviews and even the book blurb have made no secret of a major plot point of Room, that it is about five-year-old Jack and his Ma, who has been kept captive in a small room for 10 years. Perhaps Donaghue meant this to be a surprise, simply presenting us at first with a strange situation that is difficult to understand, but there has been too much publicity about this novel to keep this plot point hidden.
Donaghue is clever to make the novel be from Jack’s point of view, because this is the only world he has known. His Ma has told him that the world presented in grainy black and white on their TV is all made up.
But an incident with Old Nick, their captor, makes Ma realize that they could be left locked in their shed to die. So, she begins making plans for their escape, plans that require Jack to leave Room by himself.
This novel is certainly compelling. I read it in one day last October despite spending a great deal of time preparing for our move. At times, though, I didn’t believe Jack’s voice. Yes, he is often childlishly naive, but sometimes Donaghue gives him insights that a five-year-old wouldn’t have. I’m not talking about his almost telepathic sense of what his Ma is feeling, but of other times when he has some rather sophisticated thoughts.
So, I think this novel has been a little over-rated, but it is still certainly worth reading.
What? Me Read? 