Day 790: Jade

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Cover for JadeOf the Sally Watson books I rediscovered, Jade is one I haven’t read before. I’ve mentioned that Watson wrote several of her novels around a person from her own ancestry, but it is not clear to me if the outlines of each story are based on family legend or are just invented around the events of the time. This question becomes of special interest in regard to Jade, which is the least likely of Watson’s books to date, even if part of it is based on history.

Jade’s real name is Melanie Lennox, but she much prefers her old nickname. She is a rebellious girl completely taken up by her own ideas of right and wrong. She is especially incensed by slavery and women’s lack of rights, which makes early 18th century Williamburg an uncomfortable place for her and for her family, who doesn’t know what to do with her.

The last straw for Jade’s father is when he finds she has been sneaking off to meet Monsieur Maupin, an elderly Frenchman, for fencing lessons. Tired of beating her, her father ships her off to Jamaica to live with her aunt and uncle. With her goes her slave Joshua, whom she’s been trying to free since she was 10.

In Jamaica, she is disgusted by the slave market and the treatment of field slaves, so her aunt and uncle are surprised when she wants to buy a proud untamed African woman, whom she names Domino. But Jade sees something in Domino that reminds her of herself. In fact, Jade isn’t really getting along any better in Jamaica, but doesn’t stay there long.

Jade’s aunt and uncle hear of yellow fever on the island, so they dispatch Jade and her two slaves back to Virginia. They return on the same ship they came on, but this time it is loaded with slaves. Jade decides to try to free the slaves, in which effort she doesn’t realize she’s assisted by the sardonic second mate, Rory McDonald (whose grandmother was Kelpie from Witch of the Glen).

I wasn’t quite prepared for what happens next, but maybe I should have been. Their ship is attacked by pirates and she and Rory and some other crew members and the slaves decide to join the pirates. Well, Jade and Rory are taken on board unconscious, but like Elizabeth Swann of Pirates of the Caribbean, Jade at first decides it’s “a pirate’s life for me.” Only later does her view of the life become more nuanced.

The novel’s plot is unlikely, even though it is based on the life of the famous pirate, Anne Bonny (spelled Bonney in the novel), whose ship our characters end up on. And Jade is not strictly likable, her character being so full of self-righteousness and so unbending that she can’t tell a polite lie. Also, the novel tends much more to the preachy than those I’ve read so far of Watson’s.

Still, this novel is probably a good one for insights into the abuses of the time, while still providing plenty of adventure. Little feminists in the making will be sympathetic to the restrictions Jade struggles with, such as her dislike of what she must wear, her lack of rights as a woman, and the limits to what she’s allowed to do. I personally think she’s too much of a 20th century girl, but young girls won’t even think of that.

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Day 789: The Fall of Princes

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Cover for The Fall of PrincesI didn’t really think I would like the subject matter of The Fall of Princes, but I enjoyed Goolrick’s A Reliable Wife, so I thought I’d give it a try. I have to say, though, that for most of the novel I found the protagonist repugnant.

As a young man, the protagonist, who isn’t really named but is called Rooney once or twice, becomes a successful trader on Wall Street. Still young, he loses his job and everything else and spends his middle age living in the past.

That’s about it. We learn this in the first chapters of the novel and then it repeats. Each chapter is either a record of excess wherein he and his friends throw millions away on clothes, food, booze, drugs, and sex, or it’s a pathetic present-day story about something like ordering nice clothes and sending them back. Even after his failures, he doesn’t seem to learn a new value system.

The novel is set mostly in the 80’s and is supposed to be a paeon to New York’s glamor, glitz, and grit. But I was appalled by the lack of morals of these people, all engaged in gorging themselves on everything. They are young and perhaps can be excused for getting carried away. However, though the main character learns a few lessons by the end, they are long in coming.

link to NetgalleyThe onset of AIDS at its worst adds the darkest overtones to the novel. The protagonist, who has lived through years of having sex with everything that moves, of course has to worry about AIDS. But this portion of the book is stated so savagely, it’s hard to know what to think about it. It’s as if the author thinks you have to have lived in New York in the 80’s to mourn someone who died from AIDS.

I did find that the last few chapters redeemed the novel somewhat, those and the fact that it is so strongly written. However, in its story of one excess after another, it seemed virtually plotless. These main characters were just too crass and brutal for me. That’s probably the point, though.

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Day 788: The Secret Chord

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Cover for The Secret ChordBest Book of the Week!
The characters in Biblical stories have always provided fodder for fiction but are particularly popular since Anita Diamant’s The Red Tent. They can be interesting for me not because they’re telling something familiar but because they are not, since I have one of the spottiest Christian upbringings on the planet. This situation was caused by a combination of my parents’ lack of application and my own fundamental lack of interest from a very young age. I’ve always been fine with it except when I crashed and burned over Christian symbolism in graduate school. However, halfway through Brooks’ remarkable The Secret Chord, I was driven to Wikipedia and found I only knew two David stories, David and Goliath and David and Bathsheba.

The Secret Chord is about the life of David from the point of view of his prophet, Natan. When David asks Natan to write up his victories, Natan refuses, telling him that anyone can have their victories commemorated, but Natan wants to leave behind a true relation of David’s life, the good and the bad, so people in the future will understand him. David agrees and even gives Natan a list of people to interview.

Natan also remembers his own interactions with David, whom he met right after the rebel David murdered Natan’s entire family because his father refused aid to his men. It was then that Natan made his first prophetic utterance, the words of which he couldn’t even remember.

link to NetgalleyThis is truly a fascinating novel, beautifully written, that presents us with the complex man, including his glory and flaws. Brooks is wonderful at conveying his charisma and his faults, so that you feel for him in his sorrows even as he brings many of them on himself.

Brooks uses the names and place names of the time, lending authenticity to this colorful re-telling. The Secret Chord evokes a convincing time and place.

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Day 787: The Hunchback of Notre Dame

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Cover for The Hunchback of Notre DameWhen I was making my list for Classics Club, I thought I should finally read something by Victor Hugo. The obvious choices were Les Miserables or The Hunchback of Notre Dame, but I had tried Les Mis some years ago only to put it down in disgust when Jean Valjean hits the priest who has tried to help him over the head with the candlesticks he wants to steal. So, it was Hunchback for me.

I was interested to read in the Introduction that the French title of this novel was Notre-Dame de Paris and that Hugo hated the English title. And truly, the focus of the novel is more on Notre Dame and 15th century Paris than it is on the story we’re familiar with. In fact, one entire chapter just describes Paris as it looks from the tower of the cathedral in 1482, street by street. I have to say, though, that the chapter was almost meaningless to me, since I found myself unable to visualize what he describes, at least not in that detail.

The novel has many characters, not just the three emphasized in all the movies. It begins with Pierre Gringoire, a hapless poet who is attempting to put on a play he wrote in celebration of Epiphany and the Festival of Fools. This great (and long) production is supposed to pay tribute to the betrothal of the Dauphin with Margaret of Flanders. The problem is that the people have been waiting since dawn to see it. It is past noon, when the play is supposed to have started, but the Cardinal and the Flemish ambassadors haven’t arrived yet. The crowd, egged on by the student Jehan Frollo du Moilin and his buddies, is getting disruptive.

Gringoire decides to start the play, and the crowd settles down, but the actors are still reciting the prologue when the Cardinal and the Flemish arrive, making a lot of noise. The students turn their attention to making rude remarks. Soon the crowd begins trying to select the Pope of Fools instead of watching the play. They choose the hideously deformed hunchback Quasimodo, the bellringer at Notre Dame, and everyone leaves. Poor Gringoire will not be paid, so will not be able to pay his lodging, and he goes off homeless to wander the street.

So, we meet Quasimodo, who was taken in as a child by Claude Frollo, the severe Archdeacon of Josas and older brother of Jehan Frollo. Claude Frollo is obsessed by his studies of alchemy until his eye lights on Esmeralda, a young gypsy dancer and street performer. He becomes infatuated and lustful and so (with the typical logic of zealotry) decides she must be a witch who has enchanted him. On the other hand, when Quasimodo is sentenced to the stocks simply because he is too deaf to hear the judge, the only person who is kind to him is the gypsy dancer. So are sewn the seeds of tragedy.

And make no mistake, there is tragedy in store for most of the characters in this novel. Justice is solely dependent upon the whims of powerful men, and the more powerful they are, the more scathingly Hugo treats them. We even spend some time with the king, Louis XI, who is depicted as grasping, arbitrary, and vicious. Hugo pretty much skewers everyone except Quasimodo and the gypsy girl, who are basically cardboard figures.

Hugo is interested in many things in this novel—the cathedral itself, its own architecture, and the architecture of Paris are strong presences. The transmission of culture from century to century is a preoccupation, as are the themes of the nature of love, loyalty, and not judging by appearances. As a son of the revolution, he also has an axe to grind about the aristocracy and the corruption in the church.

I have to confess, though, that I only mildly enjoyed this gothic novel. The only highly developed character is Claude Frollo, and he is a sickening person.

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Day 786: Telegraph Avenue

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Cover of Telegraph AvenueArchy Stallings and Nat Jaffe own a vinyl record shop on the dilapidated Telegraph Avenue in Oakland. It makes a modest income but mainly provides a hang-out for the locals. Now Archy and Nat are worried because ex-NFL pro Gibson Goode is planning on opening a huge media outlet two blocks away that will include a department for vinyl. Archy and Nat thought that city councilman Chan Flowers was blocking the permits, but now he seems to have changed sides. Curiously, he has also begun asking Archy about the whereabouts of his father, whom Archy has not seen in years.

Luther Stallings and Chan Flowers were involved in a crime years ago before Chan became respectable. Luther went on to star in several Blaxploitation karate films in the 70’s, but for years he has been a has-been and a drug addict. Now, Luther is trying to shake down Chan for the money to make a third film in his famous series.

Archy isn’t altogether certain how he feels about losing his business, but he has other problems. His very pregnant wife Gwen has caught him cheating on her, and his 14-year-old son Titus from a previous relationship, ignored until now, has turned up and made friends with Nat’s son Julie. Furthermore, Gwen, who is in partnership with Nat’s wife Aviva as midwives, has lost her temper with a doctor at the only hospital that allows them admitting privileges, and a hearing is scheduled.

I had a harder time getting involved in this novel than I usually do with Chabon because I found Archy’s behavior reprehensible on many fronts. Of course, Chabon sometimes seems to specialize in the adolescent behavior of grown men, but I have less patience with it. However, Chabon gets in some digs at the lifestyles of Gwen and Aviva’s white middleclass clients, which is fun, and skewers the noir genre in general with the subplot involving Chan Flowers and Luther Stallings.

It takes awhile, but Archy is finally forced to consider his relationships with both his wife and his son. The energy of Chabon’s writing kept me engaged well enough, but the ending of this novel seems overly optimistic, given its web of difficulties.

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Day 785: All Aunt Hagar’s Children

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Cover for All Aunt Hagar's ChildrenAs in his wonderful novel, The Known World, Edward P. Jones attempts to depict an entire community in the short stories included in All Aunt Hagar’s Children. This goal is more difficult to accomplish, because the community is a much larger one—the African-American citizens of Washington, D.C.—and the stories take place over much of the 20th century.

Several of the stories have to do with the migration of the characters from the rural South to the city. In “In the Blink of God’s Eye,” Ruth and Aubrey Patterson are a hopeful young couple from across the river in Virginia at the turn of the 20th century. Ruth, though, is homesick, and when she finds a baby boy in a tree one night, Aubrey becomes jealous. This story is first in the collection, but the last story echoes it. Anne Perry, of rural Mississippi, meets George Carter, a sleeping car porter, and moves with him to Washington. In the story “Tapestry,” Jones uses a technique he also employed in The Known World where he breaks off to tell Anne’s entire life. But he twice tells what her life might have been had she married a different man.

The emphasis on rural roots is also important in “Root Worker.” Dr. Glynnis Holloway’s mother has been treated for mental illness for years until her care worker, Maddie Williams, talks the reluctant doctor into consulting a root worker, a wise woman. In the rural North Carolina setting under the care of Dr. Imogene, her mother improves, and Dr. Holloway surprises herself by apprenticing herself to Dr. Imogene.

Another strong theme is that of moving into the middle class. It pervades many of the stories but particularly “Bad Neighbors.” When Sharon is in high school, her family has made it to the middle class, but they are disturbed when the Staggs move in across the street, for they are not considered respectable enough. Sharon’s father is responsible for encouraging the neighbors to club together to buy the Staggs’ house so they can evict the family. Years later, Sharon realizes some truths when she is saved by Terrance Stagg.

Perhaps the thread I least identified with was the presence of folk lore as if it were real, a sort of magical realism. For example, in “The Devil Swims Across the Anacostia River,” Laverne spends a lively afternoon at the grocery store fending off the devil. Years ago, her grandmother got away from him by wading into the Atlantic Ocean to go to heaven.

Although overall, the stories are not as effective as the novel The Known World, they are compassionate to even the lowest of their characters. I particularly found touching “Adam Robinson Acquires Grandparents and a Little Sister,” about Noah Robinson, whose grandson Adam was lost after his drug addict parents abandoned him. The little boy is found, illiterate and frightened, and Noah faces a future of raising his grandchildren instead of the carefree retirement he envisioned.

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Day 784: The Heart Goes Last

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Cover for The Heart Goes LastStan and Charmaine are living in their car. They used to live a comfortable middle-class life, but the downturn was worst in the Northeast and both of them lost their jobs and then their home. There has been a breakdown in society. The streets are dangerous and normal services are defunct.

Charmaine has been earning a bit as a waitress in a bar, and Stan has been looking for work. He is even forced to go to his shady brother Colin for help when it has always been the other way around. Colin offers him a job, but Stan decides to wait a while, knowing that the job is likely to be illegal.

On the TV at the bar, Charmain sees an ad for the Positron Project, which offers employment and housing. When Stan and Charmain attend an introductory session, they’re not told very much except that if they return, they will not be allowed to leave. They must be ready to commit to the project.

Stan and Charmaine decide to give up their freedom for stability, even though Colin warns them not to go there. When they commit to the project, they find that the whole community is built around a prison. To create enough work around the prison, the staff must alternate one month inside the prison as inmates, one month out, sharing their house with another couple that is in when they are out.

This situation doesn’t seem to disturb them, and they continue on for a year. Then Charmaine becomes romantically involved with their male alternate, who calls himself Max. This relationship eventually leads to discoveries about the true nature of the project.

link to NetgalleyThe Heart Goes Last allows Atwood full rein of her acerbic sense of humor and biting satire. It is reminiscent of the darker excesses of the Maddaddam trilogy but without any very sympathetic characters. Instead, it gets progressively more absurd as it continues. Its references to the current political climate are obvious. Although I found this novel entertaining, I did not enjoy it as much as I have some of Atwood’s other novels.

Note: Caroline of Rosemary and Reading Glasses has written this fascinating post comparing this novel to Milton’s Paradise Lost.

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Day 783: Let Me Tell You

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Cover for Let Me Tell YouBest Book of the Week!
Although I almost always enjoy stories by Shirley Jackson, I was surprised and delighted to find myself even more captivated by the personal essays included in the collection Let Me Tell You. The book is divided into several sections, some of short stories, some of essays.

The first set of uncollected and unpublished short stories was interesting, although many were not her best. There were some bizarre or macabre stories, but the ones I enjoyed most seemed to be based on her own real-life preoccupations, a couple, for example, dealing with a professor’s affairs with his students. Her husband was quite the philanderer, apparently.

The essays, though, were centered around her home life and were funny and imaginative. Some are about the behavior of her children and the chaos of family life. In others, she imagines scenarios such as her toaster and her waffle iron having a feud because she toasted a frozen waffle. Or her two-pronged fork competing with her four-pronged fork. These essays are much more domestic than I expected, more whimsical, and funnier. I am now interested in rereading Life Among the Savages, her memoir about her family life.

link to NetgalleyThe last section of the book consists of essays on writing. I found myself absorbed by this section. I have read several books on writing, but they seldom include any advice that I found practical. Jackson’s essays include some very specific information about how she writes that I found revelatory.

I never thought I’d prefer essays to stories, but in this case, although the stories are enjoyable, I found the essays more entertaining and engaging.

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Day 782: Literary Wives! The Silent Wife

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Cover for The Silent WifeToday is another review for the Literary Wives blogging club in which we discuss the depiction of wives in modern fiction. Be sure to read the reviews and comments of the other wives! If you have read the book, please participate by leaving comments on any of our blogs.

Emily of The Bookshelf of Emily J.
Lynn of Smoke and Mirrors
Naomi of Consumed By Ink

* * *

Although The Silent Wife is billed as a psychological thriller, if that is actually its intent instead of marketing hype, it fails. I see it as more of an in-depth exploration of a dysfunctional relationship and particularly of the character of one unusual woman.

Jodie’s husband Todd of 20 years has just been through a depression, but he seems to be improving. On the surface, their marriage is fine. She is a highly educated woman who enjoys making a perfect home and working part-time with her therapy clients. Todd’s remodeling business keeps him out of the house a lot, and he enjoys drinking after work with his buddies, but she doesn’t seem to mind this and is always glad to see him come home. Although he is a serial womanizer, she has long learned to live with this fact and ignores it.

This information is the first odd note in the novel, because we have learned that Jodie’s father was also a womanizer, and Jodie was a witness to the havoc it created. We wonder immediately how she can accept this situation in her own marriage.

What Jodie doesn’t know is that Todd has embarked on a more serious affair. He is sleeping with the 20-something daughter of his boyhood friend Dean. Although he doesn’t remember proposing to her, suddenly he has a fiancée and a baby on the way, and Natasha is pushing him to tell Jodie.

When Jodie learns about the affair, it is through the furious Dean. Todd hasn’t mentioned a thing, so she doesn’t take it seriously. Even when he tells her he’s moving out, on the morning of the event, she still thinks he’ll come back.

Although I didn’t find this novel to be a thriller, we know from the first sentences that a crime is involved, and the novel is an effective psychological portrait of a woman who can ignore anything she doesn’t want to see. Combined with a man who avoids anything confrontational, this is an explosive mixture. While Todd allows himself to be pushed into one untenable position after another, Jodie continues to disregard what is happening.

The novel is effective and it kept my interest, but it indulges a little too often and too long in its deep discussions of psychology. Perhaps this is supposed to be a reflection of how Jodie thinks, although it’s not always presented that way, but these passages could have been more succinct and effective. Added to that, the novel is only moderately well written. Still, the plot keeps you engaged.

What does this book say about wives or about the experience of being a wife? In what way does the woman define “wife”—or in what way is she defined by “wife”?

Literary Wives logoI think that this novel is too particular to this couple to make any broad statements about being a wife. But Jodie has definitely created her own image of her relationship to Todd. She has prided herself on making the perfect, calm, immaculate home, on providing beautifully cooked, delicious meals, on leading her own life and letting Todd lead his. But this life does not seem to consist of any sharing on an emotional level. In fact, it survives by keeping secrets.

Her reaction to Todd’s cheating seems inexplicable at first, considering her parents went through the same thing. Instead of it being a deal-breaker, she decides not to let it bother her. She puts it away from her. This is the character trait that I found fascinating. Her father’s unfaithfulness made her mother unhappy. So, she decides not to let it make her unhappy. She continues not to even acknowledge the truth of other things that might make her unhappy, and she pursues this course through one unpalatable event after another. But then, we find she has plenty of practice in hiding things from herself.

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