There’s a tie for Best Book this period: The Bee Sting by Paul Murray and I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith!
Best of Ten!
Review 2530: The Islandman
I read The Islandman to fill a hole in my Century of Books project. It is the memoir of a man who was born in the Blasket Islands in far Southwest Ireland, in 1856. The Irish edition of this book was a big seller in Ireland after it was published in 1929. The islands are now unpopulated as the government removed the last inhabitant in the 1950s.
The memoir is written as a series of anecdotes but in order of time. The existence of the inhabitants was a difficult one of mostly subsistence living. The people worked hard. Fishing was a major source of food, but scavenging shipwrecks was a source of subsistence and some income (money wasn’t much in use). Most families had a cow or two, hens, maybe pigs, and a donkey for hauling peat and seaweed. Patches of land were cultivated for potatoes and grain.
Although the people were poor, because of the fishing, they did well enough during the potato famine. However, they had many more difficult periods.
O’Crohan took to schooling but only had six years of school because there was no teacher on the island the other years. He of course spoke Irish but didn’t write it well until later in his life, when people started coming to him to learn the language.
This is an interesting account, especially as I’ve been interested in life on remote islands for some time.
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Review 2529: Sparkling Cyanide
This novel begins in an unusual way for Christie, with sections on six people, each of whom had a motive to kill Rosemary Barton. There’s her younger sister, Iris Marie, who would inherit a fortune. There’s her husband George’s secretary, Ruth Lansing, who would like to take her place. There’s Anthony Browne, whose secret Rosemary has discovered, that he is really Tony Morelli. There’s Stephen Faraday, whose career as a policeman will be finished if his wife learns of his affair with Rosemary. There’s Sandra Faraday, who already knows about the affair. Finally, there’s her husband, George Barton, who also knows about the affair. Almost a year ago, these six were together at a party when Rosemary suddenly died from cyanide poisoning.
Rosemary’s death was ruled a suicide. Now, nearly a year later, someone has mailed George letters saying that Rosemary was murdered, so George decides to set a trap by reconvening the same people at the same table. But first, he asks in his friend, Colonel Race. Race things it’s a foolish idea, and it is—for George dies that night, also poisoned.
Colonel Race teams up with Inspector Kemp to try to figure out what happened. Was Rosemary poisoned? Who wrote the letters? How could anyone have poisoned George without touching his drink?
I don’t think the approach used in this novel was very successful. The writing seemed oddly static. It is only when we leave the character bios that the novel snaps back to life, with Christie’s usual clever dialogue and interesting action. Then, it’s quite good and makes you forget the first part.
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Review 2528: The Home
Eleanor is moving. She’s doing this because after 26 years of marriage, her husband is leaving her. Their marriage had been an open one, which translated to her husband Graham being serially unfaithful while she had two affairs that ended in friendship because she loved Graham. The last few years have not been happy, but still it’s hard for her to accept that he has left her—without really talking about it—for a woman who is younger than her oldest daughter.
Now she is trying to make a home for children who, all but one, are adults living on their own. Nevertheless, they return in ones and groups to stay with her.
Eleanor struggles in this novel with the idea of what home is, with loneliness, with her desire to mother children who don’t really need it anymore, with desire and love for Graham, and with the need for someone to take care of her. The novel looks unflinchingly at the situation that many middle-aged women found themselves in beginning in the 1970’s, when divorce rates began to rise. For example, Graham (who in my opinion is an unrelenting jerk) supposes Eleanor can get a job when she has been trained for nothing and has no work experience for the last 26 years except being a wife and mother.
This is sometimes a rough read but always an insightful one. Mortimer has an unfailingly observant eye.
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Review 2527: The Whole Art of Detection: Lost Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes
I knew this book might not be a good fit for me, because I usually feel that mystery short stories are too short to do much but pose puzzles, but more importantly, because I usually think it is unsuccessful when an author continues another author’s work. However, I have generally enjoyed Lyndsay Faye’s books, so I tried this one.
Purporting to be lost stories, notes, and diary entries, most by Dr. Watson but some by Holmes, this book’s 15 stories span the time from before the two met until 1902.
I am not going to run through a description of each story. Instead, I’ll comment on how authentic Faye’s stories seemed as stories about Holmes, keeping in mind that I haven’t read a Holmes story in years.
First, how much like the originals are Faye’s Holmes and Watson? Faye clearly is very familiar with the books (this applies to pretty much all the things I’ll look at, not just this one) because she makes lots of references to other cases and certainly has down Holmes’s characteristics. However, it seemed to me that her Holmes is more of a Benedict Cumberbatch Holmes than an Arthur Conan Doyle one. For one thing, he is much more expressive of emotions, more so even than Cumberbatch, especially as the book goes on. Watson seems himself, only even more flowery of description, but smarter. Also, like in the B. C. version mentioned above, his war service is stressed a lot more.
What about the mysteries? Well, you’re reading the words of a person who never once guessed the solution of a Sherlock Holmes story—until now. On the one hand, Faye’s stories are not nearly as ridiculously overcomplicated and unlikely as Doyle’s (spoilers for ACD!)—teach a snake to crawl down a rope? while dying, say “the speckled band” instead of “a snake bit me”? On the other hand, it seemed ridiculously easy to guess at least portions of the solution for most of the stories (unlike in Faye’s other mysteries—this is what I mean by mystery short stories—they’re either totally opaque or too easy). For instance, in “The Case of Colonel Warburton’s Madness,” I guessed immediately that (spoilers) gaslighting was involved and who was doing it. I just didn’t know how. Later in a story about identical twins, I knew immediately that the twins had switched.
Faye writes well and keeps up the interest. I just wish she’d write more of her own stuff.
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My Life in Books
Okay, what the heck, I needed to avoid doing the dishes for another half hour or so, so I stole this idea from The Chocolate Lady, who took the prompts from Anna Book Bel. The idea is to finish out the prompts with titles from books you read in 2024. They don’t have to be true or make sense, but you can’t repeat any. So, here goes:
- In high school I was The Scapegoat by Daphne Du Maurier
- People might be surprised by Envy by Yuri Olesha
- I will never be Dead Ernest by Alice Tilton
- My fantasy job is The Bookbinder by Pip Williams
- At the end of a long day I need North Woods by Daniel Mason
- I hate being The Immortal King Rao by Vauhini Vara
- Wish I had a(n) Ibiza Surprise by Dorothy Dunnett
- My family reunions are Skeletons in the Closet by Jean-Patrick Manchette
- At a party you’d find me with Somebody’s Fool by Richard Russo
- I’ve never been to The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
- A happy day includes A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters
- Motto I live by: Turn, Magic Wheel by Dawn Powell
- On my bucket list is The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng
- In my next life, I want to have The Warrielaw Jewel by Winifred Peck
(Apparently, I have participated at least once before, as evidenced by the logo above being in my files. But I don’t remember doing it.)
Review 2526: The Inconvenient Indian
For some reason when I bought this book, I thought it was fiction. It’s not, nor is it a history of the relationship between native peoples and the various entities that have ruled Canada and the United States. (King repeatedly calls these two countries North America. He doesn’t deal with the inequities and atrocities of Mexico, which of course is also in North America and probably has committed plenty.) It is a series of chapters on such topics as residential schools, government attempts at assimilation and allotment, treaties that have been ignored, and inequities under law.
Thomas King is a writer, speaker, and activist who is part Cherokee. Born in California, he is now a citizen of Canada and has won, among other awards, the Order of Canada.
His writing style is acerbically funny and more personal than you’d expect. He reminds me of Bill Bryson with more sarcasm.
This book is an eye opener for anyone who thinks that our native populations are no longer oppressed. It didn’t make me cry like Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee did when I read it years ago, but it gave me a lot to think about. King’s main message is that all government programs for our natives amount to land grabs.
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Review 2525: The Camomile
As Simon Thomas points out in the Afterword, The Camomile is a novel that “sets out to be distinct from the ‘marriage plot’.” This although its heroine, who says she strains for Reality, thinks sometimes that marriage is a way to achieve it.
That heroine is Ellen Carstairs, who has just returned to Glasgow after four years in Germany studying music. She knows herself not to be a prodigy, but she begins giving music lessons to contribute to the household, that of her religious Aunt Henry and her brother Ronald, an architecture student.
Apparently, Ellen’s mother wasted a lot of money publishing her writings, to the point where it seems to be considered a mental disease, so Aunt Henry dreads the possibility that Ellen may be writing. Yet, that’s exactly what she begins doing. She gets herself a room where she can practice the piano undisturbed, but she also spends a lot of time at a library, where she meets an impoverished scholar she calls Don John, who helps her with her writing.
The novel, which is related in letters to her friend Ruby and in diary entries, deals with fairly innocuous social engagements, but Ellen spends a lot of time pondering ideas and trying to understand people’s relationships with each other. First, there is the marriage of Laura, one of Ellen’s friends, who doesn’t seem to love her fiancé at all, while being determined that people think she does. Ellen herself doesn’t mind not being married but on the other hand seems to accept that it is a goal of a kind, a way to achieve Reality.
Ellen pretty much dissects every idea she comes across, and after a while, I felt it was too much, especially after she herself (spoiler!) becomes engaged. However, over all I found the novel engaging with Ellen a lively heroine.
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Review 2524: I Capture the Castle
It was with delight that I noticed I Capture the Castle would help me with my Century of Books project, because I liked it so much when I read it years ago. It had an ending that was completely different from what I remembered, though, my memory having possibly been polluted by seeing a couple of TV versions of it.
Cassandra lives with her family in a house attached to a ruined castle. The house, which was purchased during the heights of her father’s success as a writer, is now woefully decrepit. Her father has not produced anything since his initial success, and the money ran out long ago. Now their clothes are shabby, and they can barely afford to eat. Rent hasn’t been paid for months, and they’ve sold all the good furniture.
There is exciting news, though. Their landlord having died, new occupants of the estate, which includes their home, have arrived. They are American brothers, Simon and Neil Cotton.
The brothers arrive when Cassandra is taking a bath in the kitchen. She keeps quiet and they go away, but they return so she has to announce herself. They take her for a child. Her sister Rose, who is beautiful, decides that she will marry Simon, the heir, no matter what, even though she hates his beard.
Cassandra likes both men at first but then overhears them talking about Rose, who has been behaving affectedly. With a little advice, Rose begins to act naturally, though, and soon she has accomplished her goal. She is engaged to Simon, although Neil seems to hate her. The only trouble is, Cassandra is in love with Simon.
This sounds like a straight love story, but it isn’t. There are lots of terrifically eccentric characters and subplots to go with them. There is the issue of whether their father will write again. And will Topaz, their stepmother, who sees herself as an artist’s muse, leave him for someone who is working? What can Cassandra do about Stephen Colley, a devastatingly handsome young man who lives with and basically supports the family and copies out poems to give to her?
This novel is charming. Its narrator mixes wit with naiveté and wisdom, and the novel is written in a sprightly, entertaining manner. It’s a lovely light read.
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Review 2523: The Bee Sting
The Barnes family is having a difficult time. On the surface is a monetary issue because in the downturn no one is buying cars from the family dealership. But actually, each family member has been making poor choices.
The novel starts with Cass, the oldest child, who in the beginning is in the final year of school before starting university. She has long been best friends with Elaine, on whom she has a crush, but there are indications that Elaine is not as good a friend to her. Elaine gets interested in boys, and the two girls begin drinking at bars every night instead of studying for their leaving exams. Suddenly, Cass is sure she’s flunked her exams. If that’s not enough, she learns that her mother, Imelda, was engaged to her father’s brother and married her father soon after his brother was killed in an accident. The timing shows that her mother was pregnant for the wedding, so whose daughter is she?
The next section is about PJ, Cass’s preteen brother. He is disturbed because his parents seem to be always arguing since the business got into trouble, with his mother blaming his father. His friends have been dropping him, and a bully tells him his father ripped off his mother, so he owes him €163. PJ tries to collect the money while his attempts to talk about it to his family members are cut off by their preoccupations with their own problems.
Next is Imelda’s turn, in an unpunctuated section. Now that her husband, Dickie, is having financial problems, she begins to dwell on the past. Dickie’s brother Frank had been a golden boy—rich, handsome, good at sports, and charismatic—liked by everyone. But Imelda, although she comes from an impoverished, abusive background, didn’t love his money. She was madly in love with him. This section is more revealing about the circumstances that led to her wedding with Dickie. Now, she is furious, blaming Dickie’s poor salesmanship for their problems.
Finally, there is Dickie’s point of view. A family story that he went to Trinity only to be hit by a car on the first day and return home turns out to be completely fictitious. He had been a serious scholar and was happy in his university life. But then he was called home by his brother’s death. Now after acting the upstanding citizen for nearly 20 years, he begins to make some serious missteps.
Each section reveals more about the family secrets and the problems ensuing from this misguided marriage. This doesn’t necessarily sound like gripping material, but it really is. I was fascinated immediately. And the last 50 or so pages are unexpectedly suspenseful. Finally, the ending blew my mind. Not everyone will like it, but to me it is a great book.
I read this for my Booker Prize project.
What? Me Read? 