The Best Book of the Week is A Red Herring Without Mustard by Alan Bradley.
Day 135: The Sun King
The Sun King is an interesting biography of Louis XIV and a history of his court, although it occasionally assumes a level of knowledge about French history that I do not have. It is also not terribly revealing of the personality of Louis XIV, who was apparently a very guarded person. For example, the book contains no revealing quotes from personal letters or anything similar.
I was interested to read that Nancy Mitford originally envisaged the book as a description and discussion of the architecture and gardens of Versailles rather than a biography, which perhaps partially explains the focus.
The book starts with the beginning of Louis’s reign, so there is no information about his early life. Chapters are organized around incidents during his reign rather than periods of history. The book describes the opulent court and details intrigues and power struggles within it. The chapter about poisoning was shocking. It is easy to see why the French court of the time had such a reputation for decadence.
The edition that I read (not the one pictured) is full of beautiful pictures of Versailles as well as sketches of the architects, artists, and gardeners responsible for creating the palace. However, there are no good pictures of Louis, presumably because none exist. He is always depicted as a tiny figure in large historical paintings of some event, so it was hard to see what he actually looked like.
Of course, the book is well written and witty. Although Mitford is best known for her humorous novels of sharp social commentary, she also wrote several well-received and thoroughly researched biographies.
Day 134: A Red Herring Without Mustard
Best Book of the Week!
A Red Herring without Mustard is another of Alan Bradley’s delightful, comic mysteries featuring Flavia de Luce, the eleven-year-old detective and chemist.
In this book a mysterious gypsy woman is nearly beaten to death after Flavia allows her to camp on de Luce land. Something odd is going on. After Flavia surprises a neighborhood thug in the de Luce’s drawing room when everyone else is in bed, she finds him dead the next day, hanging from the trident of a fountain of Poseidon.
As usual, Flavia races all over the countryside on her bike Gladys, feuds with her sisters, consorts with her father’s shell-shocked batman, and tumbles into trouble in this novel, set in England just after World War II.
Bradley’s plots are implausibly complex, but it is not for the mysteries that I read these books but for the funny, irrepressible character of Flavia.
Day 133: Without Fail
I heard from several sources that Lee Child’s Jack Reacher books are good, so I tried one. Without Fail is more of an action novel than I would usually read, but it is a page turner. Child’s protagonist is an ex-military policeman.
Jack Reacher is approached by Secret Service agent Froelich, who used to date Jack’s dead brother, because she is in charge of guarding the vice president elect. The Secret Service has received threats that somehow arrived inside the agency, which is very worrisome. Froelich wants to hire Reacher to do an audit of their security procedures.
When the threats escalate to violence, the Secret Service hires Jack to help find the perpetrators. In the meantime, Jack gets romantically involved with Froelich.
The book is well written and very fast moving. If you want a little light summer reading that will keep you pinned to the page, I recommend a Jack Reacher thriller.
Day 132: Life Sentences
This is really my posting for Monday, because I’m traveling and will be without wifi tomorrow.
In Life Sentences, Cassandra, the author of two successful memoirs and a novel that was less successful, is looking for ideas for her next book. She attended a diverse middle school in Baltimore where her friends were all African-American while she is Anglo. In looking for a subject for her next book, she learns that Calliope Jenkins, who was a quiet satellite to Cassandra’s group in middle school, later served seven years in jail, convicted of murdering her own son.
Cassandra decides to write her book about herself and her middle school friends and how their lives turned out, focusing especially on Calliope. However, she is surprised to find a cold reception from her old friends. As Cassandra investigates the past of all the girls, she begins to learn that things were not as she remembers or believed.
Laura Lippman’s novel kept my interest and was well written. I would rate it as better than average without being terrific.
Day 131: The Dark Lantern
I had mixed feelings about The Dark Lantern, Geri Brightwell’s novel of deception and intrigue set in late 19th century London. Although I found myself interested enough in what happens, I also thought that the odds of this much intrigue going on in one house were very low.
Jane Willred arrives in London for her first job in the city as a housemaid. Although Jane is a relatively blameless girl, she immediately finds herself caught in a web of deceit. In trying to put her past as the illegitimate daughter of a murderess behind, she has forged a letter from her mean, self-righteous former employer to omit the remarks the employer made about Jane’s past. In her first day at work, she is further embroiled when she breaks a dish and comes under the obligation of the blackmailing upper housemaid Sarah.
Upstairs all is not well, either. Mrs. Robert Bentley, Mina, newly arrived from Paris because of her mother-in-law’s illness, is hiding a shameful past. While her husband distractedly goes about his work trying to prove that an innovative system of taking body measurements of criminals is preferable to fingerprinting as a means of identification, she hides in the London house trying to avoid being recognized.
Odd things are certainly happening, as a stranger intrudes into the house on Jane’s second day claiming to be Mr. Robert and looks through his papers. How, Jane wonders later, did he know she would answer the door–as the only person in the house who hadn’t yet met Mr. Robert–since it wasn’t her job to do so?
Robert is waiting for the return of his brother Henry from India, hoping Henry will agree to sell the house after their mother’s death, as he and Mina are almost broke. Instead comes news that Henry’s ship has foundered off the coast of France and only his wife has survived–a wife no one knew existed.
Aside from the number of people hiding secrets in this novel, I also felt that few of the characters are likable. Jane is the most sympathetic, but she seems incredibly stupid at times. Nevertheless, the plot kept me interested.
Special Posting! Best Book of the Week
The Best Book of this week is Echoes from the Dead by Johan Theorin!
Day 130: Under the Lemon Trees
In Under the Lemon Trees a high school girl tries to live her dreams while being held back by tradition and her family’s expectations.
In the beginning of the novel it is 1970’s California and Jeeto’s sister has just been hurried into marriage with a stranger. Jeeto finds out later that this happened because her sister had been pregnant by a local boy and lost the child. As a result, Jeeto’s mother is even more determined to marry her off directly after she graduates high school even though Jeeto has been offered a scholarship at Berkeley. And, in the meantime, Jeeto develops a relationship with another local boy.
Jeeto also tells the story of her uncle’s lost love when he first came to America as a Punjabi Sikh and eventually helped found the Sikh settlement in Oak Grove, California.
The plot of the novel was interesting, but I got frustrated with Jeeto. She was too ready to give up her dreams. I realize that there are cultural issues involved in the question of whether Jeeto can go to college, but what I found frustrating was not that Jeeto would give up her dreams but that she would not even fight for them.
Day 129: Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead
I found Mad World interesting, but I think it would have been very interesting if I was more familiar with Evelyn Waugh’s work. Paula Byrne’s biography seems to be mostly concerned with refuting statements and criticisms that were made about him, of which I was previously unaware.
The book traces Waugh’s life and career especially in terms of his relationship to the family who were partial models for the Flytes in Brideshead Revisited. The book describes just where the parallels lie and where they diverge.
Byrnes is at pains to refute the allegations that Waugh worshipped and toadied to the aristocracy and was ashamed of his own middle-class origins.
The book made me want to reread Brideshead. I found Waugh an interesting figure, although I couldn’t help feeling how boring and pointless the lives of many of his friends, who were hopeless drunks, seemed.
I apologize for my posts, which will be more sporadic than usual the next two weeks, as I am on vacation.
Day 128: Echoes from the Dead
Echoes from the Dead is another terrific book by Johan Theorin. It is his first book, and reading it explained a few minor points about The Darkest Room for me.
Julia’s young son Jens disappeared on the island of Öland in 1972, but her father just received a package containing the little boy’s sandal. After Julia’s father takes his friends Ernst and John along to look into what happened to her son, Ernst is found dead.
For years the island’s inhabitants have heard rumors of the return of Nils Kant, a notorious murderer who disappeared just after World War II. We readers know that these two stories are connected, but not how. Although we also know who took Jens, we don’t understand what really happened to him until the very end of the book.
Julia returns to Oland to try to figure out what happened to Jens, if she can. After years of depression, she begins to take more of an interest in life and maybe to fall in love with Lennart, the island policeman.
This novel is not as atmospheric as The Darkest Room, but it is full of characters that you begin to know. The plot is complex, interleaved with the story of what actually happened to Nils Kant back in the past.
What? Me Read? 