Day 92: Parable of the Sower

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Cover for Parable of the SowerIn the dystopian novel Parable of the Sower, Lauren Olamine is a young African-American girl living with her family just outside of L.A. Octavia Butler’s novel begins when Lauren is 15 and just beginning to form her own philosophy to describe the chaos of life.

The U.S. is poor and arid, crowded with roving homeless people and drug addicts. If they can afford to, people live in walled communities and only venture out in large, armed groups. The ability to go out to work is almost nonexistent. People who go out sometimes disappear, which is what eventually happens to her father. Gas is so expensive that it is only used by addicts to burn houses, as the drug they use makes them want to see things on fire. Water is so expensive that it has to be carefully rationed.

Lauren suffers from hyperempathy syndrome, a genetic disorder that makes her experience the pain of others as her own. She dreams of a better world and so develops her own philosophy/religion.

When she is 18, Lauren’s community is attacked and overrun. She decides to walk north with what is left of her family in hopes of founding a community that will follow her in her beliefs.

The dystopian part of the story is interesting, especially as it is all too easy to see the seeds for Octavia Butler’s dystopian vision of a possible future, especially since it was written in the 1980’s. However, I have less patience with the religious slant of the novel. My understanding is that the ideas Lauren evolves during the novel are those of Butler herself. Perhaps that is not relevant, but it explains their prevalence in the novel. I feel that the interest in the novel lays with the vision of the future and the suspense of what will happen to the main characters on their journey, but the novel dwells on the religious angle a little too heavily.

Day 91: Mortal Love

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Cover for Mortal LoveMortal Love is Elizabeth Hand’s extremely unusual and strange novel about artistic inspiration and its relationship to obsession. It is narrated in two parallel stories, one taking place in the present and the other in the Victorian age.

In the story from the past, an American painter named Radborne Comstock meets Evienne Upstone, a model who has inspired the work of members of the Pre-Raphaelites and who has supposedly driven one painter insane. He finds this woman irresistable but she may be insane herself. Evienne has a close associate, a maid, who has blue fingers. Comstock experiences weird hallucinations when he is near Evienne, but is not sure whether they are hallucinations or he is going insane.

In the present time Daniel Rowlands, an American writer visiting in London, meets Larkin Meade, who seems to be the same woman as Evienne Upstone. She becomes his lover and leaves him physically and emotionally deranged.

In the meantime, a young man, Comstock’s grandson, who has been raised by a man with blue fingers and has fought insanity all his life, has become obsessed with his grandfather’s paintings of Evienne and decides to visit London.

This book is a wild, fantastic tale linking Celtic folklore, the Pre-Raphaelite art movement, and ancient mythologies. It is at times bewildering but also makes compelling reading.

Day 90: As the Crow Flies

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Cover for As the Crow FliesIn honor of the premiere of “Longmire,” the new TV series on A&E starting this Sunday and based on Craig Johnson’s mystery series, today I’m reviewing his latest book, As the Crow Flies. Johnson’s series features Walt Longmire, the sheriff of fictional Absaroka County in Wyoming. The highlights of the series are likable characters and difficult puzzles and a sense of the modern American West as almost a character in the novels.

Walt and his best friend Henry Standing Bear are in Montana at the Cheyenne reservation trying to make the final arrangements for Walt’s daughter’s wedding. Although Henry reserved the site at Crazy Head Spring where Cady wants to be married several months earlier, the librarian on the reservation wants it for a Cheyenne language immersion class, and she is not to be denied. Walt and Henry manage to alienate the new Tribal Police Chief, Lolo Long, at first sight as they are on their way to Painted Warrior cliff to see if it will be a good alternate site for the wedding. While they are taking pictures to send Cady, they see a woman and her baby fall from the cliff above them. The woman dies, but the baby lives, and Walt and Henry rush it to the reservation clinic. On the way, Chief Long tries to arrest them.

Things look suspiciously like murder. Chief Long is belligerant and has already made some law-enforcement errors, but after Walt makes a few cogent observations about her job performance and helps her keep her jurisdiction from the FBI, she asks him to teach her to be a police chief.

Although it looks at first as if the girl’s abusive boyfriend may be guilty, Walt is not so sure. After a red truck tries to run him down along the road, he traces the truck to a different suspect. Walt is torn between helping Chief Long with her police work and working Cady’s to-do list.

As well as the cast of recurring characters you expect from a Johnson novel and some interesting new ones, As the Crow Flies continues the hint of Indian mysticism that has appeared here and there in the series,  including a peyote ceremony and a conversation with the deceased Virgil White Buffalo (who I miss). Its taste of Cheyenne culture gives it an added dimension.

Day 89: The Wars of the Roses

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Cover for The Wars of the RosesThe Wars of the Roses were a series of complex events involving numerous significant figures. As such, when I have previously read about them, I’ve found it confusing to keep track of events and people.

In The Wars of the Roses: Through the Lives of Five Men and Women of the Fifteenth Century, Desmond Seward presents the clearest and most interesting explication I have read. He organizes the material and infuses interest by following the effects of the wars on five people–William Hastings, Edward IV’s best friend and one of the most powerful men in the realm during his (Yorkist) reign; John de Vere, Earl of Oxford, head of an ancient family and a loyal Lancastrian; Lady Margaret Beaufort, Henry Tudor’s mother; Dr. John Morton, a loyal Lancastrian clergyman who turned Yorkist; and Jane Shore, mistress of Edward IV and daughter of a successful London businessman.

A series of battles between rival factions of the Plantagenet family for the throne, the Wars of the Roses lasted 32 years. The roots of the dispute lay in Henry IV’s usurpation of the crown from Richard II years before. Henry IV and his son, Henry V, were strong rulers, but Henry V’s heir, Henry VI, succeeded at the age of 15. He proved a weak and ineffective ruler who was dominated by his favorites and his wife’s rapacious relatives. Henry also managed to lose the portion of France that his father had so arduously and expensively won back, and England’s state of law and order had almost completely broken down.

The shift in government began when Henry VI had a son who replaced Edward Duke of York (later to be Edward IV) as heir to the throne. This made Edward’s position precarious and he had to flee to Europe. His subsequent battles against Henry’s adherents were only the beginning of years of instability that resulted in the end of the Plantagenet dynasty and the beginning of that of the Tudors.

History can be written with too much detail or in a too academic and dry style, or it can be so lightly researched as to seem like fluff. Seward hits the perfect balance with a terrifically interesting book that is wonderfully well written.

Day 88: The Iron King

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Cover for The Iron KingBest Book of the Week!

The Iron King is the first of seven books in the “Accursed Kings” series by the French novelist Maurice Druon. Unlike many historical novels, this series does not follow a fictional hero or heroine but is an interpretation of actual events in French history with all historical figures. This series was popular in its time (it was written in the 1950’s), but may be difficult to find now. If you are lucky, your local library may have it.

It is 1307 in France. The kingdom is broke, and King Philippe IV, known as the Iron King, is looking for sources of money. The Knights Templar, one of the wealthiest organizations in the world, seems like a good place to get it, but they refuse France a loan. Some charges of heresy, obscene rituals, and other abominations have been laid against them by a defrocked knight. Everyone knows they are false, but with the collusion of Pope Clement, who fears the knights’ power, Philippe orders the members to be arrested all on the same night, and seizes their assets.

In the meantime, Robert of Artois has been cheated out of his inheritance by his aunt, Mahaut.  He decides to get his revenge by bringing down her daughters, who are married to the King’s sons.

Druon’s writing is elegant and ironic, his novels thoroughly researched. He doesn’t over-explain; instead, the novel is compelled forward solely by the events in the plot. Few of the characters are sympathetic; nevertheless, it is a fascinating series. I have often read opinions that Druon is one of the best historical novelists ever.

Day 87: Bangkok Haunts

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Cover of Bangkok HauntsBangkok Haunts is unlike any mystery I have ever read.  I heard about the series by John Burdett and wanted to try it but think perhaps it might have been best to start with the first one. (Bangkok Haunts is the third.) I had an ambivalent reaction to it but am willing to try reading another one.

Sonchai Jitpleecheep is a devout Buddhist detective who tries to remain relatively straight in what is, according to one of the characters in the book, the world’s most corrupt police force. I say relatively because his mother is the proprietor of a brothel, where he helps out. He also keeps being pulled into the illegal schemes of his powerful boss, police captain Vikom.

A vicious snuff film is sent to Sonchai anonymously. He is horrified to see that the victim is Damrong, a prostitute with whom he was obsessed until she left him. Damrong’s ghost begins haunting him at night, even though he is living happily with his pregnant girlfriend. Sonchai is determined to bring Damrong’s murderers and those involved in the film to justice, even though Vikom is more interested in blackmail.

The novel’s Byzantine plot involves sorcery, Buddhist monks, an elite gentlemen’s club, Cambodian thugs, and some seriously disturbed individuals. For such dark material, the first person narration is oddly light in tone. However, the atmosphere and insights into Thai beliefs, modern life, and customs are rich and fascinating.

I did not buy at all the subplot about Sonchai’s FBI friend Kimberley Jones, who becomes obsessed with his assistant Lek. Lek is saving up for a sex-change operation, but Kimberley falls madly in love with him and keeps calling Sonchai to talk about how wrong the operation would be and to demand he talk Lek out of it. I can’t imagine that a woman who has fought her way into the FBI would be this susceptible and irrational–and unprofessional.

This novel is not for everyone, but I definitely think the unusual series is worth another look.

Day 86: Nightingale Wood

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Cover for Nightingale WoodI hardly know how to categorize Nightingale Wood, written in 1938. On Amazon, it is called a romance, but the novel is a little cynical for that. It is described on Wikipedia as a rewrite of the fairy tale Cinderella. If so, neither the heroine or hero is what you would expect. Stella Gibbons, better known for writing Cold Comfort Farm, has written a charming, light novel with a touch of acid.

Viola Withers comes to live with her in-laws after her husband dies, leaving her penniless. The Withers’s home is uncomfortable and gloomy, containing miserly Mr. Withers; socially conscious Mrs. Withers, who thinks her son (Viola’s husband) married beneath her; and two unhappy daughters, Tina and Madge. Viola soon meets Victor, a wealthy cad who is almost engaged, and falls in love with him.

Gibbons’s characters are quirky and obsessive, and even the heroine and hero are not totally sympathetic. Viola is silly and not very bright, Tina is in love with the chauffeur, and Madge cares only about getting a dog. And I think we know enough about Mr. and Mrs. Withers already. What makes Gibbons’s books appealing is that people turn out to be better than they seem at first, and everyone gets what he or she deserves.

Day 85: Spider Bones

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Cover for Spider BonesFor years I have been enjoying Kathy Reichs’s series featuring the forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan. Brennan alternates between working in Montreal and Charlotte, North Carolina, but I usually prefer the books that take place in Montreal. In Spider Bones, she goes farther afield.

A corpse from an autoerotic episode that is found in a lake in Quebec seems to be John Lowery of North Carolina, but John Lowery supposedly died 40 years earlier in Vietnam. Brennan’s investigation takes her to Hawaii to work with an old friend at the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command. She brings along her daughter as well as her on-again off-again lover Ryan and his daughter.

When Tempe is asked to help with the remains from an apparent shark attack and to identify some other bones from the Vietnam War, her life becomes endangered, as well has those of her companions.

I enjoyed this novel, but my interest in the series is winding down as the books depart more from the original set-up and become more like thrillers. I think the absorbing parts of these series are her descriptions of Brennan’s work and of the culture of Montreal. Also, the Bones TV series was a severe disappointment, as it bears little relationship to the books.