If I Gave the Award

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Since I just reviewed the last book on the shortlist for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, it’s time for me to evaluate whether I think the judges got it right. That year was an unusual one, because they awarded it to two of the three novels on the shortlist, Trust by Hernan Diaz and Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. I felt that there were flaws in all three novels.

I think I’ll start where I often do, with the book I liked the least. That is with The Immortal King Rao by Vauhini Vara. It may be that I’ve just read too many dystopian novels this season, and they are not my favorite. But I also thought Vara tried to tackle too many subjects. This impressed some of the newspaper and magazine reviewers, but it made me feel the novel was too all over the place. It hits runaway technology, social networking dangers, climate change, the disintegration of national governments, not to mention dysfunctional families.

It’s harder for me to evaluate the other two. Although I am not a fan of novel rewrites, Demon Copperhead was a clever rewrite of David Copperfield, placing the old classic in a modern framework. However, Barbara Kingsolver is not really good at funny, which is one of Dickens’s hallmarks, and I missed the innocence of the original character. The story is gripping, however.

I think I’m going to go with Trust as the most ambitious of the three novels in terms of structure. Trust presents the story of a wealthy early 20th century tycoon and his wife three times. Although the first time, a novel about the couple, was commonplace, and the second retelling, an “autobiography,” by the tycoon, was so megalomaniacal that it was hard to read, the third section by the tycoon’s ghost writer is where the meat and the surprise of the novel lie. I likened this novel to Russian nesting dolls, and it’s the one that has stuck with me longest.

Review 2435: The Immortal King Rao

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Just a note before I begin my review. I finally took up WordPress on their offer of my own domain, which came with the plan I was using. So, if you have a bookmark set to my blog, please change it to https://whatmeread.com. If you have subscribed to my blog by email, I’m sure your email links to the blog will be automatically redirected, and I suspect there are redirects for anyone who types in my old URL.

The timing for me in reading this novel was unfortunate, because I’m not much of a dystopian fiction fan and I had unfortunately read two others recently, accidentally but also because there are so many coming out recently. One of these novels was excellent, though. I read The Immortal King Rao for my Pulitzer Prize project.

In a prison in near-future Seattle, Athena Rao is writing her social profile as proof that she didn’t commit the crime she’s accused of. Athena is the daughter of the disgraced King Rao, a Steve Jobs/Mark Zuckerberg type guy who invented the Coconut—the first computer designed for the general public—and apparently the whole idea of social networking. He was disgraced and adopted a solitary life on an island in Puget Sound until he decided on a further achievement—to create a daughter from his deceased wife’s frozen embryos who is connected from birth to the Internet.

If you’re thinking mad scientist, this isn’t really the emphasis of the novel. Instead, we learn about King Rao’s early life in India and later life in America, we hear what happens when Athena decides to leave home, but we also learn of the disintegration of the world’s governments toward a planet run by an algorithm that is supposed to be fair, and of the immanent threat to the planet of climate change.

There is a lot going on in this novel, a fact that seems to have impressed critics. Personally, I was at first taken by the descriptions of Rao’s childhood in India, but tired of it once it became involved in family disagreements. I wasn’t very interested at all in Rao’s life as a student and then entrepreneur in America. I was most interested in Athena’s story and her attempts for her life to mean something. Although Vara handles everything very well, I think there is too much going on here for me.

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Review 2434: Family Ties

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The Monsoon family was once better off but now not so much. The family consists of Charles Monsoon, now an old man, and his younger wife, who seems to be always referred to as Mrs. Monsoon. They have two grown sons, George, who is a solicitor but prefers to work on a book about butterflies, and Stephen, who is a market gardener. Both sons live at home with their wives. Stephen’s is Vivienne, who helps Mrs. Monsoon keep the house, and George’s is Amy, who, now that her two boys are away at school, does nothing at all.

At first, the novel introduces so many characters that I kept confusing them. There are the Rockabys, whose daughter Lavinia is engaged to Mr. Swan, the doctor’s son, who has come to the village to handle his father’s estate. There are also the Tyces. Mrs. Tyce has become eccentric, so her son Rupert has been summoned to take care of some problems. Then there is the vicar and various other characters. However, the novel eventually settles down to being mostly about the Monsoons, particularly Amy.

Amy is finding herself dissatisfied, not wanting to be thought of as only a wife and mother. She wants some other identity but doesn’t really do anything about it except mope. The time period is not specified, but later it is clear that it’s 20 years or so before the time the novel was written in 1952, so there probably isn’t much she could do, and Mr. Monsoon and the other characters keep making remarks about a woman’s place. Then she meets Rupert Tyce, who is surprised to find her reading Baudelaire in French. Rupert fancies himself a cultured man about town, so they begin spending time together.

George and Amy drift apart, and eventually the question becomes whether the marriage will survive.

This isn’t a serious novel, though. The characters are eccentric, and most of them do very little. A lot of attention goes to a stinking ditch and the excess of pigeons on the property. Mr. Monsoon does less and less, and when he hands the household affairs to his sons, they are shocked at how he has mismanaged them. Mrs. Monsoon is unappreciated and keeps taking to her bed. It’s all fairly silly in an entertaining way.

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How Many Top Books Have I Read?

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Last week, the New York Times released a list of its top books since 2000. Glancing down at the titles of both the 10 Best Books from each year and the Notable Books, I realized that, at least for the first few years, I had read at least one book. So, I decided it might be fun to post the list of books I have read from each year. I only looked at the titles shown by their covers in the article, skipping the long lists of Notable Books.

2023

From the 10 Best Books:

None yet, but I have The Bee Sting and Northwoods in my pile.

From the 7 top Notable Books:

And I have The Covenant of Water in my pile.

2022

From the 10 Best Books:

From the 7 top Notable Books:

2021

From the 10 Best Books:

From the 7 top Notable Books:

2020

From the 10 Best Books:

From the 7 top Notable Books:

2019

From the 10 Best Books:

From the 7 top Notable Books:

2018

From the 10 Best Books:

From the 7 top Notable Books:

2017

From the 10 Best Books:

From the 7 top Notable Books

2016

From the 10 Best Books:

From the 7 top Notable Books

2015

From the 10 Best Books:

From the 7 Top Notable Books:

2014

From the 10 Best Books:

From the 7 top Notable Books

2013

From the 10 Best Books:

2012

From the 10 Best Books:

From the top 7 Notable Books:

2011

From the 10 Best Books:

From the top 7 Notable Books:

  • IQ84 by Haruki Murakami (Now, we’re to ones I read before I started blogging. So, no link.)
  • The Cat’s Table by Michael Ondaatje

2010

From the 10 Best Books:

From the top 7 Notable Books:

2009

From the top 7 Notable Books:

2008

From the 10 Best Books:

2007

From the 10 Best Books:

  • Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson

From the 7 top Notable Books:

2006

From the 10 Best Books:

From the 7 top Notable Books:

2005

From the 10 Best Books:

From the 7 top Notable Books:

  • Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel
  • Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. R. Rowling

2004

From Editor’s Choice:

From the 7 top Notable Books:

2003

From the Editor’s Choice:

From the 7 top Notable Books:

  • Any Human Heart by William Boyd

2002

From Editor’s Choice:

  • Atonement by Ian McEwan
  • Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

2001

From Editor’s Choice:

  • The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
  • John Adams by David McCullough
  • True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey

2000

From the 7 top Notable Books:

  • The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

Have you read any of these books? What did you think?

And here’s an added bonus,

My Favorites of the Books in This List

In the order in which they occur:

  • Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll
  • The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
  • Educated by Tara Westover
  • Everything Under by Daisy Johnson
  • All the Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld
  • The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt
  • The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
  • Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
  • Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel
  • Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
  • A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
  • Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
  • Any Human Heart by William Boyd
  • Atonement by Ian McEwan

My Least Favorite

Again, in the order in which they appear, and there were some that I really hated:

  • The Vegetarian by Jean Kang
  • All That Man Is by David Szalay
  • The Sellout by Paul Beatty (DNF)
  • Beatlebone by Kevin Barry
  • Beyond Black by HIlary Mantel (DNF, sorry Hilary, I usually love you)
  • A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by David Eggars

Review 2433: Prophet Song

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When I’m reading books for my projects, I don’t really look to see what they’re about, I just find them and read them. Prophet Song was for my Booker project, and I was dismayed when I realized it is a dystopian novel, since that is not my thing and I had recently read another one.

However, I soon realized I had read another novel by Lynch, Grace, a historical novel about the Irish famine, and I had forgotten how much I liked it. When you think of it, the famine was dystopian in its own way.

This novel rings lots of bells. It makes you think not only of Nazi Germany, but of Putin’s Russia, the Ukraine, and our own refugee crisis. Actually, refugee crises around the world.

The novel starts with a knock on the door. Ireland has recently voted in an ultra-right party, and the government has declared a sort of martial law, against what, it is not clear. A newly formed department, the GSNB, has sent officers to investigate a complaint about Larry Stack’s role as a union representative for the Irish Teacher’s Union. Larry answers that there is nothing wrong with him helping the union bargain for better pay and conditions, but it’s clear they’re trying to head off a planned strike with threats.

When Larry attends the strike, he doesn’t return. Nor can his wife Eilish find out what happened to him. Nor can the union solicitor. Normal rights have been suspended.

Eilish is left to care for her father, who is slowly succumbing to dementia, and her four children—Mark 16, Molly 15, Bailey 13, and Ben, a baby. Eilish goes on planning her Easter visit to her sister Áine in Canada, hoping that Larry will be free by then, but then Mark and Ben are denied passports.

Things go from bad to worse: Larry’s name is published in a list of subversives in the paper, and their house and car are vandalized. Mark receives a call-up to the military on his 17th birthday. Eilish’s sister keeps urging her to leave, but she won’t leave Larry and Mark, after Mark disappears to join the rebels.

This is an absolutely gripping story that keeps building and building. It is written in Lynch’s poetic prose, with long paragraphs that pull you along and create a sense of urgency.

Dystopian or not, this novel is excellent.

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Review 2432: The Hunter

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I always look forward to Tana French’s latest novel, and when it arrives, it jumps to the top of my pile. This one follows up on her last novel, The Searcher.

And really, it’s necessary to spoil the ending of The Searcher to explain this novel, although readers who haven’t read it may be able to get along without reading it. The main character of both novels is Cal Hooper, a retired detective from Chicago who moved to the countryside outside the Irish village of Ardnaskelty because he liked the look and feel of it. In the previous novel, Trey, a girl from a no-hope family, asked Cal to find out what happened to her older brother, Brendan, who disappeared. Cal did, and here’s the spoiler for that book—he had to make her promise not to take revenge against her brother’s murderers, who are all men of Ardnaskelty, although she doesn’t know which ones.

Now Trey is a teenager. Cal has been teaching her to do woodworking, and they have been buying furniture, fixing it up, and selling it and even occasionally making custom furniture. Trey’s family has been considered trash, but Trey herself is starting to earn some respect despite rough edges.

Then Trey’s father, Johnny Reddy, who abandoned his family years ago, returns. Cal dislikes and distrusts him on sight. Soon, the villagers find out that Johnny has a big plan for getting rich.

He has befriended a British man named Cillian Rushborough, a rich man whose people came from Ardnakelty. Rushborough is full of his grandmother’s story that gold used to be found on the mountain, and that it will have been swept down to the river. Johnny has convinced the villagers who own land along the river to go in together and salt the river with gold so that Rushborough will pay them to look for gold on their land. Cal isn’t invited to take part in this scheme, but he pushes his way in to keep an eye on Reddy. Once he meets Rushborough, he knows something else is going on.

Unfortunately, Trey sees her father’s scheme as a way to get back at the men who killed her brother. So, although she wants her father to leave, she starts helping him with it. Then, a body is found.

French usually pulls me right into her books, but for some reason, the setup of the scam kept losing my attention. Finally, though, things got moving and, as usual, French does not fail to fascinate.

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Review 2431: Forest Silver

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Forest Silver is a love story but not the kind you might expect. It is steeped in the love of the Lake District, particularly Grasmere.

It’s early in World War II, but Wing-Commander Richard Blunt has already been invalided out. He has received the Victorian Cross but been told his heart is not up to much. He has also broken off his engagement. Aware that the engagement news will be published soon, he jumps on a train to the Lake District to get away from everything.

Arriving in Grasmere, he finds it stuffed with evacuees as well as vacationers. He manages to get a room, but noting an island in the lake, he decides he’d like to live there and asks who owns it. He is directed to Bonfire Hall to speak to Miss de Bainriggs.

Much to his astonishment, he finds his prospective landlord is a tall teenaged girl who dresses like a boy. She agrees to lease him the island, which is occupied by a sort of barn called a hogg-house. However, there is some unpleasantness because a Gypsy woman named Jownie Wife has been living there and has to be evicted.

Corys de Bainriggs takes seriously her ownership of the estate and is determined not to sell an inch of it even though she is broke and a wealthy evacuee is offering large sums, foreseeing that the local hotels will be commandeered. However, Jownie Wife takes her revenge on Corys by burning down the house of one of her dependents, Old John. Old John refuses to live anywhere but his own home, and because she’s afraid he will die, she sells some lake acreage to Mr. Lovely so that she can rebuild Old John’s house.

Blunt befriends Corys and eventually understands himself to be in love with her. But Corys is much too young for such things. Things are made more complicated by the appearance on the scene of Gerald Lovely, a university student, and of Maimie Ozzard, Richard’s ex-fianceé, whose parents have been killed by a bomb and has no one to turn to.

The descriptions of the area are beautiful and the picture of wartime life in a place that has to adjust to so many new people is interesting and different than the wartime stories I have read. Ward is an evocative writer and storyteller.

I received this book from the publishers in exchange for a free and fair review.

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WWW Wednesday

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Well, I guess The Chocolate Lady has got me into something with her WWW Wednesday, which she does once a month. I had some encouragement when I tried it last month, so what the heck. Maybe I’ll make it a habit, although I don’t know if I’ll do it every month.

The idea is to talk about what you’re reading now, what you just read, and what you plan to read.

What Am I Reading Now?

By now, I mean I just literally picked this book up to start it, The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons. I may have read one book by this Southern writer before, but I am not sure. I got it because someone told me it was a good ghost story. I love a good ghost story. I’ll have to let you know about it, because I have literally not even read the first sentence yet.

I just checked the copyright date (1978), and this novel is going to help me fill a hole in my Century of Books project.

What Did I Just Finish Reading?

The last book I read, I enjoyed very much. It was Westwood by Stella Gibbons. It is partially about a naïve and suggestible young schoolteacher’s hero-worship of an older renowned playwright, a pompous and humorless man who thinks he’s god’s gift to literature and likes to philander with beautiful young women, one of which she is not. Some of the scenes with this character and the descriptions of the plots of his plays made me laugh out loud.

With a publication date of 1947, this book also helped me fill a hole in my Century of Books project.

What Will I Read Next?

I just realized today that I needed to get hopping on my next book for Literary Wives. The date to post our reviews is the first Monday in June, and since I write up my reviews ahead of time, I have almost got up to it! So, I have to get reading. It is waiting for me to pick up at the library. I know nothing about it, Recipe for a Perfect Wife by Karma Brown.

Sadly, its 2019 publication date does not fill a hole in my project.

What about you? Have you read any of these books? What are you reading?

Review 2430: The Other Side of Mrs. Wood

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In 1873 London, Mrs. Wood is the most successful medium in society. She is worried about the future, though, because her patrons are getting older and at 40, she doesn’t seem to be appealing to the younger folks. To make things worse, Mr. Larson, who takes care of her money, has just informed her that a large investment in a mine has been lost. Things are going to be tight until some ships he invested in arrive.

Mrs. Wood cuts where she can, but unfortunately her profession requires her to have an appearance of respectable wealth.

A girl has been hanging around outside her meetings, which are invitation only. When Mrs. Wood catches her, a Miss Finch, she learns that Miss Finch would like to become her student. She says she has some talent. Without consulting her friend and assistant, Miss Newman, Mrs. Wood decides to take her on, thinking that as a young, attractive girl, she will attract younger patrons.

Miss Newman distrusts Miss Finch, but Mrs. Wood goes ahead with her plans, even excusing some costly mistakes that Miss Finch makes. What she doesn’t know is that Miss Finch’s intentions are bad ones and that she knows more about Mrs. Wood’s past than Mrs. Wood thought anyone knew.

Without remembering any synopsis of this novel, I immediately distrusted Miss Finch, getting a growing feeling of dread that stalled me a bit in my reading. I also felt that the middle part of the novel went on a bit too long. However, when Mrs. Wood pulls herself together, the culmination is very satisfying. I think the very end of the book, though, was a bit unbelievable.

If you read my blog, you know I’m a stickler for accuracy in a historical novel, although not an expert in the details. However, just as a side note, Barker uses the word “twee” on page two, not in conversation but in the main character’s thoughts. I thought that seemed like a modern word, so I looked it up. Sure enough, it was not in use until 1905. Oops!

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