Review 2341: #1937Club! Beginning with a Bash

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I really enjoyed reading Alice Tilton’s The Iron Clew a few years ago for the 1947 Club so when I saw that Beginning with a Bash qualified for the 1937 Club, I was delighted. And this novel proved to be as much of a romp as the other.

This year, because I had so many previous reviews for books published in 1937, I did a separate posting. You can see that list here.

Beginning with a Bash is Tilton’s first book featuring Leonidas Witherall, the ex-teacher who looks just like William Shakespeare, so that his friends call him Bill. The novel begins with Martin Jones fleeing the police down a Boston street on a wintry day, clad inappropriately in flannels and carrying a set of golf clubs. He takes refuge in a used bookstore, where he finds Leonidas, his ex-teacher, as well as Dot, an old friend and new bookstore owner. There Martin explains that after he got his dream job at an anthropological society, $50,000 in bonds disappeared. (In a nod to Bookish Beck and what she calls book serendipity, this is the second book I’ve read in a month that involved stolen bonds.) Even after Martin was proved innocent, his boss John North fired him. He has lost his home, got accidentally mixed in with a demonstration by Communist sympathizers and got arrested again, and is a vagrant, so when someone snatched a lady’s purse, the police thought it was him.

Martin is hiding out in the bookstore when he discovers John North dead in the back, having been bashed over the head. The police naturally arrest Martin for murder. However, Leonidas notices that on that same morning two different customers came in looking for volume four of the same obscure book of sermons, and John North was one of them.

Leonidas decides that there’s nothing for it but that he and Dot must figure out who killed John North so that Martin can be set free. In no time at all, they have accumulated helpers in the form of North’s maid Gerty, her gangster boyfriend Freddy, and the indomitable widow of the governor, Agatha Jordan. They blithely engage in house breaking, vehicle theft, and even kidnapping while being chased around by other gangsters and hiding from the police. And let’s not forget that aside from stolen bonds, the story involves secret passageways, gun battles, and capture. All of this is told in a breezy style with lots of humor. It’s a totally improbable story but lots of fun.

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Getting a Head Start on the #1937Club: Previously Reviewed Books from 1937

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As usual, when preparing for the year club, hosted twice a year by Stuck in a Book and Kaggy’s Bookish Ramblings, I look to see what I have already reviewed for that year. For next week’s club, the 1937 Club, I had quite a few previous reviews. I listed them at the beginning of my first review for the club, and then I saw that She Reads Novels, in a similar situation, had done a separate post for hers. What a good idea! So, I’m copying her.

Alas, Poor Lady by Rachel Ferguson tells how an elderly spinster from a wealthy family ends up living on charity. It makes striking points about the education of women in the late 19th century.

Busman’s Honeymoon by Dorothy L. Sayers begins on Lord Peter Wimsey’s honeymoon with Harriet Vane, when they discover the body of their landlord in the basement.

Death of Mr. Dodsley by John Ferguson finds a bookstore owner, Mr. Dodsley, dead in his shop. Oddly, the death follows the plot of a recently published murder mystery.

Death on the Nile is one of Agatha Christie’s most well-known books. Hercule Poirot’s pleasure trip down the Nile is interrupted by arguments between former lovers and then the murder of one of the lovers’ new wife.

The Lady and the Unicorn is Rumer Godden’s story about an Anglo-Indian family in Calcutta. One of the daughters falls in love with a young English gentleman, but it’s a doomed romance that is echoed by a haunting in the family’s old house.

Lady Rose and Mrs. Memmary by Ruby Ferguson is a bit similar to Rachel Ferguson’s Alas, Poor Lady, but it’s about the fall of the aristocracy, and its heroine, Lady Rose, is married, not a spinster.

Mystery in White by J. Jefferson Farjeon takes place after a train is snowbound during Christmas. Some of the passengers try to find their way to the nearest town but end up taking shelter in an abandoned house. They think something bad has happened there, and then they learn that someone was murdered on the train.

Summer Half is the fifth novel in Angela Thirkell’s Barsetshire series. Before starting in the law, Colin Keith takes a summer job teaching at Southbridge School, where he is a witness to the romance of another teacher and the headmaster’s idiotically beautiful and selfish daughter. Later in the series, she improves.

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is about the struggles of Janey Crawford in her relationships with men. It is also about a town in Florida founded by black people, in which I learned later, Hurston grew up, making me wonder if the novel was based on the story of her mother.

They Found Him Dead is one of Georgette Heyer’s few mystery novels. First, a businessman is found dead at the bottom of a cliff and then his heir is shot. Will someone go after the next heir?

They Were Found Wanting by Miklós Bánffy is the second book of Bánffy’s Transylvania trilogy. Along with a love affair, it documents the failures of the Hungarian parliament as Europe heads towards World War I.

World Light by Halldór Laxness is about how the world treats a gentle soul. Although I enjoyed other books by Laxness, especially Independent People, I couldn’t finish this one once I knew where it was going.

WWW Wednesday

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You might be wondering why I’m not posting as often as I used to. Well, the answer is that I got caught up with myself in reading, and instead of being several months of books ahead of myself, I’m only about two weeks ahead, so I decided first not to post on Wednesdays except for special reasons, and then a little later, when the situation did not improve, not to post on Fridays. This situation will be fluid, like it has been since I started blogging. If I get way ahead of myself again, I’ll start posting on Fridays. I like being ahead on my reading, because it allows me to choose more carefully the order of books instead of having to review the next book I read.

Anyway, the Chocolate Lady is always doing bloggy type activities where she joins with other folks, and I don’t usually have time. Plus some of them take some planning. But she is occasionally doing WWW Wednesdays (I don’t know what WWW stands for, and she doesn’t explain), which seemed like an easy thing to take part in. If you want to take part, you just have to answer three questions: What are you reading now? What did you recently finish reading? What will you read next?

What am I reading now?

Right now, I am reading a Dean Street book from their Furrowed Middlebrow imprint, Family Ties by Celia Buckmaster. This gives me an opportunity to lobby for Dean Street publishing more Furrowed Middlebrow books. I know they are tied up in estate issues now, but I hope they will reconsider closing down this imprint. If you want them to continue with Furrowed Middlebrow maybe send them a message on their Facebook page, and please comment here! I am only a few pages into this book, and so far it seems to be about eccentric family life in a village. I always enjoy relaxing with a Furrowed Middlebrow book!

Technically speaking, I am also reading Ferdydurke by Witold Gombrowicz. I chose this book to read for the 1937 Club (coming up next week), but so far I just haven’t been able to hack it. It is supposed to be his masterpiece, and it is about a grown man who gets turned into an 11-year-old boy and put back in school. If that sounds juvenile, it is. I got into it about 70 pages and put it aside. Every time I finish another book, I look at it and say “Nah!”

What did I recently finish reading?

The last book I read was The Immortal King Rao by Vauhini Vara, which is part of my Pulitzer Prize project. One of my habits, maybe it’s a foible, is just to check the library periodically to see which books in my projects are available and get them without reading what they’re about. And in fact, I do the same thing with all the books in my stack. At some point I have usually read what they are about but I don’t do that right before I begin reading them. Well, for this book, the timing was unfortunate, because it is a dystopian novel, and not only do I not usually read dystopian novels, but it seems like recently everyone is writing them. And, in fact, I had read three just in the past few weeks. Now, don’t get me wrong, one of them was wonderful, as you’ll find out when I review it. I didn’t have as positive of an experience with The Immortal King Rao, although I didn’t dislike it. You’ll have to wait for my review, which should be coming up in a couple of weeks.

What will I read next?

When I troll the libraries for my project books (online, of course), I usually try to get one for each of my projects, although often I cannot find the Walter Scott Historical Fiction project books there and have to buy them. (That means they go into my pile and I get to them a lot later. I should do something about that. The Bee Sting has been there for quite a while.) Last time I trolled, I ended up with The Immortal King Rao for my Pulitzer project and Real Life by Brandon Taylor and Prophet Song by Paul Lynch for my Booker Prize project. (I am still waiting for After Sappho by Shelby Wynn Schwartz to arrive for my James Tait Black Project.) I have read Prophet Song, so after I finish my current book, I’ll read Real Life. As usual, I have no idea what it is about. I hope it’s not dystopian.

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

Review 2340: Firebird

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I am not very comfortable with poetry, because I don’t have the patience to unpack a poem or the background to catch many of the allusions. Plus, I’m not good at wordplay, so, you’ll have to bear with me on this one.

Ginczanka was a Polish Jew who was executed by the Nazis toward the end of World War II. Firebird is a reprint of her only published book, On Centaurs, of 1936, and her uncollected poems from 1936-1944. Her last poem, “Non omnis moriar,” (it’s untitled, but these are the first words) is famous because it names the woman who turned her over to the Nazis and was used to prosecute her after the war.

I was more comfortable with the earlier poems, because I found them easier to understand. Later, the line lengths are longer and more prose-like, which I ironically find harder to read. Many of them have biblical allusions or allusions to mythology or ancient history, things I can catch but not necessarily understand.

These are my foibles, but I also noticed lots of striking phrases. Two poems struck me in particular—“Grammar,” about the love of words, and “Virginity,” which pits an earthy fecundity against an arid intellectualism.

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

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Review 2339: The Quiet Tenant

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For five years, the woman in the shed has been captive, padlocked in, handcuffed to a table, subject to repeated rape. Her captor lives in the house with his wife and child. But his wife has recently died, and his in-laws, who own the house, want to sell it. When he tells her he has to move, she knows it means her death. She knows when he has been out killing, but she has managed so far to talk him out of killing her, and now she convinces him to move her.

Emily is the owner of a restaurant and serves as its bartender. She is in love with handsome Adrian Thomas, who comes in regularly for a nonalcoholic drink. His wife has recently died, and she thinks he is showing interest in her.

In between short chapters from the women’s points of view are even shorter ones from the points of view of his victims.

This novel is certainly readable and suspenseful, but I had a few problems with it. First, the tone of the chapters by the victims is all wrong. These chapters make up a very small portion of the novel, however.

I had a bigger problem with the unlikelihood of the captive woman not taking several opportunities to escape. The first time, when Adrian absentmindedly doesn’t lock the handcuffs properly, is explained by her belief that the house has hidden cameras and Adrian’s omission may have even been a test. But I don’t know. I think most people would try. It’s less believable when she decides not to leave without the 13-year-old daughter, Cecilia, especially since as soon as she got to police, Cecilia would not be in danger. I found this really unlikely after Adrian leaves her free in the house during Christmas break while he is at work. She would have had all day to get away. She knows by the end that he has tricked her about the cameras, so she should be able to guess he’s tricking her about the so-called GPS tracker he put on her wrist.

Still, if you want to ignore such details, the novel is certainly a page-turner.

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Review 2338: My Death

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The unnamed narrator of My Death is a novelist who has been unable to write since her husband died a year ago. She has been isolated in a house in the west of Scotland. She decides to try biography instead and chooses the figure of Helen Ralston, whose accomplishments as an artist and writer were overshadowed by her tumultuous affair with her mentor, W. E. Logan, another artist.

When she begins to look into the subject, she finds that all of Ralston’s books are out of print but Logan’s are not. However, Ralston is in her 90s and eager to meet her and share her journals and photos. The narrator is struck with unease, however, when she sees a painting by Ralston entitled My Death, a supposed landscape of an island that is really a painting of the artist’s most intimate parts. As she continues her research, she keeps finding odd echoes of her own life.

This novella is described as gothic, but I wouldn’t exactly call it that, although it is unsettling and weird. Important to Tuttle is the theme of, as the Introduction by Amy Gentry puts it, “the erasure of women’s authorship by men.” That is certainly at work here, as she based some of the details of Ralson’s life on that of Laura Riding, an American poet and lover of Robert Graves, who accused Graves of stealing material.

This is an involving story that at first seems straightforward but gets odder and odder. I found it fascinating. Tuttle is in general a science fiction writer, but despite that I may look for more by her.

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

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Review 2337: The Berry Pickers

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Joe’s Mi’kmaq family travels every year from Nova Scotia to Maine, where his dad is the foreman of the berry pickers and the rest pick berries, too. In 1962, Joe’s little sister Ruthie disappears from where they left her sitting on a rock eating a sandwich near their camp. The police don’t give them much help. The family searches for her for days but does not find her and continues to look for her in subsequent years..

Now an older man dying of cancer, Joe has lived most of his life away from the family, blaming himself for events caused by his anger. He has finally returned home to die, surrounded by his family but not Ruthie.

While Joe looks back over his life, we hear from Norma. As a child, Norma had dreams of another home, another mother, a brother named Joe. She also had an imaginary friend named Ruthie. But her mother told her it was just her imagination—her neurotic, overprotective mother who barely let her go outside. It’s not too hard to guess Norma is Ruthie.

Every other chapter is Norma’s, as she grows up, sometimes receiving clues about her identity but never really going there.

The novel is built around whether Norma will find her family before Joe dies. There’s not much doubt about that, although the ending is touching.

I thought the idea behind this novel was an interesting one, although in Norma’s mother Peters has invented a monstrous creation, as proved by her family keeping her secret to pacify her. I think we’re supposed to feel some sympathy with this grief-stricken woman, but I absolutely didn’t, and even though her husband is a sympathetic character, I couldn’t fathom his actions.

That aside, Peters’ writing is fairly commonplace, with lots of clichés. I found her characters flattish. I was a little disappointed in this one.

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Review 2336: An English Ghost Story

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In an attempt to solve their family problems, the Naremores decide to look for a house outside the city. As soon as they see the Hollow, they love it. It is a large house with towers set in an apple orchard. The previous owner was Louise Magellan Teazle, the author of many children’s books. At the Hollow, all four Naremores feel a sense of well-being.

Although the family loves living at the Hollow, they are much like four islands. Steve is a successful business owner who believes he is constantly trying to rescue his wife Kirsty from ill-conceived business ventures instigated by her best friend, Veronica, whom he dislikes. The latest one cost him a lot of money, especially because Kirsty made Veronica a partner even though she invested no money—and Veronica is still racking up debts against the closed business. Steve spends most of his time in his office working.

Kirsty was a reader of Teazle’s Weezy series, so she’s the first one to realize that the house played a part in the books. She has even found the magic chest of drawers—which produces something new from the bottom drawer, a jumble from the middle drawer, and always the same thing from the top drawer. She misses Veronica and believes her family’s demands have kept her from succeeding at something of her own. Although she has taken on the traditional housewife role, most of the time it is hard to tell what she is doing.

Teenage Jordan is wrapped up in her first romance with her boyfriend, Rick. She spends most of her time in her room imagining showing Rick around the Hollow.

Ten-year-old Tim spends his time outside pretending to be a soldier patrolling the perimeter. No one seems to pay him any attention, but he is aware of the “locals” almost immediately.

All but Steve are aware on some level that there are other presences in the house and on the property. As these presences seem friendly, the family feels renewed, but when the family starts falling into old patterns, the house turns against them.

I am always looking for a good ghost story, but at some point this wasn’t it. It seemed promising. Newman did the buildup really well. However, when the horrors got going, they just seemed silly to me. I always find horrors that seem possible a lot scarier than things that are invented just to be scary. For me, the events during the haunting didn’t make sense, although there was logic in the overall idea.

Also, the Naremores out of the influence of the house are not very likable people. Steve gets more and more wrapped up with a macho sense that he’s taking care of his family—to the point where he ultimately seems insane. Kirsty is disdainful toward Steve and resents her family. Jordan is a fairly typical teenager wrapped up in herself, and Tim seems to have no personality at all. He is so obsessed with his game that he is truly boring.

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Review 2335: Silence

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I was interested in this novel because of its setting in 17th century Japan. However, although it is considered the author’s masterpiece, it is almost completely about religious faith, Roman Catholic faith, in fact, although the particular religion doesn’t affect my lack of interest in that subject.

Although the Japanese originally welcomed the Portuguese and allowed missionaries and conversions, by 1627 when the novel begins, the shogun has closed the country’s borders and outlawed Christianity. Word comes back that Christóvão Ferreira of the Society of Jesuits is apostate in Japan.

Three of his former students cannot believe this of their beloved leader. So, Francisco Garrpe, Juan de Santa Maria, and Sebastian Rodrigues get permission to journey to Japan in hopes of finding Ferreira.

After a long and difficult journey, Garrpe and Rodrigues arrive in Japan, Santa Maria being too ill to leave Macao. In Japan, they immediately take up a life of hiding, the situation being perilous, while they wonder if they have the inner strength to be martyred. They have come from Macao with the only Japanese man they could find there, a shifty man named Kichijiro, who says he is not a Christian. However, when they reach Japan, he takes them to a village of Christians who say he is one.

Several times Rodrigues has to witness Japanese being tortured or killed for being Christians, and he begins to wonder why God remains silent while Christians suffer. His battles with doubt become the focus of the novel.

Although the novel is historically interesting, the continual mental thrashing is not, at least not to me, nor are the religious arguments between him and Japanese authorities after he is caught. However, someone interested in religion may find them so. I also found distasteful the fascination with becoming a martyr.

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