Review 2242: The Oppermanns

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One of my brothers and I have gotten into the habit of buying each other books that we think are excellent. The Oppermanns was his Christmas present to me, and I just got around to reading it.

The novel is astounding because it was written concurrently with the events it describes, That is, it begins late in 1932 and ends in the summer of 1933 and was written during that time period. It tells the story of a wealthy German Jewish family. It’s considered the last masterpiece of the German-Jewish literary movement.

The Oppermanns are wealthy well-known residents of Berlin whose family owns a chain of furniture stores. Martin runs the stores. Gustav is an intellectual who spends most of his time enjoying art, literature, and music. Edgar is a world-famous scientist and surgeon. At the beginning of the novel, all three are happy with their lives, and although Martin has half-heartedly sought a merger with a competitor to mask the Jewish ownership of the family store, he has muffed it and doesn’t much care. The Nationalists, as the Nazis are referred to throughout the novel, seem to be on the wane.

However, within weeks the Leader (his name is never mentioned) has been made Chancellor because foolish landowners and big business, having drained the country dry, think they can use the Nationalists. Things begin to turn bad. One of Gustav’s friends emigrates to Palestine, but Gustav thinks he is being alarmist. After all, this kind of thing has happened before, and it always dies down.

This novel documents the slow horror of the Nationalist take-over (not so slow, really) and shows how easy it is to fool oneself and stay in one’s comfort zone even when it becomes uncomfortable.

The novel is all the more chilling because of how early it is written, because readers today know more about what will happen than Feuchtwanger did. It has a slightly optimistic ending, implying that the German people—whom he always differentiates from the Nazis—would not put up with brutality forever, but of course we know the German people didn’t stop anything.

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Review 2241: Suddenly at His Residence

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The grandchildren of Sir Richard March gather together in London to drive down to Swanswater Manor for an annual remembrance of Serafita, Sir Richard’s first wife. They are driving down with Philip and his wife Ellen, but before others arrive, his cousin Claire forces an admission from Philip about his relationship with her. Philip tells his wife he wants to be with Claire. Ellen seems to take this lightly, but she is upset.

It’s clear that the young people behave brashly with each other and tease their grandfather. He, however, becomes offended and vows to disinherit them all and make his second wife, Bella, his sole heir. Peta is currently the principal heir, but Philip, Claire, and Edward are due to get some money.

That afternoon, Sir Richard insists on spending the night by himself in a lodge after summoning Stephen Garde, his solicitor, to change his will. During the afternoon, Bella and Peta go there to try to convince him to sleep in the house or accept company, and Ellen takes him his green pen. In the evening the gardener rakes and sands all the paths around the lodge.

In the morning, Claire goes to the lodge and finds Sir Richard dead. Her tracks are clearly the only ones on the path. The family assumes he died from his heart condition, but he turns out to be poisoned with his medication.

The family tries not to think the murderer may be 17-year-old Edward, whose mother’s fascination with psychiatry has lead him to fancy himself with problems and who allegedly goes into fugue states. Although Edward knows that some of his problems are feigned, sometimes he’s not sure what he has done.

Inspector Cockrill is not sure who committed the murder, but the inquest finds a verdict of murder against Ellen because of a silly theory that she could have injected the poison using his pen, but also because she is the only “foreigner.”

Aside from the ridiculous belief that looking up suddenly could bring on a fugue state, which I assume was a belief of the time, I liked the characterization in this novel, which is accomplished mostly by dialogue. I thought that one aspect of the solution was unlikely and that the motive was thin. However, generally I enjoyed this one.

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

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Review 2240: Deception

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Since I discovered recently that I had missed one of Denise Mina’s books, I looked again and found I had also missed Deception (also published as Sanctum), from 2002.

Lachlan Harriot is on his way to his wife Susie’s trial at the beginning of Deception. She is a psychiatrist accused of having had an affair with a convicted serial killer, Andrew Gow, and then murdering him and his wife after he was released from prison on appeal. Lachlan is sure she is innocent and will get off. He is certain she never had an affair with Gow.

But Susie is convicted after the prosecution spins a lurid story. Lachlan begins spending his insomnia-filled nights in Susie’s office—previously off-limits—looking for evidence that can be used for an appeal. Slowly, he begins turning up indications that nothing is what he thought it was, starting with proof that Susie has lied. Months before the murder, she was fired from her job at the prison after being accused of stealing Gow’s files. She always said she was fired because of sexism and did not take the files. But Lachlan finds them in the office.

This is a slow-building novel that takes a little patience. The facts Lachlan turns up aren’t as shocking as promised by the cover blurbs, but Mina is a superb plotter. The book doesn’t disappoint.

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Review 2239: Love Comes Home

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Jane Cranstoun is enjoying her stay in London with friends George and Kitty Mariner when she is summoned home by her mother because of the return from finishing school of her sister, Love. Jane is not really looking forward to going home, where she is expected to take charge of numerous commitments made by her mother, but also because she has begun to hope for a proposal of marriage from John Marsh, a young naval officer.

At her farewell party, Jane gets her proposal and accepts it but asks John to keep it a secret until her parents get to know him better. He has recently accepted a post that is nearer to her parents’ house in Scotland, so he agrees.

On the train north Jane meets Peregrine Gilbert, whom she takes to be shy and uninteresting, not realize he has become her neighbor. Then she meets him again the next morning and tries to send him off for trespassing.

When John appears, Love begins monopolizing him and throwing Jane together with Peregrine. In fact, there was a scene before he appears when I was certain Love already knew John. But that turns out not to be the case, even though it’s clear Love means to marry him before she even meets him. Silly misunderstandings lead to a broken engagement, and this situation was clumsily handled, I thought. In fact, although Love explains later that she thinks Jane and John are not well suited, she has decided this before she ever meets John.

I have enjoyed reading Clavering, but this one, I think, is the closest to a standard pattern romance than the others. I didn’t like Love, who takes over the story gradually until it is more about her. I also didn’t like John or later Kitty when she reappears. The only characters I liked were Jane and Peregrine and the girls’ brother, Meggie. Love is supposed to be 19, but she acts more like 14. I was a little disappointed in this one.

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Review 2238: Castle Rackrent

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Castle Rackrent is a novel I picked for my Classics Club list. Published in 1800 although set before 1782, it is an early example of the use of an unreliable narrator.

That narrator is Thady Quirk, a servant to the ancient Irish Rackrent family, but the novel is also annotated by a scholarly character called the Editor. Thady informs us in the first paragraph that he’s known as “Honest Thady,” a phrase that puts us on the alert.

Thady quickly runs through the older history of the family and then tells in greater detail the story of the last three owners of the Castle, Sir Murtagh, Sir Kit, and Sir Condy. These are satirical tales of mismanagement either by penny pinching and bleeding the tenants or by wasteful consumption. Thady is vehement in his avowals of support for the family and in this role makes some astonishing assertions, such as, about Sir Kit who married a woman for her money and then locked her away for seven years because she refused to give him her jewels, “He was never cured of his gaming tricks, but that was the only fault he had, God bless him.”

This novel is a light commentary on the class system and its abuses, as the series of barons get up to all manner of hijinks while the servants (particularly Thady and his son) arrange to purchase assets at low prices. It is moderately funny but is considered by critics to be an astonishing first novel by a woman at this period.

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Review 2237: The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side

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It’s been interesting rereading a few Jane Marple books after I so recently viewed the television versions, because although I have known the identity of each murderer, I’ve been better able to judge how fair Christie is playing. That is, are there clues to the solution? In The Mirror Crack’d there are.

The villagers of St. Mary Mead are agog to hear that the famous actress, Marina Gregg, has purchased Gossington Hall (the site of The Body in the Library) and will be hosting the local fête. Miss Marple’s friend Mrs. Bantry, who used to own the house, will be a special guest.

At home, Miss Marple is a bit unhappy. She is no longer allowed to garden, and her doctor thinks she shouldn’t live alone. The solution is the kind but obnoxious Mrs. Knight, who talks in the plural and hovers and doesn’t listen to Miss Marple. One day Miss Marple sends her out shopping so she can escape and goes to investigate the new housing development. She has a fall and is helped by Heather Badcock, a foolish woman who doesn’t consider how her actions affect others.

At the fête, just after Heather has introduced herself to Marina Gregg and is again telling her how she met her, her drink is spilled. Marina gives Heather her own, and after Heather drinks it, she quickly dies. It is poisoned, but was the victim intended to be Heather or Marina? Neither woman seems to have serious enemies.

I think that this novel has one of the most powerful endings of Christie’s novels. You’ll also be happy to know that Miss Marple finds a way to rid herself of Mrs. Knight.

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Review 2236: The Sun Walks Down

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In 1883 Australia, the Wallace girls are at a wedding and Mathew Wallace is out working. Only six-year-old Denny and his mother are home when she sends him out to gather fuel. A huge dust storm comes up, and instead of staying where he is, he goes in the direction he thinks is home. And he is lost.

The family doesn’t realize he is lost right away, but when they do, Mathew takes off in the direction Denny went, along with Billy, his Aboriginal farmhand. Soon, almost everyone in the area is searching for Denny.

This novel doesn’t have a strong plot. Instead, it follows a mixture of characters during the search. There is Cissy, Denny’s headstrong sister, who joins the search; Constable Robert Manning, newly married, and his wife Minna; Foster, Manning’s superior officer, who ignores his trackers’ advice and follows the wrong trail; Karl and Bess Rapp, two painters who are traveling in the Australian bush looking for subjects to paint; and so on.

This is a beautifully written novel that shows insight into human nature and powerfully describes the Australian landscape. I read it for my Walter Scott prize project.

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If I Gave the Award

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As I have just posted my review of News of the Dead, the last of the shortlisted books for the 2022 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, it is now time for my feature where I decide whether the judges got it right. The shortlisted books are set in 16th century Scotland; 8th, 19th, and 20th century Scotland; 20th century Trinidad, and 20th century Germany, California, and Switzerland. For this year, most of the entries were strong ones.

The book set in 20th century Trinidad, Fortune by Amanda Smythe, is the fictionalized story of a true one, a love triangle that resulted in a disaster. I felt that the characters in this novel were not very interesting and the setting not vividly described. Also, the writing was rather mundane. However, this book was the weakest entry on the shortlist.

The writing in The Magician by Colm Tóibín was not at all mundane. This novel is more difficult to evaluate in the context of my having to pick the best one, because I said only good things about it in my review, but it didn’t make as much of an impression on me as some of the others. A biographical novel about the writer Thomas Mann, the book was intuitive and meditative in tone and Tóibín’s writing is always excellent.

The winner this year was News of the Dead by James Robertson, and I’m guessing it was picked because of its scope. It tells the story of a remote Scottish glen through manuscripts written about a figure in the 8th century, a family in the 19th century, and an individual in the 20th, and how these people found refuge. It was well written, and I certainly found it involving and was unexpectedly touched by the second and third narratives. However, I wasn’t very interested in the first, about a supposed local saint.

Despite the three really good books in this year’s shortlist, it wasn’t difficult for me to pick my favorite because of the lasting impression it gave me despite being the book I read first, in August 2022. That is Rose Nicolson by Andrew Greig. It is set in the difficult times of 16th century Scotland, when people are still fighting about religion, about a young man’s love for an extraordinary young woman who is in danger of being thought a witch just because of her intelligence. I am a big Greig fan, and this was one of his best (although I might put in a word for his Fair Helen).

Review 2235: News of the Dead

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One of the things I like about my shortlist projects is that they bring me into contact with books and authors I probably wouldn’t encounter otherwise. Certainly, I would never have run into News of the Dead if not for my Walter Scott Historical Fiction Prize project.

News of the Dead tells the story of one remote, secluded place—fictional Glen Conach—over the ages, mostly through a set of documents. The oldest is a book written in the middle ages about a Christian hermit the locals call St. Conach even though he’s not recognized as such by any authority. The Book of Conach tells the stories of lessons and miracles performed by the man, who died around 770 AD.

Another narrative is set in 1809 from the diary of Charles Gibb. Gibb is an antiquarian who has wangled himself an invitation to Glen Conach House ostensibly to study and translate The Book of Conach. His real goal, however, is to sponge off the Milnes, the current owners of Glen Conach House, for the summer. He rather cynically observes Glen Conach and his lady and daughter as they do him, at first. But slowly the situation changes.

The third narrative begins slightly pre-Covid and mostly concerns an elderly woman named Maja and her eight-year-old neighbor, Lachie, who likes to visit her. When Covid sets in, she decides to write him a letter telling the story of a girl who came to the glen as a child after World War II.

I did not have much patience for the stories about St. Conach, although it was clever how Robertson used variations of the stories to show how they change. It also, frankly, doesn’t reveal much about daily life except for superstition and wildness.

The other two narratives were a lot more interesting. Gibbs’s began at a fairly cynical level yet what we learn after it stops is surprisingly touching. And Maja’s story had me on the edge of my seat.

There were times when I wondered where this novel was going, but ultimately I found it a lovely examination of refuge. I also want to point out that all three narratives sound like they were written by different people, which they should in good fiction, and which is too often not the case.

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