Tag: novellas

Review 2796: #NovNov26! Water

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Water is the first novella of Boyne’s The Elements. It’s another book I read for Novellas in November.

Vanessa Carvin arrives on a small, sparsely populated island off the coast of Ireland. The first thing she does is change her name to Willow Hale and cut off almost all her hair. Is she in hiding? we wonder.

She is in her 50s and has been married more than half her life. Yet, her thoughts of her husband are angry. Has she fled an abusive marriage?

Slowly, as she leads a quiet life, we learn what has happened. We learn fairly quickly that one of her daughters, Emma, has died but not the circumstances. Her other daughter isn’t taking her calls.

Delicately, mostly keeping herself to herself, she interacts with the islanders, and slowly, we find out why she’s there and what troubles her.

This is a masterful novella, looking into the heart of a deeply troubled woman. It pulls you along and ends with a measure of hope. It’s lovely.

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Review 2795: #NovNov! Loitering with Intent

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Another one for Novellas in November.

Fleur Talbot is working on her first novel, Warrender Chase, when she takes a job at the Autobiographical Association working for Sir Quentin Oliver. Her job is to rework the biographies, which Sir Quentin has convinced the 10 members of the club must be absolutely frank. At first, Fleur is amused by Sir Quentin’s pompous biographical write-ups of the members. She finds the autobiographies deadly boring, so she begins making up details to make them funny. However, she also begins to notice that her work acquaintances are beginning to behave like her own book. She thinks Sir Quentin is up to something underhanded, perhaps blackmail. She dislikes his assistant, Beryl Tims, and her only pleasure in her work is her friendship with Sir Quentin’s eccentric mother, Edwina.

Fleur has been reading her manuscript to some of her friends, among them Dottie, the wife of Fleur’s lover. She makes the mistake of introducing Dottie to Sir Quentin, and Dottie falls under his influence. Eventually, Fleur is able to find a publisher for her work, but the intersection of her book and the Autobiographical Association causes trouble for her after the members get it into their heads that Fleur is writing about them, even though Fleur wrote most of the novel before she met them.

This is an odd and outrageous story that takes a turn for the even more offbeat when someone steals Fleur’s manuscript. Its dark humor is maybe a little dry for me to find it outright funny. Although Fleur finally figures out what Sir Quentin is up to, I have to confess that I didn’t quite get it. Trying to start his own cult, maybe? Certainly, he was trying to manipulate the members of his association. In any case, the book explores the instersection between life and fiction.

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Review 2794: #NovNov! The Anthropologists

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Another one for Novellas in November.

The narrator, Asya, of The Anthropologists is a young woman married to Manu, whom she has known since she was in school. They are both foreigners in their unnamed country, and a sense of tentativeness and lack of ritual preoccupies her, as does their lack of community. Asya, who works as a freelance documentarian and film editor, seems concerned to make more friends, while Manu, who works for a nonprofit, would usually prefer to stay home except for their evenings with their friend Ravi.

Asya, who is seldom named in the novel, is interested in people’s everyday lives, so she decides to do a film about the people in a nearby park. In addition, they both decide it’s time to own an apartment, so they begin looking for a new home. They live simply with few conveniences, which their parents don’t understand.

It’s hard to describe this novel, because it also is concerned with the details of everyday life. The couple look at apartments; visit their upstairs neighbor Tereza, an elderly woman who is losing her memory; hang out with various of their friends and unsuccessfully try to mix them; and so on. Yet, I found myself compelled to read on. The language is spare and simple, the sections short. Every once in a while, in sections called “In the Park,” we hear from the people Asya is interviewing, but this change of narrators is so subtle that it took me until about the fifth one to realize I was hearing from someone else.

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Review 2793: #NovNov! Victorian Psycho

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Here’s another one for Novellas in November. Let me just say right off the bat that if you have a weak stomach, this is not the book for you. Not only is it gory, but even before it gets gory, it has disturbing details.

Winifred Notty has arrived at the home of the Pounds to work as governess for the children. Almost immediately, she has some thoughts that seem odd, and she says she’s repressing her dark self.

The Pounds are not nice people. Their son Andrew is stupid and spoiled. The older child, Drusilla, is pretty much ignored. Mrs. Pounds treats the servants with disdain and soon is jealous of Winifred because Mr. Pounds likes her. Winifred is certainly making up to him, but her intentions are different than we are led to think.

The narrative style is light and humorous, but despite her efforts to be good this time, Winifred’s behavior gets more and more bizarre. Sometimes she can’t remember what she’s been doing. We know from the beginning that everyone in the house will be dead within three months, so it’s just a matter of seeing how that happens.

Judging by her two books, Feito has a fascination with the dark side of humanity. I think this one was a bit too graphic for me, though.

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Review 2792: #NovNov! West

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Here’s my second book for Novellas in November. Bess is 10 when her widowed father, Cy Bellman, decides to go west. He has read an article about the discoveries in Kentucky of the bones of massive animals. What if they are still alive in the vast West? Maybe Lewis and Clark didn’t see them, but what if he took “excursions” from their path? His brain is afire with excitement. He converts most of his money into trinkets for the natives and leaves Bess with her Aunt Julie.

While Bellman is bumbling around, Bess is waiting, sure he will return in two years, as he promised. Out West, Bellman has hired a 17-year-old Native American, a skinny boy named Old Woman From a Distance, as an assistant. They never learn each other’s language. Cy seems unable to drop his obsession.

As time passes and Bess nears her teens, two local pedophiles have their eyes on her.

This little novel leads you on in a subtle way so that you don’t feel you can stop. I found the ending a tad abrupt and unsatisfying, but overall, once you start it, you won’t be able to stop.

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Review 2791: #NovNov! On the Calculation of Volume I

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I didn’t intend to read this novella, because it didn’t sound like my kind of thing. However, so many people were raving about the series that I decided to read it for Novellas in November, hosted by Cathy of 746 Books and Bookish Beck.

Before I start my review, I thought I’d list all the novellas I have read so far this year:

Admittedly, some of these are a few pages longer than the limit of 200 pages.

And now, here’s my review:

I have to say right up front that I don’t understand what the fuss is about. I did want to know what happened, but one thing I knew from the beginning is that Tara isn’t going to get out of her predicament because the series has seven volumes! Of course, people reading the first volume right after it came out wouldn’t know that.

For the few people who don’t know what the book is about, Tara owns a book dealership with her husband, Thomas. She goes on a routine trip to Paris to look in at an auction and try to find some specific books as well as to purchase anything interesting. She arrives on the 17th of November, attends the auction, and buys some books. On the 18th, she buys more books, purchases a Roman coin for Thomas, and visits friends, Philip and Molly, where she burns her hand.

The next day, it is still November 18.

She isn’t stuck repeating the same day, like Bill Murray in Ground Hog Day. She eventually returns home. Some of the books she purchased go with her, but the coin is gone. Thomas is surprised to see her because she was supposed to return on the 19th, so she explains what happened and he believes her. But the next day only she remembers.

The novella is moody and contemplative, as Tara tries to make sense of what’s going on. What is the logic, if there is some, behind what she can keep and what she can’t? What happens to a couple if one person remains the same while the other is changing?

What never seems to occur to her is whether she is the only person experiencing this or if others are. After all, when Thomas is with her, he relives November 18 over and over, but he just doesn’t remember. Maybe everyone is reliving the same day, but she’s the only one who knows it.

The novel makes you think, if only to try to figure out what’s going on. Tara goes through a period of torpor, and then she decides not to put Thomas through the same thing daily, so she moves out, sort of, and he thinks she’s still in Paris and coming home tomorrow.

Of course, the novel is exploring many ideas, particularly the perception of time.

I’m not bothered by the lack of activity in the book, or by its contemplative nature. I just feel distanced from what is going on.

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Review 2646: #NovNov25! The Sweet Dove Died

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It’s November, so it’s time for another yearly event, Novellas in November. I’ll start out this post with a recap of the novella reading I did during the year and finish with my first review. Since the beginning of the year, I’ve been tagging books with the word “novella” so that I don’t have to look at the page count for each. I think that since last year’s event, I have read quite a few more novellas than usual, and at least two that I read about during the event.

Novellas Read So Far This Year

Here are the novellas I have read up to this point, not counting the ones I am reviewing for this event, 20 of them!

I know that some people are counting short nonfiction, but I am not, and anyway, that would only add one more book to this list.

My Review

I decided to include this book as the first one for Novellas in November even though it is a few pages too long at 210. It is a book that wasn’t published for some years after it was written, during a time when Pym was considered past her prime before being rediscovered, and in its subtle way, it’s a little darker than she is known for.

Humphrey Boyce and his nephew James meet Leonora Eyre at a book auction when she nearly faints after a successful bid. Leonora is an elegant woman of a certain age, the kind then considered fragile. (I don’t think we have any of those anymore.) She is single and can be cold, and she is definitely snobbish, but then so are James and Humphrey. Both James and Humphrey are attracted to her, but although she is closer in age to Humphrey, who is in his 60s, she prefers James, in his 20s. (We know Leonora is “of a certain age,” but exactly how old is hard to say. Middle age came earlier even as recently as the 1960s.)

James is comfortable with Leonora, but there is no hint that he feels romantic about her, whereas when Leonora learns he has a girlfriend in the country, Phoebe, she sets to work to drive her away. While he is on a buying trip in Europe, she boots out her old lady tenant and moves his things into the attic apartment in her house, even taking some of them to decorate her own rooms. But he returns with an even more dangerous friend, an American named Ned. In the meantime, Humphrey is competing with James.

James is sweet-tempered and naïve, so he worries about hurting Leonora’s feelings, but she seems to me like an attractive spider. It’s ironic that she disdains her friend Meg for a similar relationship with a young gay man named Colin.

This novel is insightful into human behavior and slightly biting. It contrasts the new behaviors and mores of the young with the much more formal manners of the older characters. In fact, from the first few sentences, when stodgy Humphrey remarks that a book sale is no place for a lady, I wondered if I was in 1867 instead of 1967.

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

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Novellas in November: Planning Post

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In a month, Novellas in November is starting up again, hosted by Cathy of 746 Books and Beck of Bookish Beck. Last year, I think I just plunged into Novellas in November by reading a bunch of novellas, but this year, I see Beck has already launched a Linky for planning posts. (Maybe they did this last year, too, and I just didn’t notice.) So, here I am throwing together a planning post.

I tend to read well before I publish unless something unexpected comes up, so I have already started reading for this event. Aside from a general post about what novellas I’ve read through the year, I have so far read two novellas that I will review in November, and I plan to read five more.

Here are the ones I have finished with a brief description:

  • The Sweet Dove Died by Barbara Pym: a woman of a certain age becomes a little too close with a much younger man.
  • Seascraper by Benjamin Wood: a young man is the only person left carrying on a traditional way of shrimping when he meets a film maker.

The novellas I haven’t read yet but plan to review in November are

  • The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka: in the early 19th century, a group of women are brought from Japan as “picture brides.”
  • For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy on My Little Pain by Victoria Mackenzie: two women meet in 1413 Norwich, one of whom has visions considered heretical.
  • Hex by Jenni Fagan: In 1591, Geillis Duncan, a convicted witch, receives a visit from a mysterious woman.
  • A Pale View of the Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro: a Japanese woman relives the events at the end of World War II.
  • Why Did I Ever by Mary Robinson: a woman is barely keeping it under control in this dark comedy.

Review 2613: The Bloater

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I was so taken by Rosemary Tonks’ The Halt During the Chase that I looked for more by her. I found The Bloater.

Min is a married sound engineer whose husband is seldom home. She occupies herself with witty, frivolous conversations with her girlfriends and flirtations with her admirers. She has one admirer she finds disturbing, though, a large opera singer whom she finds disgusting and attractive at the same time. She talks endlessly with her other friends about whether she wants an affair with him, whom she refers to as the Bloater.

This novella is crammed with witty, sometimes cruel dialogue. It moves along very quickly and is beautifully written. At times, I wondered if Min really wanted to have an affair with anyone—or maybe she does.

When I was reading about this book, I learned that Tonks gave up a successful career and retreated into isolation. You would hardly believe this of the creator of such witty, vibrant characters.

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Review 2594: Clear

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I have read some excellent novellas lately, a form I don’t usually choose. That makes me glad I participated in Novellas in November last year. I think I read about this book during that event.

John Ferguson is a 19th century Scottish minister on a difficult mission. Because of the breakup of the Scottish church, in which he participated, he has left his church to join the Free Church and is thus unemployed, no new churches having actually been established. He and his wife are entirely without money, and he doesn’t want to borrow from his brother-in-law, so he takes a job of surveying a small island in the far north of Scotland for clearance. The island only has one inhabitant, who will be forced to leave, and part of John’s job is to tell him.

On the island, Ivar has been alone for many years. The rest of his family left years before, because the island couldn’t support them anymore after foolish decisions by the owner. Ivar thought it could support him, and the factor hasn’t even stopped by to collect rent in years. He lives with a goat, an old horse, a blind cow, and some chickens.

When John arrives, he promptly falls off a cliff and is badly injured. Ivar finds him and takes care of him. They don’t speak a word of each other’s language, but they begin to like each other. John, though, can’t bring himself to try to explain why he’s there.

In the meantime, Mary hears about other clearances being done by John’s employer that disturb her. She decides to go get John.

This is a little gem of a book with a surprising ending. In its few pages, it pulls you totally into the story. It’s a keeper.

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