Idiosyncratic reviews

I probably should have added this as part of my blog title, as in "Random Reading and Idiosyncratic Reviews" because, not only is my reading all over the place, but my reactions to books and, therefore, what I write about them are often different from the acceptable body of criticism. Take Amy Tan for example. This is an author whose books consistently get critical acclaim and yet, after this second attempt at reading one of her works, I won't give it another go because she just doesn't offer enough to make me take time away from other options. I acknowledge that she writes well and in the book I just read, Saving Fish From Drowning, she taught me things about the culture of China and Myanmar, and created quirky yet believable characters. And I even get the message about the messy consequences of well-intentioned actions (a former colleague used to say the road to hell was paved with them). But as with an earlier book I wrote about here that I didn't even finish, Dingley Falls, none of the characters so engaged me that I actually cared about what happened to them.
Then last night I finished Tracks by Louis Erdrich--again a second-time attempt to read an author who consistently gets good critical response. I love reading about other cultures but these characters were opaque, so outside my range of experience (not a bad thing necessarily) and with so little that I could connect to in terms of understanding their behavior, that I found myself merely curious but not attached.
This distresses me. I get books recommended by people whose minds I tremendously respect, and /or that are written by quality authors and then I 'm disappointed. I don't dislike them; I mildly enjoyed both Tracks and Saving Fish. BUT I'm not wild about them, and as Nancy Pearl always says, there are too many books... I should in fact follow NP's "Rule of 50" when I run into such books but I just can't let them go because of who gives them to me and who wrote them, and I keep thinking, surely this will get better.
On the bright side, I was looking over NP's fairly recent reviews of "Great Sci-Fi and Fantasy" and found a couple of pleasant surprises. She really likes Guy Gavriel Kay, the author of the book I most recently wrote about, AND she labelled Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson one of her "top 10 favorite books of all time"--high praise indeed! I read this book quite by accident when someone left it at a condo I was staying in on vacation last year and was totally drawn into his complex tale spanning several decades and continents. Go see NP's review for this one. This was the opposite experience. I'd never heard of Stephenson or the book and had a great read so it was a totally unanticipated delight.
Anyway, the moral of the story is, you just can't count on anyone to lead you to what may be a personally satisfying read, including me. But I love writing about what I read!

The Lions of Al-Rassan

I can't really remember where I first read about this book; it must have been a good review to prompt me to read it, however, as I was totally unfamiliar with the author, Guy Gavriel Kay. But what a really splendid novel! Although ostensibly set in a non-earthly world that has two moons (a blue and a white one) the history, place names, and geography strongly resemble those of the Iberian peninsula. This book was delightfully serendipitous in that it connected to two other recent reads, Mistress of the Art of Death and Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert. One of the main characters of this book, as in Mistress, is a woman physician, Jehane bet Ishak. Aside from the challenges offered by being a woman in a profession and culture dominated by men, life is made more difficult because of her faith. She is a member of the Kindath or wandering tribe; it wouldn't be too far a stretch to imagine substituting the word Jews, based on the persecution they have experienced from the other religions, the Asharites who worship the god behind the stars (read Muslims), and the Jaddites who believe the sun is god (read Christians). Early on she is befriended by and then comes to love men of these other faiths, Ammar ibn Khairan, an Asharite poet, warrior, diplomat and assassin, and Rodrigo Belmonte, captain of a Jaddite army, devoted husband and father. Like the real-life Ms. Bell, Jehane operates in a man's world, contributing unique skills and knowledge that come from a compassionate and consuming intellect. The desert born Asharites are also reflected in the dealings Ms. Bell had with the tribes of the Middle East. The body of the story takes place in less then a year; we are drawn inexorably into peoples' lives, shifting ever faster as a war of reconquest is crafted and then set in motion. A year later, decisions reached on the eve of war now reach their inevitable conclusion; but we must read the epilogue twenty years further on to really know what happened. This was one of those books that was hard to put down and that will definitely push me to seek out other works by Canadian author Kay. Kay's own sources for the historic, literary and character aspects of this book are found here.

Who made Iraq?

How many of you know it was Gertrude Bell? Well I know my friend Sara does, but that doesn't count because she knows lots of things ordinary people don't. I certainly didn't and I was truly awestruck by the personal and political endeavors of this Englishwoman, born in 1868, who scaled mountains, was fluent in half a dozen languages, did archaeology in her spare time, and truly was instrumental in the creation of the country today known as Iraq. The book is detailed and well written, with lots of notes on source materials, maps of her several expeditions in the mid-East, as well as a lengthy chronology, bibliography and index. Apparently vilified by some for her anti-suffragist views, she was personally one of the most intelligent, accomplished and influential women of her time. One only has to look at the cover of the book where she sites astride a camel in front of the Sphinx, flanked on one side by T.E. Lawrence (as in, Lawrence of Arabia) and on the other by Winston Churchill. Though she was passionately in love with several men during her lifetime, she never had a physical relationship with any of them and lived alone most of her adult life, much of of it in the countries of the Middle East that she loved so much. She admired and befriended Arabs of all religious sects, translated their poets, advocated for their right to self-rule, and eventually became a confidante and adviser to King Faisal. I only occasionally dip into biography and this one took me a while to finish, but it was well worth the effort, not only to learn about this amazing woman, but also to better understand the history of the area where we are making such a mess today. We are no better than the worst of the colonial powers who have played tug of war with these peoples' lands for centuries. The book is Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations by Georgina Howell, published in 2006.

As vices go...

I suppose reading mysteries is fairly benign, but I harbor a certain shame that they aren't somehow as worthy as other reading, that is, until I know someone else is also a mystery fan, I'll talk first about the more erudite things I've read. With the occasional exceptions of really quality writers who create fine complex characters or take on weighty social issues or teach me more about a culture (P.D.James, S.Paretsky and Tony Hillerman come to mind as examples), I tend to think of them as my escapist literature--my "comfort food" reading. So recently, having had my fill of reviewing YA books, I immersed myself in a couple of mysteries, Dead Canaries Don't Sing by Cynthia Baxter and Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin. For anyone who likes animal characters to spice up their mystery soup, Dead Canaries is good fun; the protagonist is a veterinarian and amateur sleuth who is usually escorted by her two rescued dogs, a tail-less Westie and a one-eyed, 3-legged dalmation. She also has Cat (short for Catherine the Great) and a parrot who holds a key clue in this tale. Another animal-centric series I really enjoy is that by Rita Mae Brown; these are told from the point of view of the protagonist's cats and a dog--who claim to solve the mysteries long before their sensory-challenged humans do. But the greater of the two mysteries I read, the one that really grabbed me--you know the like, can't put it down, stay up too late, everything else goes by the wayside until I'm finished--was Franklin's Mistress. I profess a certain fondness for medieval mysteries (e.g., Umberto Eco, Sharon Penman, Candace Robb, Barry Unsworth) and this one features a woman who is a pre-cursor of the forensic specialist, trained at the medical school in Salerno, and recruited to go to Cambridge to help solve the murders of several children. Not for the faint of heart since it's fairly explicit about how the children are murdered, but rich with period details, the politics and tension between the Church and Henry II, the social strictures under which women, Jews and other non-dominant groups had to maneuver. Several characters in addition to the protagonist are well-developed and an author's note on the factual basis of several aspects of the story added to my appreciation of this well-paced story. I really hope there will be a sequel...

Dingley Falls Fails, and Other Books I Did Like

Ah well, just goes to show that no two readers read the same book...where did I just read something about 'the reader writing the book'--oh well, another senior moment. Anyway, I was trying to work my way through Nancy Perl's recent recommended reading (see previous post on The Grand Complication) by tackling Dingley Falls, which, from NP's account sounded irresistible. While she was charmed by the extensive cast of characters, I was overwhelmed, and after reading over 120 pages, still didn't care very much about any of them. One of Nancy Perl's rules is the 'Rule of 50', i.e., there are too many books and not enough time, so 50 pages (minus 1 page for every year your chronological age exceeds 50) is sufficient to make a decision about a book. Obviously I still haven't embraced this wholeheartedly, but I'm working on it. I will agree with her that the novel reads like an elaborate soap opera, but I was never a big fan of soaps, so maybe that's the problem.
But other books have come to mind because of recent conversations with my book buddy Sara--books I really did like. Once when our talk turned to France I was reminded of a really wonderful little memoir by another Sarah (with an 'h") called Almost French: Love and a New Life in Paris. Australian journalist Sarah Turnbull moves to France to live with her true love and for all her infatuation with Paris and the French, she is never really accepted by them but always considered an outsider. On the other hand there are some things she's willing to change-- and some she is not--in order to fit in. It's not just that she's Australian, it's that they are so French. Well, anyway, it's a somewhat humorous and not unkind inside look at culture shock and one woman's eventual success at coping.
Then Sara sent me this very evocative little poem ("Books" by Dorianne Laux) about someone graduating from high school and standing on the brink of whatever is to come after that and, incidentally, the person has stolen a book from the school library. Which reminded me of a really wonderful book, ostensibly written for young adults (but I can't imagine a not-young adult NOT liking it for that reason) called The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. In contrast with Dingley Falls, this was a book where I came to care deeply about all the characters. The young protagonist, Liesl, is farmed out to a foster family near Munich as the Nazis are on the rise and the Hitler Youth are snapping up any youngster of school age. Her mother has fled after burying her son, Liesl's younger brother, and Liesl steals her first book, a gravedigger's handbook. It is this book that her foster father uses to help her learn to read. Along the way, an old debt is repaid by taking in and hiding a Jew in the basement of her foster parents' home and he and Liesl become fast friends. What makes this book really interesting is that a fairly benevolent Death is the narrator. He is kept awfully busy by the events of the war, but not too busy to check up on Liesl from time to time. What also makes it poignant is the significant and layered role that books play in her life. For example, she steals her 2nd book from a pile set on fire during a Nazi inspired book burning, and Liesl reads from her small hoard of stolen books to the gathered neighbors in the air raid shelter to take their mind off what is happening above. I really liked this book.

Somewhat complicated and pretty entertaining

I'm a sucker for Nancy Perl's book talks and this is one I heard her do on NPR--in fact, while at the annual library conference in DC this June, I was on a tour of NPR and actually got to watch the beginning of the interview she did with Steve Inskeep in which she reviewed this book. You can read her well wrought and much more plot-informative preview here. The Grand Complication by Alan Kurzweil was well worth the read and the most succinct description I can provide is that it's very clever. Not only does this story about a watch end exactly on page 360 (as in degrees!) but its protagonist is an obsessive compulsive reference librarian. Not that this would recommend it to everyone, and sometimes it's not even enough for me; however, this novel offered stories within stories (one character's family crest includes a book within a book), and deceit upon deceit. The cleverness ranges from the bawdy to the sublime, or to put it another way, from humor that will be apparent to all--to insider librarian humor (no that is not an oxymoron). On one end we have the crucial clue ostensibly tattooed on someone's butt and the dialogue goes like this, "So all this time Kucko's been sitting on the evidence? Cheeky bastard." At the other end, when Zander (our librarian protagonist) "borrows" a book from the conservation room of the library, he replaces it with one of equal weight so the loss won't immediately be apparent; the replacement item is a tome on bibliokleptomania. When one character tells Zander that he can't return the book because he's sent it out to have the boards repaired, our librarian whines that the conservator "keeps a detailed condition log. He's bound to notice." Anyway, if these puns are too obscure, there will still be plenty to engage and entertain you.

A taste for the supernatural?

I really don't like scary books or movies. I've never been able to watch Aliens or Silence of the Lambs without having to cover my eyes for parts of them and I just refuse to read The Exorcist or most of Stephen King's books. Nevertheless, I enjoy more modulated fantasy and sci fi and frequently get occasion to do so as a result of reviewing books for young adults (YA). Recently it seems I've read a handful of books about vampires and other fantastic creatures ...here's a quick rundown. Kim Harrison's For a Few Demons More gives us a world where everyone knows there are werewolves, witches, vampires, elves and pixies among us. Although this is apparently the 5th in a series with bounty hunter Rachel Morgan in the lead, the author is new to me and it was a fun read--especially likable is Jenks, her pixie sidekick, who has his hands full placating his wife and keeping track of all the pixie kids. My pal Dale turned me on to some books by Christopher Moore. Bloodsucking Fiends tells of a life turned upside down by an extraordinary mugging...nothing is stolen, but Jody is now a vampire and this presents some serious logistical problems. Practical Demonkeeping also takes a pragmatic and humorous approach to mere mortals coping with the immortals. How does one keep finding worthless human beings to feed a hellish demon accidentally released from a church candlestick. In Tantalize, Cynthia Leitich Smith, a well-respected YA author, weighs in with her own version of vampires, who aspire to take over Austin, Texas by infiltrating a new vampire-themed restaurant called Sanguini's. Normally I would say they can have any part of Texas they want, but I understand Austin is a nice town. Another YA novel with a supernatural twist is The Alchemyst by Michael Scott, starring 15-year old twins Sophie and Josh, who inadvertently find themselves in the midst of a battle between ancient forces of good and evil, from golems to goddesses. Continuing along this line are the books by Rick Riodan, also with a young protagonist, Percy Jackson. In The Lightning Thief, Percy discovers that the reason he's been shipped from one boarding school to another is not because of his behavioral problems, but to keep him out of the hands of certain Olympian gods who are hunting down the offspring of their rivals. Let me know what you think if you decide to read any of these.

Running away with the circus

It was never a particular fantasy of mine, but I still found Water for Elephants a fascinating read. I love it when I can learn something new and get engrossed in a good story at the same time. I went to an authors' tea at the library conference in January and, although Sara Gruen didn't make it, I did get a copy of her new book. Set predominantly in the depression years, and told as memories of now 93-year-old Jacob Jankowski, it is a well-researched and not flattering story of a train circus that travels all over the country. The owner wants nothing more than to be better than Ringling and so buys an elephant, Rosie, from another circus that has gone belly up in those hard times. Jacob is the new de facto veterinarian who feels he's lost his whole life and purpose, until he fall in love with Marlene. The beautiful young equestrienne, however, is married--most unfortunately--to the alternately charming and cruel ringmaster. Various characters are occasionally kind, sometimes unbelievably cruel, and even commit murder, sometimes without repercussion, and sometimes not. After I finished the book, I suddenly remembered a woman friend of mine from years ago who told me she had once traveled with a circus. She was a tiny woman and I was surprised to learn that she worked as a roustabout. Of course, if Sara Gruen's portrayals are still true today, there are only two classes of people in circuses--performers and workers--and they don't mix. Anyway, she lived in the cab of a semi which helped move the circus from place to place and she also apparently helped setting up the tents, shoveling animal poop and anything else that needed done. She said it was a hard existence, but she loved being around the animals. That's what keep Jacob going, too, and he gets to run away with circus, not once but twice.

Thanks again to Sara

This is a post script really to the previous one about poetry. I finally followed up on my friend Sara's recommendation to sample Jane Kenyon's poetry, starting as suggested with Otherwise, and moving on from there. I liked Learning in the First Grade; it just reinforces my view that the education system-atically squelches curiosity and learning. The muttered rebellion at the end is probably too soon lost for most. You can read some of her poems here: http://www.izaak.unh.edu/exhibits/kenhall/KENYON.HTM
and even hear others reading her works at the "Celebration" link. She died of leukemia over 10 years ago, making Otherwise even more poignant. Sara also recommends Names of Horses by Donald Hall, Kenyon's husband. It's also linked from the site above. Maybe you should just go to Sara's blog and find out what she has to say: http://thinkinginair.blogspot.com/

A tolerance for poetry

Sounds pathetic doesn't it. I mean, people LOVE poetry, right. But somehow, in all my years of education, no one ever really taught me about poetry in a way that I GOT it or fell in love with it or even learned enough to talk about it intelligently. But I am gradually trying to build up my tolerance for poetry. So last night I read a whole book of poetry by Jane Hirshfield, After, and enjoyed these fleeting little moments of awe at a turn of phrase or a tweak of recognized emotion. My beloved sister-in-law has tried giving me poets to read, like Mary Oliver. And my friend Sara, herself a poet, keeps nudging me along with suggestions. It still feels a little like spinach when I was a kid--good for me but not something I'd necessarily seek out if I was hungry. Of course as an adult I have discovered fresh spinach--in salads and soups and stir-fry--so I should be able to alter my perceptions about poetry, too, I tell myself. I was inspired by the author of a book I recently reviewed, Nancie Atwell. She's written a whole book about getting middle schoolers hooked on reading--through poetry. It's called, Naming the World: A Year of Poems and Lessons (2006) and she convinced me more than I was already that poetry can be really important for kids as well as adults. And then I just collaborated on a review of 5 multicultural poetry books for young people, soon to appear in the Journal of Poetry Therapy, and I've been doing all this reading about multicultural children's lit which talks often about poetry. It is all moving me along...you know how it goes when things just start to converge because you picked up that snowball and sent it down the hill.