The Hounds and the Fury

This is one of a great series of books by Rita Mae Brown featuring master of the hounds, Jane Arnold, aka "Sister" and other members of the Jefferson Hunt Club. Sister is a most endearing character, smart, 73 years old, still riding to hunt several times a week, and running her farm in the between. She is a true friend to those she cares about, young and old. These books have given me a totally new perspective on fox hunting, at least as it is carried out in the United States. Sister not only makes sure the foxes don't go hungry in winter by supplementing their wild catch with kibble laced with vitamins and, periodically, worming medicine, but she knows and loves each of the hounds in her pack. And they all have voices! Delia, Dragon, Cora--each with a distinct personality--share their opinions of the humans who ride behind them and the wily foxes who run in front of them. We also hear from the horses, a couple of neighborhood owls, the foxes of course, Sister's household dogs and cat and...well, you get the picture. But Sister is the only human talking so that keeps the story centered. As in all her book series, she creates a rich and engaging picture of the South through the characters who live there and their relationships with one another. As mentioned in earlier posts, Brown also co-authors a series of books with her cat, Sneaky Pie Brown, that feature two felines and a corgi as the protagonists and their owner, Mary Harristeen, as their nosy owner who is always getting in over her head. And if you want to read one of my top ten favorite books of all time, read Six of One by Brown. It is one of the few books that just makes me laugh out loud.

Shadow of the Wind

Magical realism has never been my thing and yet I really enjoyed this story within a story by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. In post WWI Barcelona, a young boy lays claim to a work by Julian Carax in the "Cemetery of Forgotten Books" that becomes his sole responsibility to preserve. He stays awake all night reading the tale of a boy searching for his father and vows to find everything the author has written. As the son of an antiquarian book dealer with lots of contacts, it should be a fairly easy task, but, in fact, it turns out that someone has been systematically searching out the works of Carax and burning them. Motherless Daniel falls in love with the blind (and much older) daughter of another book dealer as he reads the book to her and is later broken hearted to find she has taken a lover. In the course of his quest to solve the mystery of the disappearing books, he is threatened by a character from the book, rescues and partners with a homeless man who is really a former spy, tracks down and gets involved with several people who knew Carax, and eventually finds his true love. This is a richly detailed, darkly Gothic and engrossing novel. Well-translated and sumptuous in creating the atmosphere of a city steeped in history and struggling to find a future.

Another book I didn't finish

I hardly ever stop reading part-way through, so it was with heavy heart that I laid aside Phantom by Terry Goodkind, a respected fantasy author. I am a big fan of the genre that involves alternate worlds told in saga like format (think LOTR or The Golden Compass) but this one was just too ponderous. It suffered from lack of good editing in my personal opinion. Maybe if it had been told in half the number of pages I could have stayed with it, but each event seemed to be belabored endlessly, much as I am doing now with this non-recommendation. The premise is interesting enough. The phantom is a woman who has disappeared from everyone's memory as a consequence of evil machinations to control powerful tools of magic. But it's only part of a chain of events that are unwinding the power of magic throughout the world, leaving it vulnerable to a takeover by a life-negating philosophy and army. The particular religious order that fuels this destructive force rings remarkably similar to most organized religions that have been used to wreak havoc on a massive scale through the course of human history. The book is also rife with detailed explanations of magic that are too complex for someone jumping in without being grounded through prequels. The last chapter sets it up for a sequel, but don't think I'll go there.

Bangkok Tattoo

I was so intrigued by the worlds revealed in John Burdett's other two books (see Bangkok 8 and The Last Six Million Seconds) that I came back for more. This is the sequel to Bangkok 8 and continues with protagonist detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep of the Royal Thai Police Force, who is now a partner (with his mother and his commanding officer, Commander Vikorn) in a brothel that caters to older foreigners--they can get Viagra and dope for just a small extra fee. Predictably, the book opens with a grisly murder--this time of an American CIA agent--but I won't try to convey the elaborate plot except to note that the prime suspect is one of the brothel's star employees and a soul mate of Sonchai's. He is sure they shared a former life, so he is determined to find out if she in fact committed the murder --which she neither denies nor admits--and if so, why. What keeps me engaged are the occasional insertions of a uniquely non-American (sometimes Thai/ Buddhist, or in this book occasionally Muslim) perspective on the events and characters. Some examples:

• In speaking to Sonchai about the dead agent, a Muslim imam who knew him says, "The Western mind is wild and unpredictable, devoid of center. You Buddhists have your nirvana, we have Allah, even true Christians have a path of sorts, beset though it is by childish miracles. But what of these products of Capitalism like Mr. Turner? Human souls locked out from God forever. One hears their screams of anguish even while they drop their bombs, these young people who have no idea who they are. They think they are killing others. They are killing themsleves" (p. 53).
  
• Later, through his son, the imam also says, "...without a war [speaking of the 'war on terrorism'], America would descend into total confusion and would have to turn itself into a police state to survive, because its people no longer have any internal structure. Americans can never be defeated by war. It is peace they find intolderable" (p.73).
  
• In her diary, Chanya, the prostitute and suspected murderer, notes during her time in America that "Even bag people walk with purpose and energy and with total certainty about the direction they want to go in...They don't know where they're going, they just know how to look as if they do. They walk like that because they're scared. Some demon is whipping them from inside." (p.173).
  
• Another CIA agent who is investigating the murder, says in a drunken entreaty to Sonchai, "Freedom? What kind of dumb all-purpose Band-Aid is that? ...what are we selling exactly? Money is the state religion of the West. We pray to it every waking minute--and we're gonna make damned sure every last human on earth gets down on their knees with us . All our wars are wars of religion" (p.202).
  
• Finally, Sonchai himself, listening to one of his favorite radio talk shows, begins to rant about how far we are from enlightenment, "You see dear reader, you are a ramshackle collection of coincidences held together by a desperate and irrational clinging, there is no center at all...In a bumper sticker: The fear of letting go prevents you from letting go of the fear of letting go" (p.214).

This one took a little more determination to keep going, but it was worth the effort.