Jill Reads, Rummages, and Sorts Through Things in 2024 - Part Two

Okay, let's start the second quarter's roster of reading. What am I in the mood for?

Original post date and time: April 1, 2024 at 7:00pm. Spouse just turned on Jeopardy!

Edited to add:

Paladin’s Grace
Paladin’s Strength
A Passion for Books
Making It So: A Memoir
Sailing to Sarantium
To Shape A Dragon’s Breath
Vanity and Vexations
If on a Winter’s Night, A Traveler
Prairie Fires
Everyone on This Train is a Suspect
Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone
84 Charing Cross Road
The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street
Books Promiscuously Read
The Jefferson Bible: A Biography
Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries
Spear

Above Completed During First Quarter (2024)

Happy New Thread!
*drags in cheese platter and bubbly beverages*

Happy New Thread!

Happy new thread.

What they said.

Having read Sailing to Sarantium, have you got Lord of Emperors on your radar?

Happy new thread!

Happy new thread!

>6 Jim53: Yes, that particular title is in the queue at the moment.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I've had no problem in shifting my reading to daylight hours. Washington Post opinion piece (gifted article; no paywall) https://wapo.st/4aG52cI

>10 jillmwo: I have no problem reading during the daylight hours either, when I have the time ;)))

Reading Fred Vargas is rather akin to reading P.D. James. They both write literary mysteries that are not solely about solving a criminal act of murder. They usually have something else in mind as they write. Today's example is from The Ghost Riders of Ordebec. The chief detective calls someone in his unit and incorrectly quotes the father of chaos theory, Edward Lorenz, who came up with the whole butterfly effect thing. The subordinate chides him for not getting the quote correct and Commissaire Adamsberg asks why that matters. His subordinate replies:

"Because once you get away from the original words, the purest of theories just become rumours. Then we don't know anything. From one approximation to another inconsistency, the truth unravels and obscurantism takes over"

ETA: For the record, the original quote that Lorenz used in his talk was "a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can produce a tornado in Texas."

Original post date-stamped at 10:40 am on Sat, April 6, 2024.

>10 jillmwo: I can't relate. I have always read in the daytime, never in bed, sometimes through the night though. When I was a busy mother, I read in the afternoons, or whenever I had a break. The chores got done enough, although my housekeeping standards are probably lower than a lot of folks. Working was a damper to get around, but I managed. The only thing that has set me back are sickness and mental distraction.

>12 jillmwo: Nice quote.

>12 jillmwo:
Brilliant quote. It is like people using the word “theory” when they should use “hypothesis”.

>10 jillmwo: I'll read any time I can!

>12 jillmwo: I think that quote describes 99% of the memes on the internet.

>10 jillmwo: I saw that article this morning, and I ignored it. Haha. Thank you for forcing me to take a look at it. Halfway through I said to myself "I'll have to check the author's name when I'm done and see if she's suffering from Irish Catholic guilt or Jewish guilt." I was sure it was one of them.

Definitely Bookshelf Porn: https://twitter.com/mooseandmouse/status/1777419845815894057/photo/1
Photo shows 50 years' accumulation of poetry in hardcover formats

>18 jillmwo: Veeeeeery nice!

As I had noted earlier in #11 above, my reading of Fred Vargas’ novels suggests to me that she belongs in the same literary class as P.D. James and Tana French. Her characters are vivid and she is able to weave in thematic ideas with the criminal behaviors that her Chief Inspector Adamsberg must wrestle with. I purposely slowed my reading speed down as I went through The Ghost Riders of Ordebec because I wanted to be sure I was picking up on her intent. While I kind of guessed who was driving the murders predicted by the appearance of Hellequin and his phantasmic army, I was entirely wrong about the psychological motivations behind it.

I should point out that I haven’t read the full range of titles in this series – just Have Mercy on Us All some fifteen years ago and, as it happens, this is one series where it makes sense to read the books in order. The personnel of the unit commanded by Adamsberg has changed significantly over the time frame between the two books I read and I suspect that might make a difference in the level of reading enjoyment. I was okay with the eccentric cast of characters in this novel, but additional background might have deepened the engagement. Essentially, all of the characters in The Ghost Riders of Ordebec are odd individuals with unique challenges in how they get through their daily existence. Adamsberg’s unit is an effective team, but you have members who are narcoleptic, bulimic, socially-inept, and sometimes near-genius in their command of details associated with past events, both cultural and criminal.

Adamsberg is drawn into a crime foreseen by a young woman who witnesses the ride of Hellequin and his Army of the Dead. Three of four victims that she sees riding in that vision are recognized locals of the small city of Ordebec. The surface plot is whether the deaths of those three are merely coincidental or if they are premeditated acts by a single person. Adamsberg is thrown into conflict with the local gendarmerie as well as with his superiors in Paris who would prefer he work on a case drawing greater public attention. A third case involving a street pigeon also draws his attention.

The point is that there are (depending on how you count) four distinct acts of criminal assault or murder in this novel. They may or may not be connected in any way; when the reader begins, there’s really no way of knowing. What is made clear is that the detection of patterns in chaotic behavior is central to success in policing, whether the case involves a small cruelty or a much larger transgression. There is a balance needed between noting significant details at the crime scene and recognition of intangible connections.

Fred Vargas is an interesting writer as pgmcc has already noted back when he was reading her Evangelists series of novels. The books require real attention as one reads, but there is a significant pay-off to be gained.

Always happy to see a Vargas book being enjoyed. Would second the reading of the series in order as although primarily focused on the Inspector the ensemble cast and relationships between them becomes more prevalent as it continues.

I have now started Seeking Whom He May Devour, the third story in Fred Vargas’ Commissaire Adamsberg series. Having started with, and completed the three Three Evangelists books, I decided to read the Adamsberg series in sequence.

>22 pgmcc: I'll be interested in your comments on it! (Was this particular title on your list of books to take with you when you escaped to France for your summer sabbatical from undercover work?)

>23 jillmwo:
It certainly was. When in France, and all that.

ETA: By the way, it has grabbed my attention already. I am finding it gripping.

>24 pgmcc: *thumbs up*

Continuing on --> what follows is a quick note on something I'd bought recently -- fleshing out bits of a collection. In either 2022 or 2023, the Christie estate celebrated the 70th anniversary of her play, The Mousetrap. I don't think I've ever seen it on stage myself, but I have a sense that the London show is still popular with families, tour groups and schools. I picked up Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap: 70th Anniversary Edition; an LT touchstone does not work for my purposes here, so visit the work page here https://www.librarything.com/work/9494273/summary/261172541 The book as a commemorative edition is adequate. You get an intro by Sophie Hannah, followed by the playscript and then a collage of photos, cast lists, and first night notices. I’d hoped for something rather more in-depth than this proved to be, but if you’re a true fan…

What follows is something of a spoiler commentary, so don’t click if you’re particular about observing theatrical tradition and not revealing the nature of the play’s solution but I had read the novella Three Blind Mice back when I was a teenager. I’m quite sure it appeared in one of those Reader’s Digest condensed books back in the sixties. It might have been my first exposure to Christie but I really don’t remember.( I didn’t notice the names of authors at that point. I remembered titles and covers.) At any rate, while Christie’s play was written before the novella, the novella is essentially the text version of the play. Frankly, there is a certain derivativeness about the play’s solution; Christie used a similar deception about the killer in Hercule Poirot’s Christmas. Be that as it may, revisiting both play and book in identifying possible changes in order to suit the needs of adaptation was kind of fun.

That said, quite honestly, Christie as a follow-up to Vargas is quite unfair. I ought to have put more space in between the two.

Side note: I have started on Mortal Love and the initial read is like trying to eat just a single potato chip from the bag. I read two chapters, got interrupted, and then an hour later -- as soon as I could -- I was back at it. One has to read at LEAST two chapters at a time. And no one had mentioned to me in advance that it was chock full of SEX (or at least versions thereof). My poor little puritanical side was shocked as I sped through to see where the story went.

>25 jillmwo:
You will have to read it in detail, take notes, and then read it again to see just how bad it is.

>26 pgmcc: & >25 jillmwo: And perhaps reenact some of the worst bits to see if they are really as shocking as they seem to be on paper. Of course you can do this with puppets if you think you and/or your husband aren't up to it.

>26 pgmcc: and >27 clamairy: I am too busy reading the book to even think about any performance aspect, although the puppet aspect made me giggle. It's really quite unexpected for something that was described as being Gothic fantasy. Nice writing.

In the interests of sharing -- a short story by Ray Bradbury. Originally published in the Saturday Evening Post and served as the initial basis for the movie, The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms. Although really, the story has little or nothing to do with some monster stomping on NYC. *sob*
https://goms.rocklinusd.org/subsites/Jenny-Salmon/documents/Short%20Story%20Unit...

>28 jillmwo:
I enjoyed that story. Thank you!

>28 jillmwo: This was definitely in one of the collections of his that I read back in the day. I absolutely adored it.

>29 pgmcc: and >30 clamairy: My husband has been reading a book entitled Remembrance: Selected Correspondence of Ray Bradbury and a friend who is an old film buff surfaced first the reference to the movie and then the short story. Our friend, Doug, told us that the short story was pretty much covered during the first 15-20 minutes of the movie itself. (Unsurprising for 1953 when the cultural worry tended towards the long-term effects of radiation. But IMHO the story's theme is about time and eternity and I was struck by the image of the huge school of fish silently looking at up at the red and white light.

>31 jillmwo: I have never seen that movie, BTW. Is it any good?

>32 clamairy: Not if you're looking for sophisticated sci-fi. I think it's best viewed with the understanding that the movie is very much of its time and primarily culturally famous for being a forerunner of and inspiration for the Japanese Godzilla movies. It runs about an hour and 19 minutes to watch so I'd either save it for when the family is interested in doing a MST3K session together on a rainy Sunday afternoon or for when you're recuperating in bed from the flu and weary enough to accept it on its own terms.

>33 jillmwo: I have a soft spot for cheesy old sci-fi. I think you're right, however. I'm better off watching it with someone else who will appreciate it

>34 clamairy:. To be fair, the closing ten to fifteen minutes do manage to be compelling, if you've ever seen or ridden the Cyclone roller coaster at Coney Island. Ray Harryhausen created the monster for the film but, according to Wikipedia, his Rhedosaurus offended many scientists.

I have been wanting to encourage you about the wedding, but the words won't come. Of course you will get through it, and of course it will be lovely, but I understand the anxiety up until the event. Remember to breathe and do the next thing. :)

>35 jillmwo: Ray Harryhausen was a master! (Even when his creations weren't scientifically accurate.)

>36 MrsLee:. No need for you to fret over anything. I appreciate the kind reminders. I have only wished that I could emulate your calm during family weddings!! You're great at handling those events and I tend to fixate on all the wrong things.

>38 jillmwo: My only salvation is to make reams of detailed lists, and then go by them! I can fill a notebook with lists. Things to be done a month ahead, each week, each day of the final week, each hour before the event, things in the house, in my wardrobe, to do with gifts, on and on. The reason that saves me is that once I put it on a list I know it won't be forgotten and my brain can stop gnawing at it.

>25 jillmwo: I honestly didn't particularly notice the sex; I think I was too busy trying to find all the ribbons that will eventually draw this story together, and the references to British folklore. Funny.

We changed planes in Philly on the way home from Georgia last Thursday. I waved to you. :)

>40 Marissa_Doyle: Don't misunderstand my flippant comment up there in #25. I am definitely enjoying Mortal Love but it wasn't at all what I was expecting in some respects. And like you, I have been making a list of references in the novel that I want to follow-up on, because there are layers of symbolism here that I will not otherwise fully grasp. Certainly, Hand was able to convey the sense of yearning that I associate with works of fantasy. As I was thinking about the book today, I realized that Guy Gavriel Kay's book, Sailing to Sarantium, also deals to some extent with the creative energy that goes into an artistic work. But Sarantium hasn't anywhere near as much of that sense of yearning that I think is part of books by Tolkien or McKillip.

(And I had wondered who it was who was waving at me off in the distance there.)

Just finished Elizabeth Hand's wonderful novel, Mortal Love. Wow. So unexpected. I swear that I must immediately go to all of the book groups of which I am a member and insist that they read this.

Acorns. Absinthe. A certain amount of insanity. Certainly there's a figure of the Feminine that looms large.

>42 jillmwo: *pew pew pew*

>43 clamairy: Don't sit down with it unless you have some serious time to spare. You're reading to find out what happens to these characters, but you're also trying to track all the literary allusions, symbols and metaphors. (I swear I have three pages of notes.)

And I'm mulling over whether I should immediately go out and find a copy of Waking the Moon.

What springs to mind when someone starts talking to me about Gothic literature are books with a sense of isolation, anxiety, mysterious noises, a sense of vertigo, and general vulnerability. If asked to name authors off the cuff, I’d come up with the Brontes, Sarah Perry, Sarah Blake, and Sheridan Le Fanu. At least in my head, the genre carries a certain dubious quality. Are you – as the author – really quite well that you feel compelled to come up with something this dark?

Elizabeth Hand’s Mortal Love gives the reader plenty of signals that the story they’re about to experience is not an ordinary one. Nineteen pages in, a secondary character uses the phrase “Manderley on bad acid” to describe someone’s summer home, an old Victorian structure that’s been assembled by a man made miserable by grief and loss. The place is deteriorating, falling into disrepair, an owner burdened by the taxes and remote location. This seems like a traditional setting for a Gothic fantasy but then the “bad acid” element kicks in – various hallucinogenic experiences as a means of controlling anxiety over loss. Only you’re not on that island on the coast of Maine anymore because the action shifts. You’re in London in the wee small hours of the night in what may or may not be the best neighborhood. Certainly, it’s not Mayfair. Another shifting of locale in the book's final third and you're on a cliff in Cornwall (but not alone).

The real feat here may be that the author has managed to deliver Gothic fantasy in an urban environment, with crowds of people, in an age when cell phones make isolation difficult and where private jets can cross oceans in a matter of hours. Heck, there was even a spiffed-up, classic motorcycle. Yet the reader still experiences all of those sensations and emotions that we expect will feature heavily in the Gothic – obsession, panic,anxiety, entrapment, etc.

There are four men whose lives we follow and none of them are entirely of sound mind and body. Should they blame their inability to cope with their base passions? (In the book’s initial pages, we see a medical professional attributing a woman’s madness to that general failure of her sex, an inability to control her base passions.)

Mortal Love references the rebellious spirit of the Pre-Raphaelite artistic movement, with those detailed renderings of natural flora and fauna. (Honestly, the book cries out for an illustrated edition.) We encounter mad poets and the folklore that inspired them. There are acorns, absinthe, and Keats’ La Belle Dame Sans Merci. Hand’s prose is not dense but literary allusions are spread out and thick on the ground. Which allusions are the clues that are critical to picking up her meaning? In a busy week, Mortal Hands had me pulling out dictionaries of symbols and googling obscure mythological names. (Vernorexia?) There was the flavor of Byatt’s crossing timelines in Possession but in half the number of pages.

I can’t figure out how I never ran across this book before now and I am resisting the impulse to go and find all of Elizabeth Hand’s other work. This may be one of my top five reading experiences when we come to the end of 2024.

>44 jillmwo: I will probably wait a while then. Maybe when the end of July comes and it's too hot/humid to go anywhere during day except the beach I will be ready.

>46 clamairy:. Whenever it works for you. The write-up probably doesn't make it clear but the Feminine figure and energy in the book is quite powerful. So much so, that it energized me to finish off another two things on my week's set of tasks. (Jill warbles some Helen Reddy *I am woman. Hear me roar...*)

With regard to my next read, I need to re-ground myself in some non-fiction. However, I've also got two book group discussions on Sunday to do. One covers the first half of Dan Simmons' Hyperion and the other is a second round on Martha Wells' Witch King.

>47 jillmwo:
I loved Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion. They struck me as one book in two parts. I found them very spiritual.

I read the next two books but found them unnecessary.

>48 pgmcc:. Well, there was some hesitation over the group agreeing to read Hyperion because of a perception that it was more horror than science fiction, primarily intended for a male audience, and designed as a series opener. (They prefer stand-alone novels.) Personally, thus far, I like the use of Canterbury Tales in framing the narrative, in particular the Priest's Tale and the Scholar's Tale. It's the first of anything by Simmons that I've ever read.

>49 jillmwo:
I believe it was my first Simmons too.

>49 jillmwo: I hope you enjoy Hyperion!

Conversations on an electronic mailing list consisting largely of trade publishers have pointed to these two items:

(1) From Elle Griffin: https://www.elysian.press/p/no-one-buys-books

(2) From Mike Shatzkin: https://www.idealog.com/blog/the-end-of-the-general-trade-publishing-concept/

I think someone else had already pointed to the piece by Elle Griffin, but the response from Mike (something he wrote back in 2020) is probably new to folks here. It dates back to the whole Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster acquisition furor.

The point (generally speaking) is how even trade publishing is changing from what it was 30 years ago (or thereabouts).

>48 pgmcc: and >51 Karlstar: I must admit I was worried about how the women in the Hyperion discussion would react to the initial half of the book, but as it turned out, they were already forging ahead because they were eager to find out where it was going. I warned them that the ending might be deemed ambiguous, given that the book closes with the pilgrims linking arms and singing "We're Off to See The Wizard".

The second group discussing Witch King were even more engaged. They really did engage in that sixty minutes. I thought it was interesting that they saw the original forms of Kai and his relatives as being those of naga! That hadn't really occurred to me. In my head, I had imagined Kai as either being a serpent or an airy wisp of some sort when he needed to shift bodies.

And by the way, let's all sing "Happy Birthday" to William Shakespeare. He turned 400 today (or so they tell me...)

>53 jillmwo: Happy Birthday to Shakespeare! :)

I'm happy to hear your book groups enjoyed both Hyperion and Witch King!

Gift article (no paywall) from the New York Times having to do with book conservation practices at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/18/books/book-conservation-met.html?unlocked_art...

Okay, let's keep an eye on those book lovers who may be wielding scalpels.

>55 jillmwo: Great article. What about the book lovers with non-approved bookmarks? "When asked about the practice of dog-earing, Dubansky’s brows shot skyward: “Talk about flagrant abuse!”"

I'll fess up, I do have one leather bookmark and some fancy, thin wood ones that are sword shaped. Sounds like it is time to retire those.