DieFledermaus in 2012

I’ve never participated in one of these groups before, but I’ve lurked here for the past couple of years and have found a number of recommendations in various members’ libraries/threads. Like many others, I also want to reduce the TBR pile. Past resolutions to not buy books have not worked so I’ll just try to read more (I like to have multiple short books going at the same time as some longer ones).

I’ll be participating in the Reading Globally Balkans/Turkey theme read as well as Classics in Their Own Country. I like to have a particular country to focus on for the year and I think this year it will be Brazil though I’ll still be finishing up my Czech read from last year. Hoping to read more – nonfiction, non-European/American literature

January -

1.) Minotaur - Benjamin Tammuz
2.) Prague in Black and Gold - Peter Demetz
3.) Fording the Stream of Consciousness - Dubravka Ugresic
4.) Conversation with Spinoza - Goce Smilevski
5.) Memento Mori - Muriel Spark
6.) 1Q84 - Haruki Murakami
7.) The Moro Affair - Leonardo Sciascia
8.) Lodgers - Nenad Velickovic
9.) Dora, Doralina - Rachel de Queiroz
10.) My Cousin Rachel - Daphne du Maurier
11.) You Better Not Cry - Augusten Burroughs
12.) The File on H - Ismail Kadare
13.) The Golem - Gustav Meyrink
14.) Varieties of Exile - Mavis Gallant
15.) A Short History of Myth - Karen Armstrong
16.) Corrigan - Caroline Blackwood

February -

17.) The Courilof Affair - Irene Nemirovsky
18.) Apollo's Angels - Jennifer Homans
19.) The Cyclist Conspiracy - Svetislav Basara
20.) The Librettist of Venice - Rodney Bolt
21.) David Golder - Irene Nemirovsky
22.) Brooklyn - Colm Toibin
23.) Death and the Dervish - Mesa Selimovic
24.) 28 Artists and 2 Saints - Joan Acocella
25.) Winter Sonata - Dorothy Edwards

March -

26.) The Centaur in the Garden - Moacyr Scliar
27.) The Master of the Day of Judgment - Leo Perutz
28.) Weep, Shudder, Die: A Guide to Loving Opera - Robert Levine
28.) The Mirador - Elisabeth Gille
29.) School for Love - Olivia Manning
30.) Virgin: The Untouched History - Hanne Blank
31.) Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality - Hanne Blank

April -

32.) Thy Soul Shall Bear Witness! - Selma Lagerlof
33.) Wildwood - Colin Meloy
34.) A Kid for Two Farthings - Wolf Mankowitz
35.) On the Natural History of Destruction - W.G. Sebald
36.) All Our Worldly Goods - Irene Nemirovsky
37.) Cleopatra: A Life - Stacy Schiff
38.) The Means of Reproduction - Michelle Goldberg
39.) In the Freud Archives - Janet Malcolm
40.) A Journey Around My Room - Xavier de Maistre
41.) The Origin of Satan - Elaine Pagels

May -

42.) Death on the Nile - Agatha Christie
43.) Memoirs of an Anti-Semite - Gregor von Rezzori
44.) A History of Marriage - Elizabeth Abbott
45.) The Power of Myth - Joseph Campbell
46.) Some Prefer Nettles - Junichiro Tanizaki
47.) Bury Me Standing - Isabel Fonseca

Hi, Die Fledermaus, and welcome to Club Read! You're in my top 100 similar libraries, so I look forward to seeing what you read this year.

Welcome, Die Fledermaus! Your current profile pic is one of my favorites. I have the framed poster version hanging in my living room.

Thanks for stopping by - hope to see you around this thread and the group!

>3 Rebeki: - I'll have to check out your thread - I do love getting new recommendations, but worry about TBR pile overload.

>4 theaelizabet: - Yes, I love the fact that it's simple but very powerful. The other ones I had were El Greco's View of Toledo and Caravaggio's Conversion of St. Paul.

Minotaur by Benjamin Tammuz
Finished 1/1/12

This is an odd but interesting and fast-paced book. In the first section, the whole story is given – it describes the relationship between a 41-year old Israeli secret agent and a 17-year old girl he sees on a bus. He’s easily able to find out her information and starts sending her anonymous letters telling her he loves her. Being a 17-year old, the girl, Thea, isn’t creeped out and her interest eventually turns into an idealized love. She’s able to write back to him a few times but never sees him. As the years pass, she becomes engaged to a neighbor who dies in a car accident and several years later falls in love with another man, who she at first takes for her pen pal.

The other sections describe the lives of the men who love her. All of them share some characteristics – wealthy, at ease all over the world, have difficult relationships with their parents. All three also have particular fixations that come to focus on Thea. Her fiancée develops Oedipal feelings after his father abandons the family and eventually these desires are transferred to the girl across the way. The Spanish lecturer, a Greek who grows up in Egypt and later moves to Europe, has a theory about the rise of the Mediterranean people and he sees Thea as a Mediterranean sort, though she is a British woman. The secret agent’s essential rootlessness and loveless marriage are counterbalanced by his dreams of a perfect woman and he decides that Thea is his dream girl.

The book is a fast read – even though you know the basic outlines of the plot, in every section, key twists or reinterpretations are given. The prose is rather distancing, except for the letters written in the initial section. This certainly moves the plot along and fits with the male characters’ isolation issues. In addition, because everyone is described in a clipped and factual way, Thea – whose life is also given a summary in the same manner – never seems particularly underdeveloped compared with the others, a real possibility given the story. An entertaining but not light read – recommended.

Prague in Black and Gold by Peter Demetz
Finished 1/2/12

I wanted to read some history for my Czech read last year and Peter Demetz’s books were at the top of various LT tag lists. I also found the second book, Prague in Danger, on sale at a bookstore so I picked that one up and checked out the first one, Prague in Black and Gold, from the library. Demetz describes the history of Prague from its mythic/more probable real origin to the death of T.G. Masaryk.

I found the book very informative and interesting. It’s organized into chapters, each one focusing on a historic period – the myth of Libuse and the archeological evidence for the origin of Prague, the reign of Premyslid Otakar, the advances in the 14th c. under Charles IV, Jan Hus and his revolution, the reign of Rudolf II, the Age of Reform under Maria Theresa and Joseph II, industrialization and revolutions in the mid-19th century, and the formation of Czechoslovakia. I haven’t read any other books about Czech history so I can’t criticize which evidence/interpretations Demetz uses. However, he does spend a lot of time criticizing popular clichés and common misconceptions regarding Prague. I’ve definitely heard the one about Magic Prague (have Meyrink’s The Golem on the shelf and there was a Perutz about that) but he spends several paragraphs debunking myths about Jan Hus. For me that was unnecessary (no Hus preconceptions), but I could see how it could be helpful.

I appreciated the fact that Demetz didn’t just focus on the kings and famous revolutionaries, but spend many pages describing the changing Jewish community, the contributions of women, Germans and Italians, and the arts and culture of various ages in Prague. Because of the way the book was structured (subtitle - Scenes in the Life of a European City), there were some gaps when he’d pick up in a new chapter and some of the political background could be rushed. Also, Demetz describes the construction/demolition/reconstruction of many buildings and I think photographs or drawings would have been nice to include (google images were helpful). Most importantly, this book made me want to read more Czech history as well as more narrowly focused books.

We share qute a few European authors, DieFledermaus. Some of them are on my LT wishlist: The Questionnaire, Mendelssohn is on the Roof. Any recommendations from your Czech read?

I am very impressed by your travel map.

Enjoying your excellent reviews DieFledermaus.

>6 DieFledermaus: - Minotaur sounds very interesting, and I'd never heard of it before. Thanks for the review!

>8 pamelad: - pamelad

I haven’t read Mendelssohn is on the Roof yet, but I had mixed feelings about The Questionnaire. It started out well – the premise is that the narrator is filling out a questionnaire and instead gives his whole life story. Overall, it reminded me of The Tin Drum or Midnight’s Children – magic realist tales of gifted, precocious children coming of age during tumultuous times in their country’s history. However, I loved both of those and this one didn’t compare. The story of how his parents met and the section tracing his lineage were very good – funny, dramatic and a little crazy. However, sometimes the disjointed aspect of the narrative swerved towards incomprehensibility and I didn’t like the use of some of the magic realism elements – there was a bit where it was pretty much like, okay, the character’s magically skipping several years. Then there was a scene at the end where the narrator mentions a big life event that’s previously never been described and the his reaction is something like this – oh, didn’t I tell you? Also, a younger man/older woman affair seemed tired and like something I’d seen before.

Some Czech recommendations –

Leo Perutz wrote historical fiction with metaphysical twists. I thought that The Swedish Cavalier, By Night Under the Stone Bridge and The Marquis of Bolibar were all very good and could recommend any of them. By Night Under the Stone Bridge takes place in Prague if you wanted something set in the Czech area.

I’d recommend Too Loud a Solitude (features a book hoarder protagonist) or I served the King of England by Bohumil Hrabal, both of which are pretty funny despite taking place during unfunny eras (WWII, Communist-era).

If you don’t like Kundera’s fiction, his essays are erudite and lively. Encounter was a fast, fun read. Also picked up more recommendations.

Prague Tales by Jan Neruda is a classic, and I really liked the stories. They were all about the ordinary inhabitants of the Mala Strana neighborhood in 19th century Prague. Some are tragic, some funny, others ironic or sentimental.

Iva Pekarkova’s Truck Stop Rainbows was a very pleasant surprise. The narrator, a hitchhiking, nonconforming photographer/student, has a wonderful voice and the book is both funny and depressing. However, the narrator is quite open about her sexuality which might put some people off (lots of trucker sex for example).

If you have any interest in Gothic/decadent/fin de siècle literature, I would recommend The Maimed and The Sufferings of Prince Sternenhoch. If not, stay away. Both are bizarre and rather horrifying. I can’t say I 'enjoyed' them, but they were certainly gripping and memorable.

Also – wow, that’s a lot of Skvorecky. I have a slightly odd question. I know he uses his alter ego Smiricky in a number of his books – does he stick to a ‘canon’ when Danny Smiricky appears as a character? Does he have the same parents, hometown, friends, later emigration to Canada? I've only read The Engineer of Human Souls but I'm wondering if others about him would stick to the same storyline.

>9 baswood: - baswood

Thanks for stopping by. Your list for this year looks pretty ambitious - I read The Decameron last summer so I'll have to follow your thread on that one. Also, do you have any recommendations for Renaissance music?

>10 Cait86: - Cait - I picked it up because it was published by Europa Editions (and was also $1 at the library sale). Their selections are always interesting.

Thank you, DieFledermaus. Very useful. I'll put Too Loud a Solitude and Prague Tales at the top of my list. Incomprehensibility doesn't appeal ( I am still puzzled by Djuna Barnes' Nightwood - what on earth was going on there?), so I won't rush to read The Questionnaire.

I got bogged down in By Night Under the Stone Bridge and gave up two-thirds of the way through, but perhaps should try one of Leo Perutz's others. Are they also in the form of interlinked short stories? Are they all set in the same time?

As you saw, Josef Skvorecky is a favourite. I've ordered Ordinary Lives, his last book, featuring Danny Smiricky, and plan to re-read some of his others, starting with The Cowards. Smiricky is the same character throughout, with the same friends from the same town of Koslovo, but he moves away from Koslovo and makes new friends, who also reappear. The last Skvorecky I read was When Eve Was Naked a collection of short stories ranging over fifty years. It covers the aftermath of WWII and the fate of intellectuals like Svorecky (as his alter ego Smiricky) after the Communists take over.

As far as I remember, The Engineer of Human Souls is the only Smiricky book set in Canada.

Skvorecky died just two days ago, at eighty-seven.

pamelad - Hmmm....I had Nightwood on the to-buy list, but I think I'll reconsider as the TBR pile is pretty full already.

The other two Perutz novels have a more continuous plotline. The Swedish Cavalier is about a thief who switches places with a nobleman. The book follows the thief's adventures over a number of years - it's pretty straightforward though there are some twists related to his identity. The Marquis of Bolibar is set in Napoleonic-era Spain and relates the story of how the German troops lost control of a town in a series of seemingly impossible events. Most of the book though is rather light and funny since the soldiers spend their time drinking, complaining and trying to seduce their commanding officer's mistress.

Very sad about Skvorecky. I found Dvorak in Love at a used book store and ordered a couple others. One was Two Murders in My Double Life, which is about a Czech professor teaching at Edenvale College (same as in The Engineer of Human Souls) but I don't think the character is Smiricky.

#12 Recommendations for renaissance music

I have next to no knowledge of renaissance music but fortunately I know someone who does, and so today I received an e mail with his recommendations which I have posted on my thread.

I enjoyed reading your Czech recommendations, none of which I have read and so much to look forward to.

Fording the Stream of Consciousness by Dubravka Ugrešić
Finished 1/3/12

I picked up this book for several reasons. 1, I read The Museum of Unconditional Surrender by Ugresic and loved her fragmented metafictional style, 2, it was published by Northwestern University Press, and 3, it was on sale. Given the title, I thought it would also be experimental/metafictional. However, the plot is fairly linear. It takes place over several days at a writers’ conference in Zagreb and follows the lives of some of the participants. This certainly seems tamer, but I ended up liking it for different reasons. The novel was still well written – with one exception, will get to that in a bit – and I found most of the characters understandable if not necessarily sympathetic. There was enough crazy to satisfy me also.

The conference opens inauspiciously when a Spanish poet dies in a swimming accident. From there, the author describes the thoughts, problems and lives of the conference attendees – Pipo, an insecure Croatian writer, Jan, a gloomy Czech who has brought his masterpiece to hand off, the irritated Minister in charge of the conference who would really rather be with his mistress, self-absorbed Prsa, a self-important Frenchman and two alienated Soviet writers. There’s not much time spent at the talks; instead the author focuses on conversations between the characters as well as some bizarre events that take place during off-hours. There’s theft, murder, sabotage and critic-torture, some of which is orchestrated by the “Dr. No of literature”.

Despite the occasionally over-the-top events, the string-pulling evil genius, and characters that can be a bit one-dimensional (the snobby Frenchman, the angry feminist), I thought it was a good book. The sections with the Minister and his randy mistress Vanda were silly fun and there were enjoyably random comic bits, like a scene where the conference participants try to name exotic deaths of famous writers or an outing to a sausage factory where the others sarcastically suggest a sausage named after Prsa. Descriptions of the authors’ thoughts and feelings were well done. Pipo’s fear that he’s being left behind as all his friends marry and have kids and his worries over the paucity of his output were deftly depicted even though the character could be a bit whiny. Jan’s lacerating guilt and the Russian Troshin’s desire to defect were also effectively portrayed.

I liked Ugresic’s style except for one annoying habit - lots of penis euphemisms. After a while, I just rolled my eyes when someone’s “wand”, “pendant” or “stingray” was mentioned. Most of these occurred in the Vanda/Minister chapters, which makes sense in the context, but it was overdone.

The crazy parts were often the result of one of the character’s evil master plan to control the production of all literature and turn it into a pile of homogenized, conformist crap. His plan makes one think of all the “official” literature coming out of various repressive regimes but also some current trends in publishing. When he mentions “third-rate speed writers” inflating the value of literature, I could only think of the “James Pattersons” writing books by “James Patterson”. The idea of “cloned stories, cloned novels” could not only be authors jumping on the latest hot trend, but also the computer programs that cobble together information from the internet to make a poorly put together book that’s then sold online. With computers controlling both the content and criticism of literature – digital books were brought to mind (don’t really exist and can be changed infinite times) as well as programs for analysis. Very prescient.

Hi! Love your screen name. Die Fledermaus is one of my favorite comedy operas. You are reading some amazing books. Wish I hadn't mapped out my year of reading already. Some of your titles are going on my wishlist, however.

Hi Poquette - I love that operetta also! It's good, frothy fun and I always want to dance when I hear the overture. It looks like you have a lot of good books on tap - of course the Trollope and Eliots, but I also read the Angela Carter stories last year and loved them.

Nice, informative review. Fording the Stream of Consciousness looks to be worth a try. There aren't many Croatian writers available in translation.

Yes, it's a shame that there's so little translation done into English. Luckily it looks like a number of other books by Ugresic are available. I'm hoping to get some more recommendations for Croatian writers from the Reading Globally Group.

Conversation with Spinoza by Goce Smilevski
Finished 1/7/12

This was another pick for the Reading Globally Balkans theme read and also another one published by Northwestern University Press. It’s about Baruch Spinoza, the 17th c Dutch Jewish philosopher. The story of his life is structured as a series of conversations between you, the reader, and Spinoza. This sounds like it would be a hard slog, but the book is actually quite engaging. There are some sections which describe Spinoza’s ideas about substance and attributes, which I found rather abstract, but the author tended to relate it to the situation at hand which helped. There were also some long blocks of text in stream-of-consciousness mode, but this is pretty normal to me. I liked the author’s prose and he created a number of striking images as well as a good portrait of a man struggling to focus on the infinite rather than the transient.

The novel is divided into several sections, but really splits into two parts – a shorter, earlier section where Spinoza gives an overview of his whole life and a longer section after, where he describes several important scenes in depth. Both parts are quite good. The first half moves along quickly, giving the outlines of Spinoza’s life – parents forced to flee Portugal, his mother dies, he’s forced to abandon his training as a rabbi and work in the family store, meets one mentor Van den Enden and his daughter Clara Maria, is excommunicated from the Jewish community, publishes one treatise, works on his masterpiece until his death. This narrative is very engaging and at times funny – Clara Maria has a dog named Jesus and there’s a ridiculous cameo by Louis XIV.

The second section focuses mostly on three events – the death of his mother and two encounters, one with Clara Maria and the other with a student of his, Johannes Casearius. In all three, Spinoza is threatened with emotions. His mother’s death he immediately puts out of mind, but it comes back later on. His painful rejections of Clara Maria and Johannes demonstrate the difficulty of the focus only on philosophy. In general, the portrait of Spinoza here contrasts with the generic image of him as an ascetic – he’s constantly lonely, wracked with doubt, masturbates and thinks about sex, and, despite his ideas reconciling the body/soul divide, always seems to be engaged in a war between his desires and ideas.

The book has a somewhat obsessive, repetitive tone. It ends and begins in the same manner – intentionally – and with the replay of scenes and repetition of Spinoza’s philosophy, there’s something of a closed feel. This works well as, of course, Spinoza is dead and in general there’s often a tendency to look back on the past and obsess over it and relive it. It also fits with the subtitle of A Cobweb Novel; a cobweb is compared to a labyrinth and the tree of life as a way of looking at things and it’s noted that a web has infinite exits and entrances and every point can be a center. There’s a nice afterward where the author discusses why he chose Spinoza and some of the bits that were wholly fictitious.

Memento Mori by Muriel Spark
Finished 1/8/12

This book was something of an impulse read. I was poking through the boxes trying to find some lost books when I started casually flipping through this one. After starting, I pretty quickly realized that I was on page 50 and should probably just continue reading. This is an odd book, but there were many things I liked about it.

Dame Lettie Colston has been receiving mysterious phone calls from a man who only says “Remember you must die.” Pretty soon others in her family and social circle begin to be called upon also and speculations begin – is it a gang of people (the caller is always different)? A wave of mass hysteria? Something else entirely? While this is occurring, death is indeed rampaging through the ranks. Another perturbance in the Colston set is caused by the death of Lisa Brooke. Her family, her companion maid and her husband-under-convoluted-circumstances fight over her inheritance, and the maid, Mrs. Pettigrew, is hired by Lettie’s brother Godfrey to care for his ailing wife, formerly famous novelist Charmian. So starts a story of blackmail, adultery, murder, fetishes, secret marriages and May-December (80 yr old to 20 yr old) marriages.

It is notable that almost all the characters are very old, over 70 years old. They all have their own personalities, petty rivalries, obsessions and secrets. It was definitely different from most books. Although past events are often alluded to and continue to affect the present, there are almost no flashbacks. Many books feature a character in his or her twilight years reflecting on the past so it was refreshing that this doesn’t happen here. Spark describes the day to day activities and conversations of the group. The group as a whole is somewhat inbred and terribly funny – they’re suspicious of outsiders, scornful of the 50/60 something set (though tolerant of the younger generation) and everyone has had an affair with/was in love with/was engaged to/had a rivalry with/worked for someone else. Some of the story takes place in a hospital ward and the main group of 70/80 year olds are rather horrified by the senile centenarian and near-centenarian group that moves in.

The book is pretty funny, though maybe not in a laugh out loud kind of way. Some of the paranoia and obsession with changing wills is humorous but makes sense. Alec Warner is obsessed with cataloguing the lives of his elderly friends and his outlandish reactions are quite funny. He’s really a gossip-hound who notes down everything that happens to everyone and tries to be around when bad news hits so that he can take the pulses and temperature of his friends. If he can’t be there, he sends a letter with the news and puts in a request for the recipient to take and send his own stats. Percy Mannering’s ghoulish excitement over death, Mrs. Pettigrew’s all-around bad behavior and the codependent, competitive, constantly irritated marriage of Godfrey and Charmian were also funny. All this is related in Spark’s unadorned, straightforward prose which adds to the humor. Characters were constantly spouting inappropriate or horrible things, which failed to provoke a reaction – this reminded me a bit of Ivy Compton-Burnett, but a much more readable Compton-Burnett.

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
Finished 1/8/12

Warning - possible spoilers (hard to tell what everyone thinks is a spoiler) and too-long review

Plot and Characters - Murakami is one of my favorite authors, but this is probably one of my least favorite of his books. That said, it’s still Murakami, so it was an addictive, interesting read. The narrative switches between two characters – Tengo and Aomame. As in Hard Boiled Wonderland, there is a relationship but it only gradually becomes clear. However, the relationship is more prosaic than the one between the two narrators in HBW. Tengo is a typical Murakami character – intelligent but ordinary 30/40ish man who is somewhat detached from life, in a relationship that precludes commitment, and who becomes embroiled in all sorts of fantastic happenings which he accepts with his normal straightforward attitude. Aomame is a different type, an isolated and cool but strongly emotive woman whose special skills enable her to act as an assassin.

Tengo has an ordinary job, but also some more-than-ordinary ambitions – he’s a good writer and wants to be a novelist. An editor friend of his convinces him to take on a risky assignment – rewriting a story by Fuka-Eri, a 17-year old girl. Both Tengo and his friend, Komatsu, agree that her story is oddly compelling but not technically proficient, so Tengo gives it the polish that allows the story to win a prize and land on the bestseller list. In doing this, Tengo becomes mixed up with the girl and her odd guardian, a dangerous religious cult, and various supernatural forces. Aomame’s job as an assassin also lands her into trouble. She works for an organization with money and power and thinks that her killings are just. Her life is uncluttered otherwise, though she struggles to maintain friendships due to past traumas. Aomame’s story starts when, to get to a job, she climbs down a maintenance ladder on the expressway and finds herself in a parallel world – one that is like ours but slightly off. There are a number of usual Murakami motifs – parallel worlds, precocious and odd teenage girls, ears, disappearing women etc.

The bad - Though many elements of the story were vintage Murakami, there were a lot more things that irritated me. First, it was too long. I don’t mind long books if the length seems justified. It did not seem that all the smaller twists, turns and side characters as well as a lot of waiting by various characters was required.

There was also too much repetition. The book was initially published as three separate volumes and some of the repetition was the kind that would jog readers’ memories about events in the previous volumes. However, various scenes would be recapitulated quite frequently when a quick allusion would suffice and I felt some of the more ordinary scenes had too much detail. In the book, Komatsu tells Tengo “When you introduce things that most readers have never seen before into a piece of fiction, you have to describe them with as much precision and in as much detail as possible. What you can eliminate from fiction is the description of things that most readers have seen.” but Murakami doesn’t stick to this consistently. In past Murakamis, I’ve enjoyed the detailed descriptions of the characters doing everyday things – shopping, cooking – as a contrast to the supernatural occurrences. Also, the mundane descriptions would establish the character’s ordinariness. However, with 900+ pages and many, many descriptions of shopping, walking, train trips and cooking – it was too much. Sometimes the repetition could even lead to bad writing/character problems. For example, Murakami couldn’t stop talking about breasts. Aomame and Tengo were constantly thinking about the breasts of various characters – Aomame’s own, Aomame’s friends’ breasts, Fuka-Eri’s breasts, Tengo’s girlfriend’s breasts. This made sense in some cases – Tengo thinking of his girlfriend, for example, since their relationship was mostly physical. However, when Aomame sadly remembers her friends who are now gone, she also imagines their breasts. What? Why wouldn’t she think about the good times and conversations they had or their personalities? It seemed very false. There were other examples, but it generally made me think a good editor would have helped.

The writing could be flat and too-expositional at times. Some of this would be the same as repetition irritation – characters doing an infodump, often an infodump the reader already knows about. Also, besides too many breasts, the sex scene that got a nomination for worst of the year was pretty bad. I didn’t even like that relationship moving to sex and later attempts to downplay it did not help.

The main love story didn’t really catch me the way previous ones did. I didn’t think the character’s interactions justified treating the relationship as though they were soulmates. Usually I’ve like a lot of good normal and quirky interactions that lead to love despite – or perhaps because of – the oddness surrounding the pair, but there was none of that here.

I didn’t love all the magic realist plot parts, but went along with it. There were enough surprisingly creepy ones to not be annoyed about it.

The good – the usual Murakami mood of things being “off” or the menacing amorphous atmosphere. The first book was so compelling and immediately established two interesting parallel plotlines. Aomame’s inquiries into the new world and Tengo’s hesitations as weirder things happen in his ghostwriting project create a wonderful tension that definitely kept me reading. At the same time, descriptions their ordinary lives build a sense of isolation. This continued in the second half but about halfway through, my interest flagged. I enjoyed the detective/noir feel of the third – more isolation also – but there was a good deal of repetition there also.

There was a metafictional element that was interesting. Fuka-Eri’s novel is seen as fantasy at first, but gradually the characters wonder if it’s all true. In writing the book, Tengo begins to affect the real world – or is it the real world? Some of the menacing supernatural events are centered around the book and I enjoy a good book-related conspiracy. One wonders if Tengo’s in-progress novel, set in the world of Fuka-Eri’s story, is the novel you’re reading right now.

Murakami’s character descriptions are fascinating. Side characters have their own lives and backgrounds as well as their own encounters with the uncanny. Sometimes I was hoping certain people would play a larger part in the book (Fuka-Eri’s guardian for example). Tragedies and incidents in the characters’ past helped define them and weren’t just there to fit into the plot later. For example, Tamaru, a man who works with Aomame, and Ushikawa, an investigator for the cult, play functional roles in the plot and could have been flat characters - but are given their own side stories and descriptions and ruminations on the past. Tengo’s friend Komatsu and Aomame’s employer, a wealthy older woman, also are well-developed.

The writing, despite some bad parts, still had Murakami’s gleaming descriptions which would make you read them twice, then think – hadn’t thought of it that way before.

Muramki doesn’t wrap things neatly up at the end, which I appreciated. Some of the past is never explained, but life moves on. I liked the ambiguity in the end and didn’t mind the loose ends. In some cases, various bits of information were given which would allow the reader to make up their own mind regarding interpretations of some of the events.

Allusions and Janacek - Also loved the constant mention of Janacek’s Sinfonietta as the song Aomame associates with her trip down the rabbit hole. Instead of Western pop music, as in previous books, there’s a focus on classical and jazz. Murakami also adds in many literary allusions – Aomame reads Proust while in hiding, Tengo quotes Chekov and compares his childhood to Dickens. As is mentioned once – all take place in the real world, but an unimaginable one to Aomame and Tengo, who are in a parallel world.

The fields of Bohemia, evoked in the Sinfonietta, seem pretty far away and Aomame mentions that the song was dedicated for a gymnasium opening but other than that there are not too many connections to the Janacek. I will quibble with Aomame’s characterization of the Sinfonietta. She wonders “How many people could recognize Janacek’s Sinfonietta after hearing just he first few bars? Probably somewhere between ‘very few’ and ‘almost none’”. No. The opening is VERY distinct – part of the first main theme which is repeated several times. The distinctive brass and percussion in Janacek’s inimitable style are very memorable. Yeah, it’s not that popular – but being memorable isn’t the same as being popular.

General opinion is that Janacek’s style is almost instantly recognizable for anyone who is even a bit familiar with his works. So I think Janacek is a not-bad fit for Murakami. Both have a highly original and recognizable style while not being experimental in off-putting ways (Janacek was not atonal, didn’t use any kind of serialism, electronic, weird instruments, John Cage-esque stunts; Murakami has recognizable plots and characters and his odd elements come from familiar fantasy, sci fi or magic realist genres). Janacek is well known for having pretty weird operas – some of them would be Murakami approved as they feature disappearing women, a man who travels to the moon and the 15th century, an ageless opera singer, talking animals, adultery and some shocking violence (baby killing, face cutting). A Janacek piece as the theme seems very appropriate.

I would recommend this one for Murakami enthusiasts, definitely not beginners.

I'll come back to your review of 1Q84 after I finish it, hopefully later this month.

#17 - Sounds interesting. I've read The Ministry of Pain and the non-fiction Thank You for Not Reading, but not heard of this one. I struggle with Ugrešić slightly (I can't explain very well why, other than to say, I just don't feel clever enough for her work sometimes), but remain intrigued by her and will look out for this book. It may be that its tamer style suits me better...

Enjoying your long reviews

>25 kidzdoc: - kidzdoc - I'll be interested to hear what you think - looks like you have a lot of Murakamis. The reviews on LT were mixed - some people hated it and others loved it. My opinion was mixed, but I'd love to discuss the book.

Rebeki - I would definitely like to read more by her, though trying to be good and not get any new books. Not sure how long that will last. Fording the Stream of Consciousness was quite fun and a quick read.

Thanks, baswood - to be honest, I didn't mean for the Murakami to be that long but keep finding more things that I wanted to add.

The Moro Affair by Leonardo Sciascia
Finished 1/11/12

I’d previously read a couple books by Sciascia and read this one as part of my attempt to read more nonfiction. In The Moro Affair, Sciascia is in analytical mode, describing the kidnapping and murder of Italian politician Aldo Moro through the letters, articles and statements of Moro and others. The Mystery of Majorana gives Sciascia’s take on another disappearance, that of Ettore Majorana, a well-regarded physicist who was never found after supposedly travelling from Palermo to Naples. I don’t agree with all of his conclusions in the two cases – occasionally it seemed like he made large leaps based on the available evidence. In The Moro Affair, it really would have helped to be more familiar with the kidnapping of Moro as well as the political situation at the time. However, both pieces were interesting. The Moro analysis still provides some political points relevant today and Majorana is a lively portrait of an intelligent man in a difficult time.

Aldo Moro was the president of the dominant political party at the time, the Christian Democrats, but he was a man amenable to compromise and had brokered an agreement with the Communists for the formation of a new government. On March 16, 1978, he was attacked while on the way to open the government and his bodyguards and chauffeur were killed. The perpetrators were a leftwing terrorist group called the Red Brigades and they issued a number of communiqués during the two months that they held Moro. The police investigation was ineffectual and Moro’s party refused to negotiate for his release. He was found murdered in the trunk of a car in early May. Sciascia’s analyses were written several months after so he expected that his readers would be familiar with the events – saturated with them in fact.

I found the book slow going at first even though the sections are very short. Instead of the terse style found in his novels and short stories, some of the analysis is more rhetorical and abstract. The author looks at Moro’s speeches, his letters from his prison, declarations issued from both the Red Brigades and Christian Democrats and, at the end, the material associated with the police investigation. It was a bit hard to keep all the politicians straight – Sciascia attributes a significance to the fact that Moro had addressed some letters to one man rather than another, for example, but it didn’t mean that much to someone unfamiliar with all the players. Sciascia dismisses most of the Red Brigades communications as bravado and implies that their claimed trial of Moro was worthless. He is critical of the Christian Democrats and their refusal to exchange Moro and spends a lot of time discussing Moro’s justification (he had previously said that the government should act to save lives even against the principle of negotiation with terrorists) as well as the unproductive actions of the politicians. His analyses of Moro’s state of mind are interesting. I’m not sure how much significance I’d give to all the codes that Sciascia finds in Moro’s words. Examples of politicians stalling and blindly sticking to their talking points are still relevant today.

The life and career of Ettore Majorana is related in several short chapters – he switched from engineering to physics, had a complicated relationship with Fermi, befriended Heisenberg and met Bohr, was in Germany to see the rise of the Nazis, returned home and stayed secluded until taking a university chair position. While travelling from Naples to Palermo, Majorana sent off several odd letters suggesting that he was thinking of suicide. He had a ticket back to Palermo but never made it. Investigators thought it was most likely suicide, but his family and some friends believed he was still alive. Sciascia has some fun describing the bureaucracy involved and the doubts of the police as well as the ‘madness’ that afflicts the family of anyone who has gone missing. I found the life of Majorana involving and read this one straight through. I did think that Sciascia makes some leaps of logic here. He provides some good points in defending Majorana against the charge of being a Nazi-lover and the evidence does suggest that it wasn’t suicide (withdrawing a large amount of money before leaving, for example), but I found Sciascia’s suggested motivation and final fate of Majorana unconvincing.

I've been working my through these reviews for a day or so. Great stuff, great reviews. Hope I can keep up!

What a long review for 1Q84! I will also have to come back to it when I'm done reading it. Care to discuss the book with us at Author Theme Reads? We're doing a group read of the book right now and would love to have you share your opinions!

Great review of The Moro Affair It would take something really special for an author to be able to describe succinctly the morass of Italian politics. Does anybody know what's going on ?

So far Hard Boiled Wonderland is the only Murakami I've given up on. From your review it sounds as though IQ84 could go the same way, so thank you. I'll put it on the bottom of the tbr pile.

>30 dchaikin: – Hi dchaikin – thanks for stopping by. I know what you mean – sometimes it’s hard to keep up with all the threads I’m interested in. I’ve been getting a lot of ideas for books to buy which is good in general, bad for the attempt to reduce the TBR pile.

>31 lilisin: – lilsin – I’ll have to stop by – would love to discuss 1Q84. One reason the review was so long was that I had a number of criticisms – it’s a little bad, but often when I have problems with a book, I’m more motivated to write a review and the review tends to be a bit longer.

>32 baswood: – Definitely not me – though reading about Berlusconi before his ouster provided much infotainment - ‘He said what?? He did what??’ I do think being aware of the 1970’s Italian political atmosphere would have helped with The Moro Affair. I wondered, for example, if Sciascia’s portrait of Moro differed from the general media/public view of him. Sciascia did mention that the politicians dismissed Moro’s letters as being uncharacteristic and likely coerced but Sciascia disagreed.

>33 pamelad: – Yeah, it was pretty long for not being one of his best books. Kafka on the Shore is the only other Murakami that I would have reservations about. It did seem like several people I knew hated HBW – but a lot of that was due to the ending.

Thanks for your excellent review of The Moro Affair. I'd like to read more about Moro's kidnapping and murder, as this happened during my senior year of high school and I remember it well, and I would have been tempted to get this book, but I'll look for something else instead.

Yeah, this wouldn't be a good general history/background/consequences regarding the Moro incident. Sciascia pretty much has no background, though the introduction got the main points across. I do think it's good that NYRB made it available though. Also - I'll be looking forward to reading about all the books you'll be getting with the NYRB subscription.

Lodgers by Nenad Velickovic
Finished 1/13/12

This was another read for the Reading Globally Balkans theme. It takes place during the Balkans wars during the early 1990’s, in a Sarajevo under siege, but despite that is pretty funny and entertaining. The first person narrator is Maja, a teenage girl who can’t decide if she’s keeping a diary or writing a novel. More than anything, this book reminded me of I Capture the Castle in terms of voice. Maja is observant and sarcastic and, as in I Capture the Castle, she describes the lives of her quirky family residing in an odd place. Pretty funny but also serious – the narrator never veers into sentiment but the comedy isn’t over the top.

Maja’s family home has been destroyed so they’ve moved in with her father, the Director of the museum, who’s been staying there to guard the collections. Besides the narrator, her parents, her grandma and her half-brother and his pregnant wife, the museum is home to the dedicated but uncommunicative porter Brkic and his friend, self-interested and verbose Julio. Maja spends her time writing, describing the day-to-day activities of all the lodgers. She details the foibles of everyone and depicts mundane events like the actions of her brother Davor’s dog Sniffy or her mother’s macrobiotic meals. However, though the family is somewhat removed from immediate combat, they are still subject to the dangers and discomforts of a city at war. Maja actively tries to avoid politics but it keeps seeping in. There are a number of plots running through Maja’s sometimes scattershot journal – Davor’s attempt to avoid conscription, her father’s attempt to prevent the Partizans from setting up headquarters in the museum and the progress of Sanja’s pregnancy and her conflicts with Davor.

Some people might complain that the book is too quirky (sometimes that seems to be the complaints with Castle) – Maja’s hippie mother or her grandmother’s secret case that Julio’s been trying to steal or the attempts to make a balloon – but I think it works well. However, her initial refusals to discuss who’s on what side can make the narrative a bit confusing and sometimes I was puzzled as to what was going on (like where all the oil was going – people kept stealing it? Then it came back?). However, it was a very engaging read – loved the first person voice. The ending was neither an out-of-character tragedy or falsely uplifting. Recommended.

Good review of Lodgers

I loved your review of Lodgers as well, and I've added it to my wish list.

I received the first book in my NYRB Book Club subscription this week, Walkabout by James Vance Marshall, which is a short novel about two young children from Charleston, South Carolina who are left to fend for themselves in rural Australia after a plane crash, until they are rescued and befriended by an Aborigine boy. I'll read it this afternoon.

ETA: My review of Walkabout, the January NYRB Book Club selection, is on my thread.

Another one who enjoyed your review of Lodgers.

Dora, Doralina by Rachel de Queiroz
Finished 1/15/12

(Some spoilers)

Dora, Doralina tells the story of Maria das Dores who grows up under the thumb of her controlling mother and endures an unhappy marriage before running off to be an actress and finding love. Dora’s narrative captures the mood of the cloistered estate of her mother and the topsy-turvy life as part of a travelling theater troupe. However, I found her to be passive and unformed (though initially this is probably due to being overshadowed by her mother all her life). Even when she’s off on her own, though, she doesn’t develop much. I liked the book and got into the plot but it wasn’t love.

Initially, we’re introduced to Dora’s mother and husband. At first it’s difficult to tell what her relationship is to her mother, called Senhora by her and everyone else. Is she her mother-in-law? Stepmother? No, her real mother. Senhora is passive-aggressive and controlling and the mutual dislike is manifested by coldness, repression and occasional biting comments. Laurindo, Dora’s husband, isn’t in the story that much – representative of the coolness in the marriage. It’s unhappy but most of the time not miserable. Senhora remains a dominant and unknownable figure through the whole book and the airless atmosphere of their estate out in the Brazilian backwoods is well-portrayed. The first section is in sharp contrast to the second, where Dora falls in with a theater group run by the imperious, generous, larger-than-life impresario Seu Brandini and his tactful, pragmatic wife Estrela, a fading actress. The highs and lows, the glory and the poverty of the theater make this a fun section to read. The side characters provide liveliness as well.

However, I started to notice in the second section that Dora mostly watches everyone else. When she mentions characteristics about herself, like that she is vain, I thought – she is? Didn’t notice. She’s overshadowed by her mother (understandable and part of the plot) but then by most of the other characters. She meets her true love the Captain and then she pretty much lives for him and spends her time in the rest of the book describing his exploits. The past, and her secrets, occasionally pop up in the plot but don’t really change anything. The book ends with the end of their relationship. At one point, Dora notes that she worshiped the Captain and it may have not been healthy, but she doesn’t care. She gives up her career for him (even though she liked acting, she pretended she didn’t for him) and always tries to minimize annoying him or prevent his alcohol-related problems. A couple times she uses the ‘helpless woman’ stereotype for her own purposes, but it’s still to help the Captain. Also, there was one part where she pretty much says a woman can’t be raped which bothered me. I’ve enjoyed books about women living quiet conventional lives, but usually there’s more introspection. Dora tends to describe events rather than analyzing them. Still, the book was pleasant enough.

Nice review of Dora, Doralina.

My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier
Finished 1/16/12

I read this book in a crazed frenzy. The pleasant country life described was full of tension due to the uncertainty related to various events as well as the narrator’s naïve, heedless feelings and decisions. There were similarities to du Maurier’s Rebecca – an enigmatic woman and a treasured estate are at the center of the plot. However, there was much more ambiguity surrounding the woman who sets off the events, Rachel. As in Rebecca, the author ends on a climax but less is resolved. The simple prose, focus on the natural surroundings and a refusal to admit feelings in a first person narrative create a good portrait of Philip, the narrator.

du Maurier quickly sets up the events that lead to a clash between Rachel and Philip. Philip’s guardian Ambrose, an eternal bachelor who planned to leave the estate to him, travels to Italy for his health and meets and marries Rachel, a distant relative. While everyone in Cornwall is happy for him, Philip is annoyed. He already has hateful images of Rachel in his head when Ambrose sends him incoherent letters hinting that Rachel is trying to kill him. He rushes to Florence but Ambrose is already dead and Rachel is gone. Philip plans revenge against her until she suddenly shows up at his estate.

It is perhaps not a spoiler to say that he falls in love with her but her feelings, thoughts and actions remain a mystery. The tension ratchets up as new information about Rachel trickles out and Philip remains blind to her bad qualities. Even the placid scenes depicted are interesting as you wonder if Rachel is sincere or manipulating Philip and everyone else. For example, several times he is suspicious of her, but she immediately detects the change, finds out what’s wrong and provides an explanation that satisfies him. A master manipulator, one might think. However, it’s entirely possible that the answers she provides are the truth. More tension comes from Philip’s rush to fall in love with her – like his godfather and friends, you want to tell him to slow down and see reason. He’s avoided the company of women all his life and plans to be a bachelor like Ambrose – could be why he has no intuition or emotional intelligence or whatever it’s called. The silences between them become deafening – pretty quickly on the reader realizes that Philip knows nothing about Rachel. Her background, her first marriage, her life with Ambrose – all this is ignored or put off because Rachel says it’s painful to talk about. Some people may think that Philip’s actions are rash and stupid and they are. However, he’s like a hormone-crazed teenager in love who thinks that no one has ever felt like this before and the more people try to slow him down, the faster he runs off a cliff.

Rachel reminded me of Rebecca in several ways. She is able to win everyone over in a quick fashion (as Maxim said that Rebecca could do) and all her work turning Philip’s home into a comfortable and beautiful place recalls Rebecca making Manderley what it was. Rebecca’s secrets are revealed at the end of her book, but readers must weigh the evidence on Rachel for themselves. Philip is a bit of a misogynist at the beginning of the book – he thinks women are pretty much useless and his initial view of her is either as a nagging, controlling wife or a spoiled, greedy vixen. He remains one even after Rachel wins him over – his view of her recalls the virgin/whore, above reason/below reason etc. dichotomy. When he’s in love with her, nothing can make him believe anything negative about her and there’s always an explanation for everything. When he’s suspicious of her, she must be an evil murderer. I felt the real explanation must lie somewhere in between. An excellent, suspenseful read.

Wow! I can't believe how fast you are reading, and such interesting books and reviews too! I'm especially grateful for your list of Czech authors and the reviews of Balkan literature, which I have to get started on. Great to see you in this group!

Enjoyed your review of My Cousin Rachel

Great review of My Cousin Rachel! It reminded me that I really want to read more of DuMaurier's works as I've only read My Cousin Rachel and Rebecca. I have a feeling I may have read Jamaica Inn in high school, but I don't remember.

A very nice review of My cousin Rachel! I have never read anything by Du Maurier; I somehow always thought it was chick-lit or should be read in original French. I should have a look at her work.

Thanks, everyone! It really was an addictive book.

rebeccanyc - Glad that the Czech list helped! Most of the books I've read so far are pretty short - less than 300 pages (the Murakami was started before Christmas), but it's good for crossing things off the TBR pile. I'll be looking forward to seeing your reviews for the Balkans read - I hadn't heard of the three you listed on the thread and I'm really intrigued by Open Letter books.

japaul - Yes, I want to get some more du Maurier also. I read a book of her stories published by NYRB (Don't Look Now) and thought they were pretty good. The original of The Birds is very creepy.

edwinbcn - I guess I think of her more as suspense with a strong romantic component. I'd also compare her works to Gothic/sensation novels of the 19th century (well, late 18th/early 19th for Gothic). Rebecca is a great place to start though of course I'd recommend this one as well.

>47 edwinbcn: - Du Maurier was English, despite the name. The name comes from her French-born grandfather who also became a writer in English, becoming famous for the novel, Trilby - this gave us the character of Svengali and the hat (from the stage version).

I studied Rebecca this time last year for an OU course and have previously studied some of her short stories. She is an interesting writer rather than a good one, prone to going off in overblown romantic mode. She was very unhappy about the fact that she wasn't taken seriously as writer. If you are going to read only one of her novels Rebecca is probably the one but I have a soft spot for her later novel about drug-induced time travel, The House on the Strand.

#48 I loved the NYRB collection (Don't Look Now) and yes, the original of"The Birds" is so much better than the movie. Haven't read Rebecca since high school.

Fixed #47

>50 Jargoneer: - Drug-induced time travel sounds pretty tempting. I was thinking of Jamaica Inn for my next du Maurier but I'll keep an eye out for that one also. I can see what you're saying about du Maurier though I think that mode fits with her plots.

>51 rebeccanyc: - I think I recall someone saying the Roeg movie of Don't Look Now wasn't very good (maybe it was you?) but the story was nicely creepy and atmospheric. The stories were pretty good, though I thought some had a dated feel just because some of the concepts and twists are so familiar now.

You Better Not Cry by Augusten Burroughs
Finished 1/17/12

I received this book as a Christmas present and wanted to read it soon. We currently have a Snowpocalypse (Snowmaggedon) so it seemed like a good time. This book is an account of the horrible and ridiculously horrible Christmases of Augusten Burroughs. All the stories straddle the line between funny and horrific. I liked the writing and I did laugh out loud several times. The stories move chronologically, and I thought the earlier ones were better. The later ones tend to be funny/depressing with some uplifting endings which seemed somewhat conventional.

In the title story, young Augusten confuses Santa and Jesus to the horror of his grandparents. They bring a giant Santa which Augusten loves too much, with unpleasant but funny results. This was my favorite story – it was consistently hilarious and the ending was comic rather than Christmas-lesson-learned. Also, it reminded me of the brief period when I went to Sunday school and was horrified to learn about circumcision. The next story was also pretty funny and describes a disaster of a gingerbread house. “Claus and Effect” finds Augusten at his most spoiled, as he demands ridiculous presents culminating with the ubiquitous pony request.

The rest of the stories deal with adult Augusten’s Christmases. Augusten wakes up next to a Santa impersonator with no memory of the previous evening in “Ask Again Later” – a story that is still funny but somewhat squirm-inducing. “Why Do You Reward Me Thus?” starts out with a laugh-out-loud-funny takedown of Christmas songs and continues with more painful comedy as Augusten wakes up from an alcohol-induced blackout to find that he’s celebrating with bums. At first disgusted, he realizes that he likes it. He gets friendly with a classy ex-singer bum and has something of an epiphany. While I do approve of the idea of an operatic aria causing a life-changing moment, the end was the start of too many lesson-learned endings. “The Best and Only Everything” was more of a painful relationship story with a happy ending as the narrator prepares to celebrate the holidays with his boyfriend George, who has recently been diagnosed with HIV. The last story “Silent Night” finds a now-stable Augusten deciding to do Christmas again with his partner Dennis but an accident derails their plans. At the end, everyone comes together to help them – the Christmas miracle in that story.

I haven’t read anything else by Burroughs but someone who’s read all his stuff might think that this is Burroughs-lite. Also, there’s quite a bit of unhappiness in the stories so they could be off-putting rather than funny for some. I enjoyed it though and wouldn’t mind reading more by Burroughs.

My problem with Augusten Burroughs is that I strain to keep telling myself that it is all made up. Because if it isn't made up, the author must (would) be a gruesomely, frightening psychopath. I loved the humour of Magical thinking. True stories; That was the first book I read by him. Dry calls for compassion, but Running with scissors. A memoir left me with nothing but disgust. I have avoided buying A Wolf at the Table. A Memoir of My Father, because I expect it to be the similarly disgusting as Running with scissors.

Let's just hope it is all fiction.

Oh dear, the only one by Burroughs that I have is A Wolf at the Table. Well, at least I got it on a sale, so I won't be too disappointed if it doesn't quite satisfy.

ETA: Good review of You Better Not Cry.

Lodgers has been added to my list of books I'd like to read, and I'm enjoying all the du Maurier talk. I read My Cousin Rachel last year and have just finished reading Rebecca for the second time (I really need to update my thread). I prefer the latter (which I read in a crazed frenzy even on a second reading), but liked My Cousin Rachel a lot too. I was less keen on Jamaica Inn, the only other du Maurier I've read; it's a romance/adventure story rather than a psychological thriller and I found it a bit silly. However, I'm getting the impression that du Maurier's books are quite different from each other - The House on the Strand sounds intriguing - so I look forward to reading more by her.

Vicki Baum, who wrote Grand Hotel, described herself as a "first-rate second-rate author", and I'd put Daphne Du Maurier in the same category. I loved Rebecca, thought Jamaica Inn was a bit silly, and, after your review, will definitely seek out My Cousin Rachel.

Sometimes a first-rate second-rate book is exactly what you want to read.

I liked Augusten Burrough's Running With Scissors and admired his ability to distance himself from a truly appalling childhood and make it amusing.

>54 edwinbcn: – edwinbcn – I had to read the synopsis of Running With Scissors to refresh my memory of Burroughs’ whole story and it does sound pretty horrible. Maybe I’ll try Magical Thinking (more Burroughs-lite?) instead. The stories in You Better Not Cry skipped a lot of his life – pretty much Christmas when he was very young, when he was an alcoholic adult and the last one where he seemed to have settled down. His pill-popping mother and dissatisfied father (and their arguments) as well as a generally unhappy childhood are mentioned then he skips to when he’s older and self-medicating with alcohol and meaningless sex. I did review the book like it was fiction though – the too-happy endings wouldn’t pass muster in a constructed story.

>55 dmsteyn: – Thanks!

I will say that in You Better Not Cry it sounded like he had a “normal” dysfunctional childhood instead of an uber-on-steroids-dysfunctional childhood (and unsurprisingly turned to alcohol/sex). Not sure about A Wolf at the Table.

>56 Rebeki:, 57 – Hmmm….sounds like maybe I won’t go with Jamaica Inn for my next du Maurier. Oh well, there’s always drug-induced time travel. I’ve also seen The Infernal World of Branwell Bronte and was interested because of Brontes plus the title.

Sometimes a first-rate second-rate book is exactly what you want to read.

I know what you mean – sometimes I want a book with a really addictive plot but one that’s decently written and not too formulaic. Semi-trashy 19th and 18th c novels can often fit the bill (maybe those would be second-rate second-rate?)

The File on H by Ismail Kadare
Finished 1/20/12

Another Reading Globally Balkans pick. I’ve enjoyed all the Kadares that I’ve read so far. Sometimes the story isn’t what I expected from reading the synopsis, but it’s still interesting. In Broken April, I thought the book would be mainly about Gjorg, a man who had finally fulfilled tradition by murdering his brother’s killer and had a month before the family of his victim was allowed to seek his death. Instead, Kadare describes the thoughts of others who are affected by the killing. In The File on H, I though the focus would be on the attempt to prove that the two scholars are spies, but much of the book was devoted to describing the research of the two men. However, the sections analyzing the epics and their changes were very involving.

Bill and Max are two Irish-American scholars who travel to Albania to record the epic poems of wandering rhapsodes in the 1930’s. The authorities believe they could possibly be spies and task the governor of N_ to watch them. While the pair becomes deeply involved in their research, they are unaware of the stir that they have caused. The governor communicates with his diligent spy and his wife fantasizes about having an affair with the men. Some of the men are disturbed by the newfangled tape recorder that the foreigners have brought with them. The stories of all of these characters are told through their own accounts and diaries as well as third person limited. Kadare based the story on a historical event, but the atmosphere of paranoia, spying and violence would be applicable to Albania under Enver Hoxha.

The parts describing the epics that Bill and Max record are fascinating though their research goals are overreaching. At first, Kadare subjects them to the same satirical lens that is aimed at the provincial townspeople. Their idea initially comes from listening to a program on the radio and they rather blithely think they’ll go and quickly learn the origin of Homer’s epics. However, once there they escape the curiosity of the inhabitants of N_ and get sucked into their work recording and analyzing the epics of rhapsodes – the same story from different people and the same rhapsode’s epic over time. Kadare’s prose is generally clean and efficient but he will occasionally go off on lyrical flights and often these flights describe hypotheses about the epics. Bill (it is mainly Bill who narrates or speculates in his diary) wonders about all the changes to epic poems over time; the additions and deletions; how a poem comes to resemble a fluid living thing; how this relates to Homer’s role as the codifier of the stories in the Iliad and the Odyssey (or who he really was – a group etc); and why the epics are currently dying. This is interesting but the disappearance of the scholars into their work represents an ignorance that soon turns dangerous.

The people of N_ are satirized for their provincial views - they regard the scholars, who want nothing more than to get away from them, as the biggest event in a long time and expect entertainment. The governor of N_ is shown to be in constant awe of his spy’s prose and thinks everything the scholars do is proof of their treachery. His wife is very shallow, the sort of woman depicted in the 19th century as corrupted by books. But Kadare also raises some interesting issues – the Serbian-Albanian conflict over whose epics are the originals, the whole subculture of spies, the culture of the rhapsodes.

There’s a lot of head-jumping, the governor’s wife is seriously annoying and some of the symbolism (Bill’s encroaching blindness and his end) are rather obvious, but I liked this book and would recommend it.

You are well into your stride now you have finished IQ84. Good review of The file on H

Sounds fascinating. I think i might enjoy the book just for Bill and Max's research. Great review.

>60 baswood: - I do think having a thread is helping me focus on finishing books/writing reviews. Sometimes I'll go "off" books for awhile but that hasn't happened recently.

>61 dchaikin: - I did think the parts about the epics were the most interesting. The book was based on the actual travels and research of Albert Lord and Milman Parry - Kadare has a short afterword about their work. There might be some books about them that would illuminate their actual research.

The Golem by Gustav Meyrink
Finished 1/22/12

I enjoyed the Gothic atmosphere of this book and the many interesting and nicely creepy stories. There’s a rather disjointed plot and I don’t think I got all the Cabala-related mysticism that goes on. The occasionally overheated prose effectively conveys the settings - dark back alleys, underground passages, supernatural houses, dank prisons as well as the inside of the narrator’s head.

The narrator is a Pernath, a gem-cutter living in the Jewish quarter in late 19th c. Prague. A number of plots and characters are introduced in the first couple of chapters and then finally coalesce into several plots. Pernath realizes that he’s been in an asylum and had his memory of the past wiped out. While occasionally trying to figure out the past, he becomes involved in a melodramatic plot of blackmail and revenge. Somehow this is intertwined with his encounter with a golem – a creature brought to life that, in this book, appears every 33 years. Pernath has a number of other supernatural encounters but they could just as easily be his dreams or delusions – he can be rather unstable. He’s also torn between a beautiful woman from his past and the sweet and spiritually-inclined daughter of his friend.

There were a number of well-written passages, often describing Pernath’s obsessions and dreams. Meyrink captured the claustrophobic feelings of Pernath when he’s stuck in one dream, thinks that there’s something menacing him in his room but is unable to leave, and wanders, lost, through tunnels and streets. We get a number of stories from a variety of characters – some of them are tangential to the plot, but are interesting anyway. The story of the golem appears with the others but Pernath has some personal memories as well as an early appearance of a golem at his apartment. While some legends have the golem brought to life to protect the Jewish community or act as a sort of menial servant, here the appearance of the golem is related to the development of Pernath’s spiritual side. At one point, he sees a golem as his doppelganger – sort of a spiritual double. The appearance of the golem precedes his realization that his memories have disappeared and leads to his search for his self, often with the help of his neighbor, Jewish scholar Hillel. His love for the worldly, beautiful, philandering Angelica contrasts with his attraction to Hillel’s daughter Miriam, who has something of a foreign beauty and only thinks about religion and miracles. (Some of this oddly enough reminded me of Spinoza’s conflict between the transient and the immortal – recently read a novel about him.) I probably missed a lot of the meanings of the golem- and mysticism-related stuff. I did like the overall ambiguity of the book – many things were left unexplained or hanging.

I was bothered by the portrayal of the Jewish characters – the horrible, greedy Wassertrum and the saintly Hillel with his beautiful daughter Miriam. It’s certainly good that they weren’t all negative portraits, but there are a number of books that have this dichotomy of good/bad Jewish characters (often the good character is someone’s beautiful daughter who the Christian protagonist falls in love with and possibly wants to convert). Somewhat irritating.

Nice review of The Golem. Now I will not regret postponement of reading that book.

It is interesting you bring up Vicky Baum, and you even have two of her books! Your review confirm my expectations of her work, kind of melodramatic, not really what I like. But then, she is a 30s-40s German writer, so my interest lies there. Also, she was one of the few writers in exile, who escaped the war by going to Shanghai. I have five books by Baum, and should read some this year.

I read Baum's Secret Sentence last year and found it a necessarily bleak but interesting sketch of pre-Nazi German society.

I don't think I have any books by Vicky Baum, but I'm also interested in German writers from early/mid-century. I'll look for your reviews.

Varieties of Exile by Mavis Gallant
Finished 1/24/12

The first three stories in this book were nicely observed portraits of charcters whose thoughts and words are at cross purposes. Nice, but not too memorable. However, the first story of the Linnet Muir sequence (several semi-autobiographical first person narratives) hooked me and I eagerly read the rest of the stories. “The Doctor” is Linnet’s look back at her childhood in Montreal, which is continued in “Voices in the Snow”. Her independence is chronicled in “In Youth is Pleasure” and “Between Zero and One” describes her employment in the mostly male section of an engineering firm. The title story is a portrait of an acquaintance of hers, a married man who she derogatorily calls a “remittance man” – one who has been paid by his family in the Britain to go away. The next set of stories follows the Carette family, the widowed mother and her two daughters, strong and independent Berthe and fragile Marie. The Carettes are mentioned in Linnet’s sequence but do not play a large role. The last set of stories describes the life of Steven Burnet, his long-ago ex-wife Lily and their friends.

I enjoyed all the sequences – they were sharply observed, well-written (a lot of sentences that I admiringly read a second time) and you came to know the characters in a short space. Many of the stories deal with the tension between the present and the past. In the Linnet Muir stories, the narrator remembers her childhood and is able to comment on the true meaning of some of the events or pass judgment on her own childish beliefs. At the same time, though, the child’s attachments and thoughts come through. The books that she treasured as a child are now judged didactic and she now knows that they were only read the one time, but there’s still some sadness at their loss – she doesn’t know quite where they were lost. The narrator also is able to create a wonderful portrait of a specific place and time and notes now that it is all gone. Her incisive analyses also expose the characters for what they really are. About her co-workers at the firm and their petty complaints – “They were like that prisoner of Mussolini, shut up for life, who burst into tears because the soup was cold.” The men are much older than Linnet and she notes that they all complained about difficult childhoods. "What struck me was the good they thought it had done them (I had yet to meet an adult man with a poor opinion of himself) and their desire to impose the same broken fortunes on other people, particularly on the young - though not their own young, of course." The tension continues as she grows up though instead the distance between what Linet believes she is – an independent adult – and how everyone treats her.

The Carette family stories are narrated in the third person and the disparities there are between expectations and reality. The same attention to detail and social nuances are there as well. Their mother tries to maintain their social status after being widowed which necessarily involves some privation. Later, she and Berthe try to find a husband for Marie but all the superficial fuss overlays some sadness and resignation at the way things are. Marie’s son, Raymond, continually disappoints his mother and aunt. Detached bachelor Steven Burnet narrates stories centered on his marriage to Lily Quale. Initially, he presents the marriage as something he’s practically forgotten, but his detailed narrative – as well as the fact that all his relationships since have been commitment-free – demonstrates his self-delusion. As in the Muir stories, the conflict between the present and the past is seen in the Burnet stories. Steven, going by S. Blake in the present, chaperones Lily’s daughter around the south of France while memories of his marriage are dredged up. He recalls their childhood love, now complete with instances of her betrayal. He juxtaposes past and present again in another story describing the party that led to the disintegration of not only his own marriage, but the marriage of their friends in France.

Often, Gallant’s sharp eye is directed towards the divisions between all stripes of Canadians – the French-Catholics, English-Protestants and those in between. The French language is used as a class marker, a weapon, a source of grief and shame. Many of the characters remain ambivalent about Britian and the Queen, America and Americans, and the wars that crop up and affect the families in different ways. All masterfully done of course. The book is named after one of the stories but the title would be applicable to many of the stories that appear in this collection as the characters are stuck in their own kinds of exile – physical, social, emotional. Wonderfully portrayed – will definitely be reading more by Gallant.

I've been chatting with you on other people's threads, and finally found your own. I'm so glad I did. You have been exploring some areas that I am interested in, but can't focus on at the moment. By reading your thorough reviews I can enjoy the books vicariously. I'll definitely bookmark your lists. Hope you enjoy the Peter Sis.

Yes, it's really nice to see what everyone else is reading. My to-buy list has definitely gotten longer. I want to read more nonfiction but my choices are mostly popular stuff so it's good to see the things other people are exploring and commenting on.

I am glad you liked Varieties of Exile and your excellent review reminded me about the stories and why I enjoyed them so much when I read them several years ago. This book also started me on reading Gallant, and it is still my favorite.

Thanks for the note about Albert Lord and Milman Parry. Enjoyed your latest reviews.

rebeccanyc - It sounds like you enjoyed The Cost of Living - have you read Paris Stories yet? Did any of her other stories involved the characters in Varieties of Exile?

DieF, Yes, I've enjoyed all the Mavis Gallant I've read, including The Cost of Living and Paris Stories. To tell you the truth, I read them so long ago I don't remember if they involved the same characters or not, probably largely not. I do think Varieties of Exile is the best collection, partly for the Linnet Muir stories you noted, and maybe because it was the first collection I read. I also have a large collection, which is not NYRB so may contain some of the stories also in those other three books, called The Selected Stories of Mavis Gallant, but it's been sitting on the TBR for a while.

>71 dchaikin: - The Singer of Tales is Albert Lord's book about the results of their expedition (I think Parry had died by that time). I'm wondering whether I should read it - could be interesting but some of the reviews said it was a bit technical.

>73 rebeccanyc: - Glad to hear you liked all the NYRB Gallant collections since I'll probably try to get those ones next. It does sound like the Linnet Muir and Carette sister stories are fairly widely anthologized so those ones might be in some non-NYRB collections.

DieFledermaus - An excellent review of Varieties of Exile. It is motivating me to pull Paris Stories, which I already own, out of my TBR pile. It fits with my goal of reading more short stories this year.

I had never heard of Augusten Burroughs. I'll have to investigate . . .

The Golem piqued my interest until your last paragraph. But the plot and subject matter sound intriguing.

>75 Linda92007: - It looks like that one is her most popular collection and I'd be interested to hear what you think of it.

>76 Poquette: - I do remember he made a somewhat big splash with Running with Scissors - I think it was made into a movie. I thought of him in the David Sedaris vein (I'd read something by Sedaris) but more dysfunctional. Sounds like some people have read a lot of his work - I've only read the one.

I do think The Golem was interesting and worth reading. I just groaned when the "bad" Jewish character was introduced - terribly stereotypical.

Mavis Gallant definitely seems worth a try. Thank you for the introduction.

A Short History of Myth by Karen Armstrong
Finished 1/28/12

This book was a quick, interesting read and it succeeded in sparking my interest in reading other comparative religion/mythology texts. While Armstrong is able to describe nuances in a multitude of beliefs, she tends to simplistically depict the recent past and present. I wondered a bit about some of the things she stated as fact and many of the references were secondary sources.

The dominant types of beliefs and reasons for the beliefs as well as their purpose are described for each of the ages – the Paleolithic, Neolithic, early civilizations, the Axial age, the post-Axial age and the great Western transformation. In the Paleolithic myths, the focus is on how they relate to hunting. The Sky God is found in a variety of religions and there are specific prohibitions and rituals related to hunting. A number of religions also depicted people as very close to the gods, with a lost paradise just out of sight. The Neolithic was an age for the gods of agriculture, with myths relating to violence, sexual fertility and renewal. The myths of the early civilizations portrayed the city as a divine place with the gods farther away than ever. In the Axial age, the major Western religions were developed and part of the struggle was defining themselves relative to the earlier beliefs. The main religions were developed further in the post-Axial age. Armstrong defines the great Western transformation from 1500 to the present and the focus is on the switch to logical, pragmatic thinking and the loss of the culture of belief.

By definition, this book had to simplify an enormous amount of material. Still, the author was able to incorporate a number of nuanced views of the beliefs in the earlier periods. I did wonder how much of this was her interpretation vs. based on evidence. Many of the sources seemed to be secondary. I can’t fault her for being somewhat more clearcut on cause and effect, before and after because there’s not enough time to go through all the evidence. For example, the author will say something like traumatic event X led to person Y reinterpreting this myth and writing Z. And saying something such as the myth is no longer relevant so people looked for something else is obviously not going to be as simple as that but those types of examples didn’t bother me too much.

It did bother me that she provided an overly simplified view of the present skepticism. There were a couple sentences that irritated me – one saying we had lost our appreciation for imaginative thinking and the other implying that the purpose of all religions today is to “get something” from the gods. I would have let this go if the last section hadn’t been what I considered overly reductive. For example, she says that we no longer have any mythic heroes to look up to as an example and cites “mythologized” figures such as Elvis and Princess Diana who can interest but not inspire. Would she say the same with other people such as MLK Jr, Gandhi or Mother Theresa – people who have also been heavily mythologized, but for their good deeds (with faults brushed away)? She also says the scientist/inventor is the new hero but that doesn’t always seem to be the case – political/ national figures still figure largely, as well artists and writers, and I don’t know where she’d put philosophers – many grapple with finding meaning in life, something she said is currently lacking, but the ones that were cited were usually quoted as anti-religious or individualistic.

Armstrong repeatedly mentions how in earlier periods ritual was very important and the myths were not taken literally. However, she discusses in the last section the death of myths and only briefly brings up the fact that some groups now believe that everything must be literally true instead of symbolic. Since this contradicts her many previous assertions, it was odd that she did not go into this more in depth. She also mentions destructive modern myths but that is also glossed over. Literary analysis that she provides with a mythical slant is interesting, but sometimes the criteria seems to be rigid. Probably most of my complaints are due to the fact that this age is ongoing while the others can be looked back on and summarized and that the modern era is the most familiar.

In the final pages, Armstrong answers the questions she poses – how will we live with meaning, learn compassion and find examples to follow? – with the reply that literature can fill the void of myth. Not going to disagree with that.

Hi, DieFledermaus. Delurking to chime in on the excellent reviews! I am also interested in comparative religion and mythology, but have steered away from Karen Armstrong, as I was always afraid that she might be a bit biased towards Christianity. Your review has, if not dispelled this fear, at least given me an idea of her writing. Thank you.

An excellent and thoughtful review of A Short History of Myth

80, 81 - Thanks - I hope it was helpful.

dmsteyn - I don't think that Armstrong was overtly pro-Christian in this book. She does repeat some of the criticism of the present that you might hear from some groups of Christians - people today are godless secularists living without meaning. She also links this to the loss of religion/myth as an vital part of peoples' lives. Also, there's some weird, but not developed, ideas about no strong set of beliefs --> witch trials? I think her idea was the irrational needs an outlet but it wasn't expressed well.

However, she repeatedly writes that people in the past didn't take their religions as the literal truth and gives the impression that believing everything in the Bible, for instance, would just be ridiculous and wouldn't stand up to scrutiny. Also, Christianity is treated as just another set of mythical beliefs and often she shows how it cribbed stories from older religions.

Armstrong also seemed dismissive of present day religious practice (one example - the Eucharist only being a symbol instead of the "actual" body and blood of Christ) and at the end - books are going to be the new religion?

Who would you recommend for some good comparative religion/mythology texts?

Corrigan by Caroline Blackwood
Finished 1/29/12

This book was an uncomfortable and unpleasant read. I was irritated not knowing what would happen so I finished it. The book was well-done though – the character portraits were lively and vivid, some characters having an almost Dickensian fervor. The depiction of Nadine’s conflicted, unhappy relationship with her mother was nuanced and realistic. Also, the end was interesting – providing a different look at the events and leaving some things ambiguous. I guess I just don’t like reading about an old woman being swindled and I found Corrigan repulsive instead of charming but bad news. I really enjoyed Blackwood’s other book published by NYRB, Great Granny Webster, which had similarly imaginative monomaniacs but not the annoyances of Corrigan, so I would recommend that one instead.

Devina Blunt is a widow with one married daughter, Nadine, a nice house, generous trusts, and a caring if somewhat vulgar housekeeper, Mrs. Murphy. She is still unhappy after the death of her husband and finds it hard to relate to Nadine so is susceptible to Corrigan, who comes rolling up to her house in a wheelchair one day asking for donations to charity. In a short time, Corrigan is making himself comfortable at her house and getting money from her under the pretext that it is for the hospital that treated him. Nadine tries to stay out of her mother’s business but becomes increasingly worried when it seems that Mrs. Blunt, Mrs. Murphy and her friend Sabrina have fallen under Corrigan’s spell.

One starts the book having some idea what it is about, so everything that Corrigan does is seen as a lie. His behavior is typical of a con man – trying to drive away Mrs. Murphy and Nadine, for example. Mrs. Blunt seems to be the perfect victim – old and lonely, very naïve (knows nothing about money, can’t drive, afraid even to go to the bank), trusting and afraid of insulting Corrigan. Reading their conversations was quite uncomfortable, not just because of all the ploys Corrigan uses to get money but because he clearly feels the need to have himself thought to be generous as well as modest. He’s also way too intense, constantly getting in Mrs. Blunt’s space and making all sorts of personal comments even when they barely know each other. Watching Mrs. Blunt put up with all of Corrigan’s annoying behavior was unpleasant.

Nadine is constantly frustrated with her mother acting as though her life is over after her husband’s death and her passivity combined with clear unhappiness. I sympathized with her, even though she was supposed to be the stick in the mud, because it’s hard to watch when people have problems or emotional issues yet make no effort to solve them. Blackwood’s depiction of Nadine’s complex array of emotions regarding her mother was the best part of the book. A mix of irritation, guilt, love and resentment in the end makes her avoid Mrs. Blunt. Nadine appears to be the perfect wife and mother but she’s actually something of a cliché – the unhappy housewife with a callous husband she doesn’t love. The arrival of Corrigan inspires her mother to get out and have a purpose and Nadine doesn’t greet this change happily. Mrs. Blunt’s transformation is perhaps also tired – unhappy woman learns to live again when a new man enters her life – though the fact that it’s a swindler makes it somewhat different. Blackwood poses the idea that Corrigan does Mrs. Blunt more good than harm and she provides supporting evidence. Besides Mrs. Blunt, it also seems that Corrigan inspires Sabrina, a model who always chooses horrible men, to go back to school and even provides some impetus for Nadine to change her life. But I still couldn’t stand him.

The joy of reading these threads. Fascinating reviews of books I have never heard of. Excellent review, thumbed.

>82 DieFledermaus:
Well, I'm glad to hear that there isn't a pro-Christian bias in the book. As for good comparative religion/mythology texts, I really haven't read enough of these to make a good recommendation, despite my interest. I do have a few 'classics' on my reading list, from the likes of James George Frazer and Jung, but I am well-aware that these are considered flawed in many respects. I am mostly going to read them because of their influence on literature.

I've read Armstrong's The Great Transformation, and your review of A Short History of Myth reminds me of how I felt about that book. She has interesting things to say, but there are important flaws in how she goes about it. Very frustrating.

I think Corrigan, the character and the book, would freak me out.

>84 baswood: - I agree - have been enjoying checking out everyone's threads - many new, interesting-sounding books and good reviews of ones I've been thinking about or have on the pile.

>85 dmsteyn: - I was also thinking about The Golden Bough although I have heard it's somewhat outdated. The other authors I was considering were Joseph Campbell and Mircea Eliade.

>86 dchaikin: - Armstrong's book was interesting and it left me wanting to learn more about the different cultures and beliefs that she covered but yeah about the frustrations. When I read her examples for mythologized figures, my reaction was - huh? Schoolchildren could have picked better examples.

I really wanted to know what happened in the end with Corrigan so I had to finish it, but all the scenes with him made me pretty uncomfortable. I would think of people I knew in real life that were a little too insinuating and space-invading. Not pleasant.

A Short History of Myth sounds like it would fit right into my "pagan influences" craze. I'll have to look into that one. Thanks for your review and comments!

Great reviews! I have found Armstrong's books to be uneven. Some are interesting and inspire me to read more, which is always a good thing. But others are muddled, and I couldn't even get through one. I think of her books as jumping off points. I'm afraid I don't have much in the way of suggestions for general mythology books, although I will look forward to seeing what others suggest. My limited study of mythology usually began with a specific text or group of texts and then moved to interpretation, for example reading the Kalevala (I forget which translation) and then reading articles about it. I went to some lectures by Felix Oinas, a wonderful, now deceased, mythology professor at Indiana University. His work is targeted at the folklore/mythology of certain ethnic groups, such as Finnic and Slavic. Although it's a stretch, I can't help but throw in a word for The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey as a modern reinterpretation of a classic Russian folktale.

>88 Poquette: - my "pagan influences" craze.

I do enjoy hearing about other people's crazes! What other books have you read that you'd recommend?

>89 labfs39: - This one was definitely a jumping off point. I noticed that she cited Eliade and he seems to be fairly popular - was going to check his stuff out. What did you think of the Kalevala? I had a short epic phase a couple years ago but didn't read that one. The Snow Child did sound tempting! Do you know if the author based it on a common or popular source for Russian folktales, something like Perrault or Andersen?

What probably got me going on pagan influences was my introduction a few years ago to Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy because of the controversy over whether or not Boethius was truly a Christian because he chose to dialogue with Lady Philosophy rather than a religious personage.

Then came The religious quests of the Graeco-Roman world; a study in the historical background of early Christianity by Samuel Angus. I was curious about how much of so-called "pagan" practices were absorbed into Christian practice. (While I am not a practicing Christian, I am quite interested in the classical influences on our Western heritage which for almost two millenia was dominated by Christian influence. All these books inform that directional impetus in various ways.) This is an excellent book, by the way. I followed it up with:

The Occult Philosophy in The Elizabethan Age by Frances Yates
The Pagan Dream of the Renaissance by Joscelyn Godwin. This is one of my favorite books, incidentally. I read it only last year, but I think I'm going to read it again.
The Golden Thread: The Ageless Wisdom of the Western Mystery Traditions also by Joscelyn Godwin. This is a summary of various esoteric threads that came to a head during the Renaissance when classical writings were rediscovered.
The Secret Language of the Renaissance: Decoding the Hidden Symbolism of Italian Art. This helps to understand the symbolism in Renaissance painting.
The Art of Memory by Frances Yates. A fascinating book for too many reasons to describe here.
The Esoteric Origins of the American Renaissance by Arthur Versluis. This is of interest if you want to understand some of the esoteric (i.e., "pagan") subtleties of mid nineteenth century American writers such as Melville, Hawthorne, Whitman, Emerson, Margaret Fuller and Emily Dickinson.
The Swerve: How the World Became Modern. This tells of the rediscovery during the Renaissance of Lucretius' great poem about Epicureanism.

And if this isn't enough, I've got a whole stack of other books waiting for me to get to on more or less the same topics. (I wrote reviews on most of these, if you are interested.)

Aren't you glad you asked??? ;-)

Wow, that's a great list! Really nice reviews - especially helpful for the more esoteric (ha ha) ones where yours is the only review. Added The Pagan Dream of the Renaissance to the list of books I should check out/get from the library/buy.

The Pagan Dream is a terrific book. I hope you'll like it!

Just catching up. Thanks for the reviews of A Short History of Myth and Corrigan, both of which I own but haven't read. I'm now inclined to read the first, but not the second.

>94 rebeccanyc: - rebeccanyc - both were quick reads despite my complaints. I didn't think Corrigan was a bad book - just hated the title character. I would highly recommend her Great Granny Webster. Thanks for stopping by.

The Courilof Affair by Irene Nemirovsky
Finished 2/4/12

This short novella follows Leon M., a born and bred revolutionary, who is ordered to assassinate Valerian Courilof, the brutal Minister of Education, in Imperial Russia in 1903. Leon M. is the narrator and, at the start, he relates the story of his life – performed a number of assignments for the party, came to power after the Revolution, then grew disenchanted as a member of the secret police, was forced out and spent the rest of his life in Nice. The majority of the book is a portrait of Courilof. The narrator is able to travel to Russia with false papers and gets a job as a doctor in Courilof’s household. In some ways the story is a bit predictable – the narrator becomes reluctant to murder Courilof after getting to know him – but it is well-done and Nemirovsky adds several layers to the narrator’s view of Courilof.

Courilof never becomes a sympathetic character, just one who is messily human and at times understandable. He’s dying from a horribly painful cancer and spends his time mired in petty politics. His relationship with his daughter is cool and though he obviously cares about his wife, she is a source of trouble for him as a former actress and “loose woman”. Courilof and the other ministers and aristocrats have contemptuous feelings for the emperor but their livelihood and social standing depends on him, so they are forced to suck up to him as well as other influential men. Nemirovsky provides distance through her narrative structure – the story initially is told in the 3rd person, then moves to Courilof’s diary – and the narrator’s character. He’s rather reluctant in the first place – the child of revolutionaries and raised by the party, this is not a life he chose and his indecision, which predates Courilof, is apparent. Leon M. narrates from the future so he already knows what will happen. This allows him to comment on Courilof’s actions, having been in charge, and gives the story a tone of world-weariness. For example, after the killing of several students, Courilof excuses it by saying he didn’t mean for it to happen. He is easily able to forget the pain that he ordered. Instead of anger or judgment, the narrator says that it’s just human nature and he did the same when he was in power. The other stories of Nemirovsky’s that I’ve read – The Ball, Fire in the Blood, and Snow in Autumn – all had this tension between past, present and future and it is this underlying mood of murkiness and sadness that made the story memorable.

This is a fascinating thread, both for your reading choices and for the excellent reviews!

I bought Corrigan after enjoying Great Granny Webster, but it sounds like a much more uncomfortable read.

DF - Another great review, sounds fascinating. I'm tempted to read any other of your Nemirovsky reviews, if there are more.

>97 wandering_star: - Thanks for your comments. I thought Corrigan had some of the same black humor as Great Granny Webster but was definitely not a fun read.

>98 dchaikin: - Haven't written any reviews of the other Nemirovskys, but I would recommend all the stories that I've read. They're all quick reads with varying levels of unhappiness.

I've finished Apollo's Angels, a history of ballet, and The Cyclist Conspiracy. It's taking some time to write up the review for Apollo's Angels and the review will probably end up being rather long. I was inspired to go to the ballet and saw a wonderful production of Don Quixote.

Apollo's Angels by Jennifer Homans
Finished 1/7/12

Review of the first half of the book

This is an extremely informative, well-written, nuanced look at the history of ballet from its beginning in the French court to the end of the 20th century. It’s never a dull read and towards the end, I read it as quickly as a novel (once had to take it on the bus with me). The author provides a detailed look at the various trends in ballet through history and its fate in multiple countries. Political, social and artistic influences on ballet are elucidated and the importance of flow of ideas between countries is noted. A number of strong personalities emerge from the book and Homans provides a wealth of detail on the lives of dancers, ballet masters, choreographers, composers, librettists and politicians who played a role in the history of dance. However, I wondered about the author’s judgment of various ballets – in earlier periods, because many of the ballets have been lost, in later periods (mainly 20th century ballet) because I could see the author’s own biases come in. Still, it did seem that she tried to be fair. The focus was on the important and popular trends in different countries – France, Denmark, Italy, Russia, Britain and America. I’m more familiar with the history of other arts – literature or opera for example – and in those, there are always innovators working outside of the trends of the day. I’m not familiar with all the popular or well-regarded ballets so I wondered occasionally what Homans may have been missing.

Ballet developed out of the court spectacles in the 16th century and originally it seemed to be more like fancy walking and precise steps. It really became popular under the rule of Louis XIV. Homans gives a lot of information about early ballet and I appreciated that, though some may think she could have cut a lot. The pictures included with the book were very helpful (for example, showing the positions that would be used in early dances). I found many interesting random facts – early theories of ballet cast it as a spiritual pursuit that brought one closer to the angels (hence the title); Louis was a very good dancer and once appeared in a 13-hr extravaganza. Early French ballet was very much a court art. The descriptions of the dancers and dances are quite far from what we expect today from a ballet. Men (and later women) would wear heavy clothes, masks, wigs and very uncomfortable-sounding shoes. Many of the spectacles sounded extremely over the top. I knew that ballets were commonly performed in operas but Homans doesn’t spend too much time on that and establishes that ballet was an art in its own right. While literature, music, and opera from that era is still read and performed, it is difficult to think that a ballet from that era could gain traction. Homans notes many times that there is no standard notation (though some tried to make one) so reconstructing one would be extremely difficult.

Homans follows the development of French ballet, mainly in the form of the Paris Opera, through the French Revolution, Napoleonic era and ends with the 19th c and Romanticism. Early innovators were Marie Salle, a dancer who shocked audiences by not wearing the standard enormous dress and mask, whose acting was very influential, and Jean-Georges Noverre a ballet master who attempted to reconcile plot and dance and wrote much about pantomime in ballet. The difficulty of using pantomime as a way to tell a story is covered at length throughout the book. Ballets tended to follow the trends of the day – cheery village girls were the heroines, following Marie Antoinette’s fondness for dressing up as a shepherdess. During the Revolution, the director and the dancers tried to prove their loyalty with patriotic ballets, only to be told they were not revolutionary enough. Early hints of the corps de ballet did appear, though, with the masses of girls in white, a sign of the purity of the revolution. Under Napoleon, ballet became a meritocracy and the stereotypical image of the overworked ballerina exhausted with training appeared.

In the 19th c. some key figures appear – Marie Taglioni and Auguste Vestris. Both were dancers with impressive technique, but while the jumps, spins and technical work of Vestris led to a negative image of the male ballerina (and his disappearance from the stage of 19th c French ballet), Taglioni became extremely famous and influential. The influences of both dancers are felt through the rest of the book – Homans cites dancers and ballet masters who worked with both or others who were inspired by them. She also begins to give detailed descriptions of various ballets and ones that a person might recognize appear – La Sylphide, Giselle. I enjoyed the descriptions – they made me want to see some of them, like Robert le Diable, an opera where Taglioni danced the role of the head evil seductive nun. I could see that someone might not like this part. The influence that Taglioni had in creating the romantic image of the ballerina is explored in detail.

Other national traditions in the 19th c are described – the Danish tradition is pretty much based on the work of one man, August Bournonville, who created or redid ballets, making them emblematic of the modest Danish Protestantism. His influence also shows one way that the 19th c tradition was propagated – Danish ballet students rigorously and repetitively practiced of all his steps and the stable Danish government meant that his work was not lost or forgotten. Even today Danish dancers have a distinct style – intricate steps and hops with no empty virtuosity. The Danish tradition is contrasted to the Italians whose specialty was virtuosity – impressive pointe work and high leaps. Homans focuses on two figures who tried to establish a distinct Italian ballet – Vigano, who based his productions on mythological subjects, and Basis. Italian ballet had its last gasps with Manzotti, who created enormous, profitable but crass spectacles.

In both these sections, as well as the others, Homans highlights the fragile nature of ballet which has no formal notation method and which is dominated by personalities. Because of this, one or a few people were able to make a large impact on the art and change its direction, but this could also lead to the quick loss of progressive efforts, as with Vigano and Basis. The author comments on the ballets and provides judgment. Sometimes, as in La Sylphide, where she states that the original choreography was lost, the focus is more on the cultural effects of Taglioni and reactions from her contemporaries and audience members. But with, for example, the Bournonvilles – Homans dismisses some or says that others have good dances but are overall thin and staid. As she mentions, there is a strong continuity in Danish ballet, but with others I wondered sometimes about her sources. At least with the 19th c there is a wealth of material out there judging the dances and Homans could look at how influential certain ones eventually became. Critic and public reactions could be assessed as well. The music is for the most part dismissed and honestly I have to agree – for some of the earlier ballets I’ve seen, the music is fairly generic and dully pretty, not memorable. Functional, as she says. It really did seem that ballet became associated with good music due to Tchiakovsky and the work of the Ballet Russes. I really appreciated the analysis that Homans provides on a number of subjects. For example – in the Italian ballet section, she explores why the tumultuous years of the Risorgimento produced great Italian opera but subpar ballet. She also continually returns to the importance of cross-cultural influences in ballet in. Even when she clearly believes that the most popular ballets were inferior – as in the case of Manzotti in the late 19th century – she notes that they were important because the dancers or ballet masters who gained experience in Manzotti’s spectacles would later go on to be influential in Russian ballet. I did wonder what sorts of ballet was being produced in France in the late 19th century or more about ballet in the Austrian countries but the book was already pretty long.

The Cyclist Conspiracy by Svetislav Basara
Finished 1/9/12

This is one of those clever metafictional novels that mix fiction and fact, reference the book and author in the story, and provide the plot with a sheen versimilitude by presenting an assortment of documents. I found it to be fun, funny and interesting but it’s not for everyone. The author initially describes how he found some of the documents in a book and began investigating the odd religious group described in them. The assortment of styles found in the documents makes for fun reading and the descriptions of the group’s heretical beliefs and their thoughts on reality are well-written. I also enjoyed the flights into fantasy.

The book opens with a diary of Charles the Hideous, a 14th c king, whose descriptions of his kingdom, subjects and himself are fairly ridiculous and entertaining. He’s also conversant with matters relating to the 20th century. Initially, the story is presented as apocryphal, adding to the overall document confusion. As a side note, he mentions welcoming a heretic group who constantly rode on bicycles. His verbally-abused majordomo Grossman writes about their history in the next sections – they have many weird ideas, including the bicycle as a holy machine. A couple renegade priests lead the sect and only one with some followers escapes the Inquisition. Their odd beliefs are interesting to read about – including ideas from philosophy or religion of this world being only a mirror, have a conflicted relationship with time, believe Byzantium is the true kingdom, and have a desire, like many religions, to leave society. The documents of the stranded Captain Queensdale show the Bicyclists on a mysterious island and introduce the idea of the members meeting and controlling things in dreams.

Some of the funniest sections describe encounters of supposed members of the sect with Sherlock Holmes and Sigmund Freud. The case of the man who shoots clocks puzzles Holmes and Freud diagnoses a man who describes the dream meetings of the order then disappears. In the 20th century, the order of the Evangelical Bicyclists of the Rose Cross appears to be responsible for the death of Archduke Ferdinand and the rise of Stalin, with whom they have a mixed relationship. Joseph Kowalsky emerges as one of the leaders of the group as seen in documents by several members. However, others doubt their existence and the few documents released by the group, as well as Kowalsky’s writings, are analyzed in mock-serious jargon-filled papers. A group trip to Dharamsala is really a cover for members to take on important tasks which seem random – one has to hide papers in a book, another stares at a pebble for 8 years. Kowalsky’s story with its ambiguous end is given. His ideological twisting and turning relates to the 20th c. profusion of ideas and his affinity with the east, though in line with the group’s beliefs, perhaps relates to the influence of both east and west in Serbian history. The later documents relate to various dream buildings and an ultimate conformations with evil. Some of the events here – Nazi dream assassins destroying part of their dream cathedral – can seem like something out of an action flick, but the documents have a contrasting pragmatism. Weird and interesting, but probably more for fans of metafiction.

The Cyclist Conspiracy sounds bizarre. How did you come across it?

It's published by Open Letter books - I've recently become very interested in their stuff. They publish interesting-sounding translations - some that were a little hard to find before they put out new editions (Aracoeli by Elsa Morante and The Guinea Pigs by Ludvik Vaculik) and others that I've never heard of but want to try. Some of their books have very bizarre premises but I tend to like the experimental stuff.

I also have another book by Basara somewhere which I picked up for a similar reason - was published by Dalkey Archive and sounded like experimental fun.

I have a bunch of Open Letter books because I subscribe to them, but I don't have this one and I'm not sure I would enjoy it; I have a pretty low tolerance for metafiction and especially overt cleveness, unless it's done really well.

>102 DieFledermaus: Agreed that The Cyclist Conspiracy sounds bizarrely interesting. I do remember seeing it in the Open Letter catalog....so many books...

>105 rebeccanyc: - rebeccanyc - There are some metafictional novels that I'd recommend to almost everyone, but this was not one of them - definitely more for people with a high metafiction tolerance. Any standouts from your Open Letter books? I've only read The Taker and Other Stories (besides The Cyclist Conspiracy) but there are several more on the pile.

>106 avaland: - There are many that I've seen on the Open Letter website that look bizarrely interesting. I was glad to see reviews for their books popping up on some threads.

I am embarrassed to confess that I haven't read any of the books I've received from my Open Letter subscription yet (although I did read The Mighty Angel by Jerzy Pilch before I subscribed), but I hope to do so in the not too distant future. The seven I've received by subscription are: Scars by Juan Jose Saer, Thrown into Nature by Milen Ruskov (may read for the Reading Globally Balkans theme read), Karaoke Culture by Dubravka Ugresic (ditto), Vertical Motion by Can Xue, My Two Worlds by Sergio Chejfec, Guadalajara by Quim Monzo, and The Book of Happenstance by Ingrid Winterbach. Sigh! So many books, so little time.

I have read Araceoli, Morante's last novel. A tough read, but I do feel like a better person for having read it. Morante put a lot into her books. If your interested, you can peak at my review: http://www.librarything.com/review/47832454

>108 rebeccanyc: - It seems like everyone has giant piles of unread books. I think I have something like 50 unread NYRBs! Sounds like an interesting mix of books. I'll be looking forward to reading your review of the Ruskov. The Book of Happenstance was one of those bizarre-sounding ones that seemed to be either love or hate.

>109 dchaikin:- Great review - I'll remember to pair it with something not too depressing when I read it.

Apollo's Angels Review Part II

Posted part I, working on part II

The Librettist of Venice by Rodney Bolt
Finished 2/16/12

I’ve been planning to read Lorenzo Da Ponte’s autobiography for awhile now – it’s published by NYRB and I was familiar with him as Mozart’s best librettist. Reviews of the book make it sound pretty entertaining – he clearly had a very dramatic life – but also somewhat self-serving. I still wanted to read it but thought it would be good to also read a biography on the subject. Rodney Bolt’s book is also a colorful, dramatic tale though I had some quibbles with his style and focus. He shows Da Ponte as a gifted, charismatic, tenacious man though one who was prone to be touchy, self-aggrandizing and good at ticking others off. It will be interesting to compare this work to Da Ponte’s self-portrait.

Da Ponte came from a family of converted Jews and he was named after the bishop who baptized him as was traditional. Bolt establishes Da Ponte’s love of reading and writing early on, as well as his status as an outsider and his difficult relationship with his family. He notes that likely Da Ponte’s conversion was one of convenience and though he studied at a seminary and became a priest, he never seemed too concerned about his orders. Da Ponte frequently went from riches to poverty through a variety of circumstances. His intelligence, wit and charisma frequently gained him powerful and wealthy patrons but this often placed him in social or political feuds. Alternatively, he would insult or anger his patrons – he tended to think everyone was out to get him and overreacted to any criticism or coldness. In Venice, Da Ponte fell under the spell of his married lover, Angela Tiepolo, and her useless brother and became addicted to gambling and the hedonistic lifestyle. His brother had to save him from his dissolute life and the extremely jealous and controlling Angela. Before coming to Vienna, Da Ponte switched jobs and towns a couple more times, made plenty of enemies, saw conspiracies everywhere but blundered into a few actual ones, and was driven out of town on account of his inflammatory writing as well another overt affair with a married woman.

Bolt spends the most time describing Da Ponte’s life in Vienna. He was the theater poet and collaborated with several composers in writing his opera libretti. Da Ponte perhaps goes through his usual motions – constantly thinking everyone is out to get him and embarking on another tempestuous affair – but he also had many notable successes. The theater politics described certainly are cutthroat – everyone trying to get their way, the German Singspiel group against the Italian opera group, various composer/librettist or composer/singer pairs in competition, stereotypical diva vs. diva wars. Da Ponte, however, had the favor of the emperor, Joseph II, one only a few people who was uniformly praised in Da Ponte’s memoirs. Some may argue with Bolt’s focus in this section. He spends a lot of time describing Mozart’s life and troubles, often comparing them with Da Ponte’s life. He doesn’t do this with any of the other composers Da Ponte works with (Salieri for one, but also Martin y Soler, who had several highly successful collaborations with Da Ponte and worked with him and fell out with him later in life).

There’s not much information about how Mozart and Da Ponte worked on their projects but Bolt has engrossing descriptions of the history surrounding the operas (why Figaro was revolutionary and how they tailored it to Joseph II’s tastes, various workings of Don Giovanni, several sources for Cosi fan tutte). Bolt quotes Da Ponte’s thoughts on the collaborations with Mozart, but is clearly skeptical – saying for example, Da Ponte said Mozart wanted to make Don Giovanni more of a buffa piece, but whatever the truth… The author also takes care to point out that the collaborations were hurried and done mainly for financial reasons. Mozart and Da Ponte’s work in getting the productions together – making cuts or additions in response to star demands to the cast – is also described in depth. I found this very interesting and informative, but others might not appreciate the length spent describing their operas. Da Ponte still has his ups and downs depending on whether his work succeeded or failed. His personal life – feuds with Casti, another Italian librettist, and his patron Count Rosenberg, as well as his relationship with the married singer La Ferrarese – is predictably dramatic. After the emperor dies, Da Ponte falls out with his successor in spectacular fashion and is forced to flee Vienna.

After numerous attempts to get back in the new emperor’s good graces, Da Ponte heads to London but not before getting married. I really couldn’t see how a marriage would work for him, but despite its ambiguous beginning (he was a Catholic priest and they were married in a Jewish ceremony though he had never lived as a Jew during his adult life) the marriage endured. Nancy, his wife, must have been some kind of saint. She went along with him on all his crazy or ambitious endeavors, constantly had to travel when he got kicked out of another place, had many children and also worked – at one point she was the one supporting him. This isn’t even counting the fact that she had to live with him and probably had to listen to his rants and ideas about people conspiring against him. After a number of false starts, the Da Pontes were established in London and Da Ponte starts working for a theater again. While he still has his usual conflicts, the main arguments at the theater seem to be between warring divas. Da Ponte later works as a bookseller but is so deeply in debt that he has to flee to America, following Nancy, who he claims is going to see her family but who knows the truth. In America, Da Ponte has all sorts of jobs, some new to him such as a grocer, others familiar such as teaching and selling books. He attempts several times to bring Italian opera to America at first with some success but not much in later tries.

Bolt creates a wonderful portrait of a highly gifted but self-destructive man. I couldn’t count the number of times Da Ponte was stable and successful, then lost it all yet still somehow managed to resurrect his fortunes. A letter from Mozart called a good librettist “that true phoenix” and the description is very apt. While occasionally the losses were the results of changes in regimes or changing tastes, Da Ponte was responsible for many. He also easily made enemies and used his memoirs to settle grudges. Bolt’s portrayal also shows his restlessness – he didn’t just want to be comfortable and stable, he was very ambitious and eager to share his passion for art, music and literature. Some of his efforts were clearly meant to put himself forward, but he also managed to convey his love of Italian and European culture. My minor criticisms would be that he discussed Mozart but not the other composers. He also seemed to play up Da Ponte’s friendships with famous people such as Casanova and Clement C. Moore (author of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas’). My major criticism would be the overuse of quotes. There are way too many quotes, and some of them are whole blocks of text. Coming across a long quote would take me out of the narrative and also made me wonder if Bolt couldn’t be bothered to do his own analysis. Some of the quotes could easily have been summarized or cut down to one sentence and fit into the rest of the Bolt’s writing. It also diluted the impact of quotes that I thought deserved to be shown in full. This was especially rampant whenever Da Ponte moved to a new city and Bolt wanted to describe that city at the time.

Thank you for a great review of The librettist of Venice thumbed. I have read very little about Da Ponte but I love his libretto's to Mozart's operas and so this book will go straight onto my wish list.

Great review of Part 1 of Apollo's Angels. I think I questioned how much was her personal opinion in the first half even more after reading the second half. In the second half, it was easier to see her biases because I was more familiar with recent ballet. I still really enjoyed the book though and it sounds like you did too. She took on a daunting task so she had to pick and choose what to include and it's hard to keep personal biases completely out of that kind of decision. Looking forward to your review for Part 2.

Also enjoyed your review of The Librettist of Venice. That's going on the TBR pile.

>113 baswood:, 114 - Thanks, I hope you guys enjoy the book! It was very readable except for the quote interruptions.

japaul - yes, I really enjoyed the book - thanks for recommending it, by the way. I agree that of course she's going to have to judge the ballets and it's almost impossible to keep personal biases out. I think she tried to be fair - she wrote about the meaning and importance of ballets that she clearly thought were bad, like Manzotti's spectacles, and she had a couple paragraphs on how hard it is for Americans/Western Europeans to judge Soviet ballets. I was bothered that she could so neatly say this is good, this is bad, this and that don't measure up to Balanchine. The pro-Balanchine bias was very obvious. There was also an obvious anti-MacMillan bias. I had never heard of Kenneth MacMillan before reading this book and I was somewhat uncomfortable reading her conclusions about him because I don't know if that's a common view or fair or what.

I thought the book was very good though and it has inspired me to do some more reading on the subject - reading Joan Acocella's 28 Artists and 2 Saints which has sections on Balanchine, Kirstein, Farrell etc. I'm also thinking it would be good to get a book that is less in-depth - something where they list all the major ballets and do a summary and a short analysis. I have a couple of those for operas and they're really helpful.

The Librettist of Venice sounds to be a book I would enjoy. It is going straight on my wishlist.

Poquette - glad you found the review useful!

David Golder by Irene Nemirovsky
Finished 2/19/12

This is a good book about horrible people. I knew what it was about and picked it up because I enjoyed Nemirovsky’s other stories but was somewhat worried that it might be anti-Semitic (despite Nemirovsky's well-known history). I would say that anti-Semitism makes an appearance but it’s not as bad as I was thinking. David Golder is a wealthy Jewish speculator whose life takes a turn for the worst. Though there are some business concerns, the main conflict is between him and his family. Pretty much all the characters are unpleasant people and they are not fully developed as well-rounded individuals. They represent archetypes, but Nemirovsky fleshes them out and shows how their lives, while filled with the trappings of wealth, are empty, pathetic and tragic.

Although Golder is a greedy businessman - the common negative Jewish stereotype – we see the story through his eyes for the most part and though he is not sympathetic, he has flashes of sad, understandable emotions. Golder, his wife Gloria, and his daughter Joyce have become so twisted by their empty, money-obsessed life that even their genuine emotions are tainted with material, grasping concerns. For example, Gloria and Joyce both have more pleasant relationships with other men, but they must pay for them. Joyce, beautiful and vivacious, is a selfish spoiled brat. Her love for Alec at least seems to be real (though tempered with adolescent dreams about getting a title and being a princess) but we still think Golder is correct when he says she’ll be tired of him in a couple months. She begs her father several times to give her money to ‘buy’ Alec since he is being paid for by another, older woman. Gloria’s feelings also invite understanding like in the scene where she abuses Golder for neglecting her and showering Joyce with presents and money. On one hand, Nemirovsky does show that even early on Golder valued making money over her and mother-daugher competition is something that is recognizable in Gloria. On the other, she has piles and piles of jewels and clothes yet is not satisfied and her anger towards Golder is mainly based on money, not emotions.

Golder himself will have these flashes of true feeling, in his genuine anger at being used as an ATM and his persistent love of his daughter. His feelings for Joyce undergo constant changes – occasionally he’ll recognize her essentially spoiled nature – but he generally finds himself won over in spite of her faults. Equally powerful is his fear of the future and death. The fates of his acquaintances and business partners suggest an unhappy ending for him. He also wonders if anything he did was worth it. His pursuit of money does seem endless – Gloria’s criticism that he’s not happy unless he’s working is true – and futile since he doesn’t love material things the way his family does. Being wealthy means he has to constantly maintain everything but there is no longer the goal to survive and become rich like he had when he was young and starving. Golder is briefly lulled at a Jewish restaurant and when he goes to his hometown – he wonders how life would be if he had stayed there – but the poverty and emptiness there, as well as the squalor from memories of the past, suggest that this isn’t a solution. The anti-Semitism in this book shows up mainly as a societal fact but Golder harbors some anti-Semitic ideas himself. Gloria and Golder throw Jewish insults at each – another sign of their distance from the past as well as their shallowness. Sometimes it was unpleasant to read – there are many heated, bitter confrontations between the characters and lengthy descriptions of Golder’s physical and mental pain – but overall it was a worthwhile read.

This is a good book about horrible people. What an excellent way to start a review. Enjoyed it, but I don't want to read the book.

Enjoying all of your reviews!

Catching up on your reviews: The Cyclist Conspiracy sounds like my kind of book. I'm glad to learn about Open Letter Books, and just visited their website. I've heard of some of the authors, but none of their titles.

Just catching up on the reviews too.Conversation with Spinoza intrigued me when I read a review some time ago and didn't mark it down in any way. Now, thanks to you, I have it committed to paper in two places and a spreadsheet in another, so surely I will not lose it again before I get my hands on a copy.

>119 baswood:, 120 - Thanks, guys.

>121 StevenTX: - They do have a number of odd, metafictional books besides The Cyclist Conspiracy - I had my eye on The Book of Happenstance and The Museum of Eterna's Novel. The very weird-sounding Ergo is on my pile.

>122 SassyLassy: - Glad I was able to help. I've done my share of combing through websites, magazines or LT libraries looking for something that looked good but that I didn't note down at the time.

Brooklyn by Colm Toibin
Finished 2/20/12

Weighty subjects are broached in Colm Toibin’s Brooklyn – emigration, opportunities in America, racism, class barriers, religion, love and death – but it is a very intimate, quiet book. I found it compelling and read it pretty much in one day. Eilis Lacey is a somewhat naïve girl who keeps to herself after being separated from her family when she emigrates from Ireland to America. Toibin is able to create a good sense of his main character – introverted, unsure, constantly worried that her judgment is incorrect. All the little issues that Eilis faces become involving topics of concern when described in Toibin’s clean, unadorned prose.

Even before emigrating, Eilis is an observer – a good one. Some might complain about the lack of dramatic events and a focus on small details, but this establishes Eilis’ character and concerns – she often notes what people wear, how her clothes compare, if she is acting correctly and not standing out in every situation. She doesn’t just observe but collects these memories to tell her sister, Rose, (and possibly her mother), as she has always done, though it is hard in her new life with rushed, impersonal letters. Eilis is concerned with propriety but not prim and she is amenable and looks to please. These qualities make her kind and tolerant – she is less concerned about race and class than her housemates, for example. However, they also make her malleable, forgetful and willing to go along with what others want from her which leads to some unkind behavior at the end (though some creaky plot developments also help).

The synopsis makes it seem that the story is one mostly of thwarted love, but this is something of a misdirection. The book spends enough time on her life in Ireland with her needy mother and capable sister and leisurely follows her life in Brooklyn – settling in, job woes, personal conflicts – before she finds love. I also liked that fact that not everything mentioned was significant, just a part of life – for example, we don’t get all the details of her boyfriend’s previous girlfriend or a man that she notices during a Christmas dinner. I thought it was very well done and enjoyed the book immensely – wanted more at the end – but I could see that if someone wants something a bit more dramatic, they might not enjoy it.

An excellent review of Brooklyn. Colm Toibin is one of my favorites and I've been meaning to get my hands on a copy of The Master.

I read Brooklyn last year, and am in complete agreement with your excellent review! A synopsis of the book doesn't quite do justice to Toibin's style, I found.

I also agree completely with your excellent review.

Happy to hear that other people like this book also - a number of the reviews are pretty negative, mostly saying that it was boring or that nothing happened.

On another note - I noticed that this is the most popular of Toibin's books, but the difference between Brooklyn and The Master is only 100 users or so. There are about three times as many reviews for Brooklyn though. I wonder if that's a recency effect or maybe that more people were disappointed with Brooklyn.

I'm currently reading Joan Acocella's 28 Artists and 2 Saints, a collection of essays. I thought I would write up a little for every piece, but the review is getting unwieldy. I think I'll post my thought on every section (a la Poquette with the Angela Carter stories) and do a write up at the end.

#128 - LT did exist not in 2004 The Master came out. That may be why the review numbers are so much less. (It kicked off August 29, 2005)

Yes, that would make sense. I wonder how those review numbers compare to books with a similar number of users.

Death and the Dervish by Mesa Selimovic
Finished 2/23/12

This is an undoubtedly great book. It is not an easy read but is very rewarding. The main plot is simple – Sheikh Ahmed Nuruddin, the dervish of the title, deals with the fact that his brother has been unjustly arrested. In the first half, he attempts to learn about the arrest and the reasons behind it, coming up against a slothful, corrupt bureaucracy. In the second half, he deals with the fallout of his brother’s imprisonment, alternating between hatred and forgetting. There are numerous side plots, ambling tangents and stories from the past. These stories serve as a comment on the narrator’s situation and give insight into some of the characters. Selimovic’s writing is complex and beautiful, wonderfully conveying the narrator’s doubts and inertia.

Nuruddin is Hamlet-esque in that he learns of the crime committed against his brother but dithers and equivocates endlessly. While describing a conversation, he analyzes it so thoroughly that the actual dialogue is dominated by his nuanced, conflicted interpretations. Some of his inaction is pragmatic – he is aware that the normal actions that he takes will do nothing for his brother. His puzzling of moral and logistic concerns can seem sympathetic – who has not worried over the right thing to do? – but gradually he starts to alienate the reader. He cannot work himself up to take one or the other side and his actions – or lack of action – turn him into a hypocrite. He’s unable to float above worldly concerns like Hafiz-Muhammed or shamefully conform, like Mullah-Yusuf. He can’t advocate cheerful civil disobedience like Hadji-Sinanuddin or smoothly bribe his way and play the game like Ali-aga. The madman who tells the truth, as embodied by the beggar Ali-hodja, certainly isn’t a role he can occupy. The other important character is Hassan, the disobedient scion of a wealthy family, who is open, friendly and willing to break the law to help his friends. The narrator looks up to him but is unable to imitate him. In the spirit of the book, however, these characters also have their faults, hypocrisies or admirable qualities. Religion is a crutch and a comfort for Nuruddin but not much of either. His act of rebellion at the end is violent, hypocritical and ends up being a Pyrrhic victory.

The book feels timeless and also like an unending nightmare. There’s something of a flat, grey atmosphere (which can make it a bit slow at times) which is occasionally relieved by stories from the past - Nuruddin previously fought in the war, Hassan’s adventures show up and the history of Mullah-Yusuf becomes important. The authorities who jailed the narrator’s brother are remote and impersonal but also embodied in various minor officials who can’t do anything or talk in circles. We are stuck in Nuruddin’s head and his constant questioning and dithering contributes to the claustrophobic atmosphere. The synopsis says that the book takes place in Sarajevo in the 17th century, based on some geographic clues and historical references, but this is only established indirectly (though there are some nice thoughts on the divided nature of Bosnia which relate to Nuruddin as well). This vagueness contributes to the impression that nothing can be known and that the grounds are constantly shifting. I was extremely impressed with this well-written, thoughtful, wonderfully atmospheric book but would recommend it with the caveat that some may find it slow or frustrating.

Another excellent review. Sounds like one to take your time with. Do you recall what lead you to this book? I am fascinated by the incredibly wide selection of works and authors that turn up in LT.

Sounds fascinating, and a great review.

#132 Yes excellent review. As I was reading your review I was thinking of Turkey and the famous whirling Dervishes, but of course Dervishes can be found in other parts of the Muslim world.

Thanks for the kind words everyone.

>133 Linda92007: - Linda - this is definitely one to be read slowly. I kept alternating it with a number of other books - needed something to lighten the overall grimness. I'm not exactly sure where I first learned about this one but it was probably either because the book was published by Northwestern University Press (the imprint Writers from an Unbound Europe has many gems) or I found it on a LT tag search (comes up early when looking at books tagged Serbian/Bosnian/Balkans) or in someone's library.

>135 baswood: - baswood - The intro says that Nuruddin's order was likely made up of whirling dervishes. The translators were uncertain if the term 'dervish' would be understandable to English readers but finally decided that the fame of the whirling dervishes at least made it familiar. There was a glossary of terms which gave the meaning of words they left untranslated (though some, like sharia, have recently been common in the news).

Adding some mini-reviews of Joan Acocella's essays - not in order, so sometimes I'll refer to earlier pieces

“A Fire in the Brain” (Lucia Joyce) – This is the sad story of James Joyce’s daughter, who was loved by her father but passed over for her brother by her mother, tried modern dance but stopped, was thrust into the shadows by her famous father and became more and more erratic until she was sent to a sanatorium. It’s an interesting story, but more entertaining is Acocella’s takedown of the biography written in the mode of neglected wife/daughter/sister/female partner of famous man book. Acocella isn’t opposed to this type of book, but shows the massive stretches in logic that the author makes and how she pretty much had to make stuff up since there just isn’t that much documentation about Lucia.

“A Hard Case” (Primo Levi) - Another “entertaining bad review” piece is an essay on the life of Primo Levi. I knew the basic outlines and had read the autobiographical The Drowned and The Saved (still working up again to read his other stuff) but Acocella gives a vivid account of his life after WWII – he lived for a long time and published many books. She also mentions that some of his books about the Holocaust were lively and humorous – I don’t associate Levi with that. I might try to read these books with a different atmosphere after reading the ones I already have. The book she reviews is The Double Bond –I think I have seen that. Wow, it sounds so bad. None of Levi’s family and friends would talk to her so she had unnamed sources. Apparently she also hints that she slept with one of them. The author tries to fit every bit of Levi’s life into her psychological analysis (clearly Acocella reviews a lot of books in this mode – she is pretty tart in her criticism) and some parts are clearly a stretch. Also, it sounds like the author just imagined whole chapters of what she thought happened.

“The Flame” (Martha Graham) – Acocella clearly has a bias in this piece – she is anti-Ron Protas, Graham’s longtime partner and her heir. I didn’t know that much about Graham before reading this essay – just that she was a formative modern dance choreographer and choreographed Copland’s Appachian Spring. Acocella does a good job of getting into her life story and relating how difficult it was. In some ways Graham’s story was like the Balanchine or Diaghilev, with the head of the company sleeping with, getting inspiration from and then discarding their employees, but there was more of a bitter aftertaste for Graham – she didn’t bounce back like either Balanchine or Diaghilev. The main conflict here is the infighting over her legacy. Graham left everything to Protas and he retained various positions of authority in her company. He had quarrels with dance companies over licensing Graham’s work, drove the company into debt and feuded with dancers who had originally worked with Graham and were often responsible for some of the choreography. Protas sounds extremely unsympathetic, petty and incompetent here, although I wondered if there’s a bias towards Graham’s later Protas-inspired work from Acocella.

“The Bottom Line” (Twyla Tharp) - Acocella has the disappointment of a fan who has been let down over and over again when talking about Twyla Tharp. She’s reviewing Tharp’s autobiography and is annoyed by the mood swings – Tharp is either portraying herself as a victim (overbearing stage mom, drugs and alcohol, bad relationship with her son) or boasting of her achievements. This definitely didn’t make me want to read the book, but I’m not familiar with Tharp’s work so it’s a bit hard to judge Acocella’s reactions to her later pieces and writing. There are certain critics who tend to be opposed to things based on (in my opinion) too much sex/violence/depressing material/reinterpretations. Acocella thinks Tharp’s later work is too depressing and violent and maybe too influenced by Tharp’s psychotherapist. Also, because Tharp’s career is ongoing, it is difficult to sum it up (earlier pieces on living artists were enhanced by Acocella’s interviews or observations – but those pieces were mainly discussing the new direction of their work). I wondered how much of the negative tone in this article related to the author’s clear dislike of Tharp’s later work.

massive stretches in logic . . . she pretty much had to make stuff up . . . some parts are clearly a stretch . . . Acocella clearly has a bias in this piece

Enjoyed your summaries but think I'll pass on Acocella. Sounds like she is not a particularly reliable essayist. Or am I being too stuffy?

Interested in the piece about Martha Graham. I saw her dance troupe in London sometime in the late 1970's.

>138 Poquette: - Poquette - Sorry, I don't think the review was all that clear - for the piece on Lucia Joyce, Acocella is reviewing a biography that was written about Joyce. The author of the biography, Carol Loeb Schloss, is the one who made up stuff. It sounded like there just wasn't a lot of information about Lucia Joyce and also her relatives destroyed many of her papers.

In the Primo Levi section, Acocella was also criticizing a biography that didn't sound very good.

I think the her own essays are actually quite well-done - I'll post an overall review when I finish the book. Even in the ones where she thinks the subject is a bad person but a good artist, there's useful, interesting information about their life.

I was just somewhat unsure about her POV in the pieces on Martha Graham and Twyla Tharp because I'm not familiar with their work. For both Graham and Tharp, Acocella thinks they did some very good, influential early work then started producing bad pieces. In Graham's case, it sounded like Protas pushed her to choreograph more dances, but they were subpar. Tharp's later pieces seem to be all about working out her psychological issues. At least those are Acocella's interpretations. I think knowing more about modern dance would have helped in this case.

>139 baswood: - baswood - The piece on Graham was very interesting despite my reservations. The story of her life is a good one, but the article also touches on the issue of who owns a dance and how hard it is to pass on dances, especially after the choreographer dies. It must have been exciting to see Graham's company when she was alive though I think the article mentioned that she stopped dancing in the 60's. I suppose it's been awhile but do you remember enjoying the performance?

More reviews from 28 Artists and 2 Saints

“After the Laughter” (Dorothy Parker) – I didn’t know the specifics about her life but Acocella assumes people do. Still, she gave most of the important events and a good taste of Parker’s personality. The portrait of Parker is perhaps standard – witty but cruel, neurotic, drunk, wasted her talents – but Acocella finds Parker’s stories and poems praiseworthy and relevant today.

“Blocked” (Writer’s block) – The only story not about a single person, this follows the history of writer’s block. Acocella give some well-known examples – Harper Lee, Ralph Ellison – and traces the development of writer’s block from the 19th c influences to 20th c America.

“The Frog and the Crocodile” (Simone de Beauvoir) – The extremely painful aspects of the Beauvoir-Sartre relationship are aired in this article, but the focus is more on Beauvoir’s relationship with Nelson Algren. At times in their relationship, Beauvoir was the independent artist but at other times she was dependent and clingy. Acocella also raises the question of artists who live at odds with the philosophies they expound.

“Feasting on Life” (M.F.K. Fisher) – One of a couple artists that I had never heard of before but she is well known to foodies. Acocella reviews her letters and shows her persistence in the face of numerous personal difficulties.

“Assassination on a Small Scale” (Penelope Fitzgerald) – The interesting story of her life – famous family, a marriage that didn’t work, publishing later in life – is related as well as her reticence during interviews. In a recurring concern, Acocella discusses how her late start was typical of many woman writers of the time. I haven’t read as many of her novels as Acocella so it was nice to see Acocella’s division of her works into two periods and the analysis of several of them.

Diefledermaus, #139. No I can't remember whether I enjoyed the Martha Graham modern dance performance, but I probably did. I think I saw them at the Sadler's Wells theatre because I used to be on the mailing list and my partner at the time was very interested in modern dance. I am certain however that Martha Graham did not dance, but most of the pieces performed were choreographed by her.

DieFledermaus, thanks for clarifying. Will continue to read your summaries with interest. ;-)

More from 28 Artists and 2 Saints

“Devil’s Work” (Hilary Mantel) - Devil’s Work is a review of Hilary Mantel’s novel Beyond Black. I’d always thought of Mantel as writing historical novels since the ones I was familiar with (The Giant O’Brien and Wolf Hall – recently learned about A Place of Greater Safety from this group) fell into that category. But Acocella mentions that many of her novels are contemporary, inspired by her life and generally include some kind of devil. She relates Mantel’s history, a sad and varied story. As usual, I enjoyed the analysis of Mantel’s books – looking for patterns, praising the writing – and the article made me want to check out some of her other novels.

“Perfectly Frank” (Frank O’Hara) – I wasn’t familiar with O’Hara’s work before reading this but had heard the name before. This is a great portrait of a person, time and place – O’Hara’s life in New York in the 50’s and 60’s is shown as a hedonistic, creative whirlwind. I even liked some of the poems.

“Counterlives” (Philip Roth) – This is a review of Roth’s book The Plot Against America. I’ve read it and enjoyed the analysis and the strengths that Acocella touches on – the juxtaposing of the personal and national, the sympathetic characters on all sides, the familiar history slowly transforming into something twisted but still recognizable. Acocella also places the book as the realization of the fears of many of Roth’s perpetually worried Jewish characters.

“After the Ball Was Over” (Vaslav Nijinsky) – I was familiar with the sad story of Nijinsky’s life from Apollo’s Angels. Here the focus is on his later life as he moved in and out of sanatoriums and sunk deeper into madness. Acocella relates how little we actually know of his performances and choreography and her portrait of his married life is involving but depressing. His wife is portrayed as a horrible woman - selfish, fame-obsessed, self-aggrandizing.

28 Artists and 2 Saints sounds like a must read. I love books of essays about interesting people, and especially writers and artists. "The Devil's Work" sealed the deal for me, as Mantel is a favorite and I found a used copy of Beyond Black that is sitting on my TBR list.

I loved Beyond Black and one of the things I love about Mantel is that she is unafraid to try writing very different kinds of books. Some work better than others, but I admire her for that.

Although I am a Roth fan (but definitely not of everything he wrote), I didn't like The Plot Against America; I thought it was too obvious and too didactic.

>145 Linda92007: - Linda - I thought it was a really great book and I did enjoy reading the essays on contemporary authors. I knew the general story of authors like Zweig or Levi, but not for Mantel or Fitzgerald. I'll be looking for Beyond Black now too.

>146 rebeccanyc: - rebeccanyc - I liked The Plot Against America although not the way it was resolved - seemed hurried, out of left field and unbelievable. But I thought the depiction of the narrator's home life and childish concerns was done well.

28 Artists and 2 Saints by Joan Acocella
Finished 2/28/12

Posting the review - will continue to add mini-reviews

This book is a collection of essays by Joan Acocella, a critic for The New Yorker. I enjoy reading The New Yorker – their articles make me interested in things I never thought I’d be interested in or things I’d never heard of. The length of their stories also sets them apart. I like the criticism – perhaps most notably Alex Ross’, whose books I’ve read, but also the dance and literature reviews. Instead of just reviewing the book at hand, these reviews describe the lives of those involved, historical background and the other literature on the topic. I’d recently read Apollo’s Angels, a history of ballet, so was excited to see that Acocella had several essays on figures such as Nijinsky, Robbins, Farrell, and Graham in her book.

Acocella profiles authors, dancers, choreographers and 2 saints. She gratifyingly chooses subjects other than ubiquitous dead white males (though there are plenty of those) and includes contemporary authors such as Hilary Mantel, Susan Sontag and Penelope Fitzgerald. Her style is very smooth and readable and she includes enough background so that I was never lost. I was familiar with many of the authors profiled but Acocella provides detailed summaries of works that she analyzes. I suppose if someone has read a weighty biography or in depth literary analysis of the works, the material will be redundant but I thought she did a very fine job in capturing the essentials in a short space. The initial POV provides a center to build around so each essay is not just a recapitulation of events in one person’s life. For example, she focuses on the idea of guilt-induced love in Stefan Zweig’s Beware of Pity then gives enough background information and period details to note what is new about the story and how it relates to the Zweig’s life and historical events. Most of the essays are focused on the artist's struggle and effort in writing/creating. A number of the people profiled took extended breaks in their work or, if they were women, started their artistic career late and had conflicted relationships with the men in their lives.

Acocella has a way of making you immediately interested in the story. For example, the essay on Primo Levi opens with a description of how everyone wanted Primo Levi to appear, consult, approve of their project after his publication of books that established him as a saintly Holocaust survivor, followed by Acocella’s notation that he often disappointed people. There are a number of great first lines – for the history of Joan of Arc in popular culture – “Joan of Arc movies, understandably, have always been low on sex, but in the newest entry, The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, by Luc Besson, the French action-movie director, that omission is redressed” or the profile of Hilary Mantel – “When the English novelist Hilary Mantel was seven years old, she saw the Devil standing in the weeds beyond her back fence.” There’s a good dose of humor as well. I had some quibbles with some of her POVs (especially in the modern dance essays though I think this might just be because I’m not too familiar with modern dance) and in many of the pieces on ballet dancers or choreographers, Balanchine would just pop up and take over, but overall I really enjoyed this book. I was familiar with most of the authors, but after reading this I was inspired to read some of their books sooner rather than later. Highly recommended.

Catching up. What fabulously varied reading - and great reviews.

I have enjoyed reading your thoughts on the Joan Acocella essays. It sounds like they may have led to an increase in your TBR pile.

Joining the chorus of praise on the Acocella essays review. I have added this to my wish list and know that after I have read it, I will certainly be adding even more to that list.

It has been years since I stopped reading The New Yorker regularly, so I sheepishly admit to being unfamiliar with Joan Acocella until you started highlighting this book. It sounds like she is one of those quintessential New Yorker writers. Now that I've recovered from my earlier misunderstanding, this actually sounds like it would be a fascinating read. Nice review!

DF I’ve loved catching up here -- over several visits mind you, while you’re doing all this reading and reviewing and going to graduate school?? Wow! Your review of A Short History of Myth prompted me to reserve the DVDs of the Bill Moyers/Joseph Campbell interviews (The Power of Myth) at the library. Brooklyn has been on my radar for a long time, but after your comments I added it to my amazon wishlist and in the process found a bargain-book new paperback for $6 and it’s already on its way to me. Maybe I’ll do a St. Patrick’s Day thing and get to it or How the Irish Saved Civilization or finish Frank McCourt’s series (I just have the middle one, Tis, left). And ditto for me about your interesting recaps on the Joan Acocella profiles, I’ve bookmarked the New Yorker one on Primo Levi.

Thanks, everyone.

baswood - the to-buy list did indeed grow longer after reading this book. I just picked up a copy of Yourcenar's Memoirs of Hadrian - that had been on the vaguer 'should read this someday' list for a long time but Acocella's description of the book was very tempting.

SassyLassy - Hope you enjoy the book (when you get to it - could be a while what with giant TBR lists and all).

Poquette - The only thing I really knew about Acocella before reading her book was that she was the dance critic for the New Yorker (in general I like their reviews, but couldn't pick out specific ones by her that I remembered) - and I'll admit that probably a lot of that was due to her distinctive name (a bit like Sasha Frere-Jones). I agree - she does seem like one of those distinctive New Yorker writers.

detailmuse - A Short History of Myth made me think I needed to read Joseph Campbell as well. Hope you like Brooklyn - it was a really fast read. An Irish jag would be a lot of fun - I'm supposed to be doing a Brazilian project this year but it has gotten a bit crowded out with the Balkans read and various nonfiction.

Winter Sonata by Dorothy Edwards
Finished 2/29/12

Not a bad book, but didn’t do too much for me. It starts out as the story of Arthur Nettle, a quiet man who moves to a small town. He observes his harried landlady and her sullen teenage daughter Pauline and meets the Neran sisters, Olivia and Eleanor. Nettle falls in love with Olivia, but it’s something he can’t even mention. Their cousin, George Curle, takes him up even though he rarely talks. In the second part, George’s friend David Premiss comes to visit and flirts – though not seriously – with all three women.

The small-town atmosphere was nice, I enjoyed reading the descriptions of the natural setting and some class differences were conveyed in an understated way but this one failed to really engage me. Possibly I couldn’t connect with the characters. I thought George and his mother, Mrs. Curle, were underdeveloped and Nettle remains just a shy man with an unattainable crush. Pauline comes off as your typical sulky, self-involved teenager though her mother sees her as an accident waiting to happen. Happily, there’s no punishment for her for just being a silly teenager. Olivia and Eleanor were nicely distinguished and Premiss was interesting because he was a little infuriating. The book does form a sonata-like structure – the first theme is Nettle, various developments occur though the theme stays the same, then this gives way to a second theme, Premiss, where developments are all his little flirtations with small variations. In the end, the first theme returns, in a slightly different key.

>153 detailmuse:, 154 I have some Joseph Campbell that I may willing to part with, though it might be more than you wish to tackle. I read a lot of him in the 80s, while he was still alive. I have Myths to Live By and three books in his Masks of God series... If you are interested, drop me a note (they are just collecting dust here). Hero with a Thousand Faces or some form of the "Power of Myth" would be the place to start Campbell.

Just catchin' up, Die.

More reviews from 28 Artists and 2 Saints -

“Quicksand” (Stefan Zweig) – This is an analysis of Zweig’s book Beware of Pity. I loved that one and was happy to read about it again. The influence of Zweig’s personal life on the book is covered. Acocella mentions that the book features an early manifestation of guilt-induced love – or something resembling love – which is all too common now.

“True Confessions” (Italo Svevo) – I’ve read several books by Svevo; this piece made me add a couple more to the list. The James Joyce relationship is pretty famous but I appreciated reading about the reaction to his work in his native Italy. Svevo had to struggle against public indifference to his work as well as tumultuous historical events – another example where effort was as important as inspiration, also another artist who had a lengthy break in his artistic career.

“The Neapolitan Finger” (Andrea de Jorio) – This was a review of a book that I will not read – a compendium of Neapolitan gestures by Andrea de Jorio. I hadn’t heard of him and Acocella notes that most likely people will not be familiar with his book but she seems to have enjoyed it immensely. She describes a lot of the gestures de Jorio covers as well as his history and intent in writing the book. De Jorio wanted to demonstrate that the gesture was worthy of a whole book, with analysis, but at the same time he presented it as something exotic in order to popularize it. Some of the gestures described are kind of hilarious – to show that you think a person is being something of a windbag, for example, there is a whole list of gestures of increasing strength. These include things like arm farts, throwing things and stomping on the ground. Also, with various gestures to indicate time and verbs, one can communicate to say something like – a friend is sick. This would involve six gestures and Acocella points out that it might just be easier to say it. She notes that the book raises the gesture to almost an art form. I found this piece to be extremely entertaining. I was hoping that she would talk about the importance of gesture in dance (this was covered at length in Apollo’s Angels) but that wasn’t mentioned here.

“The Hunger Artist” (Susan Sontag) – I was mostly familiar with Sontag’s reputation as a popular intellectual. I wasn’t aware of the specific works that rocketed her to fame but after reading this essay, I think I’d be interested in reading her criticism. However, Acocella’s main focus in this piece is her novels – as well as her artistic struggle. Health problems are her current concern (though the portrait of her seems very resilient) but there was also a backlash after she came into popular consciousness. The novels sound like something I’d like to read – sprawling, vivid, intellectual works. Apparently, one notable element about Sontag’s nonfiction is her many contradictions, often in the same piece, but this is something Acocella actually admires.

>156 avaland: - Thanks, avaland. I was planning to start with the Hero With a Thousand Faces and I think I can get an ebook version of The Power of Myth from the library.

Just catching up. Love all your posts on Joan Acocella.

>159 dchaikin: - Thanks, dchaikin.

The Centaur in the Garden by Moacyr Scliar
Finished 3/9/12

(A lot of spoilers in this review)

This is an immensely readable book. The prose flows very well and the story is engaging. I found myself consuming vast quantities of the book in short periods of time. The author skillfully balances descriptions of events with the narrator’s thoughts – it never feels like a rote here’s-what-happened and you get a good glimpse of the narrator’s character. I had some problems with the plot turns near the end and some of it started to get repetitive but I’d still recommend it. The book is the story of the narrator, Guedali Tartakovsky, a centaur. It’s essentially a realistic treatment of a centaur’s life and what happens when he attempts to live a normal life.

Guedali, the first person narrator, is the fourth child of Jewish immigrants to Brazil. The reason why he is born a centaur is left for the reader to figure out though there are several explanations proposed. Of course his parents are horrified and there’s unhappiness and comedy in the descriptions of his early life – for example, the scene where he’s circumcised. His being a centaur parallels the family’s Jewish background – something that sets them apart and causes them to close ranks. The descriptions and events move along quickly as the family eventually has to flee their countryside farm for the city and Guedali feels left out as family members drift away. After a crushing one-sided love affair, Guedali runs away and leads a picaresque lifestyle where he joins the circus and meets a centauress.

Guedali and his love, Tita, eventually start living normally. They make friends and Guedali has a successful normal job. Some years fly by this way, but it never seems rushed. The author’s focus on all the little prejudices is a very nice touch and demonstrates that even something as extraordinary as being a centaur can become normal and of less concern than other issues. Guedali’s parents are a bit suspicious of Tita, not because she’s a centaur, but because she’s not Jewish. His friends also are rather reserved with her since they think of her as an uneducated country girl (though they are outwardly nice and accepting). His family agonizes about them living together but not marrying. As the, years go by and the couple remains comfortable, some discontent is seen. Guedali’s friends worry about their material success and nostalgically think back to the days when they were socialist activists. As a parallel, Guedali remembers his unencumbered days as a free-living centaur. However, some of this desire for the past eventually becomes repetitive and some melodramatic, magic realist events happen that undermine the realistic tone. One could find symbolic meaning to some of these events but it all seemed a bit too much.

The intro mentions that there was a controversy over whether Yann Martel, who wrote the popular and critically acclaimed novel, Life of Pi, had stolen his plot from Scliar’s Max and the Cats. I haven’t read that Scliar, but there were a couple ways that this one reminded me of Life of Pi. The author has a winning voice and skillfully balances a rather fantastic concept for 2/3 of the book. However, the final act is too supernatural and contrived. The end is happy, but poses the question of whether the whole book was real or not.

Did it seem to you that Guedali and Tita could control the physical manifestation of their "centaurishness"? The way their hooves/feet changed to fit the boots, for instance. It made me suppose that the condition was unreal even within the framework of the story, that it was some imagined characteristic, a metaphor. (Like Edward Scissorhand's scissors.) Anyway, I didn't know what to make of it, past the vague impression that the joy and freedom of the animal selves was sacrificed for fitting in with civilised, urban humanity.

Any notion whether the Jewishness of the character has any import in this sense?

Hi, Lola. The end definitely made me wonder if it had all been “real” and I think the book was structured so that you could take it either way. Initially, it seemed to me like Guedali couldn’t control his centaur part – he talked about how it had a mind of its own, was more developed than his human half etc – though that might have been part of a growing up/learning about your body metaphor. Later on, when he met Tita, it sounded like both of them were pretty adept at controlling their horse halves and after he left home, the narrative shifted more towards people’s reaction to him and his attempts to hide his condition compared to earlier self-control parts. The fact that his centaur-ness receded earlier than Tita’s did seemed significant – it went along with Tita’s reluctance in their new life and her betrayal of him.

I think the author showed both sides of the centaur divide – Guedali wasn’t entirely happy either as a centaur or a normal person. Your interpretation is one that would fit – the other one I was thinking of was the nostalgia for wild youth when seen from sober, materialistic maturity. I thought Guedali’s longing for his former self was both that and also symbolic of his friends’ wishes for their former passionate activist selves. In addition, their hiding of their former selves could be symbolic for any sort of condition/minority group that a person would formerly have/belong to. I don’t think I necessarily included Guedali’s Jewish identity in that category. Part of that might have been semi-autobiographical. It also seemed like something that Guedali had – a solid identity – that stood in contrast to Tita’s past. There wasn’t much anti-Semitism shown in the plot either. His parents were escaping that in Europe and Guedali’s condition was another reason for them to be concerned, but it eventually seemed like Jewishness was more of the in-group.

The Master of the Day of Judgment by Leo Perutz
Finished 3/20/12

What a wonderful book – thrilling and addictive, this is a mystery worthy of Sherlock Holmes with both a perfectly neat ending and layers of ambiguity. Perutz nicely captures the voice of the stuffy, selfish, honorable – but unreliable – narrator. The book is set in comfortable middle class Vienna in 1908 but soon the atmosphere is filled with a nameless, supernatural horror.

Eugene Bischoff, a notable actor, has committed suicide – or has he? Outwardly it seems like a random death – he shot himself while preparing to perform a scene from Shakespeare for his guests. However, some little unpleasantness suggests something else is going on. The narrator, Baron von Yosch, unhappily pines after Bischoff’s wife, Dina, and has recently learned that Bischoff is broke after the failure of a bank, though his friends and family are keeping the fact from him. Yosch is irritated by a new guest that Dina seems to favor, Solgrub, and disturbed by a story that Bischoff told about the motiveless suicides of two brothers. Felix, Dina’s brother, thinks Yosch is responsible for the death but Solgrub and another friend, Dr. Gorsky, think another murderer is out there.

Solgrub is the Sherlock Holmes in the story, an intelligent, active man with some lingering horrific memories of war and an alcohol problem, who contrasts with Yosch. Perplexed Yosch, doubtful Felix and logical Gorsky at times are his Watsons. The mystery is finally solved after Solgrub’s various hypotheses conjure up all sorts of images of creepy murderers and supernatural evil, though there are several casualties along the way. As in other Perutzs, the ending is given – obliquely – in the prologue (we find out who died, for example) but the meaning does not become clear until the end of the book. There are several layers of unknowing in the book – no one, at first, knows what has happened and Yosch remains confused while Solgrub collects evidence and draws conclusions. In addition, Yosch is an unreliable narrator. We find out that he has kept things from the reader and added in reasons for his actions. He pretends that some of his meaning-filled comments were innocent mistakes and occasionally fades out at important moments. The epilogue adds another layer of distance. The solutions that the group discovers may be what happened or the whole book could be Yosch’s elaborate justification. Another possibility is also raised towards the end.

A number of logical solutions are possible but various symbols point to the deaths as fate rather than suicide or murder. Besides all Yosch’s unreliability, his narrative is littered with memento mori. The gardener is Death personified, who Yosch called for Bischoff, Brahm’s piano trio is its own day of judgment with Satan triumphing, Gotterdammerung is playing on that fateful day, and Yosch’s thoughts of his own suicide hang over the interval. The cut on Yosch’s head that he can’t seem to recall getting foreshadows his later run-ins with death and Gorsky’s death, which occurs after the events of the book, also parallels the suicides. The ambiguity was one of the things that made this book complex and memorable.

The Master of the Day of Judgment sounds like a fascinating book. I hadn't heard of Perutz before... someone to add to my wishlist. Thanks for an intriguing review.

I agree it sounds fascinating. I had heard of him, but didn't really know anything about him or his work.

An excellent review of The Master of the Day of Judgment. Another one I will be looking for. I was quite happy to find that the University library has the Acocella book, so I hope to pick that up soon.

164> Perutz sounds like an interesting writer. I too had never heard of him but this book could be worth a try. Nice review!

Thanks, everyone.

I've reviewed a couple other books by Perutz that were also enjoyable - The Swedish Cavalier and By Night Under the Stone Bridge and there's a very informative review for The Marquis of Bolibar by Makifat.

The Master of the Day of Judgment would have been set in contemporary times for Perutz but there's a flashback to an earlier period. The others that I've read were historical fiction, but like this one they had narrative oddities and ambiguous ends. Also like this one - issues of fate and identity are raised. I've found his books to be quick, entertaining reads with subtle humor.

Linda - I hope you enjoy 28 Artists and 2 Saints! University libraries are great - that's where I got most of the Perutzs.

Weep, Shudder, Die: A Guide to Loving Opera by Robert Levine
Finished 3/21/12

I saw this cute book at my local bookstore and thought it looked like something that I could give to friends who are interested in opera (being an opera addict and proselytizer myself). The book is very short and a quick, breezy read. I had quibbles with both the synopses and some of the author’s opinions. Also, some may take issue with the author’s occasionally flippant tone. I don’t think this book will add anything if you’re already into opera but it covered the basics in an appealing way and Levine’s passion clearly comes through. Good for the casual operagoer or newbie – it would be a book someone might actually finish. It’s also clearly aimed at an American audience.

The author has a quick personal intro where he describes how he came to love opera after growing up on pop and rock. Love this quote – “To this day, I cannot understand why people don’t sing – opera and otherwise – all the time.” His intro includes a brief history, an explanation of the elements of opera and a primer on how to approach some of the criticisms (everyone sings all the time, melodramatic plotlines, not “relevant” to today’s issues, in a foreign language). I kind of disagree with his clearly negative view of Regietheater productions – it was more like he was trying to say that those types of productions are out there, but by citing the “good” ones as the standard Chereau Ring and the Miller Rigoletto, while picking the worst out-of-context Bieito for the negative, then his view on the subject is clear.

The rest of the book is divided into sections on German, Italian, French, Russian, and English opera with a separate section for Mozart’s operas. Each section has a list of composers and their operas and the basic repertory is covered (though – no Tristan? Blasphemy!). There’s a quick bio, a paragraph about the composition of each piece and a VERY short synopsis. The best part is the ‘moments to die for’ section – Levine’s passion is apparent and after reading some of those I had to go put the pieces on. Levine continues to mix humor with information and there were some nice touches (the best moments in French operas were titled “Les Petites Morts”, there are a number of serious-looking pictures with silly captions). There were enough little mistakes in the already-short synopses to irritate me (I don’t think this is too important – it’s pretty easy to find synopses and nothing really changed the plot or anything) and the summary of Figaro was pretty much a mess (but Trovatore was admirably summarized in a short period – though the whole spoiler had already been given). I can’t complain about the fact that almost all the operas were from the 19th c. because that’s what you’ll see at your average American opera house. Levine has clear likes and ehs, which is fine, but he says “Mozart’s operas are so perfect that each note counts” and cites Don Giovanni as having “no sense of padding” but there were two premieres – in Prague and Vienna – and Mozart and Da Ponte wrote new music, so – which is the perfect one? And they didn’t write new music for dramaturgical reasons but because there was a different cast. But those are minor things and I do think this is a good primer for beginners.

The Mirador: Dreamed Memories of Irene Nemirovsky by Her Daughter by Elisabeth Gille
Finished 3/24/12

This elegant book is a fictional memoir of the famous author Irene Nemirovsky written by her daughter, Elisabeth Gille. Nemirovsky was born to a rich family in Kiev, moved to Saint Petersburg and later Moscow, came of age during the tumult of the revolution and finally settled with her family in France. Her books were very popular and much lauded in France and she married and had two daughters. However, because she was Jewish, her friends and admirers began turning on her in the 30’s and 40’s. Irene and her husband Michel were arrested and deported in 1942; both died. Her two children were hidden by friends and survived.

Gille’s Irene is bookish and intelligent but at times selfish and heedless. She loves her caring but perpetually busy father and has an antagonistic relationship with her materialistic mother. The neglectful, greedy mother looms large in Nemirovsky’s fiction and Gille portrays her as a social climbing, frivolous monster. It’s a work of fiction so I don’t know if her mother actually begged Irene to have an abortion so she wouldn’t become a grandmother, but after the war, she turned away her daughter’s orphaned girls and tried to send them to a home for indigent children. The sheltered young Irene quietly rebels by reading inappropriate books and dragging her governesses all over the city, occasionally getting caught in riots. Some of the descriptions of the cities and historical events feel a touch studied, the mentions of Nemirovksy’s books can be a bit obvious and once in a while Gille’s language is overly lyrical but for the most part the prose is elegant and the characterization of Irene is skillful. As the family falls into worrisome circumstances due to the unstable political situation, Irene runs wild. The hedonistic atmosphere of the young people contrasts with the hushed attitude of their parents and seems to infect Irene for much of her life. The first part is written by Irene in 1926 and has a happy ending – her family settled in France, she becomes something of a Francophile, happily marries and finds success with her novel David Golder.

The second part is written by Irene in 1942, when the situation in France was dire for Jews. It’s terribly depressing to read about how Irene’s former friends and publishers coldly ignored her plight or piled fuel into the anti-Semitic fire. Gille has Irene criticizing her former self and aware of the danger but sure that the France that she loves will protect her. In an interview, Gille expresses anger that her mother didn’t leave France when she had the opportunity and this is clearly her way of dealing with it. Irene is forced to confront her Jewish identity head on for the first time. She had a complicated relationship with her identity – it was an accepted fact during her childhood (there were things the family couldn’t do) but not important or observed. As a writer, the focus was more on her Russian roots. Later on, she would criticize Jews who didn’t assimilate in France and wasn’t sure she really wanted a stream of German Jews coming to France. Gille presents a nuanced, not always sympathetic view of Irene here. However, Irene's weaknesses are dwarfed by the impending doom that hangs over the whole section.

While I thought this was a good book, there was something that kept me from being fully engaged – possibly the distance that deliberately or accidentally is inserted into the narrative. This would have been a difficult book to write and Gille notes at the beginning that this was a book that had to be written – she couldn’t stop imagining her mother’s life. She pairs Irene’s story with short paragraphs about her childhood during and after the war. The sometimes too-detailed parts of Irene’s narrative – long descriptions of the cities at the time, Irene’s meetings with history, a large number of cited books – never quite let me forget the author behind the book.

School for Love by Olivia Manning
Finished 3/24/12

Despite the fact that a not inaccurate summary of this book would be “Various people move in and out of a boarding house run by a hypocritical, tightfisted old woman and come into conflict”, I found it to be a gripping read and finished it in less than a day. Felix Latimer is a sheltered teenager whose mother has recently died. He moves into the house of a semi-relative, Miss Bohun, who runs her establishment with an iron fist but thinks she is a selfless and charitable person. There are initial conflicts with a poor lodger, Mr. Jewel, and the former renters of the house, the Leznos, who have been exiled by Miss Bohun. A new lodger, Mrs. Ellis, moves in and Felix develops a crush on her. The setting is Jerusalem in 1945, near the end of the war, but the political situation is really just a backdrop to the conflicts between the residents of the house.

The book is also a coming-of-age narrative. Felix starts out as a naïve, trusting young man who badly misses his mother. Over the course of the novel, he comes under the influence of both Miss Bohun and Mrs. Ellis. He discovers the good and bad in both of them and reassesses the influence of his mother. Even his relationship with the cat Faro, probably the most productive, is not an entirely loving one. Early on the reader realizes Miss Bohun is a horrible, controlling hypocrite but Felix initially believes everything she says (she is always the one who is giving in any relationship) and provides her with support. He clearly wants a loving figure to replace his mother, but even he soon learns that Miss Bohun is an unpleasant person who cheats everyone but always talks about how good she is. Still, he can’t quite leave her house and swings back and forth over the question of whether she is well-meaning or truly wicked. Mrs. Ellis is the only lodger who effectively opposes Miss Bohun and Felix believes he’s in love with her, though it is just a teenage crush and admiration. Her cynicism and clear-eyed assessment of Miss Bohun attracts him and he eagerly comes under her influence. However, she’s pretty casual about taking him up and dropping him and her faults become apparent.

Miss Bohun is a character of almost Dickensian horribleness but she was fascinating at the same time. Part of the reason I read the book so quickly was that I wanted to know what else she would get up to. She does some pretty low things – stealing milk from a pregnant woman and using Faro to get to Felix – but the author never lets her become completely unsympathetic. In her dealings with the lodgers, she always ends up hated, but even though her own versions are clearly whitewashed for her benefit, the others are portrayed as quarrelsome also. Mr. Jewel refuses to leave even though it’s cruel for her to eject him. The Lesznos are very rude in general although one easily imagines the story from their side. Mrs. Ellis also lets lose some cruel insults. While Miss Bohun never seems to care for Felix in the way he would have liked, she was initially very welcoming and cheerful towards Mrs. Ellis and more than once said she hoped they would be friends and like a family. It’s obviously an act put on but one wonders how sincere she is. Is she just acting kind to get Mrs. Ellis to become dependent on her then turn on her as was possible with Mr. Jewel and the Lesznos? Or does she genuinely want a friend? The usual psychological explanation given for her cruelty is that she was an unwanted adopted child then never married, so it’s possible she really wanted to become close to Mrs. Ellis. Several people besides Felix (his judgments are not reliable) comment that she was probably good deep down, though they have a hard time seeing it. Her comments about her poverty usually seem exaggerated but the fear that she’ll be left all alone with no one to help her is accurate – she drives people away. The end suggests she’ll land on her feet as she always does.

I loved School for Love too. Have you read Olivia Manning's The Balkan Trilogy? That's what got me started reading her.

Nice review of School for Love. Have been meaning to read The Balkan Trilogy ever since Fortunes of War aired on Masterpiece Theatre a couple of decades ago. This was the first time Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson met and represents the very beginning of their careers. I don't know when I'm going to get to Olivia Manning . . .

She is extremely readable, Suzanne. Even with a book as long as The Balkan Trilogy the reading time flies by. I found it hard to put down. I saw the BBC series after reading it (and the not as compelling Levant Trilogy and I thought it did a good job, but of necessity left out so much that makes the trilogy great.

I haven't read The Balkan Trilogy but I'm hoping to get it now. It did look a bit daunting (plus the other trilogy after) but School for Love was quite addictive. I haven't seen the BBC series either - it sounds like one of those influential ones that everyone loves (like the adaptations of The Forsyte Saga or Trollope's Palliser novels).

More from 28 Artists and 2 Saints -

“Second Act” (Suzanne Farrell) – A wonderful piece enhanced by the participation of its subject. Acocella profiles Suzanne Farrell as she embarks on a new phase of her career, this time as a teacher. This is another piece that is dominated by Balanchine which is understandable. Acocella shows Farrell in action as a teacher – she seems to be both a good one and a calm, nondictatorial one. Her past as the favored dancer of Balanchine is given and the full story is quite dramatic. She joined the corps of the City Ballet and quickly caught Balanchine’s eye. He had a habit of falling in love with dancers, sleeping with them or marrying them, creating pieces for them then moving on to another one. Farrell decided that would not happen to her so while they were extraordinarily close for a long time, they were never romantically involved even though he proposed to her numerous times and she faced pressure from both him and the other dancers/employees. The other dancers were irritated by Balanchine’s obvious favoritism towards Farrell and from the descriptions – it did sound unfair. Farrell ran off to marry another dancer from the company (sounded like a Nijinksy-like match made under stress), infuriating Balanchine. She had an illustrious career in Europe for several years then went back to Balanchine’s company, though he forbid her husband to return. Farrell continued to star in his ballets and was considered one of the top American dancers but after his death she was at loose ends. Her new career started slowly with a couple weeks’ tutoring but gradually expanded.

“Burned Again” (Joan of Arc)- This is a review of Luc Besson’s movie of Joan of Arc – it gets a thumbs down from Acocella – then moves on to analyze various other movies about her. Acocella obviously has a personal passion for Joan of Arc and uses the transcripts from her trial to get a better view of her character. She assesses how Joan is portrayed in the films but finds most unsatisfactory.

“The Saintly Sinner” (Mary Magdalene) – The other saint, Mary Magdalene, is described in her many incarnations. There are the sparse mentions in the gospels and the more interesting story that developed, that of the repentant whore who eventually became a cave-dwelling saint fed by heaven. The common view of Mary Magdalene inspired all sorts of cults and works of art throughout history. Acocella traces the leaps that led to this latter story – a much more colorful one, she acknowledges, though she also finds the depiction of Mary as the intelligent favorite of Jesus in the Gnostic gospels intriguing (this one made me think I should read something about the Gnostic gospels) and thinks Mary’s best moment comes when she sees the back-from-the-dead Jesus.

“Becoming the Emperor” (Marguerite Yourcenar) – Yourcenar has a very odd biography – her childhood and teenage years were marked by neglect and then partnership with her father who supported her intellectual ambitions. She then formed a relationship with a woman that lasted the rest of their lives though she later claimed that she didn’t love her after the first couple years. They lived on a secluded island off the American coast. Yourcenar took a long break from writing but was inspired by the delivery of a trunk with her old works and wrote Memoirs of Hadrian, a masterpiece. I definitely wanted to read it right away after reading Yourcenar’s detailed description. Acocella also praises her next book, The Abyss, which is an earthy picaresque, a 180 compared to the classical form of Memoirs of Hadrian.

#176 Re The Balkan Trilogy I took it with me on a long airplane flight to visit relatives and while I was staying with them I couldn't wait until they had other things to do so that I could get back to the book! In other words, don't worry about its length.

Enjoyed your review of School for Love. I like Olivia Manning's books and also have The Balkan Trilogy sitting on my shelf waiting to be read.

>178 rebeccanyc: - Ha ha....glad to hear that. I've had several books like that. I took the good-sized Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll on a trip to Hawaii and instead of enjoying the beaches and sun, I sat inside and read most of the time.

>179 baswood: - Thanks, baswood. What other books by Olivia Manning would you recommend? I picked up School for Love because it was an NYRB.

Virgin: The Untouched History by Hanne Blank
Finished 3/25/12

I read a couple reviews of Hanne Blank’s new book Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality and thought it sounded interesting, what with flare-ups in the culture wars right now (in the U.S. at least). There were a number of holds on it at the library, but they had another book by her that also sounded interesting, Virgin: The Untouched History.

Blank notes in her intro that a study of virginity requires information from a variety of disciplines and that there are large knowledge gaps in what we know about virgins and virginity. She describes virginity as a concept that was at one point extremely important and is still culturally relevant today but one that is hard to define and is an intangible quality. Blank’s point of view is obvious – the importance placed on and obsession with virginity is part of a patriarchal system to control sex, is generally only concerned with women’s virginity and is also dehumanizing. The book is divided into the physical/medical aspects and the historical/cultural view of virginity. I thought I’d find cultural issues to be more interesting but that section was somewhat too brief and I wondered at times if she was being inexact. The medical issues related to virginity were fascinating.

In the first couple chapters, Blank details the physiology of the hymen and the history of the search for the hymen as well as various illnesses and conditions attributed to virgins. I’ve taken a number of biology and sexuality classes but the majority of information about the hymen was new to me. Blank explains why – there are rarely medical issues associated with the hymen. This was a very interesting section. The myth of sex with virgins curing diseases wasn’t new to me, but Blank talks about various times in history when it seemed especially notable. Also, I’d never heard of greensickness before – one of those old diseases that makes you wonder what was causing all the cases. Medical issues related to virginity include the controversy over the speculum, hymen reconstruction and the rare imperforate hymen. Blank lists numerous virginity tests, some of which sound quite ridiculous today. In describing these varied topics, Blank often relates them to her previously described themes – concerns with virginity are perpetuated by men and generally leave women out of the equation. Sexuality of women is seen as a dangerous thing – for example, the belief that a doctor using a speculum on a virgin could lead to masturbation and prostitution.

The second half of the book covers the history of virginity in the West. A lot of this describes religious attitudes to religion and sexuality and this isn’t an area I am too familiar with so I wondered if at times Blank was being inexact. For example, she notes that the Greeks had an idea of virgin magic and mentions that Persephone was able to travel to the underworld because she was a virgin. While there are multiple versions of Greek myths, this is not an interpretation that I have ever heard of the Persephone story (though the story can be read as an allegory for loss of virginity, never heard that posited as a reason she could go to the underworld). The rise of Christianity gave new value to virginity especially with the importance of the Virgin Mary in Catholicism. This abated somewhat with Protestantism. The portrayal of virgins as sexual objects is covered then the book ends with virginity in 20th century American and how it was affected by tampons, birth control and feminism. Some of the topics she covers are ones that have been distorted by history and pop culture – vestal virgins, virgin martyrs, Erzsebet Bathory, jus primae noctis, Elizabeth I and William Stead, the journalist who bought a 13-year old virgin to illustrate a point. I thought the history was covered too quickly but does give a good starting point for further reading. In addition, the focus is only on Western attitudes and history. I appreciated that Blank’s history of Christianity, though short, is nuanced – it’s not all Christians are anti-sex. She’ll note that some very misogynistic Christian writers weren’t representative of the thought of the day and writes about how the convent allowed greater freedom to many women. While I did occasionally wonder about the veracity of all her interpretations, this is a informative book on the topic.

Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality by Hanne Blank
Finished 3/31/12

Straight takes on the – in the words of the author – surprisingly short history of heterosexuality from the 19th century to the present. While one might think that the history extends further back, Blank notes that the term was first coined in the late 19th century, was popularized by Krafft-Ebing and Freud, encompassed a number of cultural ideas and finally became part of the doxa, the generally known information. Blank starts her discussion of the limiting idea of heterosexuality by talking about her own relationship with her partner. Because of a variety of intersex conditions, it is hard to say that “male” and “female” are static, easily defined conditions. Are sexes determined by genes? Hormones? Socially defined gender? Then there’s the difference between sexual attractions and behavior. Heterosexuality is generally defined as “normal” sexuality, but what “abnormal” sexuality is has always differed from time and place. The idea that heterosexuality is a construct rather than a scientific fact, and that it is often quite limiting and discriminatory, is an idea that recurs frequently.

There’s less specific scientific information compared to the other Blank book I read, Virgin, but I was more familiar with the period and topics covered in this book and thought Blank’s analysis of social trends was informative. She covers the period where the term heterosexual first appeared – when the West was moving away from Catholic concepts of sin and sexual acts - not separate identities - to ideas of normal vs. deviant. The rise of the city, the popularization of scientific concepts and jargon and fears of degeneration contributed to the rise of heterosexuality. Freud had a lasting effect and Blank is obviously critical of him as seen in the way she relates his ideas. The concept of sexual identities was given more fuel by the work of Kinsey and Masters and Johnson and the push for equality by various groups in the mid-20th century.

The development of the trappings of heterosexuality is described in the next chapters. Marriage moved from an economic partnership centered around children to an (theoretically) equal partnership based on true love and personal and sexual fulfillment with children optional and planned. There was a lot of interesting information presented in this section – the development of dating culture, the rash of sexual help manuals for married couples and the gradual elevation of the orgasm as the defining measurement of sex. In the end, Blank concludes that the concept of heterosexuality cannot include all the advances in technology, biology, psychology and the overall complexity of human behavior. As examples she points to the rise of gay culture, homophobic politicians who are outed, and court cases involving transgender individuals. Blank’s ideas about the uselessness of heterosexuality might seem extreme but she nicely and succinctly covers all the limitations of the concept. I didn’t agree with her conclusion that studies on homosexuality didn’t have much use and really shouldn’t be done – even if only because prohibitions on studying something are worrisome. While I found this book to be more generalized and big-picture compared to Virgin, it was a worthwhile read. Since I’d read some books and taken classes on the subject before, much of the information wasn’t new but the analysis and examination of multiple trends and influences was helpful. The book was short and very readable as well as humorous.

Thy Soul Shall Bear Witness! by Selma Lagerlof
Finished 4/1/12

A friend recommended the silent film The Phantom Carriage which had influenced Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal. I found out that The Phantom Carriage was based on a novel by Selma Lagerlof and quickly downloaded it and read it in a couple hours. Lagerlof was in my mind due to avaland’s recommendation of one of her books and I’d been thinking about books with Death as a character because of some of dmsteyn’s reviews.

Thy Soul Shall Bear Witness! finds the main character, violent drunkard and good-for-nothing David Holm, telling a ghost story to two transients on New Year’s Eve. He says that a friend of his greatly feared dying on New Year’s Eve because the last person to die before the new year would have to drive the death cart for the whole next year, collecting all the souls of the deceased. Unfortunately, David soon learns that his friend was correct when the two men turn on him and leave him for dead. In his travels in the death cart, David visits some of the people he influenced when he was alive – the religious do-gooder who he rejected and treated cruelly, his imprisoned brother and his unhappy wife and children.

The book is a kind of fable in the vein of A Christmas Carol and It’s a Wonderful Life. To this end, there are numerous coincidences, convenient information dropping and sentimental epiphanies and conversions, but the book is engrossing anyway. Although there are a few stories of happy redemptions, the poverty and unhappiness of some of the characters is also shown and David is an unpleasant protagonist. The best parts involve the descriptions of the death cart and the job as its driver. Lagerlof spends a lot of time detailing the sorry state of the horse and carriage and the rattling seems endless to David. There are a couple nice stories of people seeing or not seeing the death cart – one has an old woman bantering with the driver and trying to hitch a ride. The occupation is its own punishment – time is stretched out so the year feels like a thousand, the driver has to witness all the violence and pain that accompanies death and he can’t find out what’s on the other side until his year is over. A fast, interesting read.

#181 I got a laugh out of that title!

>184 rebeccanyc: - I thought they were both pretty funny - had to include the subtitles in the touchstone.

Wildwood by Colin Meloy
Finished 4/4/12

This was a delightful book that I read straight through in several hours. All the elements are familiar but the author, Decemberists singer and songwriter Colin Meloy, puts them together in an appealing way. There are also lovely illustrations by Carson Ellis – some black and white cutouts, others that are detailed shaded drawings, and several beautiful color plates. While I had a few criticisms, I would happily read the next books in the planned series.

Prue McKeel is an ordinary 7th grader who lives with her parents and baby brother Mac in Portland. While babysitting Mac one day, Prue is horrified to see a murder of crows fly off with him into the Impassable Wilderness, a forest that is shunned by children and that Prue’s parents awkwardly avoid mentioning. Prue goes to rescue him and is joined by her classmate, nerdy social misfit Curtis. They are soon separated and in parallel narratives both navigate the treacherous woods which are inhabited by useless bureaucrats, independent birds, a vicious coyote army, a group of rebellious bandits and mellow tree-loving mystics. Prue and Curtis try to reunite and find Mac but they can’t avoid getting drawn into a civil war. The plot moves along quickly. There’s always some little question to be answered or a mystery to clear up though the middle section sags a bit. Prue has a lot more to do than Curtis until the last third of the book. Also, in the first 2/3 there was a dearth of female characters – pretty much Prue, the heroine, and the main antagonist, the beautiful but evil Alexandra.

I found the plot absorbing and enjoyed reading about the characters. One thing that sets this book apart is all the local color – Portland being recognized for its liberal, bookish, green-local-organic concerned population. Prue is a vegetarian who eats granola and gorp and rides her bike everywhere (the bike plays an important role at points). Superhero-obsessed, Kurosawa-watching, socially awkward nerds like Curtis are at home in the Pacific Northwest. I looked for parallels between Portland and the countries of the Impassable Wilderness – bustling metropolis South Wood, the breakaway Avian Principality, the untamed Wildwood and the easygoing North Wood. The busy South Wood is framed by a riot of trees, like the perennially green Portland. The mystics of North Wood could be your average nature-loving pagan/Wiccan/spiritual-but-not-religious hippies, just with extra powers (at one point Alexandra insults one by calling her godless – but who’s her god??) while the bandits are the more militant, anarcho-libertarian type with a bit of socialist rhetoric thrown in (plus they could be on a neverending camping trip). No one needs to get in touch with nature here – animals live side by side with people, trees are houses or touchstones or a way to be evil. There were other nice things also – the importance of bridges in the plot reflects the city’s separation by a river, the sought-after poppy beer made me think of Portland’s microbreweries.

I enjoyed Wildwood but I could see if others found it derivative. My mind kept going to other books or movies that had similar characters, plot points or tropes and I’m not that well-read in current middle grade fantasy. Some of the characterizations seemed a bit easy – while the South Wood politicians and Alexandra were two-faced, the generous birds, principled thieves and easygoing North Wood inhabitants were mainly just good, with some having individual quirks. The prose was funny and readable except for Alexandra’s dialogue - she had a seemingly limitless supply of evil villain clichéd phrases at hand. Also I thought the satire of inefficient corrupt bureaucrats has been done better elsewhere (though maybe hasn’t been covered as much in children’s literature). But all the issues didn’t really distract from my enjoyment of the book and I didn’t feel irritated when I’d finished it as occasionally happens when I read a book quickly for plot. The book is long so Meloy has enough time to get in the weirdness, the humor, the views of places and people. The book wrapped up nicely but there was enough left open for sequels.

Well I like The Decemberists but......

baswood - I really like them too though the reason I read the book is that it was the selection for my book club. I was pleasantly surprised (we've had some stinkers), but I agree that it doesn't sound like it would fit with your current reading. Maybe just listen to some of their music?

Also posted my review for Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality.

Oh those book club choices. I have suffered too.

baswood - When I think about it, most weren't too bad but the average is definitely lowered by The Other Boleyn Girl which I might put at #2 for worst book (prob Atlas Shrugged is #1).

There were some I was glad I read, some that were light and fun entertainment and some that were eh but not horrible - those were mostly the historical fiction ones.

One of my choices was Embers by Sandor Marai. I liked it, but I felt pretty bad about making people read a book that had an inconclusive end and a monologue that took up 1/3 of the book.

A Kid for Two Farthings by Wolf Mankowitz
Finished 4/8/12

This was not a bad book but not too memorable either. The book nicely evokes the mid-20th century working-class Jewish community in London. Characters were somewhat undeveloped and the prose, while effective with its slangy, casual feel, was not to my liking.

Six year old Joe lives in a boarding house with his mother and their friend Mr. Kandinsky, a trousers maker. His mother worries about his father who is away on business. Mr. Kandinsky tells Joe stories about unicorns, prompting Joe to buy one at the market – a kid goat. He takes care of his goat and observes the conflicts of the adults around him. Mr. Kandinsky wants a patent steam press for his shop and his assistant Shmule wants to win his big wrestling match and buy a ring for his fiancée Sonia. Joe also observes the employees of his mother’s shop, the men at the Tailors’ Union, various transients and the spectators at the wrestling ring. The book is more about daily life than plot- or character- driven.

Posted review of Virgin: The Untouched History at #181.

I agree with your assessment of A Kid for Two Farthings, which I read two or three years ago. I thought it was a pleasant book, but it left no impression upon me.

Interesting review of Virgin which I've added to my wishlist.

>183 DieFledermaus: Oh, that sounds like another interesting Lagerlof!

>193 kidzdoc: - kidzdoc - The main reason I picked it up was that it was published by the Bloomsbury Group and I really enjoyed their The Brontes went to Woolworths which was definitely memorable, but this one not so much.

>194 janemarieprice: - Hope you enjoy it - I found it very informative and there were a lot of topics covered that I'd like to explore further.

>195 avaland: - Definitely interesting and a quick read. I'll need to watch the silent movie next - my friend said the whole thing was on YouTube.

On the Natural History of Destruction by W.G. Sebald
Finished 4/8/12

This book consists of four essays by W.G. Sebald. The first describes the paucity of German history and literature relating to the firebombings of German cities during WWII. The others analyze different writers – Alfred Andersch, Jean Amery and Peter Weiss.

The first, the title essay, is the longest and is based on a series of talks that Sebald gave in 1997. His subject is the silence surrounding the bombings of German cities, many of which were almost completely decimated. Because this is a Sebald book, there are various tangents, wanderings around the subject, pictures and insertions of the author into the narrative. I enjoyed this as Sebald is a favorite author of mine, but this is not a rigorously organized look at the topic. There is some background given on the bombings – Sebald notes that it was almost the only way that the British could fight back but he is critical of the decision to target civilian populations. Some of the silence stems from German guilt over WWII, some from the need to rebuild and move on, some from the unreliability of the survivors. Sebald’s description of what happened in targeted cities is stomach-churning. After reading it - it’s easy to see how the dazed survivors wouldn’t be good witnesses and might fall back on clichéd phrases as Sebald notes. He analyzes some of the contemporaneous nonfiction and literary accounts of the bombing and finds them unsatisfactory. Empty aesthetics, the elevation of love/personal fulfillment over the significance of the destruction or philosophical handwaving are some of his criticisms. A coolly described nonfiction account gets his approval though. Sebald finds foreigners who came to Germany soon after and witnessed the destruction to be somewhat more reliable. I was a bit uncomfortable that some of Sebald’s comments came close to saying that there are only a few acceptable ways to come to terms with events that shattering. Sebald has a quick tangent describing how his hometown was spared bombardment but that the events and the silence surrounding them affected him anyway – a similar theme in his novels, where his characters who have avoided or survived the war are doomed nonetheless. He ends with descriptions of some of the letters that were sent to him after his lectures and some are pretty scary in a normal-people-believing-in-Protocols-of-Zion way.

Sebald is highly critical of Alfred Andersch. This essay follows a more linear path as Sebald gives a quick overview of Andersch’s temperament and successes and failures then discusses his background and how it influenced his books. One could hardly argue with the portrait of Andersch as an almost delusionally self-aggrandizing man (Sebald quotes a colleague of Andersch’s describing how Andersch claimed he would be greater than Thomas Mann). He also had out-of-proportion rage at critics who negatively reviewed his books. Andersch’s conduct during WWII sounds more opportunistic and self-promoting than anti-Semitic but he tried to portray himself as someone who opposed the Nazi party after the war. He married a Jewish woman and later claimed that he did it to protect her but then divorced her when her status interfered with his ambitions. Sebald finds weakness in Andersch’s work also – criticizing him for exotic, stereotypical descriptions of a Jewish character, poorly written sex scenes and creating wish-fulfillment versions of himself.

He praises Jean Amery and Peter Weiss. The essay on Weiss was a bit opaque though Sebald gives evocative descriptions of the grotesque darkness in his works. He assumes the reader is familiar with Weiss – I had to Wiki him to realize that I’d at least heard of Marat/Sade. The piece on Amery was better – the analysis was more concrete and it had the appeal of Sebald’s fiction, where the author is able to capture the essence of his characters at a distance. In his writings, Amery grapples with the irreversible nature of memory and experience. He still feels resentment and survivor’s guilt as well as guilt that he didn’t resort to violence. Sebald praises Amery’s authenticity (as opposed to the posturing of Andersch), his detached, ironic prose and his firm stance on the importance of resistance, however useless.

On the same note - does anyone have any recommendations for fiction or nonfiction relating to the firebombings of German cities? I'd be most interested in German authors (either past or present) but other suggestions would also be interesting.

Great review of the Sebald! I hadn't heard about these other authors before, but this is certainly an interesting topic to explore. Unfortunately, I can't think of any books relating to the firebombings, except for the one you almost certainly know about - Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five - which obviously isn't a local perspective on the events.

I've read this Sebald essay some time back and also wanted to explore fiction depicting the German bombings. The Silent Angel, the first novel by Heinrich Böll, though posthumously published, was a good example. Sebald also mentioned Gert Ledig's Payback, though the one I read was his The Stalin Front, a war novel. The Tin Drum supposedly had scenes of air bombings, although Sebald was critical of Grass. Gathering Evidence, an excellent five-volume memoir by the Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard, had a chapter that mentioned bombings. Jörg Friedrich's The Fire was a recent nonfiction about the subject.

Thanks for the suggestions - I have read Slaughterhouse-Five but only have patchy memories since it has been awhile. Sebald did seem a little mixed about Ledig but his work is published by NYRB - will have to get that one. The others sound interesting also.

DieFledermaus, I've only purchased eight books so far this year but two have been from your thread, Brooklyn and now Virgin. (Thank you!)

>202 detailmuse: - Glad to hear that! Hope you find Brooklyn as addictive and Virgin as informative as I did.

All Our Worldly Goods by Irene Nemirovsky
Finished 4/10/12

This is probably my favorite Nemirovsky so far. The book follows several families from the early 20th century to World War II. Nemirovsky’s prose is beautiful and her insights into both individuals and the population of a small town are sharp, penetrating and occasionally sarcastic. The characters, even those who might be unsympathetic, are well written. Some have compared this book to Suite Francaise (which I haven’t read) but this one is complete. There is a lot of jumping in time – the book is short – and some too-coincidental events but these are minor criticisms.

Pierre Hardelot is from the most prominent family in the provincial town of Saint-Elme. He falls in love with Agnes Florent, whose mother has a suspect past and whose family is from a different social class. Pierre breaks his engagement to Simone Renaudin to marry Agnes. The book follows the fortunes of Pierre and Agnes, their parents and children, and Simone’s family through the first half of the 20th century. Nemirovsky’s style here is swift and economical, but the characters are developed and the shifts between big picture overview and individual reactions are skillful. The lengthy time covered in the book allows the author to draw numerous parallels and contrasts between characters. Very well done.

Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff
Finished 4/16/12

I haven’t read any other biographies of Cleopatra so it’s a bit hard for me to compare Schiff’s treatment of her subject with other works but she provides a clear contrast to pop culture/biased historical depictions. The book is well-written, vividly descriptive and engaging. There are a couple tangents (Herod’s family for example) and sometimes the contemporary comparisons are a bit jarring but this is a very good book.

Most of the time Schiff is pretty clear about her sources and discusses discrepancies or what she sees as biases. She often extrapolates or analyzes a situation based on what wasn’t said– for example, Schiff speculates on what Cleopatra’s education would have been like based on sources describing how her contemporaries and other Ptolemies were raised and bases her contention that Cleopatra wasn’t beautiful on the fact that almost none of the older accounts list beauty as one of her primary qualities but many women at the time were known for their looks. The background and context of Cleopatra’s life is covered in depth. Some of Cleopatra’s actions – being directly or indirectly responsible for all her siblings’ deaths for example – were expected or normal at the time and plenty of the major characters engage in all sorts of violence. Sometimes the descriptions of the luxurious celebrations can go a bit long, but Schiff’s depiction of Alexandria (especially in comparison to Rome) is wonderful. Above all, Schiff emphasizes that Cleopatra was a skillful ruler whose image through history was distorted by people with their own agendas.

Also - thanks to rebeccanyc for inspiring me to read this sooner rather than later

Nice reviews of All Our Worldly Goods and Cleopatra: A Life. I've added both books to my wish list.

Interesting comments on Cleopatra: A Life. It's been on my wish list for a while and I hope to get to it one of these days.

Glad you liked Cleopatra!

Thanks for your comments on Cleopatra: A Life I will be adding this to my to buy list.

Your reviews seem to be getting shorter. :) Two good ones. I was captivated by your review of All Our Worldly Goods

Interesting review of Cleopatra: A Life, which has been on my wishlist for some time now. It is fascinating to me how an author researches and writes a biography from such a distant time. I appreciated your discussing this in your review.

Catching up...drooling over all these wonderful books you've been reading...

I was interested to read your review of Cleopatra: A Life. I started reading it a few weeks ago and had to put it aside because I could not find a rhythm with her writing style. Something about the way she mixes scholarly and conversational tone was not working for me, and also I could not follow where she put her clauses in relation to the subject or her use of pronouns. The topic is fascinating though, and I intend to give the book another try when I'm calmer. It's very possible that my work-related stress is making me so scatterbrained that I can't comprehend anything intelligent right now!

Thanks to all for the kind words.

>210 dchaikin: - dchaikin - I've been a bit off reading lately so didn't feel like doing my usual rambling reviews. There was a lot more that I wanted to say about All Our Worldly Goods but the review didn't seem to be getting written so I just posted what I had. For Cleopatra - there were a lot of reviews for that one so I figured I didn't have to go into the details. Reading seems to be picking up so hopefully that will continue.

>213 japaul22: - japaul - I don't recall having difficulties with Schiff's style but the opening chapters do jump around a bit - first she has the overview, then picks up in media res with Cleopatra's meeting with Caesar before going back and covering a mix of the historical background, the Ptolemies and Cleopatra's childhood. I do agree that she tried to mix the scholarly and conversational but for the most part that didn't bother me (some of the modern comparisons were a bit jarring though). I hope your work stress will be reduced and you'll be able to try again soon.

The Means of Reproduction by Michelle Goldberg
Finished 4/25/12

This is a very informative and well-written book. The author looks at the spread of contraception and abortion worldwide as well as a number of issues related to birth control. Although the countries examined include India, Bangladesh, Nicaragua, and Sierra Leone, the initial push for population control came from the U.S and the West. Goldberg interviewed many people and has stories from top policymakers, grassroots local activists and ordinary women affected by changing policies and social conditions. She presents a nuanced view of the issues covered. Highly recommended.

If there was one criticism about this book, it was that it jumped around a bit. The opening chapter discusses the abortion ban in Nicaragua, the history that led up to the ban and views from both sides of the debate. Then the author moves into the background of the family planning/population control movement worldwide. For the most part, this is the overarching narrative but Goldberg takes side detours to look at female circumcision, India’s skewed birth ratios, the European birth decline and the AIDs epidemic. However, pretty much everything is interesting and well-researched so I didn’t mind.

The initial push for population control was framed as a national security issue – visions of hordes of angry, poor, non-white people becoming Communists. In the early days, there was broad popular and political support for the initiative. As will be seen throughout the book – resistance arises from the left and the right. Goldberg discusses a number of influential people – the man who developed an easy to use abortion device, Margaret Sanger, John D. Rockefeller III, Reimert Ravenholt – a scientist who eventually gained a political position and aggressively pushed birth control. The flaws in both arguments and approaches are covered – Goldberg notes that Sanger made some racist-sounding arguments to appeal to the right and Ravenholt was a polarizing figure, both for his sometimes sexist behavior and his ignorance to real-world conditions of the women he was trying to help. While many problems in this initial push are noted, Goldberg catches the giddy excitement of the people in it who truly believed they were helping to change the world and had an inventive anything-goes mentality. A movement gradually springs up where women’s rights come to the forefront. This argument is developed through the whole book – when women have more rights and are more valued, they tend to have smaller families and the overall welfare of daughters goes up.

This way of thinking finally becomes enshrined in some of the UN goal statements. Goldberg charts the opposition on both the left and the right. The Catholic Church is a prominent critic of birth control and abortion as might be expected but in the early days, a conference was convened that came out pro-birth control. This position was ignored in the Church hierarchy and that has continued. Arguments on the left focus on the idea that population control is another form of imperialism. Some of these arguments influenced the movement – the feminist ideas of pushing for equality along with providing birth control came out of criticism of the one-size-fits-all, population goals, ends-justifies-means initial mentality.

The author is clearly critical of US administrations that put religious beliefs and conservative ideas of women as only wives and mothers above the realities seen on the ground. She provides evidence of how some of these policies were harmful and unrealistic. I suppose some might complain that she takes cheap shots by describing how the Catholic Church allied with Iran to oppose UN actions or how she describes some of the speakers at their planned pro-family anti-birth control conferences – one who was pretty anti-Semitic, one who supported beating one’s wife (Goldberg notes with a straight face that his apologists said he only suggested doing it as a last resort and not too hard) but I felt that the author had shown the flaws in a number of people on both sides of the argument and she spends more time showing the false basis of this side’s beliefs. While the UN directives don’t affect the lives of Americans, some in other countries have directly appealed to the UN and won their cases. Since the US is the largest donor country, administrations there can have an outsize effect as is clearly shown – America is almost bipolar on the issue, depending which group is in power.

The chapters on issues were also very fascinating and again showed the effects of both local movements and worldwide policies. Goldberg emphasizes that a one size fits all approach like Ravenholt promoted isn’t effective but that Western money, organization and initiatives are important in supporting the local movements. I was familiar with some of the issues she mentions – female circumcision and European declining birth rates – but I did learn a good deal in the chapters.

She discusses beliefs on both sides of the female circumcision movement which I’d heard before but also the development and spread of female circumcision as well as initial European reactions. The author interviewed a woman who had been cut herself and she described the initiation ceremony. Goldberg comes out with a moderate message – shouldn’t be done to children, but if women choose it for themselves, it should be accepted. However, as she notes, there are cultural pressures even for adults. I had read about some of the reasons for the birth decline in Europe as well as the contrast between the French/Scandinavian systems and the Spanish/Italian systems with America as an outlier. The author goes into more detail on the oddities of the American system – she mentions the high teenage birth rate and cheap childcare as reasons for the higher birth rate as well as the instability or flexibility of the job market. She also covers the situation in Germany – I would have thought that would be similar to France/Scandinavia but cultural and policy reasons have it closer to Spain/Italy/Poland. Goldberg occasionally suggests solutions but even she seems to find the Indian sex selection problem intractable. She again provides a detailed, nuanced look at the situation.

Also, thanks to bragan for recommending this book

Excellent review of The means of Reproduction. So many issues there that are highly emotive and if I am not mistaken, from reading your review, Goldberg covers them in a fairly even handed fashion.

Very good review, and one I'll be adding to the wishlist.

Yes, great review. Sounds fascinating and as, Barry says, even handed.

Great review of The Means of Reproduction.

I enjoyed your review of The Means of Reproduction. It's quite relevant to African readers, I'd guess; does Goldberg mention any countries other than Sierra Leone?

Compelling review. On my radar also from bragan and nickelini, almost ordered it with Virgin and will definitely do so next time.

You're welcome! I'm glad you liked the book as much as I did, and I'm very impressed with your review, which is infinitely more detailed than mine was.

Thanks for the comments everyone.

>217 baswood: - Yes, I appreciated that she was fairly evenhanded in covering the issues even when it was apparent what her position was.

>221 dmsteyn: - dmsteyn - Goldberg describes several incidents and has interviews relating to Kenya also. In the chapter on female circumcision, she briefly covers sub-Saharan Africa and then focuses on Sierra Leone. The chapter on AIDS also looks briefly at a number of different countries.

In the Freud Archives by Janet Malcolm
Finished 4/26/12

I picked up this book because I was interested in reading something by Janet Malcolm (had heard good things about her work) and it was published by NYRB. Many books that I’ve read lately have made me want to read more on the topic but not this one. The story is entertaining and bizarre and Malcolm wonderfully captures the obsessive, self-aggrandizing, egotistical and willfully blind personalities of her subjects and their petty but far-reaching conflicts. I didn’t feel the need to read more about Freud though.

The first part describes the falling out of Jeffrey Masson and K.R. Eissler. Masson, a brilliant and charismatic but self-involved and blunt professor of Sanskrit, developed an interest in psychoanalysis and won the confidence of Eissler. Eissler was a highly regarded Freudian and, along with Freud’s daughter Anna Freud, controlled access to the Freud Archives, a trove of Freud’s letters and writing. Masson was hired by the Archives and planned to publish the complete letters of Freud to Fleiss, a doctor and his confidante. However, a lecture and article in the New York Times where Masson criticized Freud led to a break in his relationship with Eissler and the loss of his position.

The second part adds another character into the mix, Peter Swales. A self-taught obsessive with a knack for finding undiscovered documents, Swales caught the attention of Eissler and Masson. He almost immediately took a dislike to Masson and his constant complaining culminated in a 45-page hate letter that was sent to Masson and others. He was somewhat responsible for Masson’s collapse – he at least set in motion the events having a good idea of how Masson would respond. While Masson comes off as a typical egotistical, rude, intelligent and charismatic man and Eissler as a brilliant and revered elder statesman who had a narrow dogmatic focus, Swales seems as though he could possibly be unhinged. However, Masson was the one who was lawsuit-happy, suing people at the Freud Archives as well as Malcolm which she mentions in a postscript.

I found the debates about Freud’s meanings and though processes to be less interesting that the interpersonal dramas of the academics. I don’t think this is Malcolm’s fault – I have a bit of a bias against Freud. Some of the excerpts printed also show him at his worst – in one case, Freud decided that a patient’s problems can be cured with nasal surgery but this leads to gruesome complications. The book didn’t change my opinion of Freud but I would like to read more by Malcolm.

I read that years ago (before NYRB reissued it) and don't really remember it, but I did enjoy one of Malcolm's recent works, Iphigenia in Forest Hills: Anatomy of a Murder Trial, which I read last year (although it might be less interesting to someone who hadn't heard about the case, which was big news in New York. I also have her book about Chekhov on the TBR.

Iphigenia in Forest Hills was another Malcolm that I was thinking about reading, along with The Journalist and the Murderer. Do you think that Malcolm covered the background of the case in a way that would be clear to someone who hadn't followed it in the news?

An interesting review of In the Freud Archives, DieFledermaus. I have not read anything by Janet Malcolm, but several of her books do look interesting to me, and particularly one that Rebecca mentioned: Reading Chekhov: A Critical Journey.

Yes, and there was a lot I didn't know, plus a lot of her speculation and in a certain way stepping over the journalistic line. I just never know how interesting New York City-based books are to readers from outside the city.

>228 Linda92007: - Thanks, Linda. The Chekhov book does sound interesting as well - though I think I'll have to read some Chekhov first! I'm pretty sure I have his plays somewhere in the pile.

>229 rebeccanyc: - Glad to hear that - in The Moro Affair I had to read the introduction first (usually read it after) and do a quick perusal of Wikipedia to get all the background. I think Malcolm was pretty clear in In the Freud Archives as well. She became enmeshed into the Masson drama also although from her descriptions in the afterward, it sounded like Masson had no case and was just making trouble.

The Origin of Satan by Elaine Pagels
Finished 4/30/12

In this book, Pagels purports to show how the conception of Satan arose from the early Christians’ demonization of Jews, pagans and other Christians. While I had some issues with the organization and focus of the book, on the whole the analysis was interesting, detailed and insightful. Pagels does a close analysis of Biblical passages, religious accounts that were not incorporated into the Bible and lives of some Christian converts. She gives historical background and context and compares different versions and lives. I wondered if her publishers changed the name of the book because it is a bit of a stretch to say that the focus is mainly on the origin of Satan. I wouldn’t say that the organization is haphazard or superficially jumps around but when Pagels is on a subject that she finds interesting, even if it only tangentially relates to the broader theme, she goes on for awhile with the analysis. Some may find the book dry since it is pretty much in-depth analysis of short passages, but I found this fascinating. I would definitely like to read more by Pagels.

Pagels starts with the four Gospels and sets the background with the Jewish rebellion against the Romans which culminated in 70 C.E. with the burning of the Temple, a traumatic event. The rifts between Jewish groups – some who supported the rebellion, others who wanted to make peace with the Romans – influenced the writing of the Gospel of Mark. Pagels describes reasons for the negative depiction of Jews in the Gospels and the more conciliatory portrait of the Romans (contrasting to contemporary accounts of Pontius Pilate, for example, which put him somewhere on the uncaring to cruel spectrum). Jews were the intimate enemies at that point, the group that stubbornly resisted Jesus’ message. Pagels notes that Romans – and other foreign enemies – were traditionally compared to animals but the demonic depictions of Jews were new. Early accounts of Satan portrayed him as an agent of God, but Pagels shows that increases in satanic and demonic comparisons occurred with the rise of various breakaway Jewish sects, notably the Essenes who withdrew from Jewish society. The intra-Jewish conflict was described in stark terms of good and evil which was continued in the books of Matthew and Luke. John is notably absent of the personification of Satan, but the Jews fulfill the role of Satan in that account. Besides casting the Pharisees and the Jewish population as the instigators, the accounts also rehabilitate Jesus’ lineage and cast the story in mythical terms – relating it to the Old Testament, describing Jesus’ coming as the fulfillment of many prophesies, portraying Jesus’ life as a cosmic struggle.

In describing how demonic imagery came to apply to pagans, Pagels analyzes the lives of a number of Christian converts in the second and third century C.E. Along the way, she describes the spread of Christianity and how it moved beyond the Jews, often tearing apart families. She does a good job in contrasting that sect to the others that were fermenting at the time – for example, the Essenes were a rather exclusive group compared to Christians; not just anyone could join. I did find the analysis in this section to be interesting and well-done but sometimes it seemed like Pagels was just writing about topics that interested her and that only semi-related to the overall theme. For example, she spends time on the life and philosophy of Marcus Aurelius – good, but tangential.

In her section on the demonization of heretics, Pagels describes the consolidation of the church as well as some out-there takes on Christianity. She again seems to want to talk about her favored topics such as the Gnostic gospels, the subject of her best-known book. I found this to be very interesting and would like to read Pagels’ other books despite the focus/organization issues.

Interesting review of the Pagels book. I bought her latest, Revelations, because it seemed an interesting topic after the first crusade books I read, and I started it but got distracted by other reading, so I'll probably have to go back to the beginning when I pick it up again. Will be on the lookout for the focus/organization issues!

Interesting stuff, DF. Glad to have read your review. At some point I'll read the New Testament. This book might be helpful when I get there.

Excellent review of The Origins of Satan, DieFledermaus.

Interesting stuff here as always and an excellent review of The Origin of Satan

Your review of The Origins of Satan intrigues me. I am quite surprised to learn that the concept of Satan was a Christian construct. If I had to express an opinion about it I would have said it originated in Genesis, or if not there, within some of the dualistic and/or gnostic religions that flourished in the Middle East. But that just goes to show how little I know. I may have to read this book. Pagels' The Gnostic Gospels is very interesting as well but of an entirely different nature, of course.

Fascinating review of The Origins of Satan, DieF. Like Suzanne, I am surprised by Pagels' contention that Satan was a Christian construct. Although my knowledge of theological history is very limited, that seems an overly simplistic conclusion.

Earlier this year I attended a talk on the history of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Although more geared to their discovery, excavation etc., the presenter did touch some on the theology they reflect. One thing I noted him saying was that "any system that posits God as good must explain the concept of evil". The Scrolls do include much on the forces of good and evil, the angels/sons of lightness and the angels/sons of darkness, and I believe they also reference Belial. Does Pagels address their content in her discussion?

There is much that can be accessed regarding the Dead Sea Scrolls on the web. I am not a student of religion, but I find these documents to be very interesting from historical, cultural and theological perspectives.

Thanks for all the comments.

>232 rebeccanyc: - rebecca - I was planning to read Revelations or The Gnostic Gospels first, but both of those were checked out. I'll be interested to see what you think of Revelations - I read a number of positive reviews. Still planning to read those two and as well as some of her other books.

>233 dchaikin: - dchaikin - I do admire you for reading the Old Testament - I think I'd rather read your comments or Pagels' take on the books than the actual thing.

>236 Poquette:, 237 - I'll preface this by saying I haven't read much else about this period. Pagels has a chapter on Old Testament ideas of Satan and her opinion is that the Hebrew Bible doesn't contain the portrayal of Satan as the adversary of God and humankind. She discusses two appearances of Satan in detail - one with Job, the other where Satan is sent by God to block a man who is taking the wrong path. In these two cases, Pagels says Satan is acting as an agent of God instead of his enemy.

She also discusses the idea of fallen angels and by looking at the apocrypha finds a number of different accounts - some had fallen angels who were jealous of humans, others who rebelled in heaven, some who felt lust for human women and created a race of monstrous hybrids. She mentions that there were multiple names that could have been taken from other traditions - so things like Lucifer, Beelzebub, Belial.

Like Poquette said, Pagels pinpoints the rise in demonic comparisons to the formation of the various gnostic religions that appeared before or were contemporary with Christianity. As Pagels notes quite frequently - fallen angels were intimate enemies, not foreigners so it makes sense that these comparisons would come when it was a matter of Jewish sects against the Jewish population.

I mentioned in the review that I thought Pagels maybe wanted to focus on the demonization of other groups and the language used but that some other people thought the origin of Satan sounded like a more interesting title. Still, I think Pagels was trying to show that the concept of Satan was more amorphous and not quite set as the adversary of mankind until his appearance in the gospels and other writings from that time. Then more Christian writers cemented the concept with the with-us-or-with-Satan mentality and the ideas of a cosmic struggle.

This sounds like a fascinating book. Does Pagels deal with the serpent in the Garden of Eden? It was always presented as the Devil, but maybe devils aren't quite as evil as Satan!

>239 SassyLassy: - SassyLassy - Pagels doesn't mention this in the book, but she has another book Adam, Eve and the Serpent where I'm assuming she analyzes that myth.

A Journey Around My Room by Xavier de Maistre
Finished 4/29/12

This delightful little book is a mock-travel memoir filled with philosophical musings and wandering tangents. The author decides that he will undertake a journey around his bedroom – good, he notes, as it is free, safe and effortless. De Maistre was actually under house arrest for dueling – he doesn’t mention this in the book, but does say that circumstances made him take the trip earlier than he planned. He proceeds around his room, describing how it looks and the furnishings. However, these musings tend to go off on tangents, as his thoughts wander to women he loves, his faithful dog Rosine and his loyal servant as well as art and music, literature, society, friendship and death. The most notable philosophical tangent in this one is his dialogue between the body and the soul – he calls the former ‘the beast’. There were a number of comic gems and relatable writing – where he describes how out for a walk the beast keeps going though the soul is off elsewhere so he ends up somewhere unplanned. I’ve done this both walking and driving. There are a number of clever metafictional bits a la Tristram Shandy – he even references that work.

The other section is a journey around another room of his at night. A hard-to-reach window plays a major role in this journey and the author thinks about nature and the stars and also has an adventure with a neighbor of his. It is more of the same, but I was happy to have the same.

Also - thanks to wandering_star for the book! I enjoyed it very much.

Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie
Finished 5/1/12

Just wanted a quick read and this was one. I read it straight through in a couple hours. This mystery jumps around between characters in the first part, establishing that many people have reason to hate rich, charismatic Linnet Ridgeway or at least have secrets of their own. Hercule Poirot gets a glimpse of Jacqueline de Bellefort early on and predicts that she will come to no good. On vacation in Egypt, he sees that he was right – Jackie has come to Egypt to stalk her former friend Linnet and Linnet’s new husband Simon, who used to be Jackie’s fiancé. The first half of the book doesn’t rush to the murder but shows Poirot interacting with the characters who populate the boat that is the setting for the crime.

Pennington, a trustee of Linnet’s estate, is clearly a shifty character. Poirot finds Rosalie Otterbourne, a cold and bitter girl, to be secretive. Tim Allerton seems to have something against Poirot. Linnet’s maid and an employee on the boat also have motives. Christie ups the difficulty of the case by giving Jackie an alibi. The multiple secrets of the suspects, plentiful red herrings and tangential crimes are perhaps standard for the genre but the solution doesn’t go for the most obvious suspect or something out of left field. It was entertaining enough though the head-hopping narrative could be a bit messy and it’s unlikely that there would be multiple thieves and murderers on one boat just by chance.

Terrific review of A Journey Around My Room. I have never read Agatha Christie, although I've seen the PBS shows a couple times occasionally.

Thanks, dchaikin. I've read a couple other Christies - The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and And Then There Were None - but have never seen the PBS shows.

The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell
Finished 5/14/12

This book is a transcription of a wide-ranging interview between Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell. They discuss all sorts of myths and rituals - worldwide, past and present (even, famously, Star Wars) – and their meaning and relevance to modern-day life. While Campbell is unsurprisingly erudite with piles of interesting stories, there was too much jumping around for my taste.

The book is loosely divided into chapters with a guiding topic but the pair tends to go off on tangents. The myths that Campbell describes are interesting – I did like his narration. However, because it’s a discussion, he often only adds a quick aside of what the myth meant or how it relates to something they’ve been talking about. Other times he talks about the meaning in rather opaque, abstract terms. I thought the best parts were the extended discussions of a theme – hunting myths vs agricultural myths or the chapter on the hero’s journey. I had to read this pretty quickly as it had to go back to the library so this may have interfered with my enjoyment of the book. Most of the time I didn’t feel like I really wanted to read it though it was interesting enough while I was reading. Also, it irritated me that Campbell repeatedly attributes gangs, drugs and alcohol to the fact that myths are no longer as influential as they once were. He says this in a very simplistic, cause-and-effect way and Moyers never contradicts him. However, I have heard that Campbell should be taken with a grain of salt. There was enough of interest here that I bought Hero with a Thousand Faces.

I've been wanting to read The Origin of Satan for a long time now, but I had to read Gnostic Gospels first, because I heard she uses that as the background for all her books. Great review!

#241 - so glad it ended up with someone who appreciated it!

#245 - Sounds like one I'll avoid, especially with so much available on and around the topic. Glad to read your review.

The Hero With A Thousand Faces was a seminal work for me way back in my late twenties. It answered a particular need at the time. Not sure how it reads today and I'll be very interested in your take on it.

I'm actually reading a book called Myth and Literature: Contemporary Theory and Practice, which has an essay in it by Campbell, so I'm quite interested in your review, and would also like to read your thoughts on Hero.

Note: although the title says 'contemporary theory', the book was published in 1966, so it isn't that up-to-date.

Interesting reviews. I love the idea of A Journey around my room, Xavier de Maistre. One for me to read I think.

>246 The_Hibernator: – Thanks! I wouldn’t be surprised – Pagels does spend some time analyzing the Gnostic gospels even though it was only tangentially related to the overall topic. I was never lost while reading The Origin of Satan though.

>247 wandering_star: – Thanks again for the book. I think I’ll recommend it to a friend who reads French though she’d probably want to read it in the original language so she wouldn’t be able to borrow mine.

>248 dchaikin: – I did enjoy the parts of the conversation where they went in depth with the analysis so I’m hoping the books Campbell wrote will be more like that (and possibly less opportunity for blaming the mythlessness of society for all its ills).

>249 Poquette:, 250 – Ha ha…will have to try to get to the Campbell sooner rather than later. Poquette – any follow up recommendations for The Hero with a Thousand Faces? dmsteyn – I’ll look for your review. There’s not too much about the book on the LT page.

>251 baswood: – It does seem like a closer fit with your current interests than a number of the books I’ve been reading but it’s a pretty short book – many of your recent reads have looked like weighty tomes. I did think it was fun and thought-provoking though and I have a strong interest in metafiction.

A History of Marriage by Elizabeth Abbott
Finished 5/7/12

Elizabeth Abbott’s book The History of Marriage follows the institution from medieval times to the present. The main limitation she states upfront – she only looks at marriage in Western history. This is an admirable and well-researched examination of a constantly changing institution. Abbott nicely balances view of marriage in the upper, middle and working classes. Being Canadian, she includes material from that country which was a refreshing change from the usual Europe and America-centric accounts. She also takes care to include the effect of slavery on marriage in her look at historical marriage in the U.S. The broad scope of the book is balance by personal accounts though occasionally I thought they were distributed somewhat randomly and didn’t always relate to the subject that she was covering. As would be the case in any large-scale history, Abbott is more interested in some subjects than others and often spends time on areas of controversy.

The book is divided into two parts – historical marriage and marriage in the 20th century and current issues. Abbott starts with the basics of who can get married. One would think a person would have to be alive, but Abbott mentions a couple instances where that is not the case. From there, she moves on to rites of passage and preparation for marriage, the marriage ceremony itself, married life – including housing, love and sex, children – and divorce. Sometimes there would be a lot of jumping around from country to country or century to century. Also, the randomly inserted personal histories would pop up here – maybe just ones that Abbott found interesting while she was researching. One area that she covers in depth is the controversy over whether 18th/19th century parents felt love and affection for their children or were rather cold and punishing towards them. Abbott also spends time describing the limiting perfect wife models – The Good Wife and The Angel in the House. The section on divorce was one of the best – riveting and relevant personal accounts, statistics and cases, a primer on the laws. I enjoyed reading about all the laws and worries regarding secret marriages which were a threat to parental authority. Fears regarding childbirth and high numbers of child deaths were given life from the firsthand accounts that are added. Historical birth control methods and abortionists were also interesting subjects.

The section on modern marriage covers singlehood, gay marriage, parenting, money and race. Here, Abbott focuses mostly on Canada and America. For the most part, the chapters are thorough and well-written. The coverage of modern divorce and mixed families is rather shallow – a listing of potential issues, most of which would be familiar. However, in the chapter on race, Abbott looks in detail at the sad history of Native children who were removed from their families in Canada and the legal quest for recognition for women who married non-Native men. Native status conferred many rights but women would lose those if they married out. Men, however, could not lose their status. The laws were ones handed down by the white government pushing their ideas of marriage on the tribes. Sadly, some of the cases were still ongoing just a few years ago. I think this was a case of Abbott choosing to focus on her interests, which happens a couple times in the book. It didn’t bother me too much though and I’ll be looking for the other books on related subjects, A History of Mistresses and A History of Celibacy.

>252 DieFledermaus: – any follow up recommendations for The Hero with a Thousand Faces?

Now there is a pregnant question! The Hero sent me on a quest for everything Campbell and it may have the same effect on you. Or, you may say, "Enough, already!" Let's talk after you read it. Okay?

Sounds good - I'll remember to give you a poke (or a Poque?) when I finish the Campbell.

>231 DieFledermaus: How interesting! This was certainly not part of my early church history classes (though none of it surprises me)!

>245 DieFledermaus: I do think that that book (or the interview itself—libraries used to have it on VHS) is a good introduction to Campbell. It's been decades since I read any, so I'm kind of with Poquette—unsure as how Hero or any of his others would read today.

I have an earlier book (2002) on marriage by Nancy Cott, an historian whose The Bonds of Womanhood I had read. Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation. I really only skimmed through it but it primarily covers the history of marriage as a public institution in the US. This came out just two years before same sex marriage became legal here in Massachusetts.

Yes, I'm hoping to read more by Pagels - Reading Judas is on the pile. I never had any early church history classes to compare to though so it's all new to me.

I'm thinking that Hero with a Thousand Faces will have more focus - I thought the best chapter in the book was the one on the hero's journey.

The Cott book looks interesting - I'll add it to the list.

Starting a new thread.