Arubabookwoman is Back

Hello--I've been putting off starting my thread until I finished my first book--but it hasn't happened yet. I thought I'd better post before I get lost in the throngs.

Here is my thread from last year: http://www.librarything.com/topic/120688

I had a very good reading year in 2011. I read 137 books which is quite a bit more than I usually do. Since I retired in 2011, that might be the explanation.

In no particular order:

5 stars:

Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes;
Kolyma Tales by Varlam Shalamov;
A World for Julius by Bryce Echenique

4 1/2 stars:

August, 1914 by Alexander Solzhenitsyn;
The Red Riding Hood Quartet (Nineteen Seventy-four; Nineteen Seventy-Seven; Nineteen Eighty; and Nineteen Eighty-three)by David Peace;
The Bone People by Keri Hulme;
The Conquest of Plassans by Emile Zola;
The Howling Miller by Arto Paasilinna;
Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose

4 stars:

Gb84 by David Peace
Novel Without a Name by Duong Thu Huong
True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson
Camel Xiangzi by Lao She
His Excellency, Eugene Rougon by Emile Zola
A Burnt Child by Stig Dagerman
Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead by Barbara Comyns
The Commandant by Jessica Anderson
Under Fire by Henri Barbusse
This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen by Tadeusz Borowski
The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
My Sister, My Love by Joyce Carol Oates
Voss by Patrick White
Barabbas by Par Lagerkvist
Broken April by Ismail Kadare
God's Bits of Wood by Ousmane Sembene
The Double by Jose Saramago
Last Night I Dreamed of Peace by Dang Thuy Tram

I read some wonderful books. There were a few duds, but I choose to forget them.

I read from 29 countries other than the US or Great Britain:

Germany, Russia, Japan, New Zealand, France, Australia, Finland, China, Holland, Norway, Portugal, Vietnam, Chile, Brazil, Lituania, Egypt, Peru, Nigeria, Korea, Albania, Israel India, Mexico, Italy, Yugoslavia, Poland, Lebanon, Sweden and Senegal.

I don't pay attention to male v. female authors in my reading choices, and I read only 25 female authors this year. I was really derelict on reading nonfiction as well.

For 2012, I'm going to concentrate on Reading Globally, especially the Classics in Their Own Country, and I'm going to try to finish my reading of Zola's Rougon Macquart series. I've also decided to go back and reread some of my (remembered) favorites from the past and some of the classics I haven't read in years and years. Finally I'm going to do as Francine Prose did in Reading Like a Writer--read one story by Chekov each day. To that end I treated myself to a 13 volume set of his complete stories for Christmas.

I'll be following as many of you as I can. Please comment freely here--I love visitors!

FIRST QUARTER

JANUARY

1. Classic Crimes by William Roughead 3 stars
2. Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andric 3 stars
3. 1984 by George Orwell 4 stars
4. The Inheritors by William Golding 5stars
5. The Murderess by Alexandros Papadiamantis 3 stars
6. Nana by Emile Zola 5 stars
7. Cousin Bette by Honore de Balzac 5 stars
8. Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell 4 stars
9. To Mervas by Elisabeth Rynell 5 stars

FEBRUARY

10. The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee 4 1/2 stars
11. Old Men in Love by Alasdair Gray 2 1/2 stars
12. Gulag by Anne Appelbaum 4 stars
13. With Liberty and Justice for Some by Glenn Greenwald 4 stars
14. Houseboy by Ferdinand Oyono 4 1/2 stars
15. The Comforts of Madness by Paul Sayer 2 1/2 stars
16. The Antipeople by Sony Labou Tansi 2 stars
17. The Lost Estate by Alain-Fournier 2 1/2 stars
18. Red the Fiend by Gilbert Sorrentino 3 1/2 stars

MARCH

19. The Vivisector by Patrick White4 1/2 stars
20. The man who fell to earth by Walter Tevis 2 stars
21. Little Bee by Chris Cleave 2 1/2 stars
22. Light and Darkness by Soseki Natsume 2 stars
23. Riders in the Chariot by Patrick White 5 stars
24. Points and Lines by Seicho Matsumoto 3 stars
25. Aquariums of Pyongyang by Chol-hwan Kang 3 stars
26. My Place by Sally Morgan 2 stars

SECOND QUARTER

APRIL

27. The Solid Mandala by Patrick White 4 stars
28. 11/22/63 by Stephen King 3 1/2 stars
29. Windswept Dawn by William Heinesen 4 stars
30. Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin 2 stars
31. Departure Lounge by Chad Taylor 1 1/2 stars

MAY

32. The Inverted Forest by John Dalton 2 stars
33. State of Wonder by Ann Patchett 1 1/2 stars
34. Oswald's Tale by Norman Mailer 3 1/2 stars
35. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens 5 stars
36. Dirty Snow by Georges Simenon 3 1/2 stars
37. Every Day Is Mother's Day by Hillary Mantel 1 1/2 stars
38. Vacant Possession by Hillary Mantel 1 1/2 stars
39. Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward 4 stars
40. The Leftovers by Tom Perotta 3 stars

JUNE

41. The Revisionists by Thomas Mullen 1/12 stars
42. Villain by Shuichi Yoshida 3 1/2 stars
43. Lost Memory of Skin by Russell Banks 4 stars
44. Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand 3 stars
45. Triggers by Robert Sawyer 2 1/2 stars
46. Star of the Sea by Joseph O'Connor 2 1/2 stars
47. The Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualusa 4 stars
48. The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje 2 1/2 stars
49.Terra Nullius by Sven Lindqvist 3 1/2 stars
50. Calculating God by Robert Sawyer 3 stars

THIRD QUARTER

JULY

51. The Colonel by Mahmoud Dowlatabadi 3 stars
52. Coming Up for Air by George Orwell 3 stars
53. The Darkest Room by Johan Theorin 3 stars
54. Defending Jacob by William Landay 3 stars
55. The Navidad Incident by Natsuki Ikezawa 2 1/2 stars
56. Nobody Dies by Zirk van den Berg 3 1/2 stars
57. Predator Nation by Charles H. Ferguson 3 1/2 stars
58. African Psycho by Alain Mabanckou 3 stars
59. The Retreat by Ahron Appelfeld 2 1/2 stars
60. Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates 4 1/2 stars

AUGUST

61. Palace Walk by Naguid Mahfouz 5 stars
62. Palace of Desire by Naguid Mahfouz 4 stars
63. Sugar Street by Naguid Mahfouz 3 1/2 stars
64. The German Mujahid by Boualem Sansal 3 1/2 stars
65. The Path to Power by Robert Caro 5 stars
66. Potiki by Patricia Grace 3 stars
67. Harlot's Ghost by Norman Mailer 1 1/2 stars
68. Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal 2 1/2 stars
69. Taft 2012 by Jason Heller 1 1/2 stars
70. The Last Policeman by Ben Winters 3 stars
71. Confessions of a Pagan Nun by Kate Horsley 3 1/2 stars
72. Tsotsi by Athol Fugard 3 1/2 stars

SEPTEMBER

73. Pot Luck by Emile Zola 4 stars
74. The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue 3 stars
75. The Body Artist by Don Delillo 1 star
76. A Naked Singularity by Sergio De La Pava 3 1/2 stars
77. Do Not Ask What Good We Do by Robert Draper 3 stars

FOURTH QUARTER

OCTOBER

78. Hotel Crystal by Olivier Rolin 3 stars
79. The Dog Stars by Peter Heller
80. Kingdom Come by J.G. Ballard 1 star
81. Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym 4 star
82. Morituri by Yasmina Khadra 3 stars
83. The Passage by Justin Cronin3 stars
84. The Twelve by Justin Cronin 1 star
85. The Rock by Robert Doherty

NOVEMBER

86. The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson 4 stars
87. The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino 3 stars
88. We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson 3 stars
89. The Chatham School Affair by Thomas H. Cook 2 stars
90. Grass for My Pillow by Saiichi Maruya 4 stars
91. Dancing Arabs by Sayed Kashua 3 stars
92. The Trikon Deception by Ben Bova (read in June) 3 stars
93. Speculation by Edmund Jorgesen (read in September) 2 1/2 stars

DECEMBER

94. Brothers by Yu Hua 4 stars
95. My Abandonment by Peter Rock 2 stars
96. The Parson's Widow by Marja--Liisa Vartio 4 stars
97. We Think the World of You by J.R. Ackerley 3 1/2 stars
98. Waiting For War by Claude Delarue
99. The Lost Steps by Alejo Carpentier
100. Getting Rid of It by Lindsey Collen
101. The Camera Killer by Thomas Glavinic
102. The Daughter by Pavlos Metesis

So glad to find you here. You did an amazing job with the "Classics in Their Own Country" (are we allowed to add posts yet :-)?). My sincere gratitude and compliments!
And what an amazing book-list. Your thread is certainly starred!

ETA I noticed that you just opened the threads. I hope they'll get many visitors!

Hi! I had been wondering where you'd got to this year. Happy New Year and I look forward to seeing what you get up to in 2012.

Hi Deborah. I'm looking forward to following your reading again this year. And I was intrigued to read about you being a textile artist. Is that something new?

Gotcha. Starred ya. :-)

Deborah I was wondering where your thread had gone to. Happy reading (it is a little late for the New Year wishes!)

Welcome back!

Glad to see you here :)

Welcome back, Deborah! I love reading your reviews, although you're one of the greatest menaces to my TBR reduction plans.

Hi Deborah - lovely to see you here.

I have your thread starred!

I live in the lovely pacific northwest corner of the US, too. I love it!

Hi Deborah, I'm ready to add to my teetering tower:)

Deborah all quiet over here...hope you are busy reading and that everything is fine.

Long time no see. Welcome to one and all.

I have so far failed miserably at my resolve to comment contemporaneously on my reading. I'll try to remedy that.

1. Classic Crimes by William Roughead 560 pp

"They say that even of a good thing you can have too much. But I doubt it...{T}o my mind, one cannot have too much of a good murder."

Roughead was a crime reporter in Edinburgh for many years in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. During that time he attended every criminal trial of significance in that city. This book includes his analysis of many of those trials, as well as of other earlier notorious crimes. The book is arranged in chapters, each devoted to a particular crime, roughly arranged in chronological order.

I found much of each narrative to be repetitive. For each of the major witnesses, Roughead reports, often verbatim, what the witness initially told investigators, what he said in later interviews (sometimes several), what he said to others, and what he said at trial. Very often there is only a little variation, as Roughead painstakingly analyzes and compares the similarities and differences of all the various witnesses. As an attorney, I understand that the specific words used by a witness, and all the nuances of various statements are important in establishing the credibility of or impeaching a witness. And perhaps in contemporaneous day-to-day reportage this type of detail was appropriate. However, in a compilation such as this, I would have preferred perhaps a little more amalgamation of the various statements and testimony, with the author briefly commenting on similarities and discrepancies, instead of reciting numerous statements word-for-word. This repetitiveness made it difficult for me to maintain my concentration on the book.

There are some very interesting facts included in the book. For example, I learned that trials used to proceed non-stop, 24 hours a day, until resolved. Some cases went on for days, which meant that basically no one would be paying attention for large portions of the trial. I was also disconcerted to learn that a defendant could be found guilty and sentenced to death on a jury verdict of 8--guilty, 7--not proven.

I also was much taken with Roughead's literary style. He uses formal Victorian/Edwardian language, and we are never quite sure when he is being intentionally humorous and pulling our leg, or when he is serious. For the most part, I think the humor was intentional and this kept me reading. For example:

"Although in her private capacity of friend and relative of the prisoners {the witness} had told extra-judicially everything she could against them.., she is said to have shrunk from the painful necessity of swearing to her story in the witness box. She therefore disappeared from the Ken of the Lord Advocate...."

or the delightfully understated:

"To poison a person in such a condition seems, to the lay mind, a superfluity of naughtiness."
and
"No sooner had he insured this mansion against fire than it was burnt down. Such accidents will happen in the best of families."

or one of my favorites, describing the two criminals who murdered, and sold the cadavers to a medical school for dissection:

"The firm of Burke and Hare--purveyors-extraordinary to Surgeon's Square, began business in earnest. During the nine months of their joint adventure they successfully carried through sixteen capital transactions. These at least were all that their natural modesty would allow them to claim, but there is reason to believe that they had other affairs to their credit. The firm kept no books...."

3 stars

2. Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andric (1959) 318 pp

I read this book for Reading Globally's Balkans segment and for Classics in Their Own Country. Unfortunately, I never connected with the book.

The main "character" is a centuries old bridge. The novel begins with its construction, and this was the part of the book I liked best. It then skips forward over the centuries, stopping along the way for brief episodes in the lives of the villagers living near the bridge. While sometimes thin threads connect the characters of the past with the characters of the future, in general, the only cohesiveness of the novel is provided by the bridge, and by the recitation of Balkan history--the ongoing conflicts between the Serbs, the Bosnians, the Turks, and the Austro-Hungarians.

While the history is fascinating--and it is a history with which I am largely unfamiliar--the book did not work for me as a work of literature.

3 stars

3. 1984 by George Orwell (1949) 267 pp

I read this book many years ago when I was 16, which was well before 1984. I don't know why, but one of my most enduring memories was of the "oily" gin the inhabitants of this dystopian drank. I was looking forward to reading it again.

I found it to be a book which is still important, and well-worth reading. I remembered, as do most people who've read the book and perhaps some who have not, most of the simple slogans representative of Big Brother's regime. For example, the phrase "War is Peace." At the time of my first reading, the concept of constant warfare was foreign to me. Now, it does not seem strange at all, horrendous as that seems.

I also remember being intrigued by the aspect of the novel relating to rewriting the past. Winston works at the Ministry of Truth, where he rewrites history. Each time an alliance is changed, or a person is removed, or the statements of Big Brother are not realized, all references to these things are purged or edited, based on the philosophy that "who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past."

This was also at the time a concept alien to me. Now we have politicians denying past statements, even when contradicted by You-Tube, and the government would like us all to forget that we were once allied with Sadaam Hussein or Iran.

And who could forget Big Brother, constantly watching his subjects. We don't have two-way telescreens in each home (where it is dangerous to talk in your sleep), but we do have a government that can instantly intercept our email correspondence and can easily discover such things as where we travel, what we buy, what we read.

This book was ominously prescient when it was written, and it is ominously pertinent today.

4 stars

>20 arubabookwoman: I need to reread 1984 too! Thanks for the reminder.

1984 is one of the very few books I think everyone should read. Mandatory.

Gosh I read it in high school and don't remember a thing about because that was eons ago. I've got to reread it and soon. Thanks Deborah.

I read it in 1984! (Well, really, I had to, didn't I?) And re-read it in 2010. Definitely a significant book, and Orwell has always been a fave author of mine. Eons ago, an ex bf asked me who I thought was the most underrated author, and for some reason (this would have been the early 90s), Orwell popped out of my mouth. (Well, the name; you knew what I meant, right?) I think he may be better known now, 20 years later. Christopher Hitchens def. gave him a boost.

I read your Bridge on the Drina review with some apprehension, as I have it lined up to read this month. Too bad you didn't enjoy it more, but your comments track with what some other people have said when they saw it on my list. I'm going to read it anyway, and hope that the Balkan history draws me in.

I think I'm about due for a 1984 reread as well--thanks for the great review!

I also read 1984 in the year itself! I'm also in sympathy with Deborah on Bridge over the Drina which I read last year. A book to be admired for sure and there were very strong passages in it, I agree that as an entire piece it didn't quite work and the history of it is compressed somewhat in its historical denouement. I remember others being blown away by it (Rebecca for one if I'm not mistaken) and whilst I found it worthy, I also found it difficult to really like or enjoy reading.

Deborah, we each do what we can. I don't even pretend to keep up with some of my favorite people on LT. Glad to see you here for 2012. ~Ellen

#22 maggie: *snork!*

Hi, aruba - you've read some good books already this year!

In the year itself I was only 8 so wasnt into reading 1984, but I did watch the movie on my 25th birthday (as I like the soundtrack), I have read the book at some stage but have no recollection of when. I bet there are some nice editions to choose from now.....hmmmm...shall I got shopping on book depository?

Thanks to all for visiting, and thanks for the comments on 1984.
Suzanne--what did Hitchens say about Orwell? I've never read anything by Hitchens, but I'm hoping to get to his autobiography this year.
Paul--well said about Bridge on the Drina. You're right--Rebecca liked it very much. I don't think I'll read anything else by Andric at this point though.
Anne--I'll be watching your thread for your comments on Bridge on the Drina.

Some more January books:

4. The Inheritors by William Golding (1955) 233 pp

William Golding is best known for the enduring classic Lord of the Flies. However, he considered The Inheritors to be his best novel. I first read this book when I was in college. On rereading it, I find it to be an almost perfect book.

The novel is about a brief but disasterous encounter between a small group of Neanderthals and a small group of the more advanced Cro Magnon or Homo Sapiens. (There is some dispute about some of the anthropological aspects of this book, but these critics seem to forget this is a novel, with characters and a plot, not a textbook on human development.)

Most of the novel is narrated from the pov of Lok, one of the younger Neanderthal men, whose mate is Fa. (A final short chapter is narrated from the pov of the new people.) We are aware from the beginning that Lok is not as mentally sophisticated as Fa, although under the group's traditions, Lok will succeed to leadership of the group after the elder, Mal, dies.

The people are gentle, loving and peaceful. Instead of thinking or reasoning, they "see pictures," and they can communicate with each other nonverbally. They do not hunt, but gather their food, although they will eat meat if they come across an animal that is already dead. They are unable to make fire, and must keep their fire always alive. They have no tools or implements, and, for example, must carry water in their hands.

Into this innocence the "new ones" intrude. They have fire and weapons. They have fashioned boats, tools and other implements. They wear clothes and have alcohol. They are sometimes violent.

In narrating the novel, Golding presents things and events as these primitive people perceive them, and we may sometimes have difficulty determining what they are actually observing or experiencing. Here, for example, is the description of Lok's first encounter with one of the new ones; Lok is curious, the new one attacks him with a bow and arrow:

"The man had white bone things above his eyes and under his mouth so that his face was longer than a face should be. The man turned sideways in the bushes and looked at Lok along his shoulder. A stick rose upright and there was a lump of bone in the middle. Lok peered at the stick and the lump of bone and the small eyes in the bone things over the face. Suddenly Lok understood that the man was holding the stick out to him but neither he nor Lok could reach across the river. He would have laughed if it were not for the echo of the screaming in his head. The stick began to grow shorter at both ends. Then it shot out to full length again.
"The dead tree by Lok's ear acquired a voice.
"'Clop!'
"His ears twitched and he turned to the tree. By his face there had grown a twig; a twig that smelt of other, and of goose, and of the bitter berries that Lok's stomach told him he must not eat. This twig had a white bone at the end. There were hooks in the bone and sticky brown stuff hung in the crooks. His nose examined this stuff and did not like. He smelled along the shaft of the twig. The leaves on the twig were red feathers and reminded him of goose. He was lost in a generalized astonishment and excitement."

I loved this book and highly recommend it.

5 stars

5. The Murderess by Alexandros Papadiamantis 127 pp

Hadoula, "the murderess" of this book, is a 60 year old woman living in a small village on one of the Greek islands. She has led a down-trodden life. As the novel opens she is watching over her newborn grandaughter, who is seriously ill, while the child's mother sleeps.

"As the old woman rocked the child, she could have sung the whole saga of her sufferings over the cradle. In the course of the previous nights she had really lost track of reason in the catelogue of her sufferings. The whole of her life, with its futility and its emptiness and hardness, had come into her mind in pictures and scenes, and in visions."

As she reviews the difficulties of her life, her brain "began to smoke," and she almost unthinkingly suffocates the newborn. The baby's death is attributed to natural causes. However, suspicions begin to arise when other girls die.

This novel quietly conveys the reality of a woman in a remote poor community a century or so ago, its fishermen, shepherds, and other peasants. It also magnificently and believably reveals the mind of a woman, who feeling herself trapped, acts in a way that is horrific and difficult to understand.

I read this for Reading Globally, and recommend it.

3 1/2 stars

Deborah I normally find Golding a difficult, obtuse read but will give him another go after your wonderful review!

If I recall correctly, Hitchens lauded Orwell for his moral sense; for his ability to nail just what was wrong with both fascism and Stalinism at a time when people were searching for some kind moral absolutism; Orwell, by contrast, was convinced that there was no such thing as an easy answer, and that that was the human condition. He spent a chunk of time on Orwell's experience in Burma, and how that shaped his philosophy and views, and best of all, he also tried to avoid canonizing Orwell and making him what he wasn't. In some ways, because Hitchens is rising to the defense of another writer and thinker rather than being bloody-minded himself, I thought it was one of his best books, and perhaps one that even those who don't like Hitchens could read and admire. It's Why Orwell Matters, and I'd really recommend it.

I recently purchased The Murderess and look forward to reading it (when I get to it).

#30 - Great review of The Inheritors! I was recently listening to an old Guardian books podcast where (I think) Penelope Lively was talking about how much she loves that book and William Golding. I'll have to check it out.

I'm going to break discipline (NO NEW BOOKS) and find The Inheritors immediately! What a wonderful quote. And so additionally interesting now that we know that we share 2% of our DNA with Neanderthals.

I see your Golding review further up, and am wishlisting immediately. What a lovely review, sounds fascinating.

Paul, Kerry, Lucy and Megan--hope you like the Golding when you get to it. Thanks for visiting.
Ellen--Hope you like The Murderess. Good to see you here. Hope you enjoyed the Hawaiin sunshine.
Suzanne--Thanks for the info on Orwell and Hitchens.

Many reviews to write.

I think I've mentioned before on my threads that I and a small group of other fiber artists have been meeting weekly to teach ourselves art history (for 3 years now). We recently found out that we are going to be featured in Quilting Arts Magazine, the premiere magazine for art quilters. So I've been frantically rushing to try to finish some of my recent unfinished works so they can be photographed. All of this has to be done by April--the article will appear in the fall.

Another brag while I'm on the subject of brags--my oldest daughter has been accepted to a fellowship in developmental pediatrics at Texas Children's (Baylor University) where her husband will also be starting a fellowship in pediatric cardiac anesthesiology. That's why they are taking Boden away. Her program lasts 3 years, so they will be in Houston at least that long.

And another--younger daughter is returning today from a series of interviews to be accepted into the PhD in genetics program at Stanford. She has already been accepted at the University of Chicago and Washington University in St. Louis. So another kid is moving away.

And--middle son moved to New York City several weeks ago. He left a job here with health insurance and benefits to make the move, but he's had several promising interviews, and has found a new band to play with.

Might as well go on--oldest son just bought a house. Looks like he and his wife won't be coming back here any time soon. He's already in NYC (house is in South Orange, NJ), so middle son is living with them til he gets a job.

Finally--youngest son is graduating in 3 months. Who knows where he'll end up. He's talking NYC too.

We are being abandoned by all our children :(

Whew! I'm so tired out by doing all these brags, I don't know if I'll be able to get to the 12 or so overdue reviews!

6. Nana by Emile Zola (1880) 460 pp

This magnificent novel is the story of the rise, fall, and rise again of Nana (child of Gervais of L'Assommoir) from streetwalker to queen of Parisian society in the late 1860's.

It opens with Nana's stage debut in a risque theatrical production. Many of Paris's high society womanizers and rogues are there, as well as many of Paris's reigning courtesans. All are breathlessly awaiting their first experience of Nana; however, when she eventually appears they are at first underwhelmed. Then:

"looking as though she herself were saying with a wink of her eye that she didn't possess a ha'porth of talent, but it didn't matter, she had something better than that,"

Nana wows them all. I pictured Marilyn Monroe singing Happy Birthday Mr. President.

Thereafter, we follow Nana as she acquires and ruins men of all social status and rank. She has "an ever keen appetite for squandering money, a natural disdain for the man who paid, a perpetual caprice for devouring, a pride in the ruin of her lovers." We see Nana at the theater, entertaining at orgy-like dinners, at her country estate, at the races. Through her we see the decadence and corruption of French society of this era.

Zola has skillfully created a well-rounded character in Nana, not just a cardboard symbol of immorality. Despite her penchant for destroying men, we are still sympathetic to her. Although she can be vain and selfish, she is also generous, sometimes to a fault, and she is accepting of others. Although she is calculating and cunning, she is also innocent and naive in many ways. Perhaps these are the things that make her so irresistible.

For the most part Zola stays away from moralizing. He rarely interjects himself into the novel, and lets us be a fly on the wall observing Nana's life. Not surprisingly, the novel was widely condemned when it was initially published, for example:

"Much ability is displayed in this offensive work of engineering skill, and people are asked to pardon the foul sights and odors because of the consummate art with which they are presented. But intellectual power and literary workmanship are neither to be admired, nor commended of themselves. They are to be judged by their fruits and are no more justified in producing that which is repulsive or unwholesome than a manufactory whose sole purpose is to create and disseminate bad smells and noxious vapors. Such unsavory establishment might do its work with a wonderful display of skill and most potent results, but the health authorities of society would have ample occasion for taking measures against its obnoxious business, while those who encouraged the introduction of its products into their households would be guilty of inconceivable folly, besides exhibiting a morbid liking for filthy exhalations."

For me, this is one of the must-reads of the Rougon Macquart series.

5 stars

Deborah, thank you for those family updates. I don't consider that bragging at all. You're just blessed with an educated and successful family. I feel your pain about the kids all moving away. And, how sad for your daughter to take Boden with her. I see lots of traveling in your future!

Many congrats on your personal news. Now that is something to brag about! Please remind us again this fall when you are published. I hope you're not too busy getting your projects finished to keep you away from us here at LT. Is it possible that we could get a few advance pictures? I wouldn't mind a current picture of young Boden either. When is he leaving for Texas?

Donna--thank you for the visit. I know how blessed I am to have the wonderful family I do. Hard to let them go, though.

I will try to post photographs after I have them made. And yes, a new photo of Boden is warranted. I still have his newborn pictures and he's close on to 18 months now! I still have him around for a few more months. They have to start their new positions 7/1, so they'll be leaving at the end of June. I've offered to go down to help them get settled in, which I think they're going to take me up on. Besides my mother also lives in Houston, so it's a two for one trip!

Hi Deborah! Congratulations to you and your wonderful family!!!

You have every right to be proud.

#38 and #39 - What a wonderful bunch you have!

On the Zola - great review! I read Germinal a few years ago and absolutely loved it. I'll have to read more of his work soon.

Forgot to mention that Nana was a reread, as was my next book:

7. Cousin Bette by Honore de Balzac (18) 430 pp

In his series "The Human Comedy", which consists of more than 100 books, Balzac portrayed every aspect of society. The events set forth in Cousin Bette take place 30 or 40 years prior to the events depicted in Nana. Unlike Nana, which focuses on one courtesan who ruins many men, Cousin Bette focuses on one man, Baron Hulot (and his family). The Baron is an aristocrat who, when the novel opens, is on the brink of bankruptcy brought about by his romantic adventures with a series of courtesans. The Baron is "one of those splendid human ruins in which virility asserts itself in tufts of hair in the ears and nose and on the hands, like the moss that grows on the all but eternal monuments of the Roman Empire." When he becomes obsessed with a new mistress, he sinks to even greater depths, leaving his family to go hungry and illegally diverting funds from the state to support his mistress.

The vortex around which the Baron's story swirls is Cousin Bette, who is the cousin of Adeline, the Baron's pious wife. Bette is a plain middle-aged spinster who has always envied Adeline, who is beautiful and who married well. When Adeline's daughter marries a Polish artist Bette had nurtured and had perhaps considered a potential husband, Bette's jealousy and hatred of Adeline erupt and compell her to take revenge.

Bette takes action by covertly facilitating the Baron's pursuit of Madame Marneffe, the woman with whom the Baron is currently obsessed. As Balzac describes it, "Madame Marneffe was the ax,{Bette} the hand that was demolishing by blow after blow, the family which was daily becoming more hateful to her...."

Balzac does not paint his characters black or white. We can fully understand Bette's motivations, and to a certain extent sympathize with her, while also disliking her and condemning her actions. We can admire Adeline while despairing of her inability to assert her will against the Baron. And as to the Baron, one of his former mistresses states to him:

"Well, I would rather have an out-and-out spendthrift like you, crazy about women, than these calculating bankers without any soul, who ruin thousands of families with their railways, that are gold for them, but iron for their victims. You have only ruined your family; you have sold no one but yourself."

Like Zola, Balzac does not particularly moralize, although his authorial voice is more present in this book than in Nana.

SPOILER--SPOILER--SPOILER---SPOILER

Interestly, the courtesans in both books come to similar ghastly ends: Madame Marneffe's teeth and hair drop out, she looks like a leper, her hands are swollen and covered with greenish pustules, all of her extremities are running ulcerations; Nana has a face like a charnal house, as mass of matter and blood, a shovelful of putrid flesh etc, etc.

END SPOILER

Like Nana, Cousin Bette is a masterpiece that should be read by everyone. I've only read a few of Balzac's novels, of which Cousin Bette is considered one of the greatest, but perhaps after I finish the Rougon Macquart I'll move on to "The Human Comedy."

5 stars

8. To Mervas by Elisabeth Rynell (2002, 2010) 192 pp

This book also gets a five star rating from me. Not only did it speak to me on a very personal level, but it is also one of the most sensitively written books I've had the opportunity to read. I suspect that quite a bit of this review is going to consist of quotes from the book, since I don't know how otherwise to convey its beauty.

To Mervas is the story of Marta, a sad and empty woman who is jolted into examining her life when she receives a letter from the man who was the one true love of her life, from whom she has not heard in many years:

"A letter from the other end of time had arrived and the blind and complacent one-day-at-a-time existence I'd been living for so many years had instantly burst into pieces. Instead, I now held my entire life, my whole story, in my arms, and it looked like a skinned animal, a skinned yet still living, struggling animal."

Marta takes the letter to be an invitation, and she spends the next several months rethinking her life. In doing so, she has to face not only her present demons, but the demons from her tragic past. Again, in poetically chosen words, Elisabeth Rynell perfectly conveys Marta's inner life:

"Once you get lost in your life, I thought, you just keep getting more and more lost. Meanwhile, the years close in on you like a swift forest. They tangle and grow denser, they become tangled forests of years."

Marta has always shied away from thinking about her life too closely:

"And I'm afraid of this darkness. I know that from it, anything can break through, a bright, blind violence, a rage like a forest fire igniting even the air. There are monsters living there that have courted me, monsters that hatch in darkness, and I don't want to see them, don't want to know about them."

And later,

"My thoughts moved around the room like anxious shadow animals, sniffing and listening. I almost thought I could see them flickering on the walls. Herds of fear ran down the slopes as if they were being hunted, being egged on by the thoughts and visions spinning in my head. The terror seemed to hatch in new places all the time, one vision after another appearing in long painful sequences. And I had to keep looking at them; I couldn't avert my eyes."

I particularly identified with Marta's thoughts on aging:

"Growing old has been much harder than I'd imagined. Since I've never cared very much about the way I look, the way other women do, I didn't think I'd care particularly about things like wrinkles, getting a potbelly and grey hair. But I did. It was devastating. My body fell apart, and suddenly became my great source of sorrow."

"Like being forced to watch your house fall into decay without being able to do anything about it. Like watching a plant wither. At once my whole life seemed wasted, as if I'd neglected to live it while I could."

Another way in which I identified with the book was Marta's descriptions of Mervas, the abandoned mining town above the Arctic Circle. The town I grew up in Aruba has also been abandoned and is sadly decaying. These passages resonated with me:

"You could tell that this place, this little town, had been abandoned in a very organized way. Even in its deterioration, the precise, businesslike order that had once ruled here was still very much present. A sort of bottomless rationality, an organized decay seemed to surround her."

"Some people can be connected to a place, a certain place, a kind of place that gives itself to you and allows you to hear its song."

This is not a book for everyone. It is primarily dark and somber, and in some parts devastating. The ending is ambiguous. Buit I loved it.

5 stars

9. Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell

Cranford consists of a series of linked vignettes about life in a quiet country village. Its characters are primarily women living lives of gentile poverty. Episodes include a hero saving a child from being hit by a train, reappearances by long-lost lovers and long-lost relatives, gypsies, a crime wave, how to act around the aristocracy. This is a quiet, gentle book. It has the feel of a book by Jane Austen or Barbara Pym.

Recommended.

3 1/2 stars

Thanks for the reviews and the family updates, Deborah. I was particularly interested in your review of To Mervas since I have it on the TBR, thanks to my Archipelago subscription. I don't think I'm quite in the mood for it right now, but I do hope to get to it eventually. And I also enjoyed your revies of Nana and Cousin Bette since, shamefully, I've never read either Zola or Balzac. How can that be?

Zola and Balzac are both gaps in my reading and your reviews were a nice reminder to me.

#45 - To Mervas sounds fantastic as well. I just put it on my wishlist and it fits in one of my 12 in 12 categories, so I'll probably read it as soon as possible. Great review!

Loved your brag! Clearly your kids are confident and ready to be out in the world!
Your review of Cousin Bette is a marvel, loved it.

Drive by.

Great news--daughter got accepted to the PhD program in genetics at Stanford! She's so smart! :). (And nice).

Thanks for the comments Rebecca. You don't say, but I hope you plan to remedy the Zola/Balzac deficit--I really think you'd like them, but especially Zola.

Linda--thanks for visiting--as I alway say, the more Zola the better.

Kerri--thank you for the compliment. I hope you like To Mervas--as I said it's rather dark.

Lucy--Since you liked my brags, I've added another one, as you can see. Have you read Cousin Bette or other Balzac or Zola? Somehow I think you have.

Hi Ellen--Thanks for stopping by. Hope you can stay longer next time. Your Hawaiian vacation sounds like it was heavenly.

Well time for a few more reviews.

10. Houseboy by Ferdinand Oyono (1960, 1990) 122 pp

As this novel opens, Toundi is on the verge of death. He asks:

"'Brother...Brother, what are we? What are we blackmen who are called French?'
"His voice grew bitter. I had never asked myself that question. I was young then and thoughtless. I felt myself grow stupid."

As he dies, Toundi gives his diaries to the narrator, and the remainder of the novel consists of Toundi's diaries.

As a young boy, Toundi was fascinated with the local Catholic mission and the priest who regularly distributed candy to the village children. After an argument with his father, Toundi runs away to the mission, and becomes the "boy" of the priest. When the priest dies, Toundi becomes the "boy" of the town's French commandant. (The novel is set in the French Cameroon).

From his sometimes naive point of view, Toundi draws clear portraits of the French colonists and their cruelty to and disdain for the native people. Although in becoming the priest's houseboy Toundi gave up his tribal identity, he finds that he will never fit in among the colonizers. Tragedy ensues when the commandant and his vain wife seek to "dispose" of Toundi when they think he knows too many of their secrets.

The Times Literary Supplement said of this book:

"It is a better guide to French colonial Africa, and to racism, than any non-fiction account, whether by an African or Frenchman."

It certainly is a brutal and searing account of a past history that is closer than we may care to remember. Highly recommended.

4 1/2 stars

11. The Antipeople by Sony Labou Tansi (1983, 1990) 170 pp

This strange novel is the story of Dadou, the respectable married principal of a female teacher's school in Zaire. Yavelda, one of his students, is attracted to him, and begins to pursue him and try to seduce him. Dabou knows he cannot succumb to her, and to avoid giving in to her charms, he turns to drink (!?). As he begins to sink into alcoholism, he becomes derelict in his duties, and begins to act strangely. Nevertheless, he resists Yavelda.

Through Yavelda, Dadou meets her cousin Yealdara, who also falls in love with him, and would do anything for him. When Yavelda commits suicide, and falsely accuses Dabou of being the father of her unborn child, Dabou is beaten by an enraged mob, which also causes the deaths of his wife and two children. Dabou is then thrown into prison, and for the next four years Yealdara works relentlessly to seek his release or to help him escape across the border to the Congo. Ultimately, she is successful, and in the final section of the book, Dabou becomes involved with some of the freedom fighters in the Congo.

This book is well enough written, but in the end I was asking myself, what does it all mean, what is its purpose? I don't really know. So, do I recommend it? Not really, but if anyone reads it and can explain it to me, please feel free....

2 stars

HI There!
You are reading some great books. Sorry though that your last one wasn't up to par with the others.

All the best to you!

GRRRR--I just lost an entire review. I'm mad. I'll be back when I calm down.

#52 Which Zola would you recommend starting with?
#53 I liked Houseboy a lot too.
#54 I read another book by Sony Labou Tansi, Life and a Half, which I found remarkable and unsettling, but hardly knew what to say about it. I can't say I understood it, either.

Congratulations on your daughter's acceptance to Stanford, Deborah! She must be a star if she was also accepted to Wash U and the U of Chicago. Have you been to Stanford? It's the most impressive college campus I've ever been on (my best friend completed his pediatric neurology fellowship there).

I had meant to congratulate you on your other daughter's acceptance to TCH's developmental peds program, another top notch place to train.

Great review of Houseboy. I had meant to get it after several enticing reviews, including Rebecca's, but I haven't done so yet. I'll formally add it to my Amazon wish list.

I had the same impression about The Antipeople as you. It was well written, but not at all memorable or understandable.

I'm sorry to hear that you lost your last review. It's happened to me a couple of times, too. I now use Microsoft Notepad to save each paragraph to my longer reviews, and it's saved me from losing a review on more than one occasion.

Deborah - firstly I would echo Darryl's congratulations on your daughter getting into Stanford - even I have heard of that prestigious edifice so far away from American shores.
I adore both Zola and Balzac (slight preference for the former) and the Rougon-Macquart novels in particular. My own favourites (top ten) would be:
La Bete Humaine
Germinal
La Terre
L'Assommoir
L'Oeuvre
La Debacle
Nana
Joie de Vivre
Pot-Bouille
Au Bonheur des Dames

Deborah, I add my congratulations to those posted above! You must be ever so proud!

I agree with Darryl. The Stanford campus is gorgeous. Lots of space for all that thinking. Congrats to your daughter on her acceptance there. If I were of college age and had a snowball's chance of getting into that school, for grad or undergrad, it would absolutely be my first choice. And I'd work really hard to get tickets to the women's basketball games. :-)

I have read a good bit of Balzac, but only one Zola - Nana. I certainly enjoyed it when I read it (college) but it could do with a reread.......

An enticing review of Houseboy, Deborah. I'm running off to add it to the wishlist.

I always write my reviews in Word and then copy and paste into LT, although I seem to always make more changes once I get over here and then forget to add them back to my Word copy.

Stanford is gorgeous (not to mention only for super smart people...)

So, when are you visiting the NYC kids -- and your LT family members here, too!?

Do hope you'll post your quilt photos here. I love looking at art quilts, but stick to piecing and applique myself. It's like other forms of visual art -- I can recognize when something transcends the genre when it's completed, but I can never envisage it in advance. It's like watching the designers on the tv reality shows turn a challenge into a garment in 48 hours. Execution is one thing (and tuff enuff), but conceiving the idea...

I've got To Mervas around here, but am ODing on bleak in real life right now.

Hi Deborah,

Liked your review of Houseboy and put it on my list of books to read.

Congratulations on your childrens successes. You must be so proud!
Im hoping to see some of your art work posted here too :)

Wow Deborah, you haven't been around here much but when you do come around you're loaded for bear. So much news and so many enticing reviews. Congratulations to you and your family. You've certainly raised capable, intelligent and independent children who, I am sure, will continue to do you proud, even though it may be from afar. U.S air flight makes this country really small so I'm sure you will get to accumulate many free air miles as you take advantage of retirement and do lots of visiting. Practically all of the books you reviewed are landing on my teetering tower.

Can't wait to see your published article.

Should have mentioned congratulation about Stanford. That is indeed Big.

Well--it didn't take quite this long to calm down, but life intervened. I'm going to try to do some reviews, and then come back to reply to your welcome comments. I have reviewed or commented on less than half the books I've read so far this year---for shame!

12. Old Men in Love by Alasdair Gray (2009) 311 pp

This is one of the few books I've bought in a while that was not on my wishlist. I had heard of the author (who wrote Lanark which is on the 1001 list and is on my shelf), and what I began to read in the store grabbed me, so I bought it.

The opening part that I read in the store consists of a narrative by a long-lost cousin of retired school teacher John Tunnock. She has recently learned that she is the sole heir of Tunnock, who died under mysterious circumstances. She is now in Glasgow to settle his estate, which includes a large antique-filled mansion. She is also going through his papers to determine how they should be handled. The rest of the book consists of portions of these papers.

The papers include excerpts from a number of unpublished novels by Tunnock. One is set in ancient Rome and is about Socrates, one is set in Renaissance Italy and is about some of the more important early masters, and one is set in 19th century England about James Prince, founder of the Agapements. In between excerpts of the novels, Tunnock relates the story of his life, from a childhood spent with his elderly spinster aunts to the bizarre events that led to his death.

I generally enjoy meta-fiction and books in which the author plays games with the reader, but I didn't particularly care for this book. I never fully engaged with John Tunnock's "novels", and while parts of his life were interesting reading, overall this wasn't enough to make it a good book for me. I can't point to any specific examples of bad writing--the catch just didn't match the hook.

2 1/2 stars

13. The Comforts of Madness by Paul Sayer (1988) 120 pp

This winner of the 1988 Whitbread Prize is the story of Peter, a catatonic inmate of a mental institution. In an attempt to rehabilitate him, he is moved to another facility for some experimental treatment.

The entire novel is narrated by Peter. I think the author creates a believable interior monologue for Peter, and convincingly portrays the perceptions of a catatonic person. For that reason I enjoyed the book. However, while the book was thoroughly believable about what Peter's life is like in the present, it didn't successfully convey why and how Peter became the way he is, although much of the book relates his pre-catatonic life. I found this to be a weakness that hampered my enjoyment of the book.

2 1/2 stars

14. Red the Fiend by Gilbert Sorrentino (1994) 213 PP

This is the story of how a good child grows up to become a monster. The theme of abuse, poverty, neglect, and lack of education has been told many times, but Sorrentino's style is unique and compelling. The narrative varies seamlessly from omniscient third-party narrator to stream of consciousness. Red's grandmother's malevolent spirit permeates every corner of the book. Some may dislike the book because of its unrelenting bleakness, and things do go from bad to worse in Red's life. This is an extremely good book, however, and if these themes resonant with you (or even if they don't and you want to read some virtuostic writing), I recommend this book.

3 1/2 stars

Now a couple of big nonfiction books:

15. Gulag: A History by Anne Applebaum (2004) 736 pp

During its more than 60 years of operation, more than 30 million people passed through the Gulag, millions of them never to return. I first became interested in the topic through the writings of Solzhenitsin, and my interest was reignited a few years ago when I read The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia by Orlando Figes (which I highly recommend, by the way, despite the recent revelations of Figes' unethical and possibly illegal actions).

Applebaum's book begins with a chronological overview of the system, which existed even in Tsarist times. In its second section, the book explores every aspect of the Gulag experience, from arrest, to interrogation, to trial, to transportation to the camps (during which there was a high mortality rate), to actual life in the camps. Life in the camps is explored from the point of view of the prisoners and the administrators. The prisoners themselves were a diverse group--the politicals and the actual criminals, prisoners of war and other foreigners. The experiences of women prisoners uniquely included sexual abuse, as well as childbirth.

Applebaum was the first to utilize the newly released official archives of the Soviet Gulag administration, and so she is able to explore not only the personal experiences of day-to-day life in the camps, but also the how's and why's of the existence of the Gulag itself. For example, she thoroughly analyzes the issue of the underlying purposes of the Gulag. Was it intended to remove undesireable elements from society, whether politicals or true criminals, or was it merely a device to obtain slave labor? The Gulag system was indeed a large portion of the Soviet economic system, and there is ample evidence that the Soviets used the system to colonize remote and hostile regions of the country, as well as to exploit the valuable natural resources of those areas, but there is also evidence of Stalin's paranoia. Applebaum also ponders the controversial issue of why for so many years the crimes against humanity resulting from this system were all but ignored, even as memorials were raised for Holocaust victims.

This is an important book, because as compelling as the individual survivor memoirs are, they do not present the whole picture. This book undertakes to give us the universal as well as the personal. It is compellingly readable in addition to being academically documented, and I highly recommend it.

4 stars

Thanks to Rebecca for recommending this!

I read the next book, Emperor of All Maladies based on Darryl's recommendation. For weeks after I read it, I tried to convince my daughter who will probably be doing research in this area to read the book, but she kept brushing me off saying she didn't like to read "science" books for fun. Then when she went to one of her interviews, she decided to ask the professor whether he had read the book. He had, and he loved it so she is now reading it. Mothers are such a sorry lot--never to be trusted about anything by their kids. :)

(Another funny thing about her interviews, one of the interviewers was talking to her about how exciting it is to be first author on a published scientific paper for the first time, and asked her if her parents had read her article. She told him that she sent us the title of the paper, but she didn't think we understood even the title of the paper. Which is totally not true. Or even if I didn't understand the title, I know that she removed something, a protein I think, from the gene of some mice, and the lack of this protein resulted in aortal aneurisms. The slides were very pretty.)

16. The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee (2010) 608 pp

"Was human cancer caused by an infectious agent? Was it caused by an exogenous chemical? Was it caused by an internal gene? How could three groups of scientists have examined the same elephant and returned with such radically variant opinions...?"

This "biography" of cancer, described by the author as a "borderless gulag", is a multifaceted masterpiece. It examines cancer from a historical, personal, and medical perspective, and from the points of view of patients, doctors, researchers, and anyone else affected by cancer. It explores cancer in the context of its treatment, curative and palliative, its causes, and its prevention.

It considers medical ethics--what should researchers do when an experimental treatment is showing strong signs of success? Is it fair to continue the experiment to the detriment of the control patients? Have some of the horrors of previous treatment methods been justified?

It relates how time and again certain advances have occurred after creative thinking has led to a leap of faith by a scientist willing to ignore conventional wisdom, and how time after time advances come as the result of the day-to-day tedium of unnamed scientists following strict protocols.

I am not a scientist, but for the most part I could with careful reading understand the author's clear descriptions of the scientific information, principles and experiments. (Even if I can't explain them to anyone else). This book is by no means dry--it is full of interesting characters and events, and at times reads like a mystery. Highly recommended.

4 1/2 stars

Thanks to Darryl for the recommendation.

You've been doing some terrific and varied reading lately, Deborah! I keep thinking I want to read The Emperor of All Maladies but haven't gotten to it yet.....

Glad you liked Gulag, and interested to read your other reviews too. Intriguing sounding books that I had never heard of!

Thanks to you and Darryl for recommended The Emperor of All Maladies. It is now on my tbr pile.

By the way, I'm so glad you are a part of our group! I so enjoy your comments and book reviews.

>71 arubabookwoman: I am not familiar with Gilbert Sorrentino and Red the Fiend looks intriguing. I am adding that as well as Gulag: A History and The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia to my wishlist. I read a great deal of Solzhenitsyn in my younger years and have lately become increasingly interested in the history of Russia. Thanks for the enticing reviews, Deborah.

I always find at least one book to add to my wish list whenever you submit your flurry of reviews, Deborah! Despite your lukewarm opinion about it The Comforts of Madness is especially intriguing; I've added it and Red the Fiend to my wish list.

I'm glad that you liked The Emperor of All Maladies. Despite its length and occasional complexity, particularly for the reader without a medical or scientific background, I thought it is was very readable and quite compelling. Siddharta Mukherjee is quite a gifted writer, and I hope that he continues to pursue a career in writing.

I intended to reply to everyone and add a few more reviews before now, but we are headed to New Orleans tomorrow for a family wedding and will be gone the next 5 days. Don't know if there will be time to get on the computer while we're there. We lived in NO for 18 years (left in 1986), and this is the first time we've been back since Katrina. I'm worried about what we will find, which is maybe why I've been putting this trip at the back of my mind.

I'll curiously await your comments about post-Katrina, Deborah. I haven't been there since Katrina, and all of my N.O. relatives have left for good.

I was just lurking my way through but I'm moved to say your book reviews are very tempting but I'm trying very dedicatedly to stick to my current piles of TBR books; also, my heart is with you as you visit NO again. I know how bittersweet returning to a previous home city can be without a storm of damage to view, and I feel for you as you see how different NO is today.

I hope you have a great time, Deborah, and will be interested to hear your reactions. I remember going to Florida a year or more after Hurricance Andrew and being surprised at how much damage was still visible.

Deborah, I can't catch up although I'm going to try. I just came by to say that I visited your 2011 thread just now to see what you had to say about The Bone People. I'm reading it and loving it or reading it and being sickened by it right now. I think you nailed it 100%. What a book!

Deborah

I'm curious regarding your impressions of New Orleans post Hurricane Katrina. I've been there twice since Katrina and will be heading there for a conference at the end of this month. From the first time (two years after the disaster) - last year, I was very impressed with the progress.

Hi Deborah, I'm another one eager to hear an insider's view of the New Orleans recovery. I love it when you take time for your LT family and post those excellent reviews. Your RL family is one to be proud of even though they are pulling you in many different directions.

Here I go again, ignoring my own thread! I've been on LT more than 3 years now, and have written reviews/comments for every book I've read since then. I know there's no peer pressure, but this is something that is important to me, and I want to continue to do so. I have a lot to do to catch up, although I will say that April was a dismal reading month for me.

First I will try to respond to all who've visited in the last 2 months or so while I've been MIA.

Rebecca--I would recommend Germinal for you first Zola. It is set in the context of a coal miners strike. I can't wait to get to it again, since I want to see how it compares to Gb84, which I know you read. I also want to see if there are similarities to the current attempts to stifle labor unions.

Daryl--Thanks for thr congratulations on my daughters' achievments. I am very proud of them. I have visited the Stanford campus--in 1969. My husband went to summer school (studying harpsichord), and I stopped by to visit on my way from Singapore to NO. I wonder how much it has changed.
I hope you do read Houseboy soon. I'm pretty sure you will like it.

Paul--Thank you for the congratulations. Your thread is so active that I sometimes have a hard time keeping up, but I do read it all even though I rarely comment. I should remedy that (and on all the otheer threads I follow too).
I love Zola from before I started the Rougon-Macquart journey. I like Balzac too, but like you not as much as Zola. Do you have any Balzac favorites?

Linda (Whisper)--Thank you for your congratulations too. I'll put my comments on NO at the end of this entry. I hope your new puppy is beginning to settle down. I'm always glad when you visit--you are such a kind, gentle woman.

cont'd

Ellen--Again thanks for the congratulations I read about the huge tuition increases coming up for the UW. My son and I are very relieved that he graduates in June (provided senioritis doesn't get him first).
I hope you do get to read The Emperor of All Maladies. I thought the author did an amazing job of pulling it all together.

Lucy--You are so well-read, I urge you to read more Zola. As I told Rebecca Germinal or Earth are good ones to start with.

Linda--I hope you do get to Houseboy--and thanks for the advice on saving reviews from unintended death. I do enjoy your reports on the many author events you are fortunate enough to attend.
Both Gulag and The Whisperers are well worth reading.

Suzanne--We may get to NY in September, or if not then in December (which means I would have to buy a coat). My son and his wife have just bought a house (in S. Orange) and they want to host a family Christmas. It may make sense if we have no more kids living here in Seattle.
I will post some pictures of my quilts soon. I'm still working on how to do that.

Peg--Thanks for the visit. I hope to see you around more.

Megan--Thanks for the congratulations. The pictures of my quilts will not be anywhere near as enjoyable as the pictures of your two little guys.
.
Hi Bonnie--Thanks for the visit. We may not end up earning a lot of frequent flyer miles, because if most of our kids end up on the East Coast, we may have to retire there.

Karen--Thanks for your kind comments, and your insight about how difficult it can be to go back to a place with lots of memories.

Pat--Thanks for visiting. You really must stop by in Seattle on one of your trips to Cannon Beach some time!

Peggy--Thanks for your visit. I've been following your and Megan's comments on The Bone People. I imagine you've finished by now, so I'll look for your comments soon. It is a stunning book.

Hi Donna--Thanks for stopping by. Your reading and reviews are always enticing--as are the pictures of Haley. I'm still hopeful of getting some pictures of Boden soon.

These are the books I need to review (at least that I can remember)

The Vivisector by Patrick White
Riders in the Chariot by Patrick White
The Solid Mandala by Patrick White
Light and Darkness by Soseki Natsume
With Liberty and Justice for Some by Glenn Greenwald
Little Bee by Chris Cleave
Windswept Dawn by William Heinesen
Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin
The Lost Estate by Alain-Fournier
My Place by Sally Morgan
The Aquariums of Pyongyang by Chol-hwan Kang
Points and Lines by Seicho Matsumoto
The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis
State of Wonder by Anne Patchett
11/22/63 by Stephen King

I'm currently reading:

The Tree of Man by Patrick White
Volume one of Robert Caro's biography of LBJ
David Copperfield

I have the entire day tomorrow to discuss my reactions to NO, and to start with some reviews!

Now for a few reviews. I read The Vivisector by Patrick White for the Patrick White Challenge Group in honor of the hundredth anniversary of his birth.

17. The Vivisector by Patrick White (19 ) 640 pp

The vivisector of the title is Hurt Duffield, an artist who "saw rather than thought." He was born into poverty, but was adopted at an early age into a wealthy family (he preferred to think of it as his birth parents "selling" him). The first part of the book is about Hurt's childhood, and I found White's vision of the world through the eyes of an unusual child to be mesmerizing.

The remainder of the book, from Hurt's early adulthood to old age, segments his life into his artistic periods (or visions). His artistic periods usually coincide with his lovers of the time. He coldly and selfishly exploits his lovers as pawns in furtherance of his art.

His first lover is Nance, an uneducated prostitute. His paintings of her, which become more and more abstract, bring him his first success and artistic recognition. It is during his affair with Nance that Hurt recognizes and accepts his detachment from other people--the alienation of the artist whose entire being is consumed by his art. In this, Hurt feels a connection with God (if he exists) as a vivisector and himself, the artist as vivisector. Regarding his relationship with Nance,

"Hurt knew every possible movement of her ribs, every reflection of her skin. He had torn the hook from her gills; he had disemboweled her while still alive; he had watched her no less cruel dissection by the knives of light. You couldn't call an experience an experiment, but he profited by whatever it was..."

His victim Nance is not clueless and recognizes his utter selfishness. She tells him:

"'What your sort don't realize,' she wasn't saying, she was firing into his brain, 'is that other people exist. While you're all gummed up in the great art mystery, they're alive, and breaking their necks for love.'"

Another artistic phase is defined by his relationship with his adoptive sister, a hunchback. He obsessively paints her in a series that evolves more and more into abstraction, all masterfully described by White. In old age, Hurt becomes obsessed with Kathy, a (young) teenaged piano prodigy. She becomes his exclusive artistic subject, and she and Hurt quickly engage in a Lolita-like sexual relationship.

This book more than any other I've read conveys the sense of what it's like to be a driven artist. Hurt has no choice in life, other than to paint. Everything and everyone is expendable for his art. In his penetrating consideration of the creative process White makes us see where the ideas come from, and how the artist proceeds to realize his visions.

Perhaps the highest recommendation I can give this book is that on finishing it, I immediately began another book by White.

4 stars

18. Riders in the Chariot by Patrick White (1961) 656 pp

Riders in the Chariot is often considered White's best novel, an opinion that I can agree with after rereading it. It intertwines the stories of 4 disparate individuals: an aboriginal artist, a holocaust survivor, an eccentric, half-mad heiress, and a religious washer woman. Each of them is an outsider, a damaged soul, and each has experienced similar visions of riders in a chariot in the sky.

Of this novel, White wrote:

"What I want to emphasize through my four "Riders"--an orthodox refugee intellectual Jew, a mad Erdgeist of an Australian spinster, an evangelical laundress, and a half-caste Aboriginal painter--is that all faiths, whether religions, humanistic, instinctive, or the creative artist's act of praise, are in fact one."

White's prose shimmers as he deeply probes the psyches of his characters. I find that he frequently writes on the periphery of what is actually happening, so close reading is necessary. His descriptions are vivid and brilliant. Miss Hare, the eccentric heiress, has, "at times the look of a sunflower, at others just an old basket coming to pieces."

When Miss Hare encounters Alf Dubbo, the aboriginal painter,

"Once she had entered through his eyes, and at first glance recognized familiar furniture, and once again she had entered in, and their souls had stroked each other with reassuring feathers, but very briefly, for each had suddenly taken fright."

I love the image of your ideas as "furniture" in your mind, and of "reassuring feathers."

While the novel is seemingly plotless, in actuality a lot happens, over an epic canvas, from the Holoicaust, to the "Great Experiment" in which half-aboriginal children were removed from their homes to be raised by missionaries. Dubbo, one of the children wrested from his parents, although a talented artist is an alcoholic who works as a janitor. The Jewish intellectual who survived the Holocaust, but who is wracked with guilt that his wife did not, has consciously decided to put aside his education and experience to work at a menial job. The laundress, who seems to have as many children as the old woman who lived in a shoe, nevertheless has it within herself to nurture the other three damaged souls. And Miss Hare, who lived a life of luxury as a child (but also a life without love) now lives in a decrepit mansion, with trees growing through the wall, and feeds snakes to try to befriend them.

The novel is divided into sections, each devoted to one of these characters. Thus, we not only delve into the mind of that character, but we also get glimpses of what the other characters look like to the outside world.

This is one of the best books I've read in a while, and I highly recommend it. I'm convinced White is one the twentieth century author who will still be read in the 22nd century.

5 stars

So, right after I finished Riders in the Chariot I went on to The Solid Mandala. This was another reread, and I read my copy from the 70's. Unfortunately, it fell apart as I read it, and when I was finished, I threw it away, forgetting that I was going to do a review. So this review will be shorter and less detailed than those above.

19. The Solid Mandala by Patick White 320 pp

In this novel, White's characters are again outsiders, living on the edge of society. Waldo and Arthur are non-identical twins. The short first part of the novel has a suburban matron gossiping with a companion about the men when they pass by, holding hands, inappropriately dressed, hurrying, unseeing in a race to nowhere. After this first exterior glimpse, the novel then proceeds in a long section narrated from the pov of Waldo, and then a long section narrated from the pov of Arthur. Despite their being twins, they are polar opposites.

Waldo for most of his life has worked in a library, and is constantly concerned with how the world perceives him. He is Arthur's intellectual superior, and he bitterly blames all his failures and shortcomings on Arthur. He looks down on Arthur for his menial position as a grocery clerk.

Arthur is the "idiot savant." He knows Waldo is unhappy, and tries to do whatever he can to make Waldo content. Unlike Waldo, he relates to people, and people like him. He is Waldo's opposite--empathetic, naive and loving to Waldo's calculating hatred.

As in his other works, White's prose style is unique and stellar. This is a book of character study rather than a book of plot, and it requires close reading, but it was nevertheless difficult to put down.

Highly recommended
4 stars

20. The Lost Estate by Alain-Fournier (1913) 223 pp

I had long heard of this French classic, often described as a coming of age novel. It is frequently required reading in French schools. Many people love it, but I did not have that reaction to it.

The plot is brief and simple. The narrator is the son of a rural schoolmaster who befriends a new student, Augustin Meaulnes, also known as "The Great Meaulnes." Meaulnes disappears for a few days, and we learn that during his absence he wandered into a surealistic fairy tale estate where preparations are underway for a grand marriage celebration, all being orchestrated by children. He experiences magical and mystical events, and sees a young woman with whom he instantly falls in love. When the wedding is abruptly cancelled, Meaulnes finds himself back in the "real world," and spends much of the rest of his life seeking the "lost estate" and this perfect woman.

Unfortunately, the plot evolves into a series of improbable coincidences and unbelievable characters and events. For all the magic of the beginning, I found little to like in the remainder of the book. I'm at a loss to explain the appeal of this book, so I'll quote extensively from the forward:

"What readers have recalled, and cherished for a century, is the force and simplicity of the fable--the lost domain of happiness, the abandoned chateau brought to life again by the presence of children, the perfect fairy princess found within it and then pursued at the cost of common sense and grown-up sexuality--and the way in which the fable is made credible by what Fournier called his "nervous, voluptuous" prose surrounding the dream. By placing what is essentially a medieval allegory of love in the terms of the late-nineteenth century realistic novel, Fournier, in his one completed book, created a story whose elements--the great, grand place glimpsed in the snow; the girl glimpsed once at a distance after which life becomes simply an attempt to seek her out again--are part of the way we see and the way we sing now; part of pop culture."

Maybe. But that still didn't make it a good book for me.

2 stars

#89-91 - I enjoyed the Patrick White reviews, as I plan to read one of his novels this year. It's been between The Vivisector and The Tree of Man, but after reading your review, I might change it to Riders in the Chariot, which sounds beautiful.

21. Light and Darkness by Natsume Soseki

This is the last, and unfinished, novel by the revered Japanese author Natsume Soseki. It was being serialized at the time of his death, and when I say it is unfinished, it is truly unfinished, and just stops abruptly.

The focus of the novel is a newly-wed couple. O-Nobu the wife is concerned with whether her husband Tsuda really loves her, although she has no evidence that he does not. She is a traditional Japanese wife of the era, and defers to her husband in everything. However, some members of Tsuda's family believe that she is really manipulating Tsuda to her bidding.

As for the plot: Tsuda has to undergo a minor surgical procedure which requires that he be hospitalized for a week. During this time O-Nobu agonizes over whether to attend the opera with friends of her parents who are insistent she come along. Tsuda asks O-nobu why she didn't turn down the invitation. She says she told them she couldn't go:

"'Do you mean to say they insisted you go even though you said you couldnt?'

****************************************
"Yes, they did insist that I go even though I said I couldn't.'
"But if you said you couldn't how could they possibly have insisted that you should?'

Later:

"Are you or aren't you going?'
'It's entirely up to you. If you say I should go, I shall, but if you say I shouldn't I won't.'
'You're very obedient aren't you?'
'I'm always obedient...As for the Okamotos, they said that if when I asked you, and you said it was all right, they'd take me to the theatre. That is, of course, if your illness proved to be not too serious.'
'But you were the one who telephoned them, weren't you?'
'Yes, that's right. I'd promised that I would, of course, I'd already declined once, but they said that since, depending on your condition, I might be able to go, I was to let them know by noon of that day.'

Later:

'Well, come to the point. How do you feel about it? Do you or don't you want to go?'
'Well of course I want to go.'
'So you've finally confessed, have you? All right, then go ahead. '"

The novel is narrated in short chapters (sometimes breaking in the middle of a conversation), and the exchange above is about as riveting as it gets. Of course there is more going on in the novel--Tsuda has never lived within his means and his income has been supplemented by support from his father. His sister is jealous of this. Shortly before he went into the hospital, Tsuda's father cut off his support, and he frets about how they will get by. And about 2/3 of the way through we learn that prior to his marriage, Tsuda was in a relationship with another woman that was abruptly ended for unknown reasons. These, and other events, take place around pages of people trying to figure out what they should say to each other.

Most of the novel consists of the characters tiptoeing around how they should react to statements or actions by the other characters. While I understand that the Japanese have, or at least had, a rigid social code, this got to be too much for me.

I can't recommend this novel. I read Kokoro, and that is a much better book.

2 stars

V. interested and relieved by your review - I've never read Le Grand Meaulnes in English - and I often doubt my french comprehension, but you describe pretty much my experience of the book - I felt extremely frustrated (and dare I say, bored?) by the last 1/3 of the book, kept thinking, What am I not gettting???

I must read Zola, also Patrick White, sigh.

Three excellent reviews of Patrick White, Deborah. I have been meaning to pick up one of his books at the library, as I am certain I would enjoy him.

#86 Thanks for the recommendation of Germinal as a place to start Zola. Since I did read GB84 (because of your recommendation!), I agree that the comparison should be interesting.

Off to put Riders in the Chariot (or should I read The Vivisector first?) and Germinal on hold.
Your thread is another dangerous one, Deborah.

#92, 95 - I started reading Le Grand Meaulnes in French about 15-20 years ago, but didn't get very far. I've always thought I should go back to it, since it is meant to be such a classic, but perhaps I needn't bother!

As I promised several months ago, here are some pictures of Boden. I've spent most of the afternoon figuring out how to upload these. :)

And here are a few of my art quilts, as I also promised:





(detail)

You can click on any of the above images to see a larger version.

I will be back with reviews and answers to your comments above when I recover from this ordeal! lol

Deborah - well worth all the trouble - Boden is a smashing looking young fellow.

Beautiful quilts.

WHAT amazing quilting! It's gorgeous!!! Boden has grown into quite a big boy, and he is handsome!!!
I'm thrilled to see that you've been reading Patrick White. I can't decide whether I prefer The Vivisector or Riders in the Chariot. *TV* springs to mind first until I begin to think about him; then I don't know. I've read a couple of others - The Eye of the Storm and Voss - and The Solid Mandala is on Mt. Bookpile even as I type. I should move it up ahead of some of my newer passions. I really, really, really have appreciated his writing.

Beautiful quilts and beautiful boy!

Deborah, Boden has grown up into a handsome little boy! He and Haley would have fun together I'm sure. Big news on my thread!

I love your quilts! So glad you took the time to share with us.

I need to read some Patrick White. Sounds like you loved his books to pieces. ;-)

Hoping you'll be joining us for a meetup at TPB on June 23...... We're tentatively aiming for lunchtime.......

I just left a link to the thread about the meet up on your profile

Hi Deborah, what a treat! Your sweet little Boden and you gorgeous quilts. You really make it worthwhile to visit! I have a White on my shelf---Voss---must get to it sometime soon.

Your quilts are truly spectacular. Just wonderful. Wow.

Of course, so is Boden!

Your quilts are just stunning! I'm speechless. Thanks for posting them.

Thank you all for your visits and compliments. We're down to the 5 day countdown til Boden leaves. :( I'm spending as much time as possible with him this week.

I'm so many reviews behind on books read--I think from now on I'm going to do current reviews as I read the books, and go back and catch up in between. First though I'm going to review this ER book, which I've been putting off since February. For some reason, I always feel that ER reviews have to be perfect, so I end up never doing them.

22. With Liberty and Justice for Some by Glenn Greenwald (2011) 274 pp

Glenn Greenwald is a constitutional lawyer and columnist for Salon.com. I've followed his blogs for 6 or 7 years, and he is always informed (and informative), factual, logical, and often frightening in his analyses of the assaults on our democracy and civil liberties. This, his third and most recent book, is no exception.

The central principle of the founding of the United States was that it was a nation of laws, not men. The fundamental requirement for a rule of law is uniform application of the law to everyone, including leaders. When law is applied only to the powerless, it becomes a tool of oppression, rather than a safeguard of liberty.

Greenwald's thesis is that not only is it the case that the powerful enjoy some advantages in the application of law in our judicial system, but that the powerful are now routinely allowed to break the law with no repercussions whatsoever. In clear, straight-forward language Greenwald lays out the history of this erosion, beginning with the crimes surrounding the Watergate break-in and coverup. Nixon, who inarguably committed serious felonies, was shielded from all legal consequences by the pardon of his handpicked vice president. Ford's statement, "Our long national nightmare is over..", and the reasons he advanced for the pardon, have been repeated so often since then that they have almost become cliche:

--Prosecution mires us in the divisive past when we should be looking forward;
--It's wrong to criminalize policy disputes;
--Political elites who commit crimes while carrying out their duties are well-intentioned and acting for the overall good;
--Being forced out of office with damaged reputation is punishment enough.

With incontrovertible facts, Greenwald also guides us through the Iran-Contra affair in which White House officials clearly and knowingly broke specific laws and lied to Congress. In fact, when the International Court of Justice ruled in favor of Nicuaragua and ordered the payment of compensation, Reagan refused to comply, and used the US's veto power on the UN Security Council to prevent efforts by the United Nations to enforce the judgement. Geenwald also details the documented crimes committed by the Bush administration--torture, warrantless eavesdropping, CIA "black holes" and renditins, politicized prosecutions, obstruction of justice, Scooter Libby, etc.--and the reasons advanced for ignoring them.

From these and other crimes the idea of "elite immunity" has emerged--some people are just so indispensable to the running of America that giving them immunity is not only in their best interest, but is in our best interest too. This idea has carried over into immunity for those in the private sector who are "too important" to prosecute. For example the wireless companies who were complicit in the violations of FISA were granted retroactive immunity by Congress--a nearly unprecedented departure from the norms of the rule of law. The rationale was that these companies were motivated solely by their feelings of patriotic duty, despite the fact that the one company that refused the government's requests to break the law was threatened with the loss of government contracts while compliant companies were paid millions. Elite immunity has become further embedded because of the revolving door that exists between government officials and private industry. Its latest manifestation is the failure for there to be any consequences for those who perpetrated the financial melt-down of 2008, and the ensuing mortgage foreclosure scandals.

Obama has continued policies eroding the rule of law, although he campaigned on promises to restore the rule of law. Almost immediately after taking office, he blocked and suppressed all investigations of the Bush administration with the excuse that the country needs to look forward, not backwards. Obama has gone so far as to threaten Great Britain with withholding US intelligence regarding terrorists if Great Britain investigated claims of torture by a British resident who was held captive at Guantanamo for 6 years. He also closed the investigation of the destruction by the CIA of videos relating to the torture of terror suspects it was expressly ordered to keep.

Most of the facts set forth in this book are and have been readily available, and are probably well-known to those who follow politics and law and are interested in the truth. The book is stunning in that it sets forth cogently and logically the story of how much our democracy has eroded. While an initial reaction to reading the book might be to close one's eyes in despair, knowledge is the first step to correcting these inequities. I urge you to read this book. Even if it sounds as though the book is on the opposite political spectrum from yours, this book is important if we are again to become a nation of laws.

4 stars

23. My Place by Sally Morgan

Sally Morgan grew up in Perth, Australia with her mother, grandmother and her alcoholic father, who clearly was suffering severe PTSD, and was frequently hospitalized. Although her early life was difficult and chaotic, it was also at times magical, and I thoroughly enjoyed the portion of the book describing her early childhood. The book failed to engage me when it began to focus on the author's quest for her racial and ethnic roots.

Her grandmother was one of the "lost generation" of aboriginal children--those children of mixed race who were removed from their homes and mothers to be raised by the government or by missionaries. During Morgan's childhood, her grandmother's background was a deep, dark secret. She knew her grandmother looked "different" and that she herself was darker than some of her classmates, but she was told that this was because they were from India. I find it incredible that at that time (the 1960's), in that place (Western Australia), Morgan, an extremely intelligent teenager, would accept this fiction. When, at university age, she discovered the truth, she began to search for her roots and to try to reconnect with her grandmother's aboriginal relatives. She also wanted to find out the identity of her grandmother's father, and her mother's father.

In this part of the memoir, Morgan's prose loses its sparkle and becomes dull. It also feels unfocused, as here she is working on her degree, then here she is taking a trip to the outback, then marrying and babies and research all together in very little order. It wasn't necessarily confusing--it just felt scattered, and whatever analysis there was was thin. And while the book includes a little factual/historical information, it is not organized or put in context, so the book is not valuable as a history. I wouldn't call this a "bad" book, but I hope that there somewhere exists a better book on this subject.

2 stars

(By the way, Morgan is now a well-respected aboriginal artist. I heard of her through her artwork, rather than because of this book, which evidently is required reading in some Australian schools).

Thank you for writing a thorough review of For Liberty and Justice for Some. These facts are well known by anyone who has paid any attention and it is very discouraging to know this is true. I am not sure there is any clear action available (to return the entire country to a rule of law) for the average, relatively powerless, and poor, citizen. Voting clearly does not help as no one is standing for election on this issue specifically.

24. The Aquariums of Pyongyang by Chol-hwan Kang 272 pp (2005)

I almost didn't read this book when in the author's forward he described meeting George Bush in the White House and his connection with Bush in that they are both born-again Christians. The meeting is apparently also described in Bush's book Decision Points, and I feared a political agenda would underly this memoir of growing up in a North Korean prison camp. I needn't have feared--this is a vivid, touching and generous painting of a child's life in North Korea, and how early he was forced into the rigors of adulthood in a prison camp.

Kang's family lived in Japan as expatriate Koreans, and became quite wealthy. Kang's grandmother, inspired by the idealism of communism, insisted that the family return to North Korea. On their return, their life was good, though not as comfortable as they had lived in Japan, and Kang's early childhood was idyllic and carefree. Then in 1977, when Kang was 9, the entire family was exiled to a remote prison camp because of a statement made by his grandfather. Only his mother was spared, as she came from a "hero" family. Kang experienced 10 years of hardship, deprivation and cruelty, and witnessed the suffering and deaths of children and adults alike. Though there are now other similar books, this was apparently the first memoir by an escapee from the camps, and it is unique in that it focuses on the experience through the eyes of a child, although one who was forced to grow up too soon.

I intend to follow this with Nothing to Envy.

3 stars

With Liberty and Justice for Some sounds scary and important, and it's hard to know how we can change this depressing trend.

I have, but haven't read, My Place, and now I may not, but I will be interested to read The Aquariums of Pyongyang since I was very impressed by Nothing to Envy.

I have Nothing to Envy on the stack by my bed and I really want to read it, as well. Mark has raved about it so enthusiastically!

>104 arubabookwoman: love this one, what interesting patterns you've made.

I have neither read nor heard of any of your latest reviewed books! Just goes to show there's a world of books out there for me still to read.

Interesting reading and sensitive informative reviews - esp. about Liberty and Justice For Some (v. sobering).

Phew--I now have more unreviewed books than reviewed. Let's see--if I do 5 a day this week, I could even catch up. Like that will happen. :)

25. The Leftovers by Tom Perotta (2011) 368 pp

I'd call this a "semi-scifi" read, set in the near future where in an instant a large portion of the world's population disappeared. Those remaining, the "leftovers", try to make sense of what has happened, and to determine how to live their futures with the knowledge that an event like this could reoccur at any moment.

The characters have different reactions to the disappearance. Some believe that those left behind were the lucky ones. Others believe that what occurred was the Rapture, and are distraught that they were not among the chosen. One such religious fanatic devotes his life to digging up dirt on those who were taken, to show that they were not worthy of the honor. Many join cults of various sorts. The mayor's wife joins a cult whose purpose is to ensure people never forget the fragility of their current lives. They do so by stalking certain people and by confronting them--in total silence. They are forbidden to speak--ever. They also are required to always be smoking a cigarette when they appear in public, I guess so that people will also smell their presence. The mayor's daughter goes from a goody-goody A student to a party-girl slacker.

This book appeared on several "best of" lists. It has an intriguing premise, and rather than focusing on the practical aspects of survival a future in which a large portion of the population has been decimated, it focuses on the emotional and intellectual aspects of such an afterlife. It is also highly readable. Even so, it never rises above average. If it were a movie, it would probably amount to what in the past was a "B-grade" movie.

3 stars

(If I gave stars in smaller increments that !/2 stars, this would probably be 2.75)

26. The Revisionists by Thomas Mullen (2011) 448 pp

This is another "semi-scifi" book. Zed lives in the perfect future--or at least a future everyone is taught to believe is perfect. Zed doesn't spend much time there, however, because he is a Protectionist, one of an elite group who travel to the past to ensure that the perfect future remains perfect. They do so by either preventing certain events, or by ensuring that certain events take place. They are sworn to have as little personal contact with the people of the past to avoid inadvertent changes in the future, but heir tasks often include killing people. (One of the Projectionists was sent to 2011 to ensure that 9/11 was not prevented, for example.)

There is also another group time-traveling from the future to the past--the Hags. Their purpose is to attempt to change events so that the future time in which they live is better. A large portion of Zed's time is spent in thwarting, by killing, the Hags.

The plot revolves around Zed's increasing doubts about whether the future really is perfect, and whether he is the good guy or the bad guy. He becomes involved with some of the contemporaries, including a love affair with a lawyer who is becoming politically radicalized over the war with Iraq, and a disgraced former CIA agent whose motives are not always clear. There's also a side-story involving the agent's involvement with an Indonesian maid being used as a slave by a Korean diplomat.

The book dissolves into a lot of shootings, murders and other intriques. Mysterious bad guys (or at least bad to one or another of the characters) keep popping up. Are they FBI, CIA, private defense contractors (green tags), or foreign operatives? It's hard to know, since everyone seems to be pitted against everyone else. It's also confusing because the chronology of events in the future clumsily jumps back and forth and all around.

I liked the premise of the book, and I suppose it had to have a plot with some catastrophe or the other that Zed had to stop or protect. But this one was convoluted and unrealistic. It dissolved into a violent and silly thriller wanna-be.

1 1/2 stars

27. Villain by Shuichi Yoshida (2010, 2011) 295 pp

This is the story of the murder of Yoshino, a young Japanese woman in a dead end job at a large insurance company. She fantasizes herself to be the girlfriend of a wealthy playboy-student, and causes her friends to believe that she is dating him. In actuality, her relationship is with Yuichi, a consruction worker who lives with his grandparents. They meet in "love hotels", and Yoshino wheedles money from Yuichi in return for her sexual favors. When Yoshino turns up dead at a remote mountain overpass, suspicion initially focuses on Keigo.

This is not a police procedural, however, nor in many ways is it even a murder mystery. Rather, Yoshida presents us with a broad cross-section of contemporary Japanese society in a provincial city. Razor sharp portraits are drawn of a wide variety of characters as we gradualyy learn who murdered Yoshino. Even when we know the murderer, the book is a meditation on guilt. Who is the real villain-one who killed, but is filled with remorse, or one who does not care and is indifferent to the death?

Through multiple perspectives, Yoshida contemplates the isolation of modern life. I highly recommend this book.

3 1/2 stars

28. Points and Lines by Seicho Matsumoto (1995) 160 pp

Points and Lines is a more conventional murder mystery than Villain. Two bodies are found on a rocky beach at dawn. Initially, the deaths are classified as a "love suicide", and the case is officially closed. However, one detective (based on the off-hand comment of his daughter that it was unusual that two lovers traveling together ate separately) suspects otherwise and begins to delve more deeply.

Written as a police procedural, the book moves step by logical step to expose deceit and corruption in high levels of government in arriving at its ultimate conclusion. My complaint about the book is that the solving of the mystery consists in large part of examination and analysis of the minutiae of train, plane, and boat time tables. This might be purposeful--to emphasize the tedium of police work, but I found myself not concentrating on the differences minutes made.

3 stars

29. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (1850) 819 pp

I silently participated in the recent David Copperfield group read (a reread for me), using the volume my husband received for his bar mitzvah as part of a set of Dickens still on our shelves. Silent, because what more can I say about Dickens that hasn't already been said? I believe that if you've read Dickens your either a lover or hater, and I'm a lover.

David Copperfield is probably Dickens's most read book, and some of his best known characters appear here. Who can forget its opening lines:

"Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anyone else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday at 12 o'clock at night.

And the kindly Miss Betsy Trotwood and the inimitable Peggoty and the evil Murdstones. I will forever recall the harsh school to which David was consigned at an early age, where he was forced to wear the sign "Take care of him: He bites". And the memorable Uriah Heep who "had not such a thing as a smile about him, and he could only widen his mouth and make two wide creases down his cheeks, one on each side, to stand for one."

The only problem I had this time around was with Dora, David's first wife. I know that Dickens's characters can sometimes teeter on the edge of credibility, but I could not take Dora's simpering childishness and stupidity. While Dickens wants to show David's maturation, I still had a hard time believing that David would marry her. Curiously, I don't recall this bothering me the first time I read it, but (gulp) that was before The Feminine Mystique.

5 stars

Hi There

WOW! I am most impressed with your art work of quilts. I imagine this pursuit is very rewarding and fun.

Boden is adorable!

30. The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis

I read this classic science fiction novel a few months ago. The plot involves an alien who comes to Earth for the purpose of building transporter to save the remaining inhabitants of his dying planet. He disguises himself as a human, becomes wealthy, and begins his secret project.

Overall, I found the book to be somewhat dated. However, I liked how the author was able to convey the loneliness and longing of this alien.

2 1/2 stars

31. Lost Memory of Skin by Russell Banks (2011) 432 pp

The plot of Banks's latest novel is such that one could be excused for avoiding it. However, Banks is such a skillful writer, who creates characters one can care about and plots that are thought-provoking, that I recommend you give this one a try.

Stated simply, it's a book about convicted sex offenders living under a highway overpass. More particularly, it's the story of the Kid, one of those offenders, who has led a hard-scrabble life and who is a 22 year old virgin. The dilemma for these sex offenders is that they are forbidden to live within 2500 feet of any place children might gather. For this particular county the only places that qualify are the airport, a swamp on the edge of town, and the underpass.

A "cosmetic" police raid scatters the inhabitants for a short while, but as they begin to reassemble under the causeway, an enigmatic character, the Professor, begins visiting. He is a professor, a putative genius, and purports to be studying the problems of sex offenders and homelessness. He focuses on the Kid, and seeks the Kid's trust with financial and practical assistance. The Professor has a mysterious past, is grossly obese, and conceals a host of peculiarities. The relationship between the Professor and the Kid is the integral part of most of the book. Things come to a head when a hurricane disperses the underpass residents once again.

The book succeeds as a character study of two troubled individuals. It also raises issues about the treatment of sex offenders, and whether there should be degrees of punishment. Despite its subject matter, I have no problem recommending it. If you've read any of Banks's other superb novels, you know why.

4 stars

32. 11/22/63 by Stephen King (2011) 849 pp

Stephen King's latest tome is a page-turner for sure. It begins with a door through which one can travel back in time. The "rules" of the time travel are that the traveler always arrives at the same place on the same summer day in 1958, that no matter how long he stays in the past, the traveller is only gone 2 minutes in the present, and if the traveller who has exited the past returns to the past, all changes made by his previous visit the past are erased.

On this premise, Jake travels to the past to prevent President Kennedy's assassination. Before I could get into the story, I had to ignore that there was little consideration to the consequences of any events that might be changed by the mere presence of one from the future living day to day for five years in the past. Nor was any thought given to which event to change--why not avoid 9/11?

Nevertheless, the story is fascinating portrait of American life in the late 1950's and early 1960's. One of Jake's issues is that he is not sure Oswald acted alone. Once Oswald returns from Russia, Jake makes a point to shadow and keep track of Oswald (without Oswald's knowledge and without interacting with him in any way). Details of the day-to-day life of the Oswalds were gripping, and their characters were well-developed. However, another issue I had with the logic of the book is Jake's reluctance to harm Oswald once he learns that Marina is pregnant with their second child. This didn't make sense because Jake had to know that Oswald was himself killed days after the assassination in any event, and Jake had already killed someone for less reason.

Despite its faults this is an extremely enjoyable book. I especially enjoyed the very clever ending.

3 1/2 stars

33. Oswald's Tale by Norman Mailer (1995) 848 pp

Stephen King in 11/22/63 cites Mailer's Oswald's Tale as a source, and since that book has been on my shelf for many, many years, I picked it up next.

Mailer's study is extremely well-documented--sources range from all the testimony before the Warren Commission to interviews with the Oswalds' neighbors in Russia, as well as interviews with Marina and her family. The book is not considered true nonfiction, however, because there's a fair amount of supposition and projection. What is incontrovertible, and what particularly struck me, was how erractic Oswald's actions were through-out his life.

I could see how greatly King's book drew from Mailer's book. To that extent, having just read the King book, I felt I was reading some of the same things over again. Mailer concludes, as does King that Oswald acted alone. I'm not convinced though.

3 1/2 stars

34. Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Robert Maturin (1820) 704 pp

I read this book because it is on the 1001 list. Melmoth has made a pact with the devil for immortality in exchange for his soul. In addition to the convaluted story of Melmoth's wanderings as he seeks a victim to take over his pact, there is a lot of railing against the Catholic church. While I understand the importance of the book as representative of the gothic novel, I found it dense and dull, and I did not like it at all.

2 stars

I started 11/22/63 and like you I enjoyed the creativity. For some reason, I just could not hang in there with the book. I may revisit it later.

Great review of Lost Memory of Skin, Deborah. I am an avid Russell Banks fan and must get around to reading this book.

Thanks for all the reviews, Deborah. I'm going to come back and read them more carefully when I no longer am sharing our family's house in the mountains with five cousins scurrying around.

Hi Deborah, I plan to reading 11/22/63 in November. I mostly like King's fast-paced writing, especially some of his earlier books. Here's a bit of trivia for you: C. S. Lewis died on the same day as JFK. I'm glad I retained something from my last class at Missouri State!

Aw, gee, Russell Banks. Another author I've been wanting to check out. I had Cloudsplitter in hand at The Dusty Bookshelf at our Lawrence, KS, meetup but was scared off by the size. I'm reading Truman now and didn't want another wrist strainer anytime soon. It sounds like you had a great meetup recently. I loved seeing the pictures.

When is your first visit to Boden? I'm awaiting Haley's return from her vacation in Colorado. I liked the preview I got last week when they moved their things into the house. I hope they didn't expect me to unpack for them while they are in the mountains!

Excellent reviews as usual, Deborah. When I saw a slew of unread messages on your thread I knew that you had posted a number of new book reviews, so I grabbed a pen and paper to jot down which ones I wanted to add to my wish list. Unfortunately, and to my great surprise, only 11/22/63 sounded interesting, and it's already on my wish list. :-(

Nicely done, Deborah. You're catching up on your reviews! I particularly like your review of Lost Memory of Skin as Russell Banks is one of those authors whom I think of as a favorite even though I've only read one or two of his works. I absolutely loved Cloudsplitter and want to read more by him.

I hope you have a nice (dare I say quiet?) Fourth.

Oh my Deborah, I don't know how you can write so many reviews at once. And they're all so well written too. I really want to read Lost Memory of Skin because Banks is going to be speaking here in October. I'd better get going on that I guess.

I agree with Bonnie...writing so many reviews -- and well written ones at that -- is quite a feat! Congratulations

I've never been disappointed by Russell Banks - I did have to skip the schoolbus one, that was just too much for me.

Love seeing these reviews!

Wonderful reviews. I read the Russell Banks earlier this year and thought it was quite good. I'll definitely read more from him in the future. I've heard from fellow LTers that Cloudsplitter is the way to go.

>144 sibylline: I loved the schoolbus one, The Sweet Hereafter.

It came out when my child was schoolbus age - just not something I could even think of reading at the time....... !

Hi Deborah, believe it or not, I just figured out where your active thread was. I've had your Club Read one bookmarked and thought you simply weren't on LT much these days. Rats! Now that I've found you, I'm trying to catch up. I'm up to post 89. I thought I would skip ahead just to say hi and Found you!

Deborah, Ellen is making some noises about another meet-up at Third Place Books, near the Mud Bay. Are you possibly interested?

*makes noise* ----

I'm motivated by (1) need to visit bookstore, (2) need to buy cat food, and (3) desire to meet Seattle-area readers again......

I am only 150 messages behind. How did that happen?

151> It's called life. :-)

Ellen, Lets talk it ( a possible next meet-up) at the book group meeting on Monday evening!

I'm back again for one of my irregular visits to LT--I'm something like 28 reviews behind, and when I get so far behind, I get reluctant to visit even when I have time.

Karen and Ellen--I left PMs with you about another get together, which I'm all in favor of. I will be gone the next few weeks though--I'm going to Texas to visit Boden. Yay! (Boo for the heat--I swoon when it gets above 80 degrees).

I'm also very excited because the magazine article about me and my art group has been published. It's in the August/September issue of Quilting Arts Magazine. Page 62, in fact. There's lots of pictures, and we got a 5 page spread!

So--some hurried reviews:

35. The Colonel by Mahmoud Dowlatabadi (2011) 250 pp Iran

This is a difficult book--and an especially difficult book if you are not familiar with Iranian/Persian history and 11th Century Persian poetry. An afterword and footnotes provide a fair amount of information and background. For example, the afterword clarifies that each of the Colonel's children represents a different Iranian political movement. I was reading on Kindle, and the footnotes and afterword were at the end, and I don't know how to flip around on the Kindle, so that I think that there was much that I missed in my reading. I may at some point reread the book. I'd suggest reading the afterword first, despite any spoilers it may contain.

Even without considering my lack of knowledge on matters essential to a full understanding of the book, it is a difficult read. It skips back and forth in time, freguently changes the pov character, and it is a times hallucinatory and surreal. I frequently was confused by the intertwining of external events with the internal meanderings of a character's mind.

Dowlatabadi is an important modern Iranian writer. From my background reading, I learned that one of the innovations in this book is that it was written entirely in the dialect of ordinary Iranians. The translator states that the entire novel did not use any Arabic words. I don't feel that this aspect of the book came through in the translation--in fact I'm not sure that this feature could ever be conveyed.

I have another of Dowlatabadi's novels on my shelf, Missing Soluch, which I intend to read soon. It's the story of a poor rural family, and I'm expecting a more typical family drama type of novel.

I think that The Colonel may be an exceptional novel, and any problems I had with it result from my own deficiencies.

3 stars

36. The German Mujahid by Boualem Sansal (2009) 240 pp

This novel by Algerian author Boualem Sansal offers a unique view of the Holocaust--through the lens of present-day Islamic fundamentalism. Brothers Rachel and Malrich were sent to France from Algeria as young boys for a better education. Rachel, the elder of the two has completed a university education and works for a multinational corporation in Paris. Malrich is a troubled youth, living in a housing division inhabited mostly by emigrants from Muslim countries. The housing division is being infiltrated by and taken over by Islamic fundamentalists who issue fatwahs and terrorize the inhabitants into submission.

When the boys learn that their parents have been slaughtered by Islamic fundamentalists along with most of the other inhabitants of their small Algerian village, Rachel is compelled to return to the village to try to comprehend the tragedy. Their father was a German immigrant to Algeria, and their mother was a native of the small village where they lived. In going through their effects, Rachel is stunned to learn that his father was an SS officer at Auschwitz and other death camps.

The novel opens two years later with the suicide of Rachel, whose mental state has deteriorated steadily since learning about his father. Rachel left behind his journals recording his two year journey to try to understand his father's actions. These journals alternate with Malrich's journals to examine these and other issues, in particular how are intelligent people persuaded to shed their humanity, and whether we are answerable for the crimes of our fathers, our brothers, our children?

This is a serious novel of ideas, yet it is also a compelling story of people in difficult circumstances. Highly recommended.

3 1/2 stars

37. Terra Nullius: A Journey Through No One's Land by Sven Lindqvist (2005) 245 pp

This is a historical exploration of the treatment of the Australian Aborigines, as the author travels the country, primarily visiting places where the legal fiction "terra nullius" was used to justify the seizure of their land from the Aborigines, or even to massacre them. The first stop is Moorundie, the site of the first fighting in South Australia, and where the entire Ngaiawong people were wiped out. When the author first arrived in Adelaide, no one seemed to know where it was--the South Australia Musem didn't know where it was, and referred the author to the tourist office, which referred him to another tourist office. He finally located the town on a computer in the maps section of the Department of the Environment.

He next traveled up the Stuart Highway to Woomera, a town built in 1947 by the British to test intercontinental missiles. They moved white settlers from their stations, but the Aborigines, scattered over this area the size of western Europe, didn't have radios or other means to be notified. (Most of the territory appropriated for the testing had been allocated to the Aborigines in 1930).

He next visited Uluru, "an inverse Grand Canyon. The same red sandstone, the same grandeur. But the Grand Canyon, unlike Uluru, is instantly comprehensible. You can see its cause--the river--and understand at once how it came about. Uluru is a visual mystery, lacking any perceptible cause." Uluru is another area that was "restored" to the Aborigines, but only on the condition that they immediately lease the whole area back to a park authority. Today, they are powerless to prevent the countless torurists from climbing this spiritual site.

The book considers the government policy of removing "half-caste" children from their families, a policy that did not end until 1957. "The half-caste is intellectually above the aborigine, and it is the duty of the state that they be given a chance to lead a better life than their mothers who soon forget their offspring." (See the movie or read the book Rabbit Proof Fence to see the fallacy of the belief that Aborigines did not have close and loving familial relationships.)

The British conducted nuclear tests on land belonging to the Aborigines in the Great Victoria Desert. These tests went on until 1963, and in 1968 the Australian government signed an agreement with Great Britain releasing the British government from any further liability. Ten years later, this agreement was reconsidered, when it was learned that the British "decontamination" efforts had consisted of ploughing the plutonium a few decimeters below the surface, which was soon exposed by the desert winds.

I found the sections about the aboriginal artists to be the most interesting parts of the book. In the 1930's an aboriginal camelkeeper, Albert Namatjiras, asked his employer if he could learn to use watercolors. Soon, his work began selling very well. His success was held up as a model of how the Aborigine by learning from the white man could become his cultural equal. Namatjiras was rewarded for his success with full Australian citizenship. However, in 1959 after he was caught drunk with one of his relatives, he was convicted and sentenced to hard labor for supplying intoxicants to his relative. He died shortly after his release. The book also covers the birth of what we now refer to as "Aboriginal Art" in the 1970's, and notes that unprecedented percentages of these populations have become important and sought-after artists.

This book was a fascinating read, and was full of obscure facts and stories. Although it is specific to Australia, it is reflective of other areas "settled" by Europeans to the detriment of the indigenous people.

3 1/2 stars

38. The Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualusa (2004, 2006) 180 pp Angola

This unusual book is narrated by a gecko who lives on the walls and ceilings of Felix, an albino. Felix is in the business of providing new identities and backgrounds for people who have something to hide, or who otherwise wish to escape their past. The plot revolves around Jose, one of his customers, and Estella, a beautiful young woman with whom Felix begins a relationship, but who has had a troubled past. In the afterword, the author states that many of the gecko's memories are based on the life of Jorge Luis Borges. He describes the book as being about memory and its traps, and about the construction of our identities. I loved this thought, expressed by the gecko:

"Memory is a landscape watched from the window of a moving train...things happen before our very eyes, we know them to be real, but they're so far away we can't touch them. Some are so far, so very far away, and the train moving so fast, that we can't be sure any longer that they really did happen. Maybe we merely dreamed them?"

4 stars

These next three books were books I had decided I wasn't interested in and wasn't going to read. However, they were chosen by my book club so I had to read them. These are from last spring, and I won't even call my comments a "review".

39. State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

Patchett is a competent author, but her prose is nothing special. In fact it is mundane and utilitarian, and lacks sparkle and originality. These deficits can sometimes be compensated for by a good plot or engaging characters. I found neither of those compensations here. This plot and the characters were marred by an utter lack of believability in the fictional world Patchett attempts to create. Credibility fails time after time. I could be more specific with spoilers, but I don't particularly care to waste my time.

2 stars

40. Little Bee by Chris Cleave

I liked this book better than State of Wonder. It is narrated by Little Bee, a Nigerian illegal immigrant to England. She escapes from a detention camp, and seeks the only people she "knows" in England, a young couple she met on the beach in Nigeria during a traumatic confrontation with rebels that has changed all of their lives. I liked the story and the characters, but I'm not sure I believe in the authenticity of Little Bee's voice.

2 1/2 stars

41. Unbroken by Lauren Hillenbrand

I used to like memoirs of people who have had extraordinary lives, or overcome seemingly unsurmountable obstacles. Now I'm merely suspicious of them. I'm sure the outline of Louis Zamparini's life are true, but I found myself doubting many of the particulars. For example, he turned around his early life which seemed destined for a life of crime and became an Olympic runner in the 1939 Munich Olympics. Okay. But did he also have an encounter with Hitler? Did he get caught by Natzi officers stealing a Natzi flag from a government building and let go with a smile?

His other adventures include service on a B-24 over the Pacific in World War II. Hillenbrand uses this section to give us tons of information about WW II bombers, crashes, accidents, pilots, etc. Louis's plane crashes, and he and a companion drift in a life raft for the longest period ever recorded. They survive despite a giant shark who keeps circling them and bumping the bottom of the raft, and despite multple strafings by Japanese pilots (which failed to either hit one of them or sink the life raft). The raft eventually reaches land, but it turns out to held by the Japanese. He spends the rest of the war in a brutal Japanese POW camp, barely escaping death numerous times.

After the war, he marries a rich young heiress, despite his being penniless and unemployed. He becomes an alcoholic until he becomes a born-again Christian and inspirational speaker.

This book was easy to read, a page-turner despite its massive length, and a extraordinary adventure story. How truthful it is, I don't know.

3 stars

Here's what I have left to review ( that I can remember):

Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, Sugar Street--Mahfouz
Too Loud a Solitude--Hrabal
African Psycho-Mabanckou
Blonde--Oates
Windswept Dawn--Heinesen
Dirty Snow--Simenon
Inverted Forest --Dalton
Every Day is Mother's Day, Vacant Possession--Mantel
Salvage the Bones--Ward
Star of the Sea--O' Connor
Triggers, Calculating God--Sawyer
Coming Up For Air--Orwell
Cat's Table--Ondaatje
Nobody Dies-van den Berg
Defending Jacob--Landay
The Darkest Room--Theorin
Departure Lounge--Taylor
Predator Nation--Ferguson
Path to Power--Caro
Taft 2012--Heller

Great as always to catch up with you and read your reviews, Deborah. I was interested in your review of The Colonel, because it's on my TBR for the Reading Globally Middle East theme read; in your review of Terra Nullius, because it sounds fascinating; and in your review of The Book of Chameleons, which I read several years ago. I haven't heard of most of the books you still have to review, so I'm looking forward to reading about them.

I'm glad you enjoyed The German Mujahid too. I thought it an interesting way to link the Arabic world and the Holocaust. Terra Nullius looks interesting: I found Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence heartbreaking. Your review of Unbroken makes me want to do a little research.

ETA: So I have been searching through the internet looking for any evidence that Louis Zamparini's life is exaggerated or simply not true. I was unable to find any suggestions of this. To the contrary, it appears that Hillenbrand did an extraordinary amount of research and corroborating; for instance with the man who survived on the raft with Louis. In an interview with Kenyon College, Hillenbrand had this to say about it:

Do you feel you can trust the subject to tell his own story without embellishment or omissions?
The very first question I had about this story was "Could this actually be true?" because it does seem too incredible to believe. I went all the way through it, really obsessively cross-checking everything, and it is my good fortune that there were sources to cross-check everything about this story. There was another guy on the raft who survived with him. Russell Phillips, his raft-mate, was … very frank, a guy who does not lend himself to any exaggeration, and on every point he and Louis agreed.

I had thousands of sources: affidavits, other prisoner of war diaries, you name it and I found sources on it. Working with Louis is interesting: not only is he not an exaggerator, but he was really bothered by times in which other writers had exaggerated about him. Sometimes I would read something in an old newspaper story and I would say, "Louis, this is amazing," and he would say, "Actually, that's not true." He would correct it, and in correcting it he would make his story a little less amazing, but he was fastidiously honest in that way. I really had the best of both worlds: I had a guy with an amazing story who was a truthful man, and I had lots of other sources to check that not only he was telling the truth but that his memory was accurate.

-quote from this interview

I was interested to do some more research on the accuracy of the book, because I hate reading a book and then finding out it was less than truthful (A Million Little Pieces, The Apple, my doubts about The Translator). I, however, believe that Hillenbrand did her research well, and I believe the story. Now the movie, that I'm reserving judgment on!

Deborah, you've been doing some great reading of late! I'm definitely interested in another meetup when you return from Texas.
I find the excerpt from the interview with Hillenbrand very interesting -- thanks for posting, Lisa.
The German Mujahid is sitting on my bedside table. The library is closed for a week, so we all get an extra week on our checked out books. :-)

Fascinating discussion of trustworthy storytelling - some people do seem to lead lives that are so far from humdrum, so extraordinary, on the edge and action-packed that it does seem incredible. I had moments like that reading the Keith Richards autobio - such a sense of the gap between my humble little life and what he was up to. Patrick Leigh Fermor is another one - imagine impersonating a Nazi officer! (He did this in Crete during the war, successfully!).

Here I am again racing through my own thread. Thanks for visiting, and special thanks to Lisa for the research about Unbroken.

I'm sort of in between trips again--I had a great time visiting Boden in Texas, and hope to post a picture soon. Then the last week in September a good friend invited me and two other friends to her family's cabin on the Snake River in Idaho. It was beautiful, and only a half an hour or so from Yellowstone, so we spent a day there too, crossing the Continental Divide 6 times during the day. Weather was great for this time of year (in the upper 60's), but it was going down to 11 degrees the night we left. Hope to post a picture of this too.

Now I'm trying to finagle another trip to visit Boden before the end of the month. :)

So I decided to spend an hour or so on LT EVERY day this week, only on this thread and posting comments on as many of the books I've yet to review. At the end of the week, I'll call in good, and just comment on books as I read them in the future. We'll just have to wait and see how long this resolve lasts.

42. Path to Power by Robert Caro (1990) 960 pp

I had thought that I really wouldn't be interested in reading a biography of LBJ, but undertook this on the recomendation of Peggy and other LT'ers. I'm so glad I did--this book is so much more than LBJ's biography. It's an inciteful political history of the United States in the 20th century which presents all the major figures and events in vivid detail. It is also a painful reminder of how little things have changed in the political arena from the 1930's until today.

Path to Power is actually just the first volume of the biography, of which four volumes have been published so far, with a fifth, and presumed final, volume in the works. Path to Power covers LBJ's life from birth to his first Senate race. His parents were idealists, but LBJ's character from a very early age was manipulative. He was always able, as a child and later as an adult, to weasel his way into the good graces of those with more authority or power than himself, whether that be the dean of his college or FDR, the president. At the same time, he was disdainful and demanding of those he considered his underlings. However, despite his difficult personality, he always maintained a cadre of loyalists, and was able to charm the voters.

From very early on, he had a will of steel, and the ability to keep his ultimate plans to himself as he worked toward his goals. As a college student, LBJ was able to manipulate the campus political structure so that he, one of the most disliked students on campus, exerted over it more influence than any other student. Caro sees LBJ at this time as having no core beliefs or principles: "Pragmatism had shaded into the morality of the ballot box, a morality in which nothing matters but victory and any maneuver that leads to victory is justified--into a morality that is amorality." (Does this remind you of anything going on today?) Later of his college years LBJ stated, "It was a pretty vicious operation for a while. They lost everything I could have them lose...I broke their back good. And it stayed broke a good long time." Of this, Caro asks, "Did he not see the ruthlessness? He saw it. Was he ashamed of it? He was proud of it."

These character traits--the need to dominate and to bend others to his will--and his ability to be obsequious with superiors and overbearing with subordinates, appeared early on and were evident throughout LBJ's life.

LBJ first came to Washington, DC as the secretary to a Congressman in 1931 when Hoover was president and the Depression was full-blown. At the time, Congress was in gridlock, and the press referred to the House of Representatives as "The Monkey House". (Hmm--maybe we should revive that name.) Hoover was against government involvement/spending for recovery, and when he began to take action, it was to bail out Wall Street. In December, 1932, after FDR had been elected, but before he was inaugurated, crowds of the jobless marched on the Capital chanting "Feed the hungry. Tax the rich." In Ohio 7000 people converged on the statehouse to establish a farmers' and workers' republic. 4000 people occupied the Nebraska statehouse. 5000 took over the municipal building in Seattle. When a farm was to be foreclosed, neighbors scared prospective bidders away and bought the farm for a dollar and returned it to the original owner. (The 99%? The 'Occupy Wall Street' movement? Is anything new??)

Caro made the Depression real for me in a way that even Timothy Egan's The Worst Hard Time did not. The descriptions of life on a Texas Dust Bowl farm without electricity were visceral. For these sections alone, this book is well-worth reading. The book is equally fascinating as it dissects FDR's New Deal. The number and scope radical changes FDR was able to push through Congress in his first hundred days were amazing--as was the amount of benefits LBJ was able to divert to his Congressman's constituents. While to the recipients of this largesse, LBJ appeared to be benificient, one of his fellow Congressional secretaries said, "Lyndon Johnson believed in nothing, nothing but his own ambition. Everything he did--everything--was for his ambition."

Even as today we bemoan the Citizens United decision and the rampant influence of money in politics, LBJ's early political life reminds us that money has long played an overly important part in obtaining political power. The book has a detailed history of the inception of Brown and Root, which was a rinky-dink small time company until LBJ's Congressional influence, or perhaps a better word is "finageling", got it a contract to build a dam. LBJ was ever therafter ensured of money from Brown and Root when he needed it. Besides using the money in his own election races, he was able to distribute funds to other politicians, thus indebting them to him.

Caro notes that while LBJ has the reputation of being a legislative genius, during his time in the House of Representatives he actually did little of note--he didn't take positions, he didn't introduce bills, he didn't fight for the legislation of others. Over 11 years in Congress, he made only 10 speeches. However, he had "the power of money." According to Caro, the hallmark of LBJ's political career remained "his lack of a consistent ideology or principle--in fact of any moral foundation whatsoever--a willingness to march with any ally who would help with his personal advancement."

Path to Power ends with LBJ's first Senatorial race. I am so looking forward to the next volume. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

5 stars

43. Pot Luck by Emile Zola 360 pp

Having completed Pot Luck, I am now half-way through my Rougon-Macquart journey. In Pot Luck, Zola takes on the bourgeoisie, in a story revolving around Octave Mouret. Octave is the son of the Mourets whose downfall is chronicled in The Conquest of Plassans, and the brother of the priest whose downfall is told in The Sin of Father Mouret. Octave will fare somewhat better, but perhaps only because for the most part he is simply the vortex around which the tragedies in this story swirl.

Everytime I see the title of this book in French (Pot-Bouille), I think "Pot Boiler" (I don't speak French). According to the translator, the French title is actually untranslatable. Zola meant to convey the idea of a melting pot of sexual promiscuity, as well as "the messy mish-mash of moral and physical corruption concealed beneath the veneer of bourgeois respectability."

The main characters all live in an apartment building, which in itself is a metaphorical character in this novel. The building has an impressive facade, and an ornate lobby and stairways. But beneath the facade, the building is crumbling. The central courtyard of the building is a frequent element--here the inhabitants dispose of their waste, and here, at the rear windows the servants gossip of the foibles of their employers. A constant stench permeates the core of the building.

No one character takes precedence in this novel; there is an ensemble cast. All are essentially flawed and hypocritical, engaging in adultry while insisting on absolute propriety from their servants and from the other tenants. Even the parish priest participates in maintaining the facade of respectability: "He had finally been obliged to concern himself with outward appearances only, as a sort of master of ceremonies covering the corrupt bourgoisie with the cloak of religion...."

Octave himself is told by one of the other tenants: "You see, these kinds of houses are built for effect. The walls, though, aren't very solid. The house was built twelve years ago, and already they're cracking. They build the frontage with all sorts of sculpture, give the staircase three coats of varnish, and touch up the rooms with gilt and paint; that's what impresses people and inspires respect." Nevertheless, Zola tells us that, "from the dark bowels of the narrow courtyard only the stench of drains came up, like the smell of the hidden filth of the various families, stirred up by the servants' rancour."

I had planned not to reread he next volume in the series, The Ladies' Paradise since I initially read it within the last five years or so. However, The Ladies' Paradise, the store, played an important role in Pot Luck, and some of the characters carry over into The Ladies' Paradise, so I've decided to go ahead and reread it in sequence.

4 stars

As you may know, I am very enthusiastic about the Caro books. I am about 1/2 way through The Passage of Power, the fourth volume. I think you will find the series quite fascinating, and yes, I agree "the more things change, the more the same thing" (not a good translation of the French). LBJ is a character who illustrates a good many American traits. When he was a ruthless pragmatist and "broke their back, and broke it good", that was a trait much admired in his environment. Many wonderful works of fiction are based on the ruthlessness of Texas oilmen, Western cattlemen, and those who built the railroads, too. There is a good deal to learn from American history and sometimes I remember to not be too discouraged about today's troubles.

Your Zola book reminds me of a book I've read in the last year or so with the word Hedgehog in the title. I need to dig it out and recommend it to you. It is also set in a building and chronicles the relations between tenants. Probably not as dark a picture as Zola's, but still interesting.

Nice to see you back here, Deborah, and your trips sound wonderful.

I've been resisting the Caro books about LBJ, even though I read an un-put-downable excerpt from the most recent one in The New Yorker, because I hesitate to commit myself to four tomes. But now that I've read your review, I can see that these will be in my future, although I'm not sure exactly when. I am a big believer in the idea that things don't change because human nature doesn't change, even though the context and details do.

I enjoyed your review of Pot Luck. I've gotten hooked on Zola too (I think it was you who introduced me to him), and although I've read a few randomly, I'm now going to try reading them in the order Zola recommended, which Steven in the Club Read group told me about. You can find that list in this Wikipedia article.> I'm also only going to read the ones in recent English translation.

#164: I gave Path to Power 5 stars too, Deborah. Caro did an absolutely terrific job in making LBJ come to life for me. I have not managed to read the other books yet, but I am sure I will get to them eventually - maybe when I am done with school?

And, oh, just to make it more interesting: his (Caro) first book is also excellent! The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York. It was that book which "hooked" me.

Great review of Pot Luck, Deborah. All of the wonderful reviews by LT Zola enthusiasts have convinced me that he is an unacceptable gap in my reading, so I am hoping to start soon with Germinal.

I read The Power Broker decades ago because I am always interested in NYC history.

Hi Karen--Don't worry--I'll be reading the rest of the volumes soon. After The Path to Power, I decided to read Hard Times by Studs Turkel for more on the Depression, and when I finish that I hope to start volume 2.

I think the book you're referring to is The Elegance of the Hedgehog?? If so Pot Luck is very different.

Hi Rebecca--glad I changed your mind (as I am glad my mind was also changed). I found it particularly interesting to read during this election season. Just sayin'.

I think I did urge you to read Zola--Germinal because it might make an interesting companion to GB84. That's coming up soon in my reading plan and I can't wait to get to it. Thanks for the link to the recommended reading order. Haven't checked it yet, but I may be too far along in reading them in the order published to change now.

Hi Stasia--I'm so glad to see you here. I hope school is going well. Do you have much longer until graduation?

Hi Linda--I definitely recommend you read Zola--maybe even to the extent of a short interruption in your Nobel reading. :) How's that going? I've read a few since this challenge started, but I think I'll be waiting til next year to set up a separate Nobel list.

So--a few more reviews--these are mostly some SF and Mysteries which I went through a spell of reading:

44. Triggers by Robert Sawyer (2012) 352 pp

This novel is set in the near future. America has suffered a series of devastating terrorist attacks in several cities. As it opens, the president is shot during a speech at the Lincoln Memorial. Almost simultaneously a bomb is discovered on the roof of the White House.

The severely wounded president is rushed to a hospital. One of the doctors at the hospital is running some experiments with a device intended to help veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome. At the exact moment the doctor activates the device, the bomb on the nearby White House is ignited, and the combination of the electromagnetic pulses results in drastic changes in all people within a certain range of the experimental device. Each of these people becomes able to read the thoughts and memories of one other person. Thus, a surgeon can read the thoughts of a nurse he has long been attracted to, a real estate agent reads the mind of the surgeon, an African-American secret service agent reads the mind of an elderly woman who is an entrenched racist, and the president reads the mind of the vet suffering from PTSS. (There are several other characters involved in this switch as well.) The problem is that no one can figure out who is reading the president's mind, and is thus privy to all kinds of sensitive secret information.

This book is exactly what you might expect--fast-moving plot and superficial backstories for the cardboard characters, all neatly tied up in the end. Kind of a TV movie of the week. But it was just what I wanted. If the summary attracts you, by all means waste a few hours in enjoyable mindlessness.

2 1/2 stars

45. Calculating God by Robert Sawyer (2009) 336 pp

This book is a little more characteristic of Robert Sawyer, author of the aforementioned Triggers. An alien ship has landed on the lawn of the Royal Ontario Museum. A creature resembling a giant spider emerges, approaches a museum guard, and asks to be taken to a paleontologist. The purpose of the alien contact is to examine Earth's geological records for evidence they hope will confirm the existence of God. Each civilization in the galaxy has experienced a mass extinction at precisely the same time. For the aliens, "the primary goal of modern science is to discover why God has behaved as he has and to determine his methods." The paleontologist assigned to work with the alien, Jerich, is a nonbeliever who is suffering from incurable lung cancer and is facing imminent death.

Much of the book consists of philosophical discussions between the alien and Jericho about God and whether He exists, but these discussions are not too heavy-handed or dense, and there is quite enough happening plot-wise to keep a casual reader happy. There's also an interesting subplot regarding the politics of museum funding. One subplot I could have done without involved two religious fundamentalists who have been bombing abortion clinics, and who are now plotting to bomb the museum's evolution exhibit. Overall, a good read if you like this genre.

3 stars

Ok, Arubabookwoman! I imagine you will like them if you are a fan of U.S. History! I think Caro does a wonderfully fine job of documentation; and then, making it all come real!

46. Nobody Dies by Zirk van den Berg (2004) 180 pp

"Who cares when a nobody dies?" That's the premise of this excellent character-driven mystery novel set in South Africa. Daniel has ratted on a powerful crime leader, and needs to be placed in the witness protection program. Erica, the policewoman in charge of the witness protection program, does a perfect job of ensuring that her witnesses are never found. Unbeknownst to her superiors, she does so by killing the witnesses.

When she is assigned to find a new identity for Daniel, he joins her at a remote farmhouse in the South African veldt. Thus begins the game of cat and mouse--Daniel must not only elude the criminals after him, but he must also outsmart Erica.

The New Zealand Herald designated Nobody Dies as one of the top five thrillers of the year. While this book is nominally in that genre, I would also recommend it for readers of literary fiction, both for its writing style, characterization, and sense of place.

3 1/2 stars

47. Confessions of a Pagan Nun by Kate Horsley (2001) 190 pp

My Art History group has just finished studying Early Christian and Carolingian art. These studies included Celtic art and illuminated manuscripts. A recurring theme of this period is the ongoing struggle between the Christian and the pagan, including the use of art by the early Christians to convert the so-called pagans. This short piece of historical fiction considers that theme.

Gwyneve, a sixth century nun, toils at a monastery transcribing scripture onto parchment. As she does so, she narrates her life story. Her mother was a healer who taught these arts to Gwyneve. Gwyneve became the student and later the companion of a revered druid, and ultimately was herself recognized as a druid. Over the course of her life she witnessed the spread of Christianity in Ireland as it in some cases integrated pagan practices, and in some cases conquered them, by violence if necessary.

Even if you are not interested in the historical context of this novel, it is a fascinating portrait of the life of a remarkable woman.

3 1/2 stars

48. Defending Jacob by William Landay (2012) 432 pp

This novel concerns every parent's nightmare dilemna--what would you do if your child committed murder? Andrew Barber is a state attorney in charge of the investigation of the murder of a teenage boy who happens to have attended the same school as his son Jacob. Andrew is soon relieved of this duty because of the potential conflict of interest, but continues investigating on his own. As the investigation proceeds, the evidence seems more and more to point to Jacob's involvement in the crime.

This was an exciting mystery with many twists and turns, and I enjoyed it very much as a mystery. I have read two other novels, Before and After by Rosellen Brown and We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver, which consider similar issues, and which are much better novels. But they are not mysteries, and so perhaps should not be compared to Defending Jacob.

Defending Jacob is a page turner, and does raise such issues as what causes a criminal mindset (nature v. nurture), the guilt experienced by a parent when a child commits a crime, and questions of how far a parent goes to protect the child from suffering the consequences of the criminal act. The ending was absolutely stunning.

3 stars

Where's that picture of Boden? I love your reviews, Deborah, but I need a toddler fix! Wouldn't mind seeing some Snake River scenery while you're posting pics. Pretty please?

Btw, I am usually quite skeptical about the truth of memoirs, but tend to trust biographies a bit more. I must take a look at Robert Caro. Everyone seems to love him.

Donna, Caro is an impeccable researcher, as is his wife who worked as his assistant.

Well Deborah, I didn't think anyone could convince me to read a multi-volume bio but between you and Peggy I can see that I'm going to have to make room for Caro.

I agree with Donna. I'm skeptical of memoirs and autobiographies but I usually am more trusting of biographies. Hillenbrand has a great reputation as a meticulous researcher so I had no trouble believing the Louie Zamperini story.

Excellent reviews as usual.

I hate you people. :) I do *not* need another multi-volume, several thousand page bio for the Presidents Challenge. And yet you keep tempting me with Caro's work on LBJ. And I've not got too much longer to stall. I'm halfway done with Eisenhower. :)

Love your reviews, Deborah. I read Before and After many years ago, so your review of Defending Jacob was especially interesting.

And I thought you had read GB84 already. It is somewhat challenging to read, although I know you read his Red Riding Quartet (it was you got me to read that too), and Germinal was a great counterpoint.

The Pagan Nun sounds almost irresistible to me. And yet another Caro fan. Sigh.

I think your review of The Path to Power has pushed me over the edge of wanting to read it despite learning that there's a fifth volume in the works (Yikes!!). I read The Power Broker many years ago and loved it.

I also will be checking into Nobody Dies. That sounds like a good escapist novel to me.

And it was fun to see your reference to Before and After, a book I read and enjoyed years ago but I've never met anyone else who's heard of it.

Looking forward to the pictures!

More great reviews, Deborah. Although I'm not sure exactly why, I really enjoy books set in South Africa, so Nobody Dies is going on the list.

>172 arubabookwoman: I think I am doing well with my Nobel challenge, but since I am not a particularly fast reader, I am not worried about finishing anytime soon. Since starting in June, I have read eight books (one a trilogy, so I guess actually ten) by Nobel Laureates with six of them being first time reads of the author. That brings me to having read 32 out of the 108 Laureates. And I am midway through each of two more. But more important than the numbers is the fact that I am really enjoying my reading immensely and adding many amazing authors to my list for further reading.

Hello to Linda, Pat, Lucy, Rebecca, Jim, Bonnie, Karen, and Donna--Thank you for visiting my neglected thread. I'm glad I convinced some of you to read the LBJ biography--I don't think I've seen a negative review of it anywhere.

Rebecca--I have read GB84--I read everything by Peace after reading the Red Riding Hood Quartet. That's why I am so looking forward to Germinal. (Which reminds me--I want to do a post briefly summarizing my thoughts on Rougon-Macquart half-way through).

Lucy--I think you'll like The Pagan Nun, though it's not earth-shattering. I'm finding this period of Celtic history fascinating.

Pat and Linda--I too have something of an affinity for a South Africa setting, and Nobody Dies was very atmospheric.

Well, as we approach the end of the year, and I've reviewed only about half the books I've read, I've decided to buckle down. (Yes I know I say that everytime I log onto my thread). I'm determined to write something about each of these books, so I'm going to barrel through, even though with a lot of the books (especially those I read as far back ago as March) my comments will be brief and/or vague.

49. The Navidad Incident by Natsuki Ikezawa (2012) 350 pp

I often like books of magical realism, but I didn't really connect with this Japanese novel, which definitely fits into the magical realism category. It is set on the fictional South Sea island of Navidad, which had been occupied by the Japanese in World War II, and which, although it is now part of Japan, is ruled by a dictator who talks to ghosts. A contingent of WW II Japanese veterans has arrived for a ceremony commemorating their service. When the tour bus they are on disappears, the dictator faces a crisis, especially when sightings of the bus are reported: as taking off into the sky at the airport, lurking in a coral reef as reported by a scuba diver, under a microscope as reported by a scientist. And so on.

2 1/2 stars

50. The Inverted Forest by John Dalton (2012) 352 pp

I liked this book insofar as it is the portrait of a young man on the far end of the Aspbergers scale, who is also mildly mentally challenged. Wyatt is thrilled that he is given the opportunity to be a counselor at a summer camp. However, when the first session's campers arrive, and he learns they are all patients at the state mental institution, he begins to wonder why he is really there. The plot involves an evil counselor seeking to take advantage of one of the campers, a camp nurse who befriends Wyatt, and various other counselors and campers as they experience the daily life of the camp.

My problem with the book is its absurd premise. The camp's owner fired all of its trained counselors 2 days before campers were to arrive for the first session (because they were cavorting naked in the camp pool). The owner then scrambled over the weekend to assemble the ragtag, untrained couselors whose actions are the subject of the book. I simply couldn't get beyond my opinion that this would never happen, and it was always in the back of my mind.

2 stars

51. Departure Lounge by Chad Taylor (2006)

Despite the promising opening of this New Zealand noir mystery, it quickly fell apart for me. It opens with the protagonist shooting pool with a shady real estate developer. The next thing we know the protagonist has broken into the developer's apartment--it turns out that the protagonist is a career burgular. When he breaks into what appears to be an unoccupied flat, he is thrust back into his youth when a teenage girl from his neighborhood disappeared never to be found. The book consists of him trying to solve the mystery of this disappearance. None of it made sense to me. (The title refers to the fact that at one time the girl was rumored to have been on a plane that crashed in the Antarctica, but I'm not sure how this fits into the whole).

1 1/2 stars

52. Too Loud A Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal (1976, 1990)

I really wanted to like this book, my first by Hrabal. Its narrator works in some sort of trash disposal place where old papers and books are compacted or destroyed. Despite his lack of education, he reveres books, rescues them, reads them, and has filled his house from floor to ceiling with the rescued books. I loved this passage:

"...when I read, I don't really read; I pop a beautiful sentence into my mouth and suck it like a fruit drop, or I sip it like a liqueur until the thought dissolves in me like alcohol, infusing brain and heart and coursing through the veins to the root of each blood vessel."

Despite the beautiful prose, and the reverence for literature which permeates the book, I somehow did not connect with either the narrator, and found the plot somewhat convoluted. Nevertheless, I will give Hrabal the benefit of the doubt and I intend to read other novels by him.

2 1/2 stars

53. African Psycho by Alain Mabanckou (2003, 2007)

This book opens with the narrator Gregoire's statement that he intends to kill his girl friend Germaine in two days. He has previously attempted murder (seriously wounding the victims ), has also sexually assaulted a nurse, and committed various other crimes. He is dismayed that his crimes thus far appear to have been unnoticed: "It hurt my pride and came as a real snub to me." As he contemplates his next crime, he thinks, "I wonder what they will say about me once I have committed my crime. The worst would be that it goes unnoted. Of course, I am not about to consider this humiliating possibility."

The part of the book I liked most was its depiction of the Gregoire's early life. He grew up on the streets, and remembers no other life. He believes he was abandoned by his mother. The story of his early life was for me the best part of the book. The rest of the book focuses on Gregoire's desire to become some sort of media hero. For him, the worst that can happen is that he doesn't receive the attention he thinks he deserves: "When I think people like me sweat blood to do their jobs and take risks, and then no one gives them the least bit of play in the media! The victim always gets the lion's share, and that's unfair."

I'm assuming the author was at least aware of American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. I found Ellis's book to be more chilling--and its protagonist to be more like a true psychotic. The protagonist there had no conscience and his killings were truly meaningless--of no more import to him than swatting a fly. Here Gregoire is a truly tormented individual, and while his motives are twisted at least in his own mind his actions have a purpose.

This is a decent book, but for me was more valuable as the story of a street child in the Congo rather than a glimpse into the mind of someone who is psychotic. For that American Psycho or Zombie by Joyce Carol Oates are more successful novels.

3 stars

54. Coming Up For Air by George Orwell

This is one of Orwell's comic novels, but with a serious undertone. It's 1938, and there are hints that England may soon be at war again. "Fatty" Bowling is a middle-aged suburban insurance salesman. He feels oppressed by his wife--"She's one of those people who get their main lack in life out of forseeing disasters. Only petty disasters of course." Disasters such as the price of butter going up, the gas bill being enormous, the kids needing new shoes. His children are monsters: "The truth is that kids aren't in any way poetic, they're merely savage little animals, except an animal is a quarter as selfish." His life is stultifying, and his street "a prison with all the cells in a row. A line of semi-detached torture-chambers."

When Fatty has to get false teeth--a landmark: "When your last natural tooth goes, the time when you can kid yourself that you're a Hollywood sheik is definitely at an end. And I was fat as well."--he decides to stop and run away for a week--to come up for air--to reflect on his life. He returns to his childhood village in an attempt to recapture his idyllic pre-WWI youth. Of course he finds the village irrevocably changed, and the impending war with Germany intrusive. There are even hints of 1984 here:

"The world we're going down into, the kind of hate-world, slogan-world. The coloured shirts, the barbed wire, the rubber truncheons. The secret cells where the electric light burns night and day, and the detectives watching you while you sleep. and the processions and the posters with enormous faces, and the crowds of a million people all cheering the leader till they deafen themselves into thinking that they really worship him..."

We all know that you can't go home again--can't recapture the Edenic past. So while there is plenty of humor in this book, it is ultimately a downer, and even Fatty recognizes this:

"I'm finished with this notion of getting back into the past. What's the good of trying to revisit the scenes of your boyhood? They don't exist! Coming up for air! But there isn't any air. The dust bin that we're in reaches up to the atmosphere."

3 stars

Nice to hear from you, Deborah! Sounds like these first three were not worth much. Hope you enjoyed the next batch better!

55. Dirty Snow by Georges Simenon

It's winter in an occupied country. Frank, a 19-year old living on the fringes in the brothel his mother runs, wants to kill someone because every else has. Somehow, I had envisioned Simenon as the writer of somewhat tidy police procedurals, but this is deep, dark noir, as unlike a "cozy" mystery as anything I can imagine. It works as a psychological study of a disturbed, murderous mind, as a picture of the bleakness of life in an occupied country (unnamed, but presumed to be France during WW II), and as a cat and mouse game of crime solving. I'll be reading more Simenon, a lot more.

Highly recommended.

3 1/2 stars

56. Predator Nation: Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of America by Charles H. Ferguson (2012) 384 pp

The purpose of this book is to detail the case for criminal prosecution of those responsible for the financial crimes that led to the near-collapse of the world economy. The conclusion, in brief, is that the bad guys got away with it. The author finds the lack of any prosecution to be nearly as outrageous as the crimes themselves.

I was prompted to read this book by the angry and eloquent review by 75'er Richard DeRus. I highly recommend that everyone go to the book page and read that review.

3 1/2 stars

57. The Trikon Deception by Ben Bova (1992) 470 pp

This is a mystery/thriller masquerading as science-fiction. The time is the near-future and the action takes place on a scientific research station orbiting Earth, where global warming is rapidly destroying micro-ecological systems in the ocean which are essential for all life. The research involves genetic alteration, and environmental activists have prevented the research from taking place on Earth.

The research station is a joint international venture. There are three groups of researchers--an Asian lab, a European labe, and a North American lab. The three factions are supposed to cooperate and share research results. However, in reality each group wants to be the discoverer of a solution, and each jealously guards its research. When one of the groups discovers that it has been the victim of "espionage", an investigation begins, and then dead bodies start turning up. Discovery of the murderer becomes vital for saving the Earth.

So what we essentially have is one of those "closed door" mysteries that were so popular in the Agatha Christie erea. The similarity is that there is a limited number of suspects, but in this case the fate of the world rests on solving the case.

I think either a mystery fan or a sci-fi fan might like this.

3 stars

Great to catch up with all your reviews, Deborah. Quite some varied reading there!

Nice little collection of books. I am however fighting the good fight to keep additional books off my shelves of TBRs. I'm not in the market for fiction right now, but I'll remember to go looking in your closets for books if and when I need some. I like your take on the books you review! That last one I might even consider putting on my.... no! wait! not another on my ....

sigh, OK, I'll put it on the WL

Hi Karen--If you are serious, I have no interest in keeping The Trikon Deception, so I can bring it to you when we have another TPB meeting.

58. A Naked Singularity by Sergio De La Pava (2012) 688 pp

Casi is a public defender in NYC. His stories about the inside workings of criminal justice system--the types of clients he gets and their crimes, the back and forth with prosecutors, his droll musings on the differences (and sometimes similarities) between what the law states and how it works out in real life, and the the frequent inequities in the law as applied--are always entertaining, but never lose sight of the fact that these are serious matters. To this extent, the book sometimes feels like non-fiction, albeit humorous and very readable non-fiction. For example, his explanation of how criminal defendants have been given, and why they need their Miranda rights is told in such a tongue-in-cheek way that even non-attorneys will get a kick out of reading his musings. As a retired attorney, (albeit one in a field with far, far less trial practice and with more affluent clients) I very much identified with Casi's descriptions. For example, this description of what it feels like to know you have a case that is going to trial instead of settling really spoke to me:

"...a case that goes to trial is a hideously deformed corporal appendage that forces you to hunch down in deference to its weight. Always on your mind despite your best efforts, but you don't dare kill it for fear that you, the host, will join in its demise..."

and at trial:

"...{there is a} legitimate response to observers who question a trial attorney's particular decision or action during trial. The response in distilled form is that things happen a lot faster in the well than they do for someone sitting on the fat ass in the audience."

However, the book is also a compelling work of fiction. Casi is driven and ambitious; he has never lost a case, and wants to carry the largest case load in the office. Then Dane, another obsessively competitive attorney in the office, proposes, at first in theory only, the idea of a perfect crime--if you knew you could never get caught, would become immensely wealthy as a result of your crime, and would hurt no one (other than perhaps drug dealers) would you commit that crime? It's not long before Dane proposes the commission of an specific crime, and soon Dane and a reluctant Casi (who still sees the idea in theoretical terms only) are working out the details.

The book is full of pop culture references which I had fun working out (i.e. "Come and knock on our door"--does anyone recognize that? Or how about "To the moon, Alice, to the moon"? And do you remember Father Mulcahey?) It's also a very leisurely, in a manic sort of way, book, and some might think it needs some brutal editing. I'm one who enoyed the Robin Williams like riffs on a wide variety of subjects with one exception. In the second half of the book, there are long digressions about boxing, and particularly the life and times of a particular boxer, Wilfred Benitez. (Is he real?) My personal view is that these boxing passages felt out of place and added nothing to the book.

Recommended

3 1/2 stars

ETA If it helps any, I just skimmed the other LT reviews on this book, and a couple are comparing this to David Foster Wallace and Tom Pynchon (whom I've not read) and Denis Johnson..

59. The Darkest Room by Johan Theorin (2009) 448 pp

Is this a "Scandi-crime" mystery? Is it a ghost story? Joakim and Katrine and their two small children have just moved to a decrepit estate, complete with abandoned lighthouse, on a small northern island off the Swedish coast. They are renovating the house and starting a new life after an unnamed tragedy in their former city lives. There are mysterious goings on in the house, some of the out-buildings, and the lighthouse. Then tragedy strikes. Initially the death is treated as a tragic accident. However, a newly arrived police officer Tilda Davidson thinks that a murder may have been committed. Thereafter the story focuses on Tilda as she investigates this potential crime on her own time, while also investigating a series of burglaries in the unoccupied summer homes dotting the island. Tilda has family roots on the island, and has returned because she wants to make a final break with her married lover on the mainland.

I enjoyed this book, especially the creation of the location. It's cold, dark and atmospheric. And I love the sea and lighthouses.

3 stars

60. Speculation by Edmund Jorgensen (2011) 247 pp

Andy, Slothum and Buddy were philosophy students and friends during their university days. Andy became a philosophy professor, Slothum became a fabulously wealthy software developer, and Buddy wrote a very well-received book before becoming a "celebrity" author--never writing another book, but always on the circuit with a beautiful woman on his arms.

When Slothum dies, his will leaves Andy the choice of $10 million or a sealed envelope with unknown contents. While I would have taken the $10 million, Andy, the philosopher, (to the dismay of his wife) has to figure this out. What was Slothum thinking? Andy sees this as the ultimate puzzle--what did Slothum predict he would do, and what did Slothum put into the envelope based on what Slothum thought Andy would do. Andy begins to examine Slothum's papers and life to help him answer the question. There is much discussion of philosophy, including the philosophical puzzle, Newcomb's Paradox.

In the course of his search, Andy discovers that Buddy has disappeared from the face of the earth. Buddy's mother thinks he has committed suicide, but Andy reasons otherwise:

"He was just the sort of man who could have begun composing a suicide note and so lost himself in admiration of his own prose, style and depth of feeling, become so overwhelmed by the pathos of his situation, that he forgot entirely that he had intended to do away with himself."

So the book is well-written, with an interesting premise, but it ultimately fell flat for me. I found myself reading just to find out what was actually in that envelope, which bothered me more than the questions of what choice Andy would make and why, where Buddy was, and what Slothum's motives were.

2 1/2 stars

61. Taft 2012 by Jason Heller (2012) 312 pp

This book is a good example of a good premise gone wrong, of material that might be sufficient for a SNL skit but not a 300 page novel, and why Amazon should not make it so easy to purchase by one-click a book that sounds like it might be fun.

It's 2011, and former president wakes up from a long hibernation, facing Secret Service agents on the White House lawn. Initially skeptical that he is who he claims he is, DNA testing confirms that he is in fact Taft. His granddaughter now serves in the US Congress, and as Taft gingerly navigates his way through the changes wrought by the 20th and 21st centuries, a movement grows seeking to draft him to run for president in the 2012 election. With his granddaughter, the portly Taft takes on the issue of--get this--junk food.

It's all rather silly, with just a few parts of any worth.

1 1/2 stars

62. The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje (2012) 218 pp

I enjoyed the first half of this book as it relates the story of three 12-year old boys as they travel on an ocean liner from Ceylon to England. All are unsupervised, and the stories of their adventures and misadventure, their take on the other passengers, including a prisoner who is being kept secluded, were engaging and fresh. I did not like the second half of the book, which relates their lives in England as adults, their education, their marriages, divorces and remarriages, their illnesses and deaths, and so on.

2 stars

63. Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward (2012) 288 pp

I have no problem recommending this National Book Award winner to anyone. It takes place in a small Mississippi Gulf Coast town over the 10 or so days as Hurricane Katrina is building in the coast. The characters are real and endearing. Esch, the 14 year old narrator, is the surrogate mother for her three brothers (Their mother died giving birth to the youngest brother; the two other brothers are older than Esch). She is grappling with the fact that she may be pregnant. Her oldest brother Randall is a high school basketball star who lacks the means to go to an important basketball camp. Skeetah has a pitbull named China, who has just given birth to a litter of puppies. Despite his clearly conveyed deep love for his dog, Skeetah endangers her in brutal pitbull dog fights. He hopes to win the funds to allow Randall to attend the basketball camp. The youngest child, Junior, just wants to make sure that he doesn't miss out on anything.

The hurricane remains in the background for much of the book. The children are vaguely aware that it is out there, but are not at all apprehensive. Ward, however, skillfully builds the tension each day, to the point that I began to wonder how she was ever going to pull off the drama of the storm itself. Needless to say, she did.

4 stars

64. Every Day Is Mother's Day by Hilary Mantel, and
65. Vacant Possession by Hilary Mantel

I have big problems (or one big problem) with these books, either of which might have been a passable read on its own. Vacant Possession is the sequel to Every Day Is Mother's Day. My problem is that one of the main characters in Every Day Is Mother's Day (the daughter of the mother of the title) is presented in this book as a nearly non-functional mentally-retarded young woman. She attends a special school. While we get into her mind, and there is a sense of menace when we are there, she clearly is of well-below average intelligence.

Fast forward to Vacant Possession. The daughter has been released from the mental institution where she has been housed since the death of her mother. Now, however, she is cunning and sharp-minded. She has decided she has been wronged, and wants revenge on those she believes perpetrated those wrongs. To this end, she devises an elaborate plot, and is able to set up and maintain at least two identities and lives for herself. She also is able to hold down two jobs.

I just couldn't get over this. I'm the type of reader to whom internal consistency is one of the most important elements of a successful novel. This made no sense to me. As independent novels I would have rated this higher.

1 1/2 stars.

66. Do Not Ask What Good We Do by Robert Draper (2012) 352 pp

This is an examination of the work of the House of Representatives from the time of the influx of Tea Party representatives in the 2010 election through the debt ceiling crisis they instigated.
He does so by following the day-to-day activities of several of the freshmen congressmen. These include the extreme Alan West (Has he conceded yet?). The book was interesting in so far as we learn about the "freshman orientation" events, the caucus meetings and so forth. However, particularly if you've seen the author's appearances discussing his book on various political tv shows, the book makes no great new revelations.

3 stars

Well, I have to spend some time finishing the sweater I'm knitting for Boden. I'm leaving for a 10 day visit in Texas, but if I can get on the computer I'll try to continue with reviews/comments.

I too read Every Day Is Mother's Day and then Vacant Possession, and I liked the second one much more; however, I didn't have the problem you have. Muriel, the young woman, certainly isn't fully functioning, although she may be more crazy than retarded, but I felt she was so tormented by her ostensibly normal mother in the first book, and possibly so repressed by her mental institution/school (where she learned tricks of the trade from her fellow inmates) that I didn't have trouble believing her transformation in Vacant Possession; in fact, I relished it and felt that the force of her personality was what made me enjoy VP more than EDIMD. But that's what makes life interesting on LT!

Rebecca--I knew you are a fan of Mantel, and was wondering if you had read this two, and whether your reaction would be different. Now I know. :) I agree that's what makes LT interesting--not only do we get many different viewpoints (for example I hadn't considered that her actions might have been the result of her mother or the institution, though I agree that crazy is mixed in there with retardation), but we also learn about so many other books we wouldn't necessarily hear about.

Interesting mix of reading, Deborah. I never knew that Mantel wrote so many books. She didn't really come on my radar until Wolf Hall. I haven't read any of her books.

Lisa, I've read a lot of Mantel, and I didn't know about her until Wolf Hall either. As I've said before, what I love about her is that she isn't afraid to try writing very different kinds of books, and some of them definitely work better than others. I am a big fan, even though I don't like everything she's written!

Good to see you back, Deborah. You've clearly been reading even if you haven't been posting.
I'm hoping we'll be scheduling another TPB meet-up after the holiday season.

Back from a sunny time in Texas. It's supposed to snow here today, and it's pretty gray, but my daughter from Stanford came yesterday for Christmas. She is the only one of five we will have here this year, so it will be pretty subdued.

I probably won't get back on LT more this year, but I am trying to do a few more reviews.

67. Grass For My Pillow by Saiichi Maruya (1966, 2002) 320 pp

To be a draft-resister during the Vietnam War was one thing; to be a draft-resister in Japan during WW II was considered a crime worse than murder, and was punishable by death. This novel relates the story of Shokichi Hamada, who successfully evaded military service during the war. He took on a pseudonym, and wandered the country as an itinerant peddler. After the war, he became a clerk at a university. Hamada's life in the present (1965) is interspersed with his life as a fugitive during the war. When certain events occur which highlight Hamada's past, which he has never tried to hide, he suffers the consequences, but also is forced to reconsider which was the better life--conforming to society's norms or living as his "own person."

While the book is not antiwar per se (the war is entirely in the background), it is an examination of what it means for an individual to reject society's norms. One important theme is that postwar society in Japan was not all that different than prewar society in its expectations of its populace.

This book is one of Haruki Murakami's favorite books, and in a lecture he has described the novel as an account of society at two particular moments in time, which contrasts the life of the "hero" Hamada was when evading the draft, with his current life as an alienated bureaucrat simply struggling to keep his place in society.

Highly recommended.

4 stars

68. Hotel Crystal by Olivier Rolin (2004, 2008)

I would describe this book as a mini-Life A User's Manual. Indeed there are references to Perec (and other literary figures) through-out this anti-novel novel. It begins with a quote from Perec: "I have an exceptional--I believe fairly prodigious even--memory of all the places I have slept in."

The book consists of 43 chapters, each describing in minute detail a hotel room in which the narrator has slept. The narrative has supposedly been compiled by an "editor" from various scraps of paper with scribbling on them found after the mysterious disappearance of the narrator. Each of the room descriptions is jarringly interrupted by sudden interjections of what is actually going on in the narrator's life. And it is an extraordinary life--is he a spy, an arms dealer, a thug for the mob? It's never entirely clear, and none of it may be true, but it is certainly entertaining. For example, in the middle of a boring and mundane description of the room in which he is staying, he will state, "...though it might not seem so, I'm in the process of preserving world peace (temporarily).", as he views "...the nuclear warheads that are set on six tarpaulin-covered trailers..." Or, in the midst of his description of some other hotel room, "I needed the money to pay the ransom for Melanie Melbourne, the love of my life, whom Islamist terrorists were holding prisoner somewhere in the desert." He even recalls the stateroom on the liner he took as a child during his passage to Africa (admitting that this is a digression) and interjecting, "During this crossing, I recall having pushed my English governess overboard." The interruptions in his descriptions of the hotel rooms are usually brief, and we are often left hanging. For example, "I recall the time we smuggled out the blueprints of the Proton rocket engines in a case of caviar...but that's another story, which I'll tell when the time comes (maybe)."

Other readers have said, and I tend to agree, that the room descriptions become tedious and repetitive. After awhile, I found myself skimming some of these to get to the "story", which wasn't really a story, but more fragments of various stories. For these reasons, a lot of people might hate this book, although it is very clever. I found it diverting, but one would have to be in the right mood to read it.

3 stars

69. Dancing Arabs by Sayed Kashua (2004) 224 pp

"I look more Israeli than the average Israeli. I'm always pleased when Jews tell me this. 'You don't look like an Arab at all,' they say."

This first person (probably semi-autobiographical) novel relates the story of a Palestinian born with Israeli citizenship. His grandfather died fighting Zionists in 1948, and his father was jailed for attempting to set off bombs. In contrast, he receives a scholarship to an elite Jewish boarding school. The novel explores his conflicts between his past history and current life, as he moves between cultures. The book alternates between the everyday relationships of a close family and the complexities of life in modern Israeli society.

I liked most of the book, but was very discouraged by the developments as he slid into dispair and withdrawal.

3 stars

70. Windswept Dawn by William Heinesen (1934, 2009) 504 pp

This is what is known as a Scandanavian "collective" novel. There is no main character and no life-defining events. Instead, the novel relates the stories of a broad spectrum of the people of the Faroe Islands--fishermen and farmers, family feuds, religious divisions, marriages and deaths, the conflicts between the "old ways" and "new ways."

Heinesen had the philosophy that happy people are " a kind of luxury that nature allows itself from time to time." When he learned that he was being considered for the Nobel prize in literature, Heinesen withdrew his name from consideration, stating the fact that although he was a Faroe Islander, he wrote in Danish, not Faroese. Windswept Dawn is his most well-respected novel, and realistically documents a slice of life of those residing in these remote and little known islands.

I highly recommend this book. However, because of the huge number of characters moving in and out of the story I think it needs sustained reading for full enjoyment.

4 stars

71. Palace Walk
72. Sugar Street
73. Palace of Desire

by Naguib Mahfouz

I read these last summer when I believe there was a group read going on. I'm not going to attempt a review, other than to say my very favorite was the first of the trilogy, Palace Walk. 5 stars. I liked the last one least, but still give it 4 stars. And the middle one gets 4 1/2 stars. The reason for these different ratings is that I much preferred the personal stories (especially of the mother and the father who were the focus of the first novel), and less appreciated the novels as they focused more on the political.

74. Star of the Sea by Joseph O'Connor

This is a book of Irish immigration during the potato famine. While a large portion of the book takes place in Ireland, most of the story concerns the voyage from Ireland to America.

I read this book last spring, and truthfully don't remember that much about it, other than the feeling that it was mediocre. I had no feeling for the characters, and didn't get a sense of how momentous the decision to emigrate was, nor was I immersed in the travails of the voyage. A few years ago I read The Emigrants by Vilhelm Moberg which I loved and highly recommend. It too looks at these issues, but made me feel the anguish of having to make the decision to leave loved ones and the known. It also made me feel on a visceral level the hardships endured during the voyage.

2 1/2 stars

75. Harlot's Ghost by Norman Mailer

When Mailer is good, he is very, very good. When he is bad, he writes a book like Harlot's Ghost.

I passed up on reading this when it was originally published--it had very mixed reviews. However, when I picked it up in a book store earlier this year and read blurbs like it's a book with "the authority of convincing fiction as well as fact. It treats the CIA as one gigantic living organism and shows us not only how it breathes, hunts, feeds, but also how it dreams..." Salmon Rushdie. There were other favorable statements from authors such as Anthony Burgess ("better than history"), so I decided to give it a try, expecting a novel that would realistically convey the workings of the CIA. After 250 pages of reading about socialites and others drinking scotch and bed-hopping, and who have names like "Boardman Kimble Hubbard" and "Hadley Kitteredge Gardiner", I gave up. Don't be fooled by the idea that this is an inside expose of the CIA and definitely don't bother to try to read this book.

1 star

76. The Retreat by Aharon Appelfeld

This book is an allegorical tale of the plight of European Jews as Hitler rises to power. It is another book that I read last spring, and which I can't remember in detail. The plot involves a woman who goes to a mountain retreat to learn to be less Jewish. An Amazon reviewer stated that the book is about the folly of willful blindness, and I guess that is as good a description as I can give at this point.

2 1/2 stars

77. The Chatham School Affair by Thomas H. Cook

This book is narrated by Henry, an older man, as he looks back with regret on his youth, particularly to 1926, his senior year of high school. His father had been headmaster at a boarding school which that year hired as an art teacher an unconventional woman, Elizabeth Channing. The events of the year are leisurely narrated, "layer by layer", with implied promises of much more to come. The prime mover of the plot is the affair Elizabeth has with a fellow teacher, Leland Reed. Leland is married with a small child, and the affair has tragic consequences, with the result that Elizabeth is criminally charged and tried for-----adultry.
There is a supposedly explosive revelation at the end, but for me it was just an anticlimax. This book is too long and tedious, and delivers much less than it promised.

2 stars

I am enjoying your reviews. But I will say so far I'm not tempted to read any of the above, especially not the Mailer book.

There has been some murmuring about another meet-up at 3rd Place. Might you be interested? After the holidays?

78. Tsotsi by Athol Fugard (2006) 232 pp

This book covers 6 days in the life of a young gang leader in the township of Soweto. He is brutal and regularly commits vicious and senseless crimes. When he inadvertently kidnaps a baby during the course of committing a crime, he begins to remember his own childhood, and, almost against his will, begins to care for the baby.

This book so convincingly conveyed the life of a street child growing up in a hopeless environment, subsisting on a life of crime, living the hardships of the slums of Soweto, that I was amazed to learn that South African writer Athol Fugard is white.

The book was made into a highly-regarded movie (which was the impetus for my reading this book), which I also highly recommend.

3 1/2 stars

Hi Karen--Yes I'm definitely interested in a meetup. I will probably be traveling again in late January/early February, so before then would be great. Does TPB happen to have an after-Christmas sale?

79. The Parson's Widow by Marja-Liisa Vartio

This novel is set in a small Finnish village in the early 20th century. Most of the story consists of two women, the older Adele (the parson's widow) and her younger maid Alma arguing. Each has a different recollection of the past, sometimes of minor details (the color of an apron) but also about the major events of their lives, the lives of their relatives, and the lives of their fellow villagers. Since the two often disagree with each other, we basically have a novel with two unreliable narrators telling the story as an argumentative conversation.

There is a lot of humor in this book. One of the recurring disagreements between the women is how to care for the extensive stuffed bird collection left to Adele by her husband--what is the best way to dust a stuffed owl? Despite these injections of humor, the novel nevertheless has serious themes. The Parson's family is in constant conflict with Adele, over property ownership and other issues. Adele has addiction issues. Alma is not entirely stable either. There are issues of sexual abuse and class issues. There is also the question of the Parson's sanity and deteriorating reputation in the years before his death. (In fact the novel opens with a fire in the parsonage several years before the parson's death, when he is running around yelling for Adele to "save the birds", as others are trying to save the church records.)

This is considered the best novel of respected Finnish writer Vartio. I highly recommend it.

4 stars

80. We Think the World of You by J.R. Ackerly

This is the story of Frank, a well-bred, middle-aged civil servant who lusts after Johnny, a married, poorly educated working class young man who occasionally gets on the wrong side of the law. When Johnny is sent to jail for a year, Frank gets caught in a struggle with Johnny's wife and parents for custody of Johnny's dog Evie. This is obviously a humorous book, and although there are undercurrents of class warfare and gay rights, the focus is on Evie, an irresistible character who steals the show. This is a quick read, and one I fully recommend.

3 1/2 stars

81. My Abandonment by Peter Rock 2010 240 pp

This book reminded me in a lot of ways of Room. It is narrated by a naive but intelligent 13 year old who does not have much experience with the ways of the world. She lives with her father, hiding away from civilization in a cave in a large nature park in Portland. Her father is clearly mentally ill, paranoic and suffering from PTSD. The girl loves him and pretty much obeys him in his strictures to stay away from other people. She only vaguely remembers her life "before": the life she had with who her father has told her were foster parents. He spirited her away (aka kidnapped) when she was 8 years old.

While this was a quick and compelling read, there are enough problems with it to prevent it from being a good book. For example, why when her father tells her never to tell her name to anyone, does she have a library card, and she and her father are greeted by name and called the library's "best customers" when they sneak out of the forest once a month to get her father's disability check? When the girl and her father are discovered and the girl was placed in protective custody with child protective services, why was she so easily released to a man, who may not have been her father, and who was clearly mentally ill? Why, when her father tells her never to trust anyone, does he isolate himself with a strange woman with disasterous results (well I know the answer to this--sex. But this never seemed a factor before). Ultimately, why was the girl ultimately allowed to live on her own from the age of 14--supporting herself with help from a small town librarian because she liked to read?

There are important issues in this book, issues of homelessness and mental illness, but there really wasn't any serious analysis or exploration of these issues. It was all very shallow, and with the plot problems, it is not a book I would ordinarily recommend. It is a quick read though, and there are some interesting and moving descriptions of how homeless people live.

2 stars.

82. Morituri by Yasmina Khadra (1994, 2004)

This is an Arab crime novel, set during Algeria's civil war, when police officers were often the targets of Islamic fundamentalists. Superintendent Llob is called upon to investigate the possible kidnapping of the daughter of one of Algeria's thuggish power brokers. The mystery is secondary here. Instead, we get an in depth look at life in Algiers during this difficult time. For example, regarding the rich power brokers: "The world belongs to them; the sun rises only for them. The war which is ravaging the country hasn't enough courage to risk encroaching on their domain." Llob at times envies their wealth and power , but reminds himself that he is honest, has a clear conscienc, and there is no blood on his savings. Neverthless, as he pursues his investigation, he must also live with the reality that his life is in danger at any moment, and not just from the criminals.

I liked this book more on thinking about it for review than I did when I was reading it. While reading it I had difficulty with its lack of the ordinary conventions of the police procedural crime novel. At times I had difficulty keeping track of what the crime was, who the criminals were, where the plot had been and where it was going, and the why, how, and when of the solution to the crime. On reflection, the book is very, very dark noir, with a flawed hero, and not just some people who are bad, but an entire society that is corrupt and brutal.

This is part of a trilogy, and I will probably try to read another of these.

3 stars.

Great reviews as usual Deborah. I agree with you about The Cairo Trilogy which I read last summer too. I'll be adding Grass for my Pillow and Windswept Dawn to my teetering tower.

How nice to see you, Deborah! I love, love, love your reviews. I was hit by so many book bullets, I'm seeing blue.

Please consider posting your review of My Abandonment, as you have a different take than the few reviews there, and I think you raise very important points.

I'm glad you had a nice visit with Boden, and I hope you are not too disappointed not to have more of your children home for the holidays. At least you'll get some quality time with your brilliant daughter!

We are going east to visit family Dec. 28-Jan. 4, but I would love to meet up if I'm home.

Yes, great to see you here, Deborah, and thanks for this feast of reviews. Sorry more of them weren't appealing!

When I read your comment about Windswept Dawn as a "Scandinavian collective novel," a lightbulb went off in my head, because We, The Drowned, a highly praised book which I didn't like very much definitely falls into that category. It didn't make me like it more in retrospect, but it did help me understand some puzzling aspects of it.

Tsotsi, The Parson's Widow, and Morituri sound interesting -- you have such varied reading!

Enjoy your travels, and your time at home!

Great series of reviews, Deborah! Welcome back from sunny Texas.

So, how would a Meet-up on December 27th work for you? I have a job to do on the 26th, and then after that I think you are leaving, yes?

I hope your Christmas is everything nice you want it to be!

Hi Deborah. Just stopping by to wish you Happy Holidays. I always love seeing what you're reading because so many of the books I've never heard of. Where do you usually get your book recommendations from?

Hi Bonnie--Thanks for visiting. I hope you are enjoying your holidays (though to a certain extent once you're retired everyday is a holiday)!

Hi Lisa--Enjoy your time back east with family. A majority of my kids are on the east coast now, and they celebrated together. We only had one at home this year and it was very quiet. I will send you a pm about a possible meetup.

Hi Rebecca--I have been on a Scandavian kick lately. On your recommendation I read The Long Ships, which I loved but haven't yet reviewed. I also have We the Drowned on my shelf, but I remember that your review was less than favorable so I have put off reading it.

Hi Ellen--I hope you are resting and relaxing during your holiday. Hopefully, we'll be getting together soon.

Hi Karen--Looking forward to the meetup--thanks for organizing all this. It would probably never happen otherwise. :)

Hi Pat--So glad to hear from you! I was trying to think about where I get my book recommendations from. I have a huge "wishlist", both here on LT and in notebooks. I choose a lot from "Best Of" lists, including the 1001 list, and prize winners. I also get lots of recommendations from reading threads on Reading Globally, since I like to read a lot of translated works. I always check out books from certain publishing houses, like NYRB, Archipelago, Dalkey, and some others whose names I can't remember. Finally we have two good used bookstores here where I frequently browse. I tend to focus on books that look old and neglected. I've often bought and read books I've found this way, and have discovered some real gems!

The following may be my final reviews of the year, though I'm still holding out hope I will be able to cover all my readings.

83. We Have Always Lived In The Castle by Shirley Jackson (1962)

There's a good chance I read this in my teens but I didn't remember any of the details. Mary Katherine (Merricat) and her sister Constance live in an old house with their Uncle Julian, isolated from the nearby village where they are ostracized. They are the sole survivors of a family tragedy which occurred in the recent past.

The book was atmospheric enough--Merricat's strangeness and wildness (she is the narrator, and is seemingly unaware that her weirdness and the family isolation is anything but normal), Constance's obsession with cooking, gardening and domestic-duties, Uncle Julian's forgetfulness as he goes over family history again and again, the crude and threatening villagers are very well conveyed. Into this milieu an outsider, "Cousin" Carl, intrudes with tragic consequences.

This was a good read, well-written but the reveal of the "big secret" and the climactic events with the villagers were easily foreseen. The book may be best read as a psychological study of mob violence, rather than as a horror story.

3 stars

Oh, that one does sound kind of interesting!

84. The Body Artist by Don Delillo (2001)

I loved Delillo's Underworld and Libra (was less impressed with the widely-praised White Noise and with Falling Man) so I had high expectations for this book. Maybe Delillo can't write a short book (this is really a novella) because this is a real stinker.

The beginning is promising--it intimately and minutely describes a husband and wife as they enjoy what is a seemingly ordinary breakfast. They engage in idle chat, watch the birds at the feeder, eat. All the while, the wife is totally unaware that her husband will commit suicide later that day. The rest of the book is pretentious. The wife moves into an isolated house as she prepares for a performance (she is the body artist of the title, a "career" which involves a great deal of weirdness), and while she grieves she discovers a young man who has been living in her spare bedroom. The man is clearly mentally disturbed, but he is able to channel the thoughts and specific words her husband has said in the past, word for word and in his exact voice. Although it is clear that he has escaped from a nearby mental institution, she doesn't report him, and engages with him day-after-day.

None of this seems to go anywhere, and I found it all rather senseless.

1 star

85. Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates (2000)

I can't recommend this fictionalized version of the life of Marilyn Monroe more highly. I had put off reading it for a long time since it is so voluminous (more than 700 pages), but almost every word resonates, and it is well-worth the time invested (though that was much less than might be thought, since it is such sa compelling read).

Oates warns in her forward that this book should not be read as a historic document--she calls it a radically distilled "life" in the form of fiction. She states that in place of numerous lovers, medical crises, abortions, and suicide attempts, she has selected a symbolic few, although the husbands are there, referred to as "the ex-athlete" and "the playwright". (There was also a brief early marriage to "Bucky"). However, I think that the book captures the essence of Marilyn Monroe, who was a mass of contradictions--the "dumb blonde" and the intellectual, the prude and the sex-pot, the little girl and the sophisticate. Overall, Oates depicts Marilyn's life as a search for her father (she frequently called her lovers and husbands "Daddy"). Moreover, the book is a fascinating inside look at the avarice and brutality of Hollywood and its insiders as they exploit "Norma Jean" and create the fiction of Marilyn Monroe.

There are some readers who don't care for Oates's writing style. She sometimes tends to run on. I don't find that a problem, and I loved this book.

4 1/2 stars

#224 What I most loved about We Have Always Lived in the Castle was how Jackson makes the reader see things through Merricat's seriously disturbed perspective.

86. The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue (2006)

At the age of 7, Henry Day is kidnapped by a gang of feral children who live in a secret community in the forest, unknown to normal society. One of the wild children is substituted for Henry, and will live the rest of his life as Henry, while Henry becomes one of the wild children, soon known as Aniday. The story is narrated in alternating chapters, one relating the story of Henry Day, the other the story of Aniday, as at crucial points their lives intersect. Since the feral children age, Henry Day grows up, marries, has children, and grows old, while Aniday remains a child. Over the years, the memory of their prior lives become more and more vague to both of the boys.

The author creates a believable world in which there are "changelings", and fairies or elves living just beyond the edges of society create mischief. This book requires only a minimal suspension of disbelief to be enjoyable. If this sounds like something you might like, I recommend it.

3 stars

87. The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson (1941, 2010)

I loved this book (recommended by Rebecca), which relates the story Orm, as he goes "a-Viking" in a vividly recreated 10th Century. There is nothing boring about his adventures, and I think this would be an enjoyable book even for those with no interest in Vikings or the 10th Century. Orm is an irresistible character, despite his frequent violence, and a reader can almost understand his enthusiasm for plundering and killing.

I have read that this book is based on extensive historical research and while Orm is fictional, actual historical events intersect with his life. More than that, the setting and the environment in which Orm lived are historically accurate, and one of the strengths of the book is that the voice of Orm is so authentic, with no intrusive hint of 20th century mores or prejudices. Even when touching on important themes (for example the conflicts between encroaching Christianity and the local Paganism), there is an underlying humor. For example, Orm muses, "We men of the north do not worship gods except in times of necessity, for we think it is foolish to weary them with babbling." And when he is being pressured to convert to Islam, he thinks, "Still, I dare say he is the best god in these parts, and he has already provided us with gold. If he can manage to provide a few women too, he will rise even higher in my estimation."

Very highly recommeded.

4 stars

88. The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino (2001, 2010)

This is a Japanese murder mystery with a twist. From the very beginning we know the murderer, and the focus of book is the game of cat and mouse played as the evidence needed to convict the murderer is sought.

Yasuko is the divorced mother of a teenager. Her ex-husband, Togashi, was abusive, and has been mostly absent from their lives since the divorce. When he shows up demanding money, the argument escalates to violence and he ends up dead. Yasuko and her daughter are distraught and do not know what to do. Their next-door neighbor Ishigami, who has overheard the commotion, rings the doorbell and offers his assitance in disposing of the body and helping them avoid detection. Ishigami is a genius, a brilliant mathematician who has squelched his academic ambitions to teache high school math while obsessively working on mathmatical proofs during his off-hours.

The detective assigned to the case is assisted by a physics professor, Yukawa, who happens to be a university friend of Ishigami and who has never understood why Ishigami abandoned his ambitions. Ishigami and Yukawa parry with each other, each trying to anticipate the moves the other will take, and to act accordingly. Ultimately, the question becomes, "Is it more difficult to formulate an unsolveable problem, or to solve that problem?"

3 stars

89. The Last Policeman by Ben Winters (2012)

This is another detective story with a twist. In this case, the twister is, what's the point in trying to solve a murder when we're all going to die soon anyway?

It's the near future and an asteroid is headed for Earth. Apocalyptic destruction and devastation, almost certainly the end of mankind is expected within the year. Already ordinary life has become chaotic, and the police department where Hank Palace works is no exception. So many police officers have walked off the job to pursue their bucket lists, or something else, that rookie Hank is promoted to detective. When a dead body shows up strangled in a local fast food restaurant most law enforcement officials are content to write it off as a suicide. Indeed, the cause of death appears to be hanging, and suicide by hanging has become so common that its victims are referred to as "hangers". Hank, however, thinks otherwise, and stays on the job, continuing the investigation.

The book is primarily a mystery, but all around society is disintegrating as people cope with the unthinkable. As the novel states, "The end of the world changes everything from a law-enforcement perspective." I enjoyed this book, and it is apparently the first of a series featuring detective Hank Palace. I expect I'll read the next book in the series, and perhaps more. Obviously, the series can't go on forever.

3 stars

90. Brothers by Yu Hua

I loved this black comedy of life in China from before the Cultural Revolution through the present day, but nearly gave up on it early on. The first part of the novel seemed to go on forever and involved Baldy Li and his father spying on women's bottoms as they used the communal latrines, with great emphasis on descriptive accounts of the pool of excrement and slime at the bottom of the pit (where Baldy Li's father in fact drowned). However, once past this, I was able to fully enjoy the novel.

The novel primarily concerns the lives of Baldy Li and his step-brother Song Gang. They are polar opposites, but have an inseparable bond with each other. Baldy is brash, crude, sex-obsessed, short and bald, selfish and self-assured, but somehow likeable. Over the years, despite early setbacks, Baldy becomes a fabulously wealthy businessman (dealing in trash), but never loses his innate crudity. Song Gang is tall and handsome, and remains a poor factory worker for most of his life. He marries the beautiful woman Baldy Li has loved all his life (since he first glimpsed her bottom), and this causes a rift between the brothers for a long time.

Yu Hua beautifully conveys the characters of the two brothers, as well as their families and the other villagers, and that is the strength of the novel. The ongoing history of China is generally only the backdrop to this story of their relationships and lives. While there is occasional tragedy, for the most part it is entirely personal. The events of the Cultural Revolution as they affected the lives of the brothers, however, compellingly depicted how this horrible era affected the lives of the ordinary people, including the brothers, and was difficult to read without tears. Unlike most other parts of the book, the portion taking place during the Cultural Revolution was mostly related without humor, and in utter seriousness.

This is a memorable work, an entertaining and compelling read, and I highly recommend it. As one reviewer put it, "There is never a dull page."

4 stars

91. Potiki by Patricia Grace

I'm sorry to say I don't remember much detail from this well-regarded New Zealand novel. It's the story of a Maori family. The family, and the extended clan, are tightly-knit, and have a primarily traditional life-style, although the novel is set in the present day. It is told in an episodic manner, and the plot relates to the family's resistance to attempts by developers to convert their coastal lands for tourism.

92. Kingdom Come by J.G. Ballard

I believe this is the last book by Ballard, and I disliked it so much I only read half. The novel relates the story of the protagonist's visit to the London suburb where his father had been gunned down by a deranged mental patient in a mass-shooting at a vast shopping mall (I read this before the recent Newtown tragedy). Ballard uses this event as the springboard for a diatribe against today's rampant consumerism, extremist flag-waving patriotism, and sports (football) obsession. He really hits you over the head with these issues, and the book seems more like an on-going rant rather than a novel, with statements like:

"The suburbs dream of violence. Alseep in their drowsy villas, sheltered by benevolent shopping malls, they wait patiently for the nightmares that will wake them into a more passionate world."

"The suburbs, we would all believe to our last gasp, were defined by the products we sold them, by the brands and trademarks and logos that alone defined their lives."

"...a new kind of hate had emerged, silent and disciplined, a racism tempered by loyalty cards and PIN numbers. Shopping was now the model for all human behaviour...."

"Consumerism dominated the lives of its people, who looked as if they were shopping whatever they were doing."

And the manager of the mall where the shooting occurred: "This is a plague area, Mr. Pearson. A plague called consumerism."

Not much happens in between statements such as these, at least in the half of the book I read.

1 star

93. Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym

This was my book club book for October. It is much darker than Pym's usual books, and it is the only Pym I have read that I would consider reading more than once, which in fact I have done. I read it once in my thirties when I thought it was a fantastic depiction of aging. I read it again several years ago, and now I've read it when I'm the same age or older than its four main characters, I would describe it as the depiction of four lonely people facing their lack of human relationships, rather than a depiction of four older people dealing with issues of aging.

The four characters are office mates, two women and two men, who have never involved themselves in each other's lives, somehow fearful of appearing intrusive. Even outside the office, the four lead solitary lives, with little understanding of what it means to have a relationship with another human. When one of the four retires, the other three, internally and without discussing it with each other, wonder whether and how they should keep in touch. The retiree, Marcia, is in fact mentally ill, not merely lonely, something the other three had failed to notice.

I still found this to be an inciteful and touching book, despite the fact that I now have a different perspective on it than when I first read it.

Recommended.

4 stars

94. The Passage by Justin Cronin and
95. The Twelve by Justin Cronin

I reread The Passage to refresh my memory before reading The Twelve. I had enjoyed The Passage. I don't like "vampire" books, but I do occasionally enjoy apocalyptic fiction. The Passage focused on what it was like to survive after most of humanity has been killed, and society has disintegrated and is largely nonexistent. While the lives of the primary characters who resided in a small colony were restricted by the vampires who could only come out at night, the focus was not on the vampires but on the day-to-day lives of the survivors. Other than the underlying premise of the destruction of society by a plague that created the vampires, there was little that was supernatural about the events in The Passage.

In The Twelve the focus shifts to the vampires. The Twelve initially backstracks and covers the details of how the plague spread (the 90 year period between the onset of the plague, and the life of the colony was not covered by The Passage). "The Twelve" are the original twelve victims of the plague (the people upon whom the government was conducting its biological experiments). Each of the twelve controls, through some sort of mind-to-mind communication, an army of vampires. These armies act as a unit, blindly obeying the commands its leader conveys, sometimes over thousands of miles, through mind-to-mind communication. In addition to humans and vampires, there are a few who are somewhere in-between; they struggle to stay human and to inflict no harm on humans, but are privy to the urges of the vampires. The Twelve goes on to describe the struggle of humanity to kill the vampires (apparently if you kill one of the twelve, all of its followers will also die).

The Twelve was not my cup of tea. I did not like the supernatural aspects, and did not like the focus on vampire fighting. It is unlikely that I will read the third of this trilogy when it appears.

So glad you liked The Long Ships; it's a book I think I might read again because it was so much fun. I've read and enjoyed several books because of your recommendation, so I'm happy my recommendation worked out for you. I bogged down in Brothers after about 20 pages for the very reason you mention, but your review inspires me to try again (just not sure when). As for Potiki, I was not as big a fan of it as others were (I read it because of LT recommendations) and I have very little recollection of it (and read it before I started writing reviews). I enjoyed your other reviews too.

Deborah wishing a a Happy New Year. Haven't managed to keep up with you as much as I would have liked and hopefully I can rectify that in 2013.

Happy New Year, Deborah!

It has been delightful to get to know your reading and your take on books. I wish for you that you have all that you wish to have, do all that you wish to do, and be all that you wish to be in 2013. Happy New Year to your and yours!

These are the remaining books I've read in 2012 that I won't get to review. I will be putting my comments for each book in the comments section of my library:

96. The Rock by Robert Doherty 2 1/2 stars
97. Waiting For War by Claude Delarue 3 stars
98. The Dog Stars by Peter Heller 3 stars
99. The Lost Steps by Alejo Carpentier 4 stars
100. Getting Rid of It by Lindsey Collen 3 1/2 stars
101. The Camera Killer by Thomas Glavinic 3 stars
102. The Daughter by Pavlos Matesis 3 stars

Happy New Year to all--and I really enjoyed and appreciated all comments!

My 2013 thread is here:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/147131

Glad you liked The Lost Steps -- it's a favorite of mine.

Before moving over to your new thread, I wanted to say that this last stretch of reviews was fascinating both in its variety and your comments. I've added The Stolen Child, The Long Ships, and, if I can get past the beginning, Brothers. I might even try The Passage, because I too sometimes like post-apocalyptic fiction. I've heard nothing but poor reviews of The Twelve, however, and I am definitely not a vampire/zombie/werewolf fan, so there is no appeal there.