Rebeccanyc's 2010 Reading, PART 3

In honor of my 50th book and the impending start of the second half of the year, I'm starting a new thread. My most recent thread is here. Thank you for visiting.

#50. Terra Nostra by Carlos Fuentes

This massive, 778-page novel is unlike anything else I have ever read. Over the past six weeks or so, there were times when I despaired of understanding what was going on, but I persevered because of my admiration for Fuentes' ambition. I started it originally for the May Reading Globally theme read on Mexico, as it is considered one of the masterpieces of modern Mexican fiction.

Terra Nostra translates as Our Earth. In this book, Fuentes creates a world -- or worlds -- that he peoples with characters based on historical and literary figures, characters derived from mythical and mystical traditions, and characters that spring forth from his own remarkable imagination. Then some of these characters seem to be other characters, or reincarnated in some way in other characters, and the timeline of history is fluid, to say the least. It is often unclear, even within a chapter or section, who is who and who is talking. And mixed in with all of this is symbolism galore, much of which probably went right by me, at least as far as understanding what it was about: numbers, especially the power of the number 3, but also 33 1/2, 5, and 20; crosses on the back and six toes on each feet; pyramids that go up and stairs that go down, Catholic beliefs in contrast to "heretical" Christian beliefs, dreams vs. reality etc., etc.

So what is the book about? The first part (The Old World) nominally tells the tale of Felipe, the Senor, based on Phillip II of Spain, the builder of the Escorial, his increasing fanaticism and longing for death, and his interactions with his bizarre family and the schemers of the court -- with the action set in motion by the mysterious arrival of three identical strangers with the said crosses on their backs and six toes on each foot. The second part (The New World) takes us to pre-European contact Mexico, but still involves some of the same characters. The third part (The Next World, which the NY Times review said should have been The Other World) mixes all of this together, along with trips to an even earlier past as well. The end takes us to a vision of the end of the world at the end of the 20th century (the book was written in 1975.)

But that's just the plot. As far as I can tell, what the book is really about is the circularity of history, the repetition of events and people, and the way the church, meaning the rigid Catholic church of 16th century Spain, imprisons us. The writing is lyrical, at times hallucinatory. And in the end, we wonder, was it all a dream?

51. Jewish Gauchos of the Pampas by Alberto Gerchunoff

This charming little book, which I learned about from the Reading Globally theme read on Argentina, looks at a group of Jewish immigrants from Russia to Argentina in the late 19th century. The individual chapters focus on the members of the farming community and their interactions with each other and with the local gauchos. Sponsored by the Baron de Hirsch, this and other similar communities were looked at as a kind of Promised Land, after the pogroms of Europe. I found the stories subtle, moving, and a look at an unusual and little-known page of Jewish history.

Ha, first poster award goes to moi!!!

#51 looks intriguing...

Congratulations on making it to 50, Rebecca!

Hey ho .. found you again, Rebecca. Thanks for the heads up on #50 .... I think I'll pass on this one. I like the sound of Jewish Gauchos though and will add this to my obese wish list.

Thanks for stopping by everyone!

Sorry...I think I forgot to say yesterday that I loved your review of both books! I think I'll pass on both for now, though; too many books, etc.

52. Q Road by Bonnie Jo Campbell
53. Women and Other Animals by Bonnie Jo Campbell

What a pleasure to see a writer grow and improve! Bonnie Jo Campbell's most recent collection of stories, American Salvage, was one of my favorite books last year (thanks, Lois/avaland, for recommending it). But silly me, I didn't think to look for other books by Campbell until Richard/richardderus did so himself. So now I have read her first book of stories, Women and Other Animals, collected in 1999 but published earlier in magazines, and her novel Q Road, published in 2002.

Q Road was a delight, with compelling and interesting main characters confronting personal and social issues in an old farming community that is being developed as farmers sell off their land. Campbell interleaves the story of one particular day (when something dramatic happens) with the backstories of these characters and insight into a host of minor characters, as well as beautiful portraits of the woods and the land and people's connections to the land and the animals on it. Although I loved this novel, and it grew on me as I read it, in places I could still see the author at work, something which was completely absent in American Salvage where all the memorable characters seemed completely themselves.

I also enjoyed some of the stories in Women and Other Animals, especially "The Fishing Dog" and "Sleeping Sickness," but they were very mixed and some definitely worked better than others. It felt like Campbell was still exploring what would make a "good story." In the best, there is a real sense of place and character; the less good are still interesting, but not as compelling.

But oh, I can't wait for her next book, after the wonderful American Salvage.

#8: Sadly, my local library still has nothing of Campbell's. *sigh*

And I have you to thank, Rebecca, for recommending American Salvage which is one of my favorite books of the year. I'm going to look for Q Road :)

54. Wolf among Wolves by Hans Fallada

In this lengthy novel, Fallada looks at how ordinary people respond to crisis: the catastrophic inflation in Germany in 1923 that reduced the value of the mark from something like 60 marks to the dollar to hundreds of billions to a dollar, with changes often happening from day to day. Salaries became worthless; people wanted to be be paid with food; people starved.

The long first part of the book takes place on a single hot summer's day, mostly in Berlin. Fallada introduces us to a dozen or so characters, and we follow them through the streets of Berlin, from illegal gambling dens and other night-time haunts to well-kept homes in leafy sections of the city to hiring agents for agricultural workers to a respectable hotel with a bizarre guest and more. As Fallada jumps from character to character -- none of whom is completely likable -- throughout the day and into the night, the reader becomes enmeshed in their stories, their efforts, and their weaknesses.

The second half of the book finds several of the major characters from Berlin on a farm estate in the eastern part of Germany, near the Polish border. Here the reader sees poverty of this still, in the 20th century, somewhat feudal agricultural system, and how the diverse cast of characters, including the farmer and his family, the landlord (who is the farmer's father-in-law), and many of the farm workers and other local people, including a work gang from a nearby prison, react not only to the ever-increasing inflation but also to the efforts of a mysterious "lieutenant" to start a putsch. The tension in this section builds, and the action becomes almost melodramatic; for me, the ending was a llttle unsatisfactory.

What is most remarkable about this book is Fallada's ability to create memorable characters, both major and minor, and through their actions depict so vividly the turmoil of the times.

Nice review of Wolf Among Wolves, Rebecca; I think I'll give it a pass, though.

I was just innocently skipping thru the top 5 threads and stumbled upon a treasure trove of good reads in yours. I've got to add Terra Nostra, Jewish gauchos of the Pampas and the Bonnie Jo Campbell books. Congrats on #50, that's quite an achievement!

I like the sound of Wolf Among Wolves - thank for that review Rebecca.

I've been waiting since 7 this morning to post that today is my four-year "Thingaversary." When I joined LT (the first time I ever joined a web site), it was just to catalog my books and see other people's libraries -- Talk didn't exist. I had no idea that, four years later, I would have enjoyed so many interesting conversations about books and other topics, learned about so many books and writers I hadn't known about, and "met" so many other fascinating booklovers. Thank you all for being part of my Library Thing life.

Happy Thingaversary, Rebecca!!!

Have we all forced you to add fresh bookshelves as well as books, yet??

#16 Here's to many, many more thingaversaries, rebecca. Wow, I can not imagine LT without Talk! I agree it is a fantastic venue to meet other booklovers and learn of new authors and titles that we may have never come across on our own.

Ha ha ha, Suzanne, you are one of the biggest culprits. But, no, they are piled up on tables, the floor, etc. However, we are going to be doing a big renovation, and it will include a lot more bookcases.

Happy Thingaversary! I hope you have the time to read a whole bunch today in its honor.

Happy Thingaversary Rebecca !!
These days, I can't imagine LT without talk!

Happy Thingaversary

Happy happy day!

Thanks, everyone. Alas, I am working (although, obviously, not at the moment). But hope to get more reading in over the weekend.

Delurking here to wish you a very Happy Thingaversary. Four years! You do know that entitles you to buy 4 guilt-free books, don't you? You do need to fill up those new bookshelves!

Happy Thingaversary!

Happy Thingaversary to one of my favorite LTers!

Thank you all for stopping by and for all your nice thoughts. Now, Donna, if you had told me that entitled me to four free books I would have gotten excited, but I'm pretty good at not feeling guilty about buying books -- after all, they're cheaper than drugs or shoes!

Happy Thingaversary, Rebecca. You must have been one of the pioneers on LT!

Happy 4 year thingaversary - you are one of the biggest contributors to my reading list!

I want to buy Wolf among Wolves, but not till I've read Every Man Dies Alone which is already sitting on the bookcase thanks mainly to you.

Edited to remove a rogue "s" in thingaversary. But Thingsaversary sounds quite good too.

#16: I am sorry I missed your Thingaversary, Rebecca, but I wish you a Happy Belated one anyway.

Thank you, Stasia, and welcome back. I was in awe as I saw the long long list of "alcottacre" as the most recent poster on the Talk list!

And thank you all. I'm looking forwarding to another year of reading and talking about books.

#32: Thanks, I am glad to be back.

Here's to another year on LT!

Happy 4-years-and-2-days aversary of Thinginess!

Happy thingaversary Rebecca! You have added exponentially to my pile and I appreciate it (I think) :)

Yes indeed Happy Thingaversary. I feel like an infant!

#55 The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

The best thing I can say about this book is that I am still thinking about it, hours after I finished it. The building suspense and especially the ambiguous ending, as well as Waters' compelling writing, are to thank for that.

Much has been written about this book, but to briefly summarize, it is the story of a possibly haunted house, class, a family in economic and psychological distress, and the social changes taking place in postwar (1947) England, told by a very unreliable (in my opinion) narrator, a doctor with working class origins who befriends the family living in the local manor house, a family which, like the house they live in, is decaying and crumbling before our eyes.

Is the house haunted, and if so by whom? Are the family members psychologically disturbed? Are their own obsessions and repressions revealing themselves physically? Is the friendly doctor not, in fact, so friendly? Waters is a master of suspense and reversal, taking us through a long eventless beginning and ratcheting up the creepiness a little bit at a time. We know something bad will happen, but what will it be and why is it happening?

All in all, while I could barely put this book down, it is not up to the remarkable surprises of Fingersmith.

Edited to change "horror" to the more accurate "creepiness."

Great review, Rebecca. I haven't read anything of Sarah Waters yet but recently saw alot of discussion of Fingersmith, mainly between Bonnie and Donna, who both loved it so much I went out and bought a copy. While The Little Stranger sounds good too, I think I'll start with Fingersmith.

#37: I think I liked that one less than you did. I could never figure out why it was up for the Booker prize.

And a very late Happy Thingaversary from me too!

ETA: Oh, wow. My fourth is Saturday! I'm right up there with you!

Great review of The Little Stranger Rebecca. It's already on the teetering tower, along with all the other Waters books, placed there after I read the astonishing Fingersmith.

#39, Stasia, While I did enjoy The Little Stranger, it didn't seem Booker material to me either. But then again, a lot of Booker finalists and even winners don't seem Booker material to me either!

#42: a lot of Booker finalists and even winners don't seem Booker material to me either!

I have that problem with Booker finalists and winners too. Nice to know it is not just me.

Same here. In fact, I decided a couple of years ago to purposely ignore the prize shortlists and announcements of winners. I figure if a book is really good, I'll hear about it eventually (probably here!), so I don't go out of my way to look for prizewinners. Maybe I'm cutting off my nose to spite my face, but at least I don't wind up disappointed and wondering what all the fuss was about.

56. A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You by Amy Bloom

In this early collection of short stories, Amy Bloom demonstrates once again her psychological perceptiveness, her humanity, and her ability to say a lot with just a few words but, with a few exceptions, the stories are not as rich and the characters not as fully developed as in her most recent collection, Where the God of Love Hangs Out. Among the best are the title story and the two Lionel and Julia stories, which were also included in the current collection as part of a group of four interconnected stories. Amy Bloom is a psychotherapist who became a writer, and in this book we occasionally see too much of the psychotherapist and not enough of the writer; in her later work, this is not a problem.

#45: My local library does not have that one of Bloom's, but from the sound of it, I am better off sticking with her more recent work.

Has anyone read Away by Amy Bloom? I picked it up for $1 at the library but just afterwards thought I saw some posts saying it was not very good.

I read Away and I enjoyed it a lot. You have to suspend disbelief, especially at the end, but it's a fascinating look at an earlier age and somewhat larger-than-life characters. I do think her short stories, especially the more recent ones, are "better," but it isn't really fair to compare a sprawling historical novel with tightly written stories.

For $1, you can always stop reading if you don't like it!

Thanks, Rebecca. Sounds like it's at least worth a try.

It was just so funny because I came home with the book, logged onto LT and the first thing I see are several posts about not liking the book.

Hope you're having a good weekend.

I am also a fan of Bloom's and Away was the first book I read. I was able to suspend disbelief and loved it but I know it has its detractors. I've enjoyed her short stories too, especially Where the God of Love Hangs Out. But you're right Rebecca about her earlier collections not being quite as good.

57. Crisis Economics: A Crash Course in the Future of Finance by Nouriel Roubini and Stephen Mihm

The latest read in my ongoing effort to learn more about our troubled economic times, this book takes the approach that financial crises are the rule, rather than the exception, and that it is useful to look at "crisis economics" as well as more standard economics that, to oversimplify, look at how things are supposed to happen.

The authors, one of whom famously predicted that the housing bubble would burst dramatatically (but who nicely resists saying "I told you so"), provide an overview of the history of financial crises, insights into the causes of our current situation and the impact of the efforts to relieve it, recommendations (both "first steps" and "radical remedies") for alleviating problems in the future, and an outlook for the coming years. While the book goes into some detail about complex topics and covers a lot of ground, it is written in a very readable and almost lively (for a book about finance) style.

The authors emphasize underlying problems, such as compensation based on short-term rather than long-term results, the risks of bubbles and leverage, the interconnectedness of "too big to fail" firms, and the slippery slope of moral hazard. I can't say I will remember all the details, but I certainly get what they called in grade school "the main idea," and it is a scary one indeed.

#51: Adding that one to the BlackHole although it frankly scares me.

58. The Betrayal by Helen Dunmore

I could barely put this book down. A sequel to Dunmore's spectacular The Siege, The Betrayal continues the story of Anna, her young brother Kolya (now a teenager), and her now-husband Andrei, nearly 10 years after the horrific Siege of Leningrad and the deaths of her father and his friend Marina (among 1 1/2 million others in the city alone). Now it is the early 50s, and an aging Stalin still controls the Soviet Union.

The story unfolds with an ever-present sense of foreboding as Andrei, a doctor in a children hospital, agrees reluctantly to examine the very ill son of a very powerful and dangerous man. We see how well-placed fear affects different people and their actions and we watch Anna cope with the inanity of bureaucratic demands in her job working with toddlers in a day-care center and with the demands of memory in the apartment she grew up in, where her father, a writer, suffered from an earlier round of purges. At the same time, we see how the powers-that-be have tried to erase the memory of what Leningraders experienced during the siege and we see the differences between the lives of ordinary people and those who have found favor with the Soviet hierarchy. But throughout this all, we are propelled forward by the characters and their lives. The book puts a human face on the horrors of life in Soviet Russia.

The story takes place at the time of the infamous "Doctor's plot." As with The Siege, Dunmore provides a bibliography at the end of works she read to learn about the era and the people. Her research is admirable, but her writing more so. With Andrei, we lie in bed, awake, at two in the morning and hear the car slow down and stop in front of the apartment building.

#53: I am going to be reading that one this month. I am glad to know it lives up to The Siege. Thanks for the review, Rebecca!

I think The Siege was better, but maybe because I hadn't read about the Siege of Leningrad before but have read other books about Stalinist Russia.

#53 Thanks for that review. I've got both that that one and The Siege wishlisted, and I think I'm going to have to move them nearer the top.

Great review, Rebecca! I should receive my copy this week, and will plan to read it this weekend or next week, as it's on this year's Booker Prize longlist.

Great review Rebecca. I'll read it right after I get to The Siege which is patiently waiting on my shelf :)

>47 phebj:: Away was the very first ER book I won and reviewed so it has a special place in my heart. I gave it 4 stars. It's kind of a fun cross-country romp, and suspending belief (and/or disbelief), is a very good suggestion!

#55: I had read about the siege of Leningrad before (mostly nonfiction stuff), so it will be interesting to see how The Betrayal stands up for me next to The Siege. I know more of WWII Russia than I do Stalinist Russia.

59. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William. L. Shirer

As a reporter, Shirer lived in Berlin for much of the Nazi era and met many of its leaders. As a researcher, he spent years combing through the massive captured Nazi archives, as well as the transcripts of the Nuremberg trials and other western documents (as the book was written in 1960, he didn't have access to much more recently released Soviet documents). The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, a lengthy but extremely readable book, reflects both these journalistic and investigative talents. Both its sweep and its detail are remarkable.

Shirer briefly introduces Hitler as a child and young man, then swings into more detail when Hitler begins his political activities. He discusses at length how Hitler successfully plotted to come to power and derailed his potential competitors and enemies, and covers in detail the "diplomatic" efforts that preceded and followed Hitler's invasions of Austria, Czechoslovakia, and the Baltic countries, all with barely a peep from the west. He also devotes a lot of time to pre-war discussions with the west, including Chamberlain, and the notorious nonaggression pact with Stalin. He talks about the anemic resistance within Germany and Hitler's relationship with Mussolini. Up to this point, his total craziness and evil aside, Hitler seems relatively in control, correctly predicting the responses of various countries to his aggression.

Once the war starts in earnest, and the Germans start losing, Hitler's craziness takes over; for example, he forbade his generals to retreat or surrender at Stalingrad and thus condemned virtually all the German soldiers there to death by freezing or starvation or Russian bullets. Shirer also discusses what Hitler's "new order," including the extermination camps and the complicity of German industry, was like. Shirer spends less time on the fall than on the rise, but it is just as compelling. And what a relief when it is all over.

Throughout the book, I was extremely impressed by Shirer's ability to juggle all the evidence from different sources, and tease out what might really have happened when they differ. It is a remarkable accomplishment. I also was impressed by his insight into the characters and personalities of the key figures of the era. Perhaps later writers on the Third Reich have more perspective than Shirer, but his direct contact with both the events and the people gives the book an immediacy that would be hard to match.

I do have two quibbles, one major, one relatively minor. The lack of maps was a real loss. Although I have a good sense of European geography and could figure out what was going on in a general way, once the war started I really would have loved to be able to visualize what was happening with maps. The more minor point is that, probably, and unfortunately, reflecting the times, at one early point in the book Shirer makes comments about homosexuality that would be completely offensive today.

But, quibbles aside, I'm glad I took this book off the shelf after 30 years and read it.

#61: I am glad you enjoyed that one, Rebecca. I have read it twice now and imagine one of these days I will read it again.

Stasia, it was partly because you read it a little while ago that I decided to take it off the shelf -- you gave me a little nudge!

'Stasia the book nudger' - I like it :)

#62-64 Well you're both nudging the Shirer book from my bookshelf onto my bedside pile. It made it there a few months ago, then I tidied it up because I had other tomes on the go.

I really value maps in non-fiction. I'm in the middle of Edith Wharton's Fighting France (stalled, but it's an ER copy so I must un-stall soon...) and there are no maps at all - I doubt that many readers would have a good enough knowledge of the French front in WW1 not to need one!

Rebecca, I don't want to read your review of The Betrayal yet because I'm going to read The Siege first, but I read just enough to see that you loved it so you've pushed that one up the pile too. I saw The Betrayal in town here last weekend, but was restrained because I hadn't read your "could not put it down".

>51 rebeccanyc:: I think that Crisis Economics would be one that would interest me if I hadn't just read a couple books on the general theme of problems with our system. I'll store that one away for a later date.

>61 rebeccanyc:: The Shirer book is one I read when I was a freshman in high school with (in hindsight) very little understanding of all that I was reading. My parents had both just finished it and loved it, so I tried it. I think I was more caught up in trying to envision the military actions that the actual examination of what was happening. I still have the copy lying around. I should drag it out and re-read it.

Great review of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Rebecca. I remember reading it in college and loving it but passed it on at some point so no longer own a copy. After reading your review, I think I'd like to read it again.

#65, Cushla, I'm totally with you on maps. I love maps anyway, but it's just inexcusable not to have them in books about wars.

Hope you enjoy The Siege and The Betrayal as much as I did.

#66, TadAD, I've been reading books off and on for the past year or two about our economic situation; the best one by far was How Markets Fail by John Cassidy. What have you read that you liked?

And I think the Shirer would be worth a reread; I, at least, get a lot more out of books that last read in high school when I reread them now!

I reserved The Betrayal last week, thinking it would take a while to come through if at all as library reservations aren't as efficient as they were. It turned up faster than I thought possible. So I read The Siege which I also thought was wonderful, my 3rd consecutive 5 * rating (and I'm quite sparing with those normally) and am now reading The Betrayal.

I have two copies of Away, one from Read it Swap it and the other was only 20p on a bookstall at a donkey sanctuary fundraiser (!) and am intending to put one up on Bookmooch but haven't chosen which copy to keep yet (different editions).

Fabulous review of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Rebecca. I may have to read this in the near future.

60. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

In this stunning and moving novel, Jennifer Egan meditates on the passage of time and how human beings connect or fail to connect with each other by interweaving, in a nonlinear way, the stories of a varied group of people over the course of some 40 years, beginning somewhere in the early 80s and ending somewhere in the future in the 2020s. Many of the key characters are involved in the music industry in some way and music and visual art are threads woven throughout the book.

The chapters jump back and forth in time, and are written in varied styles, depending on who is the focus of or the narrator or the chapter. Although each chapter takes something in a previous chapter as a point of departure, it can sometimes take a little while to figure out who the chapter is about and when it is taking place.

One of the things I find so remarkable about Egan's writing is how she captures the voice and tone of each character and how, as the novel builds, she creates increasing understanding of and compassion for even the somewhat unlikeable characters. Life can be banal, but they are struggling to survive and make some meaning out of their lives; time is the "goon" that gets us all, but maybe our children will keep us young or at least have a better life.

I also admire Egan's humor, her interest in exploring issues of technology and how it affects us while still telling a real story with real characters, her ability to say a lot with a little, her insight into her characters, whether they are alienated teenagers, troubled adults, or seemingly well adjusted, and the apparently effortless way in which she links the stories and the people across continents and over time. I will be looking for her next book.

Great review, Rebecca. I've seen other good reviews on this book so will have to get to it soon.

#71: I will probably get to that one after I finish Egan's The Keep which I have home from the library now. Thanks for the review, Rebecca.

I enjoyed The Keep, but A Visit from the Goon Squad is much better, at least in my opinion. Some of the chapters from it appeared as stand-alone stories in The New Yorker, and that kept me interested in Egan's work.

For anyone who liked/likes The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, I'd recommend the first volume of Shirer's memoirs, which include his years in Berlin and the background that led him to write this book -- The Nightmare Years. Definitely a great personal chronicle of the gradual slipping of Europe from wobbly stability into fascist tyranny and war in the 1930s. The personal approach makes it more digestible than many of the straightforward histories of the period that I've read.

Am going to read the Dunmore books this month or next...

61. Comedy in a Minor Key by Hans Keilson

This haunting novella, originally published in 1947 but only just translated into English, takes place in Nazi-occupied Holland. With allied bombers nightly flying in from the coast towards Germany, an ordinary Dutch couple, Wim and Marie, without much forethought, take in and hide a Jewish man, Nico. The novella jumps back and forth in time, starting with the evening Nico dies of a fever and the couple have to figure out what to do with the body, and then moving backwards to their life with their hidden guest. The "comedy," such as it is, comes from the tentative way Marie, especially, learns to live with the situation -- who to tell, who not to tell, what to do when the milkman comes, or the cleaning lady -- and her efforts to try to understand Nico. Needless to say, complications ensue after Wim and a doctor leave the body in a park. For me, the most interesting aspects of the book were the insight into the underground in Holland and, even more, the way Keilson is able to capture the claustrophobic feel of being cooped up in a blacked-out room.

I read this book for the "Adventurous Reader" challange -- a book I'd never heard of by an author I'd never heard of -- and then discovered a front-page review of it in last week's New York Times Book Review section. Now, at last, I can read that review!

*waves hello*

Rebecca, I've been very remiss in catching up with everyone's thread as efficiently as I would have liked, but unfortunately, sometimes work gets in the way of things I'd much rather do. I've just caught up with yours today ... *whew*

I've not read anything by Egan before ...and your review of A Visit From the Goon Squad makes it sound really interesting.

#76 -- Added to my Kindle. Sigh. *Ponders book-induced bankruptcy*

#76: Adding it to the BlackHole.

#78: I am ponderiing it right along side you, Suz.

62. Purge by Sofi Aksanen

This is an ambitions, at times compelling, but ultimately flawed and frustrating book. It attempts to connect early 90s post-Soviet Estonia with the horrors of the wartime and early post-war years, when Estonia was first invaded by the Nazis and then by the Soviets, by bringing together a young Russian escapee from sex slavery with an aging Estonian woman living in a country village, and letting her memories unfold. Surprise: they both have things to hide and there is a connection between them!

There were things I really liked about this book, especially the beautiful depictions of the Estonian landscape and rural activities such as milking, canning, pickling, and making herbal mixtures, as well as the way Oksanen focuses on women's experiences under totalitarianism even though it is the men who are in charge. I also enjoyed learning more about Estonian history, and for the most part Oksanen is great at keeping the story moving along, even as she mixes up times and characters.

But, in the end, I was disappointed. The chapters about the escaped sex slave are incredibly graphic, and stand in too stark contrast to the tone of the rest of the book. In places, I just got tired of listening to the characters' endless thoughts and worries; a little more restraint would have been a good thing, and Oksanen could have benefited from a good editor. Some of the plot was either a little obvious, or a little contrived, and the motivations of at least one of the characters were a little hard to fully believe; other than the two protagonists, the characters were a little one-dimensional. And, at the end, Oksanen includes some "documents" that either should have been worked into the story or left out. The ingredients are all there for a great book, but Purge isn't it.

#80: Too bad about that one. It sounds like it could have been very good. I think I will give it a pass.

Hope your next read is better, Rebecca!

Rebecca -

I've requested Comedy in a Minor Key through Inter-Library Loan. I will have to wait and see what happens. If it is very newly translated, I will probably have to wait until at least six months have passed in order to borrow it. Oh, well. The wry humor appeals to me.

# 80 - I reviewed Purge today as well. It seems I liked it better than you did although I can relate to your criticism. I also had a feeling that the Zara-storyline could have been omitted and that it could have been a better book overall. But all in all, I liked the complexity of Aliide and the layering of her story enough to call it a good book.
How weird we reviewed it on the same day. I also see it's your 62nd book of this year. It's my 63rd :-)

Quite a coincidence, JustJoey! I'm glad you enjoyed it more than I did. I think the idea of including Zara and linking the sex slavery of the 90s to the rapes by the powerful in the late 40s and 50s was a good one, but it just didn't work very well, partly because the Zara material was so graphic and the historical material more restrained and allusive. But at the same time she almost seemed there as a way of introducing the flood of memories.

Ah! So that explains it. I didn't read your review, JustJoey, as I recognized that it was the same book, but couldn't remember who had read it. So, I thought it was another posting of the same review. I'll go back to your thread and read your review properly.

Purge sounds like one that wouldn't appeal to me, but Comedy in a Minor Key sounds worth picking up.

#75...I'm adding The Nightmare Years to the ever growing tbr pile.

Purge doesn't sound like something I would enjoy, so thanks for the heads up, Rebecca. I hope your next read is more enjoyable.

Yes, I'm now reading the thoroughly enjoyable The Long Ships and having a wonderful time. Thanks, Caroline.

#89: I have had that one in the BlackHole for a while now. I look forward to your review.

#89 I just saw a very favorable review of The Long Ships on LT and ordered it immediately from Amazon. Should get it in the next couple of days. Hope you continue to like it.

This has gone on the xmas list for the spousal unit. Sounds perfect! I'll read it too, of course.

Thanks for your review of Comedy in a Minor Key. I recently ordered it after reading Francine Prose's review in The New York Times (pointed out to me by a thoughtful LTer here!). Now I'll have to move it up in line!

63. The Long Ships by Frans Bengtsson

What a delightful and wonderful book! The Long Ships, a saga of Viking adventures that takes place in the years before and after 1000, is filled with exploration, plunder, treasure-seeking, fighting, drinking, eating, tale-telling, romance, manly exploits, strong women, determined foes -- and wonderful writing that seems to just roll off the pen of the author (and the admirable translator). Bengtsson takes a broad geographical, historical, and temporal perspective, and yet paints his characters and his depictions of place with fine detail. In fact, the characters jump off the page, both the good, the conflicted, and the bad. He also has a wicked sense of humor and skewers the pretensions and foibles of men (and women) with a few well-placed words.

One of the interesting aspects of the book is that it takes place at the time that Christianity is spreading to the northern regions of Europe (and one of the voyages takes the protagonist to Spain, then ruled by the Muslims, and also introduces him to a Jewish merchant). Thus, through the book, we see a time when the northern world is changing and we see how different people react to the newcomers, and how varied the priests and other Christian leaders are.

But don't get me wrong. This is first and foremost a rollicking good read!

Fabulous review, Rebecca! I'll definitely have to get my hands on this one.

Wow, great review, Rebecca. This sounds like a fabulous book and my copy should arrive today from Amazon so I am psyched to say the least.

#94: That one is already in the BlackHole. I best bump it up some!

That sounds like one great read. Thanks for that great review Rebecca.

#64 The Thieves of Manhattan by Adam Langer

I was inspired to read this book because I heard the author interviewed on our local public radio station, and for the first 100 pages or so I was amused by its clever satire of the New York City book publishing world and, in particular, the "genre" of fake memoirs. Then, and I can't go into details because I don't want to spoil the book for anyone else, it takes another turn and, while it continued to be clever, it may have been too clever, at least for me. The author (or, I should say, the narrator of the story) also has a (to me) irritating gimmick of using author or character names as code for particular items, e.g., a "gatsby" is a stylish jacket, a "faulkner" is whiskey). So, in the end, I admired what Langer was trying to do, but I didn't particularly enjoy it.

Hmm, sounds like a library book. (Good, succinct review, Rebecca. I wish I could say what I needed to in one paragraph.)

Your number 63 The Long Ships sounds great! On my list it goes!

Karen O.

#99: I think I will skip that one. I think the gimmick would drive me nuts after a bit.

I had just put The Long Ships on my Kindle, so I'm glad you liked it. Hope to read it soon.

65. The Mountain Lion by Jean Stafford

This extremely disturbing novel interweaves the perceptions of a brother and sister, Ralph and Molly, living partly with their mother and older sisters in a Los Angeles suburb and partly on their uncle's Colorado ranch. Aged 10 and 8 when the story begins, the two are inseparable, bored and alienated by the obsessive gentility and control of their vacuous suburban family and neighbors, living under the gaze of a portrait of their mother's idolized "intellectual" and "refined" father. The reader feels the oppressive claustrophobia of this environment -- and an undefinable sense of menace.

Then the children begin to spend summers, and finally a year (when they seem to be 16 and 14), on the working ranch, high in the Colorado mountains, where nature is wild and opportunities for adventure and danger abound. Eager to get close to his uncle, the first real man in his life, Ralph begins to turn away from Molly, an unhappy but brilliant girl who is always writing (much of her character was apparently based on Stafford herself). The tension builds throughout the second half of the book, as Molly becomes both more troubled and more committed to her writing, while still trying to cling to the "innocence" of childhood, even as Ralph begins to identify and be confused by his sexual feelings. The ending is shocking, but not completely unexpected.

Stafford paints a brilliant portrait not only of the children but also of the beauty of the Colorado wilderness and of the farmland around their California home, the hard life of the ranchers, and the stunted lives of the children's immediate family. Beneath the surface, a little bit of religion runs through the book, as do white attitudes towards Mexicans and black people. All in all, Stafford packs a great deal to think about into The Mountain Lion.

ETA I should have said that the story takes place during the 1920s.

Good review, Rebecca (and a thumb from me). I've never heard of this book but will have to look for it in the library.

It was just reissued by NYRB. And thanks for the thumb!

Very nice review, Rebecca; I also thumbed your review, but I don't think I'll read this book.

Stafford is one of those under-read and under-appreciated writers -- I'ver read several, the only title I can remember at the moment is The Catherine Wheel but I was very absorbed by them. I haven't read this one though. Will have to find it!

Rebecca, Your first sentence way back in message 37 has me wanting The Little Stranger and since so many lter's have been talking about Fingersmith I'll wishlist that one as well.

ETA: oops, already had Fingersmith wishlisted thanks to calm.

Great reviews of The Mountain Lion and The Long Ships. Both are now on the tbr pile.

Hello to you!

Thanks, Linda, and thanks and hello to everyone who's stopped by.

Thumbs up for your review of The Mountain Lion, Rebecca. It does not sound like my cuppa, but I am glad you enjoyed the book.

66. Powering the Future: A Scientist's Guide to Energy Independence by Daniel B. Botkin

In this book, noted ecologist Daniel Botkin first surveys conventional and alternative fuels, examining how much of each we use today, what they cost, how long (in the case of fossil fuels) they are likely to last, and how they affect the environment. He then analyzes several scenarios for how the US can meet its energy needs in the future, concluding that as we move away from fossil fuels, we will have to rely on a mixture of energy sources, principally wind and solar, and that we also need to take steps to reduce energy use, modernize our electricity grid, invest in our railroads, and save petroleum for its uses in manufacturing products.

The strong point of this book is that Botkin uses numbers to document and back up his points, both those related to supply and those related to cost. I can't say that I took the time to think through each of this quantitative analyses, but I appreciated them. For a relatively technical book, this is also relatively readable.

What an interesting review of The Mountain Lion! I remember reading about it in A Jury of Her Peers last year, but never really felt inspired to pick it up. Your review might change that!

#113: Botkin has a couple of other books I am interested in as well, so I will add that one to the list. Thanks, Rebecca.

Stasia, His Discordant Harmonies is considered the classic in the field. I understand that a 20th anniversary edition/revision is going to come out soon, so I am waiting for that.

67. The Three Fates by Linda Lê

It is difficult for me to know what to say about this intense, angry, bitter, sad, language-obsessed, and brief novel by Linda Lê, a Vietnamese writer who moved to France in 1977, at the age of 14. It is the intertwined stories of three young Vietnamese women who were brought to France as children by their grandmother, known as "the Jackal": two sisters and a cousin. In fact, none of the major characters has a name: the main narrator, the cousin, is called "Southpaw" because she has had one hand amputated (we never find out how), and the two sisters are known by such names as Potbelly (for the elder, who is pregnant) and Cutie (for the younger, who is most recognized for her beautiful legs). The sisters, against the advice of the cousin, are arranging to bring their father, known as King Lear, from Saigon for a visit so he can see how successful they have been since they were stolen from him and brought to the west.

This is about as straightforward as I can be, because the novel itself is convoluted, full of multilingual wordplay (amazingly, as far as I can tell, translated into English), mythological and literary references, words I never heard of, witches and other supernatural beings, and coded language. To add to the intensity, there are no paragraph breaks, although it is broken into sections. As far as I can tell, it is not just about the razor-sharp depictions of the characters, but also about the intersection of cultures and the aftermath of the war and the takeover of the south by the north.

Not only did a lot of The Three Fates go right by me, but there were many times when I was reading it that I wondered why I kept on going. It is a very impressive work, and Lê is a remarkably talented writer, but I'm not entirely sure I enjoyed it.

I know and hate that feeling! Where you know you should be appreciating something more than you are, and yet can't figure out what it is that is missing -- the ingredient that would enable you to make sense of the whole book. So, with three daughters and a father called King Lear, are there Shakespearean references -- or are they too oblique to recognize??

Well, there are only two daughters and one cousin (i.e., niece), and calling the father King Lear and the cousin saying the daughters were trying to be Cordelias were about as far as the King Lear analogy went (at least as much as I remember King Lear from reading it some 40 years ago in school). The blurb on the back of the edition I read does say the book "transposes Shakespearean tragedy into a contemporary idiom and a decidedly different culture" but I guess I don't know my Shakespeare well enough to detect that!

#117: If the book flew over your head, Rebecca, I have not got a prayer of understanding it. I will give that one a pass. I do hope your next read is a better one for you!

68, Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

I like to reread this every few years, and it was just as delightful as ever.

#121: I read that one for the first time in 2008. I guess it is time for me to re-read it!

It's always a great diversion from real life -- or from too many grim books!

#123: True! I thought both the book and the movie were hoots.

69. Death in the Andes by Mario Vargas Llosa

High up in the Andes, in and around the little village of Naccos, traditional life has been disrupted in many ways. Workers from outside the region are building a highway. A strange bartender and his mysterious wife ply the workers with drink. The Shining Path revolutionaries are running rampant, killing and inducing others to kill. The government, when it can find them is responding in kind. Many villagers in the region have simply slipped away. Into this mix come Lituma, a corporal of the Civil Guard (a lowly rank in a lowly force) and his deputy, Carreno, who is pining away for the love a of a beautiful prostitute whom he "rescued" from a drug lord.

Moving back and forth in time and from character to character, in typical Vargas Llosa style, as Lituma becomes obsessed with the disappearance of three men, the novel essentially investigates the clash of civilizations: between people from the coast, like Lituma, and the serrenos from the mountains; between people with some "education," again like Lituma, and those who believe in the spirits of the mountains; between the Shining Path and ordinary people; between the innocence and naivete of Carreno and the worldliness of Lituma; and, above all, between those spirits of the mountains, some of them quite terrifying (for example, the pishtacos, who drain people of their fat), and the people who disrupt them.

This is not my favorite of Vargas Llosa's work, but it is still haunting me now that I've finished it.

Good review, Rebecca. I haven't read any of Vargas Llosa's books. Any you do recommend?

Oh, I recommend this one, and all the ones I've read, but my favorite is The War at the End of the World, followed by Conversation in the Cathedral. Both are very long and very complicated, but very rewarding.

Thanks for the recommendations, Rebecca. I think I'll start with The War at the End of the World.

Nice review of Death in the Andes, Rebecca. I haven't read and don't own this one, but I'll look for it soon. As I mentioned on Matt's thread (and thanks to you and him), I'll finally read The War at the End of the World next week.

Following Darryl's lead on his thread, I'm posting my response to avaland/Lois's "list of lasts" thread on Club Read.

1. The last book you gave five-stars to. I don't give stars, but if I did the last one would be The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson
2. The last book you were unable to finish. I think this would be Once They Moved Like the Wind: Cochise, Geronimo, and the Apache Wars by David Roberts since this has been on my Currently Reading list since April, but I may yet get back to it.
3. The last book you bought. Either The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford or Wigs on the Green by Nancy Mitford, both waiting for me when I get home from the mountains, from Amazon.
4. The last book that made you cry. A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You by Amy Bloom
5. The last book you borrowed. Haven't borrowed any in a long time.
6. The last book you received as a gift. The Best American Short Stories 2009 and The Best American Mystery Stories 2009, standard holiday presents from some unimaginative relatives who need to be told something to get that they can find with no trouble at Barnes & Noble.
7. The last book you found disturbing. Almost everything I read! But I would say, of the last five or so disturbing books, The Mountain Lion by Jean Stafford would lead the pack.
8. The last book you read that made you laugh. Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
9. The last book you really felt you got lost in (the good kind of lost): The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson
10. The last book you reread. Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

Ooh, nice list! I'm going to do it now.

I'm just discovering Nancy Mitford - have only read Love in a Cold Climate so far, but really enjoyed it.

I think I am going to start Wigs on the Green today -- I need something lighter!

Wigs on the Green by Nancy Mitford

Wigs on the Green could have been a sprightly romantic comedy mixed with a lighthearted satire of the foibles of the English ruling class, enjoyable if not up to Mitford's best, were it not for its gently amused take on fascism in general and the Nazis in particular. Originally published in 1935, it includes thinly disguised portraits of one of Mitford's sisters, the one who ran off to Germany to meet Hitler and ultimately tried to kill herself, and other family members and friends.

But it is just too difficult for me to fathom how relatively educated people in 1935 didn't perceive the evils of Hitler and Nazism. Mitford is quoted, in the introduction by the daughter of her sister Diana who married a famous British fascist, as saying "we were young and high-spirited then, and didn't know about Buchenwald." But they did know, or could easily have known, about Hitler seizing dictatorial power, about the Reichstag fire, about the creation of Dachau and other concentration camps, and about what Mein Kampf said. To joke about Nazis just seems, to me anyway, too tasteless. To her credit, Mitford refused to allow Wigs on the Green to be republished in her lifetime.

Having read some books on and by the Mitfords (Jessica Mitford's memoirs Hons and Rebels and A Fine Old Conflict and David Pryce-Jones's Unity Mitford A Quest) I wonder whether it was a moral blindness and or the casual anti-semitism that was fashionable in the 1930's. Certainly , reading history today, we have access to papers that show some of the thoughts of officials of various governments. ( I am thinking of a Canadian example-the book None is Too Many shows why Canada excluded Jews from immigrating to Canada from 1933-1948.The title was a quote by an official named Blair to explain his view on accepting Jews to Canada).

Of course there was, and still is, "casual" anti-Semitism in England and elsewhere, but it's a big big jump from social exclusion even to forbidding Jews to work and denying them entry to the country (creepy quote, by the way), let alone killing them. In writing my review, I was really thinking not just of the anti-Semitsm of the Nazis, which hadn't reached its most extreme stage in 1935 (except in Hitler's mind and in Mein Kampf), but of the other actions of Hitler and the Nazis in seizing absolute control and sending thousands of political enemies and others to concentration camps. Surely these were not practices that thinking people could condone.

I was unaware of this republished Mitford -- so thank you!

It is puzzling, but human beings are masterful at not facing hard truths until noses are pressed in them. And the Mitfords, when all is said and done, were toffs. The whole U and non-U thing has a certain amusing charm, but I always pinch myself to remind myself that just being from this side of the Atlantic makes me automatically non-U.

I ended up in an English school that was very U (the grandmother of one of my classmates was a lady in waiting to the Queen Mother, for instance, and I had the daughter of an earl as a teacher one year...) and I was definitely made to feel (age 7) non-U...

That said, thinking back to 1935, I don't think enough of what was happening within Germany was really being understood in the mindsets of those whether within or outside the country. To many, it looked like Mussolini with anti-Semitic undertones/overtones. Anyone who did follow the news could tell themselves that it was just a temporary over-reaction. After all, that's what many German Jews were telling themselves and they were experiencing events first-hand. I'd argue that it wasn't until after Kristallnacht that it became impossible to deny the real nature of the system for outsiders. Of course, that didn't stop Unity Mitford from worshiping Hitler. I agree generally that by 1935 it was obvious that Hitler's regime was an oppressive one -- but to many, that was seen as a good thing, esp. in the Mitford class. These were the folks who had stepped into the breach during the general strike in England in the 1920s -- Eton schoolboys helping to keep the buses and trains running, etc. There was a fairly widespread feeling among the upper crust that in the wake of the Great War, the lower classes needed to be kept in their place, that cracking down on unions and Communists was necessary and that (in the context of the Depression) getting people back to work and the economy functioning required sacrifices. I do sometimes wonder how I would have seen events at the time. I'd like to think I'd have been farsighted, but...

Suzanne, you make good points. There were tons and tons of articles in the New York Times, at least, about Hitler's antisemitism, concentration camps, power grabs, murders, impact on neighboring countries, etc. (at least according to a quick search on the Times website) and I assume, perhaps incorrectly, that responsible newspapers in England would have carried similar articles. And it's true that a lot of German Jews waited too long to escape, but some, including Einstein, were smart enough to leave as early as 1933.

I wonder how people reacted to what they read in the papers? A lot of newspaper reporters were discouraged from writing what they saw, either by overt censorship, the fear of being deported or because their proprietors didn't want to rock any boats. I think in the 30s (and it's hard to imagine that period, just as it's hard to think about the pre-1914 years and block out the knowledge of what followed), there was a tendency to give Germany the benefit of the doubt -- the postwar chaos, the Weimar period, the Depression, etc. I wonder if people read the articles and said to themselves, hey, they are doing what they have to to get to the next stage? It would be interesting to know whether those early refugees -- like Einstein -- saw common elements that worried them, particularly, something that told them no, this isn't temporary. Having read a lot about WW1 and its aftermath, denial and wishful thinking must have been very prevalent. Look at how Churchill -- who was an early worrier about Hitler -- was dismissed as an alarmist. It's an intriguing question -- and then I remember the horrifying consequences for so many millions of people...

By the way, if you can lay your hands on a copy of a DVD of a British film called "Good", it's a fascinating portrayal of this kind of issue. One of the two main characters -- a Jewish psychoanalyst -- wrestles with the question of whether or not to leave. (The actor who plays the role is the brother of a friend of mine...) Viggo Mortenson plays a harried literature professor who finds himself adopted by the Nazis as a thinker after he writes in favor of mercy killing (in a different context from the way it was later practiced. The story is about the friendship between the two men.

I believe Einstein left because in 1933 the Nazis forbade Jews to work in universities,. The same laws also prohibited Jews from working in the civil service or as lawyers or doctors, or from owning or working on farms, etc. I think those who could easily leave saw the handwriting on the wall.

"Good" does sound fascinating and I've added it to my Netflix queue -- thanks for the recommendation.

"Good" does sound exactly that!

I think too, on the German topic, that we forget how destroyed and desperate the German economy was and people were and that, at first, Hitler seemed to be someone who could (and was) bringing the country back to something workable -- jobs jobs jobs e.g. I think it was very hard for various leaders to see past their relief that Germany seemed to be getting back on its feet. It was probably almost impossible for your average German to deal with either -- as it gradually grew apparent to all what Hitler was after. The Marshall Plan, as we know, was the post WWII response to the fact that Hitler was able to happen because we did nothing, after WWI to help Germany.... but I am sure you all know that!!!!!! It worked very well too.

My understanding is that Germany emerged in the mid to late 20s from the worst of its economic problems, with the hyperinflation stopped and new plans for managing reparations, but the economy was then hit badly again by the US depression after 1929. The uncertainty this caused undoubtedly helped Hitler gain support.

Before I read several books about the period, I thought the hyperinflation went on for much longer and directly led to Hitler's ascent to power, but in fact it lasted for about a year in 1922-23.

I think there is more excuse for Germans not knowing what was going on, once the Nazis started controlling journalism, but there were foreign journalists in Germany at least up until the start of the war, including William Shirer, the author of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, which I read this summer, and lots of dispatches were going back to US and presumably UK newspapers and radio about everything that was happening under the Nazis. Whether people read the news, and how they interpreted it, are other matters, but information about what the Nazis were doing was widely available.

The Rabbi of the synagogue that I attended in the 1960's left Germany in 1933. He became quite emotional in his description of why he left. He thought that it was quite clear what was happening in Germany and despaired that more people didn't leave.
I saw the film "Good" a couple of years ago. It is quite powerful.

I suspect a lot of it had to do with denial -- both inside and outside Germany. Even when you see what is happening, you try to tell yourself that you are living through the worst of it today, and that it will get better and not worse. And when it gets worse, you tell yourself the same thing. There's a book by Peter Gay, who left as a child, about his experiences of living through the early Nazi years, My German Question, which is excellent, and addresses some of this. (He has also written about the Weimar years, in a good book about the cultural trends in postwar Germany.)

I did once ask my Anglo Canadian grandparents about their perceptions. They were born in the first decade of the 20th century, so were in their 30s as Hitler rose to power. I had visited Anne Frank's house and read her diary -- at the age of 7 -- and it left an impact on me. So when they came to visit, I asked them about this, and discussed it again with my grandfather years later. He told me that he and most of his friends didn't realize what was happening; they would run across the occasional story, but figured it was just the Europeans, who seemed to quarrel with each other constantly, doing so yet again, and that it would probably blow over. It wasn't until early '39, when he ended up working with an Austrian refugee at his insurance company, that he said he began to understand. Until then, he said, everyone around him was too worried about making ends meet and keeping their households afloat to worry about events thousands of miles away. And this being Toronto in the 30s, he didn't have any contact with members of the Jewish community, who were certainly far more aware of the real perils.

None is Too Many is a damning indictment of Canadian policy during that period. Oddly, was just talked to my father, who is back from Lithuania. He is writing a story about Jews in Vilnius and Lithuania for a Canadian Jewish publication -- his first foray into journalism!

144 - thanks for the middle paragraph above there. I've seen the Peter Gay book about, clearly worth reading.

Thanks, Suzanne, those are interesting stories. My parents were born early in the 20th century, and they were in their teens and twenties when Hitler first came to power. I think they were quite aware of what was going on, but of course they and their families were Jewish. Interesting about your father too: my father's family came from Lithuania, although not from Vilnius. Vilna, as it was known then, and as you probably know, was a center of Jewish and Yiddish scholarship and culture.

71. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

I loved this book, but am having trouble figuring out what to say about it because it exists on so many levels: the literal, the fantastic, the satirical, the metaphysical, the humorous, the chilling, the theatrical, and the romantic.

The story begins when the devil, known as Woland, along with some of his entourage, comes to Moscow, presumably in the 1930s, and engages a poet and an editor in conversation about the existence of Christ (religion was completely forbidden in Stalinist Russia). From this beginning, the devil, in a not entirely unpleasant way, wreaks havoc in Moscow, mostly among the literary and theatrical establishments, and notably when he conducts a theatrical event of his own. The second part of the book focuses on the master, a writer, and his lover Margarita, and the pact she makes with the devil, which leads among other things to her acting as the hostess at the devil's ball. Interwoven through both parts is the somewhat distorted story of the crucifixion, from the perspective of Pontius Pilate, told first by the devil to the poet and editor and then from the book that the master is writing about that very subject.

But this book is so much more than the plot and another version of the Faust legend. Without ever mentioning Stalin or what daily life had become in 1930s Russia, Bulgakov depicts the horror and terror of the times through Woland's actions and people's responses. We see several of the other issues of the time -- housing, foreign currency, and of course bureaucracy -- through the lens of the story, as Bulgakov explores themes of guilt, love, betrayal, and, especially, courage and cowardice. His use of language - as translated by the admirable Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky in my edition -- is wonderful, especially in some of the great dramatic scenes of storms, Woland's theatrical event and ball, and characters turning into witches. The story of Pontius Pilate both reinforces the Moscow story and comments on it: as Richard Pevear points out in his insightful introduction, terror is not a 20th century invention.

I could go on and on, but I will just note that my edition included very helpful end notes that identified many of the literary and other references in the book.

Your 71st looks good to me, onto the wishlist it goes. Ooooo, you're getting so very, very close!

>147 rebeccanyc:: I am so glad you loved it because it's one of my all-time faves. I hadn't realised that Pevear/Volokhonsky did a translation - may have to indulge in it, as my old paperback has seen a few reads and is 43 years old.

>147 rebeccanyc:: Excellent review of The Master and Margarita. I remember being both captivated and confused when I read it last year about this time. It's a book that I will definitely revisit, and I suspect that it will end up as being one of my favorites. There was so much to it, the writing was excellent (also read the P/V translation with endnotes), and the characters were compelling. I read Faust as a followup to it and wished that I had read it first. Thanks for reminding me that I need to reread M&M soon to fully appreciate it.

ETA: Thumbs up from me!

Great review of The Master and Margarita, Rebecca. I will have to look for this book at my library.

>147 rebeccanyc:: great review, Rebecca. I wish I'd had the P&V translation back when I read this book because while I enjoyed it, I think my version lacked something. From what I've heard (no direct experience), P&V do a fabulous job making Russian lit much more accessible. When I read M&M, I also felt I was missing some of the larger concepts and the endnotes you mention would have been very useful.

I picked up a copy of The Master and Margarita second-hand just last week: I love your review, and I will definitely have to make time to get to it soon. I didn't know there was a Pevear/Volokhonsky translation though: I might have held out for that edition.

Wonderful review, Rebecca! I'll read this later this month, and I'm glad to see that I also have the P&V translation.

Just to add to the praise: that was a super review, Rebecca. You really GOT it. :)

I need to read M&M, Rebecca -- have had that on my wish list for, oh, a few decades now. What others have Pevear/Volokhonsky translated that you would recommend, btw?

Rebecca

Great conversations here on your thread!

Thanks, everyone. Suzanne, I've read a lot of their translations of Tolstoy: Anna Karenina, War and Peace, The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories. I am not a Dostoyevsky fan but I've bought their translations of The Brothers Karamazov, The Idiot, and Crime and Punishment (which I did reread). I also have Chekhov and Gogol collections they translated but haven't read them yet -- but I should move them up on the TBR.

Rebecca, another great review on your part. I already have The Master and Margarita on my wishlist so I will have to look for theat translation. Thanks.

Three cheers for your well deserved Hot Review, Rebecca!

#147: I had that one set aside to read this year but still have not gotten to it. Thanks for the reminder, Rebecca!

72. Blue Trout and Black Truffles: The Peregrinations of an Epicure by Joesph Wechsberg

I read this book, published in 1953, for the "read a hard cover book with a dust cover in an edition that was published before 1960" challenge. It was a lively and entertaining look at two worlds that no longer exist, from the perspective of food and gourmet meals.

The first part, which I found more enjoyable, shows Wechsberg's childhood in Moravia (a Czech-speaking part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) before and in the years after the first world war, and his life as a young man in Prague, Paris, and Vienna and as a traveling musician on ocean liners in the 1920s. This part was both inherently more interesting for me, partly because I've read a lot of central European fiction more or less from this time period or slightly earlier and also because it told more of a story. Also, there were lots of fascinating g tidbits, like the 20 or so different cuts of boiled beef in Vienna, and the exploits of the women who frequented Maxim's in Paris in the 1890s.

The second part, which reads more like a collection of magazine articles (and probably was, since some of the chapters were published in a variety of US magazines) takes the reader on trips to French restaurants, truffle-gathering communities, and wine chateaus in the early 1950s. I found this moderately interesting in itself and as a portrait of a a way of life that, 50+ years later, seems almost as remote to us as the last days of the Austro-Hungarian empire must have seemed to Wechsberg when he wrote this book in 1953.

One of the most remarkable things about this book is Wechsberg's wonderful, lively, and humorous writing, because English is at least his fourth language (after Czech, German, and French) and he only learned it on coming to the US in 1938.

#162: Blue Trout and Black Truffles looks like a book I would enjoy. Thanks for the review, Rebecca.

#162 That sounds like an interesting one. And I love the title.

Rebecca
So sorry you could not attend Richard's party. I hope to meet you at another get together.

>162 rebeccanyc:: wherever did you find a copy of this book?

#166, Tui, I had to go through the boxes of books I brought from my parents' apartment to find one that met the criteria for the challenge. (I have not yet shelved these books or entered them into LT, but hope to do so when I have more bookcases.) I do have pre-1960 editions of other books, but none of them have dust wrappers. I have no idea whether this book is still in print.

73. Life Is a Dream by Gyula Krúdy

I was a big fan of the extremely strange Sunflower by Gyula Krúdy and so I was eager to read this collection of short stories. They turn out to also be strange, but in a very different way. Most of them involve the frequenters of taverns in 1920s Hungary, and while the characters and plots are different, all of the stories feature a lot of detail about food, almost too much (both food and detail), and also mostly involve love and death. I liked the longish "The Green Ace" the best,but didn't find any of the stories truly compelling, although they certainly paint a picture of a time and a place.

#168: Since it is unlikely that I will ever get my hands on it anyway, I think I will give that one a pass.

>168 rebeccanyc:: didn't they have huge food shortages in the 20s in Hungary, with skyrocketing inflation problems? Maybe it was wishful thinking...

#170 It isn't clear when the stories take place; they were written in the 20s, but it is possible they took place earlier, i.e., pre-World War I when Hungary was still part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

74. The Queue by Vladimir Sorokin

For me, the most interesting thing about this book was its form: entirely unattributed dialogue, mostly extremely short comments by a variety of people waiting over the course of two days in one of the Soviet Union's iconic queues. Sorokin is trying to create the whole feeling of waiting in the queue: the boredom, the conversations, the woman annoyed with her child, groups of people leaving the queue for drinks or food, couples flirting, monitors urging the people waiting to line up more neatly or counting off their names and numbers for pages and pages. There are even blank pages where one of the characters (for characters do emerge from the seemingly random talk) passes out or goes to sleep, and at the end there is a scene, still in dialogue, that takes place outside the queue. What are they queuing for? We never find out, and in fact, the descriptions of the item changes as the novel proceeds.

I found this book fascinating for its look at the queue phenomenon and for its experimental style, but otherwise it didn't really grab me.

I need to seek out some Hungarian writers... though I admit I'm not a fan of strange and experimental fiction, often.

Suzanne,iIn addition to Krudy (whose Sunflower I really enjoyed), I've read Skylark, which I also enjoyed and The Book of Fathers, which was a dud as far as I'm concerned. I also have Embers, The City Builder, and Niki: The Story of a Dog but haven't read them yet.

#172: I think I will give that one a pass. I hope book 75 proves to be an excellent one for you, Rebecca.

Rebecca -

Lately I have been lurking on your wonderful thread, having little energy to post in response to your reviews.

However, I want to say that the two recent books that you have read stirred me up to the extent that I wanted to pass along a bit about a book by a wonderful contemporary author that has kept me going for the past several days. That book is The Invisible Bridge : A Novel, written by Julie Orringer.

It is her debut novel following her award winning book of short stories, How to Breathe Underwater. BTW, she lives in Brooklyn.

The Invisible Bridge has opened my life to the experiences of many Jews in Hungary preceding and during WWII and the atrocities experienced by them during Hitler's policies of "purification". This novel is wonderfully written and brings to life many experiences with prose which draws me in and involves me deeply in the lives, times and places that are central to the telling of the story. The last part of the book describes the experiences in the forced labor camps of Hungarian Jews, (the Munkaszolgalat).

Wonderful to find more about this dark period available to read. Thank you for your insights into both the Hungarian experience and the Russian one. It is very hard for me to imagine and understand how we so often miss so much of "real history" in our high school and university classes that we then, later in life, are able to learn about from works of fiction written by talented and knowledgeable writers.

I will add Krudy and Sorokin to my TBR list. They sound like amazing chroniclers of their times. Thanks, Rebbeca.

Thanks for the recommendation and the compliment, Ruth, and thanks for stopping by. The Hungarian books I've read are all pre-Holocaust, pre-Soviet era, so I will eventually delve into both.

I do have The Invisible Bridge on my Kindle, and plan to pick it up soon...

I've heard good things about it.

Jean Stafford is someone whose work I've been meaning to read forever - I have her collected stories (bought some time ago). Not sure how I came across her name originally but I read something about her which was really intriguing.

I also bought the reprint of Wigs on the Green. Lots of people admired Mussolini's sorting out as they saw it of Italy and thought AH would do the same thing for Germany. As far as I understand, Diana Mosley and her husband Oswald never really changed their mind about Fascism, but Nancy was a small l liberal and never shared her sisters' (and dad's) attraction to far right politics (nor Jessica's Communist affiliations).

I must follow up The Invisible Bridge too.

On a quick trip to Boston (Cambridge, really), I managed to read a lot of books on the train and buy a whole bunch that I had to lug back on the train (as if we didn't have perfectly good bookstores in New York). So here's my haul -- reports on books read next.

Two old but until now difficult to find Hilary Mantels:

Every Day Is Mother's Day
Vacant Possession

A newly translated edition of Backlands: The Canudos Campaign by Euclides da Cunha, which was recommended to me here on LT after I read The War of the End of the World because it is the true story of that war. I did buy an earlier edition some time ago, but haven't read it yet, and this one seemed appealing because it has an introduction that may help me understand it.

Partner to the Poor, a collection of essays and articles by farmerpaul::Paul Farmer -- thanks to Darryl for introducing me to him.

The Future History of the Arctic by emmersoncharles::Charles Emmerson -- because of interest in the polar regions.

Memories of Eden: A Journey through Jewish Baghdad by Violette Shamash -- because of my interest in the lives of Jews around the world.

Nice haul!
I picked up a cookbook about Iraq( a friend told me about it) that also had some memoirs-Mama Nazima's Jewish-Iraqi Cuisine by Rivka Goldman. Have you seen it?

Nice haul, Rebecca! I'll look for Partner to the Poor this week (I'm surprised that I didn't see it at City Lights), and I'll be interested to hear about the other books you bought. Which Cambridge bookstores did you go to? I've been to Harvard Bookstore, but not any others in the city.

75. The Road by Vasily Grossman
Here is the link, since it doesn't touchstone yet.

This is a wonderful collection of short stories, essays, and letters by Vasily Grossman that spans his writing career and that truly expanded my view of his writing talent, but . . . There is one essay which, in its diamond-sharp clarity, its acid but humane eye, its lack of any wasted words, so far outshines everything else in the volume that they almost seem weaker than they are. I speak of "The Hell of Treblinka," an essay Grossman wrote just a month after he, a journalist traveling with the Red Army ("embedded," we would say today, would that our journalists were of Grossman's caliber), entered the recently liberated death camp in 1944. It would take away from the impact of his writing for me to attempt to describe it, but despite all that I have read over the years about the Holocaust, this essay took my breath away with its portrayal of the people entering the camp and the processes that destroyed them, as they traveled through the circles of hell. Grossman got some details wrong, because he was writing in the heat of the moment, and insightful notes and commentary by Robert Chandler, the editor (and one of the translators) of this volume, point out what we have learned from more recent research.

The one quibble I have about this book is that the very helpful end notes for all the material in the book are referenced only by page numbers, so there is no way for the reader, as he or she is reading, to know what material has an explanatory note. This is atypical of other NYRB editions I have read, including Grossman's Everything Flows, in which the endnotes were referenced numerically.

76. Room by Emma Donoghue
78. Salvation City by Sigrid Nunez

I am reviewing these two books together (even though I read one book in between them) because I was struck by how they both tell the story of a boy who finds himself in traumatic circumstances. Different circumstances, different ages, different countries, but both boys are forced to deal with dramatic changes not of their own making.

Room, as is well known, tells the story of five-year-old Jack, who lives with his mother in an 11 foot X 11 foot room, imprisoned (although he doesn't know it) by his father, who kidnapped his mother when she was 19. Donoghue masterfully builds the sense of claustrophobia and danger, but for me the most important part of the story was what happened after the mother (who is never named) and Jack escape, and must re-enter the real world, a world Jack never thought existed. It is an interesting idea, and I was impressed by Donoghue's skill in creating and maintaining Jack's voice and imagining both the world of the Room and the prisoners' reactions to the world outside, and the book haunted me after I finished it, but I felt a little bit manipulated and didn't appreciate Room as much as some other readers.

In Salvation City, 13-year-old Cole is orphaned after both his parents and hundreds of thousands of others die in a pandemic flu; after recovering from the illness himself, he is first placed in an orphanage and is then taken in by an evangelical preacher and his young wife. The reader sees Cole's life with his parents through flashbacks. Just at that awkward young teenager stage where he can identify all the irritating things about his parents (who were not at a happy stage of their marriage), he struggles with his confused feelings of grief after they die, his feelings for his new "family," and his own sense of identity. The story takes place slightly in the future, a dystopic one to be sure, but the strength of the novel is its psychological insight and its meditations on love, loyalty, reality, and teenage discomfort, especially about sex. I found this novel considerably deeper and more intriguing than Room, which was limited, I feel, by the age of Jack and the shock value of the situation.

I'm curious -- what made you feel manipulated in Room?
I agree that I though Salvation City was excellent, but ironically that's where I felt a bit manipulated -- as if the only thing that Nunez could do to get her young protagonist into the unlikely situation of being fostered by evangelicals (around which all the conflicts and plot developments turn) was to conjure up this pandemic, which later recedes pretty much to the background of the story. The pandemic screamed "plot device" at me so loudly that I found it distracting.

I definitely need to read Grossman and some more Soviet-era Russian writing, generally. Have recently ordered a copy of Bulgakov's White Guard to read, as well as a dead-tree version of Life and Fate. Good winter reading...

Oh, Rebecca, you've tempted me again -

I am just reading and passing through. I shall return and retrieve titles for many of these books sometime soon. I'm on my way to the library this morning. No promises on the timing of the return.

I really enjoy (if one can venture to make that claim, while reading about the Holocaust) so many of the books that you post and review. Thank you. (And, Darryl, too, for so many good recommendations). I read books translated into the English language and also read many books about Jews living in every country of the world and at every point in history.

Caio.

77. The Whites of Their Eyes: The Tea Party's Revolution and the Battle over American History by Jill Lepore.

Oh, how I loved this book! In a mere 165 pages, in a style that is both witty and authoritative, Lepore takes apart the obsession with "the founders" by interviewing contemporary tea-partiers, reviewing and quoting 18th century writers, and discussing what history is -- and what is anti-history. One important theme of the book is the tangled issue of people agitating for freedom (to not be the "slaves" of England) while they themselves enslave (or profit from the enslavement of) African Americans and while the British offer to free African-Americans if they fight for them; another is the idea that the "founding" took place over a span of decades -- decades of arguments, evolving ideas, and compromise. I was particularly impressed by the way Lepore weaves together the voices of the writers of the past with the speakers of the present, and how she presents history as a living, changing enterprise.

Lepore makes many points in this delightful, illuminating, and highly informative book, and is so eminently quotable that I can't resist including a few here.

"The telling of history is, by its very nature, controversial, contentious, and contested; it advances by debate. This doesn't make history squishy, vague, and irrelevant. It makes it picky, demanding, and vital." (p. 47)

"The founders were not prophets. Nor did they hope to be worshiped. They believed that to defer without examination to what your forefathers believed is to become a slave to the tyranny of the past." (p.113)

"Set loose in the culture, and tangled together with fanaticism, originalism* looks like history but it's not; it's historical fundamentalism, which is to history what astrology is to astronomy, what alchemy is to chemistry, what creationism is to evolution." (pp. 123-124)

*The idea that the what the original writers of the Constitution meant should stand for all time.

#181, No, Cyrel, I don't have that cookbook, but I do have some other Jewish cookbooks (only one I've ever cooked from) that include recipes from Arabic and Sephardic countries in addition to "standard" Eastern European recipes.

#182, Darryl, I got the Farmer at a bookstore called Globe Corner on Mount Auburn Street -- it seemed to be mostly travel books with a smattering of novels and nonfiction about different parts of the world. The Farmer was on display and discounted. All the others came from Harvard Bookstore, and I was disappointed that another bookstore I really liked, that had been right at the beginning of Brattle Street, was no more.

#185, Suzanne, I felt manipulated because I felt the whole concept of the kidnapped and imprisoned woman was a gimmick -- a fascinating one, but a gimmick nonetheless -- and I also didn't quite buy the mother's apparently sudden decision that they had to escape, or that as a seemingly average teenager when captured she had all those resources of imagination and determination for raising Jack. I can see why you would feel manipulated by the pandemic in Salvation City but I did think it informed the rest of the book more than you did, creating a world that was vastly different from the one Cole had known -- from the rather feral lives of the children in the orphanage to the reactions of his aunt. However, I found the ending a little too neat.

Yes, I see your reasons for both books. I did see the concept as being a reaction to two recent media stories about imprisoned women -- the Austrian case of Fritzl (sp??) and his daughter and the one about the girl imprisoned for many years who had given birth to two children in a backyard shed. I thought she just tried to extrapolate from that. And I think my reaction to the imagination/determination issue was that of isolation -- if you aren't going to be driven mad, you'll find all kinds of resources. Re the decision to escape, isn't she reacting to very specific changes in the circumstances re her captor that make her worry about their survival?

Both books would be interesting to discuss at a book group, I think -- they bring out similar issues, as you mentioned previously.

I'm glad you finally laid hands on the Lepore book and enjoyed it so much!! Alas -- it is logical, and as Clive James wrote, "there is no reasoning someone out of a position he has not reasoned himself into."

Your points on Room are well taken, Rebecca. I'm sorry that you didn't enjoy it as much as I and several others did, but in retrospect I can understand why you didn't.

I agree with Suzanne; a discussion of Room would be an interesting one!

Overall I found the quality of this year's Booker Dozen to be significantly inferior to last year's longlist.

Adding my congratulations on your recent haul to the rest!

Thanks for the review of The Whites of their Eyes. The more considered and sensible info out there the better.

>189 Chatterbox: Lovely quote

"The Whites of their Eyes" sounds really good. Thanks for the review, Rebecca.

79. Great House by Nicole Krauss

So much suffering. So much death. So many secrets. So many tormented souls. If it were not for Krauss's beautiful and diamond-sharp writing, this stunning novel about loss, deception, grief, and memory would be just too sad to read.

Four different characters narrate the different sections of this novel; each is damaged in some way, either through the traumas of his or her own life or psychology or through loving another character, a character who has turned inward, hiding his or her true self from the world. There are connections among them, largely through a massive pre-World War II desk, but Krauss leaves it to the reader to figure everything out; we do not know more than the characters themselves most of the time.

It is really impossible to describe the plot, such as it is, of this novel, without giving too much away, but it is notable that so many of the characters are writers, or aspiring writers, people who for the most part find this alternative world more welcoming than the real one. The Holocaust's savage separation of the past from the present slices through the heart of Great House, but so does the sense of loss inherent in Jewish history going back 2000 years. The novel is intense and convoluted, and gives up its secrets slowly.

There are many, many beautiful examples of Krauss's ability to capture the emotional heart of the moment in her writing, but one that stands out for me, and perhaps says a lot about Great House itself, occurs when an Israeli father thinks about what to say to his wife who fears she cannot go on if one (or both) of their two sons, soldiers, are killed in the 1973 war. "Either I could have said, You will go on, or I could have said, We will not lose them." We lose everyone, but we go on.

I have read a bit about this book in other reviews. It does sound quite complex, but, your review also gives me a sense of something permeating the pages of the book and being quite compelling; drawing us in, even though we may not ever know, in the true sense of the word, anything more than what is offered to us.

The quote that you chose to cite at the close of your review seems to be an excellent example of "Krauss's ability to capture the emotional heart of the moment in her writing." Thank you for this fine review.

Hi Rebecca, just stopping by to say I liked your review of Great House. After hearing several people comment positively about it here on LT I'm building up the courage to try it. Initially, it seemed like something that might not make much sense to me.

I have an ARC of this sitting around the house; after Dinaw Mengestu I may have to refrain hunting for it for a few weeks. Don't think I could deal with too much more bleakness/grief etc., especially if brilliant writing makes me keep reading, as happened with Mengestu. Still have to write my Vine review for that one.

Did you get an invite to the Archipelago/Breyten Breytenbach event?

#194: Donna also reviewed that one recently and between the both of you, I am going to have to track a copy down!

I loved your review, BTW.

Thanks, Ruth, Pat, and Suzanne. Suzanne, in your state of mind I would stay away from Great House for a while. Even I, a perennial grim book reader, feel the need of something lighter after it. And yes, I did get an invitation to the Archipelago event, but still no book . . . .

Just added Great House to my wish list on the strength of your review. I read another review in the New York Times last Sunday, but I didn't take the bait until I read your opinion! How's that ?!

Well, it was the Times book review that led me to buy and read Great House, but thank you, Laura!

I, too, enjoyed your review of Great House, Rebecca. I just can't get this book out of my head. I'd say that's the effect of an excellent book.

The latest Bookmarks had an interesting interview with Nicole Krauss. You were on the mark with this statement: we do not know more than the characters themselves most of the time. Apparently, Ms. Krauss "slowly discovered their connections" as well! The magazine will review Great House next month.

Thanks, Donna. I tried to find the article, but realized I'd have to buy the magazine or subscribe -- I think I subscribe to too much already to add another subscription!

Part 4, for the last two months of the year and with my latest two reviews, is here!