Book-Book (Read It)

Book Review: Sister by Rosamund Lupton

This mystery set in London is written in the form of an extended letter to a murder victim by her sister, who is intent on finding the killer in the face of official indifference at best and hostility at worst.  Bee is a successful, somewhat straight-laced and reserved businesswoman living in Manhattan who returns to the UK when her free-spirit sister Tess goes missing. I guess that's all I'll say about the plot, because the layers unwind slowly and each little revelation is fun to encounter. It's a fast read, with plenty of plausible suspects and quite a bit of suspense, but what won me over was the characterization and the emotion woven through the story.  Classic mysteries never seem to allow the reader to grieve over the victim's death, but this book is full of grief, and yes, I mean that as a positive comment. It's also an interesting variation on the unreliable narrator, because readers are invited at every turn to join the official view of Bee as a little unhinged, so part of the suspense of the book is the question of Sane or Not? 

Book Review: Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson

Robinson's first novel is about two sisters who are cared for by an aunt after their mother drives her car into the same lake that claimed the life of their grandfather. The aunt, Sylvie, has been a drifter and has a few screws loose, although I don't think Robinson used those exact words. The younger sister, Lucille, longs for a conventional life, while Ruthie, the narrator, is drawn into Sylvie's world.

This book was thrust at me by a library patron who told me it had an amazing ending.  It was that recommendation that kept me motivated to read through many passages that were beautifully written, but sometimes too dreamlike and abstract for me to comprehend.  I don't think I'm intelligent enough for Marilynne Robinson in general, but when this book hunkered down into story and character, I liked it a lot.  And yes, the ending was amazing - a perfect piece of writing that takes one's breath away.

Book Review: Still Life by Louise Penny

I never read series.  I find series annoying.  I've read two books in this series and found them, as mysteries, mildly annoying, in that the endings were not tidy and the central mysteries not fairly clued.  However, the setting and the characters are so compelling that I can't keep away. Armand Gamache is an enormously appealing detective in the practically-perfect-in-every-way tradition of Lord Peter Wimsey. The quaint French Canadian village of Three Pines is filled with quirky, artsy, intelligent characters.  I love their little world, in spite of all the murders. This book, the first in the series (and smart people will read them in order, as I have not), is all about amateur artists and bow-hunting. I figured out the murderer halfway through the book - I guess I'll have to reconcile myself to the fact that Whodunit is not the point of this series.  On to book two.

Book Review: 11/22/63 by Stephen King

Ah, the King of Horror! Who would have thought that one of his best books would turn out to be a cross between alternative history and time-travel romance? Actually, there isn't much history per se in this tale of a man who goes back in time to stop the Kennedy assassination, but plenty of authentic period detail, and a rip-roaring good story. Like vintage King, it's very inventive, and fast-paced without being James Pattersonian.  The love story between the time-traveling English teacher and the heroic librarian feels real, and sweet, and gives the book the warmth of King's 2006 novel, Lisey's Story. Has the King gone mushy?  It's fine with me.

Book Review: The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

In the 2011 Booker Prize winner, elderly Tony Webster, divorced and a more or less peaceful failure, finds his life strategy of passive evasion challenged when he receives a bequest from the mother of a former lover. Smaller and less plotty than Arthur and George, this is beautifully, gracefully written, even though the narrative voice is fumbling and conversational. Is Tony an unreliable narrator? Can you be deemed unreliable if you are warning the reader throughout the book that your memory is untrustworthy? I'm still wondering. Although it ends with a dramatic - maybe melodramatic - revelation, overall the book is a realistic rumination on how all of us construct, and lose, the stories of our lives.

Book Review: Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones

This is an odd but compelling little book about an eccentric old man, Mr. Watts, who reads Great Expectations to a group of Pacific Island children whose lives have been shattered by civil war.  The book is narrated by a young teen-aged girl, Matilda, who is so entranced by the character of Pip that it makes her mother jealous. When combatants (we are never told precisely who these fighters are; the two sides are called simply “redskins” and “rambos”) arrive on the island,  they demand to meet this mysterious Mister Pip and do not believe that the villagers cannot produce him.

 Jones’s prose is simple and beautiful.  The voice of Matilda is lyrical, but not precious.  Her mother, Dolores, is a marvelous character.  My only reservation is that the violence late in the book creates a tone that contrast so starkly with the book’s overall tone that it did not work for me.  Doubtless Jones intended to shock his reader out of their dreams, but to me it seemed over the top.

Book Review: An Incomplete Revenge by Jacqueline Winspear

I dipped into this popular mystery series set in 1930s England “because it was there,” and found it enjoyable. Maisie Dobbs is a psychologist-detective and a former World War I nurse. This book, smack in the middle of the series, is set during the hops picking season in rural Kent. Maisie is investigating a series of mysterious thefts and fires and senses that the villagers, always happy to blame the incidents on Gypsies, know more than they let on. Maisie is an interesting character, the mystery here is neat and tidy, but the real appeal for me was the rich setting, and especially the chance to learn more about the customs and beliefs of English Gypsies.

Dickens was not paid by the word!

In honor of Charles Dickens's 200th birthday next month, can we stop spreading the myth that he was paid by the word?  He wasn't, period. Readers often offer up this myth because they think it gives them a legitimate excuse to dislike Dickens's books.  It's also a subtle slam on those of us who love his work, suggesting that we have been conned by someone with mercenary motives.

As far as wordiness, Dickens's style was in line with nineteenth century literature generally, although because he was a self-consciously popular writer, he probably had a higher quotient of bombast and sentimentality than some others. You either forgive him the bombast or you don't.  I do.

Let me repeat: Dickens was not paid by the word.  He wrote his novels in serialized format and he was paid by installment.  I suppose one could try to argue that he drew out his stories unnecessarily for the sake of the check, but I'd like to see the evidence for that.  If he was just tossing words around to the detriment of the story, he would not have been as popular as he was.  19th century readers who treated him like a rock star didn't complain about his wordiness.

If you don't like Dickens, just own that opinion.  Don't try to justify it with an urban legend.

Book Review: Death in the City of Light: The Serial Killer of Nazi-Occupied Paris by David King

This is the true story of Marcel Petiot, a Paris doctor who allegedly murdered untold numbers of people and stole their money and belongings under the guise of helping them escape occupied France. Besides detailing the investigation and trial, it provides a detailed picture of Paris during the Occupation: a chaotic and corrupt dance of mobsters, collaborators and Gestapo agents.

The book is being marketed as an Erik Larson read-alike, but I found it nowhere near as compelling as the Larson books I've read.  Mr. King's research is admirable, but perhaps too much of that research found its way into the final draft, and the overall tone of the book is very dry. I don't want to say that the book wasn't quite lurid enough.  Let's just say that Mr. King doesn't have Larson's skill at shaping a narrative.

Book Review: The Paris Wife by Paula McLain

If you enjoyed Woody Allen's movie Midnight in Paris, you might complement it with this fictionalized account of Ernest Hemingway's first wife, set in the Paris of the 1920s.  After innocent Hadley Richardson meets and marries the young aspiring writer, the pair move to Paris and become involved in the bohemian life, hobnobbing with cutting-edge artists as well as with hard-drinking rich people.  Theirs is the "good marriage" in a atmosphere of musical-chair relationships, but as Ernest's career takes off, the marriage suffers.

I really enjoyed this one. Hadley's voice sounds authentic, a smart and profoundly straight-laced person trying to cope with a cynical and hard-edged world. She contrasts herself with "modern" feminist women who are independent and are not content with being wives and mothers. But for whatever reason, I was not exasperated by her, nor did I hate Hemingway. The book makes both of them sympathetic.