Come Closer by Sara Gran

Thirty-four-year old Amanda is a happily married and successful New York architect. She and her husband Ed recently bought and renewed a house, and she’s finally living the kind of life she always wanted to live. Until, that is, the changes begin: it all starts with a tapping noise in the house at night, a tapping that seems to cease when Amanda is not around. And after that come the disturbing thoughts, the out-of-character impulses, and the dreams about a beautiful woman who seems to resemble an imaginary friend Amanda had as a child…

When I picked up Come Closer, I was convinced it was going to be a little out of my comfort zone. This is because… you know what, I can’t really tell you why. I knew beforehand what the story was going to be about, but this is such a short book that I’m just going to let you find out for yourselves. And “about” is entirely the wrong word anyway: the supernatural aspect of this story is one I can’t remember ever reading about before, but what truly mattered to me, what made me love this book, was the human and psychological side.

I wouldn’t quite say that Come Closer is ambiguous in the same sense that The Turn of the Screw is. In this case, the supernatural is clearly identified, even named. But at the same time, the story is told by Amanda, and as it progresses it becomes increasingly clear that we have reasons not to trust her. So yes, it’s entirely possible to see Come Closer as a story about madness. But regardless of what readers decide to make of its cause, the process Amanda goes through is absolutely terrifying.

We see from the beginning that Amanda is someone who’s slightly obsessed with neatness and control; with limits, with plans. And over two hundred pages, we watch her life explode out of the limits she set for it; we watch her relationship with Ed fall apart; we watch her lose herself, let go of everything she’s always believed about the universe, and drown under the weight of a new reality.

The scene that terrified me the most was one where Amanda and Ed are home watching TV, and she suddenly has the impulse to burn him with the cigarette she’s smoking. The scene worked as well as it did because I’m willing to bet we’ve all had images like that cross our minds. They aren’t necessarily impulses to do these things—they're just images. But they’re still horrifying, because what could be more disturbing than the thought of intentionally hurting someone we love? And what could be more frightening than imagining, just for a moment, that we want to?

I’m personally a bit wary of ever using the words “I’m incapable of”, because no matter how kind a person is, circumstances just might push them further than they ever thought they’d go. And being aware of this is probably part of what being a kind and compassionate person is all about anyway. What happens to Amanda, though, is that she loses—or gives up—the part of her that says no. And after a while, there is no going back.

The lovely person who sent me this book via Bookmooch also included a Bloomsbury Review interview with Sara Gran, and I was not surprised when she mentioned Shirley Jackson as one of her greatest influences. Like Jackson, Gran writes disturbing and suffocating psychological horror at its best.

Reviewed at:
Bibliolatry
Chasing Ray

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The Amnesiac by Sam Taylor

It all begins one summer when James Purdew is climbing the stairs of the apartment he shares with his girlfriend in Amsterdam. He falls and breaks his ankle, but more worrisome than the accident is the fact that for a moment, just before it happens, he cannot remember who he is at all. Trapped in the apartment during a heat wave, James becomes obsessed with his past - specifically with three years of his life, the years he spent at university in the city of H., about which he can remember nothing. James has kept diaries for years, but unfortunately the diaries of those years are locked inside a box, and James has lost a key.

When his relationship falls apart, James decides to return to England, to the city of H., so that he can find out the truth about his past. There, he finds a job restoring an old house that seems vaguely familiar, and when he uncovers the manuscript of an incomplete Victorian mystery, that story, too, seems more familiar than it has any right to be...

One thing is certain: The Amnesiac is one of the most original books I've read in a very long time. It's a murder mystery that isn't quite a murder mystery; it's a psychological thriller; it's a Gothic story complete with creepy mansion; it's a story about a man's search for his identity; it's a reflection on memory, its loss, and the extent to which what we remember makes us who we are; and it's a surreal tale with a sci-fi twist. I was hooked from the very start, and I had trouble putting it down. At the same time, however, I'm not sure how satisfying a story it is. I'll let you know why, but it will take some explaining, so please bear with me.

The Amnesiac reminded me quite a bit of authors like Haruki Murakami or Jonathan Carroll (and also of movies like Memento and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). Those of you who are fans of these authors will know that it's best not to expect definitive answers at the end of their books. Likewise, it's probably best not to expect them from The Amnesiac. I think I do know exactly what happens in this book - I think I have the answers. But another reader might think exactly the same and have come up with an entirely different set of answers. So yes, the solution to the mystery is ambiguous, and it's presented obliquely. I didn't find this frustrating, but I'm not sure it worked either. I realize that the ambiguity, the fact that the story isn't neat or satisfying, is very much a part of what The Amnesiac is trying to do. But the thing is, sometimes the story almost tried to be too clever and self-conscious for its own good.

There was something else that rubbed me the wrong way. In some of the book's most surreal moments, there were - ah, little sneering speeches about those foolish, arrogant people who believe in things like "science" or "logic" or "reason"; those silly and arrogant skpetics, ha ha ha. Some of the characters who say these things are unreliable to say the least, so it's not necessarily true that the book is endorsing what they say. And needless to say, everyone's entitled to their worldview, but there was something about the mocking tone that really got to me. But this is a bit of a sore spot for me, so it's possible that other readers wouldn't notice it at all.

I wasn't surprised to see that Sam Taylor thanks Oliver Sacks at the end of the book, as there were parts that reminded me quite a bit of him. The thing about Sacks, thought, the reason why I love him so, is that he loves science. His books are full of respect and appreciation for it, as well as of warmth and humanity. He realizes that dehumanizing people is in no way an intrinsic characteristic of the scientific method (and why must people keep forgetting that science is a method?), and that doing what he does, which is look at each of his patients as a person, does not mean that he has to dissociate himself from science. But this is probably not the place for me to channel Ben Goldacre, so I'll shut up about it now.

Moving on to the things I loved: I loved The Amnesiac's noir, nightmareish mood, as well as the occasional dark humour. I loved all the references to literature and music - The Go-Betweens! Also, Jorge Luís Borges and Philip Larkin play an important role in the story. I also loved that it was thoughtful and philosophical while still having a very exciting plot. One of the cleverest things about The Amnesiac is the narration, and sadly I can't say too much about that without spoilers. But after a certain point you begin to notice that what we're dealing with here isn't an ordinary third person narrator, thanks to passages such as this:

You may wonder how I can possibly know all this; how I can see the quicksilver, gossamer visions that flicker inside James Purdew’s mind, how I can feel every heart-swell an nerve-twitch in his body. But that, for the moment, must remain my little secret.

These passages become more and more frequent as the story progresses, and they're quite alarming, as I'm sure they're meant to be. This little extra mystery adds a new dimension to the story, which I thought was very well done.

In the end, I suspect that The Amnesiac is a love it or hate it sort of book. It's a bit funny that I'm saying this, considering that I neither loved it nor hated it, but I hope you're forgive me: it's just one of those odd books that I'm not quite sure how I feel about. But I'm definitely glad to have read it, and I'm looking forward to reading more of Sam Taylor's work in the future.

Interesting bits:

The boxes contained his diaries. These were his most valuable possessions, not because they held any astonishing secrets, but because without them he feared he would cease to be the same person. James did not trust his memory. He relied on the diaries to do much the remembering for him. They were the ropes that moored him to himself.

But hope, I can tell you, is an exhausting emotion; perhaps, along with fear, the most exhausting of all. It is like juggling eggs: the hope is the shell, and inside is despair. A single crack and the despair might spill everywhere, stain everything.

Someone should write a true-to-life detective story, James thought bleakly; an existential mystery in which the answer is not to be found, clear and logical, at the book’s end, but only to be glimpsed, of half-grasped, at various moments during its narrative; to be sensed throughout, like a nagging tune that you cannot quite remember, but ever defined, never seen whole; to shift its shape and position and meaning with each passing day; to be sometimes forgotten completely, other times obsessed over, but never truly understood; not to be something walked towards but endlessly around.

(Which is actually a pretty good way of describing The Amnesiac.)

Other Opinions:
Bookgirl’s Nightstand (Thank you again for sending me this book, Iliana!)
Book-a-rama
Cheryl’s Book Nook
Books I'm Reading

(Did I miss yours?)

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Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett

Most Discworld books have complex plots that are notoriously difficult to summarize, and Unseen Academicals is no exception. This is the story of the revival of football in the city of Ankh-Mopork, which begins when Unseen University creates its very own team. It’s also the story of Mr Nutt, who thinks he’s a goblin but isn’t quite sure, and of Glenda, a smart and determined young woman who runs the University’s night kitchen. And it’s also a Romeo and Juliet-esque (albeit much less dramatic) love story between supports of two rival football teams.

In case you’re wondering, yes, football does play a big role in the plot of Unseen Academicals, but the story is not about football, not really. What is it about, then? Well, conflicts and immigration, dehumanizing others and stereotypes and urban violence; the fashion world, people being judgemental while telling themselves everything they’re doing is for The Greater Good, acceptance, belonging, success, passion and enthusiasm; being who you are, other people letting you be who you are, remembering history while not letting it define you, the fact that there are always several sides to one story, and…well, you get the point. As the rest of the Discworld series, it’s really about life.

Unseen Academicals is full of humour, wisdom, and passion. Terry Pratchett excels at showing people both at their most glorious and at their most ridiculous, and he does this without ever ridiculing them. I’ve never been a sports fan myself, but I have always respected other people’s enthusiasm for it, and I see no point in pretending that some passions or interests are intrinsically more valuable or valid than others. This book, too, is filled with nothing but respect for that kind of passion, and there are scenes that capture it so well that I was moved. You most certainly don’t need to care about football to take the characters’ emotions seriously.

I think I'd pair Unseen Academicals with other very Ankh-Morpork books in my head: Going Postal and Making Money, for example, or The Truth. They may not be my favourite Discworld books, but they’re still…well, I can’t tell you what they’re like because I used my cheesecake analogy recently on Nick Hornby, but you get the point, which is that I still like them a whole lot

As my poor attempt at a synopsis might have indicated, there's a lot going on at the same time here, which is not at all an uncommon in Discworld books. I don't want you to think this means the plot is confusing, though, because it absolutely isn't. But Unseen Academicals was exceptional in that I actually cared about all subplots more or less equally—with Mr Nutt’s story having only a slight lead. Mr Nuts is... well, I can't tell you much about who or what Mr Nutt is without giving too much away, but trust me, he's an unforgettable character. And so is Glenda. By the end of the book I cared as much about them as about the old favourites who made appearances, like Angua or Vimes or the Patrician.

Well, okay, maybe not as much as I care about the Patrician, but that's because Lord Vetinari. is just something else. I'd explain why, but Aarti put it so well on her recent post on why she would marry him that I'll just send you her way. Needless to say, I was thrilled that we get to see lots of him in this book.

Reading a new Discworld novel always feels like coming home. May there be many more of them.

Favourite bits:

‘Well, yes, but it’s not about the football.’
‘You’re saying that football is not about football?’
Glenda wished she’d had a proper education, or, failing that, any real education at all. But she was not going to back off now. ‘It’s the sharing,’ she said. ‘It’s being part of the crowd. It’s chanting together. It’s all of it. The whole thing.’

‘It’s a kind of medicine with words,’ said Nutt, carefully. ‘Sometimes people fool themselves into believing things that aren’t true. Sometimes that can be quite dangerous for the person. They see the world in a wrong way. They won’t let themselves see that what they believe is wrong. But often there is a part of the mind that does know, and the right words can let it out.’ He gave them a worried look.

‘…The Shove makes up the chants. They just happen. They just, like, come out of the air. And the pies are pretty awful, that’s true, but when you’re in the Shove, and it’s mucky weather, and the water’s coming through your coat, and your shoes are leaking, and then you bite into your pie, and you know that everyone else is biting into their pie, and the grease slides down your sleeve, well, sir, I don’t have the words for it, sir, I really don’t, sir. There’s a feeling I can’t describe, but it’s a bit like being a kid at Hogswatch, and you can’t just buy it, sir, you can’t write it down or organize it or make it shiny or make it tame.”

Other Opinions:
Ooh Books
Paperback Reader
I’m Booking It
Graeme’s Fantasy Book Review
Booklust
(Did I miss yours?)

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Kit’s Wilderness by David Almond

After his grandmother dies, Kit and his family move to Stoneygate, an old mining town, so they can be with his grandfather. There, Kit becomes drawn to the wilderness, the empty space between the houses and the spot of the ancient coal pit. He also almost-befriends a boy named Askew, who everyone believes to be trouble. But as is often the case, there are secrets behind his troublemaking. Kit has to adapt to a new school, a new town, and a new reality. And soon after the move, he realizes that he also has to deal with something much more difficult: his grandfather’s serious illness.

I had no idea how much Kit’s Wilderness was affecting me until, in the last few chapters, I suddenly found myself crying. It’s not uncommon for books to make me cry, but this time it was unexpected – it really crept up on me. How does David Almond do it?

I noticed quite a few parallels between this book and The Savage, which I read and loved earlier this year: both focus on storytelling quite a bit, and both blur the line between stories and reality. Both emphasize the healing power of stories as well as human connections, and both are about young boys dealing with loss – or imminent loss. But it’s not that reading The Savage first made Kit’s Wilderness feel redundant; not at all. It’s just that these are very David Almond-ish themes. And I love him for that.

As the previous Almond books I’ve read, Kit’s Wilderness was very tender and very human in a subtle sort of way. Also, a lot of what I said about River Boy last week is true of this book too – I really meant it when I said Bowler and Almond reminded me of each other. I loved the sympathy with which John Askew, a working class boy with a difficult family background, was treated—a sympathy that never brushes pity or condescension. In a way, this is a story about class, and about the all too real ways in which dire economic circumstances affect people. But it’s also about seeing beyond appearances, believing in people, truly respecting them, giving them a chance.

And also as with River Boy, I loved the protagonist’s relationship with his grandfather. Kit’s grandfather tells him stories about his days as a miner, about how the town used to be, about the group of boys who died in the pit in one of the much too common mining accidents, about how much he's seen the world change in his lifetime. And then, when due to his illness his memory starts to go (which is absolutely heartbreaking to see), Kit keeps his stories.

Another thing I loved was the book’s sense of place: I’ve never been to the part of England where the story is set, but Bart, who knows it well, says the landscape is spot on. Even though the wilderness is described in a magical, almost surreal sort of way, it still feels very much grounded in reality, and very much alive.

I worry a bit that I’m making it sound like any David Almond book is just like any other David Almond book, which is really not the case. They do seem to have a similar tone, as well as thematic similarities, but they also each have their own very specific mood. Kit’s Wilderness’s is like that moment when the sun suddenly breaks through in a very overcast day. David Almond is lovely and perceptive and I want to read all his books.

Favourite passages:

Some days it was worse, long periods when he just sat on the sofa or at the table with his body slumped and the blankness in his eyes. One day I saw with Mum after school in the living room and we watched him: two minutes, three minutes, four minutes, and he went on with his eyes just dead and blank, staring, but like he was seeing nothing inside and nothing outside.
‘Oh, dear,’ Mum whispered. ‘Poor soul.’
‘Maybe he’s just remembering,’ I told her. ‘Like he always did.’
‘No, son,’ she whispered. ‘What he’s doing is forgetting.’

‘The earth endlessly reforms itself,’ he said. ‘The continents shift, the surface cracks, fire bursts out from below. The hills are simply blown away. The sea swells and shrinks. The world tilts on its axis and brings us fiery heat or icy cold. Deserts or the ice cap creep across us. All we see and all we know is engulfed, swallowed up, regurgitated.’
He smiled.
‘We are puny little things,’ he said. ‘The beast called Time is our great predator, and there is no escape from it.’ He smiled again. ‘However. That is not to say there is no need to do our homework.’

They read it too:
The Written World & Bart’s Bookshelf (joint review)
Inkweaver
Fiddle-de-dee’s not English
Biblio File

(Let me know if I missed yours.)

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Time for Comics - a Read-a-thon Mini-Challenge

ETA: The mini-challenge is now closed, and the winner has been announced at the read-a-thon site. You'll all welcome to still do it just for fun, though!

Welcome, Read-a-thon participants! My mini-challenge is simple: what I suggest is that you take a break from your book and spend at least 10 minutes reading a webcomic. You can catch up with an old favourite, discover new webcomics, or explore this storytelling medium for the very first time. Warning: some webcomics are so good that you just might get sucked in and suddenly realize that a whole hour has passed. But that's okay, and I think that each page should definitely count for your read-a-thon totals!

When you're done, write a short post about the webcomic you read and what you thought of it, and come back here and leave me a link to your post. I'll randomly draw a name from the comments and the winner will get a comic or graphic novel of their choice up to $15.

This mini-challenge will be open for the next 3 hours, and both readers and cheerleaders are welcome to participate.

If you're new to webcomics, here are a few suggestions of what you could read:

• No Rest for the Wicked: One of my favourite webcomic. Fairy tales!
  
  
• Bayou: Another one of my favourites. A dark story of a little girl trying to rescue her father, set in the Deep South in the 1930's.
  
  
• Gunnerkrigg Court: An awesome-sounding mystery/adventure story, recommended by Darla D!
  
  
• High Moon: Another one I haven't yet read myself, but it's a fantastic sounding historical western-ish horror-ish story.
  
  
• Questionable Content: Set in a world similar to ours, except that it has cute walking talking and thinking computers. Lots of references to music, humour and very likeable and unique characters.
  
  
• Penny Arcade: Geeky humour to the max, especially, but not only, videogame related.


• xkcd: More geeky humour! Don't miss the alt text!
  
  
• Dork Tower: You guessed it - more geekiness!
  
  
• Unshelved: Dewey recommended this one to me when I first hosted this mini-challenge in June 2008. It's set in a library, and the protagonist is a deliciously sarcastic comic book and fantasy loving YA librarian. What's not to love?
  
  
• Unshelved Bookclub: Basically mini book reviews in webcomic format. Here are a few: Coraline, The Colour of Magic, Ender's Game, Little Brother, Jpod, Mouse Guard, A Wizard of Earthsea.
  
  
• Goblins: A humorous fantasy setting, a good story, and interesting characters.
  
  
• Nice Hair: Ever wondered what would happen if Neil Gaiman, Tim Burton and Robert Smith were to share a house? Now you can find out!

And you can find many, many more webcomic suggestions at this Wikipedia list.

(The art in the banner, in case anyone's wondering, is from No Rest of the Wicked, Questionable Content, Goblins and Penny Arcade. And yes, I used it back in 2008 and am totally plagiarizing myself.)

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Read-a-thon tomorrow

*

To those of you participating in Dewey's 24-hour Read-a-thon tomorrow, good luck! And if you're on the fence, remember, it's still not too late to sign up. You can participate for any amount of time - there's absolutely no pressure to stay up for the whole 24 hours, promise!

As I only have co-hosting duties for 6 hours, I briefly considered signing up as a reader. But I always have trouble balancing computer time and reading time, and since I'll also be cheerleading and hosting a mini-challenge, I thought it'd be wiser not to. Besides, I don't have Eva's superhero powers! Who knows, though, maybe I'll also be able to get some reading done.

Care, Chris, Debi and Eva took the words off my mouth about why the Read-a-thon is now always a bit bittersweet. Soon it will be a year that Dewey, its founder, passed away. She was an amazing person and a great friend, and I miss her terribly. But it makes me happy that she inspired so many people to devote 24 hours to reading and to geeking out together online. I think she'd be proud that we're doing this, and I know she'd want us to have fun.

Have a great time tomorrow, everyone!

*(LOLcat meant to illustrate what those of us awake at the end will be typing.)

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River Boy by Tim Bowler

Jess’ grandfather, a slightly eccentric painter, is dying. It all begins while he's watching her swim one morning, and suddenly clutches his hand over his heart and crashes into the pool. He stays at the hospital for three days, after which he stubbornly refuses to be kept any longer. Jess' family had previously made plans to go on holidays to the place where Grandfather grew up, a place he hadn't visited in many decades, and he still insists on going. He's hoping that the peace and quiet will allow him to finish one last painting. The painting, a river scene, is called "River Boy", but as much as she looks, Jess sees no boy. Until, that is, when swimming in the river near the cottage where they're staying, she begins to feel a presence watching her...

River Boy is such a lovely book - even more so than I was expecting. I have to agree with Jenny, who said earlier this year that Tim Bowler reminded her slightly of David Almond. Part of it is the seamless interweaving of magic and reality. The book has some fantasy elements, but they're just barely present, either just beyond our reach or hiding in plain view. The setting itself feels magic - it's an unspecified location somewhere in England, and all we know about it is that it's isolated and there are cottages and hills and a river. But the way Tim Bowler describes the surrounding nature makes it feel alive.

The main thing that reminded me of Almond, however, was the subdued but very tender tone. This could have easily been a saccharine or pseudo-inspirational story, but it's really not. And the reason why not is because the tone is just right. So instead, what it is is a very gentle and lovely and bittersweet story about accepting death and coming to terms with loss.

Another thing Bowler gets just right is Jess’s relationship with her grandfather, which is portrayed very movingly. Jess' Grandfather is a very brisk and at times even unpleasant man. But he and Jess have a special connection, and thanks to this connection he is able to be vulnerable enough in front of her to accept help with he needs it. I can't specify this more because it's better if you find out exactly what happens for yourselves, but there are some very touching scenes.

Grandparents in literature fascinate me, specially close connections between a grandparent and a child. Possibly this is because I never really got to know any of mine. They either lived far away or passed when I was still very young. Do you have any grandparent books you'd recommend? I've read The Summer Book by Tove Jansson, which was lovely, and just recently I finished Kit's Wilderness by David Almond, which would also qualify (and which reminded me of this book, ha. I don't think Bowler is trying to be Almond or anything, and they both definitely have their own distinctive voice. It's probably more of a case of great minds thinking alike).

The reason why I picked up River Boy (other than Bart's recommendation, that is) is because I'm unofficially reading through the Carnegie Medal winners. I've been doing it for the same reason why I read through any award winners, really: I tend to like them. Anyway, I said "unofficially", but I've been meaning to start an official project to read them for months now. I even told my friend Susan we could join efforts, since she has her own Secret Project in the works, and then completely failed to follow through (I'm so sorry, Susan! I seem to volunteer to do more stuff than I can possibly handle while still remaining sane).

Would anyone be interested in this? It'd be a relaxed thing - if you don't like one of the winners, by all means move on to the next - and with no time limit, of course. At this point it might take me until the end of the year to put things together, but I thought I'd throw the idea out there and see if there's any interest. And back to River Boy: Read it. It's short, but it'll stay with you.

My favourite bit:

Yes, she was going to be OK. She wasn’t OK yet; she wouldn’t be OK for some time; but she would be OK one day. She would grieve, just like Mum and Dad, especially Dad, and her grief would be deep, and it would hurt her.
But she wanted that grief; she knew it was natural and right, just as the passing of this strange and wonderful man was natural and right, just as her own death would one day be natural and right. But there was much living to do first, much living, much growing.

Other opinions: Bart’s Bookshelf

(Did I miss yours?)

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Aarti at Booklust has a weekly feature called Rosie’s Riveters, in which she asks bloggers to pick one of the most memorable female characters they’ve come across and tell readers about her. I volunteered to contribute, and my post is up this week. My riveter (I wonder what she’d say about being called a riveter, ha) is Granny Weatherwax from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. Please click over to Aarti’s blog if you’re interested in finding out why I love her! And then stick around, because Aarti is awesome.

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Virginity or Death! by Katha Pollitt

Virginity or Death! And Other Social and Political Issues of Our Time is another collection of political essays which Katha Pollitt originally wrote for The Nation – this time dating from 2001 to 2005. I decided to pick up this book because I absolutely loved Pollitt’s earlier essay collection, Reasonable Creatures. It wouldn’t be quite fair to say I didn’t enjoy this one as much, but it’s true that I didn’t get as much out of it, for one simple reason: it’s even more specifically American than her earlier work, and as a result I sometimes didn’t quite know what she was talking about. These essays were originally published as a weekly column, and so it's only natural that some of them comment on very specific happenings in American internal politics. Pollitt does give the reader references, but sometimes I simply lacked the cultural context.

However, I very much enjoy learning about other countries and cultures, and I’m in fact going to count this book for the World Citizen challenge. Also, the essays that felt a bit alien to me were very much in the minority – quite a few of them deal with worldwide issues, or with issues that, while American, are relevant for the rest of the world too. Such was the case with my favourite essay, “Cold comfort.” It’s about women who were forced into prostitution in Japanese-occupied areas during WW2, a situation that despite all my WW2 reading I had no idea about.. Pollitt recommends the book Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery in the Japanese Military During World War II by Yoshimi Yoshiaka, which I’ll be sure to seek out.

Katha Pollit is often sarcastic, unapologetic, and even a bit confrontational. I love her, though: her style, her irony, her sense of humour. I don’t think that her being so outspoken is at all a bad thing, but I do suspect that because of her tone, these essays, sensible and grounded though they are in my view, are not likely to appeal to anyone whose position is not at least somewhat similar to hers (which is to say, quite liberal). I’m okay with that, though – as someone who tends to be too apologetic, I admire people like Pollitt, who are not in the least afraid to speak their minds.

Katha Pollitt always writes from a feminist perspective, but not just about specific women’s issues. Of course, the rationale behind her approach is that a feminist perspective is always relevant because any human issue will also affect women. Virginity or Death! covers topics like 9/11, the wars in Afghanistan and Iran, social justice, the 2004 American presidential elections, AIDS, childcare, reproductive rights, women’s rights in the Middle East, lbgtq rights, and the debunking of flawed studies that try to naturalize social differences between men and women – and let me just say I love how she manages to do this and still show an appreciation for science.

For me, reading Katha Pollitt is like talking to that one friend you always go to when you want to figure out how you feel about certain issues – even when you don’t completely agree, you know that the conversation will leave you feeling more enlightened.

Passages I liked:

Despite the onslaught of negative media, and large audiences receptive to it, and despite the real-life opprobrium that can befall a woman perceived as uppity, promiscuous, or insufficiently shaven of leg, feminism persists because it fits the actual conditions in which women live. If women are educated, if they choose their own husbands (or choose to have none) and determine the size of their families, if they can support themselves or know that they could do so if they had to, then they are going to feel that they deserve the rights and privileges and respect society accords adult human beings, This is so, whether or not they call themselves feminists and even if they stay home taking care of children.

How many children have these now-gray gentlemen produced in a lifetime of strenuous heterosexuality? None. But because they are men, nobody’s writing books about how they blew their lives, missed the brass ring, find life a downward spiral of serial girlfriends and work that’s lost its savor. We understand, when we think about men, that people often say they want one thing while making choices that over time show that they care more about something else, that circumstances get in the way of many of our wishes and that for many “have kids” occupies a place on the to-do list between “learn Italian” and “exercise”.
Change the sexes, though, and the same story gets a different slant.

Belkin’s idea of feminism is a caricature of the actual women’s movement. “The women’s movement was largely about grabbing a fair share of power—making equal money, standing at the helm in the macho realms of business and government and law,” she writes. But feminism was never about shoulder pads and power suits, or taking “only the shortest of maternity leaves,” or “becoming a man.” Feminism is about changing the ground rules, not just entering the game. Feminists, in fact, are the ones who first put forward the idea of balance between work and family—for both sexes—of a more humane and flexible and less hierarchical work place, of childcare as a task for both parents and for society as a whole. Belkin puts these ideas forward as the antidote to feminism, when they are, in fact, what feminism is.

Reviewed at:
Any Good Books/Mixed Reviews
The Imponderabilia of Actual Life
Echidine of the Snakes

(Did I miss yours?)

And here’s an interview with Katha Pollitt about this book.

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Howards End by E.M. Forster

The plot of Howards End is difficult to summarize, but here's an attempt: the Schlegel sisters, Margaret and Helen, meet the Wilcoxes by chance when both families are on holidays. Helen is later invited to spend some time at Howards End, the Wilcox family’s home, and ends up getting briefly involved with their younger son Paul – with tragicomic results. This is only the first of many interactions between these two very different families. And let’s not forget Leonard Bast, a clerk who’s hanging on for dear life to the very lower ladder of the middle class, and who meets the sisters when Helen accidentally steals his umbrella at a concert…

These are just the basics of the plot – but the basics of the plot probably make Howards End sound a lot less interesting than it actually is. And it’s of course no coincidence that the last book I said this about was the lovely On Beauty.

Let me start by telling you a little about the characters: I loved the Schlegel sisters (who were apparently modelled on the Bloomsbury group). They are idealistic, but not in a naïve, uninformed way. They care about music, literature, philosophy, the suffragist movement, all the social questions they come across, really. But at the same time, they’re not… ah, let Margaret speak for herself: More and more do I refuse to draw my income and sneer at those who guarantee it.

The Wilcoxes are different – keener to maintain social rules and divisions, which is a nicer way of saying that they are very prejudiced indeed. But what makes Howards End so extraordinary is the fact that all these characters are presented as fully human. Nothing is oversimplified; nobody is reduced to a stereotype. At its core, this novel is about treating people as people, always as people, regardless of the arbitrary social divisions most of us ilve by. It’s about connecting, of course; about seeing beyond differences and barriers, and about reaching out.

The tone of the narration very much reinforces this theme – there’s such warmth to it; it’s so gentle and inclusive and humane. E.M Forster is a Modernist who reads like a Victorian. He often comments on the plot – and though he does this self-consciously, the effect is still very nineteenth-century. The main difference is that he never sounds authoritative. There’s humour in his asides, and he writes with such obvious sympathy and even tenderness for his characters that the commentary never feels intrusive. And importantly, the reader never feels that it closes the possibilities of the story – it might nudge you in a direction or another, but it never actually pushes you.

The humour works better than the more reflective moments, and the writing (and even some of the plot) is occasionally, by today’s standards, nearly over the top. But I only loved Howards End more for it – I regarded even the most melodramatic passages with the same tenderness with which I regard D.H. Lawrence’s constant repetitions, for example. I loved the voice of the story so much that I was predisposed to forgive it anything.

A (spoilers-free) note of the ending: it surprised me, and I think it was the only instance in which the story became almost too idealistic. But this is perhaps my inner cynic getting the better of me. Maybe the two family’s final arrangements would work. And doubts aside, I want to give Forster a hug for ending things on such a hopeful note – especially after making me believe that they could not possibly end well.

I read Zadie Smith’s On Beauty last year, and though I knew it was based on Howards End, reading it I was surprised that so many scenes were familiar. This doesn’t make me appreciate Smith’s novel any less, though – it’s a lovely tribute to a lovely classic. Both are books I wholeheartedly recommend: they offer social commentary that is humorous and never heavy-handed, they have memorable casts of characters, and they’re both about how what connects us outweighs what divides us, much more than we realize.

A few bits I loved (and the first in particular is an example of what I mean by almost over the top, but endearingly so):

That was "how it happened," or, rather, how Helen described it to her sister, using words even more unsympathetic than my own. But the poetry of that kiss, the wonder of it, the magic that there was in life for hours after it--who can describe that? It is so easy for an Englishman to sneer at these chance collisions of human beings. To the insular cynic and the insular moralist they offer an equal opportunity. It is so easy to talk of "passing emotion," and how to forget how vivid the emotion was ere it passed. Our impulse to sneer, to forget, is at root a good one. We recognize that emotion is not enough, and that men and women are personalities capable of sustained relations, not mere opportunities for an electrical discharge. Yet we rate the impulse too highly. We do not admit that by collisions of this trivial sort the doors of heaven may be shaken open.

And the voice in the gondola rolled on, piping melodiously of Effort and Self-Sacrifice, full of high purpose, full of beauty, full even of sympathy and the love of men, yet somehow eluding all that was actual and insistent in Leonard's life. For it was the voice of one who had never been dirty or hungry, and had not guessed successfully what dirt and hunger are.

On a perfect day, when the sky seemed blue porcelain, and the waves of the discreet little bay beat gentlest of tattoos upon the sand, Margaret hurried up through the rhododendrons, confronted again by the senselessness of Death. One death may explain itself, but it throws no light upon another: the groping inquiry must begin anew. Preachers or scientists may generalize, but we know that no generality is possible about those whom we love; not one heaven awaits them, not even one oblivion.

Other opinions:
Trish’s Reading Nook, Ticket to Anywhere, A Striped Armchair, and a lovely post at Tales from the Reading Room about Forster and his work.

(Let me know if I missed yours!)

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The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale

I’m not – or at least I don’t think I am – usually drawn to true crime, but so many of you went on about how good The Suspicions of Mr Whicher was that I had to cave and give it a try. And plus, it’s Victorian true crime. How could I not be interested? This book is about a murder case that took place on 30th June 1860 in a quiet country road in Road, Kent. Like in a typical country house mystery, the house was locked from the inside, which automatically meant that all of its inhabitants—an upper class family and their servants—were suspects.

I’m not exactly squeamish, but I have to say that the first few chapters of the book, where the murder is described, were hard to read. This is because the victim, Saville, is only three years old. He’s removed from his cot at night and killed—I won’t tell you how, but it’s quite horrifying. The way Kate Summerscale describes the violence is very clinical, but it was hard not to feel queasy. Still, I want to clarify that The Suspicions of Mr Whicher doesn’t feel exploitative or gratuitously scandalous in the least. It’s always respectful and humane, and that was one of the reasons why I loved it so much.

The Suspicions of Mr Whicher reads like a mystery novel—we follow the case from the beginning; we’re only given answers as those investigating it come to them. As the title indicates, there’s a particular focus on Jack Whicher, a renowned Victorian detective who inspired Sergeant Cuff in Wilkie Collin’s The Moonstone. Which brings me to my next point—not only does this book read like a mystery, but it’s also about mysteries. It goes beyond this specific murder case to focus in the impact it had on Victorian culture, particularly on the emerging detective novel. It also focuses on how the image of the detective evolved, both in literature and in reality.

Kate Summerscale establishes parallels with books such as The Moonstone, The Woman in White and The Turn of the Screw. Having read all of these recently, I was of course extremely interested. I can especially see the traces of Road Hill House murder in The Moonstone—the crime is a lot tamer, but the basic elements are mostly the same. The downside of all these literary allusions is that there were spoilers for all of the aforementioned books, and also for Lady Audley’s Secret, I assume. I skipped ahead as soon as Summerscale began to discuss it, because I’m planning to read it soon and didn’t want to have it spoiled.

But as I was saying, the cultural and literary analysis of the impact this murder case had on Victorian sensibilities is what makes The Suspicions of Mr Whicher so interesting. This brutal murder didn’t take place in a gritty alley, but in an upper-class house in the country, which forced the Victorians to rethink assumptions about class, gender, money, respectability, and how all of these relate to violence and crime. These were the very same issues—the cracks in Victorian ideology—that made all those Gothic classics I’ve been reading so interesting to me.

If The Suspicions of Mr Whicher has a flaw, it’s the fact that sometimes it could have gone further—it could have asked more questions; explored the contradictions a bit more. But this is really a minor quibble—the book is on the long side as it is, and I understand why Summerscale couldn’t discuss everything in detail. Now that I got my quibble out of the way, I can wholeheartedly recommend this book, even to those who aren’t normally the biggest fans of non-fiction. Like the best mysteries, it’s impossible to put down.

Interesting passages:

The word ‘clue’ derives from ‘clew’, meaning a ball of thread or yarn. It had come to mean ‘that which points the way’ because of the Greek myth in which Theseus uses a ball of yearn, given to him by Ariadne, to find his way out of the Minotaur’s labyrinth. The writers of the mid-nineteenth century still had this imagine in mind when they used the word. ‘There is always a pleasure in unravelling a mystery, in catching the gossamer clue which will guide to certainly,’ observed Elizabeth Gaskell in 1848.

To get at the inner thoughts and feelings of the Kent household was more a matter of instinct than logic, what Charlotte Brontë described as ‘sensitiveness – that peculiar, apprehensive, detective faculty’. A vocabulary was emerging to capture the elusive new detective methods. In 1840 the word ‘hunch’ was first used to mean a push or nudge towards a solution. In the 1850s ‘lead’ gained the meaning of a guiding indication or a clue.

The mid-Victorians were transfixed by the idea that faces and bodies could be ‘read’, that the inner life was imprinted on the shapes or features and the flutter of the fingers. Perhaps the fascination stemmed from a premium placed on privacy: it was terrifying and thrilling that thoughts were visible, that the inner life, so jealously guarded, could be instantly exposed. People’s bodies might betray them, like the heartbeats of the killer in Poe’s ‘The Tell-Tale Heart (1843), which seemed to pound out his guilt.

Perhaps this is the purpose of detective investigations, real and fictional – to transform sensational, horror and grief into a puzzle, to make it go away. ‘The detective story,’ observed Raymond Chandler in 1949, ‘is a tragedy with a happy ending.’ A storybook detective starts by confronting us with a murder and ends by absolving us of it. He clears us of guilt. He relieves us of uncertainty. He removes us from the presence of death.

Other opinions: My Cozy Book Nook, A Book a Week, Caribousmom, Farm Lane Books, Medieval Bookworm, Stuck in a Book, Semicolon, You’re GOTTA Read This, Passionate Booklover, As Usual, I Need More Bookshelves, Cynical Optimism, Raging Bibliomania, You Can Never Have Too Many Books, Jenny's Books, BooksPlease, Leeswamme's Blog

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The Sunday Salon - In Which I Lose My Mind

So, recording a vlog was way up there on my mental list of Things I'll Try My Best To Avoid, just a few spots below "getting hit by lightening". But then I made a deal with my friend Debi: I'd vlog if she vlogged. Because she's just as shy as I am, I thought I was pretty safe, but I should have known better. Debi made a vlog with the explicit purpose of getting me to make one too. Now, isn't that cruel?

As you're all about to see, I'm much better at communicating through writing than by speaking, so no, this will not become a regular feature here. And if I sound nervous, well, that's because I was. The camera shakes sometimes because the laptop was on my knees, and my legs started shaking. I kid you not.

(Before Chris, Debi or Amanda ask, yes, I did mispronounce my own name. I blame nerves, and also the fact that I suck. Sorry guys! But seriously, this ought to show you how much I don't mind it being pronounced the American way. I do it myself occasionally!)

Video removed. I can only be brave for so long :P


Books (briefly) mentioned:

• The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale
  
• Howards End by E.M. Forster
  
• River Boy by Tim Bowler
  
• Chiggers by Hope Larson
  
• Virginity or Death! by Katha Pollitt
  
• Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link

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The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

The Turn of the Screw is the story of a governess who is hired to look after two orphans, Miles and Flora, in a country house in Essex. The children's uncle lives in London, and he expressly tells the governess that he doesn't wish to be disturbed. She is free to make any decisions concerning the children, and she is not to waste his time by communicating them to him. At first, the young woman is quite taken by her charges. But when she begins to see the spectres of two people who were close to the children and died before she was hired, she starts to suspect that there's more to them than meets the eye.

I'm going to have to go on on about framing yet again, because the way this story is presented is very interesting: the story of the governess is a manuscript that an unnamed narrator hears a friend read out loud. The governess is dead, we are told, and the story took place some time ago. The context is that of an exchange of chilly tales. The governess's story, then, is framed as a ghost story, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that this doesn't necessarily provide any clues to solve the ambiguity at the heart of this novella.

Both possibilities are disturbing, and perhaps the ambiguity makes it even more effective as a horror story. We don't know if this is a tale of madness or one of supernatural occurrences, and this might encourage each reader to go for the possibility that unsettles them the most (guess what mine is?). The children do feel sinister, but then of course they would, as we only see them through their governess's eyes. And we have no way of knowing how much she's not telling us. There are many questions that remain unanswered, but fortunately this didn't prove as frustrating as I feared it would be.

Another thing that surprised me was how much The Turn of the Screw unsettled me. It wasn't necessarily the Gothic elements, or the atmosphere, or the lonely country mansion (and the loneliness of the governess). It wasn't the apparitions, or the seamless mingling of domesticity and sinister elements, though those do add up. What unsettled me the most were the social dynamics - the power dynamics, really - that are just under the surface of the story. Even though the governess is given free reign by her employer, who has the upper hand? She, the children's uncle, or the children themselves? We are of course seeing things through the eyes of someone who is not necessarily reliable, but all along the governess' positions feel... precarious. One word from her charges could send her away - or could it? Are the children vulnerable, or is she? Uncertainty aside, there's something about the whole arrangement that feels very oppressive - and very Victorian, of course.

A brief note on the writing: I got used to it after a couple of chapters, but James' writing style is one that demands my full concentration. If I let my mind wander for even a few seconds, I lose track of the sentence and have to start again. And one of the things that took some getting used to was his use of commas. He'll stick one in every single place where it's grammatically admissible to stick one, and as a result the flow of his writing is very different from the kind of flow I'm used to. Example:

This person proved, on her presenting herself, for judgement, at a house in Harley Street, that impressed her as vast and imposing—this prospective patron proved a gentleman, a bachelor in the prime of life, such a figure as had never risen, save in a dream or an old novel, before a fluttered, anxious girl out of a Hampshire vicarage. One could easily fix his type; it never, happily, dies out.

Bits I liked:

But as my little conductress, with her hair of gold and her frock of blue, danced before me round corners and pattered down passages, I had the view of a castle of romance inhabited by a rosy sprite, such a place as would somehow, for diversion of the young idea, take all color out of storybooks and fairytales. Wasn't it just a storybook over which I had fallen adoze and adream? No; it was a big, ugly, antique, but convenient house, embodying a few features of a building still older, half-replaced and half-utilized, in which I had the fancy of our being almost as lost as a handful of passengers in a great drifting ship. Well, I was, strangely, at the helm!

I can hear again, as I write, the intense hush in which the sounds of evening dropped. The rooks stopped cawing in the golden sky, and the friendly hour lost, for the minute, all its voice. But there was no other change in nature, unless indeed it were a change that I saw with a stranger sharpness. The gold was still in the sky, the clearness in the air, and the man who looked at me over the battlements was as definite as a picture in a frame. That's how I thought, with extraordinary quickness, of each person that he might have been and that he was not. We were confronted across our distance quite long enough for me to ask myself with intensity who then he was and to feel, as an effect of my inability to say, a wonder that in a few instants more became intense.

...the element of the unnamed and untouched became, between us, greater than any other, and that so much avoidance could not have been so successfully effected without a great deal of tacit arrangement. It was as if, at moments, we were perpetually coming into sight of subjects before which we must stop short, turning suddenly out of alleys that we perceived to be blind, closing with a little bang that made us look at each other—for, like all bangs, it was something louder than we had intended—the doors we had indiscreetly opened.

They read it too: Out of the Blue, Bending Bookshelf, Melody's Reading Corner, Tales from the Reading Room, Age 30+: A Lifetime of Books, ChainReading, Booknotes by Lisa, Bart's Bookshelf, Moo's Place, Reading, Writing, Working, Playing, BiblioAddict, Life and Times of a "New" New Yorker, somewhere i have never travelled, Steph & Tony Investigate!

(Please let me know if I missed yours.)

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Ash by Malinda Lo

Not long after Aisling's mother dies, her father marries again. Aisling's - or Ash's - stepmother is called Lady Isobel, and she has two daughters of her own, Ana and Clara. None of them are particularly fond of Ash, and after some time her standing in the family becomes that of a servant. Sounds familiar? Yes, Ash is a loose retelling of "Cinderella". The most noteworthy difference is that instead of falling in love with a prince, Ash falls for Kaisa, the king's huntress.

I had been dying to read Ash ever since I first heard of it earlier this year. I wanted to read it so badly that I made it one of the three new releases I was allowed to get under my book buying ban - and this in a year with plenty of new releases that I'm coveting. Perhaps these high expectations were part of the problem. In any case, it really pains me to say that I didn't enjoy Ash nearly as much as I was expecting to.

I finished the book a week ago, and I've been trying to figure out what it was that made it not quite work for me ever since. The best thing I can come up with is that I failed to connect with the narrative voice. There was something about it that seemed a little off to me, a little strained; I kept being jolted out of the story when I wanted to lose myself in it. Nevertheless, there was a lot to like about Ash, so let me tell you about the good things:

I really liked the romance between Ash and Kaisa. It develops slowly, and the two have time to get to know each other, to develop a connection that feels real. The world of Ash is not a world where a same-sex romance is frowned upon, and Malinda Lo explains why she made that decision in her Big Idea post at Scalzi's blog. I completely agree with her reasons, and I love the fact that the romance in Ash is a romance, period. It's not overshadowed by the fear and shame that same-sex couples unfortunately still have to deal with in our world.

The romance, however, only takes place in the second half of the book. The first half is slower, more subtle and subdued. It spans several years, and it's mostly devoted to Ash coming to terms with the loss of her loved ones and with the subsequent changes in her life. We also watch her grow and change and realize who she is; who she does and does not want to be. The book isn't very long, so this first half only takes a little over a hundred pages, but it conveys the feeling that a long time has passed quite well.

I also loved the worldbuilding - the world of Ash is complex and fully realized. It's very much its own thing, but it reminded me of the worlds of The Goose Girl or Ella Enchanted, two of my favourite fairy tale retellings. If Malinda Lo were to set more novels in this world, I'd be sure to read them. But let me tell you a little about what makes the world so appealing: it has its own customs and traditions; it seems to exist beyond the story. Ash grows up in a remote part of the country, in a forested area where old traditions still live. We're told about the conflicts between older and modern ideas; about rites, festivals and celebrations; about the land's lore and about the truth behind that lore. And most interestingly of all, Ash's world is one where oral storytelling is of great importance. Ash's most treasured possession is a book of fairy tales that she inherits from her mother, and she and Kaisa connect by telling each other their favourite fairy tale.

Finally, I liked the fact that even though Ash's stepmother and stepsisters are far from being likeable characters, they are nor portrayed as black and white villains either. They're unpleasant and arrogant, especially Lady Isobel and Ana, the older sister. But Malinda Lo gives us a glimpse of the social system that forced these women to desperately seek a wealthy husband. There is some sympathy in the narration; some awareness of the demands that reduce these women to fairy tale stereotypes of callousness and greed.

I so wanted to love this book. It truly makes me sad that despite all the things I liked, in the end I just couldn't connect with Ash. The reasons probably have as much to do with myself as with the book. But plenty of other readers loved it, and perhaps you will too.

Other opinions: Melody's Reading Corner, Presenting Lenore, Pop Culture Junkie, The Story Siren, Steph Su Reads, Zoe's Book Reviews, The Dreamer Reader, Becky's Book Reviews, The Book Smugglers, A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy, GalleySmith

(Did I miss yours?)

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The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

Legend has it that anyone who removes the Moonstone, a sacred diamond from India, from its shrine will have the moon god's revenge fall on them and their descendants. With that in mind, readers and characters alike have reasons to suspect Colonel Herncastle, a former army officer who served in India, when he leaves the Moonstone to his estranged niece Rachel Verinder for her eighteenth birthday. The morning after Miss Verinder’s birthday party, the Moonstone is discovered to be missing, and so our mystery begins.

Like The Woman in White, The Moonstone is divided into several parts, each narrated by a different characters. I was very interested in the way the story is framed—once again, we have a character who takes the role of editor, and each of the narrators provides an explanation for how their section of the story came to be. Memory wrote an excellent post on framing or context last year, so instead of repeating her points I’ll just point you towards it. What I'm trying to say here, though, is that I notice that nineteenth century authors seem to pay a lot more attention to how they frame their narratives than contemporary ones do. Do we take fictionality for granted? Is it because the novel is more established now? These days, a novel that provides a careful explanation for its existence seems rather forced more often than not. But not so with The Moonstone. Why is this, I wonder?

One of the reasons why the different narrations work so well is because they provide an opportunity for the characters to interact through their narratives; to make their opinions of one another perfectly clear, as Miss Clack and Mr Franklin Blake do. And that’s a source of much of the book’s humour. Humour, you ask? Isn’t this a Victorian detective novel? Yes, yes it is. But it's also absolutely hilarious. I’m not quite sure why, but this really surprised me. Gabriel Betteredge's and Miss Clack’s narrations had me laughing out loud.

I’ll let you discover Miss Clack for yourself if you haven’t yet, but let me tell you a little about Gabriel Betteredge: Betteredge is the steward of the country house where the theft occurs, and he has been in the family’s service for most of his life. His defining trait, if we can call it such, is his unshakeable faith in Robinson Crusoe. Gabriel firmly believes that there is no question in life that can’t be answered by this novel, and this gives rise to episodes such as this:

“Betteredge!” I said, pointing to the well-remembered book on his knee, “has ROBINSON CRUSOE informed you, this evening, that you might expect to see Franklin Blake?”
“By the lord Harry, Mr. Franklin!” cried the old man, “that's exactly what ROBINSON CRUSOE has done!”
(…)
“Here's the bit, Mr. Franklin!” he said, as soon as he had recovered the use of his speech. “As I live by bread, sir, here's the bit I was reading, the moment before you came in! Page one hundred and fifty-six as follows:--‘I stood like one Thunderstruck, or as if I had seen an Apparition.’ If that isn't as much as to say: ‘Expect the sudden appearance of Mr. Franklin Blake’--there's no meaning in the English language!” said Betteredge, closing the book with a bang, and getting one of his hands free at last to take the hand which I offered him.

This is from Franklin Blakes’ narration, though, and I want to share Betteredge’s voice too. I absolutely loved it, particularly his penchant for addressing the reader:

Here follows the substance of what I said, written out entirely for your benefit. Pay attention to it, or you will be all abroad, when we get deeper into the story. Clear your mind of the children, or the dinner, or the new bonnet, or what not. Try if you can't forget politics, horses, prices in the City, and grievances at the club. I hope you won't take this freedom on my part amiss; it's only a way I have of appealing to the gentle reader. Lord! haven't I seen you with the greatest authors in your hands, and don't I know how ready your attention is to wander when it's a book that asks for it, instead of a person?

Oh Betteredge—you’re wrong. I have the embarrassing habit of letting my attention wander exactly when a person asks for it. But I love you still. Yours has joined my mental list of All-time Favourite Narrative Voices.

When I read The Woman in White, I commented that much of it was grounded in a decidedly Victorian social structure. Likewise, some important plot points of The Moonstone are very much grounded in Victorian notions of science (which isn’t to say, of course, that social structure isn’t also important). I cannot go on at length about this without giving too much away, and so I’ll refrain from doing so. But my main point is that what I’m sure Wilkie Collins thought of as a perfectly believable explanation for the mystery no longer reads like one. However, this dated aspect only makes the story more interesting in my view.

The answer to the mystery of who stole the Moonstone is not very difficult to guess, but Collins leaves you waiting for the “how” and the “why”, and those are just as interesting, if not more. The final answer reinforces one of The Moonstone’s most obvious themes: that an appearance of respectability should not be taken for the thing itself. This is also visible in characters like Ezra Jennings, who was treated with a kindness that surprised me. Overall, I found The Moonstone to be kinder, warmer, more open, and less rigid and respectful of propriety than The Woman in White. Another example of this is the very ending, which I of course won’t give away. But I was very pleased to hear of the final fate of the Moonstone.

And I haven’t even told you about the characters yet. Other than Gabriel Betteredge, that is. I loved Rachel – I loved her spirit, her unapologetic determination. She was much more Marian than Laura, but without having to compensate for her independence by being described as “manly” or “ugly”. The Moonstone was written eight years after The Woman in White, so I’ll happily attribute this to a progression in Collins’ thought. Anyway, I won’t blab about this book all day (though I could!). I’ll end this by saying that I completely agree with Audrey Niffenegger, who says in her introduction to this edition that the characters are at the heart of what makes The Moonstone such a joy to read.

A few more bits I liked:

Thanks be to Heaven, we have arrived at the eve of the birthday at last! You will own, I think, that I have got you over the ground this time, without much loitering by the way. Cheer up! I'll ease you with another new chapter here--and, what is more, that chapter shall take you straight into the thick of the story.

People in high life have all the luxuries to themselves--among others, the luxury of indulging their feelings. People in low life have no such privilege. Necessity, which spares our betters, has no pity on us. We learn to put our feelings back into ourselves, and to jog on with our duties as patiently as may be. I don't complain of this--I only notice it.

Other opinions: S. Krishna’s Books, A Garden Carried in the Pocket, A Guy’s Moleskin Notebook, A Striped Armchair, books i done read, Farm Lane Books, The Indextrious Reader, ChainReading, Book Nut, BiblioAddict, third-storey window

(As always, please let me know if I missed yours!)

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Wonderland by Tommy Kovac and Sonny Liew

Very soon the Rabbit noticed Alice, as she went hunting about, and called out to her in an angry tone, `Why, Mary Ann, what ARE you doing out here? Run home this moment, and fetch me a pair of gloves and a fan! Quick, now!' And Alice was so much frightened that she ran off at once in the direction it pointed to, without trying to explain the mistake it had made.

`He took me for his housemaid,' she said to herself as she ran. `How surprised he'll be when he finds out who I am! But I'd better take him his fan and gloves--that is, if I can find them.'

From Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Tommy Kovac and Sonny Liew's Wonderland is a gorgeously illustrated graphic novel that revisits the world Lewis Carroll created. But instead of Alice, the protagonist is Mary Ann, the housemaid the White Rabbit mistakes her for in the original book. When Kelly from The Written World and I noticed we'd read it at the same time by coincidence (it's probably the fifth time something like that happens this year, seriously), we decided to review it together. This time we used a conversation format, and I'm posting part two of our discussion. Please make sure you visit Kelly and read part one first; otherwise this won't make much sense!

Ana: Those were the first two I happened to think of, but there are definitely plenty of others these days. I liked Wicked, but I haven't read the other series yet. I tend to love retellings, but I notice that what determines if they work for me is whether or not they add something new to the original story. One of the reasons why I liked Wicked so much is because Maguire's Oz is both instantly familiar and a completely new, rich, detailed world - you said that you liked the idea of it, so I'll assume we agree on this! I think that building something new out of a literary work we already know takes as much skill and creativity as creating a world from scratch.


Which is why it saddens me when people say that authors who do it are lazy or just trying to cash in on someone else's success. This isn't to say, of course, that this isn't true in some cases. I'm not going to be mean and say that Wonderland is one of them, but it disappointed me that Kovac didn't add anything new to Carroll's world. I loved revisiting, sure, but I'd have loved it even more if I had been able to see a side of Wonderland I've never seen before.

Re-reading my answer reminded me of Peter David's lovely Tigerheart, which reimagines Barrie's Neverland. So I'm going to go ahead and recommend it to you and to anyone reading this. Time for an unoriginal question: what did you think of the ending?

Kelly: Just what I need, another book to add to the wish list! I think that one is on there all ready, though, so maybe I just need to move it up the wish list! I totally get you when you say that something new has to be added to the story in order to make it worthwhile.

As to the answer to the question. I am actually sitting here trying to think about it and mostly coming up blank! I got the book from the library, so I have all ready taken it back. I am trying to remember my original opinion upon the conclusion of the book, though. I really feel nothing! I didn't hate the ending, but I didn't really love it either. I don't find that it really concluded anything. I really hope they are not hoping for a sequel! If the art was the same, I would be so there, but unless they put their creative hats on a sequel is not a good idea at all. Mary Ann is still really the same at the end of the book. She is still obsessed with cleaning and she is still pretty subservient. I don't find that all that much was accomplished with the ending. Really, I just don't feel anything about the ending. When I read the book I enjoyed the few glimpses of familiar characters, Mary Ann drove me crazy, and the art was fantastic. That is my opinion of this book in a nutshell! You?

Ana: Yep, you've summed it up pretty well. I asked you about the ending because it really reinforced my feeling that the story had been kind of pointless. Mary Ann is still the same - she has been instrumental in causing some changes in Wonderland, but I was left with the feeling that it all happened sort of accidentally, and that none of it was of as much consequence as it ought to have been. I was also disappointed that the connection between Mary Ann and Alice that the story hints at is never fully developed. I don't know, maybe part of the problem was that I expected something different.


I'm probably beginning to sound like I hated this book, but I really didn't - I just think it's probably better to appreciate it as a quick return to Wonderland and as an Alice on Wonderland art book. And I would recommend it for that alone. I know I'll be returning to it just to look at the art! I'll also definitely look for more work illustrated by Sonny Liew. And so that it doesn't sound like I hated the story so much I vow never to read Tommy Kovac again, let me add that his comics Autumn and Stitch also sound really good.

Kelly: I agree with you. I didn't really hate it either, but it wasn't as good as I was expecting it to be. I want to buy it, really - just so I can look at the pictures! It's a great book for the read-a-thon, actually. You can sort of read the story, look at the pretty pictures, and feel like you accomplished something when you start to get too tired! Consider it a recommendation. Otherwise, I think I have said pretty much everything that I feel needs to be talked about. It wasn't a very long book, so there is not a lot to discuss. This chat style was fun, though! We are going to have to do it again!


Ana: I second your recommendation for the read-a-thon, and yes, we'll have to do this again!

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I ended up taking a bit of an unplanned blogging break these past few days for personal reasons - many thanks to those of you who contacted me to make sure everything was okay. That some of you worried after only five days is probably a sign of how obsessive my blogging habits usually are!

But in all seriousness, I very much appreciate it, and I want to apologize for having been so horrible at responding to comments here and at bloghopping lately. I really don't want to neglect anyone, but...well, I'm sure you know how it is. So even though I hate to do it, I think the only way not to drive myself crazy is to click the dreaded "mark all as read" button in Google Reader, start from scratch this week, and hope I'll be better able to keep up with things in the future. Thank you again for caring!

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Black Juice by Margo Lanagan

(Yes, this is going to be another gushy post about Margo Lanagan. I can’t help it – I’m a complete fangirl. Anyway, consider yourselves warned.)

Black Juice is a collection of ten short stories that range from horror to fantasy and science fiction. You know that my definitions of these genres are inclusive and wide, but even so, even trying to label this collection feels artificial, because so much of Black Juice is unlike anything I’ve read before. These are stories that blur the lines, which is to say, my favourite kind. I don’t want to tell you much about the plots, not only because it’s easy to give too much away with short fiction, but also because most would be extremely difficult to summarize.

Reading these stories felt a little like walking into an unfamiliar place blindfolded. I had to feel my way around them slowly, cautiously, word by word. And in case you’re thinking that this sounds like an incredibly frustrating reading experience, worry not: it absolutely wasn’t. The discovery was a pleasure, as was savouring Lanagan’s beautiful prose. Yes, many of these stories are vague. They demand your full attention; you have to notice the details to be able to make sense of what’s happening. But even when I wasn’t quite sure of what was happening plot-wise, I always knew what the story felt like. And that was more important than the plot.

“Singing My Sister Down”, the story that opens this collection, is actually one of the most straightforward ones. It is also very nearly life-changing. It's narrated by a young boy whose sister is going to be executed for having killed her husband. The whole family is present at the execution, which takes place in a tar pit: the girl steps into it and the family stays with her the whole day until she finishes sinking. This brief summary might make you think that the story sound unusual, which it is, and that it's sad, which it also most certainly is. But it doesn’t tell you much about what makes it work as well as it does: you have to experience it, to feel it yourself. I cannot do it justice, but suffice to say that after I finished it, it took me nearly two weeks to recover and be able to pick up the book again.

With this in mind, it might surprise you if I tell you that my favourite was actually “Sweet Pippit”. This story is told from the point of view of a herd of elephants who are on a journey to rescue a human boy they love, and there’s something about the narration itself that makes it so tender, so moving, so absolutely powerful. It reminded me a little of the way Kij Johnson writes about animals, and you’ve heard me gush about Kij Johnson before.

There are other stories I could highlight – I particularly liked “Wooden Bride”, “Yowlinin” and “Rite of Spring”, and part of me wanted them to be novels. Not because they’re unsatisfying as short stories, but because the worlds they’re set in, though only hinted at, are so interesting, so rich and strange. The stories are full of odd little details that are never fully explained, but once again this is not frustrating – it leaves you eager for more, but not in a bad way.

And then there’s “Red Nose Day”, which is one of the darkest and most shocking stories I have ever read — but not gratuitously so. It’s also one of the most demanding stories in this collection: not just because of the heavy subject matter, which involves murder, abuse and revenge, but because it’s particularly difficult to make sense of what’s happening at first. The emotions, however, are clear from the opening paragraph, and the build-up to the disturbing revelation about two third of the way through is absolutely perfect.

Let me stop before I start gushing uncontrollably: Black Juice is original, haunting, tender and dark, and written in some of the most impressive and vivid language I’ve come across. I can’t wait to get my hands on Red Spikes.

Favourite bits:

But our bearing is the sort that soothes others; we move with inevitability, as the stars do, as the moon swells and shrinks upon the sky. We brushed aside the wooden gatehouse as if it were a plaything we had tired of, and the other animals remained calm. Gooroloom tumbled it to sticks, and our feet crushed it to dust. Above the dark and swollen river of our rage, my delight in our badness hung briefly bright.

We walked out among people’s houses, that were like friends standing beside the path. With every sleeping house we passed, I was more wakeful; with every step I took that was not circle-path, or earth we had trodden as many times as there are stars, something else broke open in me. My mind seemed a great wonderland, largely unexplored, my body a vast possibility of movements, in any directions, all new.

(From “Sweet Pippit”)

Behind it, the night is suddenly vaster, colder, clearer. All the stars zing; the mountains glitter; towns and villages gather like bright mould in the valley-seams and along the coasts. Every movement in byre and bunny-hole, of leaf against leaf, of germ in soil and stream, turns and gleams and laminates every other, the whole world monstrously fancy, laced tight together, yet slopping over and unravelling in every direction, a grand brilliant wastage of the living and the dying.

( “Earthly uses”)

So I struggled up, shouting words that I mumbled, embarrassed, in front of Mum last night. They sounded powerfully pompous in our rough little home, but they suit this strong weather. They’re something to throw at the wind; words seem like nothing, but they’re tiny, fancy, people’s things. Who cares whether they do anything? What else can we put up against the wind except our tininess and fanciness? What else can the wind put up against us but its big, dumb, brute-strength? So there!, I tell it with my miniature mouth, my tiny frozen pipe of a throat, my stumbling tongue (and even the stumbling is good, for the wind never stumbles, never goes back and rights itself, don’t you see?). All you’ve got is your noise – and I’ve got noise, too! And mine’s a thing of beauty!

(“Rite of Spring”)

Other Opinions: A Chair, a Fireplace & a Tea Cozy, Reading Rants!, Scooter Chronicles, Susan Hated Literature

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