Ransom

David Malouf's Ransom takes a segment of the Trojan War saga and creates an elegy about grief and loss. The focus of the story is the relationship between Achilles, the Greek hero, and Priam, the Trojan king, and their grief at the deaths of their most beloved ones. Patroclus, Achilles' life long friend and soul mate, is killed by Hector, Priam's son, on the battlefield. In his rage Achilles slays Hector and then proceeds to deface Hector's corpse, which is an extreme insult to Priam. Achilles and Priam are tethered to each other in their pain. The story, as told by Malouf, shows that mental and emotional anguish will drive the most heroic and most lauded individuals to acts that, in their right minds, would never have happened. Malouf, considered to be one of the great Australian writers, writes with lyricism and a mystical quality that takes the reader into another world. The author takes the reader into the minds of Achilles and Priam - two vastly different individuals experiencing the same devastating loss. In some ways the writing is cinematic - the visual descriptions color the language and put the reader on the beach where the Greeks are besieging the Trojans. It is beautifully written. It seems that each word is chosen carefully to evoke the emotional depth of each character. It is a short novel, but one well worth an afternoon/evening of contemplation. I recommend it highly.

The Bedside, Bathtub, & Armchair Companion to Jane Austen

The Bedside... compiles just about everything you want to know about Jane Austen and then some. There are detailed summaries of all of her novels, her incomplete works, and her juvenilia. It also includes some peculiarities of Regency England (such as a ha-ha, which is a ditch to keep livestock off the lawn and gardens of a manor house. I got to see a ha-ha when I went to Wales.). Need to know the difference between a curricle and a barouche? This book gives an entire rundown of all the types of carriages in Jane's world. [Note: a curricle is a sporty 2 seater carriage that is driven with 2 horses - sort of a Regency version of a Miata (all the wealthier single young men - Mr. Darcy, Henry Tilney, etc. - drive this). A barouche is like a Rolls Royce - luxurious, roomy, and very expensive (Lady Catherine de Bourgh's favorite means of travel).] If you have a curiosity about the food (white soup, for example, is made of veal stock with almonds and cream - very expensive ingredients) of Jane's day, it's here. This includes the "meals" - breakfast and dinner (no lunch until after Jane's death) - and what and how the food was served (2 courses). There is a splendid essay on the clothing of the Regency period with JASNA's costuming expert Baronda Bradley (someone I know! We're both members of the JASNA - North Texas chapter).

The book is partitioned into several chapters and subsections of related material of short(ish) essays and analyses. It is very well written - lots of information with lots of humor. These editors know their Jane, definitely. What's nice about this compilation is that you don't have to read the whole thing at once. I dipped into sections of interest every so often - and read leisurely. It took a couple of months to read the entire thing. It was a joy.

This book is a MUST for Janites.

Madeleine Albright, as the secretary of state for President Clinton, made a name for herself using her brooches as diplomatic statements. This new book features those pins in connection with an exhibit of her pieces at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York. I heard her interviewed on NPR about the exhibit and the book so I had to check it out. The book is a beautifully photographed coffee table book of a number of her pins, though not all. Intermixed are the stories of those pins and how she came to collect them. Her collection started with inherited jewelry and then expanded as her career developed. Soon her pins began to be interpreted in diplomatic circles, though she didn't wear them to send messages initially. But soon she would wear them to send non-verbal and sometimes not-so-subtle communications to various world leaders.

As I said, this is a coffee table book. Her pins are quite spectacular and quite funny. She has all kinds - expensive gemstones, costume (mostly), and really inexpensive handmade pieces that she's picked up on her travels. I wanted every one of them! While the pins and the photographs are quite glorious, if you want more information about the effectiveness of those pins in diplomacy, then I would suggest another book. This is Madeleine-lite. There are a few charming and anecdotal stories about her life, but not much detail. I wanted more. Maybe I picked the wrong book to read about her. But if you're interested in her exhibition pieces, then this is the book for you. If you're looking for more meat, try something else.

Teaberry Strangler

Teaberry Strangler is the 11th Indigo Tea Shop mystery from Laura Childs. I've read every one of her tea shop novels. I'm sorry to say it isn't one of my favorites. It's so-so. I mean, it's okay but not something I would want to read again nor buy. Theo, the owner of the Charleston-based tea shop and our heroine, witnesses a brutal murder of her friend and neighboring shop owner, Daria. It's up to Theo and her fellow tea shop cohorts, Drayton and Hayley, to figure out if the attack was directed to Daria or to Theo herself. As usual there are lots of extraneous asides like a walking tour of old Charleston homes and gardens, a variety of tea parties (including a children's tea), new teas, new products for her shop, daily menu changes, etc. In fact there are so many that the plot and the action are pushed to the side. Do we really need to delve into Theo's ex-boyfriend's ex-fiance and her nuttiness? How does this move the story along? I just wanted to scream, "Get on with it!" The killer isn't all that hard to figure out - I got it about half way through the novel. Theo doesn't figure it out. At all. Weird for Theo - she usually solves the mystery pretty efficiently. It seems to me that Childs spent so much time on the environment of the story that the story itself was forgotten or at best an afterthought. It was a disappointment.

From Square One: A Meditation, with Digressions, on Crosswords

Being a crossword puzzle solver (most of the time, though not always - the New York Times Saturday crossword puts me in a tizzy) I'm always on the lookout for crossword puzzle books and web sites. I read about this little gem in the New York Times and had to check it out. I'm glad I did. From Square One: A Meditation, with Digressions, on Crosswords by Dean Olsher is a delightful read into the minds of crossword puzzlers in general and into his mind in particular. People who don't work on crosswords think puzzlers are wasting their time on such escapist distractions. But Olsen is not one of them - he's been solving crosswords, particularly cryptic crosswords, for decades. Olsen, who was the host of the now defunk The Next Big Thing on NPR, says people who say that just don't get it. Crosswords aren't distractions to kill time; they are vital to our well-being. They are anti-anxiety agents as well as loyal friends (it shows up in the newspaper everyday no matter what). And if one works crosswords one is obsessed with them. "You won't need an fMRI to know that crosswords are dangerously addictive." No kidding!

Not all of the essays are specific about crosswords, though all the essays have crosswords and puzzles involved. He talks about his divorce and he is still distressed about The Next Big Thing being axed by NPR. He talks to homeless people, crossword addicts, and Will Shortz, the crossword editor for the New York Times. He discusses the differences between American puzzles and British puzzles (which are more along the line of cryptic crosswords), cryptic crosswords versus your basic crossword puzzle, the movie Wordplay, etc. He also observes how a friend creates a crossword, which is fascinating in and of itself (at least to a crossword solver).

The book reads very quickly - I read it in an afternoon. If you are a crossword puzzle fanatic (and you know who you are) or just a person who likes to read essays, I recommend this book.

Blackwork

Blackwork by Monica Ferris is the latest in her needlecraft series. It's Halloween and Betsy Devonshire, the owner of Crewel World needlework store in Excelsior, MN, is up to her amateur detective best. One of her long time customers is a Wiccan, a very gentle soul, who is well known for brewing the best beer in the area and owns a microbrewery pub where she serves her brews. When one of her concoctions, called Don't be Afraid of the Dark Ale, apparently causes the death of one of the more obnoxious residents of Excelsior, the witchhunt is on. The Wiccan is accused of causing all kinds of accidents in the town. Betsy is incensed that one of her best customers is being persecuted and takes a hand in finding out who did kill this man. Turns out the dead man has made quite a few enemies in the town, any number of whom would want him dead for any number of reasons. This is an entertaining cozy mystery as Ferris' novels usually are. This isn't one of her best - she gets too involved in town politics rather than the actual mystery. Plus the needlework part, which is the lynchpin of all her novels, gets short shrift. The title alludes to blackwork, a type of linear embroidery. I'm not quite sure how blackwork embroidery fits in with this murder. But still, I like the novel and the series, and appreciate the connection with needlecrafts (I'm a stitcher myself). Monica Ferris is a member of the American Needlepoint Guild and the Embroiderer's Guild of America so she knows her needlework. It's a good quick read for a Sunday afternoon.

Death without Tenure

Death without Tenure by Joanne Dobson is the latest in her mystery series that takes place in academia. The series focuses on Kate Pelletier, an English professor at the elite Enfield College. She's solved many a murder on campus. The themes of these novels usually involve the works of literary figures such as Poe, Dickinson, Hammett ,etc. This time it's not so much about literature as it is about tenure. Kate is up for tenure and has all the necessary materials to be awarded tenure - articles in major journals, a book, and so on. However, the English department can only award one tenure position this year and she's up against a colleague John Lone Wolf, a Native American. The big push by the department chair is to give tenure to Lone Wolf, even though he hasn't finished his disseration, authored or co-authored any article in any journal, nor presented papers at conferences. This is the climate that Kate faces in her battle for tenure. Then Lone Wolf is murdered. Kate's the primary suspect because of the tenure issue. The novel gives an up front and personal view of the terror of tenure track. It's a brutal exercise and entirely political. As usual in a mystery novel there are a plethora of red herrings and misdirections. Lone Wolf is not as he seems, which may or may not be a factor in his murder. Kate is strung out because of being a suspect, trying to get tenure, dealing with a mother who has dementia, and a boyfriend who is in Iraq fighting the war. But she gets to the bottom of the murder and the near destruction of the English department. The novel is quite enjoyable, especially if you've had experience in academia. Joanne Dobson is a professor herself (Fordham University) and knows how the academic world works. It's still a murder mystery and that is its main draw. It's written well even though Dobson tends to go off on tangents when Kate teaches a class. It's entertaining and I recommend it.

Note: I was reading this when that professor at Alabama killed three of her colleagues and injured three others, the reasons which may involve her not being awarded tenure. This made for some uncomfortable reading in light of what happened. The issues around tenure are volatile and the process can be quite ugly. Dobson sheds some light on this in this novel.

Heat Wave

Television and novels have always gone hand in hand. But Heat Wave by "Richard Castle" takes this a step further. The TV series Castle on ABC on Monday nights is the basis of this novel. Or the novel is part of the series. Or something along those lines. The character of Richard Castle is writing a novel based on Becket, the police detective he follows during his research. They solve several murders, etc., her using her honed police skills and him using his ability to visualize plots and characters. The conceit of this book is that it's supposedly the book he's writing in the TV series, right down to the picture of the actor who plays Castle on the back cover of the novel. The actual novel is not nearly as entertaining as the TV series. The series has two characters who have the chemistry to keep the story line moving along. The novel has two lead characters based on Becket and on Castle himself who don't have that same chemistry. I didn't get the sexual tension that is so evident in the series. Granted the character based on Castle is just as obnoxious as the television Castle. That's not enough to hang a novel on. I didn't like the book much, but then I'm not a fan of muscular thrillers (brutal violence and aggressive sex with smart mouth women). I don't know who ghost wrote this book; I suspect James Patterson, who can churn out novels like rabbits. However, Patterson's novels are much better than this. This book has a hack writer feel. If you need a junk read on a trip, this would be okay. Otherwise, I'd take a pass.

Mr. Darcy, Vampyre

Hmmmm...

I'm not sure what to think about this novel by Amanda Grange. In general, continuation of Jane Austen's novels leaves me cold - no one can write like Jane. The best of the lot is a pallid imitation of Jane's work. This is no exception. Lots of folks are mad for this book and I fail to see why. Maybe because I didn't finish it. I don't know. The novel begins on the wedding day of Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy, plus Lizzie's sister Jane and Mr. Bingley. Something is amiss. On the night of their wedding Darcy decides they should go to Europe for their honeymoon rather than go to the Lake District. There they meet Darcy's "other" family, who live in Germany - and what a family it is. They even meet up with Lady Catherine who has been pursuing them since the wedding. The "mystery" is why Darcy hasn't consummated his marriage to Lizzie. She's confused and frustrated, and rightly so. And then the novel gets mysteriouser and mysteriouser.

I get what Grange wants to do. She's placed this story in line with the Gothic romance novels of the period (Ann Radcliffe mainly) and that Jane made fun of in Northanger Abbey. It's a bodice-ripper - literally (got to get to those throats somehow!).

My problem is that these characterizations are nothing like Jane's characterizations. Elizabeth, so lively with fine eyes, is depressed, unhappy, and about as fascinating as a turnip. At one point Grange has Lizzie faint! Lizzie?! Darcy seems closer to the original in that he is aloof, morose, and mysterious. But other characterizations are pretty much over the top - especially Lady Catherine who was someone Jane satirized and made fun of. Here she is frightening and evil - she's out to get Elizabeth and no mistake.

Grange is doing - or trying to do - to P&P what Jane did to thrillers and those who read them in Northanger Abbey. In my view, she didn't succeed. Perhaps if the writing was better or tighter - it seemed to drag on and on - I would have "got" it. But I didn't.

However, I'm in favor of anything that gets people to read Jane - even if vampires are involved (don't get me wrong - I LOVE vampire novels). And if this and other new pastiches on the best seller lists - Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters - can create more fans, then okay. I wish it were a better read.

Hmmm...

The Bedside, Bathtub, & Armchair Companion to Shakespeare

I picked this up at the library after a fruitless attempt to find the Bedside, Bathtub, and Armchair Companion to Jane Austen. The Bedside... books are in a series of companion books on such authors/literary figures as Agatha Christie, Lewis Carroll, and Sherlock Holmes. Since I've attended several performances of Shakespeare's plays at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival I thought this book would be fun. It is. Talk about informative. Dick Riley and Pam McAllister give a sort of Cliff Notes version of the Cliff Notes on several plays and poems. But what's the most fun are (is?) the sidebar tidbits at the end of the description of each play. These include likely sources of the plots, notable features (where it was first performed, etc.), notable productions and performances, and other uses of the basic plots (operas, musical pieces, movies, and so on). Plus there are essays peppered throughout the book on various aspects of Shakespeare's life, Elizabethan culture and current political events, etc., such as "What if Shakespeare had been Born a Girl? Women in the Queen's England." A really fun chapter is "Thou Knave! Thou Plague-sore! Shakespearean Insults." All of these stories, sidebars, etc., are quite entertaining. The book is written much like the Dummies... series, but it doesn't insult the reader. I recommend it.

Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution

I am reading Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution by 18th century specialist Caroline Weber. I haven't finished it - it's pretty hefty at nearly 500 pages. However, I plan to complete it because I'm enjoying it.

Marie Antoinette is a controversial figure - as a representative of excess, an ignorant heartless snob ("Let them eat cake"), a victim of Madame le Guillotine, a naive girl in over her head, and so on. Weber proposes another take on this Austrian girl by analyzing the clothing she wore. It's a fascinating analysis, though I don't ascribe to all of her premise.

Weber shows how Marie Antoinette developed her reputation for fashionable excess, and explains the political controversies that her clothing caused. She surveys Marie Antoinette's "Revolution in Dress," analyzing each phase of her life, beginning with the Austrian Archduchess trying to survive the rather bizarre restrictions of Versailles's traditions of royal glamour. As queen, Marie Antoinette used spectacular clothing to project her image as that of a powerful entity. However, she began to lose her hold on the French when she started to adopt "unqueenly," i.e., more simplified, clothing that, ironically, would be adopted by the revolutionaries who executed her. The paradox of her story, according to Weber, is that fashion - the method used to secure her position as the Queen of France - was also her undoing.

While this take on Marie Antoinette is unique, it's premise is a bit, well, too specific for me. Just examining her costuming, mile-high hair ensembles, and fabulous jewelry as a method to obtain power and then lose that power is limiting. This poor girl was the shuttlecock being batted back and forth between the Austrian empire and the French royal court - the political ambitions of her mother, Empress Maria Therese, versus the machinations of the French court and it's factions (including the various mistresses of the old king, Louis XV). Marie Antoinette was ill-suited to her role in France, and was too trusting, too young, and too clueless. Versailles was a brutal place, no place for such a child (she was 14 when she arrived). To propose that this girl "fought" back by what she wore is a bit of a stretch.

However, I am reminded of Princess Diana who faced a similar situation with the rituals and restrictions in the house of Windsor. She used clothing and her glamour, among other things, to obtain and keep power.

The book is well written and entertaining. I would recommend it - especially to fashionistas, who will swoon over the descriptions (and costs!) of her apparel and jewels.

A side note: it's obvious to me that Sophia Coppola read this book before she created her movie - the film is all about the Queen's fashion and her vapidness in the court of Versailles. If you've seen the movie, then it will help you visualize the clothing in the book. However, if you haven't seen the movie, I wouldn't recommend it. I would advise to stick to the book - it's much better.

The Private Patient

The Baroness James of Holland Park, i.e., P.D. James, has pushed her beloved Adam Dalgliesh out into the publishing world once again. The Private Patient is latest of the Dalgliesh mystery novels. Despite Baroness James' age (88) she has lost none of her acuity, subtlety, and inventiveness.

The "private patient" is Rhoda Gradwyn, a well-known scandal reporter in the British tabloid tradition. She digs up the dirt no matter where it is or who it destroys. She has asked a cosmetic surgeon to remove a prominent and ugly facial scar that her father had inflicted on her during a drunken violent spree when she was a child. But why - the first mystery - had she waited so long to get rid of the disfigurement? “Because I no longer have need of it” is all she would say.

Her murder takes place in a gloomy historic manor house in Dorset, which the surgeon has converted into an expensive private clinic where his clients can be operated on and recover. Dr. Chandler-Powell, the surgeon, was successful in reducing the scar on Rhoda Gradwyn's face. It was unfortunate - and bad for business - that she was strangled in her bed that very night. Sounds like a case for the local constabulary. You would think. But no. The Prime Minister gets involved and wants Dalgliesh to investigate.

As is usually the case in a P.D. James novel, the threads of the murder start in the past. And there is a lot of not-so-pleasant history with several members of the clinic and household. It's the typical Jamesian multiple red herrings to throw you off the scent. It's not all that surprising about who did it, really. But the way James gets to the solution is the joy in the book.

You have to read P.D. James the way she writes - it's never hurried, action packed, or even bodice-ripping thrilling. It's more psychological, introspective, and more subtle. It's a leisurely read; no frantic turning of the pages to get to the solution.

There is also a side story of Dalgliesh's love life with Emma Lavenham, the professor he met several novels back. They're planning their wedding when the murder occurs and poor Adam has to leave his lady love in the lurch to deal with florists, caterers, etc., plus a family crisis that he can't help her with. So, of course, he's torn about his duty to his job and his duty to his fiance. A side note: there is a tie-in with Jane Austen in this story. Initially, Emma's best friend Clara despised Dalgliesh. But they warm to each other, sort of. James describes the home of Clara and her partner Annie "where no one entered without - in Jane Austen's words - the sanguine expectation of happiness." And at the end after the wedding, Clara and Annie make note of the end of Emma and Mrs. Elton's comment, "Very little white satin, very few lace veils; a most pitiful business." Sounds like a pretty snarky thing to say about one's best friend, but they then remember how the novel ends. "But, in spite of these deficiencies, the wishes, the hopes, the confidence, the predictions of the small band of true friends who witnessed the ceremony, were fully answered in the perfect happiness of the union." At least Dalgliesh didn't have to make Mr. Knightley's sacrifice and move in with her father!

In the purview of P.D. James' work this is not one of the superior novels. However, an average James is better than many other mystery writers' best work. Check it out.

A Flaw in the Blood

Stephanie Barron's first departure from the Jane Austen mystery novels takes place during the Victorian era. It involves Queen Victoria and begins with the death of Prince Albert in 1861. Albert has a secret and numerous good guys and bad guys want that secret so badly that they are willing to kill for it (and they do so with relish). This reads like a gothic romance—unrequited love, a murderous stormy night, guilty secrets, hopes dashed, revenge plotted, etc. In fact it is major melodrama with purple prose and lots of exclamation points. I love Barron's Jane Austen mysteries - in those she really knows her Jane and the Regency period. But unfortunately this departure isn't up to her usual stellar mystery treatment. It starts very slowly and I found it difficult to get into. Reviews say that it's a fast pace potboiler. I could see the potboiler aspect, but fast paced? Maybe for the horse and buggy period but not in this novel. I couldn't finish it. The prose was too purple for my tastes - definitely in the "it was a dark and storm night" tradition - and the plot didn't seem to pull together before I gave up. The characters aren't all that well drawn and I really didn't care for any of them - especially Victoria. I really wanted to like this book, but I couldn't. I hope she returns to Jane's mysteries as they are the best of her work.

Frankly, My Dear: Gone with the Wind Revisited

What else can scholars say about Gone with the Wind? Biographies of all the stars, David O. Selznick, Margaret Mitchell, made-for-TV movies, etc., have mined the depths of the novel and the resultant film. What can Molly Haskell say that's new? Not much. However, the way she pulls together the strands of the story - both the novel and the making of the movie - makes old ground entertaining. The book is part biography, part history, and part feminist analysis. The author of From Reverance to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies and part-time film commentator on Turner Classic Movies stitches together disparate stories from how long it took Mitchell to write the book, why she was reluctant to have it made into a movie, Selznick's persuasiveness, and every other tidbit that seems trivial to produce a "big picture" view of the entire enterprise. She also analyzes characters and their impact on a Depression-era public using her feminist viewpoint to understand why the novel and the movie were unbelievably popular. This year is the 70th anniversary of the release of the movie and this book does a good job to make it relevant to readers now.

Twilight

I'm reading Twilight by Stephanie Meyer, the super sensational vampire romance novel for teens. I can understand why girls would love this book - a mysterious gorgeous boy for whom all the girls are beside themselves and a shy girl who's different, how and why the two connect, and the undercurrent of sexual tension between them. I realize that it's written for the young adult audience and not for a middle aged adult like me, therefore, I shouldn't judge too harshly. The writing is okay but there's not much there to keep me interested. It's too slow (like the movie, which is, uh, deliberately paced) and wordy. It takes a lot of patience to stick with it.

I do like the atmosphere Meyer creates - she knows how to write about the Pacific Northwest and its gothic elements (dark clouds, rain, fog, deep dark forests, a chill - i.e., creepy. Throw in a remote Italian castle and Ann Radcliffe would feel at home). I also like the lead characters, Bella and Edward. Particularly Bella - Meyer really understands her and her "otherness," and treats her sympathetically. She kept my interest throughout. Edward, the man/boy of mystery, is more difficult. He's uber-complex and introspective. Bella has a hard time figuring out what makes him tick - me, too. Sometimes he is too deep, especially for a teenage girl to comprehend. And that is the big problem for me. Edward is "17 years old"; however, he's existed 100 years. He may look like a teenager, but he's not - he has decades of world experience. Bella is mature and very smart but she is only 17 with a certain degree of innocence. He has all the experience that comes with age and using it on Bella. Plus he displays a lot of traits of a stalker - watches her while she sleeps, etc. Creeped me out a bit.

I wanted to like it because of my interest in vampire literature and film and that the story is based, sort of, on Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. But Meyer is no Austen and the novel is too long.