Monthly Archives: July 2012

Trip to the library

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Finally went to the library, first time in months.  Our nearest branch of the library isn’t very big, but I found a couple of books that are on my list, as well as books by authors I have read before and liked.  I already finished The Tourist by Olen Steinhauer, a standard type spy thriller.  I hadn’t read anything by Steinhauer before, so at least it’s good to find something from a new author.  The book was OK, but I saw the plot twist and guessed the ending way too early.  The characters and locations weren’t that interesting either.  If I come across another book by this author, I’ll give it a try, but I’m not going to be looking that hard.

I finished The Kashmir Shawl, by Rosie Thomas, (Kindle book) last week and enjoyed it enough that I looked for another Thomas book at the library and found one called The Potter’s House.  I liked the settings of The Kashmir Shawl: the city of Srinigar in Kashmir, an Indian state called Ladakh in the north of the country, and Wales.  The best parts of the book were about the friendship of three English women in Srinigar during World War 2; the parts about a granddaughter of one of the women trying to find out the history of her grandmother’s Kashmir shawl were less interesting to me.  Some genteel romantic entanglements, and information about making pashminas, early mountaineering techniques and Welsh missionaries in India moved the plot along and made for leisurely pleasant reading.  My favorite details were ones about the winter weather, I’d never thought about India having snow, but of course it makes sense with the Himalayas on the northern border.  Most niggling thing was trying to figure out how the Welsh names of two of the characters should be pronounced.

The Scramble for Africa, by Thomas Pakenham, is fascinating but slow going, I read a couple of chapters at a time, which works because each chapter deals with one separate region in one fairly short time period.  I’m almost halfway through the book; the exciting explorer stories are finished and now it’s mostly about European politics and rivalries driving a very messy scramble for African colonies.  Now I realize I need to know at least a little bit about the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 in order to get a better perspective on why the Great Powers were so goofy in the late 19th century.  Wikipedia will have to do for now, the library didn’t have anything on 19th century European history.  

Fun facts about Thomas Pakenham:  he is the 8th Earl of Longford, although he doesn’t use the title, and one of his sisters is romance novelist Antonia Fraser.

In between French and English shenanigans in Africa I re-read a favorite mystery that had been packed away in a box for several years:  Thus was Adonis Murdered, by Sarah Caudwell.  Sarah Caudwell wrote three books about Hilary Tamar, a professor of legal history, and his/her friends, young members of the Chancery Bar in London (lawyers).  I really can’t figure out if Hilary is a man or a woman; I don’t know if it’s just me, or if Sarah Caudwell is being deliberately confusing.  It’s kind of like the young Mrs deWinter’s name in Rebecca – I’m pretty sure Daphne du Maurier left it out on purpose.  I’m not clear on how the British legal system works either; however, in spite of all the confusion the books are very funny and clever and I always enjoy reading them.  A lot of this one is in the form of long letters from one of the lawyers on vacation holiday in Venice.  Book published in 1981, not that long ago but well before the age of Internet and the cell phone.

I’ve started on another library book called Girl Sleuth:  Nancy Drew and the women who created her, by Melanie Rehak.  This one wasn’t on my list, but looked intriguing.  The story so far:  Carolyn Keene didn’t write the Nancy Drew books!  In fact she never existed!  Other people wrote the books!  I think I already knew this, but I didn’t know all the details about the children’s book syndicate that developed Nancy Drew (and the Hardy Boys and the Bobbsey Twins, among many other series), but Melanie Rehak certainly knows everything and wants to write about all of it.  I’m thinking this might be one of those books with 100 pages of material expanded to 300, but I’ve read and enjoyed lots of Nancy Drew books and I think I can get some good stuff out of this and skim the rest. 

Which leads to a digression:  before I read the all-American girl Nancy Drew detective stories, I read the Famous Five and Secret Seven children’s mysteries by Enid Blyton.  I don’t think many, if any, of Enid Blyton’s books made it to the US; I read them when we lived in southern Africa when I was in elementary primary school.  “Enid Blyton” wrote hundreds of books (most of which I haven’t read) so many in fact that I wondered if her name was the nom de plume of a writing syndicate too.  So to Wikipedia, which says that Enid Blyton was a real person and it’s sufficiently clear that she wrote all her books herself.  It also, in an interesting and fair-minded way, says that she was a Grade A Number 1 Mommie Dearest bitch whose books are racist, sexist and classist, and many discerning people say that the books have no literary merit either.  I have little patience with people who look down on books because they are commercially successful, but there are examples to show that Enid Blyton inserted some language, ideas and characters into her books that were nasty then and are clearly unacceptable now.  I see on amazon.co.uk that the Famous Five and Secret Seven books are still in print.  I loved the books and consumed them like potato chips, I hope I just skipped over bad words and stereotypes and didn’t let them into my heart.  The Wikipedia article said the publishers have made judicious edits to the books and kids still enjoy them. 

Can’t help it, just one more digression:  The Mommie Dearest image of Enid Blyton comes from a book that one of her daughters wrote.  Now I remember that Christopher Robin Milne hated the Winnie-the-Pooh books and didn’t have many good things to say about his father A.A. Milne.  I hope none of J.K. Rowling’s kids write, or have reason to write, a mean book about her.  She seems like a very nice person, as well as a good writer.

Building reading trees

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How do I decide what to read next?  Many times I’ll see a review or mention of a new-to-me book or author that sounds intriguing, and give that a try.  Bookstores are alluring places to find new and different books, and Amazon’s recommendations and special offers are almost as good - Amazon’s book prices are great too.  And it’s always a treat when a conversation or e-mail with friends and family leads to some wonderful reading.  But a lot of my reading is directed by a generating or branching effect, from something I’ve read, or from a movie or TV program.  I think of this as something similar to a family tree. 

For example, this is the Nile tree:  By chance I picked Alan Moorehead’s The White Nile out of the revolving bookcase last week, and Moorehead’s rich writing and the exciting stories of the Nile explorers quickly drew me in.  The great BBC series The Search for the Nile, broadcast in the US in 1972, first inspired me to read this book years ago.  My 1983 Penguin edition of the book is very attractive; large format, good paper and interesting pictures.  When I finished the book, I wanted to know more about European exploration and colonization of Africa in the late 19th century, and I remembered that I had a book called The Scramble for Africa, by Thomas Pakenham.  I checked the table of contents, and saw the book was a comprehensive account of exactly those topics.  I’m 150 pages into the book’s 680 pages, and already there are more details and perspective on the Nile explorations and political exploitation of the region, and lots of new stuff.  I bought this book about 15 years ago because I’d read Pakenham’s The Boer War, which is excellent, and I’m glad that Moorehead’s classic book about the White Nile finally pushed me to read Pakenham’s other African history book.  The Pakenham branch of the Nile tree just reminded me of a gorgeous Pakenham book I bought last year called Remarkable Trees of the World.  Turns out Thomas Pakenham’s love of African history is matched by his love of trees and photography, and this will be the perfect book to browse when I want a break from The Scramble for Africa, which can get pretty depressing from time to time.  Also love that the Nile tree has led me to – trees.

Where else might the Nile tree take me?  Alan Moorehead loves loves loves semi-colons and colons, and uses them well.  This type of punctuation has gone out of style since The White Nile was first published in 1960 - maybe I’ll read Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss again, to enjoy the company of someone else who loves elegant punctuation.  This truly entertaining book is subtitled “The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation”, an unusual topic for a book that hit number one on bestseller lists in the UK.  Moorehead also wrote a companion book called The Blue Nile.  My edition is a scruffy mass market paperback with very small print, maybe I’ll treat myself to the nice-looking trade paperback Amazon is selling.  So delighted that both Nile books are still in print.

The Siege of Krishnapur tree is still pretty small, but I’m trying to grow it.  I did start watching my DVD set of The Jewel in the Crown, a BBC TV series set in India during and just after World War 2, again.  I’m so familiar with this series that it makes a great accompaniment to ironing, since I enjoy it but don’t have to give it my full attention to keep up with the story.  Not in the mood right now to read The Raj Quartet, Paul Scott’s novels that are the basis for the Jewel series.  So I bought two new Kindle books about India.  I have high hopes for a novel  called The Kashmir Shawl, by Rosie Thomas.  It’s set in India during World War 2 and in the present day and sounds mysterious and romantic.  The curious thing about this novel is that I bought it on Kindle, but the hardcover won’t be published in the US until next year.  The second book is The Indian Mutiny by Julian Spilsbury, also published only on Kindle in the US.  Spilsbury is a journalist and TV writer, these should be good qualifications for making this history book interesting as well as informative.  I’m particularly pleased with these new purchases because they are new books!  That I haven’t already read!

War Horse, the book and the movie, is still a shrub, I don’t know if this will take me any further.  I didn’t like the movie that much, not as compelling and without the internal logic of the book.

Note to self:  A very recurring British theme to this post.  Read more American books!  At least finish Midnight Rising.

A short path from silly to serious

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The short path is three books:  The Bollywood Breakup Agency, A Presumption of Death, and The Accidental Tourist.

I finished The Bollywood Breakup Agency, by Naina Gupta and it can in fairness be called a silly story, but since the setting of the novel is interesting, I prefer to call it a fluffy book.  Many of the plot developments are telegraphed many many pages in advance, but there are a couple of twists that keep things fresh enough.  The story follows Neela Solanki, who is basically a spoiled brat, as she tries to help other young Indians in her UK social circle escape undesirable arranged marriages, and keep herself out of an arranged marriage too.  By the end of the book, all the young people in unhappy arranged engagements had, as expected, been extricated and recombined into contented couples.  The fun is in who ended up with who(m).  I actually found myself thinking ’Jack shall have his Jill, nought shall go ill’, a little Midsummer Night’s Dream action in Indian traditional costumes and High Street fashion. I especially enjoyed the book’s yummy descriptions of the outfits Neela and her friends and family wore to various social occasions.  There is supposed to be a sequel, The Bollywood Wife, looking forward to it. 

I thought A Presumption of Death, by Jill Paton Walsh, would be farther from silly and closer to serious, but I was disappointed.  This is supposed to be a “new” Lord Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane novel, and I think Dorothy L. Sayers is the greatest, most serious writer of the Golden Age of mysteries, so Jill Paton Walsh should be a serious writer to take on such a potent legacy.  Well, the result is pretty pedestrian and poor Peter and Harriet would have been better left alone.  I did a little research on Jill Paton Walsh, and she is an award-winning author of children’s and Young Adult fiction, but very few of her books have been published here.  Although many characters had the same names that Dorothy Sayers had given them, they had very little depth, and the mystery plot had so many holes that it was, in a word, silly.  Not quite sure why this book got such enthusiastic reviews when it was published, people must miss Wimsey a lot to get so excited.

The Accidental Tourist, by Anne Tyler, is a bona fide serious novel by a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and it is wise, funny, tragic and deeply satisfying.  In a previous post, I was worrying that it was too dated because there were no cellphones and Internet in Macon Leary’s life.  Wrong, I was just being silly.  But the most serious thing about reading this book in Charleston SC in June 2012 is how the brutal, senseless murder of Marley Lion here is so similar to the terrible murder of Ethan Leary in the book. 

The Accidental Tourist is about Macon Leary’s constant efforts to be protective, be in control, be responsible, and avoid risk and uncertainty.  When his cherished 12 year old son Ethan dies because just one dumb prank puts him in the wrong place at the wrong time, Macon falls apart and only gets his equilibrium back by making inappropriate friends and getting into unconventional situations.  What makes the book great is that Macon keeps the best elements of his responsible nature, and discovers new strengths by going well outside his comfort zone.  I thought he honored his son’s memory by overcoming the tragedy to become a more open, less frightened version of himself.

Marley Lion was an exemplary 17 year old boy who did one dumb thing, drink at a party.  On his way home, he realized he was too drunk to drive, and parked in a deserted mall parking lot, where a thief trying to break into the car shot him five times.  The murderer still hasn’t been caught.