I can't really judge this book on character development or plot, since I only read the kindle sample which, though much longer than typical, admittedl...moreI can't really judge this book on character development or plot, since I only read the kindle sample which, though much longer than typical, admittedly can't showcase an author's strength in these areas. What I did read, however, gave me no confidence that the author would be capable of furthering her ideas of corporate time-travel, which seem derivative of "Doomsday Book, In the Garden of Iden, or Up the Line, mashed-up uneasily with romance-y type works such as Outlander or The Time Traveler's Wife. Maybe "derivative" is being a bit hard on the author as there is nothing new under the sun, and no idea that hasn't been used before. I will say, since I have read all of these other novels, that Ridgeway's book is by far the most poorly written, with stilted, simplistic sentences larded with descriptions of flashing eyes, flaring nostrils, and dastardly cousins; it is difficult to believe that the author is a college professor, as the first chapters are written on the sixth grade level. Her historical background, too, seems very thinly researched, as if she thumbed through one of Johanna Lindsey less-inspired offerings, and caught a glimpse of the words "cravat", "earldom", and "carriage" as the pages flashed past.
So maybe I am being unfair, but the scene that made me realize that this book could not be taken seriously was Nick's mother's actions after Nick's father dies in a riding accident. It seems to me that there are several realistic ways a human being, and not an inhabitant of Romance Land, would react to witnessing such a tragedy:
1) Race to the broken body of her spouse and call for aid, even though the situation looks hopeless. 2) Stand there in shock (or secret satisfaction, depending on the state of the marriage) and do nothing at all. 3) Faint or fall into hysterics. 4) Calmly realize that her husband is dead and, with a great deal of mental and physical effort, get the people around her to move the body.
What I CANNOT imagine is the new widow PRYING OFF THE RING from the finger of the still warm corpse of her husband, strolling over to her teenage son, handing him the ring, and CURTSEYING almost down to the ground. Really, now--who would do such a thing in real life? Did the author get confused and think that her book was set in a minor caliphate in a fantastic realm? I mean, come on. Could you imagine Jane Austen writing such a scene?
I'd like my characters in what is passed off as non-genre literature to behave like real human beings. Of course, if it is a romance novel you're writing, go right ahead and compose such a silly interlude. Knock yourself out. I might even enjoy it, if I were in the mood for such a thing and knew exactly what I was getting.
My feelings might change, of course, and I might try again, which is why this is not a DNF for me. I doubt it, however. The riding-accident incident hinted of worse things to come. And if you did like it, or think that I am just being hard on the book...well, that's fine. But you might prefer Kage Baker, who died far too young, if you like this sort of genre hybrid.(less)
Wow. I really was disappointed by this book, and was surprised by my own reaction, which was very different from most of my GR friends.
There were many...moreWow. I really was disappointed by this book, and was surprised by my own reaction, which was very different from most of my GR friends.
There were many reasons why I wasn't moved, either emotionally or intellectually, by Llewellyn's novel. To begin with, I knew, of course, that he wasn't really Welsh; that he committed a fraud (and I don't think I'm being too harsh here) by insisting all his life that he was born in Wales, and was raised in Wales and only educated in England. Other readers, of course, can--and do--view the children of immigrants as having a special insight into the culture of the parents which can be a satisfactory substitute for direct knowledge. I don't myself; perhaps it is because I am the child and grandchild of immigrants, and I am acutely aware of how much I really don't grasp. I don't know if I would have been so acutely conscious of how second- hand most of the information that Llewelyn was passing on; I would like to think so. As it was, only the music and the food (the bits of culture that the immigrant can most easily pass on to the child) felt authentic to me. (Yes, I would like to sample some brandy broth!) That--and the descriptions, towards the end, of the house being slowly suffocated in slag. That felt real, too. But no, I am sorry, so much of the book seemed self-conscious and rather false to me; a Mrs Miniver tinged "A Million Little Pieces".
That sounds tough, I know, and I think another reason I'm being so critical is that I'm judging this book, naturally enough, by the books I've read just before this one. I've been doing an around the world book challenge, and I've been trying to read my books in geographic order. Well, most authors would suffer in comparison with Dylan Thomas (a true poet who makes Llewelyn's sing-songy efforts look rather flat); or Flaubert, whose cool and precise description of exactly what effects arsenic has on the body horrified me, (whereas Llewelyn's descriptions of the starving miners seem blurred and cliched, and left me completely unmoved.) Maybe it's unfair to compare this author to two of the masters of world literature, but I also read The Book of Ebenezer le Page and Venetia Kelly's Traveling Show: A Novel of Ireland during the same time period. When Edwards told me the type of tomatoes that would grow best on Guernsey, I knew I could trust him; when Frank Delaney would stop his tale and explain the mores of 1930's rural Ireland, I had faith that he was telling me the truth, as much as anyone can be trusted to resurrect the thought patterns of a vanished time.
Historical fiction, which I love, is a tricky thing. There's always a filter of the writer's time period, always, always, no matter how much the author tries to rid themselves of their own mind-set. With "How Green is My Valley", I was always conscious that there were two filters; my own, and Llewellyn's 1930 sensibilities. Again, if I thought this book really excellent, I could accept that, and I would find Llewellyn's world outlook, influenced by the imminent outbreak of WWII, interesting in its own right. But the figures are so trite, all stiff-yet-trembling-upper lip. The Mary-Sue sister-in- law that Huw, the protagonist, is in love with, with laughter always in her eyes. The fiery brother. The stalwart father. The mother who is so proud of her cooking. They are all figures out of a John Ford movie--which indeed he did film, as soon as possible--and which, weirdly, I could NOT get out of my head, even though I've never seen that particular Ford picture. Up and down the mountain the mountain they were going, singing always. I felt constantly manipulated; and yes, it is the author's job to manipulate the reader, but you've got to trust the author, you've got to feel that you are in good hands. And I didn't. Not for a moment.
One of the things that really bothered me was the emphasis on fighting. Yes, it was a tough time, and there was very little law, apparently, in that era and place; that wasn't the problem for me. It was quite obvious, too, that LLewellyn got a real thrill out of writing those scenes; there is a nasty boxing match is particular that is described in great detail, though it is completely extraneous to the course of the novel. What bugged me was that Huw's not-taking-anything-from-anybody's stance was never explored, but glorified. OK; that's fine, too, but let's be honest here: Huw's pugnacious attitude, which caused him to (view spoiler)[ be thrown out of school right before he was to take entrance exams (hide spoiler)] and (view spoiler)[ had him arrested when he beat up someone who was making "remarks" about his sister (hide spoiler)] and (view spoiler)[ had him fired from every job he ever held (hide spoiler)] circumscribed, if not actually blighted his life. You're kidding yourself if you think that (view spoiler)[ ending up as a collier or a woodworker--and what was that BS about not accepting that bread-and-butter-work of making coffins? Please. (hide spoiler)] was the best outcome for Huw, especially since in reality the effects of having a bone-shattering accident would have lingered throughout his life. It's easy to put the proudly self-sufficient working-by-the-sweat-of-his-brow honest laboring man on a pedestal, if you don't actually have to DO the work. Like Llewellyn.
I can't say that I was particularly thrilled by the audio book format. It wasn't bad, but I've listened to two audio books set in Wales this year; neither of the first-person narration was done by someone from the country. This would never be seen as acceptable for a book set in Scotland or Ireland nowadays. Why is it OK to fake a Welsh accent? It seems more than a bit of a slight to the culture.
I was wavering between two and three stars, until I came across the passage, describing Huw's first kiss:
"The softness of her mouth was a glory of surprise, and cool, not even warm, with an easiness of moisture, and the tip of her tongue making play in idle strolling, lazily, and yet full of life, and her weight lying heavily upon me, her hair falling about our faces, shutting out the light, and all other smells save that of her, that was the perfume of the broad, sweet lands of the living flesh, that rose from her, and covered her about and followed her as she walked."
Fraudulent author; all right. Cardboard characters; OK. A macho glorification of violence; go right ahead. But bad sex writing--well, there are some things that I just can't accept.
Freshly married naif gets mixed up in a Uruguayan civil war. During his derring-do adventures, every senora or senorita who crosses his path falls in...moreFreshly married naif gets mixed up in a Uruguayan civil war. During his derring-do adventures, every senora or senorita who crosses his path falls in love with him. Think All the Pretty Horses, only with less Spanish and more quotation remarks. This woild be consigned to the basement of historical relics would it not be for the profound knowledge that Hudson, a naturalist, demonstrates for the flora and fauna of his birthland, and the occasional vignettes of the obsessively beef-eating people of the pampas. The 1904 edition has charming woodcuts.(less)
I normally don't review books that I just couldn't bring myself to finish without skimming, but in my opinion each book that Gortner has written has b...moreI normally don't review books that I just couldn't bring myself to finish without skimming, but in my opinion each book that Gortner has written has been poorer than the last, so I thought I should warn other readers. I was really looking forward to this novel--I'm fascinated by Isabella, and even went very far out of my way on rather bad roads to visit her birthplace while I was living in Spain (a dusty, obscure little town at the time, a rather sad place, with a tiny shrine to her memory in the partially ruined castle where she was born). I really enjoyed The Last Queen, as I thought the depiction of the harsh landscape of central and southern Spain was evocative without being sentimental; I could just tell, without then knowing anything about the author, that he KNEW Spain, which of course he does as he is half-Spanish and spent years growing up there. I thought his portrait of Juana was excellent; Gortner does crazy quite well. He still is a good man to turn to when looking for a portrait of the unhinged: the depiction of Isabella's whacked-out mother is by far the most compelling part of this novel. The descriptions of the landscape are still good, too, but frankly, it's not enough any more.
This book is not very good at all. It's filled with the most absurd, info-dumping dialogue where people "remind" each other of complicated political machinations of decades past, and chockablock with the most terrible wooden writing, where people's blood run cold and eyebrows lift sardonically, and the villain's breath is always fetid. Gortner seems to have forgotten every lesson on writing that he ever knew, especially the one of SHOWING and not TELLING. Everything seems to be seen at a distance, which is quite a feat when you're dealing with first-person narration.
Isabella comes off as a very modern woman, and kind of a stupid one at that. Where is the determined monarch of the early Renaissance, the fervent believer, the warrior driven by the conviction that she was doing God's work? You won't find her here. There's far too much talk of women's rights, and sentimental sighings over sending off her daughters to be wed. It's not that I don't believe she had a mother's feelings, but royal girls were raised up to be political pawns; for Isabella to describe herself over and over again as being distraught seems to be unrealistic. Her relationship with Fernando--the greatest political/matrimonial alliance in history--is reduced to a a bunch of squabbles that finish with cries and kisses and make-up sex in bed. Isabella doesn't hate anybody except the Portuguese--it's OK to describe them as vermin. Other groups that were sanctioned/expelled/murdered by her orders, such as the Moors, Jews, and Conversos--well, she was terribly sorry; someone else persuaded her to do it. I guess it is all right for Isabella's feelings towards the Portuguese to be accurate--it seems nobody cares about Spain's neighbor to the west--but let's tippy-toe around everyone else for the sake of political correctness. It bothered me that Gortner would rather depict her as weak, or easily persuaded, rather than examine carefully Isabella's attitudes on the social and political turmoil that occured during her reign, merely to spare the modern reader's feelings.
I started skimming the book when Isabella was present at the bedside of her brother when he was dying of plague (really? having the heir to the throne present?) but I was impatient before that, when Gortner had Isabella and Fernando meeting years before they met each other (they actually met the night before their marriage). It's just to make the story better, Gortner says reassuringly in his afterword. Yes, I get it, most readers aren't looking for complete historical accuracy in their novels, but give us something for our troubles. Exciting action. Excellent writing. Or the feeling that we can really understand the characters, who have vanished into the past, even though they are very different from ourselves. Something. Anything.
Queen Isabella was a complex and amazing woman, no matter what you think of her role in history. This novel does not do her justice. At all.(less)
**spoiler alert** Sometimes a book makes such an error that the reader stops dead in his tracks. I'm not talking about nit-picking a small detail so t...more**spoiler alert** Sometimes a book makes such an error that the reader stops dead in his tracks. I'm not talking about nit-picking a small detail so that the reader can be accused of being pedantic. (In the early years of our marriage my husband would lean over to me in movie theaters and whisper that that guys in war movies were wearing uniforms that were a little out of date but I finally broke him of that habit). No, I'm talking about making a totally dumb factual mistake, like having a regency heroine taking a casual stroll to Windsor Castle when the author really meant Buckingham Palace, or misunderstanding a character's world point of view so fundamentally that the reader literally jerks his head from the pages, and even if he does manage to continue the book he never really trusts the author again. I once had a friend fling "Pet Cemetery" aside; no vet, she said, would be against sterilizing dogs and cats, and since she worked as a veterinary assistant she knew what she was talking about, and had no interest in reading a book whose protagonist was so far-fetched. Alan Brennert makes such an error in Moloka'i, only his misstep is even more egregious than Stephen King's since it is an important, though not central part of the plot.
In the beginning, I liked the book well enough. I lived in Hawai'i for some years. I know how deeply skeptical (to put it mildly) people born in the islands view haole mainlanders coming in and writing about their homeland, but I was willing to give it a try. Besides, what did I know about turn of the century O'ahu since I had never lived there, and one brief visit to Molokai and occasional chats about the island with an acquaintance who had grown up there certainly didn't make me an expert. It was a choice for my book group, too, so I thought I'd better get going.
Young Rachel develops leprosy in turn of the century O'ahu and is eventually sent to the colony at Kalaupapa. The description of the symptoms of the disease, and the long bureaucratic process that banishes her to the other island, make for interesting reading. The novel traces the course of her life, and as sometimes happens in this sort of historical novel which covers a long period of time, the author crams in a lot of laboriously-researched events and details that don't quite fit, and it may also be for that reason that the book had a certain emotional distance. I never felt that close to the main character. OK, a great many historical novelists fall into this trap; it's understandable that you want to share all that hard work.
It was at this point the author makes his big mistake.(view spoiler)[ Rachel and her husband have a baby, and they are forced to send the baby away. The little girl is adopted by a Japanese couple and they move to California. Eventually she and her new family are put into the internment camp at Manzanar.
It.Could.Never.Have.Happened. Not in a million years. Not today, and certainly not almost a hundred years ago. No issei peasant family would have adopted a child---especially a girl(!) that was a hapa (or as the Japanese say, hafu) girl from an unknown, "unclean" bloodline. It would have been out of the question. It simply is not possible. When I told my husband about this plot twist he looked bewildered and said "Was the family really Christian, or something? But even so...."
You see, my husband and I have lived in Japan, and one of the organizations I belonged to has sponsored an orphanage since the end of WWII. The children grow up there; almost none of them leave in "outside" adoptions. It is NOT a Japanese custom (or indeed an Asian custom) to adopt outside the family. Bloodlines are very important. And the idea of a non-Christian man with three boys agreeing to take in a strange girl just because his wife wanted a daughter was just so deeply wrong that I set the book aside and wondered if I should continue. I am sorry not to be PC, but these are the facts and the author should have known something about Japanese culture. It would have taken two minutes of research.
But no, the author was bound and determined to shoe-horn Manzanar into the plot, just so that he could make a heavy-handed parallel of the two internments, so he shoved it in, with no regards as to what actually could have happened. (hide spoiler)] Shaken, I continued (after all it was a book group choice) but my confidence in the author was gone. I kept wondering... what other facts had Brennert twisted and contrived to suit his purposes? What would a kama'aina reader think of this book? Was the Hawaiian viewpoint misrepresented as well and I wasn't close enough to see it? What else had I missed? Should an outsider even attempt to write about a fundamentally foreign culture? It really made me aware of all the manipulative tricks the author had used; I could barely keep my mind on the last part of the novel.
Now, some readers just read for the fun of reading about an exotic land and they might say I am just being fussy, and that it is OK, or not really important that he misrepresented another culture's mindset. But people, we read historical fiction to learn about other times and cultures. What's the point if the author holds up a mirror instead of a window, and pretends otherwise? It's just a cheat. Brennert's mistake bothered me. It really did. Because when an author breaks faith with his reader...well, what else is left?
Post Script Nov 7th:
I've made some strongly worded criticisms calling Brennert to task for a key implausability in his story, which are concealed in the spoiler. For those who are curious, or who need more convincing, please check the comments, where I've linked to half a dozen articles supporting my views. Any discussion on how important the truth is in historical fiction is welcome (with the caveat that comments along the line of oh-it-is-just-fiction-so-anything goes will not be viewed as a seriously debatable position); disputing the claims from sources such as the L.A. Times/Japan Times/Time Magazine/The Department of State/The American Embassy in Japan/ The BBC/ The Seattle Times/Reuters in favor of personal stories not really relevant to the main topic, or opinions based more on wishful Western feelings rather than facts will not be responded to. Thanks!
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