Lori Eshleman's Blog, page 9

Review of Dear Thief, by Samantha Harvey

Dear Thief: A Novel by Samantha Harvey

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I started reading Dear Thief: A Novel, by Samantha Harvey, because I too had lost touch with a friend many years ago, only to find out recently what had happened to her. I thought the theme would help me explore the meaning of that youthful friendship and the feelings dredged up by news that we would reconnect only in memory. The novel takes the form of a long letter written to an absent friend--a letter which reflects on the narrator's own life path, her marriage and son, and the betrayal that unfolds when the friend--"Butterfly"--comes to visit. Harvey's writing is often visionary, leading us to lonely woods and the rooms of the dying. I remember especially two scenes by rivers. One scene that takes place at night and involves the discovery of long-buried animal bones at the same moment as the unveiling of love. And one, framed by a tremendous thunderstorm, that reveals the discovery of a freshwater pearl at the same moment when that love may be lost. Throughout the narrative, memories and perceptions prove to be treacherous and changeable, like rivers. And feelings prove to be dense with both hope and betrayal. The reader rightly wonders what is truth and what is fiction, and whether the two can indeed be disentangled.



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Review of Strange Shores, by Arnaldur Indridason

Strange Shores by Arnaldur Indriðason

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I have long been a fan of the mysteries of Icelandic writer Arnaldur Indridason, especially of his Inspector Erlendur series. In Strange Shores, the author takes us to the remote and wintery ruin of Erlendur's childhood home and the daunting terrain where his brother disappeared as a child. The scenes in the ruined farmhouse will recall to mind many readers' lost childhood homes and our desire to know what has become of them. In the novel, the ruin becomes a symbol of the past and the familiar people who once lived there, and more than that, a portal into another world. Weaving together two missing persons cold cases with visits to eccentric witnesses and an old cemetery, Strange Shores is the climax of Erlendur's years-long obsession with these remote fjords and his brother's disappearance. Of all the detectives in Scandinavian mysteries, Erlendur is perhaps the most tormented. And of all Indridason's novels, this one is perhaps the most visionary.



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Review of the Victorian Chaise Longue by Marghanita Laski

The Victorian Chaise Longue by Marghanita Laski

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This week I went to a talk on "Imagining Disease: Horror and Health in Medicine," by Catherine Belling, at the Mayo Clinic Center for Humanities in Medicine in Scottsdale, AZ. Dr. Belling discussed the meanings of horror, especially in relation to the body. Her excellent talk recalled to mind a book I read many years ago, which has stayed with me to this day: The Victorian Chaise Longue, by Marghanita Laski. I was in London staying at a bed and breakfast, the kind of place that appealed to students; and in the common room I picked up Laski's book, which had been left by another guest. (In those days before Kindle and ebooks, "found books" could be quite precious to a traveler.) In this novella, a woman falls asleep on a Victorian chaise lounge which she has purchased from an antique shop and awakens to find herself occupying the body of a 19th century woman who is in the end stages of TB. She feels not only alienated from this stranger's body, but trapped in a sick, dying body. This book captures a true sense of horror of the kind Dr. Belling discussed: the horror of a body coughing blood and edging toward death--and even more horrific, a body that is not one's own. I recommend it to fans of horror and historical fiction both.The Victorian Chaise Longue.



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Review of Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Set on a remote Icelandic farm in the early 19th century, this novel spins a tale of a female servant who is condemned for murder and spends the last months of her life living with a family on a remote Icelandic farm. I opened this novel with anticipation. First, it was a gift from a friend who loved it. Second, as a student of Old Norse Literature and mythology, I looked forward to seeing how a young Australian writer would interpret this remote time and place. One of the novel's strengths is the strong sensory imagery--mud, body odor, blood,urine, lashing rain and icy snow. Another strength is the description of the bleak lineaments of the Icelandic landscape. I enjoyed the ominous use of ravens, an old symbol of Odin, the Norse god of wisdom and magic. In terms of human relationships, the interactions of the women on the farmstead are particularly strong. But I would have liked to see further development of the enigmatic character of the herbalist Natan Ketilsson, one of the murdered men.




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