Cynthia Sally Haggard's Blog: Cynthia Sally's Blog, page 63

Reading Sundays: SHADES OF UNREALITY (Part 10), a short story by Cynthia Sally Haggard

I wasn’t at all sure that I wanted to help that irritating cat, not to mention those platter-shaped beings, but my husband Richard had fought hard for the people’s rights in the Land of England all those years ago. Folk called him The People’s Champion. Mayhap, my task now was to help these creatures, these strange non-people beings who could talk and move around rooms as if they were alive and could exercise Free Will. I drew myself up.

“I’ll go.”

“You?” exclaimed Pandora with disdain. “They’re never going to listen to someone wearing a long velvet dress with a pointed headdress and veil.[image error] You look like a witch.”

At that moment, my scribe opened the door and came in.

“I see you’ve met everybody, Lady Cecylee,” she remarked smiling, as she scooped Pandora up into her arms.

“Where are we?”

“This is my apartment. You are standing in my living room. That,” she pointed to the guardroom, “is my kitchen.”

“Lady Cecylee wants to go to Parliament to plead for Robot rights,” remarked Augustus.

My scribe sighed as she sat in one of those moon-backed chairs.

“It’s not so simple.” She stroked Pandora’s orange fur as if she were a real cat. We have to think about what robots are going to be used for. The greatest need is to help nurses move elderly people. Many nurses have been badly injured trying to move them. Robots could do that task instead, and save their backs.”

“So what is the difficulty?” I took the chair opposite, arranging my velvet skirts around my feet…[Continued next week.]

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KUSHNER INC.: Greed. Ambition. Corruption. The Extraordinary story of Jared Kushner & Ivanka Trump by Vicky Ward. Narrated by Vicky Ward & Fiona Hardingham.

Whenever I complained about Ivanka Trump, my husband would tell me: “Don’t knock Ivanka. She’s the only adult in the room who can do anything about Trump.”

I was never so sure. [image error]This book proves that I was right to doubt Ivanka. It was a depressing read. Of course I was not surprised to learn that Jared Kushner used his position as “senior adviser” to his father-in-law Trump to cut deals with the Saudis and make a fine commission for himself. After all, his family has been involved in corrupt deals for decades, so it was not a gasp of surprise to learn that he solved the 666 Fifth Avenue problem for his family with Saudi money. But, as I suspected, Ivanka was deep into this money laundering herself. She turns out to be a charming, highly intelligent, blond beauty of a surface covering up all sorts of murk and dirt.

If you want to know why we should NEVER have family members become “senior advisers,” why elected officials despite all their flaws are so much preferable to oligarchies, read this book. It is excellent. Five stars.

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John Irving’s THE CIDER HOUSE RULES

[image error]Ostensibly, THE CIDER HOUSE RULES is the story of Dr. Wilbur Larch, who founds an orphanage at St. Cloud Maine, and of his favorite orphan Homer Wells, who follows in his footsteps and eventually becomes a doctor.

But the novel is so much more than that. During the time period of this novel, set between the 1920s and the 1950s, abortion was illegal. Dr. Larch’s formative years as a medical student were marked by various experiences with desperate, pregnant women, and the horrors they had to undergo at the hands of back-street abortionists who didn’t know what they were doing. And so, unofficially, Dr. Larch is an abortionist, providing safe abortions for those women desperate enough to trek all the way to back-of-beyonds Maine because they have heard about the good doctor. Homer Wells, having seen the “products of conception” as they are being thrown away, and horrified at the thought of killing babies, refuses to go along with this part of his training. And this disagreement is one reason why Homer Wells, aged nineteen, finally leaves St. Cloud to go off into the wide wide world with his new chums Candy and Wally.

So there you have it. By the magic of his story-telling skills, John Irving gives us a balanced portrayal of abortion, in all of its agonies and difficulties.

So what are THE CIDER HOUSE RULES? During Homer’s sojourn away from the orphanage he becomes a part of a cider making business, owned by Candy and Wally. It is his responsibility to type up these rules for the apple-pickers who come all the way from South Carolina for the seasonal job. The Cider House Rules becomes a metaphor for rules, your rules, my rules and society’s rules, and how this plays out in the abortion debate.

I won’t say any more so as not to spoil this story for you. But if you haven’t read John Irving’s THE CIDER HOUSE RULES, you are in for a treat. Five stars.

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J. K. Rowling’s A CASUAL VACANCY

[image error]A CASUAL VACANCY by J. K. Rowling is the story of a bitter class struggle between the smug, wealthy inhabitants of Pagford, and their much poorer neighbors who inhabit the council flats called “The Fields”.

When kindly counsel member Barry Fairbrother dies suddenly, someone has to be found to fill that vacant seat. The good people of pretty Pagford would rather not have to deal with all the problems created by poverty and would love to redraw the boundaries so that the inhabitants of “The Fields” now live in nearby (and poorer) Yarvil. And so the plot of the novel turns on whether the people of Pagford will be able to fill that seat with someone who will do their bidding, or not.

This book is not particularly easy to read. It is written in omniscient third with 18 point-of-view characters. Personally, I thought that Rowling did a wonderful job in telling this story, and I was not bored or confused as some readers were. But potential readers should be warned that most of the characters in this book are just plain mean and there is plenty of betrayal, infighting and heartbreak. However, if you stick with this story, you will find a rewarding, thought-provoking read. Four stars.

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Reading Sundays: SHADES OF UNREALITY (Part 9), a short story by Cynthia Sally Haggard

I peered in. There were various things sticking up in a container to one side. Were these weapons? Perhaps they were specially shaped arrows, or knives. Whatever they were, they did not perturb Augustus, who shut the door and pressed a disc marked Power. It played a descending major triad in reply.

“It sings,” I exclaimed, relief making me smile.“How did you know what to do?”

“I pushed the button marked Power.”

“Can folk read?”[image error]

“Everyone reads,” sneered Pandora. “Surely you know that.”

“In my time, folk could not read.”

“You lived during the Dark Ages.”

I opened my mouth to reply, when Augustus interrupted.

“There are several different kinds of cleaning you can do.” He indicated a row of buttons. “These dishes aren’t really dirty, so I’ll press the button that says Normal Wash.”

As he pressed another silver disc, the silver box sighed, like a reluctant maid rising from her bed of a morning.

“It sighs as it cleans,” I remarked. “Clearly the creature lives.”

“It’s just a machine,” said Pandora. “Look at it, it’s made of metal. If you touch it, it feels cold.”

By way of response, I felt her orange fur. “You have not the warmth of a living being,” I said into those sea-green eyes that stared at me unblinkingly. “By your argument, you’re not alive. Of what substance are you made?”

She thumped her tail, and glowered.

“Pandora and I are just stuffed toys,” said Augustus.

“But you can speak,” I said. “Have you souls?”

“What’s that?” asked Augustus.

“’Tis the living spark that you carry with you after death,” I replied. “’Tis that very part of you that never dies. Your soul is marked by your actions in life, and God judges the state of your soul after death.”

Pandora yawned hugely into my face. “Who cares about that?” she observed. “I believe in living in the here-and-now. If we don’t do something, Roomba and Scooba will go to Parliament and get their rights and we’ll have nothing. We need to go to Whitehall.”

I wasn’t at all sure that I wanted to help that irritating cat, not to mention those platter-shaped beings, but my husband Richard had fought hard for the people’s rights in the Land of England all those years ago. Folk called him The People’s Champion. Mayhap, my task now was to help these creatures, these strange non-people beings who could talk and move around rooms as if they were alive and could exercise Free Will. I drew myself up…[Continued next week.]

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Emile Zola’s NANA

[image error]NANA by Emile Zola is an interesting take on sex-obsessed Paris of the nineteenth century, the Paris that has now become a stereotype for sexual behavior in our own times. The heroine, Nana, is both available and unavailable. She gains notoriety when she bares all and appears on the stage in the nude as Venus. She is not shy at sharing her bed with several men. Yet when these men try to claim her, to possess her as their own, she turns away, preferring to be by herself.

This is a wonderful novel until the end. It is all a question of taste. The ending, when Nana meets her end, was both distasteful and over-the-top. The Author’s Message and moralizing tone were too much. A pity, as it spoiled an otherwise great novel. Three stars.

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FAREWELL MY LIFE garners a 5-star review from Indie Reader!

[image error]Here is what Indie Reader had to say:

Droll, dramatic, frightening, immersive, FAREWELL MY LIFE grabbed my attention from the first pages and kept it the entire way.

Cynthia Sally Haggard’s FAREWELL MY LIFE initially thrusts the reader into 1920s-era Washington, D.C., looking at the precarious lives of four women: Angelina, mother to teenagers Grace and Violet, and the elder Aunt Paulina. Immediately, it’s impossible to pigeonhole them. Angelina’s passionate, norm-defying behavior belies a world-weariness born from difficult experiences–but so does Paulina’s balancing of traditional values against the transforming world Grace and Violet are entering. Throughout the book, the relationships and conflicts among the four anchor a winding story of courtship, 1920s and ‘30s-era political intrigue, secrets, and scandals, with Grace at the heart of it all.

The complexity and interactions of the four central women are refreshing. All of them have their flaws, and all of them are distinct (Angelina is perceptive but vain and overly strident while Paulina is fooled repeatedly, but unwavering in her love for and commitment to Grace and Violet, to take just two examples). While the core of the story concerns 17-year-old Grace’s various gentleman suitors, a cast of characters from demure to unsettling to ribald, Angelina, Paulina, and Violet always are the most compelling of all.

One of Grace’s love interests, Russell, adds an individualized sort of darkness to match the upheaval of the era. His experiences in the then-recent Great War and on the receiving end of bigotry against Italians in early-twentieth century America both make his icier moments eminently believable. The first, early twist in the story was legitimately startling, but likewise consistent with what we know of Russell. From that moment forward, the tension between Russell’s shadowy qualities and his overwhelming desire for Grace remains a harrowing constant. Even with Russell, Haggard still imbues him with complexity, forcing readers to empathize with him, however reluctantly or partially. Later twists and turns refuse to show him as flat, simply and utterly villainous; his past traumas are given serious weight, even if they do not absolve him of his worst actions. It’s a delicate balance that, most of the time, Haggard accomplishes. Toward the middle of the book, Grace’s eager suitors interact altogether—the only time—in one place, an expertly drawn passage told iteratively from the different perspectives. It’s nearly forensic, in the best possible sense; each partial perspective frames how limited our individual observation of a situation can be, and the ramifications of the scene echo all the way to the conclusion.

In the spirit of classic novels grappling with gender and class, Cynthia Sally Haggard’s FAREWELL MY LIFE is a sweeping, beautifully rendered addition to the historical fiction canon.

~Andy Carr for IndieReader

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Elena Ferrante’s THE LOST DAUGHTER

[image error]THE LOST DAUGHTER by Elena Ferrante is a meditation on motherhood. When 40-something Leda decides to rent a beach house near Naples for the summer, her unaccustomed solitude leads her to meditate on her life and her daughters. Now that her daughters (both in their twenties) have grown and moved far away to Toronto, Canada, Leda wonders why she doesn’t feel devastated by their absence. Instead, she feels the opposite. How can that be?

As Leda moves around between beach house and beach, strolling through a pretty resort with its cafes and restaurants, tentatively making friends with the Napolitano families taking vacations, she continues to probe and to meditate. What emerges is a brutally honest take on motherhood.

I won’t spoil this by saying any more, but Leda does something that turns the title on its head. Four stars.

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FIVE DAYS GONE by Laura Cumming. Narrated by Kate Reading.

[image error]I don’t usually read memoir, as I normally don’t find it very interesting. And this quiet narrative of family strife would normally cause me not to continue due to boredom. But there was something that kept me going and enjoying this narrative until the very end. For one thing, it is very well told. The author chooses to cast the early part of the memoir through her mother’s eyes, the innocent protagonist around whom all these events swirl, who is kept in the dark about their significance. Gradually she shifts to her own point of view, as the concerned daughter of Grace Blanchard/Betty Elstead/Elizabeth Cumming.

I loved Kate Reading’s melodious voice, but at this point I wish she had done something to distinguish mother from daughter. Of course, we expect Laura to sound like her mother Elizabeth, but even so, the narrator could have accentuated the differences. For example, I sound very much like my sister. But I speak faster than she does. The unfortunate effect of this lack of distinctiveness between the voices of mother and daughter was that I kept being pulled up short, not sure who I was listening to.

I loved the ending of this memoir, even though it raised more questions. The man at the center of the love-triangle, George, is telling the absent mother Hilda that he loves her. So I could not help wondering if that meant that he was punishing himself by staying with Vida, the woman he was married to. Four stars.

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Reading Sundays: SHADES OF UNREALITY (Part 8), a short story by Cynthia Sally Haggard

I seethed, like a pot on the boil, anger making me forget my fear. Just at that moment, Roomba careened into the long velvet train of my plum-colored court gown and growled. My belly lurched as I clutched my arms together across my chest. Was this a form of torture the Necromancer had dreamed up for me? Was the platter going to eat me for dinner?

“Can’t you shut that thing off?” bellowed Pandora.

Augustus leaned forward.

A deafening silence erupted.

I sagged with relief. The platter was dead. He could no longer toy with me. But what had Augustus done? Had he murdered something?

“You have killed the creature,” I exclaimed. “What you have done is most evil. God will punish you.”

“He just turned the damned thing off.” Pandora jumped back down onto the carpeted floor, and stared at me.

I was too distraught to be angry with her. Tears welled in my eyes. I was so relieved the creature was dead, yet I felt a great wrong had been done.

“Every living creature has a soul,” I remarked. “It is our duty to protect them.”

Augustus stood up. “Ummm.” He scratched his head again. “Perhaps it might help if I gave you another demonstration.”

My neck stiffened with fear. Not another creature performing strange acts. Could I manage another such encounter? I shuddered as he walked over to a silver box in the Guardroom. Reluctantly, I followed. He bent down to open a cupboard near the floor, and took out a bottle of liquid.

“This will clean the dishes,” he explained, opening the door to one of the silver boxes,[image error] and pouring something into it.

I peered in. There were various things sticking up in a container to one side. Were these weapons? Perhaps they were specially shaped arrows, or knives. Whatever they were, they did not perturb Augustus, who shut the door and pressed a disc marked Power. It played a descending major triad in reply.

“It sings,” I exclaimed, relief making me smile.“How did you know what to do?” [Continued next week.]

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