Devon Trevarrow Flaherty's Blog, page 48

Book Review: The Goldfinch

[image error]I very, very rarely review a book without finishing it. The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt, is going to be one of those exceptions. There are two reasons for this exception: it’s really long and I simply don’t want to spend that much more time finishing it. And I have found so many people out there (including many critics) having the same experience as me, that I believe I would end up where they did, with the same opinions that they have. (I’ve read around 3/4s of it, as of last night.) We’re going to go with that, at least for now (because I haven’t completely given up on the book, but I have set it aside indefinitely).

This book is so controversial. I thought that it was controversial because how could a book for the commoners have won a Pulitzer? Wasn’t that the buzz a few years ago? Well, I’m cool with that, so I thought I might actually enjoy this hefty discussion-maker. Ehn. Turns out there is a more lasting controversy about this book, and it is: is it any good? Pick your side, and it’s likely to be middling but staunch.

The set-up: Average thirteen-year-old New-Yorker with single mom who he absolutely adores. They go to a museum on their way to a parent-teacher conference on the day it is bombed by terrorists. Mom dies. Son starts a life of being un-anchored. The twist is that as the overwhelmed and disoriented kid claws his way out of the wreckage, he does a dying stranger a solid and steals a priceless painting from the museum. This is where all the tension, all the plot essentially, comes from for (I believe) the rest of the book and through at least two major “sections” of the book. (I refer here not to the formal sections, but to the disparate halves that people complain about, and why so many people drop off in the middle of their reading.) We follow Theo for fourteen years (during his supposed “growth”) as he lands in a couple different homes, gets hooked on drugs, and slips further and further into a dark, criminal tunnel of basically his own making.

Unbelievable. I’m not saying that in the cute, slang way. No. This story was just—for me and many others—unbelievable. From the first scenes, it was ludicrous but in the framing of realism, which makes it uncompelling. And there are other reasons the story is uncompelling (as in I’m-perfectly-happy-with-setting-this-down-right-now), which have to do with the unlikability of the characters (yes, I said it again) and the lack of conventional pacing or conflict. Sometimes, reading this, I actually thought, I am bored. And then maybe Tartt would write something brilliant and I would be like, Okay, I’ll keep going. There’s bound to be more brilliance around the corner. There was also more boredom.

And for me, it came down to this: I also found myself sighing occasionally as I paused to think, Why on earth did she choose THIS story? To spend eleven years (!) on your magnum opus and to choose a story that probably could have been told in a short story and that wouldn’t even interest most readers? Super weird. (Note: it actually worked for her.) Page after page after page, I was just like I don’t care! I didn’t care about Theo or his friends (with the exception of two characters), I didn’t care about what was happening because I am not super in to art dealing and antiques, life in New York City, drug addiction, or mediocre people, and ultimately, I didn’t care if a criminal gets his just desserts. Not that I believed the whole thing would have developed that far to begin with. Each new step in the plot was like, “What?!? Nah. Don’t buy it,” but I had to keep following Tartt there.

And for a bildungsroman, (fancy word for coming-of-age story and a neat way to make yourself sound more European), the main character is remarkably static. The definition of a bildungsroman is that the protagonist grows. There might be some giant leap at the end of this book, but I haven’t heard about it. All I know is that 3/4 s of the way into the book, Theo has gotten progressively worse, has continually repressed the light of his idols and decision-made himself into a giant (unbelievable) pit of (boring) problems. He started out snooty, self-centered, and isolating, and that hasn’t improved him. I sort of hate him.

I don’t hate this book. I think it has its moments. And if it were like a quarter of the size, it might have kept a whole lot more people’s attention and made more sense (on many levels). I am, however, putting it down. And once again, I am asking myself if I read the wrong book by the right author, or just the wrong author. I’d like to think, the former.

Book Review: The Buried Giant

[image error]I hate to be redundant, but once again I find myself having just finished a book, mourning its potential. The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro—which won a Nobel Prize and is a national bestseller—is not bad, exactly, but it’s also not so good. But there’s a little more to say, here. (I’m about to say “despite” a lot.) Despite its cleaness, it felt unengaging and unemotional. Despite its reputation, it’s flat and flagging. Despite its being Arthurian (I am a fan), it was groggy in some of the wrong ways.

Because it’s supposed to be a little groggy, right? We’re witnessing a fog of forgetfulness. And in some way we feel this forgetfulness, as readers. But I found that since this aspect wasn’t all in, it felt undone, half-hearted, or like Ishiguro couldn’t quite figure out how to handle it. I would have preferred that it was overdone so that it was more of an experimental novel. The novel had enough of this and of other things to make me want to like it, but in the end, I never got there.

We pick up in what feels like a historical science fiction Hobbit-town, where a couple is aging, thanks to their neighbors, ungracefully. Amidst their secret suspicions that there is a curse of forgetfulness on the land, they decide to seek out their son, who they can hardly remember. (There’s a lot to go with here, from the modern twist on Arthurian England to the added tension caused by the forgetfulness: so many questions!) Thus they set off, encounter a couple of characters that give us foreshadowing and a couple that become their travel companions. It’s hard to know who we can trust, and if we are really rooting for the return of memory to a deeply divided, war-torn land. And will Axl and Beatrice make it to their son? Heck, will they survive the journey at all?

Disjointed. Incomplete. I could guess enough about where we were headed for the story not to carry enough suspense. And the rest of the storytelling lacked any tension in the narrative arch. Wandering. That’s what I felt like; I was wandering. And this story, literally, is a journey, so more standard journey direction and tension, please.

Whatever. Wanted to like it. Was disappointed. And I’m not the first person to say it. Perhaps I should read some other Ishiguro., like Never Let Me Go, or The Remains of the Day.

Book Review: Caddie Woodlawn

[image error]I have been very interested to re-read all those books that I called my “favorite” when I was younger. Caddie Woodlawn, I’m sure, was the title written on many school days infographic sheets that I filled in, along with The Wheel on the School and A Wrinkle in Time. I have had the bizarre pleasure of reading all three of those titles in 2018, for one reason or another. The other two I have already reviewed.

I didn’t remember a whole lot about this book from when I was a kid. Turns out, the best description is one I saw several other places: it’s Little House on the Prairie, but Laura has more spunk. She’s a tomboy. I also had not remembered that the book is based on a real person and their stories: the grandmother of Carol Ryrie Brink, the author. This made the read much more interesting to me, since I enjoy history and figured that added authenticity to the pioneer-Wisconsin setting. Caddie is an interesting little girl and she does make a great hostess into our foray into the olden days.

There’s really not much to say. The writing is straight-forward, without frills but also without many flaws. You get the story, you get what’s going on and where you are. Character development is on the level of elementary school readers, and the story is really meant for them, from beginning to end. There’s not a ton of suspense, but there is plenty of learning to do. My son actually saw the small twist at the end coming from about halfway through the book. But it’s not the point of the book. The point is to meet Caddie and to transported to a different place and time in history.

As with most writing from other times, there are some awkward moments. Mostly, Caddie and her family are more understanding of the Native Americans around them than other pioneers, but there are still things that would not be considered PC today. These things are more understated than in some books, but it still helps if you are reading aloud. If you are not, it just opens a door for discussion, right?

I recommend this book, especially for elementary aged kids who are reading chapter books and who 1) are spunky gals, 2) enjoy pioneer literature ala Little House on the Prairie, or 3) are open to discovering new types of literature that they might like.

Book Review: The Ocean at the End of the Lane

[image error]It is hard to walk away from a book and expect to just re-approach it later and talk about it. Things have changed, they always have. And my memory never was what it used to be. I have the blog for that. In fact, after a couple years of always writing slightly behind myself (except on odd occasions), I am almost caught up to myself. Case in point: I read The Ocean at the End of the Lane one month ago. Just give me another month and I’ll be reviewing in real time, again. In fact in fact, Neil Gaiman’s American Gods is one of the last books I have left in my backlog.

Shift gears. Neil Gaiman was this name that I just kept hearing everywhere. Trying to be a bibliophile or even just a nerd in general and not come across his name has become impossible. “Ooh, they’re making a miniseries based on a Neil Gaiman novel,” “Let’s go to comiCon and see Neil Gaiman,” and then his name on the bookshelves, on the reading lists, on library posters… Nothing against the guy, I just hadn’t gotten around to him yet (except for the little blip where he crossed paths with Tim Burton) and was feeling really in the dark.

[image error]Neil Gaiman (that’s his given name) is a writer: of novels, short fiction, comic books, graphic novels, film, and even audio plays. He has won the Hugo, Nebula, Bram Stoker, Newbery, and Carnegie, among other things. He was written several very popular books, including The Sandman (graphic novel series), Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, The Graveyard Book, and The Ocean at the End of the Lane. Other books include Good Omens, Neverwhere, Anansi Boys, Interworld, The Silver Dream, Eternity’s Wheel, and Cinnamon. In other words, you could get going on Gaiman and it would take you awhile to exhaust all of his “stuff.”

I can’t see that happening with me, but I do find his work, uh, interesting. Let’s just keep moving.

Now I have to mention Coraline, because I’ve seen this movie lots of times and so it was always going to change the way that I approached The Ocean at the End of the Lane. Coraline was a novella written by Gaiman that was co-written and produced for screen by Tim Burton, in the style of The Nightmare Before Christmas. I see everything that comes out related to Tim Burton, pretty much. So I’d seen Coraline, and I’d brought home a copy, and I’d shown it probably prematurely to my children. (It does work okay for some kids, but the novella is technically in the horror genre.) When I picked up The Ocean at the End of the Lane, I was in a totally rad used bookstore in Pinehurst, NC and wanted to snag something for my husband. A month later, I fished it off his bedstand in those weak moments after having just finished another book. When I began reading Ocean, Coraline was all over it, like hot, sticky breath. Now mind you, I haven’t read the book, but I can’t imagine it can be that far off because Ocean is a type of spiritual sister (as Jumanji and Zathura are called) to the movie, anyways. I couldn’t seem to get rid of it. The place I was in felt so much like the dream-like-scape of Coraline. Feelings were the same. And, of course, there’s a child in a precarious and obliquely terrifying situation, and a super scary, spider-like adult female blocking his or her way from seeking that help. The kid’s spunky enough and relatively brave. And there you have it. I could see through this whole story from the beginning, simply because I had seen it before.

Also, why the story-within-the-story? Since this device has been, in the past, overused, I think an author needs to justify its usage. I didn’t really get it here. Except maybe that he keeps forgetting? Nah.

Also, Gaiman offs the scariest protagonist way too early in the story, as well as introduces a less-scary protagonist too late. Both of these moments create a real bumpiness in the narrative that might just cause some people to set the small book down and never come back. If the main characters were more compelling, perhaps? It was not the characters who stuck with me at all when I left this story. It was just a couple of glaringly creepy moments, which I suppose all horror creators have to make happen. (Though the age-appropriateness of that one scene makes me wonder how on earth the cover told me that it was “family” reading. What? It’s not.)

All in all, I found The Ocean at the End of the Lane to be disjointed and re-told. The only other book I’ve read of Gaiman’s, to date, was American Gods, and though it was not exactly my speed, it was original and engaging. I wanted Ocean to be better, and saw where it might have been. But did I really need it to be anything, at all? I’m pretty sure I could just go to the bookstore and get Coraline, which I think I just might.

I’m not saying it’s bad, exactly, just that I was underwhelmed and could have done without it. In the end, I will be returning to Gaiman to read and see more: Coraline, Sandman, Stardust, and The Graveyard Book, at least. And you can look for the American Gods review coming soon. I’m pretty sure you’ll find it more fulfilling, as a review and as a book.

Short Story Review: Parts Unknown: Narnia

[image error]When Anthony Bourdain passed away over the summer, all of a sudden I realized just how many other people were fans of his work. Except for his book, which often tops lists of food journalism, I thought I was sorta fringy watching every episode of his food journalism and bringing it up at parties (because it’s so good. I just can’t help it). When Bourdain passed, right as the media was winding up to go berserk, my family called because they knew I couldn’t stop talking about Bourdain and hadn’t for years. Turns out, this was typical. Bourdain–despite of, or perhaps because of his rough edges—is very widely admired.

At times a bit caustic and even off-putting, the hardened, gritty Bourdain was seen softening over the years—not in the way you might think (he would still put his life on the line for an adventurous sequence or slurp ungodly eats). He became more palpably interested in people and more open to their many ways of doing life on this spinning rock. He became one of the incredible journalists who is somehow also a humanitarian, just by going and talking. He did some Emmy-award winning work (which was completely earned) and also spent a lifetime of changing and growing off camera. As a chef. As a reporter. As a person. The loss is a tragedy.

All that to say that in the dearth of Bourdain mentions in the months following his death, I came across a little gem (which The NewYorker proclaimed a “triumph”) by Rachel Manija Brown for Archive of Our Own. Of course, the best is to read Bourdain’s books (Kitchen Confidential and A Cook’s Tour, plus two others) and to watch all of his shows in their entirety, like No Reservations and Parts Unknown. (Also, A Cook’s Tour and The Layover, which is a useful and cool show that didn’t last long.) When you’re all done, however, you will want to search out one particular article. If you have read The Chronicles of Narnia (or, actually, have even watched the movie) and if you know Bourdain, you’ll get a kick out of this quick read.

[image error]A pre-written eulogy that soothes the pain, this is fan-fiction at its best. Legend tells it that Bourdain actually came across this spoof of his character and his show, and liked it himself. I don’t know how you couldn’t. It’s so exact, so dead-on. It is what you might expect: an episode of Parts Unknown in short story form. In the episode, Bourdain goes to Narnia. Fantasy plus food? What could be better? And it really is written so painstakingly, with such a care for the details of both Narnia and Bourdain. Think those are topics that would never meet? That just wouldn’t work? That’s part of what makes it work: the combination between Bourdain’s devil-may-care acceptance of any new culture and his penchant for the seedy side of things, even in Narnia. This is a must-read. It really works.

Now I know I have talked it up too much. Still, read it.

You can find the article, here, at Archive of Our Own.

Book Review: Little Fires Everywhere

I usually carry too many books with me. When we loaded the car for our annual summer trip to Syracuse, I limited myself. We had less than a week, this year, and I had been reading veeerrryy slowly. And we were going to be camping most the time. Little did I know I would start reading on the road and just wouldn’t stop all week long. My husband and I didn’t even have our nightly Netflix cuddles. We just kept reading.

So a couple of days in, I found myself in a book-less pickle. Then again, not a huge pickle, because my mother-in-law is a fellow bibliophile. In our guest room, there were several books on a bookcase (they’re still moving in), among them, a few that Ma had recently read with her book club. While she did not have a copy of the one that she had recently recommended to me (The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry), she did have a title that I recognized from recent book group conversation: Little Fires Everywhere, by Celeste Ng. I pulled it down off the shelf and read it before we left. (Then another pickle, but that was solved when I just read the Neil Gaiman novel my husband was reading when we switched between driver and passenger.)

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Fires was engaging, for sure. I was into the characters. I was into the story. But at the same time, I was conflicted and disappointed. Conflicted because—while I think Ng genuinely tried to write from a neutral standpoint—I felt on the other side of all the author’s opinions. And who isn’t goaded into passion when it comes to un-adoption? (More on the plot in a moment.) Disappointed just because I thought it could have been better. It was… what was it? Slow? Meandering? There was just something about it that lacked the fireworks that it could have had. And so close after reading The Book Thief, the last thing I wanted was to give away the ending at the beginning. Lucky for Fires, there was only so much revealed. The rest becomes a fairly compelling mystery (with what some would call a too-neat solution).

Interjection: It disturbs me when a book or movie is too much like a project I am working on. Fires is pretty darn similar in some ways to a book that I have already published, Benevolent, mixed fairly evenly with my current project, a novel about a mother and her secrets and her kids. I’m pretty sure, however, that what I was noticing was more of a writing style similarity (besides the Midwest setting, similar ages of characters, and identical timeframe), so I’ll have to take it as a good sign that the literary world is praising Ng, and not be frightened of being compared to her incessantly with my breakthrough novel.

Main Thread of Thought: Little Fires Everywhere is a short- to medium-length novel about two families clashing in the 90s. The background is affluent suburbia (Shaker Heights, actually) and the wealthy mother’s need for complete control and neatness-in-life. Into this nuclear family of six walks the new girl to high school as well as her artist mother, a pair of drifters who care very little for the material stuff of life. Friends are made. Lines are drawn. Mess happens. And all of this is threaded round by two cords of storyline: on one, the question of what makes art-mom so secretive and so transient; on the other: wealthy-mom’s infertile friend’s adoption, which goes horribly awry when the birth mother shows up, ready for a fight. Eventually, one does have to do with the other which have to do with the central theme. In that sense, it’s a riveting package, though it could have been a smoother ride.

There is plenty to think about with Fires, but Ng tends to set the reader adrift, as opposed to guide them through the thing. And to be honest, most of the time, I felt that the things we noticed were very trite. Fires is a sort of run through the headlines of the 1990s, without going terribly deep into any one thing, though the focus is obviously on motherhood/adoption with a little race relations thrown in. The topic got me all heated up, but the book itself lacked gravity or even, due to pacing and point of view?, drama. And I had a hard time deciding exactly what I felt about any of these people. (I’m not really one to be contemptuous of people, just because they are typical or out of style.)

Someone—named Adrienne Rich on Goodreads—wrote a review which expresses much of my impressions with this book, better than me. She says, “The nonconformist has always been at war with the suburbs… Still, you really don’t have to dig very deep to realize that things aren’t as black-and-white as they seem. There are all different kinds of people living everywhere, with varying degrees of happiness and fulfillment. All of which is to say, if you’re going to write on this theme now, you should probably have something new to add to the conversation, or at least a unique way of expressing it.” She also says, “What I don’t like is being told who to root for. I don’t like it when authors stack the deck. Just present every character in the fullness of their humanity and let me decide who I’m rooting for. If you’ve done your job properly, I’ll root for who you want me to root for anyway. But if you idealize one extremely flawed character at the expense of everyone else, you’re going to lose me.” (Hopefully I didn’t quote more than a tenth of that review. If you are interested, I’m sure you can find it at Goodreads.) The point is, wealthy white people in the suburbs are not necessarily villains and complicated, unmaterialistic artists are not always heroes. Fires didn’t really end up making sense of the trope or of giving us something new or complicated.

Not that I hated the book. I didn’t. I actually enjoyed it, to some extent. But the reading also felt hollow and the point of the book, forced. Also, as many have pointed out, it’s an unbelievable story, even for a novel. A fun enough ride, though, if you’re at your in-laws bookless or if you just love cliché social issues enough that you don’t mind when characters are weighted in your favor despite reality.

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I do not have any quotes for you. I was reading a borrowed copy and therefore did not underline.

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MOVIE:

There is a movie in the making, which means that hopefully it’ll happen, starring Reese Witherspoon. I would like to see it when and if it is finished.

Book Review: The Book Thief

[image error]I have been looking forward to reading this book for a while. It comes up now and again, especially on best books lists. It’s also titled The Book Thief, which sounds so exciting and so very bookish.

Let’s establish what this book is. It is a young adult novel about Nazi Germany. That’s pretty much it in a nutshell. It is definitely read and appreciated by people of all ages (like Harry Potter). It is definitely fiction, though it is historical and gives insights that I had not yet encountered in any other Holocaust writing (though many that I had, too). And it is– what makes is stand out in writing style, which is a little hard to define—what I would call “gimmicky.”

I don’t necessarily mean gimmicky in a negative way, but there are times that I was annoyed at all the gimmick, in this particular book. I imagine that it is the gimmicks that make this book stand out, too, and what makes many people name it as their favorite book and read it over and over. You ask gimmicky how? Let’s see. It might be best for you to just read the book and discover the style for yourself, but I am going to give a little bit away: 1) the story is told from the point of view of Death (who sees emotions as colors); 2) the narrator consistently gives away punchlines long before they are reached, including the “ending,” 3) there are myriad breaks from the text, indented and font changed, as random notes. These could be definitions, observations, whatever.

Also, there are some dropped threads: maybe plotlines that could have been omitted altogether. And there are some really unclear moments, which I have come to believe is the most common pitfall of the writing life. Being unclear. (Some readers complain about the ending, too, which is a little ambiguous and reveals the undefined nature of the main character’s feelings, all the way through. And tons of swearing, though it is in German.) The title doesn’t really deliver. And sometimes, either does the foreshadowing.

For young adult, the writing is strikingly literary. Sometimes the style works and is beautiful. Sometimes it’s so overdone that I wonder if the writer isn’t trying too hard. Like when describing all these rainbow skies. I think the idea is cool, but sometimes the color descriptions are distractingly odd. I wish I could find the best example, but suffice it to say that the sky was brown and the simile used something that was not most-times brown. When this sort of thing happens, it makes me feel like the author is trying too hard, like I already said. That might not be the reality, but I like to feel that the author is in there so little that they have removed themselves from the book altogether. Seamless, this book is not.

However, it is a good book. I can definitely see recommending it for high schoolers. And while the lovable characters and the writing style seem to be what gets all the attention here, I am most impressed with a handful of very touching scenes—which increased near the end of the book—that were so poignant they made your heart swell and a tear come to your eye at the same time. Finally, some deftness and real depth.

I would not discourage you from reading this book. If you are a high schooler, I might even place it in your hands. While an interesting read, I would not list it among my personal favorites, largely because I do not like to know the ending before the second chapter.

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QUOTES:

“Misfortune? / Is that what glued them down like that? / Of course not. / Let’s not be stupid. / It probably had more to do with the hurled bombs, thrown down by humans hiding in the clouds” (p13).

“She could argue with the entire world in the kitchen, and almost every evening, she did” (p41).

“Of course, there was also the scratchy feeling of sin. / How could he do this? / How could he show up and ask people to risk their lives for him? How could he be so selfish?” (p169).

“Nor did he excel enough to be one of the first chose to run straight at [Death]” (p174).

“Living was living. / The price was guilt and shame” (p208).

“You might well ask what the hell he was thinking. The answer is, probably nothing at all. He’d probably say that he was exercising his God-given right to stupidity. Either that, or the very sight of Franz Deutsher gave him the urge to destroy himself” (p297).

“On the other hand, you’re human. You should understand self-obsession” (p307).

“Competence was attractive” (p356).

“The sky was white but deteriorating fast. As always, it was becoming an enormous drop sheet. Blood was bleeding through, and in patches, the clouds were dirty, like footprints in melting snow. / Footprints? you ask. / Well, I wonder whose those could be” (p470).

“…but there would be punishment and pain, and there would be happiness, too. That was writing” (p525).

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MOVIE:

I would like to see it.

Series Review: Time Quintet

[image error]I have been looking forward to re-reading this book for years, so it was advantageous when the movie was slated for release around the same time it was coming up on my son’s fourth grade reading list. You see, it was one of my favorite books when I was a kid and I read it in fourth grade. When they made such a big deal about the movie with so much media buzz and all these special effects and Oprah Winfrey and Reese Witherspoon and Mindy Kaling, etc., I got so excited.

However, as Eamon and I were having a less than awesome experience with the books, the movie came out to disappointed reviews. So the whole experience took a turn I didn’t see coming.

[image error]The series, called the Time Quintet, are as follows:

A Wrinkle in Time
A Wind in the Door
A Swiftly Tilting Planet
Many Waters
An Acceptable Time

It’s true. I did not love the books as an adult. The first few chapters I was enthused, ecstatic, enjoying them with childlike abandon. The Murry home was warm and interesting and you just wanted to snuggle down into the characters (well, maybe except the twins) and grow up among them. Plus, what was about to happen? What was up with all the mysterious hints? Where is Dad? And how are all the character’s faults going to resolve? How are the characters going to change? To learn and grow? The setting, the plot, the thoughtfulness: it’s all there in the set up.

And then. I hate to say it, but A Wrinkle in Time doesn’t deliver on its promises. I know that it is a much beloved book and won awards and life-long fans and all sorts of things. But I just don’t see it, not from a literary criticism standpoint. Or, unfortunately, even from an enjoyment standpoint. The plot fizzles over and over again. Things get disjointed and pacing jerks the reader all over the place. The story dissolves into telling instead of showing on many occasions, and sometimes is completely illogical and/or forced. The book, after the first few chapters, felt like enormous potential with very little to encourage a reader to keep reading except for the initial connection and questions. (I am also aware that the inclusion of the twins, at all, as well as the cliched first line is a clue that placing your entertainment in L’Engle’s hands is going to a little of a gamble.)

Wrinkle is not horrible, it just isn’t complete or cohesive in its sparse gleams of greatness. I don’t think it deserves the place it holds on many people’s best-of lists, but I also really hate to be mean. L’Engle has something to say (note: she is obviously a Christian and a lover of the sciences) and she has given us characters and place and even some alluring ideas about a greater universe. But the journey through all of it? A rocky ride.

My son and I continued through the series, anyway, which is what I had done as a kid. Well, we continued through for a while, though the books don’t actually work in any way together as a narrative trajectory. In other words, they can all stand alone and take place in the characters’ lives and home apart from each other. I found this surprising, given how huge the story from the first book could have been.

The second book, A Wind in the Door, was fairly miserable. Again, great ideas and characters and setting that you want to like (in the beginning), but a downward-spiraling, boring story that is super disjointed. You spend half the time watching a microscopic orgy. I dunno. There’s a lot of talking and observation and a lot of-lot of stretching of our belief and even patience. Convenience. That’s what much of the plot was. Convenience that didn’t feel right. It was like a science fiction book which turned out to be a non-book.

We didn’t finish the third book. I rarely stop a book once started, but I was officially only committed to A Wrinkle in Time, the first book, so I felt okay calling it quits on a series where one of the characters sat there the whole time. I wasn’t enjoying and my son wasn’t enjoying, especially when Mark Twain and Lemony Snicket were beckoning. (Tom Sawyer has its own challenges, but we’ll deal with that later.)

I don’t want to go on and on about it. I loved the book as a kid. Many people love the book and the series. I read it as an adult and I found it to be lacking in several ways. I am still nursing my disappointment. And I move on to the next great book. If you want to see someone agree with me in a much more eloquent way, read this Washing Post review.

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[image error]MOVIE: There’s nothing that I’m going to say here that hasn’t been said recently. The movie could have been great and certainly put its money where its mouth was, pulled out all the stops. I don’t envy the writer and director, who were stuck with a very difficult story to whip into shape. But they were given a weath of ideas, characters, visuals, and magic to work with. They did go to town. The movie just didn’t quite work out. Part of it was the source material. Part of it was trying to remove L’engle’s ideals from the story and be ultra-modern about it. It’s supposed to be quaint. No matter how they might have done it better, they didn’t quite make it. But despite the bad reviews, it was still an okay family night movie. So not terrible and visually exciting.

 

Book Review: The Scarlet Letter

[image error]I used to have a story for why I picked The Scarlet Letter up at the point in time I read it (2017). I am still reviewing from my backlog, however (though I have also been reviewing as I read: double-timing it) so I don’t remember all of the circumstances. I remember buying The Scarlet Letter at the Regulator Bookshop on a Ninth Street date night and sitting in the Triangle Coffee House (I think—its name has changed constantly over the years), my husband and I reading our new novels side-by-side over, well, probably a hot chocolate or an Americano. I remember not being super happy with those first many pages, but then I also remember loving it by the end.

The Scarlet Letter is the type of classic that I mostly blog to review. It is the sort of book that I meant to read when I made that 5000+ title list of “best of” books. I had read it before, in high school, but I didn’t really remember it. Let’s be honest: I probably didn’t read all of it. I was too busy being a high schooler to do school work. I was that kid.

Though many neo-modern people might howl about this book, calling it—who knows?—anti-feminist? outdated? puritanical? conservative?—I love reading partly for this reason: books take us outside of our own culture, out of our own PC little worlds, and challenges us with the wisdom and folly of other times and places so that we can better see our own. I guess I can stop giving that disclaimer. I have given it for so many of the books that I have reviewed lately. Perhaps it’s all the movies being remade lately from old stories, that are fiction-revisionist and absurd.

The Scarlet Letter is about Hester Pryne, and it’s a little hard to say much without ruining the tension of mystery in the book. Though you likely already know what it’s about, we’ll keep it to this, here: one act of indiscretion creates a cauldron of guilt, sin, pride, blame, and curses, that absorbs the life of three people in an early New England town. One of them is Hester Prynne, a heroine who is truly riveting to watch, especially with Nathaniel Hawthorne’s careful, deft writing. The book flirts with a line of sensuality, but it’s mostly an absorbing work of psychology (and a little romance) and a tightly told tale that will keep the reader guessing.

It’s old fashioned in its telling and writing, which means it won’t be for every reader. But if you do read classics, this is a must-read, especially if you have any interest in American History. The bit of reading that I did at the beginning and was not enjoying was the Introductory. It is somewhere around 40 pages long and, unless you are about to teach on the text or something, don’t bother. Go to Chapter 1, I think, where only about a page of book-end exists. (Old books, I find, almost always book-end their text with some extra-story, pulling back and explanation of some sort. We see it as quaint, now, but it’s a part of story-telling, a device that was used with great success and celebration for many years. It’s still used, just not as much among snooty people.)  Then get lost in the book. It’s a quick read, but I think you’ll find yourself enjoying the tension and the shades of this atmospheric tragedy.

Obviously, I enjoyed reading this book more than I expected. High schoolers don’t seem to love it, in general, though they’re the ones who mostly read it. So I’m going to suggest, yet again, that while I don’t think it’s bad to have high schoolers read The Scarlet Letter, it’s a later re-reading that will probably hit home more. I do wish more grown-ups read classics. There’s so much to think about and talk about here, as well as much to entertain.

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QUOTES:

“’Wondrous strength and generosity of a woman’s heart! She will not speak!’” (p64).

“My heart was a habitation large enough for many guests, but lonely and chill, and without a household fire” (p69).

“…such loss of faith is ever one of the saddest results of sin” (p80).

“…Heaven promotes its purposes without aiming at the stage-effect of what is called miraculous interposition” (p110).

“Why should a wretched man, guilty, we will say, of murder, prefer to keep the dead corpse buried in his own heart, rather than fling it forth at once, and let the universe take care of it!” (p120).

“This feeble and most sensitive of spirits could do neither, yet continually did one thing or another, which intertwined, in the same inextricable knot, the agony of heaven-defying guilt and vain repentance” (p134).

“Leave this wreck and ruin here where it hath happened. Meddle no more with it!” (p178).

“The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread” (p180).

“’We must not always talk in the marketplace of what happened to us in the forest” (p215).

Book Review: Danny the Champion of the World

Just get used to it. You’re going to get a Roald Dahl review at least once a year. I love Roald Dahl. Some of my most favorite books in the world were written by Roald Dahl. (His titles include Matilda, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Witches, The Twits, The BFG, James and the Giant Peach, etc.) I’m not alone in my love, though I also understand that some, especially American, parents think that Dahl is too edgy or not soft enough or something. Still, I’ll go on loving Dahl, despite the (mostly background) controversy, reading his books out to my kids, and watching the movies with childlike delight.

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I had never read Danny Champion of the World before it appeared on my son’s fourth grade reading list, but it sure sounds like fun, doesn’t it? Who is this champion of the world? I want to meet them. Maybe I want to be champion of the world! Let’s open the cover and find out what this could possibly mean!

[image error]Of course, if you are a stodgy parent, you might not want your child to read this. The moral of the story is that parents should have some spark to them, some fire and life, maybe even some secrets. It is the story of Danny, who discovers that his very own, small town mechanic dad is secretly a poacher. (I hope I’m not giving too much away, but I think that parents should be aware of this content.) Danny is drawn into this mysterious, fascinating, and exciting world of poaching and before long is head-to-head with the local, tyrannical, land-owner, Victor Hazell.

Owing, I believe, to its celebration of nature and its deep-down boyishness, my son loved this book and added it to his short-list of favorites. It’s cute and has true-to-story form, keeping the reader engaged and entertained all the way through. I believe it has failed to reach the modern reader at the same rate as other Dahl books because the subject—poaching, or even hunting—has become a thing. Vegans beware. Though, to be fair, we’re not talking about the illegal hunting of endangered animals for sport or ivory or something. We’re talking hunting sustained animals for food and as a political statement against the bourgeois. It’s not something we have an accessible parallel to in America, but it could spark some serious conversation in your home. Note: I don’t have a problem with hunting responsibly.

Even more of a difficulty, I think, is that a father and son basically go on a crime spree together. It is illegal to poach, despite any moral objections, and much of the story’s rush comes from the forbidden nature of the sport. (Not that popular books and movies are normally free of crime cast in a positive light (ala “sticking it to the man”). It’s actually a familiar theme, as in Going in Style or Now You See Me or many, many other stories.) And there is some “animal cruelty” thrown in, granted you don’t think it’s funny to trick dim-witted birds into their doom.

Then there are the great things about it, like the adoring relationship between father and son and the zeal for life in its simplest and most enjoyable form. Danny has everything he needs in his dad, his camper home, and the world that surrounds them. We find an idyllic world here, even if it’s not the one we would have thought of.

Recommended, with all the caveats that I mentioned above.