I didn't enjoy this nearly as much as I did the first book. I found the narrator's voice very stilted--appropriate to the early 18th century, but not I didn't enjoy this nearly as much as I did the first book. I found the narrator's voice very stilted--appropriate to the early 18th century, but not appealing to this twenty-first century reader. There were two timelines like the first book, the one being a 1707 investigation of a marriage certificate, the other being flashbacks of the life of Lilly, the woman making the claim. Lilly is a very sympathetic character, but we are not at all sure if she is telling the truth or not. Then at the end there is a major twist that turns everything on its head.
We do meet Sophia, the heroine of the first book, as a child, just before her mother sails for Darien and her death. The author does a nice job of bringing in bits about wigs on men to keep us conscious of the historical period, not just general "olden days."...more
A page-turning thriller for sure, and the stakes are high in our own country, not just in Europe where the new chancellor of Germany, Adolf Hitler, isA page-turning thriller for sure, and the stakes are high in our own country, not just in Europe where the new chancellor of Germany, Adolf Hitler, is stirring up hate and violence. It isn’t easy for agents Edelweiss and Thirteen to stomach posing as Nazi’s to expose a plot to take over Hollywood movie studios to use for fascist propaganda. They must wrestle with questions about what true loyalty and patriotism look like. What kind of people do they want to be? What kind of country do they really want to live in? An exciting story with implications for our time.
Many of the Nazi characters and the Hollywood plot are historical as well as Leon Lewis, the Jewish lawyer who is convinced Hitler is a more significant threat than anyone else gives him credit for. Liesl Weiss and Thirteen are fictional. We know Liesl's motivations from the beginning, but it is fun trying to figure out the identity of Agent Thirteen. Despite the strong romantic thread, this is not a typical romance....more
**spoiler alert** Weird alternate world where Piranesi is an unreliable narrator, very clever, but also very naive. The story is written in journal en**spoiler alert** Weird alternate world where Piranesi is an unreliable narrator, very clever, but also very naive. The story is written in journal entries. I first realized something was strange when Piranesi says he is going to describe everyone who has ever lived in his world, or at least, all those whose existence he could verify. The total is fifteen, only two of whom are living, himself and someone he calls "the Other". The first half of the book we are essentially trying to figure out what on earth is going on and how "the House" relates to the real world. Eventually Piranesi begins to reread his past journals (which he has meticulously indexed) and rediscovers things he has forgotten about himself and the Other. It is a strangely peaceful world with statues of all the concepts from our world. I liked the ending where he and a couple other characters continue to escape there when they need a break from the chaos of modern Manchester. There are a lot of I'm sure fascinating analyses available online. I just enjoyed the story and the feel of the place, which reminded me of Lewis's Wood Between the Worlds....more
I have mixed feelings about the dual-timeline novels that are so popular these days. Often one timeline or the other holds significantly more interestI have mixed feelings about the dual-timeline novels that are so popular these days. Often one timeline or the other holds significantly more interest for me. Occasionally the stories are so intertwined that they could not be told in any other way. This is in between. In the modern timeline, the author of a novel finds herself "living" or "remembering" the people and events of the eighteenth-century timeline. Details she thought she had made up, turn out to be historically accurate, like the name of a ship or its captain, the layout of castle rooms, etc. The connection is never fully explained other than that the 18th-c heroine was her ancestor. I kept wondering what role the cottage where she is living played, and was disappointed when that didn't come into it.
The 18th-c story at the time of the 1708 attempted Scottish/French invasion by the pretender James VIII/III is a compelling romance. The Author's Word at the end tells which characters (most) are historic and what happened after. I love that kind of profoundly authentic historical fiction. The modern story at times parallels the historic romance with a couple suitors.
The story is somewhat predictable, but not unsatisfying. It IS romance, so that part of the story is as important (or more) than the history, although Kearsley does remain true to the facts, or convincing in what she invents. The twist at the end did not surprise me because I had already thought of that half way through as a possible way to get a happy ending. This is the first of this author that I have read, but I would read another. I see there is a prequel....more
I really enjoyed this. The story takes us from a very rural, isolated part fo China in 1988 where they still fear spirits and kill “human rejects” to I really enjoyed this. The story takes us from a very rural, isolated part fo China in 1988 where they still fear spirits and kill “human rejects” to protect the community to almost modern (pre-Covid) China and America. What struck me when I finished was that there were no “bad guys.” There were people who made serious mistakes. They were selfish or lazy, but not malicious, and they were handled in a face-saving way that protected the community without condemning the offender.
Li-yan’s early years were spent in terrible poverty, but with hard work and a good brain, she overcomes, without forgetting her roots. By the end, even her rural community has been transformed with people working together for a prosperous community. As I write that, it sounds like government propaganda, but it didn’t feel like propaganda when I was immersed in the story.
Parts did feel didactic. The daughter Li-yan gave up is adopted in America. Her story is mostly told in documents and reports. The transcript of a therapy group for Asian adopted girls felt designed to bring out the issues such kids face like stereotypes of being brilliant and rejection of adopted kids with white parents by kids with Chinese parents. Haley is also darker than Han majority kids (although she doesn’t know her ethnic origin), so she doesn’t “look right” even with other Chinese.
I am a tea drinker, and I enjoyed the details of tea processing and tea tasting as Li-yan learns the craft and teaches her community.
The ending would feel like too much of a coincidence, except that throughout the book the proverb No coincidence, no story is repeated, making coincidence perfectly reasonable in the context of the story. I do wish the book had gone on for one more chapter or an epilogue. There was so much I wanted to know about what happened after....more
**spoiler alert** This is a difficult book. “Spare and elegant,” the London Times review calls it. I normally prefer less spare writing, writing that **spoiler alert** This is a difficult book. “Spare and elegant,” the London Times review calls it. I normally prefer less spare writing, writing that is more richly descriptive of both setting and emotions, but I don’t think I could have handled that kind of writing with this subject matter. “Spare” was the right choice. This book should be discussed by Christian book groups, seminaries and any program preparing missionaries, not for the story of 17th-c Japan and the torture and destruction of Christians there, but for the issues it raises on the silence of God and what it means to be faithful.
I remember my daughter asking at age eleven or twelve, if someone held a gun to your head and told you to renounce Jesus or die, wouldn’t it be okay to lie? As a young mother, she came back to the question, what if they held a gun to my son’s head and said, renounce Jesus or he will die? In the end she came to the conclusion that it would be better for her son to die than to have his faith weakened by seeing his mother renounce her faith under pressure. But in Endo’s story, it is not a matter of my dying or someone I love dying, but someone, even someone I don’t know very well, suffering torture until I renounce my faith. They have already renounced their faith. When I trample on the face of Christ, their suffering will end.
The book is called Silence, referring to the seeming lack of response from God to the horror that is going on as the Japanese samurai culture stamps out every vestige of the Christianity that had been brought to the islands by the Jesuit missionary Saint Francis Xavier a hundred years before. I couldn’t help but think of the testimony of a colleague of my husband’s in Cote d’Ivoire saying he had never felt so close to God as when his family spent three months hiding in the bush during their country’s civil war. God doesn’t speak with an audible voice in the best of times; is it his silence or our difficulty hearing in the hard times? This is not a question one can answer for another.
The Japanese officials don’t primarily rely on torture to get the Christians to recant. When the Portuguese missionary monk Rodrigues is captured, he is treated kindly. He is offered blankets and plenty to eat—much better conditions than while he hid in the mountains while ministering to Christian villagers. They use reason. “Father,” says the interpreter who questions Rodrigues, “have you thought of the suffering you have brought on so many peasants just because of your dream, just because you want to impose your selfish dream on Japan?”
Ferreira, Rodrigues’ former favorite teacher at the seminary, apostatized earlier. He is brought to encourage Rodrigues to recant. “There is something in this country that completely stifles the growth of Christianity,” he says. “The Christianity they believe in is like the skeleton of a butterfly caught in a spider’s web: it contains only the external form; the blood and the flesh are gone.” I know syncretism can be a problem, and I don’t doubt that there were some 16th-c Japanese, and even today, who adopted the vocabulary and outward forms of Roman Catholicism, without understanding the gospel itself, but I wish the author had suggested some specifics of what this syncretism looked like, where the Japanese faith had confused the gospel with their traditional Buddhism.
Ferreira suggests that Rodrigues does nothing for those who are suffering and neither does God, yet some of the Christians in the book went to their deaths, singing hymns. Ferreira doesn’t know what God is doing for them even as he does not spare them from death. Rodrigues begs God to do something. “Lord, it is now that you must break the silence…Prove that you are justice, that you are goodness, that you are love. You must say something to show the world that you are the august one” (p. 254). “You must…” are not words we address to God even though he welcomes our laments and telling him that is how we feel.
While Rodrigues and Ferreira listen to the groans of the apostatized Christians being tortured, Ferreira breaks down his former student. “You make yourself more important than them. You are preoccupied with your own salvation. If you say that you will apostatize, those people will be taken out of the pit. They will be saved from suffering. And you refuse to do so. It’s because you dread to betray the Church. You dread to become the dregs of the Church, like me…And yet is your way of acting love? A priest ought to live in imitation of Christ. If Christ were here…[c]ertainly Christ would have apostatized for them” (p. 256).
It is that last statement that calls me up short. I don’t believe he would apostatize. Christ was tempted in the desert to shortcuts that would avoid the cross, but he did not set aside the purpose for which he had come. In the situation in which Rodrigues finds himself, Christ would have been able to see the bigger picture of what was being accomplished in the spiritual realm--which I suppose means the imitation of Christ would require me to trust him with the result as I remain faithful. I don’t fear to betray the Church. I do fear to betray Christ.
I lived in Ethiopia at the time of the Communist revolution, and in Mozambique during their civil war. In both cases, we made our decisions of where to go based on what the local church wanted from us. If they felt our presence would be a liability to them, we didn’t go. When they felt our presence to teach or encourage would be an asset, we went (or at least, scheduled a time to go). Of course, in 17th c Japan there was no possibility of communicating with the local church by mail or fax or telephone, much less email or text, but I can’t help but think that if the missionaries had stayed in Goa or Macao and prayed fervently for Japan, God might have done something marvelous with the locals who trusted in him as he did in China after the arrival of Communism and departure of the missionaries.
In the end of the book the Rodrigues takes my daughter’s first suggestion of lying: he puts his foot on the icon of the face of Christ, believing he was instructed to do so by Christ himself. “I came to be trampled on,” Christ tells him. Rodrigues spends the rest of his life under house arrest with other apostate Christians in a Christian House where he continues to practice his faith privately. He envies his mission companion who died for his faith. In his predicament, I would have been tempted to suicide although that too is a sin according to the Catholic church. The huge question I am left to ponder after reading is, What would be the right thing to do? I can say that denying Christ is a failure to trust him to do what is right for his Church, but as the torture—not of myself, but of others—goes on and on, does my refusal to compromise my conscience make me complicit and therefore guilty of their suffering?
I identified strongly with this book. I graduated from Tudor Hall School for Girls, a college preparatory school in my home city. When it came time toI identified strongly with this book. I graduated from Tudor Hall School for Girls, a college preparatory school in my home city. When it came time to apply for colleges, I remember my advisor saying she thought she could get me into any school in the country with the possible exception of Smith. Something in me wanted to take that as a challenge, but at seventeen I considered five years of women’s education to be enough. Instead, I chose a coed school. But this book is about Smithies, something I might have been, or not.
In the book, despite the inconveniences and discomforts of 1917 France, Kate Moran, who had been languishing as a French teacher in and upper class American girls’ school that may have been the equivalent of Tudor Hall at that date, discovers her true self as an administrator in something that really matters—helping French peasants to rebuild even as The Great War rages a few miles away. My own Kate, as a pre-teen in Maputo, Mozambique in the late 1980s during their civil war, wrote an essay about how she loved living where something was always happening. In the meantime, her mother (me) suffered from headaches and psychosomatic rashes from the stress. As bombs fall in the beginning of the battle of the Somme, the fictional Emmy realizes that the violence she has seen all around her for months, had never threatened her personally. That was our experience in Mozambique as well. As long as we were not in the wrong place at the wrong time, we were able to carry on fairly normally, teaching and attending church meetings (albeit with headaches and itchy rashes at times.) I’m grateful that we were never caught in a battle like that on the Somme in the book. I hope I would have handled it half as well if I had been.
Forty years after we graduated, some of us “Tudor girls” began to reconnect for lunches and even weekend get-aways. Like the Smith women in Band of Sisters, we had not all been the best of friends in school, but we grew to appreciate each other as women. Many of us shared a vision for doing things that mattered from setting up a preschool for university students’ families to counseling practices to running theological libraries in developing countries. One of us even became an assistant director at our old school, now merged with a nearby boys’ school, teaching and shaping future generations. So as I read, I kept picturing our band of sisters, from a similar mixture of backgrounds, but sharing a common education, if we had been thrust into the experiences of the Smith Unit.
I identified with the strong female characters in this book, all “spinsters” bucking the expectations of their time as they plunged themselves into an overwhelmingly challenging situation. The conflicts, both internal and external, are believable. I think my favorite part was when the villagers they have been helping to rebuild (another group of strong women!) pitched in to help the Smith College Relief Unit to expedite the evacuation of the whole region ahead of the German advance. I was surprised (especially post Covid) that the 1918 Flu epidemic got no mention at all. Zero.
Two stories told in parallel free verse, one of Abraham's firstborn son, Ishmael, and the other of a modern boy whose father similarly abandoned him aTwo stories told in parallel free verse, one of Abraham's firstborn son, Ishmael, and the other of a modern boy whose father similarly abandoned him and his mother. The pain is clear in both. In both there is a little brother by another woman, a child who is not to blame for the father's choices, but nevertheless, cause for jealousy. Both boys conclude that whatever the failings of their earthly father, their heavenly Father can be counted on. Cultural references show the modern boy to be African American, but I think any child of divorce will identify. He is deeply involved in church and youth group, which may make it harder for an unchurched kid to identify.
I got this from an elementary school library although I think middle school would be more appropriate. The poetry is compelling and made me think more deeply about Ishmael. Because it is poetry, it is easily read in a sitting....more
A fascinating premise of a few people with a physical condition that slows down aging so that they may live for as much as a thousand years. But it isA fascinating premise of a few people with a physical condition that slows down aging so that they may live for as much as a thousand years. But it is an isolating existence, where those you love get old and die, and you always fear being accused of witchcraft or kidnapped for experimentation. The story jumps from century to century and back again in Tom’s life as he longs for the freedom to be honest and let someone into his life. He is also seeking his daughter, whose dying mother told him in the early seventeenth century was “like him.” It’s a variation on the time travel books that I enjoy so much. The ending reminds me of Arwen's choice of a "mortal life" with all that that entails....more
I read and enjoyed The Surgeon's Daughter first on a recommendation and was aware as I read that it assumed an earlier book. This is it! Although I woI read and enjoyed The Surgeon's Daughter first on a recommendation and was aware as I read that it assumed an earlier book. This is it! Although I wouldn't say that knowing what happens in the second book spoiled this one, I do think enjoyment would be enhanced by reading them in order.
Nora is a strong, intelligent young woman brought up in a very unconventional household in a time when women were shut out of so much meaningful activity. She aspires to be a surgeon, but that is illegal for women in England. Women are supposed to be "delicate." Nora is both very feminine and decidedly NOT delicate. She must hide her knowledge because using it risks prison or an insane asylum. I loved the characters of Mrs. Phipps (the housekeeper) and Dr. Croft (Nora's eccentric mentor) and Harry, her charming but fallible suitor. I also liked the way Daniel (Dr. Croft's new assistant) moves from shock at Nora's presence in the operating theatre to real respect and ultimately love. (I don't count that as a spoiler since with the story alternating between Nora's and Daniel's POVs, you can be pretty sure that is how it will turn out.)
There is lots of medical terminology, but you don't have to understand it. The point is that Nora isn't expected to, but does and then some....more
**spoiler alert** I'm a librarian by training and a lover of books, so this story of taking books into the hills of Eastern Kentucky and teaching kids**spoiler alert** I'm a librarian by training and a lover of books, so this story of taking books into the hills of Eastern Kentucky and teaching kids and adults to read warmed my heart. I loved the way books changed people like Jim Horner. I was angered by the way some people twisted the whole thing and couldn't handle new ideas being put out there (like censorship even today).
I was disturbed by the seeming agenda of one character totally opposed to marriage because of a father who abused her mother and sure she could only be herself if she lived with the wonderful guy who loved her rather than making a formal commitment, and another trapped in a farce of a marriage. It came across as if marriage ruins everything. However, in the end they were both happily married to the right person, so evidently that was a plot device, not a philosophical commitment of the author. Without the farcical marriage it would be hard to imagine the English girl making the choices she does, but this is fiction....more
Most fantasy novels have a Brothers Grimm kind of setting. This one is more Arabian Nights, with a culture clearly inspired by the Islamic world and iMost fantasy novels have a Brothers Grimm kind of setting. This one is more Arabian Nights, with a culture clearly inspired by the Islamic world and its folklore. I enjoyed that very much. I was recently in Turkey for a conference and one scene in particular approaching the Crescent Moon Palace sounded like a description of Topkapi.
Lots of action, both physical and magical. An interesting collection of characters, both old and young, although I found the young dervish Raseed with his commitment to rules to be hard to relate to.
The throne itself is the source of some powers. "The power to heal hundreds of leper's in a heartbeats time. To feed a thousand men with bread and fishes. Some sources say the throne can even raise the dead." This sounded so much like the gospel description of Jesus that for a moment I wondered if the story was going to have a Christian messianic twist, but it didn't....more
I got this recommendation from a list of favorite books about women. I didn't realize that it was a sequel. Now I definitely have to read the first boI got this recommendation from a list of favorite books about women. I didn't realize that it was a sequel. Now I definitely have to read the first book. Nora is a strong and intelligent woman in a time period when such women were maligned even more than today. She has incredible hurdles to overcome in her struggle to become a "doctoressa" as she is known it Italian. The book is full of fascinating medical and historical details, but they never overcome the story. It is not a romance; the authors even skip the wedding, but there is a tender love story--which also doesn't overcome the love story....more
I received this book as a birthday gift when it was newly out, but got bogged down in the reading. So glad I went back to it. It is a biography of theI received this book as a birthday gift when it was newly out, but got bogged down in the reading. So glad I went back to it. It is a biography of theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was hanged by the Nazis for his part in a failed plot to kill Hitler, but it is also a history of the church in Germany during the 1930s and 40s as they wrestled with whether or not to support their government as patriots. Partly due to an insider brother-in-law, Bonhoeffer was aware early of the evils of National Socialism. He wrestled with issues of real faith vs. external religiosity and the morality of killing a tyrant who is in retrospect has become a byword for evil. When does murder of a head of state and betrayal of your country become a righteous act?
Very disturbing not only for the failures of no-called Christians to stand up to the Nazis, but also in light of “Christian Nationalism” in the US in my own day a decade which could not have been foreseen at the time of this book’s writing in 2010.
I found the love story disturbing. Dietrich was almost twice Maria’s age, and they knew so little of each other besides respecting family. Like her mother, I would have pushed for separation and putting off the marriage. A quick Google search shows that there was no happily-ever-after in Maria’s future even years after Bonhoeffer’s death, although I find it hard to imagine that anyone survived World War II in Germany (or any other part of Europe) without “issues”.
I need to go back and reread some of Bonhoeffer's work in the context in which it was written. For example, a lot of Ethics was written from prison. ...more
I found it hard to get into this book, mainly because the protagonist is so unlikeable. He grows on you, and young readers especially will identify wiI found it hard to get into this book, mainly because the protagonist is so unlikeable. He grows on you, and young readers especially will identify with his desire to make his own way in the secular world and not be identified with his father's Jewish religion. I know the book is leading up to the visit of the magi to the Christ child, but there is a lot of other stuff going on here. I had to look up what the much-sought Nehushtan was (the bronze serpent lifted up in the wilderness, which although broken, might still be found and used for healing.) Tracy Higley is a master of the cliffhanger chapter ending, but I wish she had picked up with how the character got out of the situation instead of so often jumping ahead to where that is past. As other reviewers have said, she believes in the supernatural and spiritual warfare, and that biblical worldview comes through loud and clear....more
Goes on and on like a soap opera with one twist after another without enough direction to hold my interest. I guess I would say the plot lacked unity.Goes on and on like a soap opera with one twist after another without enough direction to hold my interest. I guess I would say the plot lacked unity. It would have been easier to follow if the author had emulated Tolkien with larger blocks following one group of characters, all with the same goal even as they met differing immediate challenges. I got confused with the frequent switches in scenario and plot line. When the library book came due before I finished, I didn’t bother to renew....more
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