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Laurel's "Keeping It Light" Choices for 2023
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#58
The Lais of Marie de France5 purple stars
The older I get, the shorter my reviews get. I'm surprised, as a student of medieval literature, that I had never read these before. And I found them delightful. Nobody knows who, exactly, Marie de France was. But it's clear that she was probably of the nobility, well educated, and definitely a woman. I can't imagine a man giving so much agency to the women in these little stories. I think it is also clear that she was probably married at one time, but had left her husband for a nunnery, or had been abandoned by him for a mistress. I even wonder if there is an autobiographical element in the last tale of the collection, Eliduc, where the long-suffering wife learning of her husband's love for another woman, joins a nunnery, and even arranges the marriage of her husband and his lover. In the introduction to the tales, translated into prose by Glyn Burgess and Keith Busby, a number of possible identities are considered. I do not think she was the daughter of Geoffrey Plantagenet. she seems more allied with Brittany or Normandy than with Aquitaine and the troubadour tradition. I like the idea that she may have been the daughter of Stephen of Blois, born in Blois, later abbess of Romsey in England, and then removed by Henry II and forcibly married off to Matthew of Flanders. After their marriage was dissolved she returned to a nunnery in France. The tales are all different, but they are all about nobility, love, and morality. Some have magical elements, one is a werewolf story, some have fairies, and a couple are Arthurian. Some have happy endings, and some are tragic. It's a wonderful collection, and we have Marie de France to thank for preserving them.
Description: Marie de France is the earliest known French woman poet and her lais - stories in verse based on Breton tales of chivalry and romance - are among the finest of the genre. Recounting the trials and tribulations of lovers, the lais inhabit a powerfully realized world where very real human protagonists act out their lives against fairy tale elements of magical beings potions and beasts. De France takes a subtle and complex view of courtly love whether telling the story of the knight who betrays his fairy mistress or describing the noblewoman who embroiders her sad tale on the shroud for a nightingale killed by a jealous and suspicious husband.
Cumulative pages: 17,192
I have now blown past my old record of 52 books. Two more to go to reach my goal of 60 this year, and I may surpass that. I may even reach my pages goal of 18,000!
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Glad you are doing better. I can imagine how empty the library is. Everyone grabbed their books and ran! LOL
Alondra wrote: "I can imagine how empty the library is. Everyone grabbed their books and ran! LOL"And it's even worse this week between Christmas and New Year's. My coworker and I are the only two people here right now....
#59
Evergreen Tidings from the Baumgartners3.5 pink stars rounded up.
A fun, romp, especially if you are from Minnesota. These people are completely dysfunctional, yet somehow they manage to come around in the end. Violet is not only a perfectionist, she is also a control freak. This leads to hilarious consequences when she learns that her lesbian daughter is having a baby. She becomes absolutely fixated on trying to uncover how the baby was conceived and more importantly who is the father. Things go from bad to worse. She suffers a concussion at her husband's retirement party, and her subsequent dependence on others doesn't help with her feelings of getting old and irrelevant. Daughter Cerise is slowly learning how to stand on her own feet and not allow her mother to dictate her life. Meanwhile, neighbor Richard (and husband of Violet's best friend) is unemployed but somehow bringing home lots of money. Then the FBI gets involved... And if you think Violet is bad, wait until you meet Cerise's partner Barb's parents. It all comes to a head at the pre-baptismal dinner and the baptism, which leaves the pastor with a broken nose. Could we have a sequel to this book, please?
Description: "Dearest loved ones, far and near - evergreen tidings from the Baumgartners!" Violet Baumgartner has opened her annual holiday letter the same way for the past three decades. And this year she's going to throw her husband, Ed, a truly perfect retirement party, one worthy of memorializing in her upcoming letter. But the event becomes a disaster when, in front of two hundred guests, Violet learns her daughter Cerise has been keeping a shocking secret from her, shattering Violet's carefully constructed world. In an epic battle of wills, Violet goes to increasing lengths to wrest back control of her family, infuriating Cerise and snaring their family and friends in a very un-Midwestern, un-Baumgartner gyre of dramatics. And there will be no explaining away the consequences in this year's Baumgartner holiday letter….
Cumulative pages: 17,553
One more book to reach my goal!
#60
Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey: The Lost Legacy of Highclere Castle3 green stars
That may be generous, considering it took me 9 months to finally finish this book. But I did finish it, and parts of it were quite interesting. I did like the chapters on WWI and creating a hospital at Highclere. I was also interested in the discovery of Tutankhamen's Tomb which was kind of thrown in at the end. Previously in the book, we were told the Earl made trips to Egypt but went into no details about his work. To be fair, the book is focused on Almina. I found it a curious blend of too much detail about inconsequential things, and great omissions about other things. As for the real Downton Abbey, aside from the photos which were mostly of people, I got no sense of the estate itself, and there was very little about the staff. The book does not even tell us much about Almina after the death of her husband, just saying that she lived a long life. Perhaps there is more about her later life in Lady Catherine, the Earl, and the Real Downton Abbey.
Description: The real-life inspiration and setting for the Emmy Award-winning Downton Abbey, Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey tells the story behind Highclere Castle and the life of one of its most famous inhabitants, Lady Almina, the 5th Countess of Carnarvon. Drawing on a rich store of materials from the archives of Highclere Castle, including diaries, letters, and photographs, the current Lady Carnarvon has written a transporting story of this fabled home on the brink of war. Much like her Masterpiece Classic counterpart, Lady Cora Crawley, Lady Almina was the daughter of a wealthy industrialist, Alfred de Rothschild, who married his daughter off at a young age, her dowry serving as the crucial link in the effort to preserve the Earl of Carnarvon's ancestral home. Throwing open the doors of Highclere Castle to tend to the wounded of World War I, Lady Almina distinguished herself as a brave and remarkable woman. This rich tale contrasts the splendor of Edwardian life in a great house against the backdrop of the First World War and offers an inspiring and revealing picture of the woman at the center of the history of Highclere Castle.
Cumulative pages: 17,863
#61
A Cornish Christmas Murder4 red stars.
Not great literature or anything, but I love this series. Quirky characters with an overall story arc, so read them in order. This one is a "locked room" mystery (or snowed-in manor house in this case.) There aren't really enough plausible suspects, so I guessed very early on. But who cares. Jodie gets her daughter, Daisy, her friend Debbie, and of course her crazy mother involved in the nosing around. And they uncover all kinds of secret passages, and a priest hole, and there's the usual witty banter. And Santa.
Description: It’s three days before Christmas, and detective-turned-chef Jodie ‘Nosey’ Parker is drafted in to cater a charity event run by a notorious millionaire at a 13th-century abbey on Bodmin Moor. Things get more complicated when a snowstorm descends, stranding them all, and the next morning they find one of the guests has been gruesomely murdered in their bed…
Cumulative pages: 18,115
And with that, I have exceeded my goal of 60 books for the year, and I have met my goal of 18,000 pages for the year. It's possible I might finish one more book, but with 254 pages to go, and other things to do, I doubt it.
You can follow my 2024 thread at: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
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Books mentioned in this topic
A Cornish Christmas Murder (other topics)Lady Catherine, the Earl, and the Real Downton Abbey (other topics)
Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey: The Lost Legacy of Highclere Castle (other topics)
Evergreen Tidings from the Baumgartners (other topics)
Evergreen Tidings from the Baumgartners (other topics)
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I finally had it too. Still fighting some congestion and a raspy throat... Glad I had the vaccines. One coming up once I book it. Feel better