A Work in Progress

Inspector Alleyn -- A Man Lay Dead

I've finished reading my first mystery by Ngaio Marsh, called A Man Lay Dead.  Ngaio Marsh, along with Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham and Dorothy L. Sayers constituted the "Queens of Crime".  They wrote mysteries during the 1920s and 30s, which is considered the Golden Age of Detective Fiction.  I love mysteries, and why I've not read more (or in a couple of cases anything at all) by these authors is beyond me.  I've been in the mood lately for a really traditional type of murder mystery and this fit the bill perfectly.  Marsh wrote 32 mystery novels, and this is the first introducing Inspector Roderick Alleyn.

A Man Lay Dead is a classic murder mystery.  Five guests have been invited to the country house of Sir Hubert Handesley, where they are going to take part in a parlor game called "Murder".  Nearly all are of the British upper crust and wealthy, and maybe a few have one or two secrets they'd prefer to keep under wraps.  What begins as an entertaining weekend filled with a bit of (pretend) murder and mayhem ends quickly in the death of Handesley's good friend, Charles Rankin.  Although Rankin was nearing middle age, he was still quite handsome, rather wealthy and a bit of a womanizer, burning the candle at both ends even at this weekend party.  And he made the mistake of bringing with him an unusual Russian dagger that the murderer will use to dispatch him.  Conveniently (well not for him anyway) more than one house guest has something to gain by his death. 

Of course Scotland Yard is called in and we are introduced to Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn.  I always like to get a good handle on my sleuths.  Marsh was very careful not to reveal too much, too soon, and I still don't feel like I really know him.  Handesley's niece, Angela, remarks:

"Alleyn did not resemble a plain-clothes policeman she felt sure, nor was he in the romantic manner--white-faced and gimlet-eyed.  He looked like one of her uncle Hubert's friends, the sort that they knew would 'do' for house-parties.  He was very tall, and lean, his hair was dark, and his eyes grey with corners that turned down. They looked as if they would smile easily but his mouth didn't."

He seems to have a very dry sense of humor and has this self-deprecating manner.  You feel from his words that maybe he's not entirely in control, but his actions put that idea to rest.  Quite often in mystery novels the detective is an everyday sort of guy, but you get the feeling that Alleyn is equally as distinguished as the guests at Handesley's house party with his 'cultured voice', and he's most certainly a bright fellow and well-educated.  He's a gentleman detective, but he most certainly doesn't play up any of these facts.

I've never been very good at figuring out who the culprit is, and this story was no exception.  Marsh gave me every chance, leaving clues to follow or maybe to trip me up.  On a couple of occasions when a detail was revealed I know I mentally uttered an "oh, so that's what happened, why didn't I figure it out".  She did have a couple of twists that took the story onto an entirely different track, throwing in a little international intrigue along with simple run of the mill murder.  All in all this was a very satisfying read.  I've already ordered or am mooching the next couple of Inspector Alleyn mysteries, Enter a Murderer and The Nursing Home Murder, but it appears that some of her books have gone out of print.  I guess I'll be looking be keeping an eye out for them used.  I'd also like to read more Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, and I've yet to even try Margery Allingham.

In the meantime, however, I have Elizabeth George's new mystery Careless in Red.  It's been at least three years since the last Inspector Lynley mystery, and I'm curious to see where she takes the story after killing off one of the main characters last time around!  Lynley is another posh detective, titled and all, and I am completely addicted to the series.  It's one of the few that I've read each and every installment since the very beginning.  Some of the last few have been a bit uneven, but I still can't help myself and will read them irregardless.  I'm disappointed that the BBC canceled the TV series, but at least I still have the books!         

What I'm Reading Now

I'm feeling just the tiniest bit bogged down at the moment with Victor Hugo's Les Misérables.  I'm slowly nearing the end of the second section, but he does tend to go off on these tangents.  Now I like details, and I love losing myself in the story, and no doubt this is all going to be tied together at some point, but really, do I need to know so much about French convents?  Things were moving along quickly, Jean Valjean made a narrow escape with little Cosette, as Javert was hot on their trail.  He scaled a wall, managing to bring Cosette with him and he landed in the garden of a convent.  And what happens?  Things come to an abrupt standstill as he spends the next 40 or so pages talking about the convent.  It makes me a little leery when I read:

"Since we are engaged in giving details as to what the convent of the Petit-Picpus was in former times, and since we have ventured to open a window on that discreet retreat, the reader will permit us one other little digression, utterly foreign to this book, but characteristic and useful, since it shows that the cloister even has its original figures."

Okay, I will indeed permit you these little digressions, but please can I find out what happens to Cosette soon? 

I decided to start with Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility for my 1% Challenge.  I know for many Austen fans this is not their favorite book of hers, but so far I am enjoying it.  Certainly that sparkling Austen wit is present.  No doubt you already know the story of Mrs. Dashwood and her three daughters who lose their home when Mr. Dashwood dies leaving nearly everything to John Dashwood, their half-brother.  John's wife is that certain Austen type--greedy and unfriendly behind that genteel facade.  She manages to talk her husband down from giving the Dashwood girls three thousand pounds to just the china, and then nothing at all.  The whole scene is just wonderful, but here's the tail end.

"That is a material consideration undoubtedly.  A valuable legacy indeed! And yet some of the plate would have been a very pleasant addition to our own stock here."

"Yes; and the set of breakfast china is twice as handsome as what belongs to this house.  A great deal too handsome, in my opinion, for any place THEY can ever afford to live in.  But, however, so it is.  Your father thought only of THEM.  And I must say this: that you owe no particular gratitude to him, nor attention to his wishes; for we very well know that if he could, he would have left almost everything in the world to THEM."

This argument was irresistible.  It gave to his intentions whatever of decision was wanting before; and he finally resolved, that it would be absolutely unnecessary, if not highly indecorous, to do more for the widow and children of his father, than such kind of neighbourly acts as his own wife pointed out.

She's quite the dissembler!  I don't think anyone does a scene like this better than Jane Austen!

And for something completely different I've been reading Michelle Moran's Nefertiti.  It is coming out in paperback later this month, and she has a new book, The Heretic Queen, coming out in the Fall.  Although I love historical fiction, I don't read many books set so far back in history.  The only book I can think of is Anita Diamont's biblically set The Red Tent, which I was very hesitant to read (it was for a book club), but surprised myself by enjoying much more than I expected.  I guess this period is outside my comfort zone, since I know so little about the time.  I've been enjoying the book, however.  I love the the descriptions--like how they used gold dust to powder over their bodies.  Or the beaded wigs that the women wore.  It's so hard to imagine the people and how they lived or what they thought and dreamed.  Perhaps I need to find some other book about Nefertiti to get more of a mental imange.  Of course this tast of another culture is why I love historical fiction so much!

Methinks he doth protest too much...

Once again I chose this week's short story from American Short Story Masterpieces, edited by Raymond Carver and Tom Jenks.  Many of the authors included in this anthology are completely new to me, so I've been flipping through the volume and choosing the stories at random.  Although I've only read a couple I think it is proving to be an excellent selection of stories and 'masterpieces' is probably not an exaggeration.

I've never read any of Mark Helprin's work, but I was drawn to his story, "Letters from the Samantha", because it is told in the format of letters from the ship's captain.  A story told via letters and taking place on a ship, this should be a nice adventure, I thought.  Perfect Sunday reading.  I suppose it could be read as just an tale of adventure, but there was most definitely more to it.  Stories like this scream to be read in a group and discussed, but it'll give me something to think about over the course of the week.

The story consists of six letters written by Samson Low between August 20, 1909 and September 3, 1909.  The reader is told:

"These letters were recovered in good condition from the vault of the sunken Samantha, an iron-hulled sailing ship of one thousand tons, built in Scotland in 1879 and wrecked during the First World War in the Persian Gulf off Basra." 

Samson Low details his experiences, which began off the coast of Madagascar, and the decisions he makes after surviving a monsoon intact, decisions which he will come to regret.  The crew sighted a tornado on land, which quickly veered off to sea.  It was exciting for the crew to be so close to such a fierce spectacle of nature.  Even Low himself said, "I confess that I have wished to be completely taken up by such a thing, to be lifted into the clouds, arms and legs pinned in the stream".  It is feared that the ship will indeed be picked up by the wind, but in the end it will change directions, missing them.  When the storm was over, and they were piloting themselves through the mess, they spot a clump of vegetation and "floating upon it was a large monkey, bolt upright and dignified".  Impulsively Low offers the end of a boat hook and brings the animal on board.  Although he instantly regrets his action, "this creature we have today removed from the sea is like a man".

Spoiler alert from here on out, in case you've not read this yet.   

The monkey climbs up to the top of the rigging and stays there.  The captain considers throwing him overboard, but he won't come down, as the ship sails farther and farther away from its island.  Eventually a raft is designed, and the crew splits into two--one group wanting to send him off in the raft when they get close enough to land, and the rest wishing to shoot him down from the rigging, as the screeching noises the animal makes unnerves the men and terrifies them.  Low sides with the group who wishes to cast him afloat, knowing he would have to be the one to shoot the animal and has no desire to do so.  Eventually hunger will tempt the animal down, somehow he's much less fearsome, hunched down, walking nearly on all four limbs, half the men's heights and "no more frightening than a hound".  He becomes almost docile and a bit of a plaything to the crew who all stroll about with him on deck.  As the days pass the novelty of having such an animal in close quarters wears off, as the men are returning home.  Two of the crew will remove the manacles from the animal and dump the raft overboard, not wanting to set the ape adrift to what appears to be an inhospitable land.  The captain is angered and decides at some point he can just throw the ape overboard.  The men's attitudes quickly change.  They forget about the ape, who sits listlessly in the heat and "looks like an old man, neutral to the world".  The captain thinks only of keeping the crew under control.  In the end he strangles the animal and pitches him over the side, "where he quickly sank".    

I tried to look for some literary criticism about this story, but I didn't really come up with much online.  One reviewer compared Helprin's story to the work of Melville and Conrad, two authors I've not read since high school (and then only shorter works).  This makes me think the story must be full of symbolism or perhaps the author is trying to make a point about Empire/colonialism, or at the very least man's guilt and his inhumanity towards others (and I hesitate to just limit it to animals, since over and over the ape is compared to a man).  It's rather telling that the story ends thus:

"Some of the crew have begun to talk about him as if he were about to be canonized.  Others see him as evil.  I assembled them as the coasts began to close on Suez and the top of the sea was white and still.  I made my views clear, for in years of command and a life on the sea I have leaned much.  I felt confident of what I told them."

"He is not a symbol.  He stands neither for innocence nor for evil.  There is no parable and no lesson in his coming and going.  I was neither right nor wrong in bringing him aboard (though it was indeed incorrect) or in what I later did.  We must get on with the ship's business.  He does not stand for man.  He stands for nothing.  He was an ape, simian and lean, half sensible.  He came on board, and now he is gone."

I think Samson Low protests too much.  Or he's trying to convince himself?  Low says it himself, though, when it comes to ship's business, not much else matters.  Perhaps that's the biggest truth of the story. 

Reading Notes: Mollie Panter-Downes

I never really realized how much a book's cover illustration and jacket description makes an impression on me.  I know you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover, but you can still glean all sorts of things about its contents (accurate or not) by what you see and read on the outside.  So what happens when you get a book published in the 1920s, with no jacket, and no description (or very little)?  I really enjoyed reading Mollie Panter-Downes's One Fine Day, and had to look for her other novels.  She only published a few, and it seemed easiest to just borrow them via my library's ILL service.  So now I have two.  One has no description at all and the other just the vaguest.  Strangely, it's the tiniest bit disorienting.  I don't have a lot of experience just reading an author without knowing about the contents of their books.  But that's sort of what's happening now.

The Storm Bird was published in 1930 by G.P. Putnam's Sons and all I can tell you (I've only read the first three or so pages) is it seems to be about a man who's been recently widowed.  The title page has a quote by Swinburne, "...the storm birds of passion, that ruffle Wild wings in a wind of desire".  Hmm.  Any guesses on what the plot of this one will look like?  I've set this one temporarily aside, since I have a copy of The Shoreless Sea as well (and I can't renew it, so I need to read it first).  This one came from one of California's university libraries, but it was previously owned by 'The Booklovers Library of Los Angeles--Established 1892' according to the plate inserted in the back of the book.  The description it gives (someone was kind enough to type in this information on the plate...thank you): Time-1921-4, Place-England, Gen'l Character-Triangle Romance, Subject Matter-Romantic adventures of a young girl, who marries to escape her unhappy home-environment: and afterwards, renews an intercepted passion of her earlier youth.  I love looking at these old books and imagining who might have read it and when.  This was published in 1924 also by G.P. Putnam's Sons.  It's in a very fragile condition and I'm amazed that it was loaned out to us (and probably why they won't allow it to be renewed).  This book also has not one but two quotes, "Fate is a sea without a shore," also by Swinburne (I like that).  And from The Song of Solomon, "Many waters cannot quench Love, neither can the floods drown it...For Love is strong as Death--".  I know where we're headed with this one, however.

The nice thing about Virago Modern Classics (which is the edition I have for One Fine Day) is the wonderful introductions they include.  My curiosity was piqued when I read:

"Mollie Panter-Downes's first novel, The Shoreless Sea, was published by John Murray when she was just seventeen and went into eight editions in the course of a year and a half, helped, no doubt, by the Daily Mirror's purchase of second serial rights and the slogan on the side of London Buses saying 'read The Shoreless Sea'.  (The writer Elizabeth Jenkins who was then eighteen remembers 'devouring' the instalments as they appeared).  Even today the novel has quite enough distinction to set it apart from the conventional love story, its tone and attitudes(though not its theme) being more than a little reminiscent of Rosamund Lehmann's The Dusty Answer which was published four years later." (1985)

I plan on reading Rosamund Lehmann's The Dusty Answer when I finish Elizabeth von Arnim's The Enchanted April.  The thing with reading Viragos is I read an author and love the book and then want to read all their books.  Or I read a book and the introduction mentions another book or author and then I have to read that!  So many of these older Viragos were books published originally in the 20s and 30s it seems or one author was an influence on another author from a later generation that they all fit so well together. Since I'm curious about this period, one book quickly leads to the next!

As for The Shoreless Sea, I'm reading it very carefully (fearful the pages are going to come detached from the spine), but I've gotten about 50 pages in.  While I don't think it's as well done as One Fine Day, I'm still very impressed that it is a first novel by a seventeen-year-old woman (and am enjoying it nonetheless)!  It will be interesting to see how it anticipates Lehmann's later novel, and then how many novels did Rosamund Lehmann write?  I'll be curious about all her books as well.  It's only a pity that so many of these books are out of print and hard to find.  I can't say this enough, but thank heavens for libraries and even more so for ILL!

Six Random Things

A nice meme seems like the perfect sort of post for the perfectly frivolous sort of day that I am having.  Conveniently I've been tagged by Tricia and Juxtabook to share six random things about myself.  I'm pretty sure I've done this before, so I'll try to think of six things I've not mentioned here before.

1. This is going to sound strange, but I want to start composting!  Everyone in my house is pretty good about recycling (I'm even known to dig out soda cans from the garbage if some unsuspecting visitor is foolish enough to pitch them), but I want to do more.  I've threatened to do this now for several years, but I think this is going to be the year. 
2. I love chocolate.  Preferably dark chocolate.  The darker the better.  I usually will bring a couple of those small Dove dark chocolate squares to work with me, or I'll ration out a candy bar during the week.  My current favorites: Green & Black's Organic (I've never looked at their website before...I had no idea they had so many flavors), and Lindt's Dark Chocolate with mousse filling.  And I love trying new chocolate flavors like dark chocolate with chili peppers or ginger or some other exotic spice.  Yum.
3. I am completely addicted to walking on my treadmill.  Even if I walk outside or go to the gym, I'll still walk at home on my treadmill even if it is only for 20-30 minutes.  I have to be really ill to take a day off, though some days I just don't feel like it, I still walk.  Part of the attraction is being able to read a book while walking.
4. I have a hard time reading if it isn't quiet.  I get easily distracted when people are talking loudly on the bus or the TV is on.  I've gotten pretty good at reading while using the stationary bicycle at the gym even though there is background music.  Usually radio is tuned to a generic rock station, but occasionally someone will turn it to a hard rock station and it grates on me.  Loud, screechy noises are not very conducive for me towards reading and enjoying (let alone understanding) what I'm reading.
5. I'm terrible at giving people directions.  I can usually work out just fine how to get someplace myself, but the second I need to verbally explain to someone, I will get them lost.  Undoubtedly the second I've given directions and the person is on their way I'll think of a much better route.
6. Cell phones annoy me.  I have nothing against them, but sometimes I think people forget their manners when using them.  They talk on them loudly on the bus and about private matters, or they talk on them on the quiet floor of my library, and the thing that annoys me the most--they bring them into public restrooms and have their conversations there.  I don't understand this behavior, but maybe it just happens in libraries?  Ick.

Here are the rules:

• Link to the person that tagged you
• Post the rules somewhere in your meme
• Write the six random things
• Tag six people in your post
• Let the tagees know they’ve been chosen by leaving a comment on their blog
• Let the tagger know your entry is post

I don't usually tag people for memes, but I think I will this time.  And if I didn't tag you, but you feel the inclination, please feel free to meme-away!

Writing, Life and the Universe

Random Field Notes

A Guy's Moleskine Notebook

Books and Cooks

Booknotes by Lisa

Sibylle's Kitchen Sink

Needlework Inspiration: A Thursday Thirteen

Yesterday someone was kind enough to link to me, mentioning that I was a crafter and a reader.  Lately I've only been a reader and not much of a crafter, or in my case, needleworker.  I had thought I would share some of my recent projects today (in case anyone clicked through hoping to see something creative), but as I am not far enough along in any of them to  make a very interesting post, I thought instead I would share some of my favorite needlework books.

I've got a small but very nice collection of needlework books.  Many are now out of print, and these all happen to be of the coffee table variety mostly.  I would love to collect more, but they can be very pricey (which is why it's better to get them when they're first published rather than OOP).  Either they are small print runs (and generally very nice, lavish volumes) or they're foreign (primarily French), which means I need to be very selective.  Since I've not been stitching much, I've not been visiting any online stores to tempt me with new designs and new books. I'm afraid to go look and see what's new (and I'm missing out on!).  It's always nice revisiting the books I already own, though. 

My books tend to concentrate mostly on samplers, since that is my favorite type of design to stitch, but I like most types of needlework as well as anything on textiles and needlework tools.

1. Sampler & Antique Needlework Volume II. -- Sampler and Antique Needlework Quarterly is my favorite needlework magazine.  They published two wonderful books of designs that are full of gorgeous charts you can stitch.  Volume I is impossible to find, but I lucked out and found a remaindered copy of Volume II.
2. Samplers from the Victoria and Albert Museum, Clare Browne. -- If you live in London, I'm envious.  I actually went to the V&A a long time ago.  It was before I was seriously into stitching, though, and I never bothered to look at their fine textile collection.  So, if you happen by there, please go take a peek at Jane Bostocke's sampler for me!
3. Embroideries and Patterns from 19th Century Vienna, Raffaella Serena. -- Needlework from the Biedermeier Period.
4. Girlhood Embroidery: American Samplers & Pictorial Needlework 1650-1850, Betty Ring. -- If you are a serious needleworker (of samplers) this is THE book (actually it is a set of two) to own.  It's absolutely gorgeous with lots of text--the essential history of American samplers.
5. The Embroiderer's Story: Needlework from the Renaissance to the Present Day, Thomasina Beck. -- Another history of.
6. The Embroiderer's Garden, Thomasina Beck. -- Embroidery--and lovely gardens.
7. Gardening with Silk and Gold, Thomasina Beck. -- More embroidery.
8. British Embroidery: Curious Works from the Seventeenth Century, Kathleen Epstein. -- Another lavishly illustrated volume.
9. Sampler Motifs and Symbolism, Patricia Andrle. -- Did you know that often all the various motifs in samplers are chock full of symbolism?  This is a nice guide to understand what's what.
10. Quaker School Girl Samplers from Ackworth, Carol Humphrey. -- The Ackworth School samplers are quite famous now.  The school was founded in the late 1700s by the Quakers, and part of a girls education was to learn needlework.  Quaker samplers have a very distinct look (generally geometric medallions).  I think they're lovely and would like to stitch something in this style.
11. Common Thread/Common Ground: A Collection of Essays on Early Samplers and Historic Needlework, Marsha Van Valin. -- An excellent reference resource.
12. Samplers from A to Z (Museum of Fine Arts Boston), Pamela Parmal. -- Thin little volume, but with lovely samplers.
13. Du Point de Marque au Point de Croix: Catalogue de l'Exposition--Nancy 2000, Régine Deforges. -- I have a small collection of French needlework books, this is one with illustrations of samplers and other stitching that was part of an exhibition.

This makes me want to set my books aside (just for a little while) and stitch.

Another Slippery Victorian Tale

Although there were no astonishing twists of fate that you might see in a Sarah Waters novel, Gerri Brightwell's The Dark Lantern was a nice slippery Victorian tale full of lies and deceit.  I'm not sure why I am so drawn to dark and sinister Victorian settings, but I can read about the doings of the upstairs and downstairs residents of great manor houses over and over again.  The Dark Lantern is nicely done, oozing just enough atmosphere to give you the creepy crawlies with every mention of beetles scuttling across the kitchen floor.  It has the added bonus of verging on being a rather unusual mystery as well.

Jane Wilbred has managed to find a situation in London after being raised in the country.  Orphaned at a young age she is trained to go into service.  What else is there for an orphan to do anyway?  Unfortunately for Jane she has the added moral stain of having a murderess for a mother and is reminded of it at every turn by the vicar's wife who's in charge of the orphanage.  When she arrives at 32 Cursitor Road, one of her first actions is to rewrite her letter of character omitting any reference to her notorious background.  Jane's deception is only the first that will occur behind the doors of this distinguished house.  No one is who they appear to be.  Everyone is hiding secrets, and if they don't have any, they're blackmailing those who do. 

Elderly Mrs. Bentley lies dying.  Her son Robert and his wife Mina have returned from Paris, not only to be with his mother but to pursue his work in the burgeoning study of anthropometry.  The science of identifying criminals by their body measurements is already well-established in France, and Robert hopes to gain a foothold in England and convince those in charge of the prisons this is the method to use rather than that of fingerprinting.  While Robert is happy to return home, Mina has secrets stretching far back into her childhood that she's fearful will be brought to light and ruin her.  While Robert works, Mina is left to put in order an unruly household of servants who've gone lax with the illness of Mrs. Bentley. 

When Robert's elder brother, Henry, drowns on his return home from India, it will cause a bit of an uproar, but nothing compared to the revelation that Henry was returning with a wife.  Fears that the bereaved young widow will lay claims to the family home and money will provoke Mina to have Jane spy on her.  Nothing is known about Victoria Bentley, and any proof of identity and legal marriage are now at the bottom of the sea.  Mina believes the widow is not who she claims to be, and Jane will be stuck in the middle--trying to hide her own secrets, yet urged to find out what Victoria Bentley is hiding and what her real intentions are. 

Gerri Brightwell does a remarkable job creating an atmosphere of subterfuge.  Nearly all the characters are out to save their skins or are willing to flay others for their own means.  What I found most impressive (and entertaining) was the depiction of the love/hate relationship between the upstairs masters and the downstairs servants.  They're both dependent on each other.  There aren't many secrets in a house where a servant even knows what's at the bottom of the mistress's chamber pot (to put it bluntly).  And the servant walks a fine line between having nothing but a roof over her head and a meager afternoon off a week and being thrust out on the street with nothing at all by an unhappy employer.  It must have been a completely claustrophobic atmosphere.  Brightwell captures this tenuous (and unhappy) relationship so well.       

"Jane stares down into her plate.  At times it's hard to breathe in this house, let alone eat.  This is what you sell when you go into service, she thinks, freedoms that the family upstairs can't imagine being without.  To talk when you choose to, to go out when you like, to decide what you will eat, to sit down with a book and spend a whole afternoon reading simply because you want to.  A servant is not supposed to mind every minute of her day being laid out for her--this is what she will do at six in the morning, this is where she will be at half past nine, this is what she will eat for her supper, this is how she will spend the time before bed.  Do ladies think their servants don't notice how they spend their time?  Or that the very things servants are warned away from--reading novels, eating rich foods, making themselves beautiful so the men notice them--are the very occupations of their lives?"

I was eager to read this when I heard about it, and had to wait what felt like an insufferable amount of time for my library to process it (I'm too impatient when it comes to books, I know), but it was well worth the wait!  Although I didn't know about it last fall, this book would have been a welcome addition to this list.  I've not forgotten about it, by the way.  It is in the back of my mind and I still want to read at least a few of those books this year.

Listening Notes

I'm still listening to Penny Vincenzi's Sheer Abandon.  The book is pretty chunky--650+ pages translates into 22 parts, and each part is about one hour and fifteen minutes of listening pleasure.  While I am still enjoying it, I am also just the tiniest bit fidgety to get to the end of the story and move on to something new.  I only listen to audio books or podcasts when I am doing something else--out walking or cooking.  If it is a matter of just sitting and listening to a book, I'd rather read, so this book has been a very long one as I am getting it in daily bits and pieces.

I'm listening to section 13 at the moment and wondering just how much more there can be to the story.  The woman reading it is quite good, though, which makes it go faster somehow.  The cast of characters is fairly large and she differentiates between them very well.  I wonder sometimes if I might like a character less or more if I were reading the book rather than listening.  The story is about three women who meet while traveling in Thailand.  They're just out of school and ready for adventure.  One will come back pregnant and give birth in Heathrow airport.  Nearly sixteen years later they are all successful women, some in relationships, some not.  Of course baby Bianca, the abandoned baby is old enough now to wonder about her birth mother, and a series of events will bring her into the limelight threatening to expose the secret of one of these women.  I already know who the woman is and am wondering what disastrous events can occur in the next ten hours or so of the book. 

Vincenzi talks a lot about British politics, and if this book is anything to go by, Britain's socialized medicine is faltering.  It's interesting getting all the little cultural bits.  I do have to say, though, that if Kate (baby Bianca) says "Cool" one more time I might scream, and "for f**ck's sake" seems to be another favored phrase (though uttered by other characters, not young Kate).  It's interesting how some things probably pass over me when I'm listening, yet others seem much more memorable for that same reason. 

I've got several more books lined up and loaded onto my player ready to go.  Although I am somewhat adept at juggling regular books, reading several at once, I can't seem to do that with audio books.  The nice thing about free audio books from the library, once they are loaded onto my player, I can keep them as long as I like.  I'm not sure what I'll listen to next, but I have lots of interesting titles saved:

Jane Boleyn: The True Story of the Infamous Lady Rochford by Julia Fox--I've not yet listened to any NF, and I'm wondering how much I'll retain after just listening.  Often I'll reread passages when I'm reading NF, but I won't be able to easily do that in this format.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald--I've read this several times, and I thought it might be enjoyable to listen to it as well.

Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer--I read Meyer's first two books.  I really enjoyed the first and thought the second was so-so.  After hearing mixed reactions about the third I had planned on skipping it and just reading the last one, which is due out in the fall.  After I saw the audio book available, I thought I might enjoy listening to it.

Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear--I love Maisie Dobbs.  I've already read all Maisie's mysteries, but when my library recently got the first two as free audio downloads I thought I might enjoy listening to them rather than reading them again, which I've been wanting to do.  I know Dorothy has listened to some of them and enjoyed them.  I hope they will eventually get all of them in audio.

Hunting Unicorns by Bella Pollen--It seems someone wrote about this book a while back and I recently spotted it and had to add it to my list.  In Booklist I read "this quirky comedy melds romance with a P. G. Wodehouse view of England's upper crust."  Sounds like it could be fun. 

Goodbye to All That by R.P. Graves--This is the only book so far that I've gotten that is abridged.  It is another NF title, and considering the subject matter (autobiographical memoir about life in WWI trenches) perhaps it's best to only get a small taste. 

I think these should get me through the summer.   I guess I need to spend more time outside walking now (much better than cooking!).

1% Well Read

I've been feeling pretty confident lately that there would be no more challenges in the near future that would tempt me.  And there have been loads of new ones to choose from.  I've stumbled across one, though, that I really like the sound of.  It's the 1% Well Read Challenge that I first discovered here.  It's based on the book 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, and the idea is to read ten books from this list in the next ten months.  What I like about it is that it incorporates many books that I already want to read (more classics especially).  Surely I can read one a month?  I'm not going to officially join, but I thought it would be fun to make my list and see how many I can read during the next year (well, ten months to be exact).  I had a hard time narrowing it down to ten, so I've added a few alternates.  I've managed to include a few from the Modern Library list, one Virago, a Jane Austen novel and one or two other books that keep popping up on my "I want to read" lists. 

1. The Female Quixote, Charlotte Lennox - "The Female Quixote, a vivacious and ironical novel parodying the style of Cervantes, portrays Arabella, the beautiful daughter of a marquis, whose passion for reading romances colors her approach to her own life and causes many comical and melodramatic misunderstandings among her relatives and admirers.
2. Evelina, Frances Burney - "Frances Burney's first and most enduringly popular novel is a vivid, satirical, and seductive account of the pleasures and dangers of fashionable life in late eighteenth-century London. As she describes her heroine's entry into society, womanhood and, inevitably, love, Burney exposes the vulnerability of female innocence in an image-conscious and often cruel world where social snobbery and sexual aggression are played out in the public arenas of pleasure-gardens, theatre visits, and balls."
3. Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen - "Its two heroines—so utterly unlike each other–both undergo the most violent passions when they are separated from the men they love. What differentiates them, and gives this extraordinary book its complexity and brilliance, is the way each expresses her suffering: Marianne–young, impetuous, ardent–falls into paroxysms of grief when she is rejected by the dashing John Willoughby; while her sister, Elinor—wiser, more sensible, more self-controlled—masks her despair when it appears that Edward Ferrars is to marry the mean-spirited and cunning Lucy Steele. All, of course, ends happily—but not until Elinor’s “sense” and Marianne’s “sensibility” have equally worked to reveal the profound emotional life that runs beneath the surface of Austen’s immaculate and irresistible art."
4. Far from the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy - "Hardy's passionate tale of the beautiful, headstrong farmer Bathsheba Everdene and her three suitors, firmly established the thirty-four-year-old writer as a popular novelist.  Introducing the fictional name of "Wessex" to describe Hardy's legendary countryside, this early masterpiece draws a vivid picture of rural life in southwest England."
5. A Passage to India, E.M. Forster - "Arguably Forster's greatest novel, A Passage to India limns a troubling portrait of colonialism at its worst, and is remarkable for the complexity of its characters. Here the personal becomes the political and in the breach between Aziz and his English 'friends,' Forster foreshadows the eventual end of the Raj."
6. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley - "The astonishing novel Brave New World, originally published in 1932, presents Aldous Huxley's vision of the future -- of a world utterly transformed. Through the most efficient scientific and psychological engineering, people are genetically designed to be passive and therefore consistently useful to the ruling class. This powerful work of speculative fiction sheds a blazing critical light on the present and is considered to be Huxley's most enduring masterpiece."
7. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh - "One of Waugh's most famous books, Brideshead Revisited tells the story of the difficult loves of insular Englishman Charles Ryder, and his peculiarly intense relationship with the wealthy but dysfunctional family that inhabited Brideshead. Taking place in the years after World War II, Brideshead Revisited shows us a part of upper-class English culture that has been disappearing steadily.
8. House in Paris, Elizabeth Bowen - "This 1935 novel is considered among Bowen's best. Eleven-year-old Henrietta is visiting the Fisher family in Paris. The character of the city, however, has nothing on the characters inside the residence, including Leopold, a child; his unusual mother; a dead father who has as much presence as any of the living; and an old man dying in bed. There's something dark about the goings-on here, which Henrietta learns firsthand." (I thought I owned this already, but apparently not--I'll have to check the library for a copy...or buy one...).
9. The Go-Between, L.P. Hartley - "Summering with a fellow schoolboy on a great English estate, Leo, the hero of L. P. Hartley's finest novel, encounters a world of unimagined luxury. But when his friend's beautiful older sister enlists him as the unwitting messenger in her illicit love affair, the aftershocks will be felt for years. The inspiration for the brilliant Joseph Losey/Harold Pinter film starring Julie Christie and Alan Bates, The Go-Between is a masterpiece—a richly layered, spellbinding story about past and present, naiveté and knowledge, and the mysteries of the human heart."
10. The Birds Fall Down, Rebecca West - "Through a vivid canvas layered with intrigue, conspiracy and murder, Rebecca West has created a story that is at once a family saga, a political thriller, a philosophical drama and a historical novel."

And a few alternates:

• The Rainbow, D.H. Lawrence - I started reading this last fall, but I quickly became bogged down.  I would really like to read it, though. 
• A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute - I've had a copy of this book for ages and ages.  It sounds so good, but I think the WWII aspect has put me off reading it.  Can it possibly be OOP here in the US, or is Amazon just giving me weird results?
• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick - I've wondered about this author for a long time now.  Another author on my very, very long list I'd like to try.  He was also recommended when I was looking for ideas of dystopian literature.

I know that most of these are pretty famous novels, so the blurbs (I grabbed them from Amazon) are almost more for me than anything else--to help me decide which to start with!

Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

Joyce Carol Oates is one of those authors I feel like I really should have read by now, but I haven't.  It was an easy choice, therefore, when I was deciding which story to read this weekend to pick her story, "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?".  I've decided to work on reading the stories in American Short Story Masterpieces over the course of the rest of the year.  There are 36 stories included, so I won't get to all of them, but it is as close as I can come to any sort of 'guided' reading plan.  Although I love reading stories at random (and will still also do that occasionally), I feel like there are probably well-known stories that I should also be reading.

As this anthology only has contemporary American authors, I'll also be looking for the equivalent for international fiction.  According to the blurb:

"This highly acclaimed collection of short stories by American writers contains only the best literary art of the past four decades.  With a bias towards realism, editors Raymond Carver and Tom Jenks selected fiction that 'tells a story'--and tells it with a masterful handling of language, situation, and insight."

So this should be the best of the best.  As with any anthology, I know it is leaving other authors and sorts of stories out.  Still, I think it is a good starting place.

Joyce Carol Oates is called the "Dark Lady of American Letters" and I've seen her name connected with the term Gothic, which gives a tiny indication of what I'm in for when reading her work.  She is a prolific writer with more than forty novels, countless short stories, poetry, plays, criticism and even YA novels to her name.  She is also a professor at Princeton University and edits a literary magazine.  Imagine taking a writing course from her!  I think you'd have to be very confident or very serious about your studies.

"Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" was written in 1966 and was dedicated to Bob Dylan.  Apparently she was inspired to write the story in part after listening to Dylan's song, It's All Over Now, Baby Blue.  She also based the story on three murders committed in Tucson, Arizona by Charles Schmid, the story being profiled in Life magazine that year.  I read that the story drew somewhat heavily on the tumultuous history of the times, so I tried to keep that era in mind when reading the story.  Really, though it's a story that could just as easily have occurred today as forty years ago.

Connie is an average fifteen-year-old high school student.  She's pretty and likes to hang out with her friends, trying to catch the attention of the good looking boys.  "She had a quick, nervous giggling habit of craning her neck to glance into mirrors or checking other people's faces to make sure her own was all right."  Her mother despairs of her and berates her self-absorption, comparing her to her older, less attractive but more reliable sister.  While her parents think she is going to the movies or the mall with her girlfriends, instead they head across the highway to the drive-in where the older kids hang out.  Often she'll go off with a boy to his car, and you're not quite sure what happens there.  Her actions are obviously observed by others, even if her family has no idea what she's up to.

When her family leaves to go to a barbecue one Sunday, she stays home alone washing her hair, listening to the radio and daydreaming.  Soon she hears a car pulling up the gravel driveway.  There's a confident rap on the door, as though someone was expected.  At first Connie doesn't recognize the two boys.  They're in an open jalopy painted gold with 'Arnold Friend' stenciled in the paint.  Connie's first concern is that she looks okay.  There's something sinister about the boys, however, not least that they aren't boys at all, but men.  While the man in the car seems not the least interested, Arnold Friend is quite insistent that he is here for Connie to take her on a date.  What starts out as a bit of a flirtation soon turns sinister.      

It's an unsettling story to read.  Most of the story concerns Connie alone in the house, her family not expected back for hours.  Arnold Friend is anything but a friend.  Strangely he knows all about Connie and her family.  His manner might have started out friendly, but it soon becomes threatening and you soon feel yourself alone in that house.  The ending is not clear, but it's easy enough to imagine what might happen.  You're in Connie's head after all, seeing what she's seeing.  Very creepy.

You can read the story online here.