I've finished a few good books lately, but I haven't gotten around to writing anything about them. Partially I am just lazy, but it is likely you have already read about these elsewhere (so my comments are going to be pretty brief). The first is a book that I really enjoyed--a first novel by Aoibheann Sweeney (any idea how to pronounce her name?) called Among Other Things I've Taken Up Smoking. I liked so many things about this novel--down to the title even, which is not what you would expect. There are lots of things about this novel you don't really expect, which I think is part of its success--It's unpredictable.
On first glance it seems like a typical coming-of-age story. Set (partially) in Maine (actually off the coast of Maine on a tiny island), where Miranda grows up with only her father. Her mother died in a boating accident when she was very small. Miranda is unlike most of her friends. She's an awkward teenager really--not seeming to fit in well, less so than you normally expect. Her father spends his days writing. He is working on a new translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses. The novel is peppered with Ovid's stories. What is particularly poignant about this book is Miranda's own metamorphosis that she undergoes when her father sends her off to New York City to work at a Classics Institute that he helped found. She discovers things about herself and her family that were long hidden away. Sweeney's writing is wonderful by the way. The plotting and pacing of this novel are right on. And now I want to read Ovid--that's a new one (I've never given a lot of thought to reading the Classics).
I absolutely loved Peter Ho Davies' The Welsh Girl. When I finished the book and set it down I found I couldn't pick up another book for the rest of the evening as my thoughts were still lingering over the story. 1940s rural Wales is the setting--but it's not your typical WWII story. There are three separate stories in this novel. They start out independently of each other, running along in parallels--each interesting in its own right, but eventually they will intersect.
Half-Jewish Rotheram, a British intelligence officer, is sent to Wales to crack Rudolf Hess's story of amnesia. Earlier in the war Hess fled to England, purportedly to negotiate peace. Esther, the title character, lives with her widowed father on their sheep farm. She works in the local pub, which is frequented by English sappers when they are not busy building what will turn out to be a POW encampment. Karsten, a German corporal, will end up in that POW camp. Each character struggles with issues of identity, displacement, honor and cowardice.
I thought it was amazing how Davies was able to run these threads through the plot and the different characters so believably yet so uniquely. They each struggled in their own way, but at the same time these are universal struggles as well. The Welsh Girl is a very compact novel, but it is also amazingly complex. It is easily one of the best books I've read all year, and I only wish I could better articulate exactly why. I am not a big reader of short stories, but I have already set about interlibrary loaning his two previous books of short stories, which I am eagerly looking forward to reading.
Earlier tonight I finished the slim novel by Shannon Hale called Austenland (which is why I am posting so late tonight). While I was reading it, I kept thinking it was much like eating cotton candy. Light and fluffy and a little sugary. To be really honest, though, too much cotton candy just leaves you a little ill, and still hungry when all is said and done. In the end you find you would rather have had ham and swiss cheese on wheat bread instead--something a little more substantial. To be fair no book really had much of a chance coming right after The Welsh Girl. Despite my desires at times for a little more depth, I did find myself going back to the novel to find out what would happen in the end.
Austenland reminded me a lot of PBS's Regency House Party. Jane, a complete Jane Austen addict and Mr. Darcy fancier, is bequeathed a three week vacation at "Austenland". There she will be immersed in the Regency era complete with Empire waist dresses, bloomers, and attractive men in breeches. Her reason for going is to break her obsession with Mr. Darcy (Colin Firth version, of course). It was a cute story, with an ending that was actually a bit unexpected. It was definitely on the frothy side, though. There were moments I would think that instead of reading about a woman who wants to live inside a Jane Austen novel, I could actually be reading a Jane Austen novel!