A Work in Progress

The Professor's House by Willa Cather

Willa Cather has been a neglected author on my part, and the more I read, the more I see what a mistake that has been.  Two books down, three if I count O Pioneers, which I read a good decade ago (best not to count it as I don't think I quite caught on at the time) and I see what a remarkable writer she was.  The Professor's House, written in 1925, is similar to My Antonia in that the story is relatively easy reading but it's deceptively so.  She writes in clear, unadorned prose and it's easy to slip into the story and almost forget it's a book you're holding in your hands.  It's only when you turn the last page and let the full force of the story wash over you and give yourself time to think things over that you realize that the story is filled with subtleties and nuances that could so easily be overlooked but that makes the reading experience so rich.  So I've been thinking about the story she is telling and wondering about the meanings lurking behind the words and images.  I'm not going to try and write about everything in the story, but I do have a few general thoughts to share.

There are some books you read and can consume in one gulp and that's all that's needed.  And then there are others that you read, but soon discover a first reading is only enough to get the flavor of the story, and it's only after second or maybe even third readings that it all begins to make sense and connections are made.  For me, The Professor's House has been just such a book.  I turned the last page and thought what a lovely, sad, poignant story, but at the same time I was filled with an uncertainty about it all, too.  And I wonder if that is some of what Cather was trying to get across to the reader. 

Godfrey St. Peter is a man at a crossroad in his life.  A professor of middling years in a small midwestern town he's modest yet well respected.  He's spent years writing a history of Spanish Adventurers in North America that has garnered some acclaim and won awards and has allowed him to move from his smaller home to a much grander house, which delights his ambitious wife Lillian yet leaves him feeling somewhat empty.  So much so that he decides to continue using his small study in the old house as he completes the last volume of his work.  The room has been a place where he could find isolation and insulation from "the engaging drama of domestic life".  It's a life that he seems to turn from filled with disenchantment. 

Along with a wife who welcomes the climb up the social ladder, St. Peter has two grown and married daughters.  Rosamond, the elder, has done quite well for herself both socially and financially, but Kathleen is insecure and a little jealous of her sister.  Rosamond's success is thanks in part to the death of one of St. Peter's most talented and also beloved students, Tom Outland.  Outland appears one afternoon in the St. Peter garden hoping to enter the university.  It was serendipity, in the form of St. Peter's writings, that led Tom to St. Peter, but a friendship followed based on mutual respect and a love of learning.  Although Tom has little formal study under his belt, his determination sees him through.  As a matter of fact he goes on to invent a new gas and bequeaths the patent to Rosamond before going off to the war to fight and die.  Fortuitously her husband is able to market it in a way that revolutionizes everyone's lives and make Rosamond rich.

As St. Peter works on his book in his simple little study, where he did have happiness, he reflects on his life now filled with progress and improvements and finds it lacking.  His marriage is failing, there is a growing disappointment in his daughters and the ways in which they lead their lives.  Instead of looking back and feeling a completeness he feels only a dissatisfaction with how things have turned out.  The more he has the less fulfilled he feels and he sees the things that have given him hope, happiness and and a feeling of achievement withering away. 

The structure of the novel is an interesting one, though I found it a little jarring (not a criticism really, just an observation).  The first and last sections concern professor St. Peter and his life and family, but in the middle section Tom Outland's story is recounted.  The story very abruptly moves from the town of Hamilton to the Southwest where Tom grew up working on the railroad and later for a cattle company riding the range with the herd.  Tom tells his story in first person, and the professor is now passing it on to the reader.  What was so striking was the contrast between places.  Cather knows how to paint a landscape with words, and she vividly depicts the Blue Mesa.  This was my favorite part of the book.  Even though Tom is never really present in the story physically, you get a deep sense of what he was like, his dreams and hopes that perhaps mirror the professor's, only Tom was doesn't live long enough to fulfill them, and now the professor is also left with a sense of emptiness and despair.  What's so painful about the story is the realization that Tom's brilliant invention has unwittingly caused so much disaffection in the professor's life. 

Despite such melancholy, this is a beautiful novel, one that I look forward to revisiting.  And I plan on continuing on working my way through Cather's work.  I'm not sure what I'll pick up next, but I've had a copy of Lucy Gayheart on my shelves for a number of years.  It sounds like another good story, though very different than the previous books I've read.  Suggestions?   

A (very) Few Library Finds

I was planning on writing about Willa Cather's The Professor's House tonight, but I'm too tired and just want to get into bed early with a book and read for a while.  Besides the Cather is a book that needs to be thought about for a day or two or maybe more, so instead I'll share my library finds.  I returned a bag full of books to the library last night and did a little browsing, but I only have three to share.  Just as well as I have a growing pile of books from the library where I work.  I've become a little obsessed with interlibrary loan and am wondering just when they are going to cut me off!   

Since I've been using the library where I work so much, I've not been looking at the public library's virtual 'new book list', where I tend to find most of the books I end up requesting.  I've also noticed that they seem to be getting fewer new books in (novels anyway), and I haven't decided if it is due to budget constraints, or this is just a slow publishing period.  I did take a peek at this month's lists before I left the house, however, and I discovered that there is a new Cordelia Frances Biddle mystery out, Without Fear.  This series is set in 19th century Philadelphia by the way.  I was so excited to see a new book as it's been ages since her last mystery, so I headed first to the new books shelves only to discover it wasn't there.  Even the librarian checked and neither of us could find it.  I must have scanned the shelves three times before giving up.  So, I'm in line for the next available copy.  I noticed that Biddle's third novel has been published by Booksurge, which I think is Amazon's publishing service.  I'm happy that she's been able to bring out her new novel, but I am disappointed to find out that yet another mystery writer I enjoy must have been dropped by her publisher.  Obviously if an author doesn't sell well right off the bat, they think nothing of dropping them--pity for the poor readers who enjoyed her work. 

Disappointment aside, I did come home with three books.  Zoe Sharp is a new to me author, but I like the sound of the heroine in this crime series.  Charlie Fox (short for Charlotte) is a self-defense instructor after being kicked out of the army Special Forces.  Killer Instinct is the first in a series of thrillers, and Charlie sounds very 'kick-ass' in her approach.  I'm looking forward to reading about her.  Lee Child even wrote the introduction to this book.  Has anyone read Zoe Sharp?

Christobel Kent's The Drowning River is set in a wet November Florence.  Sandro Cellini is the sleuth--a "good husband, disgraced ex-policeman, and recently turned PI".  Another first in a series of books.  Italy seems to be a good crime destination these days--at least I have two now sitting on my night stand and can think of a handful more I want to read (Donna Leon, Michael Dibdin, Andrea Camilleri...).

I read Peg Kingman's first novel, Not Yet Drown'd, several years back and recall enjoying it.  Last time Scotland and India were her settings, but this time in Original Sin, a runaway Virginia slave returns home to try to find out what happened to a lost child.  I'm really looking forward to this one.      

One small side note--I owe a number of people emails.  I've been very remiss in answering emails lately, but they have not been forgotten or ignored.  I only wish I had more time in the evenings to get everything done I need to do, but I hope to catch up very soon.

In the meantime--happy reading everyone.

Teaser Tuesday: Bad Penny Blues

I love it when I pick up a book and it just clicks, so much so that I find myself always reaching for it and not wanting to set it down.  That's not to say I'm not enjoying my other current reads, as I am, but there's something about Cathi Unsworth's Bad Penny Blues that makes me want to keep going once I start.  It seems to be a good, gritty, noir crime novel steeped in the atmosphere of the period, which in this case is late 1950s London.  I really like it when an author makes you feel like you're there in the story, getting lost amongst the crowds, hearing the music and being part of the scene. 

Cathi Unsworth began her writing career working for music and arts magazines and I think that seems to come through in this book.  I get the sense that she is both socially and culturally savvy about the period--not someone who has just done a little research to sprinkle facts throughout the story.  She has written several other books about this milieu, which I might just have to try and get my hands on, but first things first.

I like it when a novel written by a British author isn't Americanized.  I'd rather try my luck getting the right meaning from unknown words and phrases rather than having it couched in American terms.  It's amazing how much I've learned this way, and what I can't infer from my reading I can always look up.  For instance a spiv is a petty criminal who deals in black market goods and a Teddy Boy is a young man of stylish dress typified by the style worn in the Edwardian period.  Apparently they got their name from a newspaper headline, which shorted Edward to Teddy and the term Teddy Boy was born.  I know this is a crime novel, but I love the social aspects of it as well, and I find social history endlessly fascinating. 

So, my teaser today is from Bad Penny Blues.  Pete Bradley is a new Police Constable who's looking to work his way up the ranks when he finds the body of a young woman in a field.  Shortly after he's transferred to a new area and begins work as an undercover cop. 

"Pete had wanted to experience something beyond the mundane beat of Chiswick and now he got it.  The streets around Ladbroke Grove were like a frontier town in the Wild West, roughly divided into three territories.  To his right, down Lancaster Road and up the Latimer Road was the area known as Notting Dale and it was from the little rows of cottages there that most of these Teddy Boys sprang.  To his left, on the other side of Portobello Raod, were the roads owned by the Polish landlord Peter Rachman, whose houses overflowed with West Indians.  Down the middle to Rachman's lands, joining Ladbroke Grove to Royal Oak, ran Westbourne Park Road.  To its north, the immense coal and coke yard sprawled down the side of the Grand Union Canal, to the south a warren of streets inhabited by Irish.

There were other immigrant communities here-Spanish, Indians, a smattering of Portuguese and a subculture of writers and artists drawn by the cheap rents and shady, shifting atmosphere in the first place.  But the Teds, the West Indians and the Irish, there were your fighters.  To Pete's wide eyes it seemed that on every corner, at every hour of the day and night, there was a brawl taking place.  Be it Teds jibing the equally dandified young coloured men, or a posse of drunks supporting each other while they took turns to vomit into the gutter, all the men here hunted in packs with the women screeching on their encouragement from the sidelines." 

I'm getting a taste of 1950s London, and I think I wouldn't mind sticking around here for a while.  Any suggestions for novels set in 1950s-1970s London anyone? 

Old Filth by Jane Gardam

On more than one occasion Jane Gardam's Old Filth has been recommended to me.  And one more than one occasion I pulled the book from the library shelf and looked at it and then quietly slid it back into place.  Gardam has won or been listed for all sorts of prizes and the New York Times makes note of her "typical excellence and compulsive readability".  I've even got a handful of her other books in my reading piles.  So, what's the problem you're probably thinking?  I'm often a very predictable reader and one facet of my predictability is that I prefer to read about female protagonists.  Not always (and nothing personal), but enough so that I will often pass on a book when I question whether the story has enough appeal or that I'll be able to empathize with the main character.  And yes, I am trying to break myself of this habit. 

Old Filth is Edward Feathers, an eighty-year-old widower who is the subject of this story.  And while the reflections on a life begun at the edges of the Empire, the British Raj, sound appealing, what do I know about eighty-year-old men?  Lucky for me Old Filth landed on my doorstep one day removing all excuses to pick the book up and discover that yes, some feelings are universal and that it is easy to empathize with a character like Edward Feathers.  Old Filth is an ironic nickname for a variety of reasons, though not one bestowed with any sense of irony by his colleagues.  Old Filth stands for 'Failed in London Try Hong Kong', which is what he did in his poor days just after the war when he was new to the bar.  Despite a long and distinguished career as a lawyer and then judge, Filth feels decidedly dirty, however, thanks to a secret from his childhood he carries with him throughout his lifetime.  Outwardly Filth is a modest man, well dressed however, if somewhat outdated in his style.  As a matter of fact he's fastidious in all his ways.

Yet his beginnings were none too illustrious.  Born in Malay to an overworked colonial administrator father who drinks too much and a mother who succumbs to puerperal fever just days after his birth, he's raised by the daughter of his nursemaid who loves him obsessively.  He grows up amongst the natives speaking their language and playing their games and is quite content with his life, though all but ignored by his father.  Before his fifth birthday, he's sent back to England to begin his proper education and keep him out of harm's way (harm's way being tropical fevers).  Along with two younger cousins he ends up in Wales in the care of foster parents.  If Old Filth belongs in the "Dickensian pantheon of memorable characters", Ma Didds deserves a place there as well in the villainess hall of fame.  Life is hellish for the children who are known as "Raj orphans".  Like his father, Edward arrives with a stutter that is even more pronounced when he leaves Ma Didds' abusive household and enters boarding school.  It's with Sir, the headmaster of the school that he's set on the straight and narrow and through his close friendship with another student with whose family he passes the school holidays.

The story moves around in time, Filth looking back on a full life yet feeling an emptiness all the same.  His life begins in Malay, and after a successful career in Hong Kong he returns to England with his wife Betty, another Raj orphan, and they settle in Dorset. It's from this vantage point that he reflects on his youth and later marriage to a woman who is more a companion than a lover (in the passionate sense), and who has been harboring secrets of her own.  It seems all Filth's best relationships are ended too soon, and those that endure are deficient in some way.  He never seems to understand his wife and can never even remember the name of his long standing housekeeper, calling her Mrs.-er.  In the end he feels a sense of loneliness and isolation, which is not surprising considering his shaky emotional foundation.      

In Old Filth Gardam has created such an interesting character and placed him against the backdrop of the better part of the twentieth century and showing how he has been molded by people and places and events.  Our first and last glimpses of him are through the eyes of his contemporaries, or at least his colleagues who think they know Filth, but we know better.  He's not as easy a man to pinpoint as might be expected, and the story brings him full circle as he tries to make sense of his life.  For all the foot dragging that went into picking up this book, I'm so glad I did as it was a rich reading experience and one I wouldn't mind repeating.  I do have Gardam's companion novel, The Man in the Wooden Hat, which is Betty's story, to pick up soon.  Many thanks to Europa Editions for sending this one my way.     

A Weekend Mishmash

Yesterday when I was out doing errands I spotted these mums in the gardening center of my supermarket and decided to splurge.  Flowers really aren't the most practical purchase for me since I always seem to either over water or under water and end up with sad, pathetic looking plants, but I couldn't resist.  I had petunias in these pots that were turning brown, which I couldn't bear looking at any longer, so I did a switch.  I didn't pitch the poor petunias, however, just set them aside so they aren't the focal point of my porch ledge.  They still had blooms so I couldn't throw them out.  Now I have lovely mums in fall colors for passersby to look at.  I will do my best to follow the instructions and keep the soil moist.  Today is the first day with below average temperatures and little humidity that we've had in far too long, so the mums seem fitting.   

 

I think it was only last week that I posted a photo of my Mystery Sampler.  As you can see I've made some really good progress this week on it. 

 

Only to discover as the circle was finally meeting up, that, the circle was not going to meet up--I had made a counting error.  One square off was going to throw it all off.  Arrggh.  Often I will leave the mistake in and work around it, but as this is the second part of the Mystery and will be sewed to two other parts I want to make sure everything will actually match.  So out came all that work.  It's very discouraging.

 

But as you can see I've jumped right back in and am working on the vine one more time.  Hopefully the circle will meet up correctly this time.  

A few bookish notes.  After wondering what to read next, I've started two new books and in the end chose one that hadn't even been in the running.  Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio is one of those novels I always 'mean to read' but never seem to pick up, so I decided to pick it up this time.  John Updike wrote the introduction to it, but I'll wait until the end to read it.  The novel is actually made up of a series of interconnected stories about the residents of Winesburg.  Interestingly I've just started listening to the audio book The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury.  Bradbury writes in his own introduction that Winesburg, Ohio was the inspiration for his own work, so I'm glad I'm reading it now. 

I couldn't decide on a second book, but in the end I didn't have to.  Yesterday in the mail I received Cathi Unsworth's Bad Penny Blues from the publicist for Serpent's Tail.  It came as a surprise, but somehow it seemed just what I was looking for.  It's a crime/detective novel set in 1959 London and when I started reading I fell right into the rhythm of the story and think I am going to enjoy it.  I'm also reading Andrew Taylor's An Air that Kills at the moment, which is also set in post-WWII England, but in the fictional northern town of Lydmouth.  It'll be interesting to compare the two since Austerity Britain is the backdrop to the stories.  First impressions, though, I get the feeling that the Taylor book looks back towards the war more than the Unsworth, which seems to look forward to the swinging Sixties.  The Unsworth is also very noir with the murder of a prostitute at the center and a young and rising Police Constable getting caught up in the solving of the crime.

I'm going to have to dig out my copy of May Sarton's The Small Room, which the Slaves of Golconda will be reading in October.  I often know roughly where my books are--on which shelf or in which pile so it's only a matter of a little sorting.  I'm not sure where my copy of the Sarton is.  I have a feeling if I spend too much time looking I'm going to walk away with yet another new pile of unread books I feel the need to bring to my bedside for perusal.  I was hoping to reread I Capture the Castle along with Cornflowers Book Group.  It looks like there are still a few weeks before they'll be chatting about it, but should I really be thinking of starting any other books.  I will say I Capture the Castle is easily one of my favorites and one of the most charming stories I think I've ever read.  If I plan ahead I could reread Madame Bovary with the group Frances at Nonsuch Book is organizing--also in October.  They are reading a new translation by Lydia Davis that is being released in September.  So many temptations, aren't there?   

Time to Choose Something New

 

Since I've finished two books and am nearly finished with a third, I'm thinking about which books I want to start reading next.  Hopefully I'll be writing about what I finished very soon, but I have to say my brain has been a little addled by the heat.  I'm hoping for some inspiration over the weekend and a little cooler weather.  Fingers crossed it happens on both counts.  More about my finished books later, let's think instead now about which books to choose.  I need a new classic and and I have a little pile of AREs that are really deserving some attention.  I've got things whittled down a little bit, but selecting just one can be so hard.  Once I start reading I hate setting books aside, so I try and get a sense of what I'm getting into and whether the book fits my mood.

About a week ago I had already decided I wanted to read Carson McCuller's The Member of the Wedding.  It begins "It happened that green and crazy summer when Frankie was twelve years old.  This was the summer when for a long time she had not been a member.  She belonged to no club and was a member of nothing in the world."  One of McCullers themes in her novels is a sense of isolation, which I think I can relate to at the moment.  And I also love coming of age stories.  But then came along Faulkner's The Unvanquished.  I was reading the notes at the end of the book and many of the chapters began as short stories for publications like The Saturday Evening Post.  Apparently Faulkner edited and rewrote them to create one story, but I wonder if the overwhelming feel will be of interconnected stories rather than a single novel, which is fine, just interesting.  And then I started thinking about Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio.  I like this--"Before John Cheever, Raymond Carver, and Richard Ford, there was Sherwood Anderson, who with Winesburg, Ohio, charted a new direction in American fiction."  I want something a little challenging but not defeating.  And a book with really good, strong prose. 

It's a little trickier for my AREs.  I'm honestly not sure what I'm in the mood for, but I need to get cracking on them.  Some have arrived unsolicited, but I'm intrigued enough to want to read them, and a few have been books I've requested.  Perhaps a little taste of the story?

Lorcan Roche, The Companion.  "The ad is in The Voice.  Then, after a little while, a voice is in the ad.  Sounds exactly like the bloke who played the evil baddie in North by Northwest, you know him, yes you do, silver hair, real refined, shite, what's this his name is...?  Mason, James."  This is a "darkly humorous tale of obsession."

The Sexual Life of an Islamist in Paris by Leila Marouane.  "It came over me all of a sudden, he said.  I was at my desk, hardly listening to my client, and I couldn't take my eyes off the dome that was shining like a mirage beyond the bay window.  You're in Paris but you're not in Paris.  A shadow passing through the city.  Morning after morning.  Going back to the gray skies of your banlieue.  Night after night.  Paris shines for other people.  You're becoming lackluster, there among your family.  That's the point you're at, old boy.  Strolling by the banquet, not allowed to taste.  Existing without existence." 

Ashworth, Jenn.  A Kind of Intimacy.  "After the van had been loaded and sent on its way I took off all my clothes and kicked the sofa I was about to abandon.  Not just a little kick either.  I really belted it."  This sounds darkly comic and maybe a little sad.

While I decide what to read I'll grab my box of tissues as I have somehow managed to catch a cold.  How does one catch a cold during the hottest week of summer I ask you?  Well, I've done it.  Probably getting all sweaty outside and at the gym and then going into really cold air conditioning doesn't help.  My books should at least keep my mind off my stuffy nose. 

Slightly Out of Control Library Loot

I think the only reason I've been able to adhere to my resolution to stop buying new books is thanks to the fact that I have so many books at my fingertips at not one, not even two, but well lots of libraries.    I've noticed there is a direct correlation between the number of books I've been buying (nearly zero) to the number I've been requesting from ILL (too many lately).  And whatever I said about finishing two books for every new one I started, I think we can disregard that.  I mean, I'll try, but faced with a stack of books like this you just can't expect miracles.  Every time I share a photo of library books I feel a little like I am making a confession.  Bless me Father, I have brought home far too many books I can read before the due dates again this week.  And instead of Hail Marys I should get an obligatory two hundred pages to read for my penance.  Except you can hardly call that punishment. 

Okay, enough of that.  So you just want to know what I brought home, right?

On What Grounds, Cleo Coyle - I love cozy mysteries, but I tend to choose the kind that are set in uppercrust drawing rooms or something with a historical spin.  Coyle has a new mystery out and it caught my eye on my library's virtual new book list.  I like starting at the beginning, so, here I am.  This is a cozy mystery with a twist--it's set in a coffee shop.  I don't usually read mysteries like this, but it sounds fun.  And weird as it may sound I don't really like coffee (except maybe a cappuchino with lots of whip cream), but I love the way it smells.

The Blind Contessa's New Machine, Carey Wallace - This slim little novel sounded interesting.  It's set in nineteenth century Italy and the new machine is a typewriter--what the contessa uses to send love letters when she goes blind.  How could I pass up a book that is an "iridescent jewel of a novel".

Willa Cather: A Life Saved Up, Hermione Lee - I was gung ho to read about Willa Cather after finishing My Ántonia, but now I'm wondering if maybe I should keep reading her fiction for a while before reading about her.  I'm curious about authors, but how much should I know before I read her books.  And what if I find out something that puts me off her (which I'm not really expecting to do) and then puts me off the books.  Does that sound strange?  Books should stand on their own, yet knowing about what shaped the author can also shed so much light on her writing, too.  Dilemmas. 

Truth or Fiction, The Invisible Worm, Two Moons, Jennifer Johnston - I've already started Truth or Fiction and am liking Johnston's quiet yet elegant style of writing.  I've got Kim to thank for this little stack of books.  I believe she's a favorite of hers and I've been on the look out for new (to me) contemporary authors writing good, solid literary fiction (yes, that dicey term, but you know what I mean?  A book that's a little more highbrow than my usual fare).  I think Johnston will work nicely.  

The Unvanquished, William Faulkner - I've read all of one novel by Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury, and that was well before my blogging days (thankfully as heaven knows what I would have written about it then).  I was aided by Cliff's Notes I will admit.  Can't remember much about it now.  I am nearly finished with my Willa Cather book, and need a new classic to read and was thinking I need another American author.  He only came to mind when I was going to the shelf for the Willa Cather biography--same row of books, when I caught sight of the Faulkner facing out.  It caught my eye.  Hmm.  This might be interesting.  It's his first book and I've read it's very accessible.  Is that true I wonder?  Shall I try it?  Am also eying a few other books as well, though. 

The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers, Thomas Mullen - I do believe LizF was reading this and when it was mentioned I had to go look it up and it sounds sort of fun if a little outrageous.  It's about two brothers who are bank robbers during the Depression who maybe, like cats, have more than one life! 

Purge, Sofi Oksanen -Tiina recently wrote about this book and she highly recommended it and who am I to ignore such an enthusiastic suggestion.  It is "a breathtakingly suspenseful tale of two women dogged by their own shameful pasts and the dark, unspoken history that binds them."   

The Tapestry of Love, Rosy Thornton - And lets see, how many people have already been writing and talking about Rosy Thornton's new book?  Lyn? Elaine?  There are more of you out there, and you know who you are.  This one was problematic as not only am I not buying books, but definitely not hardcovers.  I put in a request to buy a copy at the library where I work and happily it was approved for purchase.  I think my library is the only one in the entire US that has a copy of this at the moment.  And yes, I have it in my hot little hands.  How can I not love a book set in Provence with a character who is also a needleworker?  Bring on the weekend, I've got books to read!

Celebrating Georgette Heyer: The Corinthian

You can find me today over at Austenprose chatting about one of my very favorite novels by Georgette Heyer, The Corinthian.  I hope you'll click on through, and while you're there do take a look around as there are lots more reviews by other Heyer fans and you can drop your name in the hat to win copies of her novels, which are being reissued by Sourcebooks.  I think I am going to try my luck but am not sure which book to try for.

Since I'm essentially taking the afternoon off here, I think I'll go now and pick up Georgette Heyer's Venetia, which I started not too long ago.  I like Venetia, she's a refreshing heroine.  I can already see it's going to be a case of the hero beginning as a friend until the heroine realizes she's actually in love with him.  Pure escapism, but I can use a little of that now and again.    

Teaser Tuesday: The House by the Sea

I've discovered a new author whose work I think I need to explore.  May Sarton is someone I've heard other readers talk about, and I think I even have one of her books on my shelves, but I hadn't thought of picking up any of her work anytime soon (and she seems to have an extensive list of poetry, novels and journals/memoirs to her name).   She was born in Belgium in 1912 but moved with her family to Boston, Massachusetts in 1915.   I was choosing a list of books to be voted on by The Slaves of Golconda, and I came across her whilst browsing for ideas. 

[So this is a nice moment where I shall put in a little plug for the Slaves bookgroup.  Do click on over and take a look around if you aren't familiar.  We are just now choosing our next book to read (for October) and anyone is welcome to join in.  Feel free to leave a comment, vote on a book, and if you'd like to be able to post on the blog just leave your email address and we'll get you set up with an invite].  

As it is my turn to choose a few titles that everyone votes on, I thought a classic novel for the fall might be nice.  I admit the books are all books I would love to read, but hopefully others will want to read something from the list, too.  I was all set to add Edith Wharton to the list, and very worthy would she be, too, but we have read one of her books already, so I thought perhaps someone else should get a chance.  One thing led to another.  I decided on a novel by May Sarton, then went to my own library's catalog to see what we own by her and a quick skim down the list and The House by the Sea caught my eye.  A house by the sea?  That's exactly what I want.  Since I can't have it at the moment, reading about someone who does have it is always the next best thing, right?

According to the preface she moved into this house in 1973.  She wanted to keep a journal of her first impressions, "a first imprint of a major change in my life", she writes.  Sarton published a number of her journals during her lifetime (she died in 1995), and I wonder if it is better to read them in chronological order as she refers to previous life events in this book without giving much explanation.  However, I am just going to press on as I am drawn to her words.  She had been living in Nelson, New Hampshire and when two friends bought an estate in York, Maine, right on the coast, they invited her to live in a house on the property while they built a modern home.  It was a shingled, many-windowed house looking down to the sea over a long field.  Doesn't that sound blissful? 

I've only just brought this book home and have started reading, so this is a little taste from her first entry.

Wednesday, November 13th, 1974

"At last I am ready to start a journal again.  I have lived here in York for a year and a half, dazzled by the beauty of this place, but I have not wanted to write about it until today.  Perhaps something cracked open in Europe (I went over for a month in mid-October); for the first time I can play records, and poems are shooting up.  For two years I have not been able to listen to music because opening that door had become too painful after the hell of the last two years in Nelson.  But I have been happy in this place from the very first day.  And every day since then I have woken at dawn to watch the sun rise.

I am living under a powerful spell, the spell of the sea.  But in one way it is not as I imagined, for I had imagined that part of the spell would be the influence of the tides, rising and falling.  But I do not see the rocks or the shoreline from my windows; I look out to the ocean over a long field, so I am not aware of the tides, after all, nor influenced by their rhythm; instead, I am bathed in the gentleness of this field-ocean landscape.  Without tension, it has been the happiest year I can remember (and after all, I did manage to write a short novel)."

Now I want to know everything.  Why she is there, and what it's like, what makes her happy.  The book is made up of journal entries with black and white photos interspersed in the text.  I will keep this on my night stand and pick it up every night to read a few entries before bedtime.  Maybe I'll want to move to York, Maine, too.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Faithful Place by Tana French

Well, now that was one heck of a ride.  I'm not sure what to do with a crime novel where the ending of the story and the unraveling of the mystery leaves me slightly bereft.  The whole point is to capture the criminal, right?  This is a story filled with moral ambiguities and probably all the better for it.  But what do you do when you feel sympathetic (should I be?) towards the perpetrator?  I should be on the side of the victim, and I am, but in this case things aren't so clearly defined in black and white.  In Faithful Place Tana French has once again managed to create not only a gripping murder mystery, but a psychologically complex tale of a family and a small neighborhood community rocked by the disappearance of someone beloved.   Unfortunately I'm not going to be able to explain in any great detail why I'm feeling the way I do for fear of spoiling the story, so this is one you might want to pick up if you've either enjoyed French's previous novels or like mysteries that are at least as much about the characters as the crime, if you want to see what I mean.

Faithful Place is Frank Mackey's story.  Long before he was an undercover detective he was growing up in a working class neighborhood of Dublin called Faithful Place.  This is the mid-1980s and jobs are scarce and opportunities for getting out of the neighborhood are even scarcer.  For some, finding work at the local Guinness plant is considered a step up the ladder and the chance at a little security.  Rosie Daly's father is so close to wrangling her a position at the company, she begins to get fidgity and afraid she'll be stuck there forever.  What she wants is to run away with Frank Mackey to England.  Mr. Daly hates Frank Mackey and thinks of him as a waster with no potential and certainly not a romantic candidate for his daughter.  It doesn't help that Frank's Da and Mr. Daly have had an ongoing feud that's lasted so long no one even knows what started it.  The Mackeys are a poor family with five children and secrets they keep well hidden behind closed doors.  The sort of secrets that end in bruises and crushed spirits.

So when Rosie suggests hopping the ferry across the Irish Sea to Liverpool or London, it takes Frank about ten seconds to agree with her plan.  Everything is kept under tight wraps, the money is saved, the tickets are bought and they decide to meet up at the top of the hill of Faithful Place in the middle of the night and set off on their new lives together unbeknownst to either of their families.  And they almost get away with it, only Rosie doesn't show.  Last minute jitters?  Rosie has the tickets, so after waiting hours and hours until daylight, Frank decides she's done a runner and gone without him.  Maybe she's gone off with someone else or maybe she's changed her mind in consideration of Frank's dysfunctional family, but he decides to leave Faithful Place forever, too.

Twenty-two years later builders working in a long abandoned house in Faithful Place stumble across a suitcase stuffed up a fireplace.  The house is all but derelict now, but it was once the stomping grounds for teens with no better place to go and young lovers looking for privacy.  Frank's never been back and has long since moved on with his life.  Not only has he turned completely away from the old neighborhood, but he's joined the Guards, which is probably just about the lowest thing anyone could do from somewhere like Faithful Place.  It's like being a turncoat.  A frenzied call from his younger sister draws him back in to his old life.  He's reluctant to return, but he has to find out if the suitcase is the one Rosie was going to take with her to England.  And if she left, why was the suitcase so obviously hidden away.  And just where is Rosie Daly now?           

Frank Mackey is a renegade.  Likable in so many ways, but happy to manipulate people or the situation to get what he wants or thinks he needs.  His code of conduct is questionable.  You want to think it's all for the higher good, but you wonder how much is personal.  He clashes, in some cases almost violently, with his family and even with his colleagues.  The investigation into the disappearance of Rosie Daly, now a cold case so many years later, lands him in a state of limbo--not especially welcomed by any group involved--family, neighborhood friends, or the Murder Squad detectives.  I think ultimately he's one of the good guys, but he's such a complex character there were times I really wondered.        

It's so easy with French's novels to crack open the book and settle right in knowing she's going to take good care of her readers.  And once again she pretty much does it all perfectly.  I may not know a neighborhood like Faithful Place, but by the time I closed the book I could well imagine it and the heartache and grief that it contained.  I wonder if we'll see Frank Mackey again, or if she'll move on to yet another detective in Dublin's Murder Squad?