A Work in Progress

Teaser Tuesday: My Berlin Child

I seem to be in the middle of a few books about World War II and the Holocaust--if not directly about the period then peripherally.  Actually just two books, but with such a heavy subject two is more than enough.  I love NYRB Classics, but I also love Europa Editions.  I will quite happily give just about any book published by either a try and more often than not be rewarded well as I mentioned yesterday.  Just one of the books I'll tell you a little bit about today and share a teaser.  I recently pulled Anne Wiazemsky's novel My Berlin Child (published in French as Mon enfant de Berlin and translated by Alison Anderson) from my pile. 

Wiazemsky is an actress, author, and filmmaker who was born in West Berlin.  She was married to French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard and starred in several of his films.  She is also the granddaughter of Nobel Laureate François Mauriac.  A rather lofty pedigree, don't you think?  Her novel My Berlin Child is a curious book.  It is based on the life of her mother, so it is a fictionalized biography of sorts.  Wiazemsky writes in present tense, which takes some getting used to and still makes me feel a little like I am on uncertain ground for some reason.  She intersperses the narration with dialogue and also with diary entries and letters which Claire copies into her diary for the sake of posterity. 

Claire leads a life of privilege and comfort in Paris, but she decides she must do her part for the war effort and becomes an ambulance driver for the French Red Cross.  After the war, and the events that take place occur mostly at the war's end, she decides to go to Berlin to further help.  She had been waiting for her fiancé to return home, but she finds that she has fallen out of love and is conflicted about what to do.  She sees her work in Berlin as a brief interlude to her forthcoming marriage, but in the end she finds the courage to break it off--she is no longer the girl she was before the war (how many women found themselves in the same situation?).

I feel sometimes as I am reading that this is not a fictional story, but that it is truly biographical and the diary entries are particularly revealing.  I have a couple of teasers to share.  This first if from her time in Paris just after the end of the war.

"Everyone is very busy so they're not terribly interested in her experiences with the Red Cross.  Particularly her father and brothers.  Even her minor role in the Résistance has failed to arouse the admiration she so hoped for and needs to badly.  Doesn't it simply boil down to the fact that their life, as men, will always be more important?  From the start they all tried to convince her that her place, her true place as a woman, was there with her parents?"

This second excerpt comes just after one of her diary entries as she reflects on what she has seen in Berlin.  It's a bit longish, but I find it to be an interesting perspective.

"She has decided to hide from her parents, from all her family, those moments when she succumbs to despondency, those dark brooding days following a mission; better not to dwell on what they have begun to find out, about the death camps, and the mass extermination of the Jews."

"But this evening she's particularly upset by the news that a German woman has died from septicemia, and she as helpless to save her.  Like so many others, the woman had been raped several times by Soviet soldiers, and she tried to have an abortion.  A mere handful of women, treated by the Red Cross, have begun to talk about the horrors of the capture of Berlin and the Soviet occupation.  Claire cannot understand why the Allies took so long to reach Berlin, and sometimes she says indignantly to French officers, 'Why did General Eisenhower let the Red Army fight the final battle?  Why did no one object to his decision?'  'It was war,' is more or less the only answer she managed to get.  At the beginning of her time in Berlin, Claire swore loud and clear that she had no pity for the Germans, and she swore she would never forgive them for the atrocities they had committed; whatever they were going through was surely justice.  Now she can no longer say this."

The novel really has an immediate feel to it, as if you are really there with Claire.  Even if I feel a little as though I am on uncertain ground as I am reading, I like the story.  I like that the author has me on my toes and that she is making me work just a little bit.  I'm a third of the way through and was hoping I could finish before the month's end, but it seems as though time is slipping away from me again.  I think I will have to look up those Godard films now and see what else I can find out about the Mauriac family.  Despite the oppressiveness Claire finds in Berlin and the destruction, I believe she will also find love and happiness, so now I press on with my reading.

Chocky by John Wyndham

I've yet to pick up and read an NYRB Classic that I've not loved or admired and usually I both love and admire the stories I read.  I need to get back into my habit of reading my subscription books as they arrive as nearly always each one is a new discovery for me.  The August book is John Wyndham's Chocky and it seemed a perfect RIP read.  Although I have a couple of his books on my shelves and often pick them up and consider reading one, I had not yet gotten around to any of them.  You know what's coming next, right?  Now that I have one very good book by Wyndham under my belt, I will be reading the rest.  I've even ordered a couple that sounded quite appealing that I am watching the mail for.

Chocky was Wyndham's last book, published in 1968 just a year before he died and after an eight year hiatus.  His earlier novels had been written in fairly swift succession of each other.  It wasn't quite what I expected but that doesn't mean it was in any way a disappointment.  As a matter of fact I can easily see it as a strong contender for my favorites list (if I don't read another one by him still this year that knocks this one off the list).  In Margaret Atwood's afterword she calls Chocky "close to a domestic comedy" and it is quite light in tone.  Apparently his books are known as "cozy catastrophes", which I quite like the sound of.  I was expecting end of the world devastation or something equally as suspenseful, but Chocky ends on quite a pleasing and hopeful note.  It does have an underlying message to it, which is just as pertinent today as it was then.

Margaret Atwood was a great fan of Wyndham's books when she discovered The Day of the Triffids at the age of eleven.  Can you imagine Atwood with a Venus flytrap as a pet when she was young?  She had one she kept in a goldfish bowl and she talks of feeding it pieces of lean meat on a toothpick.  So it is not much of a stretch to imagine her reading Wyndham's adventure stories, or those end of the world stories where earth is being invaded by monsters.   Or her own subsequent writing (did you know her father was a biologist and they had some interesting mealtime discussions about genes?).

So, what then, is Chocky?  Rather, who is Chocky?  Actually Chocky is hard to describe.  Matthew's parents are sure Chocky must be an imaginary friend, since they often see him talking to someone who isn't there.  And not just talking, but sometimes having heated discussions that border on arguments.  Their younger daughter went through a phase where she had an imaginary friend, too, though she dropped her quickly enough when she met a real little girl who was more interesting.  Matthew, however, is eleven.  A little old maybe to have an imaginary friend?  And this imaginary friend seems to be very well informed to say nothing of talented and intelligent.  So how could it all being coming from Matthew's imagination?

Matthew isn't the story's narrator.  We see him talking and listen to his conversations, but it's his father who is sharing this story.  Matthew is an adopted child, and his sister Polly came as a surprise after the fact.  Matthew's parents will wonder if there is something about him they don't know that they should when Chocky comes to light.  Matthew is somewhat hesitant to share Chocky with his family.  And when you learn something about Chocky you will  understand why.  Chocky is not physically there, yet she/he inhabits Matthew's consciousness from time to time.  I guess you could consider Chocky an alien?  Once Matthew and his father determine to call Chocky 'she', she seems to be a palpable presence, and an interesting one.  Not threatening, but seeking.  She chooses Matthew (and isn't it always a child that seems most inviting--their naivety or freshness, maybe?--like a blank page--one that is open to new ideas and experiences) as her way into the earth's realm, to study it. 

Chocky doesn't feel in the least threatening to Matthew, though his parents will, unsurprisingly, find the situation confusing and unbelievable.  But things begin happening.  Chocky comes from a place so far away that she cannot even begin to describe to Matthew about her planet so unlike earth is it, though she'll try.  She thinks much of what we do here doesn't make much sense--and I refer mostly to our science and inventions and use of natural resources (you can see what was on Wyndham's mind here), yet Matthew has a hard time conveying to his parents and later to doctors what Chocky is trying to tell everyone.  He understands mostly, but being only eleven he doesn't have the words to explain. 

It's when people, other than his parents, begin noticing that things are not quite right that the story gets especially interesting.  How can Matthew know the things he knows or do the things he does when he seems very much an average eleven-year-old boy?  This is very much a page-turner of the story (sorry to rely on the cliché).  I don't want to give too much of it away since the fun of it is to see how things steamroll and how Matthew must cope, and Chocky as well.  As interstellar beings go, Chocky is quite likable, if aggressively opinionated.  And Matthew is one of the more admirable and likable characters I've come across in a long time.  I feel like I ought not say this about a science fiction story, but it's really quite sweet.  It might not be the typical sort of story filled with menace to drive its point, but in this story, the point is well-taken anyway.  I'm virtually sliding this one into your hands.  If you've not read it, I think you should.

My September NYRB subscription book is Leonard Gardner's Fat City, which I think just might be finding its way into my bookbag this week.  I've already decided I will be subscribing again next year and hope to do a better job of reading each monthly release.  If nothing else, I will enjoy reading this year's previous books at my leisure.

Short Story Sunday: Two by Poe

So, this weekend two short stories by Edgar Allen Poe who does the macabre better than almost anyone I know.  His stories are often weirdly creepy.  The first I liked very much the second I only felt a little "meh" about but was still an entertaining read.  Both are from the little Bantam Classic, The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings.  I seem to be chipping away at this book.  My all-time favorite Poe story is and will likely always remain "A Cask of Amontillado" which I have read and reread and would have done so again this weekend but thought I should really try something new.

First up is "The Masque of the Red Death" which I think is fairly famous and it reminds me of the folk tale "appointment in Samarra" about the man who tries to cheat death by traveling far away from the city where he is meant to meet his death.  As it turns out he happens across him in this other city knowing he had a meeting with him elsewhere.  So the moral is that you can't escape death.

In Poe's story not only does Prince Prospero try to cheat death but he snubs it and the rest of the population along the way.  So maybe in the end he gets what he deserves.  The red death is a pestilence that has devastated the country.

"Blood was its avatar and its seal--the redness and the horror of blood.  There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution.  The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, where the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men.  And whole seizure, progress, and termination of the disease, were the incidents of half an hour."

Hale and hearty the prince is, and in his happy way he invites a thousand (so many?!) healthy knights and dames from his court to go with him and take up residence in one of his "castellated" abbeys.  It will offer itself as a fortress against the red death, and they have amply provisioned it to last any assaults on his refuge.  The group doesn't cower in fear of the terror the death has inflicted on the population.  No, they have a grand party instead--the outside world can fend for themselves.  They have "all the appliances of pleasure" including jokers, musicians and ballet-dancers.  "It was a voluptuous scene that masquerade."

Poe tells in great detail of the seven rooms that make up the interior of the abbey--each decorated in its own color.  The last one is done up in black.  And no one dares enter it.  Inside that last room stands an ebony clock and with each circuit of the minute hand the masqueraders pause . . .

" . . . and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused reverie or meditation."

But when the moment passes the nervousness passes and the music begins once again.  You know where this is going, don't you?  The hours tick tock away.  The party goes on and just what is happening in the outside world?  How long can it all go on?  All those revelers dancing away in their costumes and when the hour sounds they stop and look worriedly at each other.  Phantasms is what they appear to be.  And then a phantasm is amongst them.   He is masked as if he is the "red death".  And Prince Prospero wishes to unmask him.  To find out what happens next, you can read the story here.

I assumed the red death must refer to the plague, but I read that it might refer to tuberculosis from which his wife was suffering at the time.  It might also refer to an outbreak of cholera which had been happening in Baltimore.  And if you want to get really deep, I read that the "red death" might well be sickness of humankind--otherwise known as Original Sin.  Or you could just take it as a nice, creepy Gothic entertainment.  It was adapted to the screen in the mid-1960s and starred Vincent Price.  I wonder if I can get my hands on that one?!

* * *

I've not left myself much space to write about "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar".  It just didn't do much for me, and seems to rely on the more gory aspect of of the story to give thrills.  The story recounts a case of mesmerism at the moment of death of a man suffering from TB.  I think when it was published (in 1845) Poe (or the publisher?) didn't dissuade the reading public from thinking that such a thing was possible.  I'm just not sure what the point of mesmerizing the poor man was meant to be?  At the point of near death M. Valdemar summons the narrator to mesmerize him, and in this state he remains for seven months.  Just in a state of near death, but not death yet not being alive either.  Do you want to know what happens when the man is woken?  Read on.  Otherwise skip the quote!

"As I rapidly made the mesmeric passes, amid ejaculations of "dead! dead!" absolutely bursting from the tongue and not from the lips of the sufferer, his whole frame at once --within the space of a single minute, or even less, shrunk --crumbled --absolutely rotted away beneath my hands. Upon the bed, before that whole company, there lay a nearly liquid mass of loathsome --of detestable putridity."

Eww, gross.  But maybe you need one of these sorts of stories for RIP, too!  If you are up for a little mesmerism and want to find out what happens for yourself, read along here.

I'm not quite sure what I am in the mood for next.  Something a little more contemporary maybe.  Any suggestions?

September 25: Weekend Reading Notes

I've heard a rumor that fall has officially arrived.  Is that true?  You wouldn't know it by the weather we've been having, which is almost more akin to early August than late September.  It might even be a stretch to call it Indian Summer.  Even the nonstop rain we've had for the last few days (drenched once, sprinkled on several times and my umbrella is well and truly kaput) doesn't make it feel fall-like--too humid for that.  I shouldn't be complaining as I know what it will be like in the winter months, but I am ready to for long sleeves, maybe a light sweater (dare I say even a little bit of flannel . . .), curling up on my rocking chair under a blanket with a cup of coffee next to me and something pumpkin-y to snack on and most importantly with a book in hand. 

I may not be able to do anything about the weather, but it is going to be a quiet weekend for me, and I hope to get in a little extra reading time.  I know I say that every weekend, but usually it is only wishful thinking.  It just might come true this weekend if I make a plan for myself.  I've even started doing laundry early in anticipation of holing up in my bedroom for a little peace and quiet. 

On the reading agenda?  I think I might just finish Andrea Japp's Lady Agnes Mystery--volume one to be precise, which is subtitled "The Season of the Beast and the Breath of the Rose".  It is a hefty book with more than 500 pages and a setting of 14th century France.  I want to tell you all about it, but I think I will wait and do it properly next week.  The kind folks at Gallic Books passed this one on to me and it was a lovely favor as I have thoroughly enjoyed it.  So much so that I already have (again, thanks to Gallic Books) volume two at the ready.  I do think I will take a small break between books and read something short and quick for a little variety before returning to Medieval France.  Who would have thought such a massive literary mystery could be so very engaging? 

I can't promise I will (finally) finish The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James, but I am down to those last hundred pages.  I still don't quite know how I feel about it all except I am once again thinking Gilbert Osmond is a loathsome man.  Isabel is such an interesting character.  So many suitors, and here she said she would remain independent yet she marries Gilbert.  I am not giving anything away by telling you that the marriage has not been particularly happy and not much of a success.  And now Isabel is trying to convince her stepdaughter to marry the man her father selects despite not being in love with him.  He has a title and more money.  But maybe she has more up her sleeve since the man Pansy really does love has asked for Isabel's help in trying to make a match and he has agreed to do what she can.  I'm not entirely sure where it is all going, but I have so far stopped myself from reading those last few pages as I am beginning to get anxious about it all.

So I have tentatively decided my next mystery will be the next book in the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series by Laurie King (though I reserve the right to change my mind at the last minute). Now that the end is in sight with Henry James, which classic will I pick next?  I have been leaning heavily towards something by Ivan Turgenev.  Maybe I should pick something 20th century?  Maybe something along the lines of Barbara Pym or Rose Macaulay?  So, technically they are not exactly "Classic" authors in the sense that Turgenev is, but . . .  Or I could pick up a John Galsworthy novel--a long time ago I had started reading the Forsyte Saga and am ready for the second book.  Or maybe something by Willa Cather as she is always good.  Or, maybe, Virginia Woolf's Orlando?  Or completely different--I have a YA novel by Maud Hart Lovelace sitting on one of my book piles.  Perhaps I am getting a little ahead of myself and will attend to Isabel's problems first. 

I think Edgar Allen Poe will figure in my ghost/short story reading this weekend.  I have a couple of stories picked out and ready to go.  I have a little catching up to do with my New Yorker reading, though I am not too far behind.  I have been reading the stories but not writing about them.  Sometimes they are hard to write about and sometimes I wonder if anyone even has an interest in them and I should even bother to continue mentioning them here--unless something strikes me as being unusual or especially wonderful.

It's always a question with me whether to spend lots of time with just one or two books or to dip into several and spend a while with three or four.  I have a feeling I will want to have a little variety in my reading, so I will likely spend some time with my current RIP read, The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes, which has an interesting premise--a serial killer who can time travel and commits his crimes before going back and forth through time.  It is a slowish start though I have high expectations since the blurbs were all so praiseworthy. 

For a little heavier and more serious read I have been reading My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me by Jennifer Teege.  Teege's mother is German and her father Nigerian, but she was given up for adoption as a small child.  She is stunned when she happens upon a book written by her biological mother trying to reconcile the fact that her father was one of the most notorious Nazis during the war and her mother his mistress.  So Teege is thrown into a state of depression as she discovers her grandfather would have had no qualms killing her as she is of mixed parentage--not only a black woman but having lived in Israel she speaks Hebrew.  It is fascinating reading, but some of the anecdotes she shares are really quite painful. 

I'm hoping to spend lots of time this weekend with these books and will be writing about at least one of them more fully next week.

What will you be reading this weekend?

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

So close and yet so far.  Do I dare tell you how British secret agent Alec Leamas gets on in John le Carré's famous and game changing classic spy novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold?  To come in from the cold means to end your career in espionage and live a happy, boring retirement back home, which is something Leamas wants to do but must first complete one last task.  One last horrible and maybe impossible task of taking down the head of the East German's intelligence agency.

After a disastrous defection attempt results in the death of an East German spy/a double agent under Leamas's control, Leamas is told he must stay in the cold for just one more mission.  The set up seems fairly straightforward.  Leamas is made to appear a rather jaded ex-agent with little money, few prospects and a drinking problem to top off a seemingly miserable existence.  The plan is ultimately to frame the head of the East German agency and essentially get him executed. 

Alec takes on a job in a small library where he meets a young Jewish woman who falls for him.  Maybe it's his worst mistake to begin a relationship with her, but he does.  Before the final act that will take him behind the iron curtain for his big finale, he makes her promise not to come looking for him no matter what she suspects might be happening.  Famous last words.

After a bust-up lands him in jail he comes to the attention of his East German counterparts and they in turn come to recruit him to spy for them.  It's all an illusion, of course, and all going according to plan.  What would that make him, a double double-agent?  He's brought over to Europe, first the Netherlands and then unexpectedly to East Germany, where things get interesting.  As he gets deeper into the heart of Eastern Europe, so too, does the story become more and more complicated.  Liz, a Communist member, is brought over to East Germany not understanding what's behind the invitation.  She thinks it's all to do with her political persuasion, but in reality she is going to be bait. 

It's as complicated as it sounds.  More complicated actually.  This is a story filled with double crosses and triple crosses and rugs pulled out from under your feet.  It's hard to peel back the layers to see just what is really underneath.  It's probably not what you think.  And it's not who you think either.  Alliances and allegiances shift continually.   And it's for that reason, or one of them anyway, perhaps that this story was a game changer.

This is a page turner but maybe not in the way you normally think.  It is a slender novel and moves slowly and thoughtfully.  Very thoughtfully and veers into the realm of philosophies and ideologies.  Alec Leamas is jaded and almost everyone is willing to sell their own mother to the other side for the greater good of their own beliefs.  What made this book so different than all the rest was the amorality of the characters and the story does take on pretty grim overtones.  Maybe that was in part why it took me a while to finish reading this story.  None of the classic James Bond moves, somehow a little outrageous (but great fun nonetheless) in comparison.  Le Carré portrays the idealistic, righteous and very 'right' West as willing to fight downright dirty and with a complete lack of regard for any kind of high moral standard.  So ambiguous are the characters and their motivations it's hard to tell who the good guys are as opposed to the bad ones. 

In his introduction le Carré notes that he wrote the book in a "great rush" over about six weeks.  It was his first real success, though it was his third book.  It's the one that made people stand up and listen and ever after his later books would be compared with it--the bar having been set very high.  The Spy Who Came in from the Cold was written while he was in East Germany literally watching the Wall go up.  No doubt that gave him lots of inspiration and it's obvious he writes from experience. 

It took me a while to warm up to the story, but once I turned that last page I gave it all my admiration.  It's definitely a novel I will have to revisit and maybe the second time through will be a smoother read.  I'd like to read more of le Carré's novels (any favorites?) and will certainly continue my forays into spy novels.  I had planned to read this one paired with something by Ian Fleming.  Must get the ladies more involved as well. 

A Midweek Mishmash of Bookishness

Did I mention I am taking another yoga class?  I look forward to Tuesday nights as an evening of relaxation and an opportunity to de-stress.  I will know when my yoga practice will be kicking in as a state of being/calmness when I can block out those small daily annoyances that drive me mad.  It might, however, be forever a 'work in progress' as I still find myself being short-tempered impatient at times (more often than I'd like anyway).  Wednesdays, then, are iffy days for blog posts, but I had a few things to share, so here are some links and other bookishness for your entertainment.

Do you know Shelf Awareness?  You can subscribe like I do, and get a daily newsletter in your email inbox.  I have signed up via an online bookstore, so I think it is somewhat tailored to the store, but Shelf Awareness has lots of book reviews and lists and links and opportunities to win books and other swag.  I look forward to getting it every day and try and time my morning cup of coffee with the newsletter's arrival.

One of yesterday's giveaways is the chance to enter and win a copy of Merissa Alink's Little House Living, which I am going to have to get my hands on in any case, if only to just enjoy browsing through.  I am still reading the Little House books.  Okay, not at the moment Actively reading the books, but the next one (By the Shores of Silver Lake) is hovering in the background.  Maybe I will try and coincide the reading with Thanksgiving (can you believe it is just a little over two months away?!).  It seems an appropriately autumnal/holiday read.

I recently read my first H.P. Lovecraft story (and liked it very much) and somewhere or other I came across this article about renting a room in his former home.  I wonder if it is haunted?!

I've always wanted to stay in Dashiell Hammett's house in San Francisco, which is now a vacation rental.  It looks pretty cozy (as in teeny tiny), but it's in Nob Hill (and yes, those are serious hills in that area) with a rooftop deck and perfect for just one or two people.  Someday.

How did I miss that the second (second here in the US, but the fourth in the UK) season of the Great British Baking Show is airing right now on Sunday nights?  The first season was in January of this year so I assumed the second would be next January.  I'm three episodes behind, but thank goodness for streaming so I can catch up quickly.  I am not especially fond of cooking, but I do enjoy baking (though unless I have an 'audience' don't do much of it these days).  It doesn't matter, I just like the drama of it all and find it hugely addicting to watch the creation of all those divine looking sweets.  I can not, however, imagine baking under those stressful conditions, but I like watching others attempt it!

Earlier in the year I read and wrote about Sayed Kashua's Second Person Singular, which I was very impressed with.  It is one of a number of novels I read for a couple of Israeli Literature classes I  took last fall and this past spring.  Kashua is an Arab-Israeli author who now lives in Illinois.  A film adaptation of his work called A Borrowed Identity will be screened locally in October and the author will be part of a panel discussion after the film, so I am excited to go and see both the film and the author.  There was also an interesting article about Kashua in the New Yorker, which you can read online.  I'm going to try and read his novel Dancing Arabs before the film screening.  I'm in the mood to read more Israeli literature, so maybe I will start there.

Many thanks for all the helpful suggestions on recommended contemporary literary novels.  I am definitely going to have to pick up Animal Dreams very soon.  I'm starting with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah.  After much dithering back and forth and not being able to choose from my little pile, I picked up the Adichie purely on impulse.  It is proving to be quite engrossing right from the first few pages, so I hope to keep up the momentum.  Of course you know me, I always have one eye turned towards the next book in anticipation, so feel free to continue leaving suggestions!

In Search of . . . Literary Fiction

This is going to sound a little bit like a loaded question, though it is not meant to be.  I'm a pretty equal opportunity reader and am happy to read a little bit of a lot of different kinds of books.  Lately, though, I tend towards comfort reads, which is not to say there aren't some very well done comfort reads (and I have had a string of good reads lately, too).  But I feel like I neglect contemporary fiction far too much, and literary fiction seems to end up in my to be read piles without actually ever being read. 

So this is a tricky question.  I'm looking for some literary fiction to read.  I realize "literary fiction" can mean a lot of things to a lot of different people, and genre fiction can be literary, too.  So I have gone in search of a definition and Wikipedia describes it as:

" . . . a term principally used for certain fictional that hold literary merit.  In other words, they are works that offer deliberate social commentary, political criticism or focus on the individual to explore some part of the human condition. Literary fiction is deliberately written in dialogue with existing works created with the above aims in mind. Literary fiction is focused more on themes than on plot."

That may or not be helpful, but it seems literary fiction is a term everyone understands even if readers have a slightly different take on the books the term encompasses.  I'm sort of thinking along the lines of award winners, but not exclusively.  There are so many authors I Should Have Read by now, but haven't.  I almost hang my head in shame by admitting some of them--like Anne Tyler, or Hilary Mantel or Jane Smiley or Jonathan Franzen or Philip Roth or . . .

So, here is the question--if you could choose two or three contemporary (and what exactly is contemporary? --the last 25 years or so?) authors (or particular books) that everyone should read, who would they be?  I'm waiting for a few books to come in the mail including Anne Tyler's latest (which seems to be on every prize list) as well as last year's Booker winner by Richard Flanagan, but for the short term have narrowed the choice down to The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry (shortlisted for the Booker, winner of the Costa, the James Tait and Irish Book awards), Academy Street by Mary Costello (Irish Book Award, Costa shortlist), Ladder of Years by Anne Tyler (Orange Prize shortlist), and Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver (Pen/USA West Fiction award, Edward Abbey Ecofiction award).  Maybe I'll close my eyes, shuffle the books and randomly pick one up to read now.

Suggestions always welcome, of course.

Ghost Story Monday: Mr. Wrong

I mentioned that Elizabeth Jane Howard's novels have been reissued with lovely new covers, and one of the titles I've ordered (so far . . . may have to get the rest of them now) is Mr Wrong.  Of course I couldn't pass up a collection of short stories.  I hadn't planned on using it as part of my RIP reading, but when I read this teaser from the back cover, I knew it would be a perfect fall weekend read.

"She awoke very suddenly with a feeling of extreme fear.  It was not from a dream; she was sitting in the driver's seat, cramped, and with rain blowing in through the open window, but something else was wrong . . ."

Surely the titular story, "Mr Wrong" must be the story described as "a haunting journey into the macabre."  There was something familiar about it when I began reading.  A déja vu.  As it turns out just last year I borrowed a collection of her stories in which this one was included.  No doubt as I was looking for a suitable story I skimmed the beginning of this one, though it was from an anthology of ghost stories that I read "Three Miles Up" (this story is also included in Mr Wrong).  After revisiting my post I recall what a wonderful story it was making me all the more anxious to read more of her stories, and I was not disappointed. 

"Mr Wrong" is a longish short story, just over 40 pages but perfect for story-setting and increasing the sense of suspense and dread that Meg feels in her new aqua-blue (a nice color for the ladies the car salesman tells her--never trust a car salesman, I think) MG mini that is her pride and joy and purchased with the help of her parents.  Technically it is only new to her but is actually a used, but newly refurbished car.  You've heard of haunted houses, but what about a haunted car?  Meg should have been alerted when she asked the salesman whether the car had ever been in an accident and he replies with a smile:

". . . it hadn't been an accident, just a slight brush."  

But then who would have suspected just what that meant.  So, here is Meg new to London having moved from a northern city to work in an antiques shop in the King's Road.  She shares a flat with two other girls both with looks and social lives to match.  Meg is a bit plain and shy, a little awkward compared to her roommates.

"She spent very little in London: she had bought one dress at Laura Ashley, but had no parties to to to in it, and lacked the insouciance to wear it to work.  She lived off eggs done in various ways, and quantities of instant coffee--in the shop and in the flat."

Her rent is modest which is a good thing as her budget is tight and there isn't much of her check leftover, which all goes towards saying that when she realizes there is something amiss with the car, she is sort of stuck with it, or with selling it at a particular price and not a penny less.  The thing is, there is something not quite right with the car.  And when she is ready to sell, fearful of even getting into it, no one else seems willing to buy it.

Her first inkling that something is amiss is the strange feeling that comes over her when she stops to rest a few moments and falls asleep by mistake.  It was a bad dream, but something more. 

"A sound--or noises, alarming in themselves, but, in her circumstances, frighteningly  out of place.  She shut her window except for an inch at the top.  This made things worse.  What sounded like heavy, labored, stertorous even painful breathing was coming, she quickly realized, from the back of the car."

Surely it is all just her imagination, as the return journey home after an uneventful family visit turns out to be nothing special.  So when on the following weekend, another wet and cold evening, she sees a young woman quite unremarkable in appearance yet with a look of desolation about her, she offers her a lift.  Strangely, though, two things seem to happen at once--the girl gets into the backseat and a man, of whom Meg takes an instant dislike hops into the front seat.  She thought they were together, a boss and his secretary, but later the man denies seeing anyone.  And then things go very, very wrong after that.  It is very much a journey into the macabre, a story worthy of Daphne du Maurier or Ruth Rendell.  A haunted car.  A long drive north in the rain.  A strange man and a mysterious woman.  Something not quite right.  Ghosts?  Or something worse?

Beware of picking up hitchhikers.  Or of used cars that have been in a "slight brush" even if not in an accident.  A nicely done story, perfect to elicit a few chills or feelings of dread.  In case you've never read her, Elizabeth Jane Howard is wonderful.  I think I might just keep going with this collection, which contains nine stories but no rush to get through them all right away.  The nice thing about story collections is they are perfect for dipping into when the mood strikes.

Five Old, Five New, Five Forthcoming

I have a feeling you are going to understand only too well when I say that even as I am reading some very good books at the moment, other books are not far from my mind.  Old books, new books and even books that haven't been published yet.  I always have a mental list of potential reads that is constantly being shuffled about. 

These are on the top of my TBR pile at the moment just waiting to get incorporated into my current reads pile.  I am still in a 'finish one first before starting something new' mode and am doing fairly (well, more or less fairly) well at sticking to it. 

I cam across Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World a few weekends ago when I was doing some weeding in my book room.  I pulled everything out of the closet (how can So Much stuff fit into one small closet?) and was able to finally pull out a couple of plastic bins containing mass market paperbacks.  I retrieved this one--"a whimsical and ingenious mystery novel that also happens to be a history of philosophy".  Sounds like fun, though it is another chunky book.  

I already mentioned that I am ready to read another of Anthony Quinn's novels and Curtain Call sounds right up  my alley.  "From the glittering murk of Soho's underworld, to the grease paint and ghost-lights of theatreland, Curtain Call is a poignant and gripping story about love and death in a society dancing towards the abyss."

I have not talked much about my postal book club this round--mostly as I have done an awful job of reading the books that I get in the mail as part of my 'book club by mail' but as this is the last book of the round, I am going to try and read John McPhee's The Headmaster.  I have always meant to read something by McPhee.  "John McPhee portrays a remarkable man 'at the near end of a skein of magnanimous despots who . . . created enduring schools through their own absolute rule, and left them forever imprinted with their own personalities."

After I finish reading Henry James (am quickly nearing those last 100 pages!) and I have been leaning towards trying something by Ivan Turgenev.  Of course anything goes between now and then, but Turgenev has been on my radar for several months now.  "Turgenev was the most liberal-minded and humane of all the great nineteenth-century Russian novelists, and in Virgin Soil, his biggest and most ambitious work, he sought to balance his deep affection for his country and its people with his growing apprehensions about what their future held in store."

And local author Rainbow Rowell's Eleanor & Park is our 'Omaha Reads' choice.  "Set over the course of one school year, this is the story of two star-crossed sixteen-year-olds--smart enough to know that first love  almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try."

It's been ages since I've shared any of my new acquisitions, but that doesn't mean there haven't been any.  Here are a few of the most recent temptations.

I told you that Elizabeth Jane Howard's novels were being reissued with new cover designs, and they are indeed very pretty.  I bought several but I might start with After Julius.  "During a disastrous--and revelatory--weekend in Sussex, the influence of the deceased Julius slowly emerges . . ."

My newest NYRB subscription book (I actually read last month's book--hooray--and will be writing about it next week) is Leonard Gardner's Fat City (which I believe has just been made into a movie) is a book I had not ever heard of before ripping open my book package.  "Fat City is a vivid novel of defiance and struggle, of the potent promise of the good life and the desperation and drink that waylay those whom it eludes."  I am not sure it is a novel I would have picked up otherwise, but I am always happy to try a NYRB book--rarely do they disappoint.

Yay--William Boyd's newest, Sweet Caress, just arrived.  "In this enthralling story of a life fully lived, William Boyd has created a sweeping panorama of some of the most refining moments of modern history, told through the camera lens of one unforgettable woman, Amory Clay.  Can't wait to start reading!

Pure impulse buy was Michael Knox Beran's Murder by Candlelight: The Gruesome Crimes Behind Our Romance with the Macabre.  It might even make a good RIP book if I can squeeze it in.  "The ghastly ambiance of a vanished epoch comes to life to reveal the horror beneath the seeming civility of the Romantic era."

Did I tell you I am taking a yoga class on Tuesday evenings?  My instructor has talked a lot about neuroplasticity, which I find fascinating.  I asked for a good reading suggestion and he told me to try Norman Doidge's The Brain's Way of Healing: Remarkable Discoveries and Recoveries from the Frontiers of Neuroplasticity.  I have already been dipping into it and it is quite engrossing reading!

And how to choose just five books that are forthcoming?  A few random titles:

The Determined Heart: The Tale of Mary Shelley and Her Frankenstein by Antoinette May.  I have long had a fascination on both Mary Shelley and her famous novel and have read a bit about both in the past.  How to pass up a fictionalized account?  "The Determined Heart reveals the life of Mary Shelley in a story of love and obsession, betrayal and redemption."

Whistling Women by Kelly Romo.  I seem to be always drawn to this era.  "Set against the backdrop of the 1935 world’s fair, Whistling Women explores the complex relationships between sisters, the sacrifices required to protect family, and the lasting consequences of a single impulsive act."

The Past by Tessa Hadley.  I AM going to read something by Tessa Hadley this year (or next . . . ) as I have loved all the stories I have read by her.  Here is her newest which sounds quite inviting.  "In her most accessible, commercial novel yet, the “supremely perceptive writer of formidable skill and intelligence (New York Times Book Review) turns her astute eye to a dramatic family reunion, where simmering tensions and secrets come to a head over three long, hot summer weeks."

Lab Girl by Hope Jahren.  I definitely need to read more nature literature.  "Acclaimed scientist Hope Jahren has built three laboratories in which she's studied trees, flowers, seeds, and soil. Her first book might have been a revelatory treatise on plant life. Lab Girl is that, but it is also so much more. Because in it, Jahren also shares with us her inspiring life story, in prose that takes your breath away."

The Yearbook by Carol Masciola.  I don't read a lot of YA literature, but once again it is the setting that is the big draw for me for this one.  ""A troubled girl in foster care...finds a high school yearbook and becomes fascinated with it, suddenly finding herself back in the 1920s at a school dance.... Masciola keeps pages turning by focusing on Lola's emotional rebellion while providing entertaining details about life in 1923. An entertaining, undemanding time-travel romance." --Kirkus Reviews"

As always there is a plethora of good books that are calling to me.  Maybe the weather is finally turning and it is almost time to spend hours inside under a warm blanket with a book (or two) in hand to while the afternoon away.

O Jerusalem by Laurie King

I wonder if Laurie King has ever been approached by filmmakers who would be interested in adapting the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes mysteries she writes to the big (or even the little) screen?  I know I would be happy to see the books made into a TV series.  If done right, it could be visually stunning, witty and highly amusing (knowing how Mary and Russell work together) with good puzzles to solve.  These are stories with substance, excellent characterization, good plotting, good historical detail without feeling artificial and are just generally fun and entertaining. Mary Russell is one of my favorite heroines/sleuths and she has a most agreeable relationship with Holmes.  Theirs is a marriage of respect, one where each appreciates the others' intelligence yet has a sense of humor for the others' foibles as well.

O Jerusalem is the fifth in the series of Mary Russell mysteries, yet the action takes place in 1919 when Mary was still a young scholar, somewhere during the period of The Beekeeper's Apprentice, which is the inaugural volume describing Mary's adventures.  Laurie King, lucky woman that she is, was sent a collection of manuscripts written by Mary and she has kindly been transcribing them into book format for her anxious readers to 'find out how it all ends'--though hopefully Mary has a nice, long career for her fans to follow.  Laurie was finally able to prepare this publication thanks to a section of the manuscript finally surfacing--the parcel came all the way from Ljubljana where it was posted (surely there will be a story behind that postmark?!).  Apparently it will also form a companion piece of sorts for a story to follow later, which shares a similar theme.  Ah, such a teaser, you have piqued my curiosity, Laurie.

You know you are in the hands of a good editor when you see the trouble Laurie has taken to explain the historical background and prepared the reader with a list of Arabic terms in order to sort all the cultural bits out when reading and provided a map for the purpose of orientation and seeing how Mary and Holmes move across the country.  I like a good intellectual puzzler that you can sink your teeth into.

Barely a week before the action that takes place in Palestine, Mary and Holmes had been "bombed, hunted down, chased through London, and finally shot at while standing in an office of New Scotland Yard."  The pair had to be whisked away and Jerusalem is the destination thanks to Holmes's brother, Mycroft, and his rather covert dealings in the British government--whose fingers are 'far reaching'.  Under cover of darkness the pair steal into the country not knowing exactly what their mission is to be.  There have been a series of murders not connected to the ongoing political and social tensions always running in the background, but why and who is the perpetrator and what have the murders to do with their ultimate mission (if anything)?

Holmes and Mary, particularly Mary, are not entirely welcome guests.  They are led across the desert by a pair of Bedouin brothers--the elder, scarred and obviously having gone through his own trials yet resigned to his duty and the younger, impatient and angry and only very begrudgingly giving Mary her due.  You see Mary must dress as a young Arab boy to avoid detection.  Not only must she dress out of character but she must learn as she goes.  As a Talmudic scholar she is comfortable speaking other languages and can make do in Hebrew, but she must learn Arabic as she goes.  But I have faith in Mary:

"Under the tutelage of Holmes and a number of others, over the last four years I had accumulated a variety of odd abilities.  I could pick a lock laboriously, drive a motorcar without coming to grief, dress up in a costume as a sort of amateur-dramatics-in-earnest, and fling a fully grown man (an unprepared and untrained man) to the ground.  My only two real gifts, gifts I was born with, were an ear for languages and a hand for throwing.  Be it a rock or a pointed object, my left hand had a skill for accuracy that I could in all honesty take no credit for, although I had on occasion found it tremendously useful."

And indeed she will use all her extraordinary abilities to get out of more than one tight situation.  This is British Mandate Palestine and British soldiers occupy the country led by Mary's own personal hero General Edmund Allenby.  The four 'Bedouins' (well, two of whom are in disguise) take a circuitous and often dangerous route to Jerusalem which will end in a spectacular and nail-biting chase that, unless Mary and Holmes can get their first, may well result in more deaths and even devastation of the city.

I really enjoyed this, not only because I love the character of Mary, but I was especially interested in the portrayal of Mandate era Palestine, which I have a great interest in at the moment.  This is a fun romp of a story, but don't be misled--romp it may be, it is a nicely complex story and a mystery that requires careful attention to detail.  Laurie King washes the backdrop in glistening detail making the desert come alive--in all its vibrant color and dustiness, too.  Very few fine frocks for Mary, and you can feel the grit and grime and sweat.  But don't worry, she can take care of herself. 

Next up is Justice Hall and I can't wait to get started!