I found myself very impatient in my reading this month and it was in general unsatisfactory. This may partly be because I was traveling for a period of time and didn't do much reading that week. I also found myself less able to concentrate on books this month because of the election news and also because I found the group-read that I was finishing so time consuming (and depressing). That may have made me more impatient with the other books I was reading.
These are the books I finished in October.
West by Carys Davies
Back in June I read Clear by Carys Davies, a delightful little book related to the highland clearances in Scotland. West was Davies' debut novel and, again, it is very short, longer than a novella but under 200 pages. This novel is set in the United States in the early 1800s where a widower named Bellman becomes obsessed with finding wooly mammoths (or other such extinct creatures) living somewhere in the American west. He leaves his 10 year old daughter behind in Pennsylvania and sets out to follow the paths of Lewis and Clark in search of the mythical beasts. He is obsessed. This story has both tragic and comic elements and is very much a first novel. It shows great potential but the ending is wrapped up a bit too tidily.
What Time the Sexton's Spade doth Rust by Alan Bradley
The latest installment in the Flavia de Luce mystery series. I think this series has gone off the rails (jumped the shark?). Flavia is growing up, which makes her less annoying. She more or less gets along with the sister that is left at home and she is simultaneously amused and annoyed by the younger cousin who has moved in with them and wants to solve mysteries with Flavia. But the underlying story has become more and more unbelievable and in this episode Flavia (who, if you've never read these, is a child) manages to infiltrate a secure American air base. I'm not saying I wouldn't read the next installment when (if) it comes out but my enjoyment level has deteriorated.
We Solve Murders by Richard Osman
This is the new mystery series by Richard Osman as he puts his other popular series on hold for a time. I didn't like this one quite as much, mostly because the characters are very spread out geographically. Some are in England, some are in the US and then they go to the middle east. The characters themselves are fine and I won't mind reading about them in future books, but I felt that this was very much a "set up" book for future sequels.
Enlightenment by Sarah Perry
A lovely novel set in the 20th and 21st century but with very much an 18th century feel. In the first section I had to keep reminding myself that it took place in 1997 and not 1897. The two main characters, Thomas Hart (I continually thought of him as Thomas Hart Benton - I'm from Missouri) and Grace Macauley both belong to a very conservative Baptist Church in the fictional Essex town of Aldleigh. The church sits on the edge of an estate with a deteriorating "big house" and, supposedly a ghost. The ghost, Thomas Hart and Grace co-exist in the novel, brought together by each having an unrequited love. The meditations on the meaning of love are interspersed with information about astronomy, particularly comets. The only other Sarah Perry novel I've read is The Essex Serpent which I liked in general but felt it didn't quite live up to expectations. I liked this novel much more.
Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
This was a group read through BlueSky. After I finished I googled reviews (both formal and blog reviews) of this novel. One person wrote that "Depending on who you ask, it is 770 pages of unreadable, pseudo-intellectual tripe or a massively ingenious re-imagination of the genre." I'm among the first group. I can see why the Pulitzer Committee refused to award it the prize when it was recommended. But mostly, in a lifetime of reading novels by white men obsessed with their own and others' penises, this was the most penis-centric book I've ever read. And in a lifetime of reading novels by white men that are (or border on) misogynistic, but that I put up with for the sake of the good writing, this is the most misogynistic book with, as far as I'm concerned, not enough redeeming writing characteristics. I read it. That's all I can say.
Midnight and Blue by Iain Rankin
In a month in which I had trouble losing myself in books, this was the most enjoyable of my reads. The next in the Rebus series, this finds Rebus in prison (I honestly thought at the end of the last book that by the time this book came around Rebus would be out on appeal). The death of a prisoner is being investigated by the police and Rebus is also investigating at the request of the prison Governor. In the meantime Siobhan is investigating a missing teenager that eventually ties into the main story. Everyone is back: Rebus, Siobhan, Christine and Malcom Fox (the character all the other characters love to hate). I wasn't sure that Rankin could pull off a good mystery with Rebus in prison but he did it. I'm guessing that by next novel Rebus will be out, because how many prison mysteries can there be? But I could be wrong.
The Better Sister by Alafair Burke
This was my book club book for the month and if it hadn't been I would have DNF'd it. The author says "this completes a trilogy of novels that explore the complexity of female relationships and the diverse roles that women play in contemporary society." I haven't read the other two novels (and have no interest in reading them.) It is also a murder mystery. As I've said many times, I have a problem with mystery novels written in the first person because it requires the narrator to be unreliable - often because they are lying to the reader (and maybe to themselves) and/or because they are stupid. And I do not like to be in the heads of those people unless there is a really good literary reason. It was clear from early on that the narrator was a habitual liar in life although she justified it by just trying to "make things go away" and she also seemed really stupid with respect to her stepson. Late in the novel there is a big "reveal" that the narrator has been keeping from us - for no good reason other than so that the author can have a big "reveal" late in the novel. I didn't like this novel. At all.
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden
This first novel, by Dutch author Yael van der Wouden, is a wonderfully written story of love, repression, sexual awakening and living with the history of World War II. The main character, Isabel, is not a particularly likeable character. She lives alone in the house she grew up in, that she moved into with her mother and two brothers after the War. She seems determined to preserve every thing in the house exactly as her mother kept it, but in reality she has no claim on the house which is owned by her uncle and is to go to her older brother, Louis, when he marries. Isabel's life is upended when Louis' latest girlfriend, Eva, comes to stay with her. Although I liked the writing, I thought the section regarding falling in love and sexual awakening went on a little too long. Also, I'm not sure if the twist at the end was meant to be an unexpected twist but I figured it out pretty much from the beginning. I also think that having a character find and read another (living) character's diary in order for the plot to move along is taking the easy way out as a writer. But none of that affected my joy in reading the beautiful prose in this novel. This has a very slow moving plot so if you are looking for a page turner, it isn't for you. If you are looking for beautiful writing, give it a try.
