June Reading

This was an odd month for reading.  Each time I finished a book I felt at a loss about what book I should read next.  There just wasn't anything I was particularly in the mood for this month.  I kept borrowing books from the library and then returning them without even starting them. But despite that, I still ended up reading the usual average number of books and enjoyed (most of) those that I read just fine.  The ones I didn't enjoy, well I REALLY didn't enjoy them.  These are the books I finished in June,

The Best American Poetry 2023  David Lehman Series Editor; Elaine Equi Guest Editor

I like poetry generally and one of my goals this year was to read more poetry.  I picked up this book at the beginning of the year thinking it might give me an idea of contemporary American poets I should look out for because I have a hard time finding contemporary poetry I like.  I subscribe to The New Yorker and every week when the new issue arrives I flip through it to read the cartoons and the poetry first. Very, very rarely do I find a poem I like.  Most of the poems in the New Yorker I am at best indifferent to and at worst detest.  I assumed this had something to do with the poetry editor. Well, the same thing happened with this book. Of the 75 poems in this volume, I dog eared 12 to go back to after I finished.  And of those 12, only 6 still interested me on the re-read.  And not one of them made me want to go find other poetry by the poet.  I read this slowly, only 2-3 poems a day.  By the final few days I couldn't WAIT to finish this book and get rid of it.  

Clear by Carys Davies

What an exquisite little book this is.  It is very short, less than 200 pages.  The story takes place in 1843 near the end of the Scottish clearances when landlords would force the people who had lived on the land for generations to leave their homes to make way for sheep.  It also is the year of "the Great Disruption" of the Scottish Church when approximately 1/3 of the ministers broke away in rebellion against the patronage system whereby the landowners had the ability to install ministers in the parishes on their estates.  John Ferguson is one such minister who has broken away, but he is under tremendous stress about how he will support himself and his wife Mary.  And so he takes a job to travel to a small island (somewhere near Shetland) and oust the only remaining inhabitant of the island, a man named Ivar.  Ivar doesn't speak English, he speaks only a language called Norn.  This is the story of John, Mary and Ivar.  I can't say more without spoiling the story but it is a beautifully written little book.  Although it was short it took me a week to finish because I didn't want it to end (and I was also afraid how it would end).  Highly recommended. 

The Comfort of Ghosts by Jacqueline Winspear

This is the the last of the Maisie Dobbs mysteries according to the author.  And she tries to tie up a lot of the loose threads in this book.  Mostly she succeeds (and also maybe sets the stage for mysteries in a later period featuring one of the younger characters in this book?).  I've enjoyed this series although I liked the books that took place in the 1920s better than the later WWII era stories.  I don't think this particular book would appeal to those who haven't read the entire series but I do recommend the series. 

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

This was a a re-read for me and part of a BlueSky readalong.  It had been years since I read it and I was surprised how little I remembered details, just the broad story.  I enjoyed re-reading it especially in conjunction with reading "Her Mother's Laugh" which I finished last month.  The comparisons with Victor Frankenstein creating his creature and then abandoning him was interesting to compare with the scientists doing genetic engineering research.  I recommend that everyone read this novel at some point in their lives, it isn't a long book. And it reads much differently than all of the movie adaptations that have been made.

Death of an Airman by Christopher St. John Sprigg

I've had mixed results reading the British Library Crime Classics I inherited from my mom, but without a doubt this one has been my favorite.  I think it's because I love stories that involve amateur pilots from the 1920's and 30's.  I'm not sure why.   In this story from 1934, one of the flight instructors at a private air club crashes and dies.  But all is not as it seems.  He was a good pilot and inspection shows nothing wrong with the aircraft. Was it an accident, was it a suicide or was it murder?    Edwin Marriott, the visiting Australian Bishop of Cootamundra, who is taking flying lessons at the club, is on the case with Inspector Bray from Scotland Yard. Sprigg wrote only seven crime novels and was killed in the Spanish Civil War before the age of 30.  It is good that this one was republished. 

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus 

This was the book for my book club.  The main character, Elizabeth Zott, is a chemist working in 1960's America.  She puts up with a lot of misogyny.  She also finds and loses love.  And she eventually becomes a television celebrity with a cooking show that is based on chemistry.  Basically the author explores all the various meanings of "chemistry" which I enjoyed.  But the best part of the novel for me were the portions that were told from the point of view of her dog.  He was a great character.  Some parts of the novel I found depressing, because life for women in the work force has improved but not as much as one might hope. While I enjoyed this book and do recommend it, I also didn't take it very seriously and thought of it as a good beach read. 

The Extinction of Irina Rey by Jennifer Croft

A group of translators are gathered in a Polish village to translate the latest novel of a "great writer".  The narrator is unreliable and we know that because she is so stupid.  Sorry.  Others may not find her stupid, just misguided and not very observant.  I found her stupid.  I think I was supposed to find her funny, but I didn't. Then to make it more complicated it was supposedly a book in translation and the "translator" would insert footnotes telling you how full of s**t the narrator was.  It wasn't clear to me who actually "wrote" the novel (obviously Croft did but I wasn't clear if the purported narrator actually was supposed to have written the novel given the way the novel ends) which mostly just frustrated me. The plot meanders (and was in my opinion unbelievable), I had a hard time keeping the characters straight and I never really had a sense of the "mysterious" forest they were living on the edge of.  I don't recommend this. 

May Reading

The May weather was good and I traveled part of the month, both of which cut back on my reading time.  These are the books I finished in May:

Shades of Grey:  The Road to High Saffron by Jasper Fforde

This was a re-read.  It's always hard to categorize Jasper Fforde's books.  He is best known for his Thursday Next series in which people can actually jump into books and meet the characters (as long as they are backstage).  Personally, I liked his Nursery Crime Series which features characters known from their appearance in nursery rhymes.  (As an aside, I'm particularly bad at remembering nursery rhymes so I drove people crazy when I was reading the first book in the series.  I would look up and say, for example, "Jack Spratt" and the people in the room would all look at me and start reciting the rhyme. Admit it, you're doing it in your head right now. I would then say, oh yes that's it, and go back to reading.)  This particular book was published in 2009 and was intended to be the first of a three part trilogy.  It, in fact, ends on a bit of a cliff hanger.  Of all of his books this was my favorite, possibly because it was the most original and didn't rely on any knowledge of literature or nursery rhymes. This is a future dystopian novel but the dystopian event occurred so long ago that people just refer to it as the "Something That Happened" and no one can remember what it was.  But it left a society that is ruled by a Colortocracy.  Let me quote the flyleaf:  "From the underground feedpipes that keep the municipal park green, to the healing hues viewed to cure illness, to a social hierarchy based upon one's limited color perception, society is dominated by color.  In this world, you are what you can see."  Most people can perceive only one color.  The main character, Eddie Russett, has good Red perception and he wants to move up in society. He plays by the many, many rules of the society. For various reasons he and his father have relocated to a backwater village where he encounters, among others, a Grey girl named Jane who breaks all the rules and who opens his eyes to the fact that all is not what it seems.  I enjoyed this book as much this time as the last time.  However, the promised other two books in the trilogy never materialized ... until now.  I re-read this in anticipation of the next book FINALLY being issued this month.   FINALLY.  Because as much as I like this first book, it spends most of its time on world-building and only in the last 20% of the book do we finally get to what will clearly be the crux of the story.  This is a book for people who like complicated world building and clever writing.   The plot evolves slowly so anyone plot oriented may find it a bit slow going.  The character building is also slow building, but it is there.  I ordered the new book as soon I found out about it.   See below. 

Red Side Story by Jasper Fforde

Per the end of the first book (see above) this was supposed to be called Shades of Grey 2:  Painting by Numbers.  But I guess in the fifteen (15!) years it took for him to write the sequel, he changed his mind. As a sequel this is very good - I don't think it would make as much sense if you hadn't read the first book.  I can't really discuss the plot of the book without giving too much away, just know that Eddie and Jane continue to fight the color bureaucracy.   While this book doesn't answer ALL the questions it answers a number of questions and at least doesn't end on a complete cliff hanger which is good to know in case it takes him another fifteen years to write the final book. I really enjoy this series and recommend it if you like complicated world building and clever writing. 

First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston 

A lot of people on line were recommending this thriller.  In my youth I read a whole lot of Robert Ludlum so I'm generally not particularly surprised by twists in thrillers and that was true for this one.  I figured out that the mysterious boss of the main character had to be one of two possible characters within the first third of the novel.  The author didn't give enough facts until the end to let the reader figure out which one but I still wasn't surprised when it turned out to be one of those two.  I thought this was a relatively slow read for a thriller.  There were a lot of sections that went back into the main character's past to show past "adventures" she had that were supposed to tie into the ending and some of them did.  But it really slowed the pace of the book for me.  I also thought the secondary characters were somewhat undeveloped.  This is a book meant for people who like page turners (even though I thought it was too slow), not people who want deep characters.  There was no particular sense of place and the writing was fine but not anything special. 

The Last Word by Elly Griffiths

This is a "standalone" novel in the Harbinder Kaur series that for some reason Elly Griffiths does not call a series.  In fact, Harbinder is hardly in this novel, it is mostly populated by the amateur sleuths that helped Harbinder on another case.  I generally like Elly Griffith's mysteries and I really like this group of characters:  Natalka (her Ukranian heritage is a little more front and center this time with the war), Benedict the former monk and Edwin the 80-something year old retiree who loves mysteries.  Here the mysteries involve deaths that all seem to be connected to a writing retreat.  Griffiths has a bit of fun with people who want to write murder mysteries.   On the whole, recommended.

The Twist of a Knife by Anthony Horowitz

Another in the Hawthorne and Horowitz series where Anthony Horowitz is a character in his own book.  This one actually preceded the last one I read, but somehow I had missed it.   This one involved a play that Horowitz (really) wrote and that (apparently really) didn't get great reviews.  The murder is of the critic who panned it, which must have been a joy for him to write.  I always enjoy these novels.  The mysteries are fine, it's the style and tone of the writing that make me enjoy these novels.   

She Has Her Mother's Laugh:  The Powers, Perversions and Potential of Heredity by Carl Zimmer. 

I've had this book since Christmas 2019, fully intending to read it in 2020.  But then 2020 happened and, well ... you know.  Zimmer is a columnist for the New York Times who writes about science.  This book is about heredity - both scientifically and culturally.  I am so glad I finally picked it up and read it.  Zimmer writes about complicated subjects (like genetics and CRISPR) in a completely accessible way.  In fact, since it is a few years old I found myself wanting an update to talk about discoveries in the last few years.  I learned so much reading this.  Be aware that it is long and dense, I read it 20-25 pages at a time over the course of a month.  I found it was necessary to stop often and think about what I had read. I may, in fact, read it (or selected chapters) again in a few months. 

 Death on the Cherwell by Mavis Doriel Hay

Another of the British Library Crime Classics I inherited from my mom.  This one takes place at a fictional women's college at Oxford (apparently based on St. Hilda's which the author attended).  It had a little bit of a Nancy Drew feel with four undergraduates led by Sally investigating the crime.  The Detective Inspector is remarkably patient with them.  It is fairly light reading and doesn't hold a candle to, for instance, Dorothy Sayer's Gaudy Night which is also set at a women's college at Oxford. 

April Reading

I had a few goals at the start of the year:  (1) to read more classic novels, (ii) to re-read more books (I used to re-read a lot), (3) to be more selective in the mystery novels I read, and (4) to read more non-fiction.  I ended up finishing a couple of classic novels this month, one of which was a re-read (sorta).  I also read a non-fiction book in one of my areas of interest that I used to read in all the time.  I also read a few very good mystery novels.  So it was, in many ways a successful reading month.  And yet ... perhaps because it was the beginning of spring, I felt less like reading this month than I did in the prior months.  The following are the books I finished in April.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain read by Elijah Wood

I decided I wanted to read the new novel "James" this month (see below) which is based on Mark Twain's Huck Finn novel.  But it had been years and years since I had read Huck Finn and I wanted to refresh my memory.  This novel was never in any of my school curricula although we had a copy at home that I read (although I'm not even sure that I finished it.)  I had a vague recollection of the plot and I had a vague recollection that it went on and on and on in some places describing all the hijinks that Huck got up to.   And, yes, it does go on and on but it is much funnier than I remembered.  I don't think this is a novel for young people to read.  I don't think they would really get the satire. Much of the humor requires the reader to have a certain level of education in history and literature to understand all the allusions.  I did remember all the dialect Twain used so, after my success reading Their Eyes Were Watching God in audio, I decided to listen to an audio recording.  If you've never read Huck Finn I can highly recommend the Audible recording done by Elijah Wood.  He does all the voices wonderfully, even the women.  And most importantly he makes Huck (and Tom Sawyer) sound like the youngsters they are in the book.  If you don't remember that they are youngsters, they could be very annoying. This was a groundbreaking anti-slavery novel in its day but be warned that Twain uses the vernacular of the day including much casual use of the N word.  It can be jarring.  Perhaps the best thing about the novel in my opinion is his description of floating down the Mississippi on the raft.  Growing up next to the river, this was delightful to me.  The runaway slave, Jim, is of course a main character in the novel and I paid particular attention to Jim since his story is the story of "James".  Although it is clear that Twain is fond of Jim as a character, he also uses a lot of stereotypes and often Jim sounds like a simpleton. The real point of the novel comes when Huck wrestles with his conscience which tells him that legally and in accordance with religious mores of the day he needs to deliver Jim to the authorities but he can't do that to his friend.  When he finally decides that if being true to Jim means he will go to hell, then he will go to hell.   Even without the publication of "James" I'm very glad I re-read this novel. 

James by Percival Everett

First, you do not have to have read Huck Finn to enjoy this tour de force retelling of Twain's story. But remembering the Twain story does add to the enjoyment.  Huck Finn is told from the point of view of a boy who, no matter the danger, just wants to enjoy the adventure.  James is told from the point of view of a grown man with a wife and child.  He is also a character that is in danger every minute from all the people he and Huck meet.  So while Huck may know that the two men known as the Duke and the King are con artists, its still an adventure for him.  For James, he knows they have the power of life and death over him. Everett also is less wordy than Twain and there wasn't a point where I grew tired of the side characters.  In Huck Finn there are multiple places where Jim and Huck are separated and the story stays with Huck (since it is told in the first person).  Everett fills in the blanks.  He does make a lot of changes, especially to the end of the story and even the time period in which it takes place.  And there is a big unexpected twist that I'm not sure was necessary but certainly made the story more interesting.  The best thing is that he retained the humor and added many ludicrous situations that I think Twain would have approved of.  And he made James a real person, not a stereotype. All in all, highly recommended.  I'll be thinking about this novel for a long time. 

Middlemarch by George Eliot

I read this as part of a group read-along on BlueSky and I'm glad I did it that way.  I tried to read it last year but only read about 1/3 of the novel before leaving it behind.  In general this novel was not for me but I know that some people consider it their favorite novel of all time.  I discuss why it didn't work for me in this post. 

Murder at the Merton Library by Andrea Penrose

This is a part of a continuing mystery series set during the Regency Period.   The thing I like about this series is that the plot usually revolves around some kind of scientific experiment or invention that really happened during the period and I always learn something.  This time the plot revolved around the race to develop a steam powered vessel that could cross the Atlantic (there were steam powered paddlewheelers at this time but paddlewheels were not suitable for ocean swells).  Eventually they would come up with the screw shaped propeller blade but there was also the problem of generating enough steam which required more fuel than the ship could carry.  We know that eventually all these problems were solved but not until after the time periord of this novel.  The mystery was, as usual, decent.  I also like the gradual development of the characters over the span of the books. 

What Cannot Be Said by C. S. Harris

This is the next installment in one of my favorite mystery series: The Sebastien St. Cyr mystery series.   Set during the regency, Sebastien St. Cyr is a Viscount who helps the police from time to time.  It started because he was better able to assist when someone in the aristocracy was involved.  I enjoyed this installment although the possible solution occurred to me early on and I thought "no, she would never go in that direction".  The thing I like best about this series is her slow character development.  She never rushes anything.  For a few books I've been waiting to hear what the reaction of his community has been to Sebastien and his wife Hero adopting a child who looks just like Sebastien.  Oh the gossip there must be.  And yet it isn't until this book, in one line, that we begin to hear it.  And I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop on what Hero's cousin Victoria is up to.  If you are going to read this series you need to read from the beginning.  Know that the first few books are fine but they really start to get good at about book 4. 

The Lake District Murder by John Bude

This is another of the British Library Crime Classics I inherited from my mom.  This is the third John Bude novel that I've read and of all the BLCC books I've read I've consistently understood why his are being reissued.  This one is more of a police procedural than a whodunnit.  We have a pretty good idea early on whodunnit, but the why and how (and how to prove them) are the mystery.  Sometimes this novel got bogged down in describing the procedures the police (Inspector Meredith) used to catch the criminals but otherwise it was perfectly enjoyable. 

Help Wanted by Adelle Waldman

Back when I was in college I worked at the local JC Penney.  Usually I was "customer facing" (in the coat department) but every once in a while they needed help back in the stock room, unboxing stock and putting price tags on things.  This novel brought back memories of that time. The characters work at a nationwide big box chain (similar to Target I think because it is supposed to be more upscale than Walmart) who arrive at work at 4 in the morning, unload the trucks and put the new merchandise out, leaving when the customers arrive.  They are underpaid and never have enough hours so they live hand to mouth.  On the other hand, most of them feel lucky to have the job. They like the store manager (Big Will) but he is leaving to manage a better store and they realize that their direct boss, Meredith, is likely to take his place.  On the one hand Meredith is incompetent, on the other hand, if she moves up that will create an opening for one of them to move into management.  More hours, better pay, better benefits. Thus is hatched a plot to make Meredith look better than she really is.  I really liked Waldman's debut novel "The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P." in which she created very realistic characters.  But there were only a few characters in that novel.  Here she also creates realistic characters, it's just that there are so many characters.  Waldman writes in third person omniscient, which I like, but much of this novel involves descriptions of what brought these characters to this point in their lives and their interior thoughts.  There is dialog and there is action but I could have used a bit more dialog (my "need to hear the voices" problem).  She does a great job of describing the day-to-day routine and puts in some great jabs at the unnamed "online retailer" that is the biggest competition of brick and mortar stores.  This is a character driven novel that has a plot (albeit a slow moving plot).  Even though I liked "Nathaniel P" better, I did like this one too.  I recognized the characters from that other time in my life. On the other hand, the boredom of their jobs and the poverty of their lives sometimes got to me. 

The History and Archaeology of Fort Ouiatenon: 300 Years in the Making edited by Misty M. Jackson, H. Kory Cooper, and David M. Hovde

This book will only be of interest to people like me who love to read about North American French Colonial History, and even for me it was a little too "in the weeds". Fort Ouiatenon was a trading post established by the French in the 18th Century near what is today Lafayette, Indiana. After the conclusion of the French and Indian War the British took it over as a military post and then, after the American Revolution it was destroyed.  This book is a collection of papers about the archeology that has occurred at the site over the last 70+ years.  I did learn some things about costume (paste) jewelry in colonial times and there was an interesting section about the Miami tribe that originally lived in the area (now living in Oklahoma).  

Close to Death by Anthony Horowitz

This is the fifth book in the Horowitz and Hawthorne series in which Anthony Horowitz is a character in his own book.  Horowitz is the Dr. Watson to Hawthorne's Sherlock Holmes and never did that seem clearer than in this book when they didn't even work together on the case.  Horowitz is writing up an old case that Hawthorne solved years before, having access to all of Hawthorne's notes.  Unusual for this series, parts of it are told in the third person.  These parts are broken up by the usual first person narration of Horowitz as he tries to figure out what is going on from all of Hawthorne's notes and how to write it up.  I liked this novel but not as much as the others and I think that's because of the separation of the two characters.  This is also a locked door mystery (in part) and (as Horowitz himself says) locked door crimes require the kind of planning that doesn't usually happen in crime. But on the whole, recommended.  

Middlemarch by George Eliot

Middlemarch, A Study of Provincial Life by George Eliot is one of those classics of English Literature that show up on most "you must read these novels before you die" lists.  Published in installments in 1871-72, it was historical fiction even in its own day.  The story is set fifty years earlier during what was apparently a time leading up to great changes in English political life.  

Full disclosure:  I started reading this novel last summer on a very long daytime flight to London.  It seemed like a good idea at the time.  On my previous trip to London I had read an Anthony Trollope novel and enjoyed it.  But this time I found Eliot a bit of a slog and I got about 300 pages in when circumstances outside my control made me stop.  I wasn't enjoying it enough to pick it up again later. But then I saw there was to be on-line read-along on BlueSky and thought it would be a good way to finish it.  So I read the first 300 pages twice, once last year and then again last month. 

The novel follows the stories of a multitude of characters living in and around the fictional town of Middlemarch.  However, at its center are two characters: Dorothea Brooke and Tertius Lydgate.  Theirs are essentially stories of self-deception and coming to terms with reality.  They each enter into marriage (not with each other) believing that the person they are marrying is different than they actually are, with unhappy results.  I am told that Eliot was the first novelist to take the story of marriage past the wedding day . I don't know if that's true but it is certainly what she does in this novel.   (And she certainly wasn't the first story teller to do it as the play Medea takes the mythological story past the fairy tale wedding to tragic results.)

In addition to these four characters there is the story of Fred Vincy, who is in love with a local girl named Mary Garth.  There is also a small plot involving the local banker, Mr. Bulstrode.  Along the way we meet many other folk including the entire Vincy family and the entire Garth family as well as the local vicar and a variety of medical men.  Eliot intertwines all of the stories but she always comes back to the main stories involving Dorothea Brooke and Tertius Lydgate, but especially Dorothea.  

While I know that this is a novel that is loved by many people, I have to honestly say it was not for me. I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out why it didn't work for me and I think it has to do almost completely with how I take in novels that I enjoy. 

First, let me say that I think Eliot's prose is sublime.  She created a narrator character that leads us through the stories and comments on the other characters and forces the reader to consider things about the other characters that they may not have otherwise taken into account.  Sometimes the narrator mocks the other characters; sometimes the narrator has empathy for characters who don't seem to deserve empathy (and Eliot's use of the adjective "poor" is used both ways). Sometimes the narrator simply opines upon the world the characters live in.  The narrator is often very funny. The voice of the narrator is clear and distinct and is a joy to read.  

Those who have read my blog for a long time will recall that when I read novels I don't see a "movie in my mind".  The visual images I see are indistinct.  If there is a forest, I have a general impression of trees but could not give you any specifics.  I generally don't play the movie-casting game with novels because I never see the characters clearly enough to care what actors look like.  But in novels that work for me, I can specifically "hear" each character's voice, including any narrator. 

I have never heard a narrator's voice as clearly as I did with this novel. The voice of Eliot's narrator  is so clear to me that I think of it as a character in the novel separate and apart from Eliot herself.   But the narrator, in addition to having a distinct point of view and commenting upon the action, is also omniscient and tells us what the other characters are thinking. 

And therein, I think, lay the problem for me.  I don't have a problem with third person omniscient, in fact I like third person more than first person almost all of the time.  But I consistently felt with this novel that I  could not clearly "hear" the main characters.  They didn't seem to have their own voices. It was like I was hearing them, especially Dorothea, from a great distance where I could occasionally directly hear what they said but more often it was the narrator telling me what they said and what they thought.  I felt as if all of Dorothea's thoughts were filtered through the viewpoint of the narrator and the narrator was such a distinct character for me and was so opinionated that it was as if a separate opinionated person was telling me what Dorothea was thinking rather than me feeling that I was eavesdropping on Dorothea's thoughts. And I think that meant that Dorothea was never "real" to me. I felt the same way, but to a lesser extent, with Lydgate .  To a lesser extent because Eliot gave Lydgate dialog more often than Dorothea.  I could judge Lydgate a little more on his actions and words rather than solely on the perception of the narrator.  But Dorothea spends a lot of time with interior thoughts; she spends a lot of time holding her tongue, especially in the middle of the novel, because she's trying to be "good". 

I would say that, of all the characters, I never heard Dorothea's voice clearly at all - which was a big problem for me because so much time is spent on Dorothea.  I grew tired of the narrator telling me about Dorothea - I never had to figure anything out about Dorothea because the narrator always told me what I was supposed to know about Dorothea at any given time.  I never related to Dorothea possibly because she is so young and naive and I am no longer young and was never naive. I never felt like I saw life directly through Dorothea's eyes, only as mediated through the narrator's eyes. I found Dorothea tiresome and I found the parts of the novel that dealt with Dorothea boring and usually I couldn't wait until they were finished and we could move on to other characters. It's a real problem for a reader when they are bored by the plot concerning the main character. I remember being on the plane to London and wondering how Eliot was going to sustain an 800+ page novel about such an uninteresting character and being so relieved when the attention shifted to Lydgate, who ended up being only mildly more interesting but was surrounded by other characters that I found interesting. My re-read of the first 300 pages didn't change my mind. 

Interestingly, I did not have that problem with the minor characters.  They seemed very real to me and I could hear their voices clearly.  I think this was because the narrator spent less time telling me about these characters and more time describing what they did and what they said. Their character was revealed by a combination of their actions, their words and the narrator's commentary.  The best part of the novel for me was the story of Mr. Bulstrode which ended up being gripping.  But, alas, it is only a very small part of the novel. 

So rather than have empathy (something the narrator kept preaching) for the main characters, I mostly thought they got what they deserved based simply on the setup of the story.  When you marry someone under a delusion, you are going to be disappointed. Your life is going to be unhappy.  That's just the way it is.  And much of modern literature is about this, which may have also been part of the problem for me. 

I look at it as the Citizen Kane problem.  Citizen Kane was a groundbreaking film in which Orson Welles used innovative cinematography techniques.  But those techniques have been copied so many times that we, the viewers, are used to seeing them.  So Citizen Kane viewed outside of a film class may seem dated to the viewer.  Perhaps in a seminar on Victorian literature, reading my way up to Middlemarch, I would appreciate it more as a groundbreaking novel.  But I'm long past the days of seminars. 

So, in the end, it just wasn't for me.  It never engaged me and I didn't greatly care what happened to the characters.  But I am not sorry I read it because I very much did enjoy Eliot's use of language when observing life through the character of the narrator.  

Who might like this novel?   If you are looking to be transported to another time and place, this isn't for you. Eliot doesn't spend much time on world-building so "setting" is not a big part of this novel. Middlemarch is set in a fictional town and fictional county in England that could have been anywhere in the midlands. If you are someone who wants a page turner, this probably isn't for you either. In terms of story, there is a plot but it meanders over the 800 plus pages.  It seems to me that most people who enjoy Middlemarch relate to the brilliant writing and identify in some way with the main characters and don't need to hear their voices directly as I do.  I also think they like the psychology of the novel - Eliot's take on life in general as exemplified by the characters and (probably mostly) by the narrator's commentary.  Others in the read-along were consistently raving about how Eliot captured the essence of life in perfect language (and she did, in the narrator's voice using the characters, in my opinion, mostly as examples.)

Be warned that if you aren't engaged in the first few hundred pages your reaction probably won't change much.  Mine didn't.  But, in fairness, know that for many people this is their favorite novel of all time. 

My March Reading

The following are the books I finished in March. In the beginning of the month I was reading literary fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.  I also was reading a couple of classics that I've not yet finished. By the end of the month I needed a few mysteries. 

In the Upper Country by Kai Thomas

This amazing novel begins in 1859, on the brink of the American Civil War, but the location is Dunsmore, a Canadian town near Detroit that was settled by people fleeing enslavement.  A relative newcomer to the town is Lensinda Martin, a mixed-race woman who, unlike the other settlers, came from the north and was born in Canada.  Now she works as a journalist for a black newspaper.  Dunsmore is a stop on the Underground Railroad. One night a slave hunter from Kentucky shows up and is shot dead by an old woman who recently arrived.  As the old woman awaits trial Lensinda visits her in jail to learn her story. But the old woman will only "trade" stories.  And so each woman, young and old, tells the other woman a far ranging set of stories that reveal an interwoven story of Black and Indigenous peoples going back to the beginning of the century and encompassing the War of 1812.   In his Author's Note Kai Thomas says: "I was steeped in stories of various colonial formulations:  I knew and had seen many stories that were concerned with the relationships between  black and white people, and similarly, between Indigenous and white people.  And of course, between whites and any other people of color.  But I couldn't think of a single story I knew that meaningfully explored black and Indigenous relationships."   This is a first novel for Kai Thomas and what an excellent beginning for him.  It is not perfect; sometimes I had trouble keeping track of  the various characters.  But on the whole I really enjoyed and heartily recommend this novel. 

The Ride of Her Life by Elizabeth Letts 

This is the true story of Annie Wilkins who, at age sixty-three and after being told she only had a few years to live, sold her debt ridden farm in Maine, bought a horse named Tarzan and set out for California with only a few belongings, almost no money, and her dog Depeche Toi.  The year she set out was 1954 and Letts spends a great part of the book outlining how America was a changing country.  On the one hand, Annie could still find stables along the way to house Tarzan; on the other hand the automobile was taking over the country. Annie believed that people were basically kind and all the people she met along the way who helped her affirmed her faith in mankind (it probably helped that she was a white person when she knocked on people's doors asking if she could use their fields that night.)  Annie caught the fancy of the media and local and national newspapers, and sometimes even television, covered her story and Letts obviously spent time reading those stories along with the memoir that Annie eventually wrote  This book was lent to me by a friend who thought I might enjoy it. He was right. I think most people would enjoy this story. 

The Wild Iris by Louise Gluck.

This collection of poems, published in 1992, won the Pulitzer Prize.  I like Louise Gluck's poetry but I had never read this collection.  The One Bright Book podcast chose this as their March book so I thought I would read it along with them and I'm glad I did.  The poems in the collection are a conversation between the plants in a garden, the human gardener and God (or some higher being).  The collection begins in the spring when plants that seemed dead come back to life and ends in the fall as the garden goes dormant again.  In between, the gardener has conversations with God in the form of poems called Matins and Vespers - which are the morning and evening prayers in the canonical hours of the Catholic church.  Like the plants that are coming back to life the gardener is also coming back from ... grief?  depression?  It is never made completely clear. The conversations with God are frustrating for the gardener because God does not seem to answer; and yet for the reader God does answer in other poems.  In one of the Matins she says "I'm looking for courage, for some evidence my life will change, though it takes forever ..."  and finishes "was the point always to continue without a sign?"  

Beowulf, tr. by Maria Dahvana Headley

I did not intend to read another classic epic poem so soon after finishing The Iliad, but I listen to the Poetry Unbound podcast and in February the host had an excerpt from the Maria Dahvana Headley translation of Beowulf and I was intrigued. I had read excerpts of Beowulf back in school and later I read Seamus Heaney's translation.  But this was different.  Imagine a Lin Manuel Miranda production of Beowulf but with fewer internal rhymes and more alliteration.  For example, Seamus Heaney's translation begins "So.  The spear Danes in days gone by ..."  Headley's translation begins "Bro. Tell me we still know how to speak of kings!" If you are interested in Beowulf this is very readable.  Recommended.  I wrote more about it here. 

Fortune Favors the Dead by Stephen Spotswood 

Set in the 1940's this reads like an updated hardboiled classic detective novel except the detectives are women:  Willowjean (Will) Parker, a former circus performer, and Lillian Pentecost, an experienced private detective suffering from multiple sclerosis.  It's an interesting premise and I found it very readable. We learn how Will and Lillian teamed up and then the story jumps ahead three years. They are by now a well-oiled team and they are hired to investigate a high profile murder.  I thought all the characters were interesting, both the main characters and the suspects. I thought the plot was good enough.  There was a good sense of time and place.  On the whole, recommended.  This is the first in a series and I'm sure I'll read more. 

A Mansion for Murder by Frances Brody  

This is the latest in the Kate Shackleton mystery series. It came out last year but somehow I missed it.  This is not my favorite mystery series but I like it enough that I always read each new installment. Kate is a WWI war widow who lives in Yorkshire.  I'm always a sucker for post-WWI stories and I love stores set in Yorkshire; I think that's why I keep reading these.  Kate's father is a  high ranking police officer and Kate becomes a private detective when her husband goes missing, presumed dead.  She is assisted by her intrepid housekeeper, Mrs. Sugden, and by Jim Sykes, a former policeman.  This story takes place in Saltaire, a company Mill town that actually existed and is now a national historic site, in a mansion that did actually exist at the site.  One of the things I like about this series is that Kate ALWAYS tells the people she talks to that they should go to the police with their information.  In most detective novels the detectives act like the police should never be involved. 

The Sussex Downs Murder by John Bude

Another of the British Library Crime Classics I inherited from my mom, I really liked this one.  Superintendent Meredith is perplexed when a crime scene is discovered with blood but no body. Two brothers, John and William Rother share Chalklands Farm but now John is missing, presumed dead.  I actually guessed the end of this one about 1/2 way through but it didn't really matter.  This was published in 1936 and for once I think this is a crime novel that deserved to be republished. 

Three-Inch Teeth by C.J. Box

The latest in the Joe Pickett series set in Wyoming, this one involves a rogue grizzly bear that is killing people in the area.  I found the grizzly bear story very interesting and would actually have liked more of it.  But of course there is always more in a Joe Pickett story than the wildlife story and usually the "more" involves a fairly unbelievable plot.  This one is no different.  Over the years Joe has amassed many people who hate him and want revenge for something.  This time two of them have teamed up to seek revenge on all the people who have wronged them, including Joe and his friend Nate.  The method they choose is almost completely unbelievable.  But somehow that never really matters in a Joe Pickett story.  I think I read this series mostly for the descriptions of the mountains and the wildlife, which Box does beautifully.  The plot is always a page turner (albeit an eye-rolling page turner).  As usual his characterizations are thin, but at this point we've known most of the characters for a long while so it doesn't matter much.  My verdict is that it isn't the best Joe Pickett book but if you like Joe Pickett you'll enjoy it. 

Beowulf, translated by Maria Dahvana Headley

I never intended to read yet another epic poem immediately after finishing The Iliad.  But I subscribe to the Poetry Unbound podcast and in February one of the episodes featured a few verses from the Maria Dahvana Headley translation of Beowulf.  I had read excerpts of Beowulf way back when I was in school.  I also read the Seamus Heaney translation of Beowulf.  I didn't think I needed anymore Beowulf in my life.  But this transaction intrigued me. 

This one begins:

Bro! Tell me we still know how to speak of Kings!
  In the old
  days,
everyone knew what men were:  brave, bold, glory-
  bound. Only
stories now, but I'll sound the Spear-Danes' song
  hoarded for
  hungry times.

As Headley explains in her forward:  early English verse is distinguished by both alliteration and stress patterns over a caesura (a pause, a gap between the two halves of a line).  Rhyming isn't as important. 

Headley's alliteration is wonderful and modern. 

They stacked shields, wood-weathered, against the walls, then sat down on benches, their metal making music. Their spears, they stood like sleeping soldiers, tall but tilting, gray ash, a death-grove.

Beowulf boasts:  I put that monster down, I made it a sleeper as it leapt, severed its spine, spiked its skull, and split it into smithereens. 

And later he says:  At down, I surfaced in a slurry of scales, floating flotsam where formerly there'd been fangs. 

This was almost as if Lin Manuel Miranda decided to do Beowulf, ignoring internal rhymes and just focusing on alliteration.  I loved it. 

This translation came out in 2020 and somehow I missed it despite it being picked as a Book of the Year by NPR (go figure, there was just a worldwide pandemic to distract me).  But I'm glad I eventually heard of it and read it. 

My February Reading

In January I decided that the coldest part of winter was a good time to do some slow reading in addition to my regular reading.  And so February saw me finish two books that I started in January: the first was a very long biography of Ulysses S. Grant; the second was Emily Wilson's translation of the Iliad. I assumed that the other books I would chose to read would be shorter but it turned out that in January and February quite a few of the other books I read ended up being longer than I expected.  By the end of February I needed a break and finished the month with a few shorter murder mysteries.  

These are the books I finished in February.

Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler

Octogenarian detectives Arthur Bryant and John May have worked in the London Police Department's Peculiar Crimes Unit since they were both in their 20's. On a night that Bryant is working late at the office, a bomb explodes destroying the office. John May is determined to discover who killed his partner. At the time of the explosion Bryant seemed to have reopened the very first case the two ever worked on together, a case that began when a dancer was found dead without her feet. It was the beginning of a string of murders at London's Palace Theatre all taking place during the Blitz and its related blackout. John May is forced to remember that original case for clues in this case. This is apparently the first in a series about the two detectives. I'm not sure I will go on with it, at least not yet. Fowler does a great job of giving a sense of place - his descriptions of the Blitz, the blackout and the theater made me feel like I was there, I could picture it. (The Palace is where Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is currently playing and I've walked past it many times on my trips to London.) I appreciated the references to 84 Charing Cross Road (the place, not the book) and the blue police boxes (the real ones, not the TARDIS). But the story was very convoluted and I felt it could have used some cutting because he did tend to go on and on. (On a side note, this is the second mystery set during the London blackouts that I've read in two months.  This was not intentional.)

The Square of Sevens by Laura Shepherd-Robinson. 

England in the 1700's.   A story of orphans, murder, an inheritance, family litigation and fortune telling.  The character at the center of the plot is Red, a girl with a mysterious background raised as a lady by a kindly old gentleman  and given the name Rachel. But who is she really?  Who was her mother?  And why was she told by her father that there were people out there who would want to kill her?  Some of the chapters are told from the point of view of a man called Lazarus Darke (a Dickensian name!).  Will he find Red and harm her?  Is he a good man or a bad man? Is everyone an unreliable narrator (of course, all narrators are unreliable to a certain extent). When I put this on my TBR list I noted that some people said it was Dickensian.  I suppose so in the sense that it is long, has a Jarndyce v. Jarndyce type legal suit that has been ongoing for years, and does deal with the differences between the "haves" and the "have nots".  But although Dickens could create long, complicated plots with many twists, I always felt he played fair with the reader.  When I put this novel down I had a vague feeling that the author hadn't played fair with me.  But I can't put my finger on why except that the ending was unexpected. I even went back and re-read a couple of the scenes - and I saw what she did.  It was clever.  But I still felt she hadn't played fair in the end.  This novel is very plot driven and since I devoured it over a weekend I suppose it could be called a page turner (but only for people who like complicated plots).  The author does create a real sense of time and place.  The characters are mostly well drawn but hard to warm to. As Red said at one point " If you'd wanted a saint, then you should have read a different book."  It is well written, cleverly written.  But I am somewhat ambivalent about it due to how she wound up the story.  (And again on a side note, this is the second book in two months that I've read that had an experiment with static electricity shocking a person trying to kiss another person as a minor plot point. Again, this was unintentional on my part.)

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. 

Full disclosure - I tried to read this (very short) novel more than 5 years ago and never finished it.  I think it just wasn't the right time for me.  The dialect defeated me.  When I read, I don't see specific pictures in my head but I usually hear specific voices.  In this case, however, there was so much dialect that I couldn't hear the characters properly in my head. But I always intended to eventually finish it.  That day finally came when I heard that the audiobook was the way to go because it was read by the great Ruby Dee.  And, oh my.  It really made all the difference.  I don't usually go the audiobook route but in this case I wholeheartedly tell you to listen to this audiobook if you are at all interested in this novel.  That being said, I am somewhat ambivalent about the novel itself.  Hurston paints a vivid picture of the life of her character in the various locations she lived.  But a great deal of this novel would not pass the Bechdel test (two women with names who talk about something other than a man). The relationship of Janie (the main character) to the men in her life is the entirety of the book and truthfully I got tired of it (especially when the last one, who was the best of the bunch, beat her and she "understood"). On the other hand, the last twenty percent of this novel was not at all what I expected and is very, very powerful.  Janie does have a character arc and does come into her own, in a very sad way.  I am glad I read it but it took me a long time to get to the point of being glad I was reading it. 

Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford

Francis Spufford creates an alternate reality in which Native Americans did not lose all power and the ancient city of Cahokia did not disappear. But a brutal murder in the 1920's could be used as an excuse by the white community to destroy that power.  On the whole I liked this novel even though alternate history novels and hard boiled detective novels aren't usually what I like.  His world building is exceptional although it sometimes interferes with the pacing of the murder mystery.  But, on the whole, recommended.  I set out my more extensive complete thoughts on this novel in a separate blog post here. 

Grant by Ron Chernow

This 1074 page behemoth had been sitting on my shelf since I purchased it shortly after it was published.  Finally, this January I picked it up to read it.  I paced myself, allowing myself one chapter a day.  It was the perfect way to read it and it was a perfect slow read through the winter months of January and February. I actually knew a fair amount about Grant before reading this book.  I live in St. Louis where Grant spent his early adult years and my childhood summers always involved a trip to "Grant's Farm" (the Busch estate that encompassed the log cabin Grant lived in).  My uncle also lived on land that formerly belonged to Whitehaven, the Dent property where Grant met his wife Julia Dent. Still, it was interesting to read about Grant's early years in and out of St. Louis.  I also know a bit about the Civil War so most of the chapters dealing with the war did not surprise me - except how staunchly Grant insisted on allowing "contraband" former slaves to fight for the North.  It was the sections after the war that were the most enlightening to me.  I realize I know next to nothing about Reconstruction; I should remedy that.  I was surprised to learn that Grant was a champion of public education.  He was prescient:  "in the near future the dividing line will not be the Mason & Dixons but between patriotism, & intelligence on one side & superstition, ambition & ignorance on the other." Chernow clearly liked his subject and I suspect always attempted to put him in the best light possible. But it is also very detailed.  This is a very readable biography despite its length. 

A Royal Affair by Alison Montclair

After so many long and/or heavy books I felt the need to kick back with a reliable mystery.  This is the second in the Sparks and Bainbridge mystery series. Set in London after WWII, Iris Sparks (former intelligence operative) and Gwendolyn Bainbridge (widow and former debutante) run The Right Sort of Marriage Bureau to assist persons looking for spouses.  Along the way they get caught up in murder mysteries. This mystery involved the Princess Elizabeth, Prince Philip and Philip's mother Princess Alice in the lead up to the royal engagement.  It was delightful and completely unbelievable.  But just what I needed.  And it probably helped that I had watched the episode of The Crown that involved Princess Alice. 

The Z Murders by J. Jefferson Farjeon

A British Library Crime Classic I chose from the ones unread on my shelves, this is a serial killer thriller published in 1932.  The main character, Richard Temperley, arrives in London Euston Station on a very early morning train and on the advice of a porter heads to a nearby hotel where he can bathe and wait until businesses and shops open.  Also at the hotel is an elderly man who was also on the train with Temperley.  The elderly man is shot dead while sleeping in an armchair and at the scene of the crime is  a token with the letter "Z" on it.   Also at the hotel Temperley encounters a beautiful but mysterious young woman who he is sure had nothing to do with the murder although she rushes from the scene of the crime.  He pursues her while the police pursue him.  The police know these two are not the murderers because other murders begin to happen in other parts of the country, all involving the letter "Z". The introduction tells us that Dorothy L. Sayers was a fan of Farjeon's writing ( he apparently wrote loads of books).  I didn't really see the appeal of this one.  Temperley is a very annoying main character, the police are surprisingly lenient with him and the mysterious woman didn't seem worth the trouble to me.  It was, I'll grant you, a page turner but the characters had all the depth of 1930's film noir characters.  

Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers

One of my goals this year was to re-read some old favorites.  I used to re-read books all the time but then I got out of the habit.  This year I have been reading through the pile of British Library Crime Classics I was left by my mom, many of which were written in the 1930's.  I also discovered the As My Wimsey Takes Me podcast, in which the hosts are slowly reading and analyzing the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries.  It seemed the right time to re-read Dorothy L. Sayers and I decided to start with Whose Body? which is the first of the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries, published in 1923.  I truly did not remember much about it.  I did remember that I originally thought it was the weakest of the series, but then the first book of a series often is.  I found that it held up very well, especially compared to the BLCC books I've been reading.  It is easy to understand why the series has never gone out of print.  Lord Peter is one of my favorite characters in literature, although he starts out the series as a somewhat silly (at least on the outside) young man. I had forgotten that he had an episode of PTSD in this novel (he was a Major in WWI and his man Bunter was his Sergeant) which gave him more depth than I remembered.  I also forgot that she introduced detective Parker in the first novel.  I first began to read this series in 1991 and I remember that was the year I took my first trip to London.  I was so excited to be able to see Piccadilly and Green Park for the first time and thinking this is where Sayers set her mysteries. The whole series is a delight and I can't recommend it enough.  I don't know if I will re-read anymore this year but I may.  

The Iliad by Homer tr. by Emily Wilson

This is the third Iliad I have read and it is, in my opinion, the most readable.  I read it very slowly because I knew the story going in and I knew there was only so much blood and guts per day that I could take.  (What I didn't reckon with was combining the Iliad with the biography of Grant which is filled with the blood and guts of the Civil War.  I also at one point was reading Menewood which is filled with medieval blood and guts.  Some days it was a little overwhelming.)  Homer seems intent on giving every single man killed in the war his due by describing his death in detail.  In graphic detail. Then you realize that this story takes place only over a few days and these are only a small portion of the actual deaths that must have occurred over the ten year period of the Trojan War.  So I read 10 pages a day more or less until (finally) Patroclus got himself killed (spoiler, but this IS a very old story).  From that point I could read a chapter (book) at a time. Wilson translated the poem into iambic pentameter which is very readable in English.  Although I knew there was a lot of death in the Iliad, this translation really brought it home and yet ... the poem was still beautiful.  In her introduction Wilson says:   "You know the story.  You will die. Everyone you love will also die. You will lose them forever. You will be sad and angry.  You will weep.  You will bargain.  You will make demands. You will beg.  You will pray. It will make no difference.  Nothing you will do will bring them back. You know this.  Your knowing changes nothing. This poem will make you understand this unfathomable truth again and again, as if for the first time."  As I said, this was the most readable version of the Iliad I've yet encountered.  I don't think I will need to ever read The Iliad again.