Wow, a long time!

It's sure been a long time since I've updated this blog. I recently found my 100 top novels list in some paperwork that had to be hurriedly moved during a flood at work... bad excuse, I know.

A lot has happened in my life since I last updated. At the age of 53 I was forced to find a new career - I went back to school and took a Medical Office Assistant course. I've now completed the course work and practicum, and will be writing my final exam next week. In the meantime, I'm job hunting with a vengeance.

Wish me luck, please?

Metamorphosis 13 - James Joyce's Ulysses

I'll tell you one thing right now, this is not an easy book to read. He shifts from straight narrative to fantasy to dry technical writing to stream of consciousness. And it's a thousand pages long, describing a day in the life of a man in Dublin in 1904. I have to admit, I passed over a lot of it because it was a library book and I only had it for so long, and some of it is just obscure, especially nearly a hundred years after it was written. Joyce enjoys making up words although they make perfect sense.

But there is true genius as well. Some of his turns of phrase are amazing, and hilarious. It was banned for obscenity in the US after it was first published as there are some explicit passages, although today's readers would barely bat an eye.

Read it if you enjoy a long novel, and I hope you enjoy getting to know Leopold and Molly as much as I did.

Metamorphosis 12 - The Tin Drum

Wow, i'm really getting behind! The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass was a pleasant surprise. Who knew that a novel beginning with a Polish peasant girl harvesting potatoes would turn out to be so engrossing...

In this partially autobiographical story, our protagonist Oskar is growing up during the war in a city which is on the border, geographically and politically, between Germany and Poland. He's not always a likable person, but in the end we are hoping for the best for him.

The edition I read was from a new translation... apparently when it was originally translated from German back in the 50s, they took out some of the more naughty bits, although what's been put back in is really pretty tame by today's standards.

Metamorphosis 11

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson - kind of reminded me of some of the stories written by my cousin Merna Summers - a Canadian author you should definitely check out sometime. Two sisters growing up in a small town with eccentric relatives... it also reminded me of The Quiet American with its theme of loss, parting, giving up your old way of life. Both books left me with the sense that I wanted to see what happened to those people after the book ended... sadly, I don't think either has a sequel. Or maybe it's just better that way. :-)

Metamorphosis 10

The Quiet American by Graham Greene was a bit of an odd book, but I ended up enjoying it quite a bit. It takes place in Vietnam during the 1950s. The protagonist is a British journalist who is there to cover the war, which at that time is being fought by the French and the Communists. The Americans are still bystanders at that point, and the "quiet American" referred to in the title becomes the narrator's rival in many things and is an eerie foreshadowing of what we all know came later.

Wow, I need to catch up!

OK, I've read quite a few books and again got sidetracked from my 100 must-read quest by other fiction. But I've found a new author I quite like. Louise Penny is a Canadian writer who has penned several Inspector Gamache mysteries... think of Agatha Christie transferred to a village in Quebec in modern times. Check it out!

Metamorphosis 9

Haroun and the Sea of Stories is a whimsical little novel by Salman Rushdie. It reads rather like a children's book, but it also contains some clever satire that only older readers will get. There's a lot of commentary about censorship and propaganda, interesting in the light of his being condemned to death by Islam fanatics. I had never read anything else by him, and found it quite witty.

The Land of Painted Caves

This is the long-awaited latest in the Earth's Children series by Jean Auel. She has stated this will be the last one; she has also stated that she feels the story of Ayla isn't finished, and I personally thought the end of the book leaves way too many loose ends. I wouldn't at all be surprised to see more in this saga, maybe focusing on her daughter Jonayla.

But what did I think of the book? Well, I did enjoy it although I found parts of it kind of repetitive. The Mother's Song is a beautiful piece of poetry but I didn't need to read it ten times. And I do find it a bit annoying that Ayla and Jondalar seem to the the only people who can figure out how to tame horses and wolves, use horses to haul things, every other new advancement in human history, etc. The dust jacket promises that Ayla discovers a new piece of knowledge that is life-changing. Which it is, but I find it a bit hard to believe that nobody would have figured it out before.

However, as usual the descriptions of the painted caves (the famous ones in France that can still be seen to this day) are breathtaking. I find Auel's characters a bit one-dimensional but she's very good at bringing a scene to life so that I can almost see it in front of me.

If you've read all the others, you gotta read this one too. Even if you've never read any of the others, this one can stand on its own as she does explain certain things that happened in the past. It helped me too although I did read all the others, but it's been so long!

I hope Auel hasn't hung up the quill yet. I think she still has a lot of stories to tell.

Metamorphosis 8

Got really sidetracked by some non-fiction books that weren't on the list, as well as Richard III: The Maligned King by an online acquaintance, Annette Carson. I haven't believed Richard was guilty of killing his nephews ever since reading Tey's Daughter of Time as a teenager. So this book didn't convince me of anything new, but I certainly learned some new things about Richard and his world courtesy of her thorough research.


Putting in some spaces now to go down to the next book, hope this looks half decent to everyone!






No, this is not a Chemistry textbook. The Periodic Table is an autobiographical narrative by noted chemist Primo Levi, who was also an Italian Jew who spent time in Auschwitz during the war. Each chapter, from his boyhood to middle age, takes the name of an element. Auschwitz is mentioned but his time there is apparently explored more deeply in some other book he wrote, which I may seek out at some point.

Far from being dry and humorless as you would expect, it's full of droll wit and observations about humanity. Apparently he won several awards for this book. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would from looking at the table of contents.

The Skystone

This was a book borrowed from a friend - lucky it wasn't a purchase because once again I realized halfway through that I'd read it already at some point. But if you like historical fiction about Roman Britain (this book is actually the first of a series, and a precursor to the King Arthur story) you'll enjoy this one.

The only quibble I have? I find it a bit hard to believe that the Romans wouldn't have known what comets were (you'll see).

A Vengeful Longing

By R.N. Morris, a sequel to a previous book which I think I should now read.

This murder mystery takes place in tsarist St. Petersburg in the 1860s. There have been recent reforms but the country is still very much locked into class divisions and corruption. Our detective is Porfiry Petrovich, who was a character in Dostoyevski's Crime and Punishment (which I think awaits me on my list of 100 Must-Read Novels). In some ways he reminded me of D.S. Dalziel from Reginald Hill's Dalziel and Pascoe series, though not quite as rude to his underlings.

It opens with the poisoning of a doctor's wife and son and of course other murders crop up which turn out to all be connected. A good read in my opinion.

The Navigator

Still reading the books I bought at a used book sale in the fall before I get back to my 100 Must-Read Novels or whatever they're called.

A typical Clive Cussler novel, full of action in various exotic locales, spiced with historical connections. This one runs the gamut from the ancient Phoenicians to Thomas Jefferson. I found it quite entertaining although far-fetched in places, but we read these kind of books to escape from the ordinary, right?

I did enjoy the maniac who was obsessed with medieval jousting tournaments. My kind of bad guy!

Saturday

Another Ian McEwan novel which I found at a used book sale. As the title implies, it follows the Saturday from waking to sleeping of a London neurosurgeon who expects it to be an ordinary day, and instead finds it to be life- and attitude-changing.

This is the third novel by McEwan that I have read, and I admire his gift for getting inside a person's head. He also finds a way to portray even a villain with some degree of sympathy, which is refreshing in these days of one-dimensional baddies in print and film.

He did a lot of collaboration with an actual neurosurgeon and I found the operating room narratives quite fascinating. They are detailed so others may wish to skip over them, but I enjoyed them.

Life

I was expecting to get Life by Keith Richards for a Christmas present, and indeed my oldest son came through. I had heard a lot about it and was expecting a good read, and ended up really enjoying it. There was a ghost writer collaborating with him, but I'm pretty sure much of it is his own words; anyone who has read or heard an interview with Keith will agree that he's intelligent and articulate, and the writing probably just needed some polishing. And possibly some kick-starting.

We hear a lot about his childhood and the legendary early meetings with Mick Jagger, who grew up in the same suburb of London. We learn stuff about his family that I personally had never heard before. He is candid about his use of drugs, the feud with Brian Jones and the later feud with Jagger which appears to be continuing in the present.

I recommend it to any Stones or rock and roll fan.

The Charlemagne Pursuit

I very much enjoyed this book by Steve Berry. I realized right away I had read another book with the same main characters but at least it wasn't the same book.

Our hero Cotton Malone becomes caught up in a search for some answers - what exactly happened to his father when he died on a highly classified Navy submarine mission to Antarctica in the early 1970s? Along the way we meet assorted assassins, ancient tales of Nazis and Charlemagne himself.

Princes of Ireland

This was one I bought at a used book sale. As I started reading it I got the feeling I had read it before, which is quite possible as I enjoy Rutherfurd's books, so I think I may have taken it out from the library when it first came out. Or perhaps the early chapters were familiar because I've also been doing some reading about Druidic/Celtic mythology.

Anyway, in true Rutherfurd form it spans a time period from prehistoric times to the 1500s. Most of his others come right up to the present, so I assumed there was a sequel - and yes, apparently he has written another one called Rebels of Ireland. I'll have to check that one out too.

I do love a good historical yarn and his family sagas fit the bill for me! I enjoy reading about historical events and how they affect everyday people.

The Tower, The Zoo and the Tortoise

After the almost constant drama and "history-witnessing" events of Fall of Giants, it was refreshing to read this whimsical little book by Julia Stuart. The central characters are a Beefeater and his wife - you know, the guys who wear the red suits and guard (and live in, and act as tourist guides for) the Tower of London. The interplay between them and their neighbors/co-workers is hilarious at times, but there is solemnity too. An underlying theme is the mourning the couple are in for their only son who died at the age of 11.

But on the whole, it's quite an entertaining little book. It's great for a history nut like me, who can only imagine what it would be like to live in a place like that literally surrounded by it.

I've already taken it back to the library but I think the dust jacket notes said it's only Stuart's second novel; I look forward to seeing more from her.

Fall of Giants

When I saw that Ken Follett was coming out with a new book, I reserved it at the library right away.

In typical Follett fashion, the story takes place before, during and after World War I, on three different continents, involving several different families who all somehow become intertwined.

It is rather a gloomy book, but I guess it was a gloomy period of history. Even when the war ended there was still poverty and disruption, especially in the defeated countries. There is love and hope too though.

Over and over again the theme recurs about how "upper class" men were automatically given leadership in the army, with sometimes not so spectacular results. One can see how World War I was the catalyst for the end of some of the European autocracies.

It's the first of a trilogy; I intend to read the others, whenever they come out some years down the road.

Another potboiler!

Just finished The Red Queen by Philippa Gregory. Yes, I know she plays fast and loose with the facts sometimes - even she admits that a lot of her books are "what if?" scenarios - and she paints a very bleak picture of how greedy and ambitious humans can be. But you can't deny her books are entertaining, and I had this one on reserve at my library as soon as I heard it was coming out!

Any student of the Tudor period knows the bare facts of how Henry VII, the founder of the dynasty, came to be. His father was Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond, son of Katherine of Valois (widow of Henry V) by her second union with Welsh nobleman Owen Tudor, and thus half-brother of Henry VI, although with no claim to the throne. His mother was Margaret Beaufort, a great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt by his last marriage to Katherine Swynford, whose descendants were legitimized by special decree, but barred from inheriting the throne since John and Katherine's children were born before they were married. So she was fairly closely related to the king, but theoretically had no claim to the throne either.

But the bare facts aren't always the most interesting ones. Marriages were made for dynastic reasons back then; obviously it was thought Edmund and Margaret would be a "good match" without any consideration given to their feelings about the matter, but that's how it was if you were royalty or nobility. In Gregory's book, the marriage between 25-year-old Edmund and 12-year-old Margaret is a grim, joyless affair. They have little in common, and the sex is a painful nightly duty to conceive an heir. I read another book about Margaret a few years ago, the name of which escapes me, which has them fall madly in love with each other and Margaret absolutely crushed when Edmund died a few months before their son was born.

History doesn't tell us how they felt about each other; I'd be willing to bet the truth is somewhere in between.

Anyway, their son Henry Tudor, who under any other circumstances would have been an obscure nobleman enjoying a close kinship to the king without any claim himself, became an important little boy as the Wars of the Roses dragged on and his distant cousins all killed each other. He ended up being the Lancastrian heir to the throne. It is known that his mother Margaret was remarried to a couple of Yorkist noblemen, but of course her efforts were all aimed at putting her son on the throne. We know that she had a secret correspondence with Elizabeth Woodville, the widow of Edward IV, about Henry marrying their daughter Elizabeth. Of course as we all know, this is eventually what happened, uniting the two lines of the rival descendants of Edward III and putting an end to the Wars of the Roses, other than a few fitful rebellions which were swiftly put down.

How far did Margaret go beyond that, though? Gregory has her ordering the deaths of the Princes of the Tower, although it appears someone else beat her to the punch... their fate is one of the great unsolved mysteries of history, and the debate rages on to this day over who was actually responsible, or even what actually happened. Although Margaret was definitely one of the people with the most to gain from their deaths, she was so devoutly religious that she had calluses on  her knees from kneeling and praying so much, so I really can't see her ordering the murder of two children... but of course I wasn't there so I can't say.

This is incredibly nerdy but one thing I find odd too is how Margaret supported the Lancastrian cause, yet if you look at genealogy she was actually more closely related to Edward IV than to Henry VI, although of course her first husband was his half-brother. People forget that Edward IV's maternal grandmother was also a Beaufort, a daughter of John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford. Edward IV was descended from three sons of Edward III, Henry VI and Margaret Beaufort from only one, as far as I can remember. Medieval royal and noble genealogy can be breathtakingly complicated and you can go blind studying all the intermingled lines, but that's just my observation.

Anyway, I enjoyed this book.

Metamorphosis 7

American Pastoral by Philip Roth is one of those books that has you on the edge of your seat wondering what is going to happen next, yet you are uneasy about what might happen.

The title refers to the American suburban dream... a wealthy family man who appears to have everything but whose life is shattered, first by the ugly side of the 1960s impacting his home, then by betrayals of others close to him. I better not say any more!

The characters are sympathetically drawn, yet we aren't allowed to be blind to their flaws. I enjoyed it and recommend it.