Rebeccanyc Reads in 2012, Part 4

Continuing in a new thread . . .

* means the book read was a favorite

Books Read in December
110. The Stammering Century by Gilbert Seldes*
109. The Round House by Louise Erdrich*
108. The Damned by J.-K. Huysmans
107. V Is for Vengeance by Sue Grafton
106. Jack Sheppard by William Harrison Ainsworth*
105. When I Whistle by Shūsaku Endō*
104. Scandal by Shūsaku Endō
103. Les Diaboliques by Barbey d'Aurevilly
102. The Birthday Boys by Beryl Bainbridge*

Books Read in November
101. In the House of the Interpreter by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o*
100. Dear Life by Alice Munro
99. Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-1956 by Anne Applebaum*
98. Happy Moscow by Andrey Platonov
97. Red Sorghum by Mo Yan*
96. An Awfully Big Adventure by Beryl Bainbridge*
95. Master Georgie by Beryl Bainbridge*
94. A Mixture of Frailties by Robertson Davies*
93. Leaven of Malice by Robertson Davies*
92. Tempest-Tost by Robertson Davies*

Books Read in October
91. The Turn of the Screw and The Aspern Papers by Henry James
90. The Story of America: Essays on Origins by Jill Lepore*
89. The Dream by Émile Zola
88. The Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishima
Vertical Motion by Can Xue --unfinished
87. The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander*
86. The Book of Not by Tsitsi Dangarembga
85. The Monk by Matthew Lewis*

Books Read in September
84. The Forgetting River: A Modern Tale of Survival, Identity and the Inquisition by Doreen Carvajal
83. Big Machine by Victor Lavalle*

Listed in previous thread
82. The Kill by Émile Zola*
81. Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution by Simon Schama*
80. Battleborn by Claire Vaye Watkins
79. The Old Man and the Medal by Ferdinand Oyono
78. Nervous Conditions by Tistsi Dangarembga*
77. Nana by Émile Zola*
76. Deep River by Shūsaku Endō
75. Vlad by Carlos Fuentes
74. The Devil in Silver by Victor LaValle*

These are the books I read from January through August (* means the book was a favorite)

Books Read in August
73. The Fortune of the Rougons by Émile Zola
72. L'Assomoir by Émile Zola*
71. Moving Parts by Magdalena Tulli*
70. The Blackbirder by Dorothy B. Hughes
69. The Colonel by Mahmoud Dowlatabadi*
68. Silence by Shūsaku Endō
67. In a Lonely Place by Dorothy Hughes*
66. Germinal by Émile Zola*
65. Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie*

Books Read in July
64. Globalectics: Theory and the Politics of Knowing by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
63. Phantoms on the Bookshelf by Jacques Bonnet
62. White Guard by Mikhail Bulgakov*
61. Ashes and Diamonds by Jerzy Andrzejewski*
60. Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West by Blaine Harden
59. Almost Transparent Blue by Ryū Murakami
58. The Expendable Man by Dorothy B. Hughes*
57. Distant View of a Minaret, and Other Stories by Alifah Rifaat
56. The Lyre of Orpheus by Robertson Davies*
55. What's Bred in the Bone by Robertson Davies*
54. The Rebel Angels by Robertson Davies*
53. Memoirs of a Revolutionary by Victor Serge*
52. The Age of Doubt by Andrea Camilleri

Books Read in June
51. Dreams and Stones by Magdalena Tulli
50. The Mansion of Happiness: A History of Life and Death by Jill Lepore*
49. The Potter's Field by Andrea Camilleri
48. The Dream of the Celt by Mario Vargas Llosa
47. The Track of Sand by Andrea Camilleri
46. The Wings of the Sphinx by Andrea Camilleri
45. The Box Man by Kōbō Abe
44. Children inf Reindeer Woods by Kristín Ómarsdóttir
43. August Heat by Andrea Camilleri
42. Paper Moon by Andrea Camilleri

Books Read in May
41. The Patience of the Spider by Andrea Camilleri
40. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov* (reread)
39. Rounding the Mark by Andrea Camilleri
38. The Smell of the Night by Andrea Camilleri
37. Excursion to Tindari by Andrea Camilleri
36. Voice of the Violin by Andrea Camilleri
35. Europe Central by William T. Vollman
34. The Snack Thief by Andrea Camilleri
33. The Terra-Cotta Dog by Andrea Camilleri
32. World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks
31. Day of the Oprichnik by Vladimir Sorokin
30. The Shape of Water by Andrea Camilleri

Read in April
29. How to Write a Sentence and How to Read One by Stanley Fish
28. Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil
27. Where China Meets India: Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia by Thant Myint-U
26. The Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abé

Read in March
25. Every Man for Himself by Beryl Bainbridge
24. The Jokers by Albert Cossery
23. The Sea and Poison by Shūsaku Endō
22. Binocular Vision: New and Selected Stories by Edith Pearlman*
21. The First Crusade: The Call from the East by Peter Frankopan
20. Sanshirō by Natsume Sōseki
19. The Emotional Life of Your Brain by Richard J. Davidson with Sharon Begley
18. The Ministry of Pain by Dubravka Ugrešić
17. Vesuvius by Gillian Darley

Read in February
16. Adventures of Mottel, the Cantor's Son by Sholem Aleichem
15. The Corner That Held Them by Sylvia Townsend Warner*
14. A Tomb for Boris Davidovich by Danilo Kiš
13. GB84 by David Peace*
12. The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
11. Kokoro by Natsume Sōseki*
10. Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff*

Read in January
9. The Letter Killers Club by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky
8. The Kingdom of This World by Alejo Carpentier*
7. An Ermine in Czernopol by Gregor von Rezzori*
6. This Body of Death by Elizabeth George
5. Armies of Heaven: The First Crusade and the Quest for Apocalypse by Jay Rubinstein
4. To the Finland Station by Edmund Wilson*
3. The Colors of Infamy by Albert Cossery*
2. The Murderess by Alexandros Papadiamantis
1. Proud Beggars by Albert Cossery*

Lisa had an interesting list of the books she'd read this year by ethnicity/country of the author, so I decided to try the same thing. As with her list, in some cases I just had to decide where to put the author.

Europe

Croatia
The Ministry of Pain by Dubravka Ugresic

England
Jack Sheppard by William Harrison Ainsworth
The Birthday Boys by Beryl Bainbridge
An Awfully Big Adventure by Beryl Bainbridge
Master Georgie by Beryl Bainbridge
Every Man for Himself by Beryl Bainbridge
The Corner That Held Them by Sylvia Townsend Warner
GB84 by David Peace
Vesuvius by Gillian Darley

France
The Damned by J.-K. Huysmans
Les Diaboliques by Barbey D'Aurevilly
The Dream by Émile Zola
The Kill by Émile Zola
Nana by Émile Zola
The Fortune of the Rougons by Émile Zola
L'Assommoir by Émile Zola
Germinal by Émile Zola
Phantoms on the Bookshelves by Jacques Bonnet

Greece
The Murderess by Alexandros Papadiamantis

Iceland
Children in Reindeer Woods by Kristin Omarsdottir

Italy
13 Inspector Montalbano mysteries by Andrea Camilleri

Poland
Ashes and Diamonds by Jerzy Andrzejewski
Dreams and Stones by Magdalena Tulli
Moving Parts by Magdalena Tulli

Russia
Happy Moscow by Andrey Platonov
White Guard by Mikhail Bulgakov
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (reread)
Memoirs of a Revolutionary by Victor Serge
Day of the Oprichnik by Vladimir Sorokin

Serbia
A Tomb for Boris Davidovich by Danilo Kis

Yiddish
The Adventures of Mottel, the Cantor's Son by Sholom Aleichem

South and Central America

Mexico
Vlad by Carlos Fuentes

Peru
The Dream of the Celt by Mario Vargas Llosa

Africa

Cameroon
The Old Man and the Medal by Ferdinand Oyono

Kenya
In the House of the Interpreter by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
Globalectics by Ngugi wa Thiong'o

Zimbabwe
The Book of Not by Tsitsi Dangarembga
Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga

Middle East

Egypt
Distant View of a Minaret by Alifa Rifaat
Proud Beggars by Albert Cossery
The Colors of Infamy by Albert Cossery
The Jokers by Albert Cossery

Iran
The Colonel by Mahmoud Dowlatabadi

Asia

Burma/Myanmar
Where China Meets India: Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia by Thant Myint-U

China
Red Sorghum by Mo Yan
Vertical Motion by Can Xue --unfinished

India
Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil

Japan
When I Whistle by Shūsaku Endō
Scandal by Shūsaku Endō
The Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishima
Deep River by Shusaku Endo
Silence by Shusaku Endo
Almost Transparent Blue by Ryu Murakami
The Box Man by Kobo Abe
Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe
The Sea and Poison by Shusaku Endo
Sanshiro by Natsume Soseki

North America

Canada
Dear Life by Alice Munro
The Salterton Trilogy by Robertson Davies
The Cornish Trilogy by Robertson Davies

USA
The Round House by Louise Erdrich
V Is for Vengeance by Sue Grafton
The Turn of the Screw and The Aspern Papers by Henry James
Big Machine by Victor Lavalle
Battleborn by Claire Vaye Watkins
The Devil in Silver by Victor LaValle
The Blackbirder by Dorothy B. Hughes
The Expendable Man by Dorothy B. Hughes
In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes
Europe Central by William T. Vollman
World War Z by Max Brooks
Binocular Vision by Edith Pearlman
The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
and 13 works of nonfiction

83. Big Machine by Victor LaValle



Although it started slowly for me, I was quickly drawn into this tale of Ricky Rice, a 40-ish African-American and a former petty criminal and heroin addict (who still keeps a stash, just in case) who receives a mysterious envelope at his place of employment (a bus station in Utica, NY, where he cleans toilets) with a bus ticket to a remote region of Vermont. He debates whether to go, but finds himself on the bus and, ultimately, at the equally mysterious Washburn Library, where he and his fellow Unlikely Scholars (all from similar backgrounds) are expected to read newspapers looking for interesting items, although they are not told what these interesting items are. The story of how they try to figure it out, work together or apart, adjust to being treated with respect and having the necessities of life provided for them, as well as life in the middle of nowhere, etc., is compelling, and the reader starts to learn about Ricky's background as part of a cult, and more. LaValle has insight into and compassion for the dispossessed, the outcasts of society, the people we don't look at when we see them on the street, and there were many sentences I read that made me sit up and say "wow." He can make sharp and pointed comments on race, class, and the lives of the poor and struggling.

When Ricky and another Unlikely Scholar, Adele, are sent on a mission to California to deal with a rogue Unlikely Scholar who could cause trouble for the library, the story takes a turn to the supernatural and, ultimately, the melodramatic, and I had more trouble dealing with this section, although I still admired LaValle's writing. Because I don't read horror or science fiction, I could only understand the "devils" and "angels" as psychological metaphors rather than real beings; perhaps this is how LaValle intends them, as he I believe he intended the monster/devil in The Devil in Silver, but they certainly had "real" effects on Ricky. I am unsure how I feel about this material.

The novel deals with big ideas, especially about faith and doubt, and how God does or doesn't talk to individuals. "Doubt is the big machine. It grinds up the delusions of women and men." Of course the cult Ricky grew up in came to a bad end. (I was going to write "Don't all cults come to a bad end?," but then I realized that the ones that don't become "religions.") The reader learns about the horror of it as Ricky is struggling to understand what is going on out in California, in the marshes under the town of Garland, somewhere on the San Francisco Bay, and what the rogue Scholar, Solomon Clay, is up to. When Ricky and Adele venture into this underworld, it is truly creepy.

I can't really describe this novel more concretely without giving too much away. There are mysteries of the present, and mysteries of the past, and mysteries that are left unsolved that are, probably, unsolvable. I continue to think Victor Lavalle is a very impressive writer, even as I struggled with the supernatural parts of this book.

Fabulous review of Big Machine, Rebecca! I had meant to read it this year, so I'll see if I can get to it in November or December.

I'm intrigued -- but probably won't get to it any time soon. Thanks for the review.

Thanks, Darryl. I never would have known about Victor Lavalle if you hadn't read The Devil in Silver, and reading that led me to Big Machine. I would be interested to know what people who read more horror and science fiction think about it. And thanks, Jane, too.

Interesting review of Big Machine rebecca, sounds like there is some originality in this novel. Good stuff

Wait, who is this Victor Lavelle again? Again, another greet review of something I wasn't even aware of.

Great review, Rebecca. So now I have both The Devil in Silver and Big Machine to watch for.

Victor LaValle (have to correct spelling of his name, above) is a young African-American writer who lives in NYC. I first learned of him when Darryl (kidzdoc) reviewed The Devil in Silver, his most recent novel, and I was so impressed by it I looked for other books by him. I do have mixed feelings about Big Machine, but that's because of my own reluctance to accept the supernatural aspects of it. He is a terrific writer.

84. The Forgetting River: A Modern Tale of Survival, Identity, and the Inquisition by Doreen Carvajal



Well, this was a disappointing read on a variety of levels, and I confess I only skimmed it. I have long been interested in the so-called "crypto-Jews," people in the US southwest, and also elsewhere, who have been raised as Catholics but who have "family traditions" that are Jewish customs; these are people descended from conversos, Jews who ostensibly converted to Catholicism because of the Spanish Inquisition and its aftermath but who secretly retained their Jewish faith. In this book, Carvajal, whose family came to the US from Costa Rica, comes to believe her family has converso, and therefore Jewish, roots, and tries to explore this and find out if it's true.

Alas, the book is mostly the story of her thoughts and the people she talks to as she moves her family from France to a little town in Andalusia. Every now and then, she discusses conversos, the history of the Inquisition, symbolism in art, and genetic testing to determine family origins -- but when she does, I wish she cited sources. She is a journalist by profession, and writes in a breezy style, but there are places where the information is crying out for footnotes or endnotes so the reader can have a sense of where it comes from. And, although this book is partly about Carvajal, the reader, or this one anyway, doesn't get a real sense of her, or of the people she describes. Additonally, it definitely could have used an editor -- Carvajal repeats the same information in different parts of the book in several places..

So, this book, partly the story of her exploration, partly a portrait of a little Spanish town, partly a little bit of history, didn't work for me.

#11 Oye, plus my calling your review "greet"! I'm typo crazy with the I-pad, apologies.

Too bad about The Forgetting River.

Yes, too bad about the Forgetting River since I received it as an ER book and intend to read it this month. Maybe having low expectations will help!

I do like supernatural elements, and Big Machine sounds up my alley. It's now on my wishlist (where The Devil in Silver already resides).

A very good review of The Forgetting River. I have the same reaction when reading history written by journalists: wondering what the sources are and whether the author is presenting a well-considered account or just selected anecdotes.

Thanks, everyone. At least I was able to skim The Forgetting River, and readers who come to it with different interests/expectations might enjoy it more than I did. And Steven, the book was largely a series of anecdotes, but with the more factual material mixed in, and that's where I would have liked sources.

#15 I would like to appreciate supernatural elements more, so I'll be interested in your review when you read Big Machine.

85. The Monk by Matthew Lewis



From the earthly (bandit-infested forests, scheming stepmothers and convent prioresses, and gossiping city dwellers) to the subterranean (crypts and passageways underneath a convent) to the supernatural (ghosts, including a Bleeding Nun, the devil's minions, and witchcraft), Lews tells a hard-to-put down tale of love lost and found, skullduggery of various sorts, and especially the downfall of a seemingly virtuous monk. Ambrosio is that monk, at the start the star of Madrid, renowned for his once-a-week sermons, attended by all of Madrid, his good looks, and his apparently total virtue. Needless to say (in a book noteworthy of its anti-Catholicism and anti-cloistering attitude), he is virtuous only because he has never been tempted, and once tempted he succumbs (not without inner turmoil) to increasingly venal sins before meeting his inevitable fate.

Beyond the story of Ambrosio, the novel involves a woman cloistered against her will who is the sister of one of the protagonists and the love of another, both young cavaliers; a beautiful and innocent young woman who the other protagonist falls in love with and who Ambrosio comes to lust after, along with her rightfully suspicious mother; and various other relatives, hangers-on, and minor characters. All of these plot lines, plus a back story involving the aforementioned bandits and the Bleeding Nun ghost, are intertwined and come together dramatically, if not entirely happily, at the end.

Throughout the novel, Lewis includes chapter epigraphs that speak to the theme of the chapter (something I would not have known without the helpful notes in my edition) and a variety of poems and songs that advance the plot in various ways. He was only 19 when he wrote this book, and I'm impressed by how complex narratively and psychologically it is (although not, perhaps, particularly insightful for many of the female characters). When I reached the end, I realized how much of what happened later had been prefigured earlier in the novel, although the reader couldn't yet understand the connection. (I do have to say I saw one end-of-book revelation coming from the very beginning.)

The book and Lewis were vilified for its supposed obscenity as well as for the scandalous behavior of priests and nuns; nonetheless, or more likely because of this, it was very popular when first published in 1794. Although the language is dated, and the concept of cloistered orders dramatically less significant in today's world, the novel is a fast-paced read and shocking, although terrifically entertaining, even now. Some of it even seems strikingly modern, or perhaps human nature doesn't change much, as when one of the young cavaliers tells his teenage page, who is attempting to write verse:

A bad composition carries with it its own punishment -- contempt and ridicule. A good one excites envy, and entails upon its author a thousand mortifications: he finds himself assailed by partial and ill-humored criticism: one man finds fault with the plan, another with the style, and a third with the precept which it strives to inculcate; and they who cannot succeed in finding fault with the book, employ themselves in stigmatizing the author. (pp. 172-173)

Interestingly, even though I found it hard to understand the supernatural in a contemporary story (see Big Machine, above), it seemed perfectly reasonable in this 18th century tale, something I'll have to think about more.

The Monk is one of my favorites and a real eye-opener when it comes to the sexual candor of pre-Victorian literature. I may be re-reading it next year, and I'll keep your comments about prefiguring in mind.

Glad you enjoyed it. I think this is one of the best novels I have read this year.

I wonder if the difficulty with the contemporary supernatural, which I also have, is that we expect a certain level of knowledge about science and technology, which would we feel should explain the supernatural to the characters involved, but we have no such expectations of earlier writers and readers. I think we may also have lost the ability to suspend scepticism and so are unable to get carried away in contemporary supernatural. I had never thought about this before: interesting question.

Thanks, Steven and Sassy. It was a lot of fun. Your thoughts are interesting, Sassy and somewhat in line with what I was thinking, but I'll have to respond more later because I'm packing for a quick trip to Boston and will only be on my iphone until Monday.

I love train trips because they provide so much time for reading. I'm bringing The Book of Not, which I'm already reading and which is a sequel to Nervous Conditions, which was one of my favorite books of the year so far. I'm also bringing The New Jim Crow, which I've been meaning to read forever, a Zola (of course) -- The Belly of Paris, Jack Sheppard by William Harrison Ainsworth, recommended here on LT, in case I want another rollicking read, and Vertical Motion by Can Xue, also on the TBR for a while, in case I want to concentrate. I also hope to buy some books while I'm there, of course.

Fabulous review of The Monk, Rebecca; that definitely goes on the wish list.

Have a great time to Boston! I also love long train rides, and I'm tempted to take a long trip in the near future, either in the US or Europe.

Fascinating review of The Monk, Mathew Lewis rebecca.

I never really considered reading The Monk, but it is definitely now on my list of one of those books I should have read and should read (when I retire).

Bought some interesting books today at two stores in Cambridge -- Harvard Bookstore and the Harvard Coop. But it's too irritating to do touchstones on my iPhone so I'll wait until I'm back on my computer to post them. I concentrated on books I haven't seen in the NYC bookstores I frequent.

>18 rebeccanyc: - A very good review of The Monk. I have to admit, I didn't like it though it was pretty addictive and it was interesting to read all the Gothic side stories. I think the anti-Catholicism and misogyny bothered me too much.

Also, I just finished Jacques Cazotte's The Devil in Love and it mentioned in the intro that his book influenced The Monk as well as E.T.A. Hoffmann, Theophile Gautier and Gerard de Nerval.

>25 rebeccanyc: - Wondering what your purchases are.

I'm not much into Gothic stories but The Monk sounds like such a fun read, this one I'm not going to pass up. Pity about The Forgetting River --- a good book on it is still to be written, I think. Here in Portugal, the interest on this subject has only very recently resurfaced. In the last couple of years, I have visited small towns along the border with Spain where most of the Jews who escaped the Inquisition in Spain moved. Those who didn't go to Palestine or elsewhere became crypto-Jews, but interestingly the rabid persecution of the Jews only really took place in the big ecclesiastical cities like Lisbon and Evora, and the crypto-Jews in the central part of the country continued to live reasonably quietly. A few museums in these towns have recently opened in what used to be their synagogue, and continuing excavation turn up very interesting objects that point to Jewish practices and tradition. Just in August, we went to one of these towns, called Castelo de Vide and found out that there is a growing interest among families to trace their Jewish ancestry, and becoming practicing Jews. It is a trend that is also being observed elsewhere in the country where the Jews where believed to have settled many centuries ago. I have tried to find something written about their experiences here, at least for the lay reader, but what few books and journals (in Portuguese) I have seen so far are meant for the academic, and dwell more on documenting genealogical aspects. I look forward to their story being told, in a more complete way, but as all this is very recent, it may take some time.

#26, DieF I have to say the anti-Catholicism didn't bother me because I interpreted it more as general anti-cloistering and I took this as sort of the premise of the novel. I also didn't take the novel as completely representing reality. It was certainly misogynistic in some respects but again that didn't bother me because it seemed consistent with general attitudes of the time. But most of all none of this bothered me because it was such a fun read.

Info on purchases coming when I get back to my home computer.

#27 deebee, That's very interesting about the crypto-Jews in the Portuguese countryside; I haven't seen much about Portugal at all. And interesting about museums opening up in former synagogues. I remember seeing a former synagogue in Cordoba, Spain, that had been used both as a church and as a stable for military horses!

Full of envy about your Cambridge trip and waiting for the list.

Coming very soon, Sassy . . . I'm going to add them to my library first.

But first, ****BOOK GIVEAWAY****

I inadvertently bought an extra copy of Zola's La Bête Humaine in an Oxford World Classics edition, because I already had it as The Beast Within in a Penguin edition. I tried to return it to Amazon, but they told me that because I was a "loyal customer" I could keep it AND they would credit me. Cynic that I am, I think it's because the price was so low it would cost them to process the return than it's worth to them. So, I have this extra copy and I would be happy to send it to the first person who asks for it by posting on my profile page.

As promised, my Cambridge book-buying extravaganza! I restricted myself to buying books I haven't seen in the New York City bookstores I frequent.

From the Harvard Bookstore
The House Enters the Street by Gretchen E. Henderson
Reticence by Jean-Philippe Toussaint
When I Whistle by Shusaku Endo
War & War by László Krasznahorkai
The Name of the World by Denis Johnson

From the Harvard Coop
The Opportune Moment, 1855 by Patrik Ouředník
Les Diaboliques by Barbey d'Aurevilly
A Loeb Classical Library Reader
Xala by Sembène Ousmane

And, waiting for me on my return:

The Empty Book by Josefina Vicens, from an ABE Books seller, ordered based on Steven's review
In Russian and French Prisons by Peter Kropotkin, from the Book Depository, based on SassyLassy mentioning it
The Story of America: Essays on Origins by Jill Lepore, from Amazon, because I hadn't seen it in a bookstore, and then of course I saw it in both Cambridge bookstores
Pot Luck by Émile Zola, from Amazon

Now if only I had more time to read!

86. The Book of Not by Tsitsi Dangarembga



Written nearly 20 years later, The Book of Not continues the story of Tambudzai, known as Tambu, begun in Nervous Conditions, one of my favorite reads this year. Not only has Tambu enrolled at the prestigious and highly selective Young Ladies College of the Sacred Heart (a high school), which deigns to admit a government-regulated number of African, i.e., black, students (six in all), but war is raging between the white "Rhodesians" led by Ian Smith, who unilaterally declared independence from Britain, and the black "Zimbabweans" who resist minority white rule. Tambu's desire to excel at school so that the future is open to her intersects with her psychological struggles with the "rules" of a racist society, as she lives with white people for the first time, with her relationship to her family in her home village, and with her complex and unresolved feelings about the war, which has dealt violently with two members of her family.

The racism of the school is palpable in this book; the reader feels Tambu's tension, anxiety, and repressed anger, and the claustrophobia of the situation in which she finds herself. The black students have their own room, of course, crowded because six girls from all grades are crammed into a room designed for four, but also this is the only room that has its own bathroom, one of the very few the black students are allowed to use. When Tambu and the other students line up, she must make complex mental calculations about how close she can stand next to the white girl in front of her so the girl won't either step forward to avoid touching Tambu's black skin or accidentally step backwards and bump into her by mistake. In a fraught scene, one of the white students has some powdered chocolate which one of Tambu's black classmates wants to put in her milk: will she touch the jar, which would then render the chocolate unusable by anyone else, or will the white girl put the jar away? Later in the book, there is a stunning example of how the school's administration can avoid doing the right thing for a black student without mentioning race at all, but I don't want to spoil the suspense by describing it here. There is overt racism as well; for example, one white girl talks about "them," meaning the black girls, while they are all sitting at the same table. Cultural conflicts occur too: white people want you to look them in the eye when you talk to them, but looking down when talking to someone is a sign of respect in Tambu's culture.

And there is a war going on. Even as Tambu focuses on becoming the best student in her grade, and eventually on getting the best score in the school on the empire-wide O-level tests, even as she lovingly describes the building and grounds of the school as a haven, she is tormented by her memories of a horrifying event affecting her family and by her confusion about her feelings about her mother. Even as her uncle, who runs a mission school and who has taken charge of her education, is violently taken to task by the so-called "elder brothers" (the guerrilla fighters) for his "collaboration" with the whites, he toys with the curfew established by the Rhodesian army and risks arrest or worse by playing the "free Zimbabwe" radio station at night. And the black servers at the convent school slam down the plates in front of the black students.

Much of the novel involves Tambu's interactions with her black schoolmates, and a few of the white ones, and with some of the nuns who teach at the school. She has a highly competitive relationship with one of the other black students, Ntombi, and she and the other black students, with their own feelings about the war and the "elder brothers," are concerned about some of Tambu's activities.

At the end of the book, Tambu is working in an office in a free Zimbabwe, but even there, and in the boarding house where she lives, racism persists. For me, this was the weakest part of the book, and almost seemed tacked on. This novel is not as complex, in some ways, as Nervous Conditions, and I missed the characters from Tambu's home village, but all in all it is a very powerful book, illuminating the psychological trauma of racism and colonialism.

An interesting list of books, Rebecca. But if you could not find them in NYC, there is little to no chance I will find them in Albany, and only a few have Kindle editions. Sigh...

Linda, they may well be in bookstores in New York; I just hadn't seen them in my regular browsing in my two favorite bookstores. I wasn't specifically looking for any of these titles (except When I Whistle; they just looked intriguing.

87. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander



There have been several excellent reviews of this book, but it is so chilling, so shocking, so important that I feel compelled to add my own. In a well researched, clearly written, step-by-step progression, Michelle Alexander shows that the number of people in US prisons has grown from around 300,000 in around 1980 to more than two million today, with some three-fourths of all those incarcerated for drug offenses being black or Latino, thanks to the impact of the "War on Drugs" and associated legal policies, all of which are "colorblind" and never mention race (and despite the fact that blacks and whites use and sell drugs at the same rate, at that therefore the vast majority of drug dealers and users are white). Further, because people leaving prison enter the parole and probation phases of the penal system, and are stigmatized as felons, they lose access to many of the necessities of life: jobs, government-funded housing, government aid, etc., not to mention the right to vote. Hence, Alexander explains, the drug war has initiated the new Jim Crow.

There are so many horrifying facts in this book that it is difficult to pick and choose what to include here. Alexander first reviews the history of slavery and Jim Crow as techniques for denying African-Americans the rights that white US citizens have. She then goes into detail about the origins of the drug war, announced by President Reagan at a time when drug use in the US was actually going down and when less than 2 percent of Americans thought drug use was an important issue. Alexander notes, "By waging a war on drug users and dealers, Reagan made good on his promise to crack down on the racially defined "others" -- the undeserving." Essentially, making the drug war a federal issue enabled Reagan to get around the fact that most law enforcement is almost entirely based at the state and local levels. Budgets for federal law enforcement agencies exploded, the media exploited the use of crack (thought of as a "black" drug), the federal government provided military equipment to local law enforcement and allowed local law enforcement agencies to keep property forfeited by drug dealers, and the courts (including the Supreme Court) rendered decisions that made it possible for the police to obtain "consent" to search people more or less at will and to have "probable cause" to search almost anybody. Further, the volume of drug arrests became so high that many people had no legal representation and were encouraged/pressured to plead guilty to lesser charges, charges that nonetheless made them end up in prison and be labeled as felons when they were released. It is important to note that most of the people arrested (four out of five in 2005, for example) were arrested for possession, not for dealing (and most of the dealers were people dealing a little to friends), so that the war on drugs is failing to arrest the high-level traffickers.

Alexander then goes on to describe how a "color-blind" program can end up almost completely incarcerating black people, especially when study after study shows that while "people of all races use and sell illegal drugs at remarkably similar rates . . . whites, particularly white youth, are more likely to engage in illegal drug dealing than people of color." For example, one study showed that "white students use cocaine at seven times the rate of black students, use crack cocaine at eight times the rate of black students, and use heroin at seven times the rate of black students." Further, "white youth have about three times the number of drug-related emergency room visits as have their African-American counterparts."

Alexander attributes the vast discrepancy in incarceration to discretion. As drug use and dealing are both "ubiquitous" and "consensual," unlike crimes such as murder, robbery, and rape, police have to look for them and also have to decide where to look. She says that once politicians and the media defined drug use as a black problem (see the discussion of crack use), conscious and unconscious bias led the police to focus on poor black communities. In what for me was the most shocking part of this book, Alexander describes a series of Supreme Court cases that systematically allowed police officers broad discretion in investigating people for drug crimes, eliminated the use of statistical evidence to challenge racial bias in sentencing, denied defense counsel the ability to obtain information relating to racial bias through the discovery process, upheld the use of ridiculous "non-racial" reasons for striking black jurors from juries, allowed police to use race as one factor in stopping someone if it isn't the only factor, and denied citizens and civil rights and other groups the right to challenge racial bias in court. As Alexander says, "The Supreme Court has now closed the courthouse doors to claims of racial bias at every stage of the criminal justice process, from stops and searches to plea bargaining and sentencing. The system of mass incarceration is now, for all practical purposes, thoroughly immunized from claims of racial bias."

Alexander further discusses the impact of the "felon" label on people released from prison, and how it effectively denies them the ability to earn a living, support their families, find affordable housing, and vote, and she discusses the parallels and differences between the system of mass incarceration and the Jim Crow system. While slavery exploited black people, and Jim Crow subordinated them, she says, mass incarceration marginalizes them. Finally, she discusses some ways we could try to get out of this system, pervasive as it is. She writes:

." . . we need to talk about race openly and honestly. We must stop debating crime policy as though it were purely about crime. People must come to understand the racial history and origins of mass incarceration -- the many ways our conscious and unconscious biases have distorted our judgments over the years about what is fair, appropriate, and constructive when responding to drug use and drug crime. We must come to see, too, how our economic insecurities and racial resentments have been exploited or political gain, and how this manipulation has caused suffering for people of all colors. Finally, we must admit, out loud, that it was because of race that we didn't' care much about what happened to "those people" and imagined the worst things possible about them. The fact that our lack of care and concern may have been, at times, unintentional or unconscious does not mitigate our crime -- if we refuse, when given the chance, to make amends."

I must confess I am less optimistic about this than Alexander, although she is not terribly optimistic herself. The drug war has continued unabated since the time of Reagan, through both Republican and Democratic administration (both Clinton and now Obama have been enthusiasts for it), and there are now generations of poor African-Americans who have been subjected to the humiliation of searches, the horrors of prison, and the bleakness of life post-incarceration. I know that I'm a pessimist, but it's difficult to see what can be done. I am ashamed for my country.

Great review. Two million in prison--I simply can't picture it.

Wonderful review of The New Jim Crow, and I can't help but agree with your closing observations.

Thanks, Lola and Steven. Lola, there were a lot more depressing statistics, but that's the big one. The book is at home and not at hand right now, but there were some comparisons with other countries and it's not a pretty picture. Only a couple of dictatorships have a higher percentage of the population in prison. And of course the impact is multiplied because the prison experience and the felon label follow people even after they're released.

Rebecca -- these are horrifying statistics, but I'm afraid I share your pessimism about anything changing soon. A first step would a general pardon of anyone having had a conviction for drug possession with their records expunged and their rights totally restored, but can you imagine the uproar that such an idea would cause?

the problem is that the war on drugs - and now the war on terror- is a structural necessity for most Western economies, especially America, because it provides employment for hundreds of thousands of people employed in law enforcement, the judiciary, prison admin and all their associated industries: manufacturers of surveillance equipment, weapons, prison caterers, army logistics companies etc etc etc. without the war on drugs and terror, all these people would have nothing to do. The fact that the prison population is predominantly black is an added bonus for those who thought up the war on drugs. Of course it's racism, but I think the motivation for Reagan and his cronies was structural/economic rather than racist and it continues to be so, which is why relatively decent presidents like Clinton and OBama don't stop it.

after all, the greatest cause of crime is the law.

Great review.

Rebecca, great review of The Monk. Being always interested in religion, I think I'll pick it up.

Looking forward to your review of the Endo book you purchased.

Fantastic review of The New Jim Crow and I have to agree with your last paragraph. I'm hoping we'll pass the marijuana legalization that's on the ballot here but Alexander goes into reasons why something like that won't be much help. I think of the book whenever I read or see something semi-related - I think you mentioned the NY stop and frisk controversy earlier.

We've had a spate of gun violence incidents here, including one case where a man was shot and killed by a stray bullet when he was sitting in his car with his family. It sounded like some people had seen the shooter but no one came forward at first - I can see that that made some horrible sense after reading the book. If every interaction with the police is negative (and the SPD do have issues, there was an investigation recently and Alexander mentioned some studies in her book done in Seattle), of course people wouldn't want to voluntarily go to them.

Did you read an article in the New Yorker a couple months back about the unregulated use of drug informants? Another troubling system, but the article mentioned that the majority of such informants are Hispanic or African-American. However, the family being profiled was white, their daughter was killed in a drug deal setup gone awry. I didn't have a problem with the article focusing on them because it sounded like they were instrumental in lobbying for laws protecting drug informants in Florida, but it was notable to me that those people and the family who had similar restrictions passed in California were white.

#39 Jane Certainly legalizing marijuana (most of the possession arrests are for that) and possibly some other illegal drugs -- and expunging records for drug possession -- would be a start, and is one of the ideas Alexander mentions, but I can't begin to think that that would happen.

#40, Murr. That's a very astute point about the economic aspects of the "war on drugs" (I put it in quotes because it hasn't reduced drug use, nor is it necessarily intended to; one hopes the "war on terror" will reduce terror, but I have my doubts). However, I see the way the war is woven into the economic fabric more as a result, not a cause, and as one that will make it even more difficult to end the marginalization of African-Americans. For example, most of the prisons are in poor, white, rural areas, where they are the major source of employment. That, combined with the fact Alexander explores of politicians exploiting competition between poor white people and African-Americans (starting with the Republicans' Southern Strategy in the 70s) ensures that many of these rural white people also see black people as the "other." (Further, all the people in prison and most of those with felony convictions are removed from the job market, also affecting the economy.)

Alexander goes into a lot of detail, which I couldn't include in my review, about how the war on drugs emerged out of the Southern Strategy and other efforts as a way of reducing the political power of African-Americans, so I continue to believe that the racial/political agenda was a prime motivating force. Just as a side note, the production and use of meth is largely a rural white endeavor, and can be extremely destructive of homes, cars, and the roadside, not to mention people; however, we have yet to see a round-up of white meth producers or their exposure to the indignities poor urban black people are subjected to by the police. However, the economic aspects are certainly worthy of exploration in detail, but that's not what this book set out to do.

And as to "the greatest cause of crime is law," that relates to the point Alexander makes about the "ubiquity" and "consensual" nature of most drug "crime" -- that's what requires the police to selectively enforce it.

#41 Jonathan. Be forewarned that the more "religious" someone is in The Monk, the more hypocritical and sinful he ends up being. The Endo I bought, When I Whistle, is one that I was told is less about religion than Silence and Deep River and more "like" The Sea and Poison, which is my favorite Endo so far. (I'm reading them for the Author Theme Reads group focus on Japanese literature this year; Endo is the year-long author.)

#42. You're right, DieF. Reading the book has made me even more sensitized to related and semi-related issue. The NYPD's stop and frisk policy is ostensibly to find illegal guns, but an infinitesimally small number of guns have been found this way; a lot of people are then caught for possession, usually of marijuana, but many are just let go, after having clearly seen how the police treat young people of color. The interesting angle on marijuana possession is that possession of a small amount for personal use is not illegal in NYC, but displaying it in public is. So the police ask the young men to empty their pockets (and needless to say, most of them are too intimidated and too afraid of what the police might do to refuse) and once they do that, and the marijuana is in the open, they arrest them for possession. Lately there has been another controversy about young people of color being arrested for "trespassing" in public housing projects, when they are going there to visit friends or relatives or even live there. This is ostensibly to reduce drug dealing and gangs in housing projects, but even the Bronx district attorney has said he won't prosecute these "crimes" unless the police come in and back up the reasons for their arrests.

I did read the New Yorker article and it was chilling too. At the time I thought "how stupid can they be" to agree to be informants without the benefit of a lawyer, but having read this book, I now have added appreciation for how difficult it can be to resist the police.

On the subject of racial profiling, I recently heard, on WNYC, an NPR station, a discussion with film-makers associated with Ken Burns, who is making a film about the Central Park Jogger case. As some of you may know, back in the 80s a young white jogger was raped and brutally beaten in Central Park. Five black teenagers, now known as the Central Park Five, were arrested and, under police pressure, made false confessions, which the police knew were inconsistent with the crime; the teenagers later recanted their confessions. There was a lot of racial hysteria and the teenagers were all convicted and sent to jail. Years, and I think decades, later, a man in prison for rape and murder confessed to having raped the jogger; the DNA matched and his story was consistent with the details of the crime. Needless to say, the teenagers, now adults, are suing the city and the NYPD. The story was on WNYC because the city is trying to get outtakes from the film, and the film-makers are resisting. Here is a link to the show I heard.

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Well, I can't agree with that (and my guess is you don't completely, either).

Late in joining the discussion after reading your excellent review of The New Jim Crow

The "War on Terror" and The "War on Drugs" amount to the same thing. Great ways for politicians to make their friends and backers rich, while claiming the moral high ground. It is a win-win situation.

A great book about the futility and tragedy of the "drug war" is Murder City: Ciudad Juarez and the Global Economy's New Killing Fields by Charles Bowden.

Great reviews Rebecca, but I'm thoroughly depressed now.

...

Murr's post is was offensive and disturbing. But the naughty kitty has corrected this.

Thanks, Dan.

I think Murr's post speaks for itself.

apologies. offensive matter deleted. I put it down to too much Victor Serge.

There is no such thing as too much Victor Serge!

#50 - Appreciate your edit. Thanks.

Vertical Motion by Can Xue



I'm not giving this book of short stories a number, because I've given up on it about half way through. Without a doubt, Can Xue's stories are inventive and imaginative, but I just couldn't get a grip on the ones I read. They are surrealistic,symbolic, and disturbing; some are dreamlike and almost hallucinatory. Maybe I just didn't feel like putting the effort into trying to understand what she was trying to say, but I do think first a story has to intrigue me for me to do that and hers just didn't.

Fabulous reviews of The Book of Not and The New Jim Crow, Rebecca. The former goes on my wish list, and I will make room to read the latter no later than the first month of 2013.

I'm sorry to hear that Vertical Motion was such a disappointing read. I tried to read her earlier book Five Spice Street a couple of years ago, but I gave up after 50 pages or less. For some reason I bought Vertical Motion, but apparently that was a mistake.

They are surrealistic, symbolic, and disturbing...

Sounds more like my cup of tea, so I've just put this on my wishlist.

Darryl, I really urge you to read Nervous Conditions before you read The Book of Not. I ordered The Book of Not from the Book Depository because the price was better than Amazon, and I think I got Nervous Conditions from there too.

Steven, maybe you will like it better than I did.

Will do, Rebecca. I already have Nervous Conditions, so I'll definitely read it first.

Great review of The New Jim Crow. It's a topic I find fascinating.

I worked on a project in college called Million Dollar Blocks which was mapping incarceration statistics by home address (rather than scene of the crime which you usually see). It covered a lot of the same information y'all are discussing above, but one thing I was pretty blown away by is that these rural upstate prison towns get to count the population of the prison as part of their population for political representation.

I also read something similar that I got through ER - Texas Tough which dealt with the history of the prison system in Texas and particularly the prison work programs. It was very interesting as well.

these rural upstate prison towns get to count the population of the prison as part of their population for political representation

While those same prisoners have had their right to vote rescinded?! What monumental hypocrisy.

And simultaneously, the voting power of the urban areas they come from is reduced.

Excellent review of The New Jim Crow, Rebecca. Many years ago (25-30) I taught social welfare courses for a few years in two State correctional facilities - one medium and one maximum security - as an adjunct in a University Without Walls program. It was an eye opening experience. We were not told the nature of our students' crimes, but I always assumed that many of them were in some way drug-related. There was a huge preponderance of blacks and Latinos in my classes, most of whom were lacking the basic academic skills that you would expect from a high school graduate. But there were a few that were incredibly bright and dedicated to the program. Since they tended to be leaders, they were moved more frequently to other facilities, interrupting their degree progress - a tremendous waste of intelligence and potential.

Very interesting, Linda. I know someone who was involved in education programs for prisoners here in New York back in the 80s, and I believe a number of them have been cut quite severely. And of course they move the leaders around since they're not really interested in educating the prisoners; it's the same rationale as killing the leaders and intellectual leaders in wars.

I decided to take a look at what I read through the end of September, and here's what I found out.

I read a total of 84 books, of which 68 were fiction and 16 were nonfiction. Of the fiction, only 9 were relatively new (published initially within the past year or so). I read works by 22 authors who were new to me, and in some cases (especially Camilleri and Zola) read multiple works by them once I discovered them. Only 17 of these books were by women (partly because so many were by Camilleri and Zola). I've listed the countries of the authors in post 3, but I see I've read about 57 books by writers who aren't from the US, and that the authors come from 23 countries, mostly in Europe however. I read about 16 of these books because I read reviews or first heard about them here on LT. I'm not sure what all this says, but it was fun taking a look at it.

> 43

"Be forewarned that the more "religious" someone is in The Monk, the more hypocritical and sinful he ends up being."

Hey, it only started with Peter and all the other oafish disciples!

That's what I like about Endo - he explores the dark side of religion and the human frailties that can get wrapped up in it. I've read two of his books and intend to get to the Author Theme Reads group. However I'm the only one there who read A Life of Jesus; care to make me less the odd one out? :P

88. The Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishima



This book, which takes a real incident as its starting point, gave me the claustrophobic feeling of entering into the extremely disturbed mind of an extremely unstable young man, Mizoguchi, a student both in a Zen temple and in a Buddhist university who is obsessed by the beauty of the Golden Temple where he studies. On one level, the novel is the story of how he progressively becomes more disturbed, both more detached from reality and more willing to do things that are clearly wrong (and that on some level he knows are wrong -- in fact, sometimes he wants to do them just because they are wrong), until he commits a terrible deed because he believes it will release him from his obsession. (And, in fact, at the end, it seems to.)

And yet, I had a feeling there was a lot more going on in this book than I could grasp. There are beautiful descriptions of the natural world, and of Japanese and especially Zen traditions, but they are intercut with stark and still shocking scenes of violent behavior. The relationship of Mizoguchi to his mother (whom he detests) also seems important, but it wasn't completely clear to me how, as do his confused feelings about women and sexual relationships. He has a "good" friend and a "bad" friend, and yet things are not always what they seem to be. The bulk of the novel takes place just before and just after the end of the second world war, and the Japanese surrender, and this too seems to figure into the novel. In a sense, the Japanese surrender was an abrupt end to centuries of tradition, as is the destruction that results from Mizoguchi's final act, but that seems a little too obvious. I do think Mishima was aiming at more than the tale of a crazy young man but perhaps I am not sensitive enough to Japanese themes and ideas to understand all he was trying to do. I found the book cold and disturbing, and couldn't really get a handle on it.

Interesting review and an excellent explanation of how the book did not connect. I always find it difficult to write about a book that I didn't relate to, or even worse, felt I wasn't grasping. Although I haven't read this book, I have read others by Mishima. He does write beautifully, but like you, I find his work "cold and disturbing." I think there are books and writers that deserve being struggled through though and you did do that, although maybe this wasn't one that called for it.

I am currently reading Forbidden colours which is largely very easy to understand, but which also contains oddly dissonant tones, in the form of marring observations or disjointed points of view, that give the reader glimpses of a very alien way of thinking.

Sassy, I struggled with that too. I wanted to write something, but a lot of the book mystified me. I probably wouldn't even have finished it if I weren't reading it for the Author Theme Reads group, which is focusing on Japanese authors this year, with Mishima the fourth quarter author. In fact, I probably wouldn't have read any of the Japanese literature I've read this year if it hadn't been for that group, and it has opened my eyes to other authors in the past. Interestingly, I've found a lot of the Japanese writing I've read unsettling if not downright disturbing, and much of it hasn't wowed me; I have a feeling there's a lot of cultural information I'm not getting.

Interesting about Forbidden Colors, Edwin. I will probably try to read another Mishima towards the end of the year, although at the moment I feel like staying far far away from him!

I'm very happy that the Author Theme Reads group has gotten you to read so much Japanese writing. I'm sorry that what you've read however hasn't wowed you. I hope you remember though that I purposely chose authors that disturb and really pull at you. And on top of that, those who are not so easy to read! My reason for doing so was to show that Japanese literature is not just Haruki Marukami and then geisha and summer festivals. I wanted to show how dark it can get; authors that many would never hear about it. So I hope I haven't turned you off from Japanese literature! Perhaps I can find some authors that are more suitable to what you like?

Thank you, lilisin. I've enjoyed struggling with the books I've read. Until I read Shipwrecks by Akira Yoshimura towards the end of last year, because of an LT recommendation, I had never read any Japanese literature. I did enjoy it, although it too was disturbing, and I have another book by Yoshimura on my TBR. Never having read any other Japanese literature, I didn't have an impression of whether it was light or dark to begin with. And, as followers of my thread know, I often tend to read grim books although, because of Real Life over the past year or so, I've been reading more light, or at least easier to read, books than usual. Do you think it would be interesting for me to read some earlier Japanese literature, rather than the 20th and 21st century works.? Also, I really do feel I may not know enough about Japanese culture and tradition to grasp a lot of what's going on in some of the books I've read, especially the Mishima.

And by the way, the Author Theme Reads group also introduced me to Le Clezio and Saramago, both of whom I really enjoyed. So thanks!

Chiming in with that, lilisin. Author Theme Reads group has put Japanese authors on the map for me. I have enjoyed reading the reviews of several members there and have started buying, wishlisting and reading books. I will look forward to the program for the group in 2013. It is a pity the Monthly Author reads group has gone under.

I'm sorry you didn't enjoy The Temple of the Golden Pavillion, especially since I think I'm the one who recommended it to you. Obviously the cold and often disturbing tone of some Japanese fiction appeals more to me than you. But I think the novel's theme--the urge to destroy that which is beautiful, and even that which we love the most--is a phenomenon in many cultures.

My next favorite novel by Mishima is The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea, but I don't think you would like that one either. Probably his most welcoming novel is The Sound of Waves, but it's also his least Japanese. It's set in a Japan that has a decidedly Mediterranean feel and is based on Mishima's reading of Greek mythology.

I will echo what you and Edwin said about the value of the Author Theme Reads group this year. I didn't think I had read all that many Japanese novels until I looked back and saw that the count was 18, and the year's not over yet.

The Monthly Author Reads group was already pretty stagnant when I discovered it; otherwise I would have joined in. I'd be willing to help try to revive it if others are interested and if it wouldn't take away too much from other groups.

It's interesting, Steven, because I think it's the cold tone that I find more challenging than the disturbing nature of the novels. It interferes with my ability to connect with the book and the characters. I did see the urge to destroy beauty and what we love as one of the themes of the book, but the character of Mizoguchi is so disturbed that it was difficult for me to extrapolate from his behavior to the rest of us. Unless, of course, we are all disturbed!

I am not opposed to reading books I "don't like" or find challenging; I just need to mix them up with books I find more compelling.

Two hour+ train rides tomorrow = two+ hours of reading time! Almost makes leaving the apartment at 6:30 AM and not getting back until after 7:30 PM worth it! With luck, I'll finish the two books I'm reading, Zola's La Reve (won't touchstone as "The Dream") and The Story of America: Essays on Origins by one of my favorite writers, Jill Lepore.

Enjoying reading the discussion on Japanese literature. My book club has chosen Norwegian Wood by Murakami, but I believe that is pretty tame stuff after what you have been reading Rebecca

Great review of The Temple of the Golden Pavilion. Your struggle with it somehow makes is more intriguing. Also, enjoyed the discussion here, afterward, on Japanese lit. Enjoy your train ride today.

One of my all time favourites, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, it definitely improves on a second or third reading, and some knowledge of Buddhism helps. It's very largely a critique of what Mishima saw as the life-weariness of Buddhism, its propensity to dismiss as irrelevent human passions and hatreds, which Mishima tried to always embrace. Mizoguchi represents a perversion of Buddhism. The coldness is deliberate: he feels nothing, which is in a way the Buddhist ideal. Also, it helps to think of Mishima as a kind of Japanese Genet.

I visited the temple of the Golden Pavilion in Kyoto this Feb -obviously a reconstruction, but it is nonetheless a magical building.

Rebeccaa, you might like After the Banquet, one of Mishima's more accessible novels.

#76 Thanks, Dan.

#77 I definitely felt I was missing a lot when I read it, and your comment, Murr, confirms that. And I'll take a look at After the Banquet as I feel I should read more Mishima for the Author Theme Reads group. Thanks. And cool to have seen the reconstructed Golden Pavilion!

Well, the best laid plans . . . I did have a lovely train ride to my series of meetings and read and looked out the window, but one of the people I was meeting with offered to drive me back to the city, telling me the train took too long. After I refused politely several times, I had to let him. Of course it was was rush hour and there was terrible traffic, and finally he decided to drop me off at a bus stop, and then there was more terrible traffic and I can't read in buses. So the whole trip back took 2 1/2 hours (from probably 40 miles from the city!!!), when on the train and subway I could have been home in 1 1/2 hours and had a chance to read. Oh well.

89. La Reve by Émile Zola (actual title of my edition is The Dream but it doesn't touchstone



Unlike the other works of Zola's I've read so far, this one doesn't concentrate on broad social issues, but is centered on one girl and her struggles with love and religion. I read it because it was the next in Zola's recommended order of reading the Rougon-Macquart cycle; the girl, Angelique, is the abandoned, illegitimate daughter of Sidonie, the sister of Saccard in The Kill. And although the novel, like the rest of the cycle, takes place during the mid-19th century Second Empire, the tale harks back much more to medieval times and medieval ways of thinking.

Angelique is discovered, starving and faint, huddling in the doorway of St. Agnes, the cathedral in the town of Beaumont, by the Huberts, a childless couple who live in an ancient house built against the wall of the cathedral. The most recent in a family of embroiderers of church vestments, the Huberts take Angelique in as an apprentice. As she grows up, reading legends of virgin saints and martyrs, she develops a dream that a prince will marry her and take her away. When a handsome young man, who is not who he seems to be, appears in her life, she believes her dream is coming true. I don't want to give too much away but, needless to say, obstacles arise.

Aside from the plot, much of the novel is taken up with the details of hand embroidery (superseded in large part by mechanical methods at the time of the story), church architecture (also medieval), and the lives of female saints. (The edition I read, unlike the Penguin and Oxford World Classics editions of other book by Zola I've read, did not have notes, and I would have dearly loved them to help me understand terms of architecture, embroidery, and heraldry, as well as the lives of the saints.) Recurring themes include death, martyrdom, virginity as well as the inability to bear children, the contrast between the rituals and indeed luxury of the church and the poverty of the people who live in the old section of the town around the cathedral, and the difficulties of interaction among people of different classes.

With Zola's belief that families pass along behavioral traits genetically, the reader sees Angelique struggling with her "family" demons, struggling to give up her pride and stubbornness and submit to the rules of proper behavior, although one does not have to believe in the inheritance of acquired characteristics to believe that, after the traumas of her early life, Angelique would be angry and determined. As always, Zola is a great story teller who demonstrates his thorough investigations of the worlds he depicts (especially, in this case, the techniques and materials of hand embroidery), and who can create great set pieces as well as insights into human psychology. The characters of the Huberts, the young man, and his father, as well as Angelique, are fascinating, with those of the older people in particular rooted in tragedies of the past. Much of the drama in this book takes place internally, inside people's minds, inside the Huberts' house or the cathedral, rather than out in the world as in other Zola novels. This was an excellent book, and I enjoyed reading it, but I think I like the novels with greater social scope better.

Excellent review of La Reve Rebecca. I am following your Zola reading with much interest. I am very tempted to get started on the cycle myself, but think I must get a sneak preview with La Reve as I think I would really appreciate it.

Another excellent Zola review, Rebecca. I have only gotten as far as buying Germinal.

Germinal was the first I read too, Linda, and I think it is still my favorite. La Reve is very interesting, Barry, and I think you would appreciate it with your interest in medieval times. It can be quite intense in its own way, at times. Unfortunately, only some of the Rougon-Macquart cycle is available in recent English translation, and the older translations are notorious for their bowdlerizations. So I'm going to have to wait for some of them, as I know it would take a lot to make my French up to reading Zola in French (which maybe you will be able to do).

I watched the movie of Nana last night. While I recognize that film-makers have to pick part of such a complex novel to show on the screen, and while I don't necessarily disagree with the approach taken to do that in this movie, the ending was COMPLETELY changed and the overall feel was much more moralistic than Zola's in the book. It was made in the 1950s in France.

In enjoyed your review, and I'm looking forward to reading La Reve some time next year (not sure that I can relate to the details on embroidery, though). It does sound quite different from Zola's other work.

With yesterday's arrival of The Sin of Father Mouret I've completed my collection of the 14 Rougon-Macquart novels that have modern translations. I debated reading the Vizetelly translations of the other six for purposes of continuity, but I doubt that I will. Knowing that they are bowdlerized would detract too much.

Filmmakers certainly have a passion for changing the endings, even when they are otherwise true to the source. In most cases they are determined to have a happy ending, no matter how much it destroys the author's purpose.

I can't watch read any movies based off Dumas' works for that exact reason! Happy endings do not belong! Usually I'm good at separating the books from their movie counterparts but not when they have happy endings for the sake up happy endings. Unnecessary!

Well, it's not a happy ending because Nana still dies, but in a completely different way.

Great review and very interesting in the context of Zola about his focus on the more internal world as compared to the larger external world. Do you think the change from home workers in fields like embroidery to more tawdry mechanical methods in factories could be part of his social message? I will have to look for this book, but take your warning about your edition not having any notes to heart.

Have you seen the film version of Germinal with Gerard Depardieu?

Spielburg is responsible for all those happy endings.

Sassy, mechanical embroidery isn't really mentioned in the book, but I think Zola is making a point about the artistic nature of Angelique's work. I looked for a movie of Germinal on Netflix, but nothing came up. Will search again for Depardieu -- no luck there, either.

Barry, US movies in particular have had happy endings long before Spielberg.

I'm so glad you're enjoying Zola--I feel a sense of satisfaction in having recommended that you read him.

I'm now halfway through the cycle, though there are a few of the remaining ten that I have already read. I'm reading them in chronological order (as written) though, so I'm going to continue under that plan.

I haven't read La Reve yet, but I Am interested in the embroidery aspect as quite a bit of hand embroidery goes into my textile art--contemporary, not traditional embroidery, but I have an interest in traditional embroidery from a historical and cultural perspective.

Hope you are all hunkered down for Hurricane Sandy. My three sons in NY are freaking out. I tell them it's better than earthquakes, and anyway the two older ones went through the very heart of Hurricane Andrew in south Florida as children.

Yes, Deborah, it is thanks to your recommending Germinal to me that I started on my Zolathon. If you are reading all of the cycle, that means you must also be reading ones in much older translation. Are you finding them sufficiently different that you can tell if it's a modern or older translation.

The embroidery in La Reve will probably make more sense to you than to me!

As for Sandy, I just got back from stocking up on food. The likelihood of the power going out in the city is much less than in places with overhead lines, but since the city is almost certainly closing down subways, buses, and bridges this evening, all the stores will close so they can let their employees get home while there is still transportation. We also have plenty of water left over from Irene last year! I am freaking out a little too, but I've done everything I can do and now just have to wait until it's over. It is extremely humid out and there are occasional little (and I mean little) gusts of wind.

90. The Story of America: Essays on Origins by Jill Lepore



In this collection of essays, Jill Lepore, one of my favorite writers, tells not the story of America, but stories about the stories we tell about America. Ranging chronologically from "Here He Lyes" (in both senses of the word), which discusses Captain John Smith's mid-17th century chronicles of the failed Jamestown colony, to "Rap Sheet," which starts from a particularly gruesome 21st century family murder and then considers the shockingly high US murder rate, and "To Wit," which looks at inaugural addresses, Lepore also covers writers' impressions of the United States (e.g., Dickens and Poe), books and documents (e.g., the first Webster's dictionary, the I.O.U., the dime novel, and paper ballots), politicians and political writers (e.g., Thomas Paine, George Washington, and Andrew Jackson), people, books, and ideas that stirred the popular imagination (e.g., Uncle Tom's Cabin, Clarence Darrow, the story of Jefferson and Sally Hemings, and Charlie Chan), and more.

Lepore is a historian, and her intention in writing about these topics is to tease out ideas about how Americans think about themselves, including how they delude themselves (or how we delude ourselves). As she says in her introduction, "One way to read this book, then, is as a study of the American tall tale." She also says, about her motivation in writing these essays:

"I wrote them because I wanted to learn how to tell stories better. But mostly I wrote them because I wanted to try to explain how history works, and how it's different from politics.

History is the art of making an argument about the past by telling a story accountable to evidence. In the writing of history, a story without an argument fades into antiquarianism; an argument without a story risks pedantry. Writing history requires empathy, inquiry, and debate. It requires forswearing condescension, cant, and nostalgia. The past isn't quaint. Much of it, in fact, is bleak. Also, what people will tell you about the past is very often malarkey., p. 15

What I particularly like about Jill Lepore, in addition to her way with words and her sharp wit, is her eye for making connections that aren't immediately obvious and for finding subtle nuances in the stories she tells. The essay on Longfellow's "Midnight Ride of Paul Revere," for example, makes the point that Longfellow was writing as much about the abolitionist movement as about Revere's ride. And the essay on printed paper ballots, adopted in the late 19th century based on the Australian system, notes that while they cut down on corruption and violence at polling stations, they also enabled the literacy tests that were used to discriminate against poor African-American voters.

I certainly learned a lot from this book but, perhaps more importantly, reading Lepore is a delight.

The LibraryThing calculator says that I will love The Story of America with low certainty. I have put it on my waiting-for-the-paperback wishlist. But I note that it is published by Princeton who are sometimes lazy about ever getting out a paperback edition.

Thank you for the review.

Robert

91. The Turn of the Screw and The Aspern Papers by Henry James



It's been decades since I read any Henry James, and I was inspired to read these two novellas by a review here on LT and by the approach of Halloween. While I found them both though-provoking, I found them a little cold as well.

The Turn of the Screw, as is well known, tells the tale of a young, naive, parson's daughter who becomes the governess to the orphaned nephew and niece of a young rich man who wants nothing to do with the children and ships them off to his country home. The children seem unbelievably angelic to the governess, who has developed a crush, based on two meetings, with the uncle, but soon she starts seeing ghosts who, upon descriptions given to the housekeeper, turn out to be the ghosts of the previous governess and a male servant, both now, obviously, dead. The governess, who tells the tale in the first person (it is her written report on the events, which has fallen into the hands of a now elderly man who reads it at a gathering), believes the ghosts are set on harming the children.

Ah, but are there really ghosts? Or are they the figments of the governess's imagination? Can the children possibly be that angelic and, if so, why did the boy get expelled from his school? Or was he? We only have the governess's word for that. And if what seems to happen at the end really happens, how did the governess go on to find future employment? I did find this story thoroughly creepy, probably especially because it left so many questions unanswered, but I also found the portrait of the governess a little over-the-top unpleasant.

The Aspern Papers are the obsession of the narrator of the second novella; as a literary critic, he is a literary critic and devoted admirer of the long dead poet Jeffrey Aspern. Finding that his muse and possible lover, Juliana, is still alive, although aged and decrepit, and living with an elderly niece, Miss Tina, in an ancient Venice building, he schemes to become a lodger there under an assumed name, and even to try to gain the confidence of the niece (who is under the thumb of her aunt), so he can somehow acquire the papers. Everyone in this story comes off seeming exceedingly unpleasant, from the obsessed and unprincipled narrator to the vindictive and controlling Juliana to the terrified and naive Miss Tina. Of course, I wanted to find out what happened, but I can't say I enjoyed the story.

Based on the limited evidence of these two novellas, I have a distinct feeling that James did not particularly like women, but it's so long since I read anything else by him I could be completely wrong about this.

I think Turn of the screw is the only James I've read, and that a long time ago. At this remove I can't remember whether I thought, dreamt or read somewhere that (just as a possibility) the governess imagines most of the evil, in a sort of response to her own awakened sexuality.

From second-hand impression, that would strike me as a very Jamesian idea. I bought recently a collection of "supernatural" and ghost stories of his. I knew about one, previously, The jolly corner, wasn't quite aware that he had a fairly deep interest or experience in the style of the genre.

Lola, you hit the nail on the head. That is certainly one of the explanations for the governess's reactions that occurred to me, and that was confirmed as the "Wilsonian" explanation in the introduction, which I read afterwards, as was James's interest in "psychical" events, a phenomenon of the times (and now). The sexual implications are obvious, at least to a contemporary reader.

Interesting. You know what I'd like to know--did James in his head think in the same way that he wrote? With covert and layered meanings, in symbols and allusions? Virginia Woolf wrote something once that led me to imagine him as an old fuddy-duddy, genuinely priggish. (He was scandalised at the life Leslie Stephen's unmarried daughters led after his death. And someone else--Edmund White?--speculated that he died a virgin. One can't know, of course, but even that one can reasonably postulate such a thing points to something complicated, unusual, regarding sexuality. I know he's been called a homosexual, that's not necessarily the "complicating" factor.)

Incidentally, what is the meaning of the title? To me it evokes reaching a breaking point, the last turn of the screw that broke the camel's back, if I may mix metaphors, or maybe torture... something sadistic about it.

> 97 In the beginning of The Turn of the Screw, when the assembled company is discussing ghost stories and stories of supernatural happenings before the actual narration of the governess' story, the narrator, in referring to a story of a child seeing a ghost says "If the child gives the effect another turn of the screw, what do you say to twochildren-?" The narrator is in effect ratcheting up the tension by having two small children involved in his story, one upping the previous speaker.

On a lighter note and nothing James intended I'm sure, you could say that the governess has a screw loose and is unhinged.

ETA I enjoyed your review of The Story of America. I'll have to read it as I always enjoy commentary on America and finding a new author who does it well is always a delight.

Ah, thanks. What an odd idea; I think it would have fallen quite flat for me were I in that company. Although, I suppose with more than one kid it is easier to make it seem real? That not both the kids are lying or off their heads?

There's the symmetry of the couples too--boy and girl, Quint and whatsername, the governess and the uncle... maybe not aligning exactly that way either. I now recall that the relationship between Quint and the boy is read (in one interpretation at least) as homoerotic or some such.

I wonder if the uneasiness lying over the story isn't the uneasiness of a child trying to fathom the mysteries of the adult relationships around him, blindly surmising more than he can rationally comprehend, excited and confused? Are the kids wicked or is wickedness projected onto them as they mature sexually? We internalise so many taboos seemingly from nowhere.

you could say that the governess has a screw loose and is unhinged.

Ha, yes!

interesting conversation, and thanks, Sassy, for explaining the title. As I read it, Lola, the definite but completely unnamed implication was that Quint had been involved in something sexual with the boy and possibly that Miss Jessel, the former governess, had been involved in something sexual with the girl. There is also the mystery of how (and why) both of them died: Quint by supposedly falling and hitting his head after going out drinking (but, if an accident, what drove him to drinking so much?) and Miss Jessel completely mysteriously. Of course, coincidence is the genesis of conspiracy theories; they could just both have died.

One thing that particularly bothered me about the story was how the children could have been so happy (let alone angelic) after the tragedies they had already experienced of first their parents dying and then the grandparents who were taking care of them, and then of being taken in by the uncle who promptly dispatched them to the care of servants. How could they not be troubled, sad, resentful? As far as I can tell, this angle is completely unexplored by James.

I wouldn't say the kids are wicked, although as the completely unreliable narrator tells it they are at a minimum conniving and clever. I can well believe James was sexually repressed and confused; what's interesting is that I have come to believe it's the governess's sexual repression that is making her imagination go haywire. She doesn't know much more about sex than the children, but she is probably experiencing sexual feelings for the first time.

About Lepore, Sassy. I've been reading her in The New Yorker for some time. One of my favorites of hers is the brief and extremely readable The Whites of Their Eyes in which she skewers the Tea Party's obsession with "the founders" by quoting both contemporary Tea Partiers and 18th century writers, and in the process focuses on what history is and what it isn't.

My take on Turn of the Screw is that Jessel and Quint have been involved in a sexual relationship and use the children as surrogates. If you read it as a ghost story, they're inhabiting the children to continue their own relationship. If you read it as a psychological tale, the governess is so caught up in her own sexual repression that she projects Jessel and Quint upon the children with the twisted consequences. Two provocative films from the novel -- The Innocents with Deborah Kerr (it totally scared me when I was about 13) and a prequel, The Nightcomers with Marlon Brando (very kinky): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turn_of_the_Screw#Adaptations

Rebecca -- stay safe, warm, dry and well-lit.

Catching up here. A lot of good stuff. Hoping everything is okay and relatively dry over there.

Thanks for those movie suggestions, Jane. I'll look for them. And I have the feeling you can read the story both ways, although it seems in the governess's imagination the ghost of Quint is interested in the boy and the ghost of Jessel in the girl.

And thanks to both you and DieF for the good wishes. We look out at a park and the wind in the trees yesterday was quite terrifying, but it has died down and we are OK. I feel for all the people without power, and I'm concerned that it will take a long time to get the subway, which people rely on to get to work, back up and running because of the flooding in the tunnels. I can walk most of the places I need to go (well, it's a long walk to some of them, but I can do it), but for many the subway is the only way they can get to their jobs, and it will be bad for them and for the economy. I certainly hope this storm wakes people up to the reality of climate change and the need to do things to mitigate its impact.

104 - Glad to hear you're doing alright. We're off work because of the subway but things look ok where we're at.

Glad to hear that, Jane. I wasn't sure where you live.

I'm glad that you're doing okay, Rebecca.

Thanks, Darryl. We were very fortunate; a lot of people have serious problems with flooding and power outages, not to mention the debilitating effect on everything of not having subway and commuter train service.

Glad to hear that you're ok, Rebecca. I read The Turn of the Screw when I was too young to pick up on most of the subtext - though it was definitely disturbing on a level that most "ghost stories" weren't, even for a 10-year old.

Glad to hear that all is well with you. I can't quite imagine NYC with a non-functioning subway system. It's good that you're within walking distance of most of your needs.

Good to hear from you - the pictures and reports coming out of NY were pretty crazy.

Thank you for your good wishes, Dewald, Jane, and DieF. As one of my neighbors said last night, it's like we're living in a different country here on the upper west side compared to the areas not so far away that have been completely devastated. Aside from twigs, leaves, and a few branches on the streets, you would not know a hurricane came through; aside from stores that aren't open, some empty grocery shelves, no subway, and less traffic, you wouldn't know there was a disastrous aftermath to the storm. Of course we know it, but my point is we have a more or less functioning neighborhood and no meaningful damage, and yet we're so close to the millions who are suffering and the neighborhoods that have been devastated.

112 - we're on the UWS as well and it is very surreal.

As Brian Wiiliams said tonight on the news -- it's a tale of two cities. We lived on Riverside Drive between 105th and 106th -- high up above flooding areas, I'm sure. It must be something like living in the Garden District in NOLA after Katrina -- so many conflicting emotions.

Glad to hear you are well. All my friends in NYC are doing fine too. A friend in grad school at Columbia said there was almost no impact on her. The rabbi who taught me Hebrew, now in NYC, lost his power but is now back online. Scary times. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, so natural disasters anywhere always remind me that we're overdue for "The Big One." (E.G. another earthquake as bad as 1906!)

Thanks, Jonathan. As Jane said in #114, I have a lot of conflicting emotions -- glad we are OK and can put up a friend who still lacks power, appalled by the devastation and suffering so close by. And this is going to keep happening unless we do something to protect our underground infrastructure.

I must confess I am scared of earthquakes. Years ago, I was visiting a friend in San Diego and we were having brunch in one of those 80s restaurants with plate glass windows and lots of hanging plants. All of a sudden there was a (minor) earthquake. I looked up, and the windows were rattling and the plants were swaying, but everybody else was still looking down at their plates and eating! I was glad I was flying home that day!

The Salterton Trilogy by Robertson Davies
92. Tempest-Tost
93. Leaven of Malice
94. A Mixture of Frailties



Salterton is a small, provincial Canadian city, proud of its university, two cathedrals, commercial successes, and attempts at culture, and The Salterton Trilogy is Davies's vivid portrayal of its citizens, their hopes, their schemes, their human nature. The first of his trilogies, it doesn't have the scholarly depth or the allegorical complexity of his later works, but it abundantly reveals his story-telling talents, his ability to create wonderful characters, both likeable and unpleasant, his penchant for skewering pretension, and his comedic genius. It also introduces some of the themes he explores further later, including transformation of characters, the arts, and religion. The three novels are linked through some of their characters, but tell very different stories.

Tempest-Tost, the first in the trilogy, focuses on The Salterton Little Theater, an amateur group, ruled by Mrs. Forrester, a woman who is used to getting her way. She has persuaded her childhood friend, Valentine Rich, who has achieved success as an actress and director in New York, to direct a performance of The Tempest while she is in Salterton settling the estate of her late father. Davies masterfully assembles the cast of characters for the book, many of whom will form the cast of the play, including the lovely but vapid Griselda, whose rich father owns the property where the play will be performed outdoors, and who is sought after by several of the men; math teacher Hector Mackilwrith whose determination and method of life planning has so far brought him every achievement he has sought and who, after years of putting the Little Theater's books in order, has developed the surprising urge to act in the play; the bombastic and self-satisfied Professor Vambrace, who thinks he alone knows how the play should proceed, and his intimidated daughter Pearl; Solly Bridgewater, an academic himself and the son of another professor, who is brow-beaten by his widowed and controlling mother and demoted from director to assistant director when Valentine Rich appears on the scene; the utterly delightful musician Humphrey Cobbler, and many more. Theatrical and romantic complications ensue, and through them Davies provides a compelling picture of provincial Canadian life.

In Leaven of Malice, someone has maliciously placed a fictitious engagement announcement in the local paper, the Evening Bellman, telling the world of Salterton that Solly Bridgewater and Pearl Vambrace are to be married. As the Bridgewaters and the Vambraces have nursed a grudge for decades, and as Solly is in love with someone else (who does not reciprocate his emotions) and Pearl is insecure and unhappy, this notice causes a mess of trouble for Bellman editor Gloster Ridley, who already has both problems of his own, with aging writer Swithin Shillito and publisher Mr. Warboys, and ambitions for an honorary degree as thanks for his role in establishing a journalism program at the university. Pearl's father Professor Vambrace, believing the ad is a plot to humiliate him, is determined to sue the paper for libel; Solly's mother is equally outraged. As the plot thickens, other people are drawn in, not just Solly and Pearl themselves, but also Ridley's housekeeper, who lives with her sister and brother-in-law and their lodger, the slimy voice instructor Bevill Higgin; elderly, meddling Puss Pottinger, who briefly appeared in the first novel; Dean Knapp of St. Nicholas's Cathedral; and, happily, the delightful Humphrey Cobbler. The story gives Davies the opportunity to depict the world of small-town journalism, and of small-town lawyers, as well as the interactions of various community "leaders" with each other.

In the final novel, A Mixture of Frailties, Mrs. Bridgewater has died and, out of spite for her son Solly, who married against her wishes, she has left her house and all her money to a trust, specifying that it should support a young woman who wants to study the arts outside Canada, and should only come to Solly if and when he and his wife produce a son and name him Solomon Bridgewater after her husband. The trustees have been chosen apparently for their difficulty in getting along with each other. Eventually, they select a young woman proposed by Humphrey Cobbler, who sings on a local religious radio program. Despite coming from a working-class family which belongs to a religious cult and looks down on anyone who tries to get ahead, Monica truly loves music and has ambitions of her own, although quite buried. The bulk of the novel involves Monica's studies in England, the people of all sorts she encounters there, her transformation into a poised, professional singer, and her changing feelings about love and loyalty. Here Davies extends his scope to the world of music and music criticism and illustrates class differences and the snobbishness of some of the English people towards Canadians; I did feel my interest lagging a little bit for parts of this section. Nonetheless, I enjoyed this novel almost as much as the first two. Also, in this novel Davies begins to show some of the depth that appears in the later trilogies.

Great review, Rebecca.

Excellent review rebecca

Davies is fun to summarise, isn't he? I've been meaning to pick up something else by him ever since I read the Deptford trilogy.

I wonder if any of his stuff was ever filmed, it has BBC/PBS serial written all over it.

Great review -- I've never read any Davies, but this trilogy sounds tempting -- and The Tempest is one of my favorite Shakespeare plays.

Another great review of a Davies trilogy. With this one - you completed a trilogy of trilogies?

Thanks, Edwin, Barry, Lola, Jane, and Dief.

Lola, yes, he's fun -- but challenging, especially without giving away any surprises -- to summarize. I'm afraid if they were filmed they'd have to leave a lot out, because they're so complicated and have so many characters.

Jane, my favorite was The Cornish Trilogy, but I think you could start with this one. I think most people like The Deptford Trilogy best; I read that some years ago (post-LT, pre-writing reviews) but as individual volumes over time, not as a straight-through trilogy. So yes, DieF, I have now read a trilogy of trilogies!

Wonderful review of The Salterton Trilogy, Rebecca.

Great review, and glad to hear that even the oldest trilogy is worthwhile.

Thanks, Linda and Dewald.

I've just read two short novels by Beryl Bainbridge

95. Master Georgie by Beryl Bainbridge



George Hardy is Master Georgie, and in this short but complex novel the reader sees him, caught as if in photographic plates, from the perspectives of other characters; in some ways, he is as elusive as the images he and others capture with this then-new technology. The story begins in 1846, narrated by Myrtle, then 12, an abandoned child taken in by the Hardy family who, adoring Master Georgie, then a medical student, follows him around without completely understanding what she is observing and helps him create a deception about a shocking event. It continues with others who were observers/participants of that event as narrators, as the characters eventually head towards Constantinople on the eve of the Crimean War, and then become involved in the war itself.

Beyond this outline of plot, the novel derives its power from complexity of the narrating characters -- not only Myrtle, but also the "duck boy" Pompey Jones, a poor boy who becomes a photographer, as well as a schemer, and who never forgets the class both he and Myrtle sprung from, and Dr. Potter, a lover of classics who desires Georgie's sister Beatrice for years before eventually marrying her. The secondary characters are clearly drawn as well. Ultimately, the novel confronts issues of secrets, obsession, perception, complex and unusual personal relationships, both homosexuality and unsanctioned heterosexuality, love, and war (the images of the violence and suffering of the Crimean War are devastating). As always, Bainbridge's writing is both vivid and understated, leaving much for readers to figure out on their own. She is at the height of her powers with this novel.

96. An Awfully Big Adventure by Beryl Bainbridge



This novel tells the story of a young girl, Stella, who has been raised by her aunt and uncle who run a boarding house in Liverpool; after her school kicks her out for an undescribed reason, her uncle sends her to some sort of drama school and then, as the story begins, she gets a job as an assistant in a local repertory company. Stella is very sharp in some ways, but also naive, uneducated, and unsophisticated, and her perceptions of the members of the company and their actions are often way off the mark. As the novel proceeds, and Stella begins to interact with the theater folk as well as with her aunt and uncle, the reader not only gains insight into how a provincial theater company in the 1950s worked, and into the poverty of the community and the prevalence of class issues, but also begins to sense a little about Stella's troubled background. Dreaming of love, Stella misunderstands a lot of what is going on around her, but she can also be quite conniving. There is a sense of foreboding throughout the novel; it is clear something bad is going to happen, or be revealed, or both, and indeed the novel builds to a conclusion that is shocking in several ways. As with others of her novels that I've read, Bainbridge forces her readers to pay attention and read between the lines.

Several years ago I read The Birthday Boys. It was so well written that I have been afraid to read anything about Antarctica or by Beryl Bainbridge since. I have at hand, however, According to Queeney and Young Adolf, and you have made me think that maybe I should put them in my bag of novels to be read.

Robert

Bainbridge's serious novels have such un-serious sounding titles--maybe that's why I haven't gotten around to her yet. Master Georgie sounds especially appealing. Thanks for the excellent reviews.

Thanks, Steven. You're right about the titles! I think Master Georgie is the best of hers that I've read.

Two great reviews, Rebecca. Our local library actually has Master Georgie, so I have added that to the wishlist. Thanks also to Robert for mentioning The Birthday Boys, which I will have to get through ILL, but sounds very enticing.

Strangely enough, I've been ordering the Bainbridges from the Book Depository, but they list several of them, like The Birthday Boys as unavailable (they're all published in England, so it isn't a question of not selling US books to US customers). But then when I go to ABEBooks, they list the Book Depository as having NEW copies in stock. So I've ordered a couple from ABE that are really coming from BD. Weird.

Rebecca, have you seen the movie adaptation of An awfully big adventure? An amazing cast and excellent performances, especially Georgina Cates who played Stella and hasn't been seen on screen since.

The only Bainbridge I've read is a curiosity, a "novel" she wrote at thirteen, Filthy Lucre. It's worth a look.

Thanks, Lola. I just added it to my Netflix queue. I was a little put off by their description of Potter as "cruel," because he really isn't, but I'm looking forward to it nevertheless. They've never heard of the movie of Master Georgie, which is also supposed to be excellent.

Interesting that she wrote a book at 13. I'm going to look up her background, because so many of her novels involve people, especially girls, who were abandoned and/or taken in by other families as children.

I keep reading Bainbridge's novels, but do not really enjoy them. Particularly with Master Georgie I never had the feeling that I knew what it was about. I recently finished, but have not yet reviewed According to Queeny which initially I liked best among the novels I have read so far, but also severely lacks in meaning.

Sometimes I do a quick reread of a novel, particularly when reviewing, but find little actual proof in the text that suggests the meaning, as for instance in Another part of the wood.

Still, your review of The Birthday Boys is tempting, and I will keep reading her work.

Well, not everybody enjoys the same books! And I haven't read The Birthday Boys yet, but have ordered it! Will have to look for Another Part of the Wood.

Excellent reviews of the Bainbridge novels. I think she is always worth reading.

Catching up from all the way back at La Reve...what a great series of books you have been reading. I added The Story of America to my wishlist, loved your Davies reviews, and very interested in your Bainbridge reviews.

Good reviews of the Beryl Bainbridge books. She's one of those well-regarded contemporary British/American authors who I always plan to read but then never get around to. Sounds like Master Georgie would be a good place to start.

Always fun to follow your author feasts. I can follow the move from Zola to Robertson Davies, but what led you from Robertson Davies to Ms Bainbridge?

Thanks, Dan, DieF, and Sassy.

DieF, I definitely think Master Georgie is a good place to start as it is the best of hers that I've read so far (although I have a lot more on order).

Sassy, I think you attribute more intention to my reading patterns than there is! I'm trying not to read all the Zolas at once, especially since Zola is likely to be the year-long author in the Author Theme Reads group last year. I read the Robertson Davies because I needed something extremely readable and not too challenging when I started worrying about Hurricane Sandy. I picked up the Bainbridges because they had recently arrived from the Book Depository, and because I feel I haven't been reading enough women authors lately. I occasionally make an to balance my reading a little. Right now I'm reading the new Anne Applebaum and also Red Sorghum by Mo Yan: the Applebaum because I was eager to read it as soon as it came out, and the Mo Yan because I'm trying to do some reading for the Reading Globally theme read on China and its neighbors. So my reasons vary from comfort reads to spur of the moment interest to trying to keep up with some groups here on LT. Make sense of that!

97. Red Sorghum by Mo Yan



At the end of this grim book, which jumps back and forth in time but mainly focuses on the period just before and during the Japanese invasion and occupation of the Shandong area (and more) of China, the essentially contemporary narrator, who has barely intruded himself into the story, mourns the loss of the past, as epitomized by the now hybrid sorghum covering the area where his family used to live.

As I stand amid the dense hybrid sorghum, I think of surpassingly beautiful scenes that will never again appear. In the deep autumn of the eighth month under a high, magnificently clear sky, the land is covered by sorghum that forms a glittering sea of blood. If the autumn rains are heavy, the fields turn into a swampy sea, the red tips of sorghum rising above the muddy yellow water, appealing stubbornly to the blue sky above. When the sun comes out, the surface of the sea shimmers, and heaven and earth are painted with extraordinarily rich, extraordinarily majestic colors." pp. 385-359

Although, as here, Mo Yan beautifully captures the magnificence of the natural world, as well as (elsewhere) the animals that inhabit it, the preceding 358 pages tell a story of trickery, rivalry, violence, and atrocities that show the depths of what human beings are capable of. Essentially, the narrator is telling the story of his grandparents and his father; throughout the novel they are referred to as Granddad, Grandma, Father, Little Auntie, Second Grandma, etc., so the reader is always aware of the family connections, even though the narrator is largely invisible. The reader first encounters Father as a teenager in 1939, about to follow his father, Granddad, a leader of one of several private armies in the area, into battle against the Japanese invaders, and ultimately also against some of the other armed groups . But soon the story flashes back to Grandma's journey as a teenaged girl to the man she is being forced to marry, rumored to be a leper like his father. The story of how she falls in love with Grandpa instead (he is one of the men carrying her traditional sedan chair to her new husband's home, although also sometimes a bandit) and what ensues, leading her to become the owner and manager of a prospering sorghum wine distillery, is both funny and violent. As the novel continues, it jumps back in forth in time, and includes the stories of a variety of other characters; the reader has to pay attention to keep track of who's who and when events are happening.

Throughout the novel, Mo Yan illustrates Chinese village life in the era of warring bandits, which includes both horrifying and humorous events, as well as the atrocities of war, especially those perpetrated by the Japanese who employed a scorched earth policy in the region known, according to Wikipedia, as the "Three Alls" policy -- "kill all, burn all, loot all." Some of the details are hard to read.

This is not only a very earthy book, with a variety of sexual relationships and jealousies, lots of blood, graphic injuries, mud, animal activities and wastes, and more, and a very violent book, but also a book with many lyrical passages like the one quoted above and in some ways a mythical one, with animals both helping and demonically possessing people, and even fighting people as an organized army. The red sorghum itself is almost a character, shielding lovers and warriors, providing sustenance, symbolizing the natural order of the region as it resists invaders. This is a difficult book to read, but one well worth reading.

As a final note, I was interested to read a translator's note, especially in light of some discussions here on LT about English translations of Chinese novels generally being abridged, that said that the translation was based on a Taipei edition, "which restores cuts made in the Mainland Chinese edition" and that also "some deletions have been made, with the author's approval."

Excellent review of Red Sorghum. I read it at the beginning of the year and also liked it a lot.

Great review of a great book.

Good review of Red Sorghum - sounds very interesting.

Random note - I was at the bookstore and saw a copy of Citizens. That thing was heavy - it could have been used as a weapon. Did yours have the glossy pages? It was already an enormous book and the pages made it even heavier.

The library copies of Iron Curtain came in so I'm reading the Applebaum book as well.

Thanks, Steven, Sassy, and DieF.

Yes, that was the edition of Citizens I read, DieF. It's true the paper is glossy, but that's what makes all the illustrations that are printed throughout the book, not in inserts, so attractive and viewable. I am slowly making my way through Iron Curtain, both because of the details and because it's too heavy to take on the subway so I can only read it at home.

Great review of Red Sorghum, Rebecca. My edition has the same translator's note as yours. I am anxious to read it, but may wait to see if a Mo Yan thread develops.

Enjoyed your excellent review of Red Sorghum, not a book for me, but I enjoyed reading about it.

Red Sorghum sounds like a book i would enjoy. Great review. I'm putting it on my wishlist.

98. Happy Moscow by Andrey Platonov



The book Happy Moscow includes not just the title novella but also other works Platonov wrote in the mid-1930s: two short stories, an essay, and a screenplay. I previously read and admired Platonov's Soul and Other Stories and The Foundation Pit, considered his masterpiece, but found it very difficult to understand because of the almost random way the plot jumps around and because Platonov's writing is both allusive and symbolic. I had the same problems with these works, although the translators' notes were again extremely helpful.

The novella tells the story of an orphan who is named Moscow, a beautiful young woman who starts off her career as a parachutist, symbolic of the technological heights to which Soviet Russia hoped to soar. Later she works underground on the subway, again symbolic of technological accomplishments. At the same time, these activities and the activities of other characters, including a doctor who is hoping to find a way to essentially keep people from dying and an engineer who works to find a way to make perfect scales, are reflective of projects that were actually happening in Soviet Russia. From this bright start, looking towards the future, the characters' lives become increasingly restricted and sad, both with respect to love and with respect to profession. In the intervening chapters, Platonov portrays some of the realities of life in 1930s Moscow, including a large market in which new identities, as well as food and other goods, are for sale.

After reading the novella, I turned to the story "The Moscow Violin." Much to my surprise, large chunks of text from the novella were repeated in the story, or perhaps it was vice versa, as Platonov worked on both at the same time. I found the screenplay, "Father," perhaps the most interesting piece in the book. And, although the translator calls the essay, "On the First Socialist Tragedy," "one of the earliest and greatest of classic ecological texts," for me it was more of an essay about the conflict between the individual "soul" (which has a greater meaning to Platonov than our English word) and technological prowess.

One of the interesting things about Platonov, besides his language and style, is the way certain themes and images recur. As in both of the books I previously read, there is a strong thread of technology and engineering in this collection: how railroads work, electrical plants, underground systems, medical advances (or quackery), perfecting instruments. Platonov is fascinated by technological advances. There is also a strong thread of music, especially in these pieces the violin, which finds its way into almost all of them. And then there is love, and love triangles, and people puzzling over what love means. Other repeated images and themes include orphans, attempted and successful suicide, and sparrows. Finally, there is a character in the novella who tries to will his own death, much as characters longed for death in The Foundation Pit.

As must be clear, I really didn't know what to make of the pieces in this collection. I was eager to read them because of my admiration for Platonov's work, but for the most part I struggled to understand what Platonov was trying to say. Anyone interested in trying Platonov should not start with this collection!

A terrific and very interesting review. You are so constructive in your criticism I thought you were going to conclude by saying something like "I'm finally starting to get Platanov"...not "I really didn't know what to make of..."

I felt I understood Soul and Other Stories the best, and sort of understood The Foundation Pit. But Happy Moscow really left me scratching my head. I hope these translators tackle the book that is considered Platonov's other masterpiece, Chevengur, which doesn't seem to be available in English translation except in an old edition (probably based on a censored text, as a pre-Soul and Other Stories edition of Platonov's stories was) that is only available for megabucks.

Platonov is a writer I would like to read some day, but Happy Moscow indeed does not sound like the best place to start.

I guess you have got to like Platonov to get anything out of Happy Moscow, excellent review rebecca.

Steven, definitely start with Soul and Other Stories so you get a feel for his style before tackling The Foundation Pit, which is remarkable but challenging.

And thanks, Barry. I think I admire him more than I like him. One of the things that led me to him was that Vassily Grossman, one of my favorite Soviet-era writers, greatly admired his work.

Interesting Platonov review. I'm working my way up to reading him in the new year based on your reviews. Do you know anything about the circumstances surrounding the writing of these works in Happy Moscow, for instance was he in favour when he wrote them and was he able to publish? It almost sounds as if the chunks of story that repeat from one work to another could have come from underground publishing and been assembled oddly. That could be a story in itself!

Sassy, none of the works in this collection were published/publishable in Russia at the time Platonov wrote them, which was after he wrote a lot of his other works, which also were mostly not published. Stalin criticized him and his work, but he was never sent to the Gulag, although his 15-year-old son was. He was able to publish some stories during the second world war when he, along with Vassily Grossman, worked as a war correspondent.

As to being assembled oddly, the translator discusses the scholars who have gone through Platonov's papers, and he believes what is published here to be as accurate a representation of Platonov's work of that period as possible. For example, with "Happy Moscow," only a few chapters were believed to exists. But then someone found that Platonov's widow had "organized" his papers by grouping manuscripts by size and type of paper. When the scholar looked through them, he found what now appears to be the complete manuscript of "Happy Moscow" on all sorts of sizes and types of paper, but numbered sequentially nonetheless. So there is a story about that!

I don't know how I lost your thread, but I've tried to catch up now. Platanov sounds challenging and I may put him on my list for one day when my brain hasn't so many challenges already!

Excellent review of Happy Moscow, Rebecca. I would like to expand my knowledge of Soviet literature, but think I will start first with Vassily Grossman.

Hi Linda (LW3) -- good to see you here!

And Linda92007, Grossman is a very different writer, and one of my all-time favorites. Life and Fate is a masterpiece, but his other work is just as compelling (especially Everything Flows and the essay "The Hell of Treblinka" from The Road (no touchstone)).

99. Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-1956 by Anne Applebaum



Anne Applebaum has written another thoughtful, readable, and important book, although one that is not quite as impressive and moving as Gulag: A History. Through a focus on three countries -- East Germany, Poland, and Hungary -- she tells the story of how the Soviet Union engineered and then maintained a communist takeover of eastern Europe starting before World War II was over and continuing, not to the fall of the Wall in 1989, but to the rebellions and the somewhat relaxed control after the death of Stalin. She chose these three countries, although she refers to others, "because they were so very different," particularly with respect to their roles in the war and their histories in preceding centuries.

Applebaum starts the book with a look at "zero hour," the moment when bombs stopped falling and the guns stopped shooting, and at the physical and psychological devastation spread across eastern Europe. Not only did the victorious Red Army take revenge by looting and raping its way through the liberated/conquered territories, but the communist leaders in Moscow had already been training eastern European communists both in ideology and practical matters (including the importance of secret police), and also in their "peculiar culture and rigid structures . . . (and) strictly hierarchical organization and nomenclature." These leaders were to become known as "Moscow communists" (as opposed to those who sprang up in their own countries) and were flown back to their home countries on Soviet planes to play their role in the communist takeovers.

With chapters on the secret police, continuing military activities, occupation and ethnic transfers/"cleansing" (where she notes "ethnic conflict -- deep, bitter, violent ethnic conflict, between many different kinds of groups in many countries -- was Hitler's true legacy"), an emphasis on youth indoctrination and organization, the central importance of radio, international and national politics, and efforts to force Marxist economics, including nationalization and industrial growth, on the various countries, Applebaum demonstrates how the Soviets were able to take control in eastern Europe. In the second part of the book, she focuses on these countries a few years later, in the period of "high Stalinism." Here she discusses how the countries dealt with the church and with internal "enemies," the role and nature of education for both children and workers, socialist realist art and the impact on writers, artists, and musicians, and the building of new "ideal" cities and how they led to the perpetuation of a class system in a "classless" society.

Towards the end of the book, Applebaum turns to how such an oppressive system could have been maintained for so long, discussing, in turn, "reluctant collaborators" and "passive opponents," before turning to "revolutions." For the reluctant collaboraters, she notes:

"Yet most people in the communist regimes did not succumb to dramatic bribes, furious threats, or elaborate rewards. Most people wanted to be neither party bosses nor angry dissidents. They wanted to get on with their lives, rebuild their countries, educate their children, feed their families, and stay far away from those in power. But the culture of High Stalinist Eastern Europe made it impossible to do so in silent neutrality. No one could be apolitical: the system demanded that all citizens constantly sing its praises, however reluctantly. And so the vast majority of Eastern Europeans did not make a pact with the devil or sell their souls to become informers but rather succumbed to constant, all-encompassing, everyday psychological and economic pressure. The Soviet system excelled at creating large groups of people who disliked the regime and knew the propaganda was false, but who nevertheless felt compelled by circumstances to go along with it." (p. 392)

In the passive opponent chapter, she examines the role of jokes (and tells some of them), of odd clothing choices, and of escape. Finally, she discusses the impact of the stunning news of Stalin's death in March 1953, and the changes this caused over the next several years -- the slight lessening of control, the impact of communist visitors from around the world and especially from the west, the new feelings of freedom -- that led ultimately to Soviet tanks rolling into Budapest in 1956.

In her epilogue, Applebaum briefly covers what happened in eastern Europe between 1956 and 1989, and subsequently. She notes that as time passed, the countries began to have much less in common with each other, and that groups engaged in an "independent life of society" began to flourish, such as unofficial "peace" groups, underground Scout troops, poetry readings, independent trade unions, and more, and that these posed "a fundamental -- and unanswerable -- challenge to regimes that strove, in Mussolini's words, to be "all-embracing.""

In writing this book, Applebaum had access to recently released documents from eastern Europe, and was able to interview aging survivors of the Iron Curtain years. As with Gulag, these help to bring the general and the political back to the personal, although she does not, in this book, include nearly as many literary quotes.

Finally, a warning.

"In their drive for power, the Bolsheviks, their Eastern European acolytes, and their imitators farther afield attacked not only their political opponents but also peasants, priests, schoolteachers, traders, journalists, writers, small businessmen, students, and artists, along with institutions such people had built and maintained over centuries. They damaged, undermined, and sometimes eliminated churches, newspapers, literary and educational societies, companies and retail shops, stock markets, banks, sports clubs, and universities. Their success reveals an unpleasant truth about human nature: if enough people are sufficiently determined, and if they are backed by adequate resources and force, then they can destroy ancient and apparently permanent legal, political, educational, and religious institutions, sometimes for good. And if civil society could be so deeply damaged in nations as disparate, as historic, and as culturally rich as those of Eastern Europe, then it can be similarly damaged anywhere. If nothing else, the history of postwar Stalinization proves how fragile civilization can turn out to be." pp. 467-468

An impressive and thorough review of Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-1956. Did you come away with the impression that the author was fair and balanced in her treatment of the Russians and their communist ideology? It seems that she focuses on the most extreme cases and periods of time and, as you said, only briefly covers the more positive developments after Stalin's death. I notice that Ms. Applebaum is married to a Polish politician and lives in Poland, so it would not be surprising to find an anti-Russian slant in her views.

That's a good question, Steven, and I'm not sure how to answer it. On the one hand, she is indeed married to a Polish politician, the book probably has somewhat more about Poland than about other countries, and Poland has a long and painful history with Russia. On the other hand, I don't see how anyone who has read Gulag: A History, let alone written it, or who has read other works by Soviet writers, could have any illusions about the horrific impact of the the Soviet system on its own people and those in neighboring countries. That said, this is a book about a particular time period and particular places. Were there times when things were better? Absolutely. Were there times when things were worse? Absolutely. And I think it is clear in the book that the countries of Eastern Europe did rebuild from the devastation and rubble of the war, although at political, economic, and social costs compared to western Europe (which, it has to be said, was not nearly as devastated as eastern Europe).

To answer this another way, while I didn't feel the book was ideologically motivated (besides the obvious motivation of covering this period in the first place), I also didn't feel it had quite the nuance that Gulag had.

Hi, Rebecca - you've read some interesting books this fall. I'm finally caught up on your thread now.

Great story about Platonov's widow! That makes as much sense (to me) as organizing books by size and colour, although I have to admit it does look wonderful.

Here is a link to the review of Iron Curtain this Sunday's New York Times Book Review. The reviewer, a former Eastern European reporter for the Times, thinks that more analysis and fewer facts would have been welcome, but that Applebaum "has given us is a concrete and sad record that honors the memory of the millions who were slaughtered, tortured and suppressed in the mad pursuit of totality."

Excellent review of Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-1956 Like steven I was wondering about Applebaum's impartiality or otherwise.

Great review of Iron Curtain, Rebecca. In addition to its historical value, it strikes me as a book that would provide context to the works of Eastern European poets and fiction writers, of which I have read several this year. I am adding Applebaum to my wishlist.

You are right, Linda, about its historical focus; much of the information in it was new to me (if not to the NY Times reviewer). And Applebaum makes an interesting point about the movie of Ashes and Diamonds, which I saw after reading the book. She noted that in a scene in which a character lights glasses of vodka, viewers would have understood these as memorial candles for the Poles killed by the Nazis during the Warsaw Uprising (while the Red Army waited just outside to let the Nazis do the dirty work).

Here is the right thread! I started over on your 75 thread, and it didn't feel right. Great discussions here, and I am even more eager to read Iron Curtain. I also added another Vasily Grossman to my list, as I realized I hadn't read or wishlisted A Writer at War. Was it in this volume that the story about Treblinka was published?

I feel horrible that I wasn't in touch during the hurricane. I'm glad you are okay and were in a safe area. My husband's friend, who is a volunteer EMT in NYC, was called up for four days, and he spent most of that time evacuating hospitals. He says that the apartment where Bill grew up (next door to the Morgan Library) was without power for 10 days or so. Thankfully my MIL passed before this. She would never have left her apartment willing and would have been forcibly removed, most likely. *shudder*

Your story about being offered a ride home, which you didn't want, and which turned into a nightmare, is such a perfect example of his good intentions paving the way to your hell. I need my solitary time to read and stare out the window. When thwarted, I get very cranky! I imagine you as handling it much more gracefully. I am reading little these days, and I'm discombobulated as a result.

Interesting about the Applebaum. Coincidentally, I'm now reading Tibor Fischer's Under the Frog, set in Hungary during the period Applebaum writes about (1944-56). While I know tiny bits and pieces of the Russian occupation, I haven't formed a coherent picture about that time from various and random reads so far. Applebaum's book might provide an excellent starting point.

Excellent review of Iron Curtain. I'm about 2/3 of the way through it now and I agree with much of your review - very informative and important, but maybe without quite the power of Gulag.

The NY TImes review you linked to was an interesting read. I don't know if I'd agree with the reviewer that Applebaum should have provided analysis on some of the subjects - the mass rapes were certainly horrible but the motivations of the army might have been out of her scope - but I can see his overall point about more analysis, fewer facts. However, a lot of the book is new information for me so I won't be complaining about that. I could see that it would have been of interest to have her work in more of the rebuttal to the "the West provoked Stalin" interpretations.

Also a good, informative review of Happy Moscow. I would like to read more Platonov despite my mixed reaction to The Foundation Pit but will probably hold off for a bit.

Thanks for stopping by, Lisa, deebee, and DieF.

Lisa, I have A Writer at War but haven't read it yet. "The Hell of Treblinka" was in The Road (which doesn't touchstone), an NYRB collection of some of Grossman's essays and short stories.

deebee, I hadn't heard of Under the Frog but it sounds interesting. We are probably going to do a quarterly theme read in Reading Globally next year on 20th/21st century Central/Eastern European writing, so this would fit right in.

DieF, I'll be interested in your review of Iron Curtain. I don't think it was Applebaum's goal to provide analysis as opposed to historical documentation, although that would be interesting too. I do have to read that two-volume Stalin biography, but it seems to me Stalin was already planning to control a lot of Eastern Europe at least as far back as when he made his notorious pact with Hitler, whether to pursue global communism, to have a buffer with the west, or to have more power -- or all of the above.

(coming in late again...) RE Iron Curtain - Another great review, with some chilling excerpts.

100. Dear Life by Alice Munro



In many ways, Alice Munro's latest collection walks a familiar path. Most of the stories take place in rural Canada, most are about women, young and old, finding their way through life. And I had already read a handful of them in the New Yorker. But, of course, all of them exhibit Munro's apparently effortless style of making characters come alive as they face their dilemmas, and her tremendous insight into human behavior. Many of them go back and forth seamlessly between the present and the past, because of course the past is alive in the present. Several are stunning. What seems different in this book is that there is more of an emphasis on aging and illness, perhaps not surprising for an 81-year-old author; death haunts the edges of several of these stories. Also, at the end, Munro includes a group of four stories that she says are "not quite stories,. . . autobiographical in feeling, though not, sometimes, entirely so in fact." I found it quite moving to get this insight into her childhood life.

101. In the House of the Interpreter by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o



In the second volume of his memoirs, Ngũgĩ tells the story of his time in Alliance, the elite boarding school he was admitted to at the end of Dreams in a Time of War, the first such school for African students in British-ruled Kenya. It is the time of the so-called Mau Mau rebellion against British rule and, for Ngũgĩ, the reality of that conflict and its direct impact on him and his family intrudes into the excitement he feels about excelling at school and absorbing some of the character and other skills imparted by headmaster Carey Francis and his staff. The reader acutely feels the humiliation -- and, far worse, the torture and killings -- the Kenyans suffer at the hands of the British, even while enjoying Ngũgĩ's coming of age. Having recently read Tsitsi Dangarembga's presumably somewhat autobiographical novel about her time in a boarding school during the Rhodesian/Zimbabwean conflict, The Book of Not, I found it interesting to contrast their experiences.

The title of the books comes from an excerpt from Pilgrim's Progress about the Interpreter's House, which the headmaster, in a scene in the book, compares to Alliance, "where the dust we had brought from the outside could be swept away by the law of good behavior and watered by the gospel of Christian service." Ngũgĩ's writing is just as perceptive as always in this memoir, and his story is interesting and well worth reading. However, it is much more straightforward than his memoir about his younger years, and doesn't have all of the magic and nuance of that work.

I have two Munro's sitting around, and haven't read her yet. Your review encourages and reminds me.

ETA - Just saw your post for In the House of the Interpreter...another author I want to read. I have A Grain of Wheat on a shelf...

I'm a big Ngũgĩ fan, Dan. A Grain of Wheat is one of his earlier works; I enjoyed it, but I like his later work more.

I have a bunch of Munro sitting around too that I bought for a group read that didn't work out. With all the other reading planned I won't get to her anytime soon, though.

Included in those plans, however, is A Grain of Wheat which my non-LT reading group will be doing next August. It's one I missed when we did Ngugi in the Author Theme Reads group.

Dreams in a Time of War and In the House of the Interpreter are both going straight onto my wishlist, Rebecca. Earlier this year I read a very powerful narrative poem about the Mau Mau uprising: The Broken Word by Adam Foulds. I would be very interested in reading another fictional view from that time.

Dreams in a Time of War is already on the wishlist thanks to you and Cushla. Your review reminds me a bit of a book I finished recently, Running the Rift. Both are about boys getting an elite education in a country at war, although RtR is set in Rwanda. Have you read it?

Linda, thanks for the information about the Foulds; i'll take a look at that. and Lisa, thanks for the information about Running the Rift. I'll look for that one too. Steven, I'm impressed that your book group plans so far ahead!

A Grain of Wheat takes place at the culmination of the rebellion against the British, with flashbacks to what happened during it.

Part of the reason I enjoyed Dreams in a Time of War so much was because I'd read a lot of Ngugi's fiction beforehand. I think it would still be compelling for people who haven't read his fiction.

102. The Birthday Boys by Beryl Bainbridge



Beryl Bainbridge captures the iciness, the darkness, the danger, the heroism, and the horror of the Scott expedition to the South Pole through the voices of the five men who reached the Pole and died just short of a supply depot on their return to base camp. Because I read, and was fascinated by, The Coldest March by Susan Solomon, I was familiar with the story and the cast of characters; I'm not sure whether this enhanced the novel for me or lessened the impact of Bainbridge's amazing writing because I knew what happened.

Unlike some of her other novels, in which much is allusive, here Bainbridge tells the story straightforwardly. Each man narrates a part of it, chronologically, from boarding the Terra Nova in June 1910 to the final days in March 1912, and each tells it in his own distinctive voice. Part of what makes this fascinating is that the reader gets different perspectives on each of the characters, not only of the men who died but also of wives and mothers left behind and of other participants in the expedition. In addition to telling a compelling tale of a compelling series of events, Bainbridge conveys both the discipline and the challenges of British naval tradition at the dawn of the 20th century, the lure of exploration and of science, and above all the beauty and danger of the Antarctic landscape. This is one of her best novels (of the ones I've read so far).

103. Les Diaboliques by Barbey D'Aurevilly



Despite the author's misogyny, monarchism, love of military tradition, racism, and often overblown prose, I found these six tales within tales of proud and passionate women whose behavior seems evil, if not diabolical, to the bored and blasé men who tell and listen to their stories, weirdly compelling -- at least for the first two-thirds or so of the book. The narrators and listeners are men who miss the passing of Napoleon's army and Empire, and long for the past when their aristocratic titles and military exploits meant something. Shocking when first published, and subsequently banned, in 1874, this collection has moments that are still quite shocking today, although it is apparently now considered a classic in France. D'Aurevllly was steeped in French military and aristocratic history, as well as in the classics of the Greek and Roman eras, as the book is filled with references that made me occasionally resort to Wikipedia but more often regret the lack of explanatory footnotes or endnotes. The edition I read, which I picked up when bookstore browsing because it looked intriguing, was also marred by typographical errors.

I had put The Birthday Boys on my wishlist based on Robert's comments above, and happened to run across it in a bookstore the day before yesterday. I look forward to reading it.

Les Diaboliques is also on my "hope to read" list for 2013. I have the same edition (at least the same cover).

Nice review of The Birthday Boys, Rebecca. I still haven't read anything by her, but I'll probably pick up Master Georgie, which was voted as the best book by hers that was shortlisted for but never won the Booker Prize.

I shall avoid Les Diaboliques like the plague.

Intriguing little review of Les Diaboliques.

Thanks, Steven, Darryl, and Barry!

104. Scandal by Shūsaku Endō



Suguro is an aging, and not too healthy, respectable Christian novelist, the recipient of writing awards, when he is unexpectedly confronted by a young drunk woman who accuses him of hypocrisy for spending time in Tokyo's red light district and engaging in what he would consider to be sinful sexual activities. And thus begins Endō's exploration of the dark side of human nature, of the dark side of his own nature, of the desires we keep hidden inside us.

At first Suguro's discomfort at the idea that he has a double who is mocking and embarrassing him seems real to the reader. Ahead of a reporter who is trying to gain fame by exposing the famous author, Suguro ventures into some of the haunts of the woman who supposedly painted a portrait of him, trying to discover who the imposter is. As he does so, the novel exposes some of the constraints of his marriage and some of his uncomfortably sexual feelings about a teenage girl who comes to clean his office and a widowed nursing volunteer who confronts him about the restraint he exhibits in his novels when it comes to sex and the messier parts of human feelings. Specifically, this nursing volunteer describes the pleasures of sado-masochism. Suguro is both horrified and intrigued.

Throughout the novel, Suguro has dreams, and engages in conversation with people in the writing world, and in this other world, as well as specialists in both western psychology and Buddhist beliefs. The reader comes to see that Suguro (aka Endō?) is exploring his own psyche as much as he is trying to solve the mystery of the imposter. I found this complex book fascinating, but I'm sure I would have gotten even more out of it if I had been able to read more consistently; because I've been so busy lately, I read it a little bit at a time and I think it lost some of its power because of this.

Although I have not yet read Endo, it seems like this is a departure from his missionary/struggling with religion books. Very intriguing review.

I started reading Scandal a couple of weeks ago, but after two or three pages decided I wasn't up for it at that time because I wouldn't be able to read it without long interruptions for other deadlines. Was that a psychic warning coming from your direction? I'm still planning to read it this month.

Lisa, there is a different kind of religious struggle in this book, in that Suguro has made his name as a Christian novelist, and he must struggle with inner feelings that he considers sinful (and shameful).

Steven, you were smarter than I was about that!

An excellent review of Scandal, Rebecca. I also started the book a few months ago, but returned it to the library unfinished. My reason was a bit different than Steven's. On the heels of reading Kawabata's Beauty and Sadness, I think I was burned out with Japanese males who have a thing for extra-marital affairs and far younger women. It seems to be an oft-repeated theme. I'd like to read some Endo, but I think I will choose something else.

Well, Linda, I don't think those predilections are limited to Japanese males, but I can see why you might burn out on it! That said, I don't think Scandal is really about having affairs with younger women, but about exploring the darker secrets hidden within our psyches.

Tempting us with more Endo. Sounds like a tough read. A great review despite your troubles.

Thanks, Dan. I just finished another Endo, When I Whistle, but I probably won't have time to review it until tonight or tomorrow morning. It was a much easier read than the other Endos I've read.

I'm interested to see what you think of When I Whistle since I'm sure I was the one who recommended it to you as an easier read.

Lilisin, it was you who recommended it, but I won't get around to posting a review until tomorrow, as this has been a very busy day and a very busy week (and in fact, a very busy couple of months).

105. When I Whistle by Shūsaku Endō



This novel was easier to read than most of the other works by Endō that I've read, and was extremely moving, perhaps more so for me than the more overtly religiously themed novels. Nonetheless, it deals with the issue that should be at the heart of any religion -- how we treat each other.

The novel contrasts a father and a son, in more or less alternating chapters. As the story begins, a chance encounter with a former schoolmate on a train reminds middle-aged Ozu, the father, of his years in semi-rural Nada Middle School (which was really what we would call a high school) just before World War II began, and in particular of a strange boy who became his best friend, nicknamed Flatfish. This part of the novel then consists of Ozu and Flatfish's experiences in school, where they were in a class for less motivated students, continuing after their graduation when Ozu goes to college and Flatfish to work, and then into the years when both are drafted into the Japanese army. At the same time, Flatfish becomes enamored of a girl he cannot bring himself to talk to, Aiko. He yearns to impress her, and remains touchingly devoted to her, from afar, after he moves away and goes to war. He even entrusts Ozu with a mission to bring her money when he learns that she is married and pregnant. The story of the lifelong friendship between these two boys and then young men not only captures a time in Japanese history but also vividly depicts the values of friendship and loyalty.

Contrasted with this is the story of Ozu's son, Eiichi, a doctor at a hospital (called a dispensary) in presumably 1970s Tokyo. Although Eiichi still lives with his family, he stays away from home as much as possible. He is eager to get ahead at all costs, schemes constantly, uses people to meet his own needs, and resents his father for not being ambitious and successful and helping him out, as the father of one of his colleagues has done. He doesn't hesitate to follow the orders and perceived wishes of his superiors, who have ulterior financial and professional motives, even when these clearly interfere with the needs of the patients. In fact, he doesn't care about the patients at all, and belittles and plots against a doctor who does; he cares only about his own success. I must say I found him an extremely unpleasant character.

In the end, the two strands of the novel intersect in what is perhaps a difficult-to-believe plot point. Nonetheless, I found this a lovely novel. Like The Sea and Poison, it deals with medical ethics, but not in nearly so horrific a way. More importantly, it illustrates what Endō may have believed were lost values: respect and love for our fellow human beings.

Nice review, Rebecca. I too have found that sometimes a difficult-to-believe plot point unexpectedly works. I have the Sea and Poison on my list, but deals with medical ethics, but not in nearly so horrific a way is appealing. How many Endo books have you read now?

Endo was the year-long author for the Author Theme Reads group, Lisa, and I found him more interesting/appealing than some of the quarterly authors, so by now I've read five books by him. I do think The Sea and Poison is his strongest and my favorite.

Oh you can't do much better than respect and love for our fellow human beings. Nicely put rebecca and a good review.

Great review of When I Whistle, Rebecca. I think it may be a better introduction to Endo for me.

Excellent review of When I Whistle, Rebecca. I brought it with me to Madison, and I'll start reading it later today or tomorrow.

Read this a few days ago, but never commented. Another excellent review.

Thanks Barry, Linda, Darryl, and Dan!

Great review of When I Whistle. I'm tempted to read this one as my next Endo when i get around to him again.

106. Jack Sheppard by William Harrison Ainsworth



Burglaries, attempted kidnapping, plots to obtain inheritances and to overthrow the king, vengeance, amazing escapes from prison, mad women, hidden nobles, love, drinking, and more! I owe this thoroughly fun read to a recommendation from another LTer, and what makes it even more fun is that Jack Sheppard was a real person who really did escape multiple times from some of the strongest prisons London had to offer in the early 18th century.

As the story opens, Jack is a baby; his father has been hanged and the man who was responsible for that, Jonathan Wild (also a real person) vows that Jack will repeat his father's fate. At the same time, the man who formerly employed Jack's father, while seeking to adopt Jack from his drunken mother, winds up through a twist of fate adopting another baby of mysterious origins, who he names Thames Darrell. This section provides an unforgettably vivid portrayal of the world of debtors and largely petty criminals in 17th century London, and of a number of colorful characters. The novel then jumps ahead 12 years and focuses on the two boys, starting to head in different directions, and the dastardly plotting between the uncle of Thames Darrell (who had not been aware he was alive) and the thoroughly evil Jonathan Wild. Again, the depictions of London life and of the various characters are wonderful. Finally, in the third section, nine years later in 1724, the action really takes off, as Jack carries out some of his most remarkable escapes and as the various subplots start to come together. In the end, of course, and I don't think this is a spoiler, Jack is hanged, much to the distress of all those, especially women, who love him, but justice is served in some other respects.

I was fascinated to learn the impact Jack Sheppard, the man, has had on art and literature. Not only did Harrison write this novel a century later, but Jack's contemporaries were also fascinated by him. John Gay based the character of Macheath on him in The Beggar's Opera, the precursor of The Threepenny Opera and Hogarth may have been inspired by his life for his series of engravings on "Industry and Idleness." Both these men make cameo appearances in the novel.

Much as I enjoyed this novel, there was, in typical Victorian fashion, a lot of extraneous detail about streets and other locations that meant nothing to me, and lots of criminal slang that I had to figure out from context (no notes in the edition I read). Finally, there were two stereotyped characters that sadly reflect what was probably perfectly acceptable in Harrison's day: a sycophantish, ultimately cowardly Jewish character (referred to as "the Jew") and a very strong but not too bright black man, and Harrison renders their speech in very poor English.

Love this review. Sounds like a fun book despite the ending. Thanks for the head's up about the stereotyping.

Glad to see you reading fun things! Great review and I definitely have to get this one. Jack Sheppard is always such a great character. I love stories about him.

As I mentioned on Lisa's thread, I've been in a need-to-be-entertained mood, and Jack Sheppard (who I had never heard of before) is nothing if not entertaining.

Stereotyping had probably not been invented in 1839 when Jack Sheppard was written, but it can cause us enlightened 21st century readers some problems. Excellent review rebecca

Sounds tremendous fun!

ETA: I see it's available from Project Gutenberg....

I'm sure it was considered entirely normal then, Barry. It's nice to see we've progressed a little since then (for the most part)!

ETA i should add, for those who care about such things, that there's a lot of blood and violence in Jack Sheppard, but very little outright murder.

A belated comment, but I picked up LaValle's Big Machine after it won the Shirley Jackson award, but I have not be inspired to read it yet, so I appreciate your comments. Have you read Endo's Foreign Studies? That seems to be the title of his on my shelves (I don't remember where I got the book!). I don't see the title on your list.

107. V Is for Vengeance by Sue Grafton



The Short Version
"Seeing someone you dislike is almost as much fun as reading a really bad work of fiction. It's possible to experience a perverse sense of satisfaction on every clunky page." p. 138

The Slightly Longer Version
OK, it isn't "really bad" and I've certainly read, or stopped reading, a lot worse. I've been reading Grafton's alphabet series since she started them in the early 80s, a time when I read a lot more mysteries than I do now and when feisty female detectives were a lot less common. Something has kept me reading them ever since even though they seem a lot less fresh now than they did originally and, with this one, certainly, there is a lot of that bloat that comes to many mystery series writers when they seem to get the feeling their novels should be more "serious" than traditional mysteries (not, by the way, Camilleri) . Oh, and why does Kinsey Millhone, the protagonist, mention her bathroom needs so frequently?

You held out longer than I. I stopped reading them back around K. And Kinsey couldn't compete with Mrs. Pollifax whom I was reading at the same time. But then those books began to pale as well. Few authors can keep a single character going strong for so many books.

In a post on his thread, Steven03tx casually mentioned a "10 favorite novels" idea, and it turns out he has a fabulous wiki where he lists his favorite novels by decades. I'm not nearly that ambitious (or organized), but I did look through my Favorites of Recent Years collection to come up with my favorite novels read since I joined LT in 2006. I couldn't quite get it down to 10 though, and these are in the order I came upon them in my collection (or memory), not in order of how much a favorite they are.

The Top 14
War and Peace
Anna Karenina
Life and Fate by Vassily Grossman
Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann
Joseph and His Brothers by Thomas Mann
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
The War of the End of the World by Mario Vargas Llosa
Captain Pantoja and the Secret Service by Mario Vargas Llosa
A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel
Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead by Barbara Comyns
Germinal by Emile Zola
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

The Next 10
Troubles by J.G. Farrell
The Wizard of the Crow by Ngugi wa Thiong'o
The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andric
Ice Trilogy by Vladimir Sorokin
The Lost Steps by Alejo Carpentier
Conquered City by Victor Serge
The Case of Comrade Tulayev by Victor Serge
Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes
A Month in the Country by J. L. Carr
She Drove Without Stopping by Jaimy Gordon

The interesting thing about making these lists (which are, needless to say, strongly influenced by my frame of mind at the moment) is that as I went through my Favorites of Recent Years collection, there were books that I vividly remembered loving at the time I read them, but they haven't stuck with me the way these books have.

Well, they are very useful, for other readers, too. When I joined Club Read last year, at first I would not make a wish list. However, a few weeks ago, I came back on that decision and going over the threads, especially finding these kinds of lists, was able to gather up a lot of interesting reading tips.

A very interesting list, Rebecca, with more than a few that I would like to read. Thanks for sharing it with us.

#216 - I had the same feeling about my reading of Edgar Rice Burroughs's novels back in the 80s. They're like junk food: you know they aren't doing you any good, they don't even taste all that great, yet you always have to have just one more bite.

#218 - I can't take credit for the idea of the lists by decade. A lot of people here were posting such lists, one decade in a time, I think in response to something going on in another group (75ers?).

I've gotten so many good reading ideas from you in the past that I'm automatically putting on my wishlist anything from your lists that I don't already have.

That's very true about our impressions of our reading changing over time. I've kept a log since 1978 in which I've rated every book I've read on a 1-10 scale. Looking back there are books I rated a 6 which I now consider formative experiences, and ones I rated a 10 that I can't even remember reading. (More support, I suppose, for your practice of not rating books at all.)

108. The Damned by J.-K. Huysmans



At the beginning of this novel, Durtal, a writer, and his friend, the doctor des Hermies, discuss literature, and Durtal complains about "naturalism," the style favored by Zola and other writers who depict society as it really is. He doesn't object to their writing itself, but rather to their focus on the mundane as opposed to higher levels, on materialism as opposed to the soul. Durtal has, in fact, stopped associating with other writers because, he believes they are either already public favorites always crying out for more attention or the the "dregs of society," constantly drinking and promoting their own "genius." Instead, he alternates between writing a book about Gilles de Rais, a military associate of Jeanne D'Arc who turned to vicious and massive child murder in the hopes of contacting the Devil, with talking with des Hermies and their mutual friend, the bell ringer Carhaix, about satanic rituals in contemporary 1890s Paris. As the book progresses, he gets drawn into a cat-and-mouse game with a mysterious female admirer and persists in seeking out a lapsed (excommunicated?) priest who celebrates the Black Mass.

As others have noted, spiritualism, and especially the darker angles of it, had become popular among the middle and upper classes in the second half of the 19th century. Combined with Durtal's interest in this is his longing for a time gone by, specifically the middle ages when the Catholic church was much more powerful, aristocrats ruled, and the lower classes knew their place. As des Hermies points out, comparing Durtal to the naturalist writers, "You execrate the age in which you live while they adore it. . . Sooner or later, you were bound to flee this Americanization of art to seek more airy and mountainous regions." Whether one can describe the gruesome activities of Gilles de Rais, his capture and trial, his confession and pardon by the church, and his ultimate execution as comparable to an "airy and mountainous" place is a matter of opinion. Additionally, like the protagonists of Les Diaboliques, a somewhat earlier French work which I read a month ago, who are also yearning for a time gone by, Durtal is profoundly misogynistic, preferring to seek out a prostitute when the sexual urge becomes too much for him to having a relationship and fearing the predatory nature of the mysterious woman.

I found this mildly interesting for a while, and I certainly learned a lot about the darker aspects of the occult, up to satanism, and including the highly sexualized succubi and incubi (of course, the church's emphasis on chastity is transformed into its opposite). I also enjoyed Huysman's descriptions of the bell tower in which Carhaix lives, the foods they ate at their dinners, and the history of bell ringing (another lost art to be mourned). But I guess I'm just not that interested in the supernatural. Bring on Zola!

Thanks, Edwin and Linda. It was fun to do, but I have qualms already about books I left off, or books I've read earlier and forgotten about.

Steven, I'm impressed you've kept logs that long; other than writing down the books I read when I was in my late teens/early 20s (lists lost in the mists of time), I never kept track of what I was reading until LT came along. As I entered books into my LT library, though, I often had memories of when I read them, so that was fun. I've never rated, as I can't figure out how to compare apples and oranges. And I even found it true that when I went through my 2012 reading to pick out favorites of the year, there were books I read that I thought great when I read them and now, months later, they haven't stayed with me.

Enticing list, Rebecca. I think I'll avoid Huysmans -- doesn't sound like my glass of wine.

Terrific review...but after all that, I guess you didn't really like it.

And loved your lists. I wondering what I own might look like, but I'm not ready to take the time right now to figure my own list out. (Also I have this fear that I'll list those ten out and then find that they are not so great a list)

Excellent review of The Damned rebecca. I think that might be one for me to read.

Very interesting lists of favourite books, quite a few doorstops in your top 14. The longer the book the bigger the impression?

Thanks, Jane, Dan, and Barry.

Dan, I think it just wasn't the right book for me, but I'm glad I read it to get a flavor of that type of writing and thinking. Steven read it earlier this year and really liked it, and wrote a great review that motivated me to buy it. I'm not sorry I did, but I don't think I'll be reading more Huysmans.

Barry, I did notice that about big books, but there are many big books I've read that didn't make this list. I do think in some cases a longer book makes a bigger impression, because it is an accomplishment for an author to keep a reader interested that long. In the case of A Suitable Boy, I loved the book so when I read it (way before LT, by the way) that I started reading more slowly as I neared the end because I didn't want to leave the world of the book. On the other hand, Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead is very short, and a number of others aren't much longer.

109. The Round House by Louise Erdrich



Joe is a somewhat geeky 13-year-old Ojibwe boy, enjoying life with his friends, family, and neighbors on a North Dakota reservation in the late 1980s, when he is thrust into very harsh reality after his mother is brutally raped and savagely attacked near the community's sacred Round House and he learns that her attacker may not be prosecutable because the tribal court (on which his father sits as a judge) is not able to prosecute nontribal members even when a crime occurs on tribal land. (It's more complicated than that, but that's the essence.) When Joe's mother withdraws after the attack and refuses to provide any information, including exactly where it happened or who the attacker was, Joe feels compelled to help solve the mystery and find the attacker. However, this is basically a coming-of-age story, with crime and injustice thrown in.

What makes this book so compelling is the character of Joe, who narrates the story in his more-or-less 13-year-old voice even though at times we hear from his adult voice looking back, as well as the characters of multiple friends, relatives, and others. His activities hanging out with his friends, especially his best friend Cappy (who, we know from the beginning, is going to die), are wonderfully typical of boys having fun, getting interested in girls, playing pranks on people, and trying to be a little bit bad even though they are all essentially good kids. At the same time, Erdrich interweaves the stories and commentary of the elders, some mythical, some extremely earthy, showing how, for Joe, tribal history and myth inform the present, the present in which he and his friends are obsessed with Star Trek: The Next Generation. This is the second in what will be a trilogy of books dealing with this family; some of Joe's older relatives, including his grandfather Mooshum and various cousins and others appeared in The Plague of Doves. As a reader, I enjoyed "meeting" Joe's relatives and friends and observing the understated strength of the community.

But this is also a serious book. With his mother withdrawn and his father both angry because his wife was attacked and realistic as a judge from a long line of lawyers (and, we know, Joe will become one) about the likelihood of prosecution, Joe and his friends try to figure things out on their own, encountering some surprises along the way. Ultimately, Joe believes he has to take justice (or is it revenge?) into his own hands. He thinks this through, because he is a thoughtful boy, and plots out what he will do, confiding only in Cappy, although it turns out a lot of people end up having some idea of what he has done and protecting him, although they cannot protect either Cappy or him from their own dreams/nightmares. And of course, at the heart of the novel, is the injustice: not only, according to Erdrich, who I recently heard interviewed on WNYC, is 1 in 3 (1 in 3!) Native American women raped, but jurisdictional issues often prevent prosecution.

I was going to wait until this book, this' year's National Book Award winner, came out in paperback to read, but decided to get it now after I heard the Erdrich interview. I'm glad I did. It is a complex, multilayered, compulsively readable novel, with compelling characters.

Excellent review. I hope to get to The Round House next year.

I've been intending to read more Erdrich after enjoying The Birchbark House trilogy with my daughter. The Round House sounds like the place to begin. Or should I read Plague of Doves first?

I've gotten so many good reading ideas from you in the past that I'm automatically putting on my wishlist anything from your lists that I don't already have.

I'll echo Steven on this point. Personally I like the doorstoppers because I of the room for detail and the lengthy character development. But some of my new favorite authors, like Phillipe Claudel, write short books or, in the case of (Jacques Poulin), very short books.

Thanks, Kevin and Lisa. By the way, Lisa, I get a lot of good reading ideas from you and Steven too!

I think you could start with either one, Lisa. I read a lot of Erdrich 20 years ago, and rediscovered her with The Plague of Doves. But, in fact, I'd forgotten a lot of it, so if the NPR interview hadn't mentioned the trilogy, I might not have made the connection (although I probably would have remembered tthe key event of Plague that is referred to in The Round House, as well as some of the character's names).

By the way, I forgot to mention that Erdrich has a bookstore in Minneapolis, Birchbark Books. I'm going to be browsing their Native American fiction and nonfiction sections.

Wonderful review of The Round House, Rebecca. Thanks for mentioning her NPR interview. I missed it but will listen on the website.

Thanks for the Erdrich review. I'm looking forward to reading both Plague of Doves and The Round House sometime in the new year. Erdrich has been one of my favorite authors for a long time.

#231 - oh, great info about that bookstore. I'm in the Minneapolis area about once a year.

The interview I heard was on a local WNYC talk show, the Leonard Lopate Show, not national NPR. Here is a link to it.

Catching up. A number of excellent reviews.

Jack Sheppard sounds fantastic - I will definitely have to read that one. Didn't know he was the inspiration for The Beggar's Opera - interesting. I've also had Henry Fielding's Jonathan Wild on the wishlist for years now - would be fun to compare the two.

I always wondered what Sue Grafton would do when she reached the end of the alphabet and it looks like she's close. Maybe some sort of number series?

I really need to read A Rebours but your very good review makes The Damned sound less interesting.

Clearly need to read some Erdrich also.

DieF, I didn't know about the Jonathan Wild book but I'm running off to look for it. As for The Damned, I think you have to like that sort of thing more than I do.

110. The Stammering Century by Gilbert Seldes



This is a strange book about strange people in a strange time -- and yet, are they that different from us, and is our time so different from theirs? Originally published in 1928 and recently reissued by NYRB, The Stammering Century portrays a series of 19th century revivalists, religion/cult creators, founders of idealistic communities, temperance proponents, spiritualists, medical quacks and more -- mostly in their own words and those of their contemporaries. The title is a quote from Horace Greeley who described, in Seldes's words, the people who "were vehemently stammering out God's curse on material progress, and announcing Christ's Kingdom on earth, or the New Eden in Indiana" -- as opposed to those who were conquering the West, building businesses, and developing engineering advances.

He starts with Jonathan Edwards, an uncompromising, intellectually rigorous 18th century minister, to illustrate what the people in the rest of the book were rejecting, and moves on to the revival meetings at which thousands of people came together and hysterically "jerked" to show that they were saved; religious leaders who rejected sexual relationships because the second coming of Christ had already happened and thus people were sinless and those who advocated sexual freedom for the same reason (strangely, or not so strangely, the religious leaders were always the ones with the most sexual freedom); and what he calls a "messianic murderer." He also portrays "radicals" (although not in the sense we would use the term today) and "reformers," people who tried to found idealistic communities, such as Bronson Alcott and others, often with a "religious" underpinning, sometimes with an associated business (as with the community that for many years manufactured Oneida silverware). He displays how the original temperance movement, which advocated individual rejection of drinking, morphed into the prohibition movement which forced the ban on alcohol on everyone, and illustrates some of its leaders. He covers the beginning of spiritualism (communication with the dead) and shows how it was exposed as fraud, as well as the infinite variety of medical quackery. Finally, as the 19th century draws to a close, he portrays the completely permissive and confused "New Thought," which claimed that if you focused on something good you could make it happen (sound familiar?), and Christian Science, which claimed there was no such thing as illness and death.

Throughout, Seldes lets these "fanatics and radicals," "messiahs and mountebanks" speak for themselves, reveal the looniness and grandiosity of their own thoughts, although he occasionally interjects the perfect understated zinger to deflate them. He notes:

"The underlying motive of the radical cults was salvation -- in modern jargon they were escape mechanisms -- and the underlying motive of nineteenth-century America was the desire for mastery. Through cults, escape was offered: from the terror of sex, by refraining from intercourse or by a special sanctification of intercourse -- the means differ but the motive is the same; from working for a living, by communism or cooperation; from ill health, by Christian Science; from awkwardness, by the cult of Personality; from moral responsibility, by Phrenology; from the drabness of life, by imagining a Utopia; from loneliness, by accepting the friendship of Christ; from fear, by accepting his intercession; from death, by Spiritualism, Christian Science, and Christianity." p. 402

He also makes the point that it was not just the uneducated masses who fell for these cults, as Mencken would have had it but, at least initially, by the educated. "The astounding thing about all the quackeries, fads, and movements of the past hundred years in America is that they were first accepted by superior people, by men and women of education, intelligence, breeding, wealth and experience." (Yes, he was writing in the 1920s.) He notes, "I came gradually to want to prove nothing. What I did want was to compose a sort of anatomy of the reforming temperament and to follow it, by winding roads, to the spiritual settlements it made for itself. What the man thinks who sets himself apart from humanity and expects humanity to follow him . . ." Finally, in a summary chapter, he writes:

"A dry world, a world of sanitary tenements, a world of sexless friendliness, a world without bawdy plays, a world in which capital and labor are friends -- all these are the concerns of a single temperament: the idealist. In the service of an Ideal there can be no compromise. As Carry Nation put it, one meddles. The radical-reformer-Prohibitionist is convinced of his God-given authority to interfere with the lives of other men, in order to improve them. Eighty years ago, he withdrew from society, founded his own community, and preached Abstention. Today, he passes laws and cries, I forbid. He believes still in the depravity of man as he is. He still has the ideal of Man before the Fall." pp. 407-408

I should note that there are no footnotes/endnotes in this book, which is filled with quotes. This is intentional, according to Seldes's "Sources" section, in which he quotes a writer who felt it was inappropriate to show the "machinery" of a book is to "stress the toil which has gone into its making, not the pleasure." "It is perfectly obvious that in a book of this kind," he writes, "the principal sources are the works of each of the people studied, and . . . the principal biographical studies." It works, but it seems odd by contemporary standards.

And that's it for 2012! Please come visit my first 2013 thread, still under construction.

The Stammering Century covers some very interesting subject matter, though I would prefer to read a less opinionated treatment (even when I agree with the opinions). The linkage between utopianism, spiritualism, and prohibition is intriguing.

Does the book address non-religious utopian communities? There was one such commune formed here in Dallas in the 1850s by French immigrants. Their practices included community property, free love, acceptance of homosexuality, and equal rights for women. (Not a legacy our current political leaders are eager to acknowledge!) The commune failed after five years because they could not adapt their European farming practices to the extremes of the Texas climate.

Steven, it really isn't opinionated! For most of the some 400 pages, Seldes lets the "characters" speak for themselves. I gave the wrong idea by quoting passages either from the introduction or the final chapter in which Seldes expresses his own thoughts.

And yes, some of them were pretty minimally religious, although Seldes's focus is more on the religious ones. He doesn't mention the one in Dallas, and it sounds very different from the ones he discusses. It may be that he wanted to focus on the "American" character and therefore was not interested in a group founded by French immigrants.

A very interesting end to the year. I would probably want to start with a more recent take on all this...1928 just seems like a long time ago. Maybe I'm under-appreciating Seldes.

Great review to finish the year rebecca. Too tired and emotional to comment further at 1.30am on the 1st January 2013.

Thanks, Dan, and thanks, Barry. I can understand, Dan, why you might want a more recent book, but there is something unique in my experience about the way Seldes strings together lengthy quotes from the people involved that a more interpretive book would not provide.

Happy new year to all!

I didn't know Henry Fielding had written a book called Jonathan Wild; it will be interesting, especially after Jack Sheppard in which Jonathan Wild appears as a character.

I didn't know either, but that's why I ordered it!

The Stammering Century sounds great - I saw it on the NYRB website and was wondering about it, you have me very interested!

I have a longish list of 18th c. books that I should read, but Jonathan Wild stuck in my head because I think that was one of the books mentioned in Calvino's The Baron in the Trees - the section about the thief who prefers to read instead of stealing things.

The Stammering Century does sound great. It makes me think of other books which tend to reenforce the idea that despite all protestations to the contrary, the history of the United States is not one of a country with a clear separation of church/religion and state, but that it has always been influenced by religious movements. It's always good to read these older books to see what other have thought along the way.

Have you read Norman Cohn's The Pursuit of the Millenium?

It's not just the religious movements, it's the incessant idea that you can improve your lot in various ways just by wanting it to be so!

Just added The Pursuit of the Millenium to the wishlist!