Ipsoivan reads 2017

I don't have any particular goals this year. Last year I read 84 books, a mix of library books and books from my own shelves. I did notice that my own stuff, though much of it long neglected, tended to be my favourite -- I discovered some really remarkable stuff that I had avoided, or just not noticed, for years.

From about June to October last year, I experimented with reading my shelves alphabetically by author (although books I could remember well were exempt). This really yielded some treasures. I may continue with this in 2017, although my motto is no hard and fast rules.

Hello, Maggie. Welcome to Club Read.

Welcome to Club Read. I look forward to following your reading in 2017.

Thanks to you both! I look forward to being part of the group.

Welcome Maggie. It's a good reading motto.

I liked a lot of your favourite books of 2016 so am looking forward to your reading this year.

Thanks, Dan and Barbara. I knew this was the group for me when I added far too many books to my library list after reading through others' plans and best reads of 2016.

Looking forward to your 2017 reading.

Thank you!

>7 ipsoivan: I knew this was the group for me when I added far too many books to my library list after reading through others' plans and best reads of 2016.

A dangerous group indeed, but welcome. My own shelves are groaning after a few years here.

I'll be tagging along to see what 2017 brings for you.

>10 SassyLassy: Georgian Bay, as in Ontario?? I'm in Toronto. Not so far that I won't hear your bookshelves give way... I see that you are an avid 19th century reader. I am as well--I'm intending to re-read quite a few old favourites on my shelves this year like Collins, Trollope, Hogg, Braddon, as well as some that I may have only read one or 2 works by, like Zola. I look forward to following your thread.

>11 ursula: hello! I've lurked on your thread to soak up Europe living vicariously. Now I see that you are in Michigan, but I can still enjoy your reading and artwork. I also greatly enjoy your reviews, so I will no doubt be visiting your thread daily, but perhaps only commenting occasionally.

>12 ipsoivan: Yeah, I may still post photos from Europe because I'm not sure anyone needs to see the 1000 kinds of snow that currently make up my life. You're always welcome, lurking or commenting. :)

Well, first book finished for 2017, and unfortunately not a good experience. Family Album, about a large family living in a rambling home in the suburbs of London, is surprisingly flat. A couple of the characters are somewhat developed, but no one seems remotely real--more caricatures. The characters tell us over and over how "different" they are, but no, they aren't, and I don't think that is Lively's point, just a problem with the book. There are also a couple of hints at dark undercurrents that are supposed to be significant -- the children's games in the cellar, the scar on Gina's forehead -- but both are inconsequential, and again, I don't think that is by plan.

Normally I would expect a writer of Lively's calibre to make this work. I'm also afraid that my next book is already a bit of a dud. Not an auspicious start to the year. Oh dear.

I don't know... I like snow. I guess you have already seen enough of it for the year though.

>15 ipsoivan: Oh then have I got something for you. I just posted a picture on my thread. :)

Sorry you're not having a great start to the year with your reading. Hopefully it can only get better from here.

it just got better this morning!
thanks for he heads-up about the picture.

Some of my posts seem to have disappeared from here and I only have sporadic access to this box for posting updates. I'm not too sure what that is all about. But while work has not cut into my reading time, it certainly has cut into my posting time, so these problems are not that important.

Books read over the last 10 days or so:
More Baths Less Talking by Nick Hornby
Fun but not as fresh for me as the first 2 of these collections. Hornby's schtick is, I felt, a little forced in this commentary on his reading in 2010. Some good recommendations nonetheless, and I did laugh out loud in quite a few places. The premise is that he is the much older and rather bumbling contributor of book reviews to a magazine run by younger, and far cooler and smarter hipsters. His TBR pile and actually completed list are disproportionate in a way that would be familiar to many in Club Read.

Uprooted by Naomi Novik
I had never heard of this, but came across someone else in this group's notes about it and thought it sounded like just the thing to be reading during a very busy time at work. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Well-written fantasy about a teenaged girl who is apprenticed to a remote wizard; together they work to save the valley and country in which they live. Sounds cheesy, but really, this was quite wonderful.

Patron Saint of Liars by Ann Patchett
My first Patchett, and I will continue to seek her books out now. Rose is dissatisfied with life and her marriage. Discovering that she is pregnant gives her the push to leave California and the lies she has told there, to go live in a home for unwed mothers in Kentucky., thus starting a new set of lies. The book is partly narrated by Rose, then picked up by 2 other characters who are central to her life (no spoilers!). Wonderful plotting and characters -- a great book.

>18 ipsoivan: I do love Patchett, and Patron Saint of Liars is on my TBR shelf. Hmmm, maybe I'll pull it out for January. I adored her Bel Canto, State of Wonder, and The Magician's Assistant, but I have to admit there have been, for me, a few clunkers, including Run and, to my great disappointment, her most recent, Commonwealth. With this last I'm greatly in the minority, I know. I just didn't care enough at the end of the first chapter to keep reading, and more and more I'm jealous of the time I force myself to read books I don't connect with quickly. On my way over to the shelves right now to get Patron Saint....

That's too bad about Commonwealth. I reserved it from my library, and I see that I am next in line at this point. I'll give it a go and see where my own preference lies--after Patron Saint of Liars, I'd be disappointed in anything but the best!

I have copies of Bel Canto and State of Wonder, so I'll be reading them soon.

ETA: I'm with you on tossing something aside quickly that is not working for you. I just donated a very large bag of such books.

Walkabout by James Vance Marshall. Two children from the southern US, Mary, 13, and her 8-year-old brother, Peter, are lost in the Australian Outback, the only survivors after the plane they had been travelling in to see their uncle in Adelaide crashes in the Northern Desert. After the first few days of thirst and hunger, they meet a young Aboriginal boy who is undergoing his walkabout, a rite of passage to adulthood, who takes them under his wing. Racial and sexual tension between Mary and the Aboriginal boy disrupt a potential idyll.

I'm not quite sure how I feel about this one. There were some wonderfully descriptive passages of their journey through the Outback, the sexual tension reads as authentic, but the racial tension reads as a bit forced--not its inclusion, but that it is clumsily executed. Part of this is the fact that the boy is never named -- just a romanticized other, but without knowing much about it, I'm guessing that this was quite a progressive book for 1959, and I found it well worth reading.

Last night I finished A Man in Love, the second volume of Karl Ove Knausgaard's My Struggle. Absolutely mesmerizing. I disappear into these books for hours at a time, barely remembering to breathe. I do have to wonder, though, at some of the details he chooses to include, for example his mother in law's drinking. Will there be a point to this farther along in another volume? Or is it just something that serves no purpose, and he should have remained silent about it?

Instead of moving directly to vol. 3, I'm going to read one of his novels, A Time for Everything.

>22 ipsoivan: I think that is the whole point of his 'struggle': he feels he has to write down anything as it happens or how he feels it happens, regardless of who he hurts along the way and regardless of the trouble it may cause. And he doesn't knows whether there is a point in what he writes, he just notices, thinks and writes.
The controverse when the books were published was partly caused by his being so honest. His reaction to this is also a struggle.

>23 Simone2: Yes, I think you are right. I think when I wrote this I was too close to the rawness of the book and couldn't see this. Thanks for the comment -- it will be in my thoughts as I continue the series.

Have you read A Time for Everything? I'm finding it really interesting, and quite odd.

>24 ipsoivan: No I haven't yet. I am a bit scared I'll be disappointed because it was his debut and I loved the My Struggle series. Would you recommend it?

I also loved the 2nd Knausgaard book. He said so many things we often think but don't have the nerve to articulate. I'm sure there must have been some uncomfortable silences around the dinner table in the Knausgaard house after he wrote this series.

I'm currently on Book 3 - just plodding a bit because work is stressful at the moment and I seem to be out of my reading mojo.

>25 Simone2: I would, but you have to be ready for something quite different from My Struggle. It is a blend of history, philosophy and expanded-upon Bible stories that are beautifully done. I find his perspective really interesting.

>26 AlisonY: yeah, can you imagine? "Today I was writing about that period when I couldn't stand you, and I segued into when I realized that your mother was raiding the liquor cabinet when she babysat."

My own mojo seems to have slipped a bit as well, partly because I'm flipping around too much between books. I hope work settles down for you.

I read A Time For Everything several years ago, well before the My Struggle books came out. I loved it, and may read it again someday.

So far I've read Books I-III of My Struggle, and loved them all, although I was most taken with Book III, which primarily deals with his (younger) childhood. I hope to get to Book IV soon.

My least favourite was IV, I simply loved V and VI, they were so very good!

Oh my, gone from here for such a long time!

I finished A Time for Everything at long last. The Coda is brilliant, as are some of the other parts, and it leaves me with much to think over, linking the mysterious voice at the end to what has come before. Fathers and sons, self-harm and self-sacrifice, seagulls and angels, the god-like choices we make, the fumbling god that is so human. I almost feel like beginning it again right away, but I'm not sure I'm up to it. I was barely up to it the first time through, and had to take a long break with some of Kent Haruf's novels in the middle. The month of February has been full of some very moving reading.

At this point I'm reading a light and fluffy library book, Mr. Penumbra's 24-hour Library, but reading it is really just rolling my eyes across the page after the wonderful things I've read in the last few weeks.

>28 arubabookwoman:, >29 Simone2: I look forward to the rest of the series. I've got Book 3 on my Kindle and Book 4 from a remainder sale. I'm keeping my eye out for the rest in the Archipelago editions, which are quite lovely as objects.

>30 ipsoivan: You have convinced me! I'll go and get it!

>30 ipsoivan: noting to these thoughts on A Time for Everything. I plan to read it later this year...and I've been wondering about it for quite a while.

>32 Simone2:, >33 dchaikin:
Just warning you both -- it has long passages of biblical exegesis, that can be either fascinating or dull, depending on your energy and focus.

These are supposedly a description of the theories on angels and God of 16th century Antinous Bellori, who saw angels when he was a child. His sighting is near the opening of the book, and is riveting: the angels are both mesmerizingly beautiful and terrifyingly grotesque. Knausgaard does an odd manoevre where he slides from exegesis and theory into vivid story: you are reading along and working really hard at a bit of philosophy/pseudo-history, when suddenly you find yourself in the midst of the most fascinating, vivid fiction.

The stories are incredibly moving -- retellings of Cain and Abel, the Flood, and Bellori's sighting of the angels -- but after the Flood there is a longish and quite boring bit about... um... Ezekiel?? See? so boring I can't even remember--dull because it slips back again into a kind of aridness (both stylistic and literal, as it is set in Palestine, unlike the other stories that are set in a kind of 19th century Norway).This serves a purpose though, as they all do, I think, but I need to reread the book to figure it out to my satisfaction.

The Coda is in the first person, told by a character who has exiled himself on a remote Norwegian island. Presumably he is the narrator throughout, and again, I need to reread the book to figure out why he is telling us about Bellori. There is no obvious link, but there are some really subtle thematic issues.

Totally fascinating, moving, and baffling book, with long streaks where I found myself groping for connections and meaning.

I look forward to comparing notes.

This is a warning? Or more motivation? : ) Certainly it sounds like it will take some focus.

You may curse me when you are mired in the Ezekiel (?) bit!

Promise I won't curse you. You offered a fair warning anyway. But I'm curious where he takes Ezekiel. I guess he probably doesn't insert a UFO. But can't overthink it now, trying to get my mind into my current books.

>37 dchaikin: oh, how did you guess? UFOs abound! Or not.

Google "ezekiel ufo" ;) ... Don't expect much sanity in the found pages.

I finished another couple of books in the last couple of days, one I could take or leave, and the other that I devoured in a couple of hours and loved.

Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore is ok, but was pretty much just an excuse to read. I found it funny and clever, but didn't connect with it.

Our Souls at Night is Kent Haruf's last book, written as he was dying. Addie Moore invites her neighbour Louis Walters to come over to share her bed at night so that neither has to be lonely any longer. With some coaxing, Louis agrees not to try to hide their elderly relationship from others in their small town, Holt, the site of Haruf's other novels. What begins as a friendship grows into love as they lie side by side, holding hands and talking over their lives.

Haruf is a new author to me, but I've read almost all his books in the last few weeks. Lovely, understated, and very... tough? that doesn't seem the right word for such sensitivity to nuance. He doesn't shy away from life's difficulties.

>39 dchaikin: Did you check out the images? NOW I understand what Knausgaard was trying to describe! Dan, you're brilliant!

I really enjoyed Our Souls at Night too. Nice to see your review and interesting that you have read almost all Haruf's books!!

>41 ipsoivan: No, not brilliant. If you read Ezekiel chapters 1-3, you can't help but think about it. It's so appropriate and weird and just - really odd. When i read Ezekiel a few years ago (2015) I spent some time going through these websites. (I posted on these chapters briefly here, but not on the websites other than to say, "wow". )

>42 dchaikin: I've read very little of the Bible, so the UFO connection would never have come to me.

I lived until I was 13 in Colorado, although not the area that Haruf writes about. I'm not sure how I first came across his work -- possibly bookstore browsing; Plainsong sat on my shelf for a couple of years at least, but a few weeks ago, it just felt right to finally read it. The others I was able to get from the library, but after I borrowed them, I ran out and bought them -- he has become something of an obsession. I'm now reluctant to read the last one.

The Wisdom of Frugality by Emrys Westacott. From Princeton UP's website:

From Socrates to Thoreau, most philosophers, moralists, and religious leaders have seen frugality as a virtue and have associated simple living with wisdom, integrity, and happiness. But why? And are they right? Is a taste for luxury fundamentally misguided? If one has the means to be a spendthrift, is it foolish or reprehensible to be extravagant?

In this book, Emrys Westacott examines why, for more than two millennia, so many philosophers and people with a reputation for wisdom have been advocating frugality and simple living as the key to the good life. He also looks at why most people have ignored them, but argues that, in a world facing environmental crisis, it may finally be time to listen to the advocates of a simpler way of life.

The Wisdom of Frugality explores what simplicity means, why it's supposed to make us better and happier, and why, despite its benefits, it has always been such a hard sell. The book looks not only at the arguments in favor of living frugally and simply, but also at the case that can be made for luxury and extravagance, including the idea that modern economies require lots of getting and spending.

A philosophically informed reflection rather than a polemic, The Wisdom of Frugality ultimately argues that we will be better off—as individuals and as a society—if we move away from the materialistic individualism that currently rules.

I found this one when I was browsing the philosophy section of the library. For some reason, it was only purchased as an audiobook, so this was my first experience since I was a child of listening to a recording instead of reading. At first it felt very slow, but I soon settled in and enjoyed it immensely.

The book itself is a very thorough examination of frugality's positive and negative attributes. Arguments in favour go far beyond those that are currently very familiar, such as the ecological footprint; those against also go far beyond the rather weak argument that frugality, if practiced universally, would ruin the economy. Westacott's treatment is both enlightening and enjoyable.

Enjoyed reading about The Wisdom of Frugality but we can't have it ruining the economy - can we?

If we all gave up buying books, the effects would be catastrophic!

In the last few days, I've finished Excursion to Tindari and The Smell of Night by Andrea Camilleri and Pat Barker's The Eye in the Door. I'm a bit under the weather, so no reviews. All very good.

The Ghost Road by Pat Barker.

The final volume of Barker's extraordinary Regeneration Trilogy. I read the first two (Regeneration and The Eye in the Door) when they first came out, recently reread them, and finished the last, The Ghost Road, today. I'm guessing that most of the CR group will have already read this; for those who haven't, a strong recommendation. Brilliant anti-war novels set in Britain and France during the First World War that mingle real life and fictional characters such as Wilfred Owen, Sigfried Sassoon, W.H.R. Rivers (psychologist treating soldiers for shell-shock and anthropologist whose time spent studying a Melanesian culture that embraces war provides an interesting parallel to Europe in The Ghost Road), and fictional bisexual shell-shock victim, spy and dedicated officer Billy Pryor.

Not me, despite lots of praise of Regeneration. You've provided another tantalizing review.

>48 ipsoivan:, >49 dchaikin: The Regeneration trilogy was so well done. I enjoyed your thoughts. Dan, I'm sure you would enjoy them.

>48 ipsoivan: I haven't gotten to it yet either, despite so many great reviews. It's definitely on the list, though, so some day!

oh dear, it feels like I've been gone for an age. I've been doing a lot of work-related reading, which I won't comment on here. I am going to catch up on what everyone else is reading to live vicariously.

Finally some escapist fiction to report: The Last Light of the Sun read while I was under the weather and just looking for something to take me to another plane. This apparently is the same world as some of Kay's other works, but not part of a series. In a lightly fictionalized Denmark, England and Wales, Erlings, Anglcyns and Cyngael are duking it out. Much mayhem, magic and parallel stories advancing, and lots of fun to be had. Total fun.

And more escapist fiction, Tim Powers's The Anubis Gates. The premise is that a rather mediocre 20th century Coleridge scholar is magically swept back to the very early 19th century, where he has a chance to meet Coleridge and Byron and be involved in a lot of very fun mayhem. I think the impetus to finally read this came from someone in this group, but I can't remember who. Thanks, whoever you are.

Another group member recommendation was The Middle Age of Mrs. Eliot by Angus Wilson. I think this will likely be one of my favourite books of the year. The death of her husband triggers a change in Meg Eliot, a well-heeled committee woman who had seemed to skitter along the surface of her life; grief, illness and a lot of introspection work in her to bring out the true depth of her character so that she begins to make her own well-considered choices. This is the first book by Wilson that I've read -- I'm now eager to read all his work.

>54 ipsoivan: Might have been me suggesting it. I remember having a conversation on somebody's thread about steampunk books and The Anubis Gates came up. Glad you liked it no matter where the suggestion came from!

Well, if it was you, thanks! Tons of fun. I've also read his The Drawing of the Dark and greatly enjoyed it. I've got another, can't remember the title, that I got as a Kindle 99 cent special a couple of years ago. It looks like it retraces the Anubis Gates to some extent, as I remember it having something to do with Shelley and Byron.

Byron and Shelley would be The Stress of Her Regard and his more recent sequel Hide Me Among the Graves I've read the first and enjoyed it - haven't tried the second yet.

Oh my, looks like I've got some good reading ahead!

Well, while you're at it, On Stranger Tides is also very good - just ignore that awful Pirates of the Caribbean movie that had nothing to do with the book. :)

Ok, aaaand it's at my library!

Oh dear, I am well and truly, hopelessly behind on LibraryThing. I can report, however, that I've been reading up a storm -- all Tony Hillerman books from the local library. I had a fit of missing my mum, who loved TH, and went on something of a tear. Enjoyed them all enormously, having forgotten just how good he was. I've also got far too much work on my plate, and the consequence has been that keeping up here has taken a back seat and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. I miss this place.

Well, we'll be here when life allows you to visit!

I missed this, or could not reply, as it was at the time I moved - hope your reading still goes well.

I'm finally back. I've been reading up a storm, but not visiting LT. It's good to glance over the threads and see what others have been up to. I'll be in for 2018, but with no ambitious plan, apart from to post here more frequently.

I came across mention of D.H. Lawrence's The Lost Girl in an A.S Byatt novel recently and it sounded like something I might like. The reference was to how Arnold Bennett's character in The Old Wives' Tale escapes from the Midlands to Paris, but is thoroughly punished by having to live through the Commune and other hardships, whereas Lawrence's character goes off to the big city and finds her element.

Even writing that makes me want to read the book. Unfortunately I didn't get on well with it. The first chapter I did enjoy: it covers the protagonist's father and his love of the top quality fabrics he sells in his shop, and was both funny and vivid, but pretty soon I was reminded of Lawrence's writing quirks, one of which is to use the same opaque phrase over and over to describe a character's appearance or mannerisms, but too often the phrase is incomprehensible to me. In this novel, it's something about how the protagonist lengthens her eyelids that is supposed to express a lot... but didn't to me.

I just read the Wikepedia plot summary, and I think I can safely lay this one aside. Byatt seems to appreciate Lawrence, and his sisters in Women in Love are a touchstone for her own treatment of the sisters in her quartet of novels. I'll leave him to her.

>65 ipsoivan:
Does Lawrence say whether the protagonist uses her finger to pull on her eyelids in order to lengthen them? ;) This phrase has no meaning for me either...

Errr, no, no finger pulling mentioned. I find him a very odd stylist. I remember "loins of darkness" mentioned frequently in Women in Love. There were far more howlers in Women in Love than in The Lost Girl, but judging from the Wikipedia article, I'm guessing I quit before they began.

>67 ipsoivan:
That seems odd indeed. I've veer read any Lawrence and I don't think I'll read any soon, given your comments...

Oh! To Be in England by H.E. Bates

A silly, fun book that I picked up at a used book sale a few weeks ago. It's the 4th of the Larkin family books. Although I already knew the premise of the series, I haven't read the others, but this doesn't seem to have been a problem.

The Larkins are wholly subversive: sensual enjoyers of food, drink, sex, nature, colour, swimming pools, cars, clothes--they are the good life incarnate after the pinched years of the war and its aftermath. They are also wholly generous, sharing their pleasure with everyone, particularly the elderly and lonely. Pop in particular kisses and fondles every woman he meets, egged on by his wife who seems to see his attentions to other women as restoring them to life, a kind of blessing.

Read through a contemporary lens, there is a lot to object to here, but that would be missing the point -- the Larkins overturn all social conventions and obliviously get on with enjoying life. A fun read, but I don't think I'll go out of my way to read the others in the series.

The Vet's Daughter by Barbara Comyns

What an odd book, and not one that I think entirely worked for me, despite rave reviews from Sarah Waters and Alan Hollinghurst.
There is some wonderfully creepy imagery (the vet's hearthrug made from a Great Dane was my favourite touch), but this felt--airy, insubstantial, fitting, I guess, for a book about a girl who learns she can float above the ground, but I found it a bit unfocused.

It's quite possible that I'll change my mind about it; it may just need some time to do its work on me.

Fools of Fortune by William Trevor

The Quinton family are Irish Protestants who have sympathized for generations with Irish Home Rule, and in 1919, retribution is paid for the death of a Black and Tan informer on their property and their friendship with Michael Collins. The impact on Willie and his mother, their maid Kathleen, other members of the household, and Willie's cousin Marianne, continues for the rest of their lives and into the next generation.

Trevor's style has always been the thing I love most about his books, but in this one it was the story itself--parts of this are incredibly moving. Beautiful use of Yeats's The Lake Isle of Innisfree as a motif near the end for the power of memory to build reality.

>71 ipsoivan: This sounds like a very good book.
I see that only 432 LT members have this on their shelves. I would have expected a book that is on the 1001 to be more popular here.

It's on the 1001? I didn't know! Have you read Trevor? I especially love his short stories.

Enjoyed your last three. I do hope to read Trevor sometime.

>73 ipsoivan: I've never read Trevor but after reading your review I want to get to him at some point. Thanks for the mention of his short stories. I didn't use to read any but have become very interested in them recently, so I welcome any recommendation.

>74 dchaikin: Thanks! Trevor is highly recommended.

>75 chlorine: I read his short stories first, and somehow they really hit home--I'm not an avid short story reader either usually.

The Waiting Game by Bernice Rubens

The Hollyhocks is a very exclusive home for the elderly -- Matron prefers a title, but will allow those from slightly lower echelons in, as long as they have plenty of money.

None of the inhabitants are ready to give up on life yet: not when there are blackmail, schadenfreude, romance, horoscopes, sadism and other wonderful pleasures to pursue.

Fun, maybe a touch drawn-out. Excellent characters, but I suspect I'll forget about this quickly.

M Train by Patti Smith

I liked this, really I did, but my reaction turned from "I love this" to "dear god, this is self-indulgent" near the end.

I read some excerpts from the book in Maria Popova's wonderful website, BrainPickings, and immediately bought it and devoured it.

Loved: much of the travelogue and sense of place, her thoughts on loss, her appreciation for the material world, her writing about her husband and kids, her self-deprecation, her wry descriptions about her day-to-day disastrousness, and I really loved her walks.

Didn't much get on with: her dreams, although they were funny at first, and some of her more esoteric ramblings about this and that.

Weighed out like that, I think I can say that I liked this a lot, but had reservations. I'll reread it soon.

>78 ipsoivan: Happy to read your review on this. I loved Just Kids, a wonderful memoir. So I was excited for this, bought it, and then just left it on the shelf, worried it might dissappoint.

I've managed to squeeze (probably) one last book into 2017, The Essex Serpent, although it's so cold today, I may get another finished.

What is the monster that has returned to terrorize the coastal town of Aldwinter? Is there a scientific explanation--is it a "living fossil" like Nessie? Could it be a large deep-sea fish or some kind of atmospheric phenomenon? For the modern thinkers of 1893, these explanations are beyond exciting. More traditional folk are filled with terror, believing the mysterious serpent to be evil, possibly even an apocalyptic sign. Other symbolic explanations are also floated in the novel--it could the snake in Eden that offers knowledge or, more subtly, it might be Cora, the newly emancipated widow, who comes to town to look for fossils, and all the modern age that she represents.

Perry's play with symbols and names really makes this book resonate beyond the story (which was wonderful). "Cora", for example, suggests "heart", central to the plot both physically and symbolically, as Cora's doctor friend is the first to dare to operate on a heart, although he cannot mend his own. Cora also is the Greek name for Persephone, with her connection to the dread Hades, in this novel Cora's sadistic dead husband, and her evocation of spring. The serpent itself is echoed in the caduceus, symbol of the medical profession, that is alluded to throughout the novel, but also might represent the various forms of social evil that preoccupy the characters.

This all might sound a bit high-fallutinly literary, but I found that thinking about the names and symbols led to a really satisfying reading, especially in the resolution that might otherwise seem somewhat flat.

a lot of interesting symbolism and interesting to see it all presented here. Did you use a guide or work it out on your own as you went...or does Perry explain within the text? I don't mean you have to answer that.