Their Eyes Were Watching God Readalong, part 2

Posted on December 5, 2011 by pagesofjulia

The Heroine’s Bookshelf is hosting another readalong! We are reading Their Eyes Were Watching God, and I encourage you to participate. Today we’re discussing chapters 7-13 (please pop over to THB at the above link to join in). We recently discussed chapters 1-6, and chapters 14-20 are coming up on December 12.

Part 2 begins with Janie getting well settled in Eatonville as Mrs. Mayor Starks, but not in a good way. “The years took all the fight out of Janie’s face.” Husband #2, Joe, has become a disappointment, criticizing Janie unfairly and keeping her hidden away; she’s not living life to the fullest as she’d hoped to. Joe’s death releases Janie, though, and she begins to have friends, to have a social life. She’s not quickly ready to remarry to have new male company around, though; she sees her suitors for what they are: men ready to take advantage of a wealthy widow, wanting to bed her beauty, and not interested in accompanying her through the exciting and fulfilling life she still wonders about. She considers that she may not want to remarry at all.

All this changes though when Tea Cake comes around: a younger, handsome, sweet-talking man who inspires her love. Despite the warnings of her friend Pheoby, she takes off to meet Tea Cake in Jacksonville where they marry, and Janie embarks on her third marriage.

I was a little leery of Tea Cake myself, and quickly found that our concerns were well-placed when he disappears with her hidden cash savings of $200. He comes back, with a story of the grand party he threw for a bunch of strangers with her money – not an endearing story, considering she wasn’t even invited! and he’s shown an inability to keep his hands in his pockets when there are dollars in them! but at least he does come home, and even returns her money to her, although he does this (apparently) by means of a poker game that ends with some knife wounds that Janie has to care for.

I was surprised to see Janie’s years with Joe fly by so quickly in so few pages; but I guess we got the feel for the monotony and uneventfulness of those years. I am definitely worried about Tea Cake as a stable mate for Janie. I still want for her what she wants for herself: Maslow’s self-actualization, I guess – fulfillment, joy, happiness, love, a realization of her potential and a seeing of a little bit of the world.

This part of the book I found less compelling then the first part, but I’m very willing to let my pain pills take part of the blame there. (If you missed yesterday’s post, I just had knee surgery.) I look forward to some other readers’ input on this section; maybe I missed some strong emotional pull. And I definitely look forward to the rest of the book, and finding out what happened to Tea Cake that has left Janie telling her story to Pheoby in the dark on the back porch.

Don’t forget to hop over to The Heroine’s Bookshelf for today’s discussion!

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Defensive Wounds by Lisa Black

Posted on December 3, 2011 by pagesofjulia

A forensic scientist with the cases of several murdered defense attorneys to investigate–reluctantly–while keeping her daughter safe on the scene of the crimes.

Defensive Wounds is the fourth in Lisa Black’s series starring Cleveland forensic scientist Theresa MacLean. CSI comes to life when a series of defense attorneys are murdered in spectacular fashion at the Ritz-Carlton during a convention; investigations are complicated by the fact that, as the cops put it, “everyone” hates these victims. For that matter, murder investigation in a hotel–let alone the collection of forensic evidence–is a detective’s nightmare; fibers and bodily fluids abound. Theresa’s involvement is made especially significant by her daughter Rachael’s new job at the hotel. With her cousin Frank one of the investigating detectives, Theresa is perhaps more intimately concerned than she should be–which is how she discovers the seemingly innocent character who may have singled Rachael out.

The tribal mentality of cops versus defense attorneys muddies everyone’s waters, and old crimes and questionably accidental deaths are reexamined. Theresa may have a new romantic interest, even as she tries to thwart Rachael’s budding relationship. Meanwhile, a serial killer runs loose, while Theresa collects loose fibers and cat hairs and struggles to make sense of it all.

An authentic feel to the forensics joins with breathless pacing and an intertwining cast of characters to make for an exciting and unique contribution to the thriller genre. Those new to Black’s series will be right at home with Theresa, a woman who takes her career in science and law enforcement seriously, while simultaneously trying to be a good mother. But we’re really here for the adrenaline rush, and Black delivers.

I wrote this review for Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

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The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Posted on November 30, 2011 by pagesofjulia

I have heard that this was an important, well-written and interesting autobiography. I don’t recall where I heard it, but I made a note and it stuck in my head. So I found the audiobook and gave it a try.

What I learned was a more detailed version of what I knew: Benjamin Franklin was an interesting, hard-working, thoughtful man who helped shape our nation’s history. He was an indentured servant, a runaway, a businessman, an entrepreneur, a diplomat, a politician, an inventor, an author, a militiaman, a scholar and a philosopher, and a father. He invented many items, large and small, that improved the everyday life of people in his time, showing an intelligence and curiosity about how things work that I admire. He was also instrumental in beginning both a school (which became both the University of Pennsylvania, and a free school for poor kids) and a public hospital in his adopted hometown of Philadelphia. He did a lot of good things and had some interesting ideas. He was a moralist, and wrote tracts in which he espoused a “right way” of living.

The style of his autobiography is unfortunately stiff and pompous, though. I think that perhaps the narration of my Mission Audio edition didn’t help. The language in which this book was written is necessarily dated and sounds odd to the modern ear; but if today’s actors can make Shakespeare palatable, for gosh sake, you’d think they could have found a narrator who would bring Franklin to life, too. Instead they went with a sort of whuffling, sedate, staid voice that emphasized not this senior statesman’s timeless wisdom and accessibility – which I think might be there, hidden in the text – but the distance from which he speaks. The long pauses and bombastic tone went a long way towards ruining this experience for me.

I didn’t enjoy this autobiography at all, which was a disappointment. Actually I’m not quite sure why I finished it (Husband asked, and I couldn’t answer); maybe I had that much faith in the long-lost recommendation, or maybe I was just mesmerized by the monotonous narration… I didn’t even get the consolation of learning new bits about Franklin. I came away with the same vague notion of who he was and what his legacy was that I’d started with. For educational purposes, I actually got more out of the “timeline of his life” appended at the end than I did out of the bulk of the book. I feel that the autobiography itself was probably flawed, in that it leans towards anecdotes of little consequence, moralizing, and self-congratulations. But the narration was the final straw. Unfortunately I cannot recommend this book; and if you do decide to seek it out (in which case, let me know if it goes any better for you!), for the love of Dog, avoid the Mission Audio version.

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Their Eyes Were Watching God Readalong, part 1

Posted on November 28, 2011 by pagesofjulia

The Heroine’s Bookshelf is hosting another readalong! Yay! We are reading Their Eyes Were Watching God, and I encourage you to participate. Today we’re discussing chapters 1-6 (please pop over to THB at the above link to join in) and have two discussion dates to come: chapters 7-13 on December 5, and chapters 14-20 on December 12.

Chapters 1-6 introduce us to Janie Crawford, and her tragic family history. At the start of the story, we see a forty-ish Janie coming home from… somewhere, to her town’s gossipy disapproval. And she begins to tell her story to her friend Pheoby. We hear about her youthful marriage, to relieve her aging grandmother’s concern about her future; but she isn’t Janie Killicks for long before leaving him to become Mrs. Mayor Starks, of a brand-new, all-black town. Janie becomes decidedly dissatisfied with being ordered around as Joe Starks’s helpmate and unpaid worker. He’s jealous and keeps her on a short leash, and she wants more out of life. When she was 14 she lay beneath a pear tree in blossom, and felt deeply touched by the springtime rhythms of nature; the descriptions of the pear blossoms, the bees pollinating them, are decidedly sensual and even sexual. Janie is meant for more than working as Joe’s wife-servant. Her perceptions are idealistic and lofty. She has an appreciation for her world that is deeper than that of her power-hungry husband.

Already Janie’s story touches me deeply, and I yearn with her for a world in which a “colored” woman will have value, make decisions for herself, and know love. As a character she’s earned my respect and sympathy.

And such beautiful imagery! I wanted to share with you some of my favorite turns of phrase, but I find them to be many…

“Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.”
“The sun was gone, but he had left his footprints in the sky.”
“They made burning statements with questions, and killing tools out of laughs.”
“Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches.”
“She knew the world was a stallion rolling in the blue pasture of ether.”
“Every morning the world flung itself over and exposed the town to the sun.”

The descriptions and the writing are absolutely marvels unto themselves, without even worrying about Janie herself – which I defy you not to.

I’m definitely excited about this book and looking forward to Erin’s readalong. Stop over and join us, won’t you?

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the Sharon Kay Penman corpus

Posted on November 27, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Sharon Kay Penman is probably my very favorite author of historical fiction. Her books are generally quite long (the exception is the shorter books in her mystery series starring Justin de Quincy), and so effortlessly create whole worlds that I just love to fall into. I turn to her books when I’m looking for a comfortable, engrossing read that won’t be over in a day or two! I’m slowly working my way through all her work; I’ve only read a few so far but have collected most of them. In chronological order, they are…

Standalone:
The Sunne In Splendour (1982) – reading now

The Welsh Trilogy
Here Be Dragons (1985) – own it (edit: read it)
Falls The Shadow (1988) – own it
The Reckoning (1991) – this was my first Penman, and I reread it several times before branching out, I loved it so much. Now I guess it’s time to go back and read the first two in this trilogy!

The Henry II Trilogy
When Christ And His Saints Slept (1995) – loved it
Time And Chance (2002) – own it
Devil’s Brood (2008) – own it
Lionheart (2011) – have it in the library

The Justin de Quincy Mysteries
The Queen’s Man (1996) – enjoyed it
Cruel As The Grave (1998)
Dragon’s Lair (2003)
Prince of Darkness (2005)

The other aspect of Penman’s work (which I’ve discussed before) is that she does meticulous research. I consider her to be an excellent example of a responsible author of historical fiction; the author’s notes at the back of each of her books details where history ends and where fiction begins, so that the responsible reader can be careful about how much she takes away from these books as fact. I definitely recommend her work.

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did not finish: New by Winifred Gallagher

Posted on November 26, 2011 by pagesofjulia

The subtitle of New is “Understanding Our Need for Novelty and Change,” and I was interested; I think I visualized a work of social commentary, on our society’s driving need and demand for bigger and “better”, for “progress” for its own sake. That’s not what Winifred Gallagher has given us, though.

Instead, this is a work of anthropology and psychology, observing the variety of personality types and behaviors present in our human race. She refers to neophobes, neophiles, and neophiliacs. The change-fearing first category, and the adventure-seeking third, make up some 20-30% of our population; the majority of us represent a more moderate reaction to novelty. As a population, this makes us well-suited to survival and evolution and, in fact, explains (says Gallagher) why Homo sapiens survived when our brethren did not: the thrill-seekers pushed us to new and better solutions to the problems of survival, the anxious ones kept us safe, and the majority kept us wisely moving towards new opportunities with intelligent caution.

This phenomenon is explored in our history, in psychological studies, in case studies, in lab studies with other species (those poor mice with the cocaine addictions! very sad), and finally in a look at the “Old Order” (Amish and Mennonite communities) in comparison to the smart-iProduct-tech-gadget-addicted majority population of… where, exactly? It’s my impression that Gallagher is looking at the US or Western world here, but I still somehow feel that she’s overestimated the saturation of smartphones in today’s world. Even in the US I know there are still plenty of us without them (!) and if we’re going world-wide, her supposition gets even more ridiculous. (As an aside, her asseration that “whether you’re rich or poor, black or white, male or female, young or old, expert or beginner, the answer to your question is as close as the nearest computer – a truly democratizing force that’s apparent in any public library,” while true, seems to disregard the fact that those computers are not very nearby to a huge majority of the world’s population, like most of the poor and disproportionately many of the black population; and the libraries are being shut down at alarming rates, so yes, while it’s a “democratizing” force, it’s also not a very forceful force.)

And while the basic idea – that we are either neophobes, neophiles, or neophiliacs, in approximately a 20/60/20 proportion – was an interesting one, I got that from the first six pages. Literally. The rest of the book just bored me, and offered nothing (ha) New. And then there were sentences like this one (this quotation comes from my advanced reader’s copy and is therefore subject to change):

Finally, to the creative personality’s recipe of good intelligence, robust neophilia, self-directedness, and the toughness that he describes as a low level of “harm avoidance,” C. Robert Cloninger, a psychiatrist and neuroscientist at Washington University in Saint Louis who developed the highly regarded Temperament and Character Inventory personality model, would add a big dollop of “reward dependence,” or desire for approval.

And I ask you, are you not bored and thrown off by such a sentence structure? With such a list of such concepts, and such a bit fat clause in the middle, and such jargon? Sigh.

I did not finish New, but I almost did; I read about half the book and then flipped and skimmed the rest pretty thoroughly, so I feel confident in my conclusion that this book has rather little to say but rather many words to say it with. Not for me.

I was sent a copy of this book for review.

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A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard

Posted on November 24, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Jaycee Lee Dugard was kidnapped while walking to school in 1991. She was 11 years old. She was held by her captor, Phillip, and his wife Nancy, for 18 years, until 2009, when she was discovered very much by accident. By this time she had two daughters, products of Phillip’s repeatedly raping her while she was in captivity. This is her memoir.

She begins with her childhood, briefly; she grew up in California and then moved to Tahoe with her mother, new stepfather, and baby (half-)sister. Then she was kidnapped. Phillip was a sex offender on parole; he had two small sheds, and eventually a series of tents, built in a “secret” backyard, hidden by fencing and foliage, where he kept Jaycee and her daughters. Nancy was complicit in his crime. Jaycee was so young when she was kidnapped, lived with Phillip for so many of her formative years, that she was very confused – some would say “brainwashed” I suppose. She knew he was bad, that he hurt her, that what he did was wrong, but she was also convinced that he was trying to protect her and her girls, that the world out there was bad and frightening. In her increasing freedom, she may have been able to escape or to ask for help from the outside world, but she was confused and scared. When she was finally rescued and her true identity known, it took quite a bit of adjustment and therapy to help rebuild her family (her mother, sister, and aunt were very supportive when finally reconnected) and adjust to the larger world. She always loved animals, placing great store in pets – and she was eventually allowed to keep a small menagerie in Phillip’s backyard. Now, she has established a foundation (the JAYC Foundation, which stands for “Just Ask Yourself to Care”) to help families recover from trauma, using animal therapy.

Jaycee’s memoir is, most obviously, heart-wrenching and horrific and tragic; I don’t need to explain that aspect to you. It is also very raw and real. Jaycee has only a 5th grade education, and this book appears to have gone straight to print from her own rough writing. It is full of run-on sentences, fragments, ramblings that change tense throughout, grammatical errors, etc. I found this distracting at first, but ultimately I can’t help but respect how fully and authentically she’s put herself out there. The decision to publish her memoir must have been a difficult one. She speaks of wanting to publicize the bad things that Phillip and Nancy did, to not let them get away with it (or get away with thinking it was okay, or that Phillip was a victim – ugh). Also, some proceeds from the sale of the book go to the JAYC Foundation.

She tells her story very candidly and discusses her feelings very candidly. It has rather a different feeling than most memoirs you’ll find; it reads like a journal, unpolished. But again, once you get used to it, it makes for a unique experience.

What led me to pick this book up, you ask? I’m still wondering, myself. I felt a little weird reading it: voyeuristic, prurient, icky. I guess it’s the same as the train wreck you can’t look away from. My heart certainly goes out to Jaycee. She works very hard to stay positive and hopeful, and states that she doesn’t harbor hatred for the people who’ve done this to her; she doesn’t have time for hate, it’s wasteful, she wants to move forward and live and think positively. Good for her. She’s definitely still innocent, inexperienced, and lacking in formal education. But I’m impressed with her attitude, and she seems to have a really excellent support system in place; her family sounds great. I think she’ll be okay; she certainly has my best wishes.

This was a quick and easy read, and good for helping us be grateful for what we have in life (to put it mildly).

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Burned by Thomas Enger, trans. by Charlotte Barslund

Posted on November 23, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Henning Juul is an investigative crime reporter in Oslo, just returning to work after a two-year hiatus. He needed that time to recover and mourn after a fire in his flat killed his six-year-old son and badly burned Henning himself. His scars are external as well as internal: Henning is overwhelmed by guilt at having failed to save his son Jonas, and his wife Nora divorced him while he was in the hospital recuperating. With this backdrop, Henning returns to work reluctantly, and is immediately confronted by a horrific crime: a beautiful, talented, popular college student has been half-buried, stoned to death, flogged, and partially dismembered. Yes, you read that right. On the cop shows they call that “overkill.” And finally, Henning is assigned to work this case with his ex-wife’s new boyfriend.

As it turns out, the new boyfriend storyline doesn’t really go anywhere; the plot revolves around Henning’s investigation of the murder case. He does experience some angst over his ex-wife; more so over his son; but primarily we stick to the murder-mystery thread. The case at hand imitates a movie script the dead girl wrote, which is an interesting plot device; there is some question as to whether this is a Muslim honor-killing under somebody’s interpretation of sharia law, or whether the cops’ arrest of the victim’s Muslim boyfriend indicates racism and/or a jumping to too-easy conclusions. As you are beginning to understand, there’s a lot going on here.

That may be one of the downfalls of Burned, though. This plot undertakes many interesting inquiries, and resolves few if any to satisfaction. We get a good picture of Henning’s inner workings, at least; as a series character he shows promise. The tragedy of his own disfigurement, the loss of his son (to death) and his wife (to divorce), and his psychological trauma definitely lend themselves to another book or several. But the many plot threads picked up in this book are mostly put back down again after cursory treatment, which left me feeling a little bit jarred and jumbled. There were several small details that were left unexplained. There were loose ends.

Also the prose was decidedly awkward at times; it’s translated, so I’m assuming this criticism goes to the translator rather than the author. I give you my favorite example, a travesty of pronouns:

Henning sighs. Perhaps it’s right that Jonas is here now, he thinks. My lovely, lovely boy. He remembers the leap through the flames, how he tried to shield his face with his hands and arms, his hair which caught fire, the burning and the stinging, Jonas’s eyes when he saw him, how he helped extinguish the flames, before they got to them.

Really. I tell you. Even if it were the only example – which it wasn’t – a sentence like this will help to ruin a reading experience for me.

It wasn’t all bad, really. Henning is an engaging character and I cared what happened to him. I wanted the solution to the puzzle, which motivated me to keep reading. That solution disappointed me, frankly, but I still care about Henning. The ending clearly leaves the door open for more of him, and I confess I’m tempted. But with this many loose ends, I’m not sure I’ll subject myself to the frustration again (particularly when compounded with such stylistic offenses as the pronoun mess above). Not a complete failure, but far from a raging success, I’m sorry to say.

Many thanks to the publisher for the copy they sent me, all the same!

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Breaking Point by Dana Haynes

Posted on November 21, 2011 by pagesofjulia

A breathtaking thriller about a plane crash involving a team of plane crash investigators, a hired assassin, illegal weapons and plenty of intrigue.


Three plane crash investigators, known as crashers, are en route to a conference when their plane goes down in the woods of Montana. Their skills quickly reveal this was no accident, but they weren’t the target: one of their fellow passengers was headed to the same conference to reveal information about illegal weapons deals, and his jilted business partners have responded by using banned technologies to take down a plane half-full of civilians. A staggering cast of agents from the FBI, CIA, ATF and warring factions of the crashers’ own National Transportation Safety Board (plus a hired assassin!) rush to respond, but some of them are out to sabotage the investigation. The adrenaline-filled story zips from drug busts on the Mexican border to the back streets of Spain, through Washington, D.C., and the Montana backwoods–where, as the action ratchets up, a small town is literally (yes, literally) caught between a forest fire and a flood, both of which threaten to destroy key evidence, as the bullets start flying.

You needn’t have read Crashers, Dana Haynes’s first novel, to be wrapped up in the breathless momentum of this action-packed thriller. It has more than enough violence, overlapping loyalties and double- and triple-crossings to create its own web of intrigue. The characters are interesting and likeable, and the dialogue is cute, but they take a back seat to the story’s headlong, full-speed pace and edge-of-your-seat thrills.

This review originally ran in the November 18, 2011 issue of Shelf Awareness for Readers. To subscribe, click here, and you’ll receive two issues per week of book reviews and other bookish fun!

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Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey

Posted on November 20, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Yet another hit for Amy, my sci-fi friend. She’s 4-for-4 now, by my memory: first she gave me a (rare!) copy of Thank Heaven Fasting (the non-sci-fi outlier); then lent me The Hemingway Hoax; then recommended Soulless and now Kushiel’s Dart.

This is truly an epic masterpiece of world-building. I will go so far as to mention J.R.R. Tolkien.

I am a little bit challenged to categorize this story further; sci-fi I suppose it is. It is also speculative fiction? These genres are a little out of my league! There is some romance; there is plenty of sex. There is political and courtly intrigue. Think Tolkien for the world-building, and then add Philippa Gregory for the courtly intrigue and playful sex, even Sharon Kay Penman’s attention to detail; but it’s never slow! Oh no, I read these 901 pages (901!) in a two-day weekend. Many long hours and some lost sleep, but well worth it.

I don’t expect to be able to do much with plot summation, but I’ll try and give you a taste. The people of Terre d’Ange worship the demigod Elua and his Companions; the words he gave them to live by are, “love as thou wilt.” Love – or more to the point, sex – is considered a form of worship, and an entire class of men and women are raised from birth to be Servants of Naamah, the goddess-prostitute. They’re trained, then, in courtly manners as well as sexual tricks, which they perform for fees until the House that trained them has been paid off, and then they are free to continue in business for themselves or to pursue whatever path they choose.

Phèdre would have belonged to one of the Houses of the Servants of Naamah, but she was born flawed, or marked, by the dart of Kushiel, the one of Elua’s companions who loves pain. For her, pain and pleasure are forever linked. She is raised by an individual, not a House, and trained for a specialized kind of service, one that combines pain and degradation with sex. Her patron/caregiver/adopted parent is Anafiel Delaunay, and he has more in mind than the profits of her work; he trains her not only as a very high-class courtesan, but as an information-gathering multilingual scholar-spy. It is unclear to the young Phèdre what Anafiel’s political goals are, but she is very talented at playing her own role in his game, and she is deeply committed. Anafiel is a beloved father figure.

All of this transpires in the first third or less of the book, but I’ll stop here. Phèdre gets involved in matters of state much larger than she could ever have expected, and it will take all her formidable skills to protect herself and those she loves – and maybe, to save her nation.

I found Kushiel’s Dart to be incredibly engrossing. I couldn’t put this book down; I just couldn’t bear to leave Phèdre in a predicament. I came to love and root for her companions; I was invested in this story. I recommend it to anyone who likes to get lost in another world – and the world of Terre d’Ange and her neighboring nations is most definitely “other,” although there are recognizable traces of our own.

Amy tells me that this is the first in a trilogy, and there are three trilogies; but she assures us that each trilogy stands alone. This first installment stands alone outstandingly well too, although I won’t say you won’t be tempted to keep reading further! She also assures us that the books, if anything, improve as the series develop. All good news there.

Has anyone else discovered these outstanding epic novels? Anyone tempted to? I recommend!

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