Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence

Posted on September 27, 2011 by pagesofjulia


Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence
I went into this one largely blind. I knew it was a classic, and I knew that its contemporary public found it obscene, even pornographic. But I didn’t know what to expect in the way of style or plot content.

So I’ll begin as if you’re in that same boat. Lady Chatterley’s Lover is set in England, in the years immediately following World War I. (I have found myself reading quite a few books, fiction and non, set in interwar Britain this year; I’m becoming pretty comfortable with this setting.) Our protagonist is a girl named Constance, who has a love affair as a teen while touring in France, but is called home when the war begins. She marries a young man named Clifford Chatterley while he’s on leave; the marriage does not appear to be particularly well thought through. Thus Connie becomes Lady Chatterley. When Clifford returns from the war, he first has to convalesce, and then they move together into his family seat, called Wragby – with Clifford paralyzed from the waist down, impotent, and wheelchair-bound.

To begin with, Connie had a larger, stronger personality than his. Now especially she is tied down, and in the dismal, closed-in environment that is Wragby, bordered by coal mines and their socially inferior, dirty, mean inhabitants. Clifford was arguably never fit to satisfy her, sexually, intellectually, or emotionally; his handicap now finishes that question.

In her malaise and misery, Connie takes a lover, briefly: Michaelis is a playwright, not really socially acceptable but moneyed, and therefore made semi-welcome at Wragby. This affair is not entirely satisfying, though, and following a particular sexual faux pas, Connie cuts him off.

For some time, then, she drags around Wragby, at first caring for Clifford dutifully, but eventually tiring and beginning to like him less. The main action of the book I shall try not to spoil for you, if you have managed to not know for this long. (I didn’t know, and had the pleasure of learning as I read.) But I will tell you that Clifford encourages Connie to get pregnant if she can, and assures her that he’ll acknowledge her child.

I found this book engrossing, after I got used to the style. Lawrence uses colons in odd ways, and with gusto, sprinkling them liberally. It took me a little while to get used to, and I continued to note his colons with amusement. More than punctuation, though, there is a sort of rolling rhythm to the narrative that I had to adjust to; it was lovely once I got going, but just different enough from what I’ve been reading lately to cause a change in pace. I wish I knew better how to Talk Lit and explain what I mean; I’m assuming there’s a term for the style; all I can say is, many classics or older novels have a style and a rhythm that I recognized here and that is different from modern releases.

The voice is third-person but shifts perspectives so that we see out from inside the heads of Connie and of her eponymous lover. There is dialect! I do like dialects, if I can understand them at all, and what they reflect; here, the dialects of various characters reflect social class, which is an important element of the book. One of the ongoing conflicts that Connie and Clifford experience is over social class; Clifford is accustomed to being one of the ruling class and assumes that that is as it should be, while Connie is a little more open-minded. There is discussion of socialism.

The larger theme, however, is a body-vs-mind question. In her youth, Connie and her sister Hilda were stimulated by the intellect of the young men they loved, and Connie continues to share activities of the mind with Clifford at least through the first half of the book. He becomes a fairly successful author, and she assists him in writing stories that make money but are not “important.” Clifford has several old friends – “the cronies” – who come by and have discussions, occasionally including Connie. As the story goes on, though, she finds that stimulating her mind is not enough; she needs to live a physical life, too, and Clifford could never offer her that.

Lady Chatterley’s Lover reminded me very much of Rebecca Harding Davis’s Life in the Iron Mills and Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. All three describe industry and its workings as if they are characters, animate. In this case, the local coal mines, which Clifford owns and becomes increasingly interested and involved in managing, are a force almost of nature. Their dirt and noise dominate Wragby and depress Connie; work in the coal mines defines several generations of men, and the threat that the mines will close is part of the terror and change of the new post-war England.

This was a beautiful book and I enjoyed it. Connie’s uncomfortable, unfulfilled position and struggle to find herself reminded me, in turn, of Katie Chopin’s The Awakening. It’s an important story to tell, and to read. It’s beautifully written.

But, you ask, what about the SEX?! Okay, I’ll tell you. First of all, the “obscene” and “pornographic” nature of this book is said to have diminished over time, but I still raised my eyebrows several times. There is very frank discussion of body parts, orgasms, and the various ways of achieving them; characters name their genitalia and call them by various terms not considered polite. Despite our new and jaded comfort with sex this is not a PG-rated book. But I thought it was well-done and fairly realistic, and I found several scenes of sexual frankness between lovers who really didn’t know each other very well, that suggest an openness we still haven’t entirely achieved.

Perhaps more shocking to me than the sex talk was the talk of affairs and illegitimate children. Not only Clifford, but Connie’s father, and various well-meaning bystanders comment on Connie not looking very healthy or happy, and recommend that she take a lover, even have a child by another man – they suggest this to her, even occasionally to him. It is taken fairly matter-of-factly. This, to me, was more outlandish than the sex. It’s not hard to see why the 1920’s world rejected this book as inappropriate; it’s still being challenged today all over the country. But as usual in dealing with banned books, I say let the individual decide. If you don’t like reading about body parts, steer clear. But this is a fine book, and you’d be missing something.

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Gone with the Wind part 4 (ch. 31-47)

Posted on September 26, 2011 by pagesofjulia


Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

Follow the Great Gone with the Wind Readalong at The Heroine’s Bookshelf. Today we discuss part 4. [Edit: tomorrow the discussion will continue at the HB blog. Please check back!]

Part 4 of Gone With the Wind brings more troubles Scarlett’s way. Good old Will – whom we couldn’t have lived without – brings her the latest bad news: the new powers of the South are trying to take Tara from the O’Haras by taxing them beyond their means. That is, former overseers, Yankees, carpetbaggers, and the social class that Scarlett used to turn her nose up at. Scarlett is visited by the Slattery girl who she feels killed her mother (Emmie Slattery had typhoid, and Ellen went to nurse her, caught it, and died); her new (former overseer) husband intends to buy Tara. This is one of the greater threats that Scarlett has encountered to date. As Gerald, her Irish father, predicted, Scarlett is finally learning to value the land as much he did.

In her distress, Scarlett runs to Ashley’s side, and begs him to run away with her. She again forces a confession of love from him, and a passionate kiss, but again he balks at leaving Melanie and baby Beau. He’s not brave enough to go with her, and/or, he’s too honorable. My personal reaction is impatience with the concept of honor and bravery over practicality; but this is not conceptual honor we’re talking about here. Ashley has a very real wife and baby who very truly need him, and his love for Scarlett is irrelevant. If he didn’t have the desire (or courage) to marry her in the first place, well, it’s too late now. I think he’s right about that, even though he is sort of pathetically spineless. Sorry, all of you who think Ashley is dreamy; I have trouble respecting his wishy-washiness. At least he knows it, though…

Scarlett’s next move, in desperation, is to dress herself up and throw herself at Rhett Butler’s feet. It’s a ploy that almost works, even though she has to play it in the jailhouse, as Rhett has been arrested for stealing the Confederate treasury. But he rejects her, and she grasps at a straw: her younger sister’s lifelong suitor, Frank Kennedy, is powerless under her charms and marries her when she bats an eye. He turns out to have less money than she expected, though (I’m reminded of Moll Flanders…), and she turns an entrepreneurial hand.

If you’ve been following along at all, it won’t surprise you that Scarlett turns out to be a damn fine businesswoman. She can be ruthless with her competition, dishonest, manipulative, and not shy to use her “charms” to attract business; she has a good head for numbers, and coldly acts in the best interests of those numbers. She’s cleaning up, but also struggling with labor issues. Freed slaves? Irishmen? Prison convicts? All the while, Frank is steaming at home over his wife’s headstrong behavior, which brings disrespect upon him in those oh-so-respectable circles Atlanta society is struggling to rebuild. Scarlett has another baby. Her father dies. She is sending money to Tara, now that she’s doing well, and she has succeeded in saving the farm… Will marries Suellen, even though it was Carreen that he loved, all to save the farm. But oh, the irony, that she’s saved Tara only to be kept away from it by her work in Atlanta.

After Gerald’s death, Scarlett connives to bring Ashley to Atlanta, to work for her. Melanie enters Scarlett’s social circle again, and they live in tense harmony in two houses back-to-back. Rhett Butler turns back up, and he and Scarlett play their usual game: Butler lent Scarlett money after he got out of jail (not even requiring that she prostitute herself, how generous) and now points out that she has broken the conditions of the loan by employing and therefore “helping” Ashley. There is some question about where Frank goes late at night.

And now comes the crescendo. Part 4 builds to one horrifying sequence of events. Scarlett has taken to traveling alone, at night, through the bad part of town, and one night is attacked by two men (one black, one white) who try to rape her. Big Sam (remember him? the head field hand from Tara) rescues her. The men back home, meaning Ashley and Frank, take off and leave Scarlett with Melanie, which she takes as an affront. But it turns out the truth is worse: they are secretly members of the Ku Klux Klan, and have set out to kill her attackers. The Yankee soldiers interrogate the women looking for the Klansmen, and Rhett is the hero of the day: he constructs an elaborate scene of fiction in which the men have been out at a whorehouse all night long. They have killed Scarlett’s attackers, and they get away with it (although at the price of publicly declaring the whoring, which is disrespectful to the wives, Melanie included). But Frank has been killed.

This is where I begin to be really conflicted. On the one hand: Scarlett has been attacked. Two men try to rape her. Her tribal menfolk set out to avenge this attack. I’m emotionally behind them at this point, even though it’s outside the realm of law-and-justice which I do believe in. This part doesn’t read as particularly racist; the two attackers represent both races and apparently receive an equal fate, based on being rapists, not being black or white. But, this is the KKK doing the work. Emotionally, as a reader who’s come to love and cheer for (even in my moments of exasperation) Melanie, Ashley, Scarlett, and Rhett, I’m pleased when they get away with murder, literally. But wait! The Ku Klux Klan killing people in the middle of the night, without benefit of trial, and getting away with it? This is most certainly NOT something that I stand behind.

I think I see what Mitchell is doing here. She has painted these upstanding, moral, white Southern gentlemen, who feel the need to go out and protect their women from rape and abuse. Again, this is easy to get behind. But then she sort of gently blurs these positive portrayals in with the Klan. And I know very different things about the Klan, and I don’t get behind them. This is some kind of propaganda. Shame on you, MM, for making me sympathize. Midnight lynchings = bad.

Here’s another difficult concept from the same passage: Scarlett blames herself, and the town mostly seems to blame Scarlett, for Frank’s death. She was out late at night, alone, in the bad part of town, and she was the victim of an attempted rape, thereby forcing him to go out shooting strangers in the dark, which not surprisingly got him killed. She killed him! She asked for it, and she got what she asked for! And then he died! Her fault!

UGH! The concept of a women ever “asking for” rape or attack is disgusting, and I hope no intelligent person subscribes to it (although I fear that some people still do). And no less, Atlanta’s theory supposes that not only did Scarlett bring rape upon herself, but that she left Frank no choice but to go out on midnight rides for justice, thereby putting himself in harm’s way. I don’t think this follows any better than the asking-for-it theory. Scarlett didn’t want Frank out running after rapists in the dark; we can see very clearly that what she wants most is for him to stay home and comfort her, and make her feel safe with his presence.

So, I had some difficulties with this sequence. I look forward to your responses, too.

But, okay, to get back to the story: the newly widowed Scarlett finally receives the proposition that I, for one, have been waiting for for oh, almost 800 pages. Rhett Butler is in the right position to catch her between husbands (as he says), and they come to an agreement: love is not necessarily present, but they can live happily together, and Scarlett will keep Tara and want for nothing. She will have as big a diamond ring as she pleases. All of this does come true; but, what’s this? Rhett seems to regret his ruling against love as part of the equation. I am holding out hope for some real honest-to-goodness romance at some point in this book…

But as part 4 closes, there’s another question hanging in the air, too. We’ve met Belle Watling a few times, and she’s a decidedly sympathetic character. The madam whose house cleared Ashley et al of murder, and who donated money anonymously to help the Confederate soldiers during the war, and who apparently is supported in part by Rhett Butler, has a child away at school somewhere: a son. And Rhett tells Scarlett he has a child away at school in New Orleans: his ward. Now, I see the foreshadowing. These two children are one, but who is the father of Rhett’s ward in New Orleans?

Part 4 ends with Rhett and Scarlett honeymooning in that very place, so I expect to find out soon. I hope for happiness, prosperity, a quiet settling down. I hope for love and romance, and an answer to my questions about the boy. I feel pretty certain I won’t get them all, though; this book is far too much about heartache and reality to give me all these happy endings. What’s next for Scarlett?

And how did YOU react to the Klan? And come on, y’all, a woman never “asks for” rape.

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Die Trying by Lee Child (audio)

Posted on September 24, 2011 by pagesofjulia

I fear that it’s beginning to test my powers of creativity to review these Reacher books. For one thing, yes, I admit it, they are rather alike. The general plotline is: Reacher is wandering aimlessly. He stumbles into a situation of danger (or it stumbles into him), generally danger to someone else, a relatively defenseless individual, possibly of the attractive and female persuasion. He becomes involved. There is intrigue, mystery, different bad guys than we originally thought; usually there is an attractive female; there is violence, fighting, skill and cleverness. Reacher wins at all the various contests; there’s a satisfactory ending for the good guys and he rides off into the sunset.

This is so SATISFYING though, I still like reading it. Reacher is such a big cute clever badass, I never tire. And it doesn’t hurt that Child keeps the intrigue intriguing, and suspenseful, and smart enough that the puzzle keeps me engaged right through to the final nailbiting moments. Keep ’em coming, Child, they’re still doing it for me even if there is a formula.

The other reason my creativity is being challenged is the already-evident fact that I just rave about them on and on. So now that I’ve admitted that, I’ll give you the plot and try to keep the raving to a minimum.

In Die Trying, the second book in the series, Reacher stops in the doorway of a Chicago drycleaners to help a young, attractive woman with a crutch who is mid-stumble and about to drop her drycleaning. In the moment of their contact, she is kidnapped at gunpoint by three goons, who see fit to just take Reacher along for the ride. The woman, Holly, turns out to be an FBI agent – quite a good one – with some lofty connections, and they are being driven cross-country for reasons unknown. There is attempted rape, and a crazy right-wing militia bent on establishing a new nation in the Montana wilderness. The FBI and the US military higher-ups are involved; it is unclear to various parties which side other various parties are on; as Raych noted, there’s dynamite. The above formula is followed, but as always, there will be some surprises.

I love it; it’s a very satisfying formula. And here’s the thing: I think I keep saying this, but I think it’s the best one yet! I can’t decide. Echo Burning was my very first Reacher experience, and holds a special place for me because of the South Texas setting. Strangely, I really liked One Shot for all the gun stuff. But The Hard Way has to be one of my top two or three, because of the high stakes and how much I got invested in the little family unit that was at risk, and especially the little girl and the horrible danger she was in… and I really liked Reacher with the lady-friend in that one, too. The small family he forms towards the end was the one I mourned the most, knowing he must move on as always. Worth Dying For also had very high stakes that upped the tension a notch for me. I guess those are my favorites…

So, I do have a problem with always liking “this one” the best. But Die Trying is a new favorite, too! The militia was an interesting twist for a bad guy. There was a psychological-thriller aspect to it. (I don’t want to give away too much.) And, what can I say, I never tire of Reacher’s ability to figure things out quicker than his peers.

If you’re interested, I mildly recommend to you that you start at the beginning of the series, with Killing Floor, but only mildly. If you start in the middle you may find yourself very satisfied – just look at me.

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Hemingway’s Boat by Paul Hendrickson

Posted on September 23, 2011 by pagesofjulia

A lyrical, textured, and meticulously researched meditation on Hemingway from a fresh new angle.

Paul Hendrickson, NBCC award-winning nonfiction author for Sons of Mississippi, pulls off the remarkable feat of finding a fresh, new angle from which to approach Ernest Hemingway: his boat Pilar. Purchased in 1934 with an advance from his longtime publisher Scribner, she saw him through three wives, great achievements and critical failures in his writing career, big fish and little ones, and the beginnings and the endings of many relationships. Hendrickson suggests that Pilar may have been the love of Hemingway’s life.

This is not a biography but a careful and compassionate rumination on the man through the lens of the boat. Hendrickson has brought to his readers a Hemingway who is neither object of worship nor monster, but a full and complex human who made serious mistakes in his relationships and fought pitched battles against his own demons, and finally lost.

The Hemingway fan will be enthralled with new details of his life, and the study of figures previously treated as minor but now revealing new facets of the man. The less familiar reader will be fascinated by this comprehensive account of the master and his complex spiderweb of varied effects on so many lives, large and small. Hendrickson presents his unusual and noteworthy story with beautifully quiet intensity and contemplation. Hemingway’s Boat achieves a terrific feat in reworking Hemingway’s story.

This review originally ran in the September 23, 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!

Further notes… I can’t tell you how much this book moved me. Perhaps you have noticed that pagesofjulia is a raving fan of Hemingway. I’ve read several biographies, works of literary criticism, and other spinoffs (see The Hemingway Hoax and The Paris Wife); I’m a little obsessive. But Hemingway’s Boat holds a very special place for me. Hendrickson (PH) treats Papa (EH) sort of gently, but doesn’t spare EH in his moments of monstrosity… PH comes from several different angles, interviewing different people who knew EH more or less well, unearthing some new details. PH approaches EH with the relatively unique concept that he was just a man – a great artist, but also human, with flaws and moments of everyday beauty. This book was noteworthy in all my reading of EH and the surrounding literature. It made me laugh and cry; I treasure this galley copy, where I usually pass them on as soon as I’ve turned in my review. This book alone has made my recent career as Shelf Awareness book reviewer worthwhile. (PH also recently came around here to comment on a post, which I found very exciting. Hi Paul!) I wholeheartedly recommend this book for fans of Hemingway, or of literary biography, or of well-written nonfiction, or for those looking for vignettes in Key West or Havana history.

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Never Knowing by Chevy Stevens

Posted on September 22, 2011 by pagesofjulia

An adrenaline-filled rush of a thriller about an adopted woman’s search for her true identity, and the consequences for her own family.

Sara Gallagher has always known she was adopted. It’s not until she has a much-beloved six-year-old daughter, Ally, and is about to get married that she decides to search out her birth mother. But she never dreamed of the repercussions: it’s her birth father’s identity that is the real shock, and the threat he poses to her and her happy family begins to rip their world apart. Sara and her fiance, Evan, struggle to maintain their relationship as the police tap their phone lines and begin to take over their personal lives. The horror only grows–and the pace ratchets up–as she finds herself unable to extricate her birth father, “John,” from her life.

Stevens uses the same unique format that was so successful in her bestselling debut novel, Still Missing: the novel is told in first-person, through Sara’s long one-sided conversation with her psychiatrist, whose voice we never hear. This lets us in to her inner conflict, as she struggles with her love for Evan and Ally (and her sisters and adoptive parents), and her need to protect them from the evil she fears she’s inherited.

Never Knowing addresses issues of adoption, family, and parenthood; it exhibits what a mother’s love can do, and what it means to be a parent. This thriller is relentlessly, heart-thumpingly fast-paced. The suspense will leave you breathless, as you learn to care for the conflicted but likeable characters, whose family ties make it all worthwhile.

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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Back of Beyond by C.J. Box

Posted on September 21, 2011 by pagesofjulia

A fast-paced, twisty thriller set in the backwoods of Yellowstone in which an alcoholic cop tracks a killer, hopefully in time to save his son.

Cody Hoyt’s job as a policeman in Helena, Montana teeters delicately in balance with his self-destructive behaviors. He has nearly two months sober when he’s called to the scene of his AA sponsor’s death: Hank Winters and his cabin are burned nearly beyond recognition. Cody spins off into a drunken relapse, mistakenly shoots the county coroner, and heads out of town in search of Hank’s killer–against orders, since the local authorities see no signs of foul play. But Hank’s death is just the beginning. It seems that a brutal killer has joined a backcountry horseback-riding trip into the depths of Yellowstone–along with Cody’s son, Justin. Reeling with the DTs and enraged by Hank’s murder and the threat to Justin’s safety, Cody sets out into the wilderness to bring down a killer and bring his son back safe, even as the bodies pile up around them.

Sympathetic secondary characters include Cody’s long-suffering partner Larry, a still-hardy retired wilderness outfitter who agrees to take Cody into the backcountry, and a precocious young girl on the pack trip. Yellowstone’s natural beauty is partly overshadowed by the very real dangers, both natural and manmade, that the motley crew of near-strangers encounters in this adrenaline-charged setting. Far from civilization, there is no lack of suspects, and everyone wonders who can be trusted. While Cody searches for a killer, multiple plots intertwine and complicate beyond what he’s imagined, and he’ll have to follow Justin to the very precipice to save him.

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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On Bicycles ed. by Amy Walker

Posted on September 20, 2011 by pagesofjulia

An exhaustive how-to manual and impassioned plea on behalf of riding bicycles for transportation and as a way of life.

Editor Amy Walker is joined by some 30 authors–policy-makers, researchers, business owners, activists, parents and/or cyclists–in this instructive manual. On Bicycles is not concerned with colorful Spandex, racing bikes or speed. Rather, this is a handbook for North Americans who want to use bicycles for commuting, transportation and fun.

The book covers a range of subjects and possible needs. First, why we ride: for better health, for the environment, for a better connection with our communities. Next, chapters cover what gear is needed, how to ride safely in various conditions, how to make the transition away from the car; how to transport kids by bike and how to get them on bikes themselves; how to use a bicycle for cargo needs; different kinds of bicycles; community services and connections including and beyond the retail bike shop; and redesigning our infrastructure and culture to allow for more and better biking. Your experienced-cyclist-and-book-reviewer learned new things; the novice rider will be thoroughly equipped with information and empowered by the enthusiasm pouring off these pages.

Walker’s examples come largely from that exemplary bike town, Portland, Ore., and some of her discussion feels a bit removed for cyclists in, say, Houston–but her arguments and advice are more, rather than less, relevant for cities (and riders) with further to go before reaching cycling nirvana. The only caveat: if you are in the camp that occasionally resents Portland’s reputed smugness, you may find a touch of that here. But it might be worth the stellar and scrupulous advice.

This review originally ran in the September 20, 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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Some Tame Gazelle by Barbara Pym

Posted on September 17, 2011 by pagesofjulia

I have finished reading one of the two books that Thomas of My Porch sent me. You done good, Thomas, I found it charming and funny. Pym is not entirely different from another Barbara I recently discovered, through Stuck in a Book: Barbara Comyns, whose Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead I really enjoyed. Simon, Thomas, anyone, if you can help me come up with a better genre tag for these ladies than “misc fiction,” I’d be obliged. Do these count as “domestic fiction” or whatever they call Jane Austen? Sorry, I’ll get on with it…

Some Tame Gazelle is the story of two spinster sisters, Belinda and Harriet, in a little English village in the 1950’s or thereabouts. We get the story from Belinda’s perspective primarily. She’s the dowdier and more humble of the two sisters, and her day-to-day life revolves, perhaps more than she realizes, around the local Archdeacon, who she knows and still loves as Henry from their school days. Henry is married, of course, and she resignedly sighs and gently envies his difficult wife Agatha, with whom he does not seem entirely happy, and alternately resolves to be a friend to her. Harriet, on the other hand, is still regularly refusing marriage proposals (mostly from the same man, Ricardo, an Italian count who Belinda rather wishes she would marry). Harriet is a bit sillier and prouder than her sister, but they depend on each other and are very much settled in their life together.

We read about this little village, where the sisters have tea, buy groceries, attend church, and help out with church functions. Where Belinda is devoted to the Archdeacon and worries over what garments she can appropriately knit for him, Harriet attaches herself to one curate after another and teases Ricardo and criticizes Belinda’s beloved Henry. Day follows day.

Sort of like what I said about the Comyns novel, this is a quiet book; there aren’t loud noises; you don’t jump in your seat. But my, is it ever quietly funny. Pym is compared to Austen, which I guess makes sense, but they’re not so similar you’d confuse them or anything. Part of this I suppose is the subject matter, that is, spinster ladies vs young women chasing marriageable men of independent wealth. (And I haven’t done my Pym research so don’t know if this is her standard subject material.) But I suppose the tone is comparable to Austen: people are so confined by custom and what the neighbors might think that they do silly things, and worry about silly things, and certain gentlemen do even sillier things that the women make excuses for. It’s a humor of quiet, respectable absurdity.

It also has in common with Austen, a female preoccupation with marriage. I don’t want to give anything away, but there are marriage proposals and there are weddings (okay, only one is onscreen), and there is much agonizing over marriage. There is also some rather blasphemous talk of spouse-switching – all completely theoretical and private, of course.

This book is set firmly in religion; most of the main characters are clergy, or obsessed with a member of the clergy, and all are church workers. This was a little foreign for me, someone with no church or religion in her life (don’t pity me, I’m very happy this way, and I don’t like being judged either, thanks) but I think I followed along okay. It’s not “Christian fiction” in any way; the church is just the backdrop. If anything, the church is an object of some merriment too, since the clergy tend to behave at least as ridiculously as anyone else.

Without getting too spoilery, I’m going to stop here in discussion of plot, but I want to note the title. The book opens with a Thomas Haynes Bayly quotation:

Some tame gazelle, or some gentle dove:
Something to love, oh, something to love!

Which perhaps tells us what this book is “about” better than anything.

If you are okay with the spoilers and/or have read this book, highlight the white text below.

One of my favorite things about this book is that it came full circle and we ended up right exactly back where we started. I was worried along with Belinda that one (or the other!) of the sisters was going to accept a marriage proposal, but I was much happier ending with Harriet preparing to dote on a new curate, and back again to the first line. So this is another book in which not much happens – but it’s surprising how satisfying that can be.

Thomas! You are wonderful! Thanks so much. Can’t wait to get into The Home-Maker.

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In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (audio)

Posted on September 15, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Truman Capote captured my undivided attention with this medium-largeish* book in remarkable fashion. My first issue for this review: is this fiction, or non? It is most commonly referred to as a “nonfiction novel,” a term I have a lot of trouble with. The story is either based very closely on, or is, the true story of the quadruple murder of the Clutter family in small-town Kansas, and the investigation, arrest, and eventual execution of the two perpetrators. (My library’s OCLC listing calls it “postmodern fiction.”) Capote himself said, “I wanted to produce a journalistic novel, something on a large scale that would have the credibility of fact, the immediacy of film, the depth and freedom of prose, and the precision of poetry.” So, fiction or non? I’m going with fiction, but clearly this is one of those areas where the line blurs. More on that in a bit.**

I came across this book recently in several blogs, which is curious because it’s not new; it was first published serially in Life magazine in 1965, and in book form in 1966. I already had the book on my radar, but these fine fellow bloggers definitely solidified my interest. In telling you about the story, and the book constructed about the story, I’m going to be fairly spoilery, because this is history. If you want to read it yourself and be surprised, I’m not your top-choice review.

So. The subtitle reads, “A True Account of a Multiple Murder.” On the night of November 15, 1959, the Clutter family was bedding down on their farm in Kansas, just outside the small town of Holcomb, itself a suburb of Garden City. Herbert Clutter, the patriarch, was a respected member of the community and devout Methodist; his wife Bonnie had been suffering from depression and had been in and out of hospital, but at this time was home. Sixteen-year-old Nancy, the belle of local society, sweet, talented, generous, and universally beloved, had just sent her boyfriend Bobby home and was getting ready for bed. Fifteen-year-old Kenyon was slightly socially awkward but friendly and respected as a member of a well-liked and important family. The two older Clutter daughters were living on their own outside the home – one married, one about to be.

Meanwhile, two paroled convicts of the Kansas state prison system were on the road. Perry Edward Smith and Richard Eugene “Dick” Hickock had been cellmates and although very different in temperament, had teamed up for an endeavor that Dick described as being the perfect crime. As you’ve already guessed (or already knew), these six characters converge when Dick and Perry kill the Clutters in the night and make off almost as perfectly as Dick imagined. They spend months traveling, living briefly in Mexico where Perry hoped to become a successful treasure hunter, and then roaming the US again until they were apprehended in Las Vegas. They were tried in Kansas, convicted, and finally hanged in April of 1965.

Capote follows both groups of characters – the Clutters, and Perry & Dick – alternately in the days leading up to the night of the murder. Then he follows Perry and Dick in their roaming, and then through their imprisonment and trial, and right up to the hangings. His voice is omnipotent third person, and he quotes extensively from letters, documents, and trial proceedings, as well as from his interviews with various players and especially Dick and Perry themselves. Capote was on the case (so to speak) well before they became suspects, and published after they were killed, so his perspective and the timeline of his coverage is pretty extensive.

But, perhaps not entirely objective. The Clutters are painted in admirable detail, in lovely little vignettes. But their role is minor and short-lived (ouch, pun not intended). And of the two killers, Perry Smith is treated far more sympathetically and examined more deeply. I was pondering this as I listened to the book, wondering if this was all Capote’s apparent subjectivity, or if Perry was inherently more sympathetic; in other words, would I have found him so if I had been researching this case myself? There are a few fairly easy markers for this, at least for me: for one, Dick liked to rape little girls. Perry apparently stopped him from raping Nancy (by both their accounts). Dick ran over stray dogs with his car for fun, which Perry found revolting (as do I, obviously). Perry’s childhood was patently rough, while Dick’s is characterized as fairly normal. Perry seems to more clearly have a mental illness or defect that “causes” his criminal and violent tendencies. But, I’m not sure we get all of Dick’s story; Capote looks much more closely into Perry’s past. So what I’m trying to say is, I think there may be a bias in favor of poor Perry the murderer, having been manipulated by evil Dick. Apparently, it was alleged that Capote in fact had a sexual relationship with Perry while he was imprisoned, although obviously I can’t speak to that. This is not a criticism. I just want to point out that perhaps Capote is not entirely impartial with regards to his two main characters.

I found this book incredibly powerful. Capote has a fine sense of drama and of timing. Scenes and people are sketched artfully, sometimes quickly and with broad strokes that paint a pretty complete picture just briefly, and sometimes in painstaking detail. The stories of the Clutters’ deaths and Dick and Perry’s adventure and executions are fascinating and engrossing, yes. But it’s Capote’s rendering that makes this book, more than his subject matter. (I guess this is always the case.) I was blown away by the emotional effect of this story. I couldn’t get enough; I wanted more of the inside of Perry’s head, of Dick’s (ew, how creepy), of the small-town life of Holcomb and Garden City. This is my first experience with Truman Capote, and I’m a fan.

Also, as Marie said at The Boston Bibliophile, Scott Brick’s narration is excellent. I recommend this book on audio if you’re so inclined. (I also picked up a paperback, though, to have on hand. I never did reference it while listening but I think I’d like to have it for future use.)

*My audio version is 12 cd and 14.5 hours; my paperback edition is just under 400 pages.

**Back to the fact vs. fiction question. It does seem that Capote behaved like a journalist in putting this book together: gathering facts, interviewing key players, confirming dates. It could pass as “true crime,” a genre which itself may have trouble with fact vs. fiction. The biggest place where Capote appears to leave the realm of nonfiction behind is in dialogue; he has recreated a great many pieces of dialogue, mostly between Perry and Dick, that were unrecorded. He has relied upon Perry and Dick themselves in this recreation, I think, but memory being what it is, some creativity definitely come into play. I did note that on the night of the Clutters’ deaths, Capote has not tried to recreate their experience or any dialogue, except in the accounts shared by Perry and Dick in their confessions. This seems to show a reluctance to just “make things up,” and a respect for the question that (I think) still remains: did Perry kill the two male Clutters and Dick the two women, as Perry originally claimed? Or did he Perry kill all four, as he amended his story to say, and as Dick claimed all along? Capote doesn’t answer this question for us – presumably because he respects the fact that he can’t answer it authoritatively. (I do wonder what he thought, though, considering that he apparently was very close to Perry in particular.)

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The Hemingway Hoax by Joe Haldeman

Posted on September 14, 2011 by pagesofjulia

This was a delightful short read. The Hemingway Hoax was loaned to me by my friend Amy, librarian (newly, my coworker librarian! yay!), science fiction enthusiast, and science fiction author to boot. (I wrote briefly about one of her short stories here.) After my recent raving about Hemingway’s Boat (my review to come at Shelf Awareness), she lent me her signed, personalized copy, ooooh. It’s an easy read at 150ish pages; I ran right through it at one sitting.

David Baird is a college professor and Hemingway scholar. He and his (much younger, former student) wife are summering in Key West, where they meet a con man with a scheme to “find” the manuscripts of Hemingway’s early short stories, and a partial novel, that H’s first wife Hadley lost on a train in their Paris days. Baird, with his expertise, should be able to successfully forge them. In so doing, however, he gets wrapped up… transported through times… to parallel universes… meets the Hemingways of various eras… or does he? I won’t ruin the whole surprise, but there is time travel and questions about What Is Real. Some bad things happen. Or do they?

I enjoyed the Hoax. It had suspense, interesting characters, intrigue. It had Hemingway! And the Hemingway parts were well done; Haldeman knows his Papa well enough to pull this off without offending the armchair Hemingway scholar. (I didn’t pick it apart or check references or anything but it held together.) And that would have been a deal-breaker for me, of course. Not for the first time, I say: this is sci fi? I thought I didn’t like sci fi! Well done, Amy. You may keep lending me books. Thank you!

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