several pots on the fire

Posted on December 16, 2010 by pagesofjulia

So last night I found myself with some unexpected free time at home, and because it was *unexpected*, I had unfortunately left my current book, When Christ and His Saints Slept, at the library at work. Bummer. I’m already going to have several going at once when I start Faithful Place as planned tomorrow. So I picked up one of the many (many, many) lying around TBR, and started…

The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien. This is not a new book; it was originally published in 1990, and I became aware of it this year with the 20th anniversary republication and various discussions. It’s a collection of related short stories (or a novel, depending on who you ask) set in the Vietnam War, and based on O’Brien’s experiences there. I read only one story/chapter last night before bed; but I can see why this book has been so talked about. This story/chapter that I read is “The Things They Carried,” and I love how he uses those things to tell so much of a story. It’s sort of sparsely written, and using “things” rather than emotions, which to me makes for less telling and more showing. It’s beautiful and sad and evocative. I look forward to more.

I was a little sorry to start another book while reading one and ready to start another tomorrow. But then I realized that I have several going at any one time, as it is… there’s Dust by Martha Grimes on the bedside table, and Frederica by Georgette Heyer in the bathroom, and This Book is Overdue! by Marilyn Johnson on the coffee table. What fun, when a person gets to live like this. Do you read several books at a time?

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Life According to Literature

Posted on December 13, 2010 by pagesofjulia

I couldn’t resist this super-fun game I found at Stuck in a Book! The idea is to answer each question using the title of a book you read in 2010. I found it hard – I wasn’t reading books with this concept in mind, unfortunately, and have some good answers using book titles that I didn’t read this year, more’s the pity. But I had a good time. Give it a try yourself and let me know how it turns out!

Describe yourself: Running the Books (Avi Steinberg)

How do you feel: Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)

Describe where you currently live: Echo Burning (Lee Child)

If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Trail Solutions (International Mountain Bicycling Association)

Your favorite form of transportation: Mastering Mountain Bike Skills (Brian Lopes)

Your best friend is: Careless in Red (Elizabeth George)

You and your friends are: The Old Wine Shades (Martha Grimes)

What’s the weather like: The Tin Roof Blowdown (James Lee Burke)

You fear: The Long Goodbye (Raymond Chandler)

What is the best advice you have to give: We Need to Talk About Kevin (Lionel Shriver)

Thought for the day: Minutes of the Lead Pencil Club: Second Thoughts on the Electronic Revolution

How I would like to die: One Shot (Lee Child)

My soul’s present condition: Stretching (Bob Anderson)

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When Christ and His Saints Slept

Posted on December 13, 2010 by pagesofjulia

What an enjoyable book. This is only my second Sharon Kay Penman experience, which I need to work on; I got stuck on The Reckoning and read it over and over when I should be reading more of her work! I got through the first 100 pages of this 750-page book this weekend, and I’m engrossed. It is an awfully long book at 750, but I’m not intimidated; she’s so easy to read. It’s a real saga of historical fiction, dealing with the fight for the English crown after the death of King Henry I in 1135, between his daughter Maude and nephew Stephen.

I think a large part of what makes Penman’s work special is the characters. She writes a multitude of more (or less) sympathetic characters; we grow to like them (or not), and we get to know them fairly quickly. While there are many characters, I for one don’t have trouble keeping track of them because they emerge quickly as having recognizable personalities. (I’m always glad when they have different names, too; too often in historical fiction about English royalty we’re bombarded with Elizabeths, Marys, Georges, Henrys and Richards until it’s all a blur, but so far in this story everyone holds distinct names, thank goodness.) The characters provide multiple perspectives on a complex story, which helps illustrate the ambiguities – is Stephen right in seizing the crown? etc. It also calls into question the reliability of these perspectives; think of reliable or unreliable narrators. The third person perspective stays constant, but seems to interpret through different characters, so we get different perspectives. When we’re with Stephen, we see him as being sympathetic to Maude; when we visit Maude, we see Stephen as being more grasping and ruthless, so the perspectives change. Through Geoffrey’s eyes, Maude is an evil ice queen; through Maude’s, Geoffrey is violent and disrespectful.

The other thing I notice about Penman’s characters (in contrast, for example, to what I recall of Phillippa Gregory’s dealing with similar stories) is that we visit with decidedly lower-class, minor historical figures. To me, this makes the world much more real. The characters tend to have some nuance and complexity, making them more human, too. Varied perspective and multiple complex characters from diverse walks of life make for a fascinating story. Expect me to take a little while to finish this lengthy novel. But unlike some books of this size, I expect to enjoy every minute of it.

readalong: FYI, with a little lead time: My buddy Karma and I are going to be reading this book together, starting this Friday the 17th. Please join us for discussions here!

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book beginnings on Friday

Posted on December 10, 2010 by pagesofjulia

This meme is hosted by Katy at A Few More Pages.

From When Christ and His Saints Slept, by Sharon Kay Penman:

“Stephen was never to forget his fifth birthday, for that was the day he lost his father. In actual fact, that wasn’t precisely so.”

Hm. I call this a good, grabby opener: “this is so. actually it isn’t.” That makes me say, what? Tell me more. Plus, I recall Penman’s The Reckoning (the only other of hers I’ve read) as one of those books I can enjoy over and over again, and every time be sad when it ends. I’ll let you know how it goes.

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in praise of librarians

Posted on December 9, 2010 by pagesofjulia

I almost forgot (shame!) to share this snippet with you, from James Lee Burke’s The Tin Roof Blowdown (are you sick of hearing about this book yet?):

“Then I used the most valuable and unlauded investigative resource in the United States, the lowly reference librarian. Their salaries are wretched and they receive credit for nothing. Their desks are usually tucked away in the stacks or in a remote corner where they have to shush noisy high school students or put up with street people blowing wine in their faces or snoring in the stuffed chairs. But their ability to find obscure information is remarkable and they persevere like Spartans.”

…and then the librarian cracks the case wide open! Robicheaux eventually got a call back from the FBI providing some of the same information but the library beat them to it. Good for you Mr. Burke. 😉

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Brokeback Mountain

Posted on December 8, 2010 by pagesofjulia

Just read all 55 pages of Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx real quick. It’s been years since I saw the movie but from my memory, it stayed remarkably close to what I just read. Of course, it should be easy for a two-hour movie to include everything in a 55-page short story, but it’s Hollywood; you have to keep your eyes on them. At any rate, I hope I wasn’t too colored by having seen the movie first; I thought it was a remarkably evocative little book. In few words, Proulx gives us emotions without calling them that; she shows, doesn’t tell. It reminded me of Hemingway’s short stories that I love so much, like Up In Michigan in particular: coarsely sexual, quietly tragic, no-frills. I’m impressed.

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edits on an education from James Lee Burke

Posted on December 8, 2010 by pagesofjulia

I need to edit my claim that mysteries don’t make me do research.

First I realized that I’ve needed a reference source a few times while reading Lee Child, on all the guns he writes about and their functions and ability to, for example, withstand torrential rain. However, the Husband has filled this role sufficiently to date, so far, so I haven’t actually *looked up* anything.

I also did some research on the painter Hieronymous Bosch, while getting into Michael Connelly’s series starring a detective protagonist by the same name. This became particularly important when I read A Darkness More Than Night, which deals with painter-Bosch’s work fairly extensively. So here I am coming up with examples that refute my earlier statement; ah well, that’s life.

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finished The Tin Roof Blowdown

Posted on December 8, 2010 by pagesofjulia

Burke sure does know how to be poetic. Check the final paragraph of the epilogue, which I have decided to include here in its entirety (not really so much of a spoiler at all because it is Robicheaux’s *fantasy* ending):

“In my fantasy, I see Bertrand far out on the water, pulling on the oars, his arms pumped with his task, the ruined city of New Orleans becoming smaller and smaller in the distance, a great darkness spreading across the sky just after sunset. The blisters on his hands turn into wounds that stain the wood of the oars with his blood. As the wind rises and the water becomes even blacker, he sees hundreds if not thousands of lights swimming below the surface. Then he realizes the light are not lights at all. They have the shape of broken Communion wafers and the luminosity that radiates from them lies in the very fact they have been rejected and broken. But in a way he cannot understand, Bertrand knows that somehow all of them are safe now, including himself, inside a pewter vessel that is as big as the hand of God.”

I call that rhythmic, lyrical and hopeful, and even I, with my failure to grasp biblical allusions, can see the significance of blood staining the wooden oars.

I find it notable that Robicheaux deals somewhat sympathetically with a character who is a rapist. Some might be offended, I suppose (especially if you take my statement straightforwardly, which would be a mistake), but it’s not simple at all. Robicheaux is disgusted with this individual and the pain he’s caused. But in a very realistically, human, ambivalent way, he recognizes that we are all at least a little bit a product of our environments, and that perhaps everything is at least a little bit relative. The character in question makes some form of amends, at least within the structure of his own understanding. It’s complicated. I’m not particularly sympathetic with rapists myself (!!) but I appreciate that Burke portrays everything to do with human nature and sin and redemption as being complex and not black-and-white (no pun intended, in a book definitely charged with racial tension as all Burke’s books are – probably unavoidable considering the setting).

I confess that Cadillac Jukebox let me down just a bit, but The Tin Roof Blowdown has been so outstanding that I think I’m ready to make a James Lee Burke crusade like I did on Michael Connelly a few months back – and try and read everything he’s written.

But then again, there are so many good books in the world…

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an education from James Lee Burke

Posted on December 7, 2010 by pagesofjulia

While I am neither the most or the least well- and widely-read person in the world, I do have a graduate degree and do a fair amount of reading; I have a fairly strong vocabulary. I can generally hold my own amongst educated folks. I’m pretty weak on religion, though, which is where most of my questions have come up in The Tin Roof Blowdown. Credit to Burke for making me look up a number of references – something I’m not afraid to do and occasionally relish doing; but it doesn’t happen every day, and very rarely when reading genre fiction!

Today I looked up the Garden of Gethsemane, for example. From page 3, in the intro to the novel and the horrors it offers: “But as I watched Jude grow into manhood, I had to relearn the old lesson that often the best people in our midst are perhaps destined to become sojourners in the Garden of Gethsemane. Ordinary men and women keep track of time in sequential fashion, by use of clocks and calendars. The residents of Gethsemane do not.” What is this garden? Apparently it’s the place where Jesus prayed to his father the night before his arrest and crucifixion. When delving into the symbolism and significance of locating certain characters in Gethsemane I’m a little stumped; it’s like the class on biblical references starts at a higher level than I’m prepared for; I didn’t take the prerequisite. It is suggested that Gethsemane is a symbol for Christ’s controlled and willing submission to his father’s will. It’s also compared and contrasted to that other biblical garden that even I have heard of, Eden. But I find that my internet research (from Wikipedia to the Encyclopedia Britannica and quite a few religious sites) doesn’t yield me a satisfactory understanding of Burke’s mention above.

I also had to look up the Great Whore of Babylon, which Burke writes is the city of New Orleans. This is another enigma to me and I didn’t do much better. Apparently the bible states that the whore offers us false gods and other alternatives to Jesus and what he represents; it’s a Christian allegory for evil and decadence and pleasurable sin. Yep, that sounds like New Orleans, which could be an alternative object of worship, too. But again I think I’m missing some nuances that would require much deeper bible study than I’m interested in right now. I don’t remember this much biblical allusion in Burke.

The next one was secular: John Ehrlichman, used as an example of why military honors do not an honorable man make. Ehrlichman is an easy icon to dissect: he was a Nixon aid and was involved in Watergate. These are symbols I’m familiar with.

Any bible scholars out there who care to explain the first two references to me, please do…

I always find it a refreshing challenge when a book makes me take notes and look things up later. Of course there’s a comfortable limit; running to an encyclopedia or dictionary for every page of text disrupts the flow. But in general I appreciate learning new things when they’re presented to me. It’s not a common experience in mystery novels though! Well played, Mr. Burke.

What have you had to look up lately in conjunction with your reading? Don’t be shy. None of us knows everything.

 

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finished Running the Books and more Burke

Posted on December 6, 2010 by pagesofjulia

Well it turns out that Running the Books gets a resounding endorsement. Author Avi Steinberg started a touch slow, but he grabbed me hard in the end. As our protagonist, Steinberg develops as a character and as a human being as the book unfolds, making some real personal discoveries. It’s a very human story, poignant and forgiving and realistically ambivalent in its eventual conclusions (or lack thereof) about the nature of prisons and criminals. I really enjoyed it.

(If you can’t tell in the image at left, his face is made up of lots of date stamps. Like due date stamps. It’s rather an interesting and clever piece of librarian-art if you care.)

I’m now well into another James Lee Burke, The Tin Roof Blowdown, that my mother gave me quite a while ago. That’s the Dave Robicheaux novel set in New Orleans and New Iberia in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and boy, you want to talk about something stark and visceral… putting aside for a moment the beauty that is a Dave Robicheaux novel, the realistic descriptions of Katrina’s destruction are gut-wrenching. The death and suffering, the necessary decisions about who lives, who dies, who a person chooses to save, the morals and ethics involved, the widespread racism, the political neglect, and the gritty reality of the blood and guts and sewage… it’s very real, and those moral dilemmas are evoked expertly. (I expect nothing less of Burke.) This one is grabbing me a lot harder than Cadillac Jukebox did recently. I really like the character of Alafair, Dave’s adopted daughter, too. (Burke has an adopted daughter named Alafair, who like her fictional namesake is also a writer; one wonders where fact meets fiction.) The chasing of the bad guys by Dave and and perennially self-destructive Clete Purcel is as finely wrought as ever, but for me, what’s special about this book is the rawness and realism of Katrina’s destruction. Whew.

I am, as usual, swamped in fine reading material, and don’t think Burke will take me too long, so stay tuned for one of the three books I recently named as coming next! 😉

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