Have You Seen Marie? by Sandra Cisneros (audio)

Posted on May 15, 2014 by pagesofjulia

marieWhat a lovely, lovely book. Fans of Sandra Cisneros, don’t be put off by the sometimes-classification of this short fable as a children’s book. Cisneros says in an afterword that she certainly never thought of it that way; she intended it for adults, and I can confirm that it works that way, very well.

This is a short, dreamy, poetic tale of a woman, the narrator, who has just lost her mother; a visiting friend (“I was the only person Rosalind knew in all of Texas”) has lost her cat, Marie. Together, the two women go walking the streets of San Antonio, distributing fliers and asking folks the title question: Have you seen Marie?

The voice and rhythms and lyrical style that I remember from The House on Mango Street are vibrantly present here. The women ask dogs, cats and squirrels as well as people about the missing Marie, and their reactions are noted, and charmingly represented as being every bit as important as the people’s. On the surface, this is the story of searching for Marie; but it is also the story of Cisneros losing her beloved mother, feeling like an orphan in her own middle age, and gradually coming to understand that “love does not die.”

As I mentioned, Cisneros is careful to point out that this was not meant to be a story for children, but rather one for adults, with the idea of helping others like herself deal with experiences like hers: losing a parent, or a loved one. I am very (very) glad & relieved that I don’t seem to facing this experience now, or soon; but I imagine that this book would indeed help. I appreciate its soothing musical tone and gently loving, inspired advice and creative understanding of death, what it means, the grieving process. It is a tender tale. Cisneros is inventive and calming and this is a beautiful, moving story about family and friendship. I highly recommend it, for anyone.

This audio version is read by the author, and so beautifully; I love her lilt; it’s perfect. I want to very much recommend this version (in both English and Spanish in one edition – one cd of each). But then, the print copy is illustrated by Ester Hernandez, and Cisneros is clearly very pleased with that aspect. Hearing her speak about their collaborative efforts on the illustrations (Hernandez came to visit & tour Cisneros’s San Antonio; she calls it documentary-style) made me regret missing the print. So there you are. Both, perhaps?? I think I will go out and get myself a copy of the book, too.

Rating: 10 trees along the San Antonio River.

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The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce (audio): second bit

Posted on May 12, 2014 by pagesofjulia

haroldYou’ll recall that I did already review the first third or so of this audiobook, because I just couldn’t hold in my enthusiasm. Well, my good impression continues through the next third of the book, along with my need to share as I go.

I will give away less from here on out. Harold’s journey continues, and while his physical, geographical journey is the obvious plot line, there is a parallel arc of personal growth. At the beginning, he is almost unable to be in the same room with strangers; by the end he easily greets them everywhere he goes, and has learned to share his story and take on what is often the burden of other people’s stories. This is essentially a very human tale, incorporating all the strange, wonderful, and wonderfully, strangely normal lives of the people Harold meets along the way.

He met a tax inspector who was a druid and had not worn a pair of shoes in ten years.

There is also a sense of growing tension regarding one of the secrets I referred to in my earlier post; the un-referred-to past looms larger as we go on, and I have a guess I’m fairly confident about, but I will wait and see.

Harold gains followers as he continues walking, until there is a large group of “pilgrims” accompanying him on his journey. I was reminded a little bit of Forrest Gump, when he’s running, and finds a crowd running behind him. Unlike Forrest, Harold has a purpose, and his followers know it; and also unlike Forrest, these followers become a real burden. By this time, he has learned to take care of himself quite well; now he has newcomers to take care of too, and this takes up a lot of time and effort. Also, they’re not as fast as he is at the actual walking; but he tries to be patient, remembering how long it took him to build up stamina and get into a rhythm. I was, of course, infuriated at their selfishness in holding Harold back from something so important to him; but I can see how Harold could have done nothing less than help them along.

As I enter the final third (give or take) of this book, I am only sorry that it has to end.

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The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce (audio): first bit

Posted on April 30, 2014 by pagesofjulia

haroldI can’t help but share with you my early reflections on this delightful tale – before I know everything. It will be interesting to see how my perspective or feelings change later on. Here, I’m about 1/3 of the way through.

What an oddly charming, quirky story. Harold Fry has retired from his 45-year career working quietly for a brewery (although he is a teetotaler) and now stays home with his wife Maureen. She cleans – constantly – and criticizes him, and he mows the lawn. He does not speak with their only son, David. One morning he gets a letter from an old friend, a former coworker named Queenie. She is writing from a hospice to say goodbye: she has cancer. Harold jots a quick note to say “sorry about that, old girl” or similar, and although he feels its insufficiency, sets off right then to post it from the box at the end of the road.

But when Harold gets to the end of the road, he can’t quite mail his letter, because it is of course a sadly inappropriate thing to do for Queenie; so he keeps walking. He tells himself he’ll mail it from the next postbox; and he does this at a great number of boxes, before he stops in at a garage for a snack. The girl there shows him how to heat up a hamburger in a microwave, which amazes him (“it even had gherkins!” he will later report to Maureen) and tells him the inspirational story of her aunt who had cancer: the girl willed her to get better, because if you believe (she tells Harold) you can do anything.

It is not too long after this conversation that Harold decides he will walk to visit Queenie at the hospice facility, and commands her to live until he gets there. It’s not clear how far this walk will be – someone he encounters guesses it might be 500 miles, but at any rate it’s very far, and he’s wearing his yacht shoes and as Maureen is quick to point out, he’s never walked further than to the car. He is, in fact, endeavoring to walk the length of England.

I hope you see what an endearingly strange story this is. Harold himself is poignantly, almost painfully shy and insecure; he’s not accustomed to being around people, and as he and Maureen each note separately in the opening pages, “it was not like Harold to make a snap decision.” There’s a lot we still don’t know. I suspect that there was an event in Harold and Maureen’s marriage where things soured suddenly, decisively; if I’m right, that information is clearly being withheld. Their son David won’t visit, and he and Harold don’t speak; if there is a reason other than general teenage impatience with his parents (and he is no longer a teen, so…) then likewise we haven’t learned it yet. And I can see plainly that Harold’s history with Queenie has a story to it – and presumably their parting of ways, and their failure to keep in touch? Oh – and I wonder if Harold has always been a non-drinker, or if there is some traumatic history that has led to his sobriety. There is a line in which Maureen worries about him being in a pub… I just wonder. These are the informational nuggets I am being teased with at present. Harold’s childhood is just beginning to unfold, so I think I can see Joyce’s strategy of allowing these things to be dragged out of her story sooo…. slooowly… and I like it.

Narrator Jim Broadbent has an excellent ear for Harold’s voice (sort of ponderous) and the pacing required for this humor to play properly; I approve heartily.

Stay tuned!

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Lillian & Dash by Sam Toperoff (audio)

Posted on April 21, 2014 by pagesofjulia

lillian&dashEvery since reading A Difficult Woman, I have recognized Lillian Hellman as a fascinatingly complex & ambiguous character, clearly a “difficult woman” and therefore a kindred on some level. A fellow traveler, you might say. I have read very little Dashiell Hammett (just a few short pieces), but I respect his contribution to a genre I love, and I hope to get around to more one day. Furthermore, Hellman is a counterpart to Dorothy Parker, another spunky female wit I have enjoyed reading and reading about. So then, it should be clear why I was interested in this novel about the Hellman and Hammett love affair, which lasted several decades (during which they remained married to other people) and bears on the literary and political events of their time.

This audio version is narrated by three different readers (Mark Bramhall, Lorna Raver, and Bernadette Dunne), an effect I very much liked. One reads Lillian’s (or more often, Lily’s) first-person parts, one reads Hammett’s, and the third is the third-person narrator of the story. It begins with the pair’s first meeting, and follows them through his novels and screenwriting successes, his radio shows, and his later difficulties working and prodigious drinking; her plays and movies, both wild successes and disappointments; her years as a farmer, and both their testimonies before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Both refused to cooperate with HUAC, and both paid dearly; Hammett went to prison at age 58, and tried to drink himself to death when he got out, while Hellman lost her farm, just for starters.

I can’t speak to how precisely this book follows the factual history of these two lives (I don’t know where my copy of A Difficult Woman is), but I don’t really care. This was a great story, heartfelt and heartbreaking, about two delightfully irreverent and vibrant personalities. Their voices felt very real and accurate to me, and HUAC pissed me off all over again. I promised myself once more that I would finally get around to reading one of Hellman’s plays. Hold me to it.

A love story with mysteries & politics mixed up in it, written in the impeccably wry and witty voices of Hellman and Hammett, in a beautifully performed audio edition – I couldn’t ask for more, although I will ask for another. What’s next, Sam Toperoff?

Rating: 8 bottles of champagne.

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A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson (audio)

Posted on April 16, 2014 by pagesofjulia

In A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson describes his experience on the Appalachian Trail. He and his family had just moved to New Hampshire and he discovered the trail almost literally in his back yard, and decided, what the heck? he’d try walking it. At the last minute, an old friend agrees to join him, to his relief (now he won’t be alone out there with the bears); this old friend turns out to be overweight, a smoker, recently sober, and in no shape for such a lengthy walk in the woods, but they set off nevertheless, beginning to walk the AT in Georgia and headed for Maine.

a walk in the woodsOh, Bill Bryson, you funny, infuriating man. I have had a love-hate relationship, as they say, with this book. Bryson is very amusing, and this is his strongest suit; at his best, he had me giggling aloud on the train during my commute, which I try not to do because that’s weird, right? But he can be downright annoying as well. I’m not sure what he conceives this book actually is; amusing memoir? (For which, grade B+, at least.) Nature tale? (C-, on which more in a moment.) Camping satire? (Please stop.) His ineptitude at the outdoorsiness might be funny to somebody, but I just find it obnoxious and …well, kind of stupid. On the other hand, he hiked the Appalachian Trail for months, you guys, completing nearly 900 miles of it, and I have to respect that, as I’ve never done any such thing. But with such an opportunity to tell us about the AT, he spends a great deal of time telling us what poorly prepared rookie campers he and his friend Katz are; the trail itself is often just background, if even that. The book was 1/3 through before he even mentions a view, let alone describes one; and precious few times from then on. In fact, I think I’ve answered my question: Bryson conceives of this book as an amusing memoir, and the fact that it takes place on the AT is mere coincidence and in no way important to the story he has to tell.

When he rails against our destruction of natural areas and our Park Service’s poor management of those lands, he does a fine job, and I both learned something and enjoyed the polemic; but then he pulls punches, as when writing about tree diseases:

A great tragedy, of course. But how lucky, when you think about it, that these diseases are are least species-specific. Instead of a chestnut blight, or Dutch elm disease, or dogwood anthracnose, what if there was just a tree blight? Something indiscriminate and unstoppable, that swept through whole forests? In fact, there is. It’s called… acid rain.

No, Bryson, it’s called people! Call a spade a spade! Sigh.

Later in the book, when Bryson and Katz (the brunt of all the best jokes) part company temporarily, Bryson shifts focus a bit toward the history of the AT and gets less jokey. I appreciate this content, but it lacks the sparkle of his more humorous writing. In other words, I felt that A Walk in the Woods struggled throughout with an identity crisis.

The audio edition is good, I’ll say that without qualification. William Roberts’s reading is hilarious, and suits Bryson’s writing voice well. The book is absolutely at its best when describing Bryson & Katz’s mishaps on the trail, and only mildly interesting (for those interested in such things) when it leaves their narrative to wander the AT on a more intellectual level. One final pet peeve: as far as I can understand, Katz and Bryson do a lot of littering. Katz repeatedly handles the frustration of his heavy pack by dumping gear, and I don’t think there are garbage cans out in the woods. (I hope not.) There are a cigarette pack and three butts discarded by Katz at an important point. This makes me ANGRY. Littering on the AT?!

Representative quotation:

I had come to realize that I didn’t have any feelings towards the AT that weren’t confused and contradictory.

Me too, Bryson.

Rating: 5 cream sodas.

I wasn’t sure whether to go with 4 or 5; but I did finish the book, so there’s that.

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Never Go Back by Lee Child (audio)

Posted on March 31, 2014 by pagesofjulia

never go backI believe I said earlier that this may be the sexiest Reacher novel yet. Possibly it’s just been a while since I read (or listened to) one, but I still think that may be true. He finds a beautiful woman in just about every book, and I appreciate that Lee Child always makes sure that the woman is intelligent, knows her own mind, and enjoys their relations as much as Reacher does; no bimbos or advantages taken. I’ll just say that this installment in Reacher’s saga is no exception, and leave it at that.

Never Go Back follows on the action of 61 Hours, in which Reacher talks on the phone with his successor, a Major Susan Turner, now the commanding officer with his old military police unit. He liked her voice; and now he’s gone looking for her. He travels by hitch-hike and bus to his former headquarters and approaches his old former office, but behind his old desk is not Major Turner but a man who tells Reacher that Turner took a bribe and is now under arrest. He then promptly recalls Reacher to his old command – back to being a major and serving in the army again! (This was a jaw-drop moment for me.) …and tells him about not one, but two cases being brought against him; thus the recall to service, so that the military can arrest him themselves.

This is how Reacher finds himself in a cell in the same unit as Turner; and if we know Reacher, we know he won’t stay there. He breaks them both out and they set out on the road to prove themselves both respectively innocent. There is a matter of a Los Angeles drug dealer with a 16-year-old head injury; a woman who claims to have known Reacher in Korea, around the same time; a bank account in the Caymans; and rogue military officers with access to every level of security. Reacher has to kick a bunch of butt, and Turner is equally awesome. I don’t know what to say about this book that is necessarily new. In fact, these books are absolutely formulaic – but if you like the formula, they remain pleasing. I like this formula. I don’t like romance novels, so I respectfully hand them over to the readers who like that formula; and we can all be happy. And I should point out that despite the formula (we know Reacher will get the girl; we know he’ll win the fight; we know Right will be restored), there is always suspense: we don’t know how the mystery resolves, necessarily. But we do know how it will end.

I did have some concerns. Reacher has always been interested in numbers and calculations, which is one of those intriguing character traits of his, but also contributes somewhat to his implausibly perfect persona. In this volume I think Child overshoots it considerably: there is a running game being played, both within Reacher’s head and out loud, involving 50/50 chances, coin tosses, equal probabilities one way or the other. But Child has the 50/50 concept badly mixed up with having two options. Just because there are two options – binary – does not mean the chances are equal both ways; I think very few of the 50/50 scenarios Reacher plays with in this book are actually equal probabilities.

But all in all, Never Go Back is more of the same, in the best possible way. I hope Child lives a long, long life and produces another 18 Reacher novels (at least); and I hope Dick Hill sticks around and keeps reading them, too. No other voice could ever be Reacher for me. And there is already another Reacher novel promised for this September!! I am content.

Final conclusion: if you like the Reacher model, you’ll be pleased with this installment.

Rating: 7 cars.

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Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson (audio), trans. by Anne Born

Posted on March 26, 2014 by pagesofjulia

out stealing horsesYou may recall that Pops read and reviewed this book some time ago, and recommended it. I’m glad I finally got around to it.

Out Stealing Horses is just a short book, but in the end, it is bigger than it looks. I would like to commend my Pops for his spare review, leaving the plot mostly untouched and teasing us with rather coy praise; he convinced me to read this book (although it took me a while), and now that I have, I can see where his leaving the plot alone was the right move. I absolutely agree that

a summary may in itself sound spare and unremarkable – and spoil the real value here. What’s special is the way the story is told and how it is revealed, the author’s voice and the narrative structure he uses.

So, no summary for you, only setting: our elderly protagonist lives alone and isolated in a remote patch of Norwegian forest, as the twentieth century comes to a close. We alternate between his quiet dog walks and simple meals, and his memories of a brief time when he was a young boy-becoming-man. There are perhaps more questions raised than answers supplied; but we don’t mind, because of the lovely evocative moody writing and what we know of our protagonist by the end – which is far from everything.

Again, echoing my father, I was impressed by the translation; enough linguistic oddities remain to indicate translation, only slightly and very pleasantly, as with “very many thanks” (a sweet phrase but not one you hear often in English). I also appreciate Pops’s note about pacing, that it varies, ratcheting up and then calming back down. For all its thought-provoking and occasionally stressful subject matter, Out Stealing Horses is ultimately a rather soothing book. It should go without saying, then, that Richard Poe’s narration is also excellent, matching the tone, mood, atmosphere, pacing, and lyricism that I understand is present in print.

Quiet, contemplative, and understated, I think this is a fine work of art. I get the feeling that this is a book with many layers, and that multiple readings would yield returns, and to the extent that it is about aging, I confess I wonder if I got it all. This is also true of the war bits – I have questions – but I suspect we’re supposed to have questions.

I don’t think my review has done this book justice, but I do think my father’s did beautifully, so let me refer you back to it (again, here), and simply add my additional praise. Good book. Check it out.

Rating: 8 stolen horses.

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The Drunken Botanist: The Plants That Create the World’s Great Drinks by Amy Stewart (audio)

Posted on March 17, 2014 by pagesofjulia

drunken botanistI’m sure I don’t have to explain to you my interest in a book called The Drunken Botanist. I didn’t even look any further than the title; I requested it from my local library on that alone.

Amy Stewart opens with an anecdote: she was at a convention for “garden writers” when a colleague confessed he didn’t know what to do with a bottle of gin he’d received as a gift. She scolds him for being unaware that a botanist, of all people, should know all about booze: alcohol comes from plants to begin with, after all! I confess I hadn’t thought of it that way, of course, but I continued to be hooked.

The book is organized by: how we make alcohol (fermentation and distillation); what we make it from (alphabetically, agave through wheat); what we flavor it with (herb & spices, flowers, trees, fruit, nuts & seeds); and flavorings and garnishes (herbs, flowers, trees, berries & vines, fruits & vegetables). Throughout are dispersed cocktail recipes, instructions for syrups, infusions and garnishes, and gardening or growing tips. She stops short of homebrew advice, although the practice is alluded to many times. There are also several “bugs in booze” subsections: noble rot, yeast carriers, and the worm in the mezcal.

Stewart seems to have a fondness for hard alcohol: beer and wine get rather cursory treatment by comparison, at least to my eyes. Possibly that’s my bias showing through, and to be fair, beer or wine individually could fill its own book (or many of them – and they’re already out there). I find that she did a much finer job of sampling the wide world of distilled spirits than she did of sampling the wide world of beer or wine; but maybe if I knew more about the distilled spirits I wouldn’t feel that way. Certainly, as a beer lover first and foremost, I was sadly disappointed in her treatment of that category of booze. However, this didn’t badly hurt my feelings about the book as a whole, because there are plenty of good books on beer. That’s not what this book was all about.

I really enjoyed Stewart’s passion, and her drink recipes and tips are much appreciated. In fact, don’t tell him, but I’ve already ordered a print copy of this book for my main bartender, and he will receive this gift with my requests carefully marked within. I also enjoyed the broad education of all the things we make booze from, and some of the wild trivia I learned. I made several notes and/or paused to tell Husband: “did you know there’s a thing called pechuga mezcal? They hang a piece of raw chicken in the air above the still!” “There’s such a thing as a ‘burpless’ celery!” What fun. By no means comprehensive, of course, The Drunken Botanist is still an enjoyable, useful, entertaining introduction to “the plants that create the world’s great drinks” (and the less-than-great ones, too).

I heartily enjoyed Stewart’s book, with the exception of just a few frustrating moments when I wished she’d gone further into the beer bits. (Forgiven, as I said above. But noted: just a few frustrating moments.) However, I would advise against the audio version. For one thing, listening to recipes is not the right way to do it. With the kind of information being related, I think reading is far preferable to listening. And, I got a little lost within her organization of information, too. I think being able to see headings and subheadings would have helped a lot. Finally, while I liked reader Coleen Marlo’s voice and the personality she gave to the reading, I felt that she talked way too fast – quite possibly for any audiobook, but particularly for this one, again, considering its reference-style informational offerings and recipes.

The gardening tips were a little over my head, but your mileage may vary. I wouldn’t say that I have a black thumb, exactly, but the whole program baffles me. I appreciated the introduction I got from A Garden of Marvels, although that one, too, seemed to consider “basic” or “easy” some concepts that lost me. I definitely dig Stewart’s advice, just don’t know if I’ll be growing my own any time soon.

Verdict? Don’t miss this one if you love booze & plants! But get the print copy!

Rating: 8 garden cocktails.

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did not finish: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (audio)

Posted on March 5, 2014 by pagesofjulia

gone girlI couldn’t do it, friends. This is a very well-known and much-loved novel of the last few years, and the word on the street is DON’T READ ANYTHING ABOUT IT before you read it! So I will say very little. Repeat: this is a spoiler-free, very short review.

There is a mystery. I did not read far enough to solve it. I am not very bothered by this. The reason I put it down so easily was: I didn’t like the characters. Possibly this is part of the trickiness of the book somehow; this book is famously tricky (I believe there is something about an unreliable narrator? but there are two narrators? I don’t know). But for me, the big failure was that I didn’t like these people so I couldn’t care about them enough to keep reading (listening) through the fact that they annoyed me very much. That’s all.

My audio version read by Julia Whelan and Kirby Heyborne was fine. They read the characters as obnoxious people, which seems to have been right on point, so I guess they did their jobs.

No rating; I only made it about 1/5 of the way through, so I’ll leave it at that.

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Song of Susannah by Stephen King (audio)

Posted on February 27, 2014 by pagesofjulia

Just to review the Dark Tower series:

The Gunslinger (I)

The Drawing of the Three (II)

The Waste Lands (III)

Wizard and Glass (IV)

The Wind Through the Keyhole, written last but fitting between books IV and V

Wolves of the Calla (V)

and here we are with book VI, Song of Susannah.

susannah

I’m sorry to say I have to agree with what Jeff Coleman said (in a comment, here), about the series beginning to fray in this book. Our beloved ka-tet, in which we, the readers, have invested so much care and worry, is beginning to come apart. The characters are now separated and working independently or in pairs, and I think both the storyline, and the emotional investment King can ask of us, suffer. In fact, I am going to compare this problem to a recent television event: I think watchers of The Walking Dead are frustrated by how everyone is split up. We still care enough to watch week to week (at least my household does!) but we’re a little unhappy with the producers for keeping us so much in the dark as to where everyone is. We don’t mind a little conflict, a little suspense and fear – in the case of the Dark Tower series and the zombie tv series, both, I think we’re here for the suspense and the fear; and no story is anything without conflict – but it’s getting a little harder to invest as we’re spread around so thinly.

Susannah/Mia is battling, basically, herself; she is by herself; and her survival is not assured. Eddie and Roland are off on their own worrying about the rose, and they have a bizarre adventure in which they meet Stephen King himself, on which more in a moment. Jake and Pere Callahan, and thank goodness Oy, are… still around, but I’m not sure what they contribute to this novel other than to still pull my dog-loving heartstrings (Stephen King KNOWS I won’t stop reading as long as Oy is around). I am sorry to say that this may be the first book in this series in which nothing happens.

Stephen King writing about people who are in a book that Stephen King wrote, and who then go off to find & meet Stephen King, so as to convince him to write about them – this is interesting. It’s mind-bending, intriguing, very meta, and perhaps a little silly; I’m not sure how egomaniacal he’s being here, but I think I dig it. I like a good mind-bender. Again, though, I’m not sure what it contributes to the arc of the plot of this series; I am impatient for our characters to get together again; I’m worried about them, but not in a plot-progress kind of way. Hurry up and give us more action, King.

There is also a quick reference – so quick you could almost miss it, except that it is SHOCKING and I gasped on the train and people looked at me – that distressed me. I’ll write it here in white text, and you can highlight to read it if you’re unafraid of spoilers. There is a line that says something like “Eddie never got a chance to, because by then he and Roland would be separated by death.” What a heck of a thing to foreshadow, Stephen King. I am upset.

This penultimate book in the series leaves me anxious for the next one – I’m anxious for our splintered ka-tet, and also anxious that the last book will be a good one. It’s certainly a fat one; I couldn’t find it on audio, so I’ll have to wait until I find the print-reading time to slot in these 1,000 pages. Dear, dear.

Rating: 5 turtles.

(but only because it’s part of this series.)

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