guest review: The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan, from Mom (audio)

Posted on June 9, 2014 by pagesofjulia

Thanks Mom for sending these reading notes.

I’m reading a Playaway version of Worst Hard Times. I picked it up because it’s a World Book Night item, on display at the library when I went to pick up my box of Catch 22 to give away. I was most interested in this audio player-book just sitting on the shelf. (Add earbuds, battery, and stir.)
worsthardtime
It’s a pretty grim picture. Worst Hard Times is the dust bowl story, and follows people’s stories in several of the farms & towns of the worst areas. Egan writes for the NY Times, and recently wrote a scathing attack on the idea that the landslide in Oso was one of those “acts of God” that are so unfortunate but . . . . (Actually there was lots of warning by geologists, an earlier landslide in the last decade, with the logging of the hilltop as the coup de gras).

The Dust Bowl is called the worst man-made disaster of the U.S., and easily understood in hindsight as a tragic result of lack of understanding of natural forces, as well as grasping for even more wealth when the land was giving its riches reliably during the wet years of the Twenties. He gives more details than can be born, almost: the dust swirling, no plates set out until time to use them, wet bedsheets hung up over windows every night, people dying of “dust pneumonia.” The old cattlemen said it was a crime to uproot the prairie grass, and that the land would be ruined – more importantly, to them, even than the loss of the land for cows.

This area, which was called the Great American Desert, was given to the Apaches. When the government decided to give the land to settlers, Texas, especially, made every effort to eradicate the buffalo in order to drive off the Indians.

So, a good story. The reader, not so much. (He’s “an accomplished actor, director and combat choreographer” according to the audio blurb. Huh?) He put a little too much hick into the voices when he quotes them, and, like some readers I’ve noticed, makes women’s voices especially irritating, with a too-high intonation. The most irritating, though – a subjective reaction, I know – is his pronunciation of Boise City as /boyZAY/. Really?

Oh, Mom, I do so get it! The pronunciations from my recent read of Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods are fresh in my mind – unfortunately the only one I can cite specifically is urinal as “your-RYE-null” (very strange!) but there were others, equally odd & distracting. I think I’m more upset by the overly hick accents and the obnoxious women’s voices, though.

Does Egan overtly make the comparison between our hubris & lack of foresight with the Dust Bowl, and same with the recent mudslide (etc. etc.)? Or leave us to figure it out? If the latter, readers like yourself make the connection without difficulty; but I always appreciate the former. If you have a statement, go ahead and make it, please! Stand up for what you think.

I would say yes. I’m not through yet, but he lets a lot of characters say this. He also writes of the preachers who said that people are being punished for some sin, or that prayer & positive thinking will make it all better.

The sodbusters are all from the devil, according to the cattlemen. The saddest part of that is not that they are right, but that the dust dunes and drought ends up killing even the grass that remains.

There’s a scientist who explains it perfectly, and after Roosevelt’s election, he gets put in some government function to help solve the problems. There’s a town where the people agree to follow this guy’s recommendations for saving the land. Don’t remember the details, but hope to see this followed up in a later chapter.

There’s a newspaper owner (Dalhart or Boise City) who stops reporting all the bad stuff. Then he decides the people just need to embrace the situation. Look at the black clouds, the wind, the dead earth, and see the majesty of nature. Nuts! He doesn’t mention embracing all the death.

So I think Egan will have a strong conclusion to this effect.

The roaring boom of prosperity and the miracle of turning land into wheat (=$$) is a big theme. Plain people learning that they could have become rich if they planted every acre. They couldn’t tear up the prairie fast enough. We even have what he calls suitcase farmers, entrepreneurs who come to town and pay someone to rent their land and plant wheat. They just wait around for the harvest and the profits. After the bust and the drop in wheat prices, off they go, with no more interest in the land they have mined. How much hubris can you stand?

This does sound like a good story – though decidedly grim, as you say. I’d like to put it on the (long) list… Thanks for sharing!

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , , | 1 Comment »

Illuminations: A Novel of Hildegard von Bingen by Mary Sharratt (audio)

Posted on June 6, 2014 by pagesofjulia

illuminationsHildegard von Bingen was a real-life woman; a brief glance at the Wikipedia page under her name indicates that this novel is faithful to the general shape of the historical figure’s life. (Consulting Wikipedia is not a high standard, but it’s all I felt necessary to my review of this book. And really, we can’t ask for much accuracy when dealing with a mystic from the 1000’s, can we we?)

First question: what led me to a book about a religious figurehead? I’m not entirely sure. I don’t have a great deal of patience for Christian subjects of books in general; but this woman was a writer and something of a rebel, and I decided to give it a try. I could always put it down. My whim was rewarded: I enjoyed Hildegard’s story.

The book is narrated by Hildegard herself (and to reduce confusion, I’ll also say that this audio edition was narrated by Tavia Gilbert, on whom more in a moment), beginning in her old age and then quickly flashing back to her childhood. We spend the vast majority in this lengthy flashback, and thus see her life chronologically.

Hildegard was very young when she began seeing the visions she would be famous for; she saw a lady of light that she came to believe was god, or the church, and her mother disapproved. Partly for this reason, and partly because there were so many children to provide for, her mother gave her to the church – or specifically, to a wealthy young woman from a good family who devoted her own life to god and needed an attendant. Hildegard was only eight when she and Jutta were bricked into the monastery at Disibodenberg to serve as anchorites; and this is the first, but not the last, time I exclaimed at the cruelty of the church.

Hildegard spends a number of years bricked in with Jutta, who is strict, joyless and loveless. She does make a friend in a monk named Volmar, however, who speaks with the women through a little window, and brings gifts of potted plants and books. Eventually the walls will be torn down so that two more young girls can be bricked in, as well, enlarging their tiny convent somewhat; the newcomers are Adelheid and Guda, the latter of whom is even younger than Hildegard was when she was imprisoned. Hildegard had been planning an escape when the two children were brought; but she can’t leave them to her fate, and she stays.

When Jutta dies (after starving herself), years later, Hildegard and her two younger proteges make a plea to be allowed to live in the monastery in relative freedom – they will retain their rooms as before but not be bricked back in. Due to Hildegard’s political maneuverings and performance before important visitors, this request is granted, but grudgingly. She has continued to cause trouble. She still has her visions, although she has learned to keep them to herself; but she is less obedient and more questioning than the monks appreciate. She has also, however, come to serve as a mother or leader to the younger women, who are now joined by a newcomer named Richardis, daughter of Hildegard’s powerful sometimes-ally. Richardis will become Hildegard’s special friend. Such a relationship is actually forbidden by the Benedictine order, but the two women can’t help loving each other. (To be clear, there is no sexual relationship here, and only the slimmest of hints about sexual attraction.)

The novel follows Hildegard’s growth, and her continuing efforts to live beyond the monastery. Her flock of “daughters” grows, and she will finally petition the Archbishop of Mainz, and successfully establish her own monastery at Rupertsberg, accompanied by her nuns and her old friend, Volmar. One of her greatest controversies is her writing: it takes ten years, but she will write a book of her visions, illustrated (or “illuminated”) by Richardis and transcribed by Volmar; the Pope himself confirms that her visions are holy rather than evil, although the abbot at Disibodenberg will never be entirely satisfied on that point. She also composes music, grows herbs and mixes remedies (and writes medical texts), and studies plants in the natural world; she is in fact a Renaissance woman, in an age when women were supposed to be silent nuns or wives. Again, the particulars of her life represented in this fictionalization may not be perfectly accurate. But the broader strokes are true: Hildegard was an author, an abbess, a composer, an outspoken leader.

In other words, Hildegard von Bingen was bigger than her world normally allowed women to be; and this after being buried alive in childhood as an anchorite. This novel of her life tells that story beautifully. It goes pretty light on the parts about god and religion, which was a major plus for this reader; those more interested in the religious side of her life might be disappointed, but I enjoyed being able to read about her accomplishments, her struggles, and her personality without being subjected to too much preaching. The Hildegard in this book loved people, and wanted the best for her daughters; god was almost incidental to her, and that worked well for me. Although it is her visions of that that made her famous in the first place, the god she sees in them is both notably female, and a god of love and freedom rather than rules.

Her story is compelling, and I appreciated her frustrations and enjoyed her personality. The narration by Tavia Gilbert felt right; I liked the old woman’s voice she uses at the very end, but her characterization was mostly invisible, just felt like Hildegard herself were speaking, and that is as it should be.

For a historical story of women’s rights in the church and in society in the 1000’s and 1100’s, I do recommend Illuminations.

Rating: 7 beautiful women.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , | Leave a comment »

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

Posted on May 19, 2014 by pagesofjulia

haroldDon’t forget to also see my earlier reviews of the first third and second third of this book.

Naturally, Harold Fry continued to be excellent. I love this book. The sad bit where we left him off in my last review, where he was dogged by misguided followers (yes, I believe I mean that literally, too), was sad; but it came to an end. Harold of course ends up on his own again, which is mostly his natural state in this story. But he won’t finish that way. I don’t want to report any more plot points. This book ends on a hopeful note, and everyone – not only the few characters you might think early on, but everyone – ends up growing and learning.

Rachel Joyce’s strengths definitely include her wry writing voice, which is really very funny. Harold is often self-conscious, but Joyce never is. Her characters are very real and well put together; even the most minor of walk-ons is defined precisely in just a few words. There are larger truths as well. For example, I was struck by the statement of relativity here:

How could he say all this? It amounted to a lifetime. He could try to find the words, but they would never hold the same meaning for her that they did for him. My house, he would say, and the image that would spring to her head would be of her own! There was no saying it.

None of us shall ever know exactly what the others have been through! Oh the humanity!

Incidentally, I was right in my big guess about the big secret. Work that one out for yourselves.

I fell in love with Harold, and with Maureen, and with Rex (Rachel Joyce, is there another book with Rex in it? please please??), and with all the smaller players. I felt so close to these people, these real people living quiet lives – or even lives of quiet desperation, you might say. I am very impressed with this story of ordinary people doing small, private things, that also managed to be a very large story about The Human Situation (that’s an Honors College course I took as a freshman, FYI). The wisdom that is communicated in humble packages is extraordinary. Harold is a star, and Rachel Joyce is my new hero. I can’t wait to see what she does next.

Highly recommended; and the audio read by Jim Broadbent is absolutely grand as well. One of the best of the year to date, without a doubt.

Rating: 10 yards of blue duct tape.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , | 7 Comments »

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.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , | 5 Comments »

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.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , | Leave a comment »

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!

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , | Leave a comment »

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.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , | Leave a comment »

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.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , , | 4 Comments »

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.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , , | 3 Comments »

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.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , , | Leave a comment »

« Previous Page — Next Page »