The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott by Kelly O’Connor McNees (audio)

Posted on May 16, 2013 by pagesofjulia

louisaThis is a fictionalization of one season in the life of Louisa May Alcott, author most famously of Little Women. Louisa and her family are very like her famous fictional creations in many ways. The eldest daughter, Anna, clearly models for Meg of LW; then there’s Louisa/Jo, then Lizzie/Beth, and then Amy/May. Louisa’s mother Abba does go by Marmee, as in the book; the first glaring departure from Alcott’s novel in her real life is that her father, Bronson, is not away at war. Instead, Bronson was a transcendentalist scholar and friend to the likes of Thoreau and Emerson, disinclined to work for a living (being principally opposed, you see); he founded a Utopian commune in which his family lived for a time, and otherwise they scrimped, borrowed, and got by how they could. [I know this is confusing: I am writing a review of a fictional book, about a real-life woman, who wrote a fictional book, about her real-life family. So far, in these bare details I’ve named, I am referring to the real-life Alcotts as well as the Alcotts represented in Kelly O’Connor McNees’ novel.]

In The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott, McNees sets the six Alcotts in Walpole, New Hampshire, living for the summer in a home that belongs to relatives, because they are poor and hungry and have to go where they can. The premise is that Louisa May Alcott – in real-life a confirmed spinster – had a brief love affair that summer that informed the rest of her life. History yields no indication that such an affair took place, so this is where the fiction begins.

The plot is simple and uninteresting, certainly not the strength of this book. The family is new to Walpole; Anna has recently decided that she is interested in getting married (as any good girl of her era would be) and works to make herself presentable to the town’s young men. Louisa is, as ever, hot-headed, passionate, interested mostly in her writing, and does not intend to marry because it would disrupt her freedom (to write, and otherwise). She is firmly a feminist, and deeply interested in her father’s friends Emerson and Thoreau, and in a new book of poetry called Leaves of Grass by somebody named Walt Whitman. Lizzie is sickly and fussed over. May is obnoxiously free from the privation that the rest of the family feels; Marmee is rather frustrated with her lot in life; and Bronson is thoroughly exasperating in his refusal to get realistic and provide for his family. Anna meets a boy. And Louisa meets a boy, and in stock romance-novel style, finds him unbearable right up until she falls in love with him. They are thwarted.

The strengths of The Lost Summer are in its subjects: lovers of Little Women will be charmed by the fictional-real-life models for Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy. The setting is rather charming, as well, and Joseph Singer (Louisa’s love interest) is likeable. But unlike the characters in Little Women, Anna, Louisa, Lizzie and May are underdeveloped. To be fair, it is a shorter book, and spans a much briefer time than its more famous model, so perhaps this should be excused. But I’m not really that forgiving, as I’ve seen masterful character development in mere pages (see: short story masters like Hemingway and de Maupassant). To be further fair, I’m not a fan of romance novels. (Maybe I should never have picked this book up?) That said, I was impatient with the plot line that had Louisa grumpy toward this man she simultaneously felt pulled towards – she went weak in the knees, etc., etc. – and then suddenly sick with love. It’s just too familiar, ho hum. And finally, too many of these characters were unlikeable (May, Bronson, even Marmee; Louisa for her bullheadedness; minor characters Margaret and Catherine, ugh!) for my tastes. I sort of felt that this story had misplaced its heroine.

Of some interest was the opportunity that McNees took to outline Louisa’s feminism and her limited options. I confess I did buy into the romance enough to wish that Joseph and Louisa could be together – could marry, or simply cohabitat – which latter option I realize is my modern-woman’s solution, and wasn’t really available to Louisa at all. Louisa talks and thinks through their options and what they would mean to her: how, for example, marriage would mean endless drudgery and housework for her, and the loss of her ability to write. This is a message that needed communicating, and I found it interesting and instructive to consider the limited options of a woman of this era. So a few points were regained here. However, these musings were only thinly veiled as dialogue or internal thoughts of the characters; I felt I could see McNees holding the strings.

For a quick, superficial, comfortable visit with the beloved Alcotts, come on in to Lost Summer; but if you’re looking for more, look elsewhere.

Audio edition was fine but unremarkable.

Rating: 4 oh-so-important ribbons.

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Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard (audio)

Posted on May 8, 2013 by pagesofjulia

destinyJames A. Garfield was the 20th president of the United States, and served one of our shortest terms: after being shot by assassin Charles J. Guiteau, he lived over two months before dying in September of 1881. Destiny of the Republic is the story of Garfield’s short presidency. As expressed in the subtitle, it is also the story of Guiteau’s madness and the medical era in which Garfield was unsuccessfully treated. What is left out of the title is the story of Alexander Graham Bell, who worked on a metal detector that was related to his recent invention, the telephone, with the intention of locating the bullet lodged in Garfield’s torso. So, to recap: this is the story of Garfield the President, Giteau the assassin, Bell the inventor, and a Dr. Bliss, who headed up the President’s medical team.

I knew next to nothing about Garfield, although I had a vague sense of his dying journey to the sea, passing by train through crowds of Americans gathered to honor him. I assume I’m not alone in my ignorance; he’s a long-dead president who (necessarily, by virtue of his short service) made no historical contributions sufficient to bring him to a modern layperson’s consciousness. So, I’ll fill in a little more. Garfield is painted in the opening chapters as a very sympathetic man: he did not aspire to the White House, but rather was nominated against his will by a post-Civil-War Republic Party that could not agree on any of the more favored candidates for nomination (Ulysses S. Grant, James G. Blaine and John Sherman). He was humble. In this book, he is a likeable character (more on that to follow).

Interspersed with descriptions of Garfield, his very humble past as a poverty-stricken and fatherless child, and his marriage to Lucretia (“Crete” ), are descriptions of Guiteau. Guiteau is, briefly, delusional. I don’t know what his diagnosis would be in today’s mental health establishment, but he would be diagnosed. He believes he deserves great things and the world owes him; he is a chronic petty criminal, and because he once wrote a speech (never delivered) stumping for Garfield, he believes upon Garfield’s election that he deserves a lucrative posting, preferably to Paris. (One of the hot political issues of this age was the spoils system.) In his diseased mind, Garfield’s failure to honor him becomes a crime punishable by death; and/or it’s God’s will that Garfield be killed; and/or Vice President Chester Arthur needs to be President for the sake of the country, etc. Thus the assassination.

Also interspersed are some of the thinkers of the era. Alexander Graham Bell has just invented the telephone, which although not ubiquitous, is beginning to change communications for some of the population, and will have great future impact; in the meantime Bell works feverishly on that and other inventions. Also contemporary is the British Joseph Lister, pioneer of the concept of antisepsis, or sterilization of medical (especially surgical) equipment. Medical minds of the day did not generally believe in germs, because they could not see them, and practiced surgery on the second patient with the blood of the first still wet on their hands (not to mention pus and general dirt). Lister tried to convince American doctors of the lifesaving power of sterilization, but in the case of Garfield’s Dr. Bliss, failed.

So the action of the story follows Garfield’s nomination, election, and early days in office; Guiteau’s descent into madness, and his shooting of the President; Bell’s laboratory work, including work on a machine to locate the bullet lost inside the President; and the medical community’s thoughts on antisepsis. Dr. Bliss is an unsympathetic character. He successfully bluffs a small crowd of other doctors, several better qualified, and at least one more open to the idea of sterile surgery, out of the White House, taking over Garfield’s care himself. He is imperious, intolerant, and unpleasant; it also turns out that he had the wrong medical ideas, with the knowledge we have now. Garfield suffers in the White House for some two months after being shot, with a bullet lodged near his liver. During this time he is endlessly poked and prodded with filthy fingers and probing implements, deep into his wound. We know now – indeed, they mostly understood upon his autopsy – that it was not the gunshot that killed him, but the massive infection caused by unsterilized instruments. And then, we hear of the First Lady’s mourning, and the trial and hanging of Guiteau. In the epilogue, we also follow Bell, Bliss and Lister through to their eventual ends.

I found this story fascinating, as perhaps is clear from my lengthy synopsis. I liked that Millard sketched the political background of the United States in the decades after the Civil War, the lingering divisiveness of North vs. South, the corruption of the spoils system and the conflict between VP Arthur and Garfield’s presidency. I found the characters interesting, compelling, and real. This history is told relatively briefly and at a quick pace: I think reluctant readers of nonfiction will be pleased, and yet I don’t have reason to think it was dumbed down or oversimplified. Destiny of the Republic is good, readable history for the mainstream reader, and I recommend it.

I do have one concern. Garfield is portrayed in a wholly sympathetic light. I don’t know enough to criticize him; but I’m always suspicious of such a glowing picture of a historical figure. Surely he wasn’t all good? I worry about so much praise, as I said in my review of Team of Rivals.

I really enjoyed getting a glimpse of the medical thinking of this era, which I thought was well handled, although in brief. The conceptual leap to believing in invisible germs and the risk of infection has to be one of the more important in the history of medicine, and I can understand how people like Bliss who thought they knew what they were doing would be skeptical, although it’s hard to sympathize with him in this story of the huge consequences of his skepticism (coupled with his egotism and nasty personality, of course). There was another angle I wish had been explored as well, regarding Bliss’s very imposing nature, the bossiness with which he took over Garfield’s care, and his unwillingness to let either the President or the First Lady choose a doctor or make medical decisions. This is another area of medical practice in which change has occurred much more recently: the authority of doctor versus patient. We’re still working this one out, but today, no doctor would be so likely to barge in and tell the wife of an unconscious man which doctor would be treating him; and if she called in the doctors of her choosing and fired the first, her decision would stand. Now, Mrs. Garfield never tried to “fire” Bliss – it wasn’t done. But that’s my point: the concept of who holds the power in that relationship, doctor vs. patient (& family/caregiver) has changed drastically. As someone who works in a hospital setting with patients and family members, not to mention some of the decisions I’ve seen made in my own family, my mind jumped at this part of Garfield’s story. He had no advocate to protect him against the failures of the medical establishment; no second opinions were allowed; the patient and his family were allowed no part in the decision-making process. Not only would antisepsis have made the difference to Garfield, but, I submit, patient advocacy and empowerment would likely have made a major change as well: if he had still died, at least he might have been much more comfortable, and I think quality of life even at the end of life should not be discounted. If I had written this story (with my perspective as a medical librarian), I would have added this facet to Garfield’s story as well.

Minor quibbles aside, I really enjoyed Destiny of the Republic and found it an easy, engaging, quick read that I would recommend to anyone. The audio production, read by Paul Micheal, was entertaining and gave the varying voices to the story that I think it needed. Well done.

Rating: 8 propaganda-ridden medical bulletins.

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Love Anthony by Lisa Genova (audio)

Posted on May 1, 2013 by pagesofjulia

This whole post below the book cover image is mildly spoiler-y. So, briefly: Love Anthony concerns two unrelated women and their respective pursuits of personal fulfillment and happy family lives. One has a little boy with autism. There is pain, and some redemption. If those few lines appeal to you, consider reading the book before you read this review.

loveantThis is Lisa Genova’s most recent novel, and I have now run out. (Her earlier works are Left Neglected and Still Alice.) This is not my favorite of her novels – that would be Still Alice. But it might be the one I found most thought-provoking.

The story jumps back and forth between the lives of two women who are connected only tenuously for most of the book. First we meet Beth. She lives on Nantucket Island year-round, and has three young daughters and a husband named Jimmy, who we learn even before we meet him is having an affair. She tells him to leave, and he does. For the bulk of the book, one of the central conflicts of Beth’s life is her struggle to deal with his infidelity and decide the future of their marriage and family. And then we meet Olivia. She is newly living year-round on Nantucket, in the cottage that she, her husband David, and her son Anthony have for years used as a summer home or rented out to vacationers. Olivia has recently experienced a series of personal tragedies, and she’s struggling just to hold it together. First, her son has autism, and the knowledge that he would never do all the things she’d imagined him doing – making friends, playing sports, dating, working, moving out of the house – would never happen, is devastating. Next, her son dies. And then her marriage falls apart, in the stress of dealing with Anthony’s autism and Anthony’s death.

Both Beth and Olivia, then, are working to cope with the unfairnesses that life has thrown their way. And here’s a twist: Beth is a writer, something she’d almost forgotten in her years of marriage and motherhood; but when Jimmy leaves, she pulls out her writing materials and begins working on a novel. Olivia is a former editor of self-help books, now working as a photographer (taking beach portraits for all those vacationing families on Nantucket). When the two women meet and discover this synchronicity, Olivia reluctantly agrees to read Beth’s novel when it’s finished. Are you ready for the big play? Beth’s novel is about a little boy named Anthony who has autism.

Beth and Olivia were both well-developed characters with realistic lives and problems. Both experience quite a bit of personal growth. I struggled for a time mid-book, because I didn’t really like either character; Beth was too much a perfectionist, sort of bitchy in her desire for the perfect family portrait in matching outfits, unconcerned with her children’s lives as long as they match and are unstained. And Olivia couldn’t love her son as he was, couldn’t get past her desire for a “perfect” or “normal” child. I was exasperated with both of them. But then they both changed, grew, and if I have had strong feelings about these characters then maybe the author reached her goal. I think there’s been a longer arc in this story than in Genova’s past books, which I loved more unequivocally, but which got me less involved. By the end, both women have changed enough that I liked them better. But they changed by becoming more perfect, which I cannot entirely buy into, so I retain some hesitation.

The friendship Beth shares with a group of women on the island (Jill, Georgia, Courtney, and Petra) is another area where I’m ambivalent. These women are diverse and likeable; but they feel like types more than real people, at least when assembled as a group. And they’re so good! There’s no cattiness, no back-biting. It’s a tight-knit, loving, supportive group, and call me cynical, but *I* have certainly never had a group of girlfriends so awesome; it’s all I can do to find one at a time, at best. They are a lovely part of this story, if they can be believed; but I am not sure they can be believed.

My central concern, however, is in the unscientific nature of the melding and meshing of Beth and Olivia’s lives, and the novel that they share. Beth’s novel turns out to be about Olivia’s son Anthony; the character in the book not only shares Anthony’s name, but his whole world. There is a metaphysical or otherworldly subplot. Is the dead boy Anthony speaking through Beth? I lost my patience here. Lisa Genova writes about hard science, and reliably – she is a neuroscientist by training – and that’s one of my favorite things about her work. So, then, for her to shift into this realm of possibly communing with the dead was jarring for me, and not what I was looking for. I have nothing against a good ghost story, but her work feels to me like it’s aspiring to realism, and I was bothered by the supernatural element. It didn’t fit.

On balance, I really enjoyed Beth’s and Olivia’s stories. Moment to moment, I was totally caught up in their lives and rooting for them. I was fully engaged, and I take my hat off to Genova who took me from not really liking either of her protagonists, to sympathizing fully; there was real growth and development. But when I zoomed out a little, I was unconvinced by and frustrated with several elements of the plot, and the type-casting of certain characters. For my money, her earlier novels were far more persuasive and easier to love wholeheartedly. That said – I am anxious for more. Lisa! Get to work!

As a side note, I found it curious that one of our characters is a woman writing a novel about a boy with autism, because Lisa Genova is of course a real-life woman writing a novel about a boy with autism. I can’t help but wonder how much of that is autobiographical, and I love the journey that line of thinking can take me down. Additionally, Beth’s writing process was fascinating to me, and I expect anyone else who dreams of being an author will feel the same. (I suspect that many avid readers fall into this category.)

Debra Messing, who plays Grace on the tv show Will and Grace, reads this audiobook convincingly, with the shifts, sighs, and varying volumes that represent speech vs. thought; she communicates emotion; a fine job. I recommend the audio version.

Rating: 6 white rocks.

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Crossing the Borders of Time by Leslie Maitland (audio)

Posted on April 18, 2013 by pagesofjulia

crossingCrossing the Borders of Time is a grand, sweeping story, combining history and tragedy with romance, and to top it off it’s nonfiction. Leslie Maitland grew up with the legend of her mother Janine’s great love, a man named Roland that she had to leave as a teen during World War II, when as a Jew she fled Europe with her family for the United States by way of Cuba. Roland was a French Catholic and had to stay behind, but the young couple pledged to marry as soon as they could. Janine’s family cooperated with the war to keep the two apart until Janine married an American man and had two children; her troubled marriage weathered several storms, but she always remembered Roland wistfully. As the book opens, Leslie’s father Len is dying, as Leslie heads off with trepidation on a journey to find the lost Roland and give her mother another chance at love. The author reads this audio version herself – a phenomenon with which I have had 100% success, continued here with Leslie’s own heartfelt recollections, and her relation of Janine and Roland’s stories complete with the French and German (and Spanish) accents that season their lives.

The iPod can be misleading when it comes to audiobooks. I don’t even remember loading this one into my gadget, and I certainly hadn’t remembered its length, so I was surprised as it unfolded into no fewer than 15 discs’ worth, about 19 hours. However, it was well worth the time spent. Maitland makes no pretense about the romance of this story – that is, that it is a love story, but also that she approached with a sense of romance, despite her training as a journalist. She occasionally has to stop herself and try to pull back, and question whether she’s behaving rationally, as she searches for the mythologized Roland. But this is a personal matter rather than a professional one, and it’s no surprise that she feels strongly, having grown up hearing about her mother’s first love.

Nevertheless, much of the tale is told in flashback, and in journalistic style, as Maitland reports the lives of her forbears: her great-grandparents Simon and Jeanette; her grandparents, Sigmar and Alice; and Janine, born Johanna (Hanna or Hannele) in German-held Alsace. As Alsace exchanged hands between France and Germany over the years, so Janine/Hanna struggled to define herself, as her parents’ first escape from Nazi Germany takes them just over the border from Freiburg into the French town of Mulhouse where she first met Roland. She would call herself French rather than German from that point forward. As Maitland’s story reaches her own era, her first-person voice reappears: she tells us her own perspective on her parents’ marriage, how distant her father, how conflicted her feelings about that beloved parent when he leaves for another woman and then comes back home again.

When the narrative fully inhabits the modern day and Maitland’s own perceptions, the pace picks up; what has been a history becomes a race against time as Janine ages and Roland remains elusive. Perhaps it is not too much of a spoiler to say that he is finally located; as a coworker of mine pointed out, there likely would not have been a book if Maitland had been unable to find him. But the final fates of our romantic hero and heroine are not straightforward, so you’ll still have to read the book to find out how it all concludes!

One of the greatest strengths of Crossing the Borders of Time has to be Maitland’s tone. I appreciated the air of nostalgia that permeates her telling of Janine’s history before and during the war; she combines journalistic style (citing sources, noting the odd inconsistency, describing an interviewee) with the emotional daughter searching for her mother’s legend. And if she lapses into the sentimental and romantic as things draw to a close, I don’t think she owes us an apology; I found this voice compelling and convincing, and entertaining.

Narrative nonfiction with emotion, but also a commitment to truth, always makes for a fine way to learn history. I found this an enjoyable, evocative, feeling story.

Rating: 7 hidden telegrams.

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Teaser Tuesdays: Crossing the Borders of Time by Leslie Maitland, again

Posted on April 9, 2013 by pagesofjulia

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. The idea is to open your current read to a random page and share a few sentences. And try not to include spoilers!

crossing

I continue to enjoy this memoir by the daughter of a French-German Jew who fled the Nazis as a teen and thereby lost her love. I did tease you from it last week, but I thought these lines were too evocative, thoughtful and real not to share.

His impromptu recital was a peaceful close to a day that had wakened to the tumult of athletes speeding through narrow Renaissance streets, crowds cheering at corners and loudspeakers blaring. That evening I would leave feeling grateful for the quiet bravery of all the Ficks and the Fimbels, people who risked their lives to wrestle with power in places whose names are not even footnotes in history’s pages.

The setting for this scene is a French town the author is visiting, one of the several towns along her family’s route from Freiburg eventually to the United States. Fick and Fimbel are two men who helped them escape occupied France. The athletes are triathletes in competition, and the impromptu recital is given especially for the visiting Maitland by Fick, now a very old man, on the organ in his church; and I think all together they make a fine sweeping view of this place in time. For one thing (referencing Maitland’s title), the Renaissance streets that now see triathletes whizzing by on what I’m sure are very fancy bikes surely never expected such a thing. And then add the organ music played by a quietly heroic man for the daughter of a woman he hasn’t seen in many decades… there is something profound in this vignette, isn’t there?

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The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo (audio): second half

Posted on April 3, 2013 by pagesofjulia

hunchbackIn brief: better than the first half.

In the first half of this classic novel, I felt there was a bit much explication of aspects less interesting to me personally: most to the point, the architecture of Paris and the history of that architecture. This turns out to be a historical facet that does not fascinate me. If you feel otherwise, enjoy. I said then that Hugo’s strengths lay in the narrative of his story, especially in dialogue; and it seemed to me that this second half had more of that. I am still refraining from plot summary, since that question is well answered by the internet at large. So, briefly, in this second half our characters meet their fates. La Esmeralda, Quasimodo, Claude Frollo, Phoebus, Gringoire and Sister Gudule are for me the central characters, and each comes to a resolution by the end; Hugo wraps up very neatly in that regard.

I found the story interesting – not riveting, but engaging in that I cared about the fates of these characters. It moved a little too slowly to be called riveting, but I did remain mostly attentive. (The description of Parisian building styles through the centuries was not entirely absent in this latter half of the book, so I did still zone out some.) Gringoire’s comic soliloquies are among the best moments; and the Archdeacon’s depravity was shocking and certainly absorbing. I think he easily equals the sociopaths featured on Criminal Minds. One of my observations on finishing this book is that 15th-century French society unfortunately allowed for such crazed and dangerous behaviors if one only held a high position in the church.

This is mild praise, you realize. The Hunchback of Notre Dame struck me as a fine story, but unremarkable. And yet Victor Hugo is a big name, and this one of his best-known works (I am not excited about Les Miserables!), so what have I missed? Well, for one thing, there is this assertion that I got from Wikipedia:

Hugo introduced with this work the concept of the novel as Epic Theatre. A giant epic about the history of a whole people, incarnated in the figure of the great cathedral as witness and silent protagonist of that history. The whole idea of time and life as an ongoing, organic panorama centered on dozens of characters caught in the middle of that history. It is the first novel to have beggars as protagonists.

Notre Dame de Paris was the first work of fiction to encompass the whole of life, from the King of France to Paris sewer rats, in a manner later co-opted by Honoré de Balzac, Gustave Flaubert and many others, including Charles Dickens.

And when put in this perspective, I see its value a little more clearly. Upon its publication in 1831 there were no novels like this; okay. On the other hand this is Wikipedia (and there is a sentence fragment in the above quotation, oh the horror), so, grain of salt. Certainly I can see how this is a great, sweeping view of 15th century France, as stated involving both the King and the beggars, and I am happy to nod to the precedent set even if this is not my favorite example of the genre.

The narrator, David Case, turned out to be perfectly fine and appropriate. I liked the different voices he plays for the very different characters of Gringoire (comic, self-important, whinging), the Archdeacon (dark, conflicted), Esmeralda (sort of a wilting lily), and Quasimodo (deaf). He gave the piece flavor.

In the end, though, I shrug at this lengthy audiobook and move on without looking back.

Rating: 5 gargoyles.

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Teaser Tuesdays: Crossing the Borders of Time by Leslie Maitland

Posted on April 2, 2013 by pagesofjulia

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. The idea is to open your current read to a random page and share a few sentences. And try not to include spoilers!

crossing

I am pleased with the early chapters of this memoir, in which the author travels back to Europe to hunt down her mother’s long-lost love, from whom she was separated during World War II. Today’s teaser concerns the mother’s family, Jews who lived on the border between France and Germany in a region that changed hands between those two countries frequently, confusing their sense of heritage.

…for Sigmar, returning to French-controlled Mulhouse after [World War I] – a German war veteran with a new German bride – proved difficult too, with anti-German sentiment in France running so high. Feeling even less welcome as Germans in France than as Jews in Germany, Sigmar and Alice crossed the Rhine once again to settle and start a family in Freiburg.

This is a nuance I had not considered before, and drives home the displacement of Jews in this era.

What are you reading this week?

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Teaser Tuesdays: The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo, again

Posted on March 26, 2013 by pagesofjulia

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. The idea is to open your current read to a random page and share a few sentences. And try not to include spoilers!

hunchback

Yes, I just did this one last week. The good news is that there continues to be text worth quoting! I liked these lines of dialogue:

“The gallows lead to hell.”

“That is a rousing fire.”

“Jehan, Jehan! The end will be bad!”

“The beginning at least will have been good.”

There is something Shakespearean, I think, in this repartee. As I said in my mid-way-through review, Hugo is at his best in narrative (or dialogue!), when he is pithy and entertaining. Still enjoying this one, on the whole.

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The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo (audio): first half

Posted on March 21, 2013 by pagesofjulia

hunchbackThis is a long book, and listening to it as an audiobook makes it longer still. I’ve been at it a week and a half now and am not quite halfway through, so I thought it might be appropriate to break it into two reviews – to remind myself, as much as anything else.

I will not devote too much space to plot synopsis here; this work has plenty of presence in the public consciousness and a rather thorough Wikipedia article as well. The story within the book most centrally concerns Quasimodo, the eponymous hunchback, and Esmeralda, a beautiful young gypsy woman with several admirers. While the story revolves around these two protagonists and their eventual fates, its range is much larger than that. Between events in the lives of Quasimodo, Esmeralda, and the other characters who effect their stories, Hugo describes the architecture of Paris (note the prominence of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in the title and in the story) and the history of both the city and its architecture. He connects changes and trends in architecture to changes in culture, and thereby tells a larger story than just that of his characters; this is also a book about Paris and its people in history.

It can get a little dry. I find this reading (listening) experience to be mixed: at its best, Hugo is hilarious, dry, droll, witty, and sketches people and scenes charmingly. At its drier moments, however, my mind wanders as he describes architecture (I confess, not a particular area of personal interest) and the various period styles involved in the Cathedral, etc. I can blank out on this book for 30 minutes at a time, and I am not highly motivated to fight it; I just let Hugo’s words wash over me, gathering the main effect, and wait for Esmeralda et al to reappear and entertain me. While I am a fan of some forms of narrative within descriptive or didactic ramblings (The Perfect Storm being the perfect example of this done beautifully), this is not one of the more effective or enjoyable versions I’ve come across.

The narrator of this version, David Case, has what I assume to be a fine French accent (that is my mother’s area, not mine), but its nasal, whinging nature can be a little trying. I don’t want to give the impression that I am impatient or annoyed with this book (or this narration) on balance; but I do have some criticisms, you see. I turned it off for a few days in favor of MUSIC (what a joy!), but I was glad to get back to it.

I think this is a great story, and a great point of cultural reference, and I am getting some (needed, and appreciated) education on French culture. I am enjoying it – particularly the narrative parts. It takes a little patience and forbearance – a little more than a faster-paced story would – but I believe it will be worth it. More a Dickens than a Lee Child, you see.

Have you read The Hunchback of Notre Dame? Or do you have any other experiences with similar classics: medium-lengthy, verbose and descriptive, a little challenging but worthwhile?

Rating: I’m going to finish it before I judge.

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Teaser Tuesdays: The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo

Posted on March 19, 2013 by pagesofjulia

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. The idea is to open your current read to a random page and share a few sentences. And try not to include spoilers!

hunchback

I have begun The Hunchback of Notre Dame as an (unabridged) audiobook. Am I overly ambitious? We shall see. I will say that so far he may be a less-than-ideal gym companion, but time will tell. Here are a few lines I like very much so far…

“Monsieur the Archduke has more than once sought his gloves among my hose.”

A burst of laughter and applause ensued. A witticism or a pun is instantly comprehended in Paris and consequently sure to be applauded.

Oh, so clever. I believe this is a fair representation of some of the humor Hugo has on offer.

What are you reading this week?

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