Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland (audio)

Posted on January 8, 2012 by pagesofjulia

This was a lovely little audiobook. The writing beautifully, lyrically evokes the setting. At the start of the book, I recognized the tone and I’m sure there’s a literary term for it, although it escapes me; it actually reminded me of The Picture of Dorian Gray (which, however, I didn’t like). There was that same tone of desperate passion for a work of art; there was a similar element of a painting dominating a man. It was emotional, emotive. But it seemed to calm down as the book progressed, getting more contemplative, quieter, more introspective. And that was really nice, too.

The book is about a painting of a girl in a blue smock, taking a moment’s break from sewing buttons onto a shirt to look out a window. It is variously named by different characters in the story; the title is one name for it. The book opens in a present-day setting: a teacher invites a colleague back to his house to show him a painting he’s kept secret until now. He claims it is a long-lost Vermeer. (Vermeer is the real-life Dutch master who painted The Girl with a Pearl Earring.) From there, we trace the painting’s history backwards through time, through its various owners and caretakers, back to its painter and the moment of inspiration, visiting the girl who sat for it.

An obvious comparison to this book presented itself immediately: Tracy Chevalier’s very successful Girl With a Pearl Earring, which was made into a movie starring Scarlett Johansson. I thought both the book and the movie were lovely, and for others who enjoyed either, I highly recommend Girl in Hyacinth Blue. Not only is the subject matter very like (a fictionalized explanation of the history and inspiration of a Vermeer – or a questionable Vermeer), I found the tone to be reminiscent, as well. It’s interesting to think of these two as companion pieces. It’s been a few years since I read Pearl Earring (maybe that was 2004 or thereabouts?), so maybe my memory is warped, but they struck me as very alike. And for the record, it looks like both were originally published in 1999, so I don’t think anyone copy-catted anyone else!

The portraits of life painted (no pun intended – really she’s an artist) by Vreeland are remarkable. They’re very clear and realistic and whimsical, lovely vignettes into a nice selection of times and places. We meet Dutch, German, and American characters spanning several centuries, and each is neatly portrayed and very enjoyable even as brief snippets – meaning, each might stand alone nicely even without being part of a larger story. In fact, they stand alone so well that in the audio format, with a different reader for each, I kept thinking the book had ended! A person might even say each brief portrayal of a person or family’s life resembles a Vermeer painting, particularly when we get to the middle-class Dutch folks of his own period.

Girl in Hyacinth Blue is an effortless read with beautiful characterizations and scenes of life from a number of times and places, presenting the engaging puzzle of a beautiful painting and its questionable provenance. I highly recommend it.

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book beginnings on Friday: Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland

Posted on January 6, 2012 by pagesofjulia

Thanks to Katy at A Few More Pages for hosting this meme. To participate, share the first line or two of the book you are currently reading and, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line.

I enjoyed Vreeland’s Clara and Mr. Tiffany so much that I was happy to find this audiobook at my local public library. So far it’s beautiful. We’re just meeting the eponymous Girl, in a painting that may or may not be an undiscovered Vermeer – evoking another lovely Girl, Girl With a Pearl Earring. But first, let’s meet Cornelius. Here’s your beginning.

Cornelius Engelbrecht invented himself. Let me emphasize, straight away, that he isn’t what I would call a friend, but I know him enough to say that he did purposely design himself: single, modest dresser in receding colors, mathematics teacher, sponsor of the chess club, mild-mannered acquaintance to all rather than a friend to any, a person anxious to become invisible.

Haven’t we learned a lot in just a few lines, and aren’t they well done? I’m liking this so far. How does your weekend reading look?

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Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky (audio), trans. by Sandra Smith

Posted on December 26, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Pagesofjulia earlier published a guest review of this audiobook by my father. He did an excellent job of telling the backstory, so I’m just going to quote him here.

Much of the impact derives from knowing the author’s own story and how the book came to life. Born 1903, she was a Russian Jewish immigrant to France (1918), converted to the Catholic Church (1939), published numerous works of renown before the war (including one brought to film), was denied French citizenship in 1938 due to Jewish heritage, and has since been criticized for being a self-hating Jew. She was in the course of writing this work as events unfolded, expecting to create a novel in 5 parts. She finished two parts, was denounced by French collaborators and deported to Auschwitz where she died within a month. Many more of her writings were published since the war. But her daughters retained this notebook manuscript, keeping it unread until 1990 due to anxiety over the expected pain of reading her wartime “journal” – only then, before donating the pages to an archive, did they realize what powerful words those pages held. Written 1940-42, it was published in 2004, acclaimed, translated and read internationally.

(I don’t know where he gets his info from, but his write-up appears to agree with what the rest of the interwebs tells me.)

The backstory does indeed increase the impact of this story for me. For one thing, knowing that she wrote without knowledge of how the story ended makes some of her predictions and judgments especially poignant.

I think the most remarkable aspects of this book for me were the beautiful writing, and the tone of dry humor. See my Teaser Tuesday and Book Beginnings posts featuring this book for a few snippets I appreciated. The poetry flowed so naturally and yet painted such lovely pictures, without ever feeling forced. And as for the tone – Némirovsky does not spare the French, particularly the upper classes. While they are “victims” of the Nazis, they don’t read as sympathetic characters most of the time; see again that teaser post above for some of her cutting satire (and it goes on from there). The Germans sometimes come across more sympathetically, which I found interesting and not entirely expected. It’s easy to denigrate the Nazis, right? But Némirovsky gives us a truth: these were all just people, elementally.

Perhaps the point that drove Némirovsky’s story home for me the most – that is, both Suite Française and her own real-life story – was the ending of the book. Némirovsky’s daughter chose to publish as one book the first two in an intended series of five novels (so says Wikipedia). She also left behind the outlines of the third part. But in effect, this book ends very abruptly to me, leaving many threads unresolved. The abruptness of the ending was of course made more stark for me in audio format – I’m walking along, listening to the book on my earbuds, and then, nothing. What? Is that the END? I had gotten so engrossed in the story – worried about Bruno, wondering what Lucile would do next – that I’d forgotten the similar plight of the author herself (in that her future was being torn apart and eventually her life ended by the same forces at work in the book). So the cutting off of her work in progress ended up telling the same story for me that her book tells within its pages. I found that very powerful.

Suite Française has an interesting story to tell, both between its covers and without. It is beautifully written, humbling, stark and poignant. The same Wikipedia page (above) calls it “possibly the earliest work of literary fiction about World War II.” It’s really something, and you should check it out. But beware unintended cliffhangers.

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Here Be Dragons by Sharon Kay Penman

Posted on December 24, 2011 by pagesofjulia

I continue to be enthralled by Sharon Kay Penman’s works of historical fiction. Here Be Dragons is the first in the Welsh trilogy, and is concerned with 13th century Wales, the rule of Llewelyn Fawr (Llewelyn the Great) and his wife Joanna, bastard daughter of England’s King John. The book opens with Llewelyn at age 10, unhappy in his new status as stepson to an Englishman; his Welsh culture was drastically different from that of the nearby neighbor, and he found it difficult to assimilate. It only took a few years for him to go home to Wales and undertake to regain the crown that was rightfully his. One of the unique and questionable points of Welsh culture was that sons were expected to share their father’s property, rather than it all (unfairly) falling to the eldest son as in England. This most often resulted in fratricide, and family violence had previously cheated Llewelyn of his birthright to rule. Llewelyn went to war at 15, and won himself many decades of power in Wales, but almost constant conflict and challenges to his power, too. Alongside the story of young Llewelyn, we meet Joana, on her 5th birthday, living with her ostracized mother; her mother’s death just a few days later takes her to the court of her father, John, who eventually became king of England.

The book follows Joana and Llewelyn, their split loyalties, their many friends, relatives, and associates… and as always in Penman’s epic novels of British royal history, we’re treated to the tangled webs of intrigue, betrayal, and power struggles. One of the most powerful threads in this novel – arguably the dominant one – is the romance of Llewelyn and Joana’s marriage. I find myself most charmed by the threads of romance that Penman reliably delivers. I love the court dramas and the intrigue, but I love the romances, too. I’m not a reader of romance novels, and that’s not what this is; it’s so much more. The drama, the tragedy, the heartbreaking complications of family dynamics, the strained loyalties… this is truly a sweeping epic deserving of every minute of concentration it demands. I read these 700 pages in just over 2 days – while on break from work, yes, but given the time to devote to it, it was easy to do.

I find myself learning history from Penman somewhat. This is a slippery slope, to learn history from fiction, as I’ve discussed before. But if it’s ever permissible, Penman might be your author; she is very faithful to her extensive research, and her Author’s Notes at the back of each book offer good outlines of where fact meets fiction.

My first Penman read was The Reckoning, which happens to be the third in this Welsh trilogy. (Once I get through Falls the Shadow I’ll have to decide if I want to go back and reread The Reckoning yet again!) That’s where my fascination with Welsh culture, customs and language began. I am interested in traveling to Wales to explore what I’ve learned, but I’m also sorry to know that Llewelyn, alas, is long gone from our world! If you haven’t picked up Penman yet, I must say – do it now! And I’m off to pass this book on to Pops for his enjoyment.

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11/22/63 by Stephen King

Posted on December 21, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Wow. What can I say? This book was a thrill, a wild joyride, emotional and tender, thoughtful, had me on the edge of my seat. I guess I’ve not bothered to seek out Stephen King (aside from one book I read for the horror section of my genre fiction class in grad school, From a Buick 8, and a short audiobook for a car trip, Stationary Bike) because I don’t have much use for horror; but of course he does more than horror, doesn’t he. There are reasons why he’s a mega-bestseller, and this book illustrates several of those reasons very well.

I’ll back up a bit and give you the premise. Jake Epping is an English teacher in small-town Maine in 2011. His alcoholic wife has just divorced him in favor of a man she met at AA meetings when Al, of the local Al’s Diner, calls him up. Al has aged 10 years overnight and is clearly dying, like right now, but how can this be when Jake just saw him yesterday looking healthy if chubby? We’re thrown into the weirdness immediately as Al sends Jake through his diner’s pantry, and through the rabbit hole, into 1958. This strange loophole through time always takes a visitor back to the same moment in 1958, and no matter how long one stays, he’s always gone just 2 minutes in 2011. Al has returned from 1962 with terminal cancer. He tried to make it to 1963 to stop the Kennedy assassination, thinking to prevent as well the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the tragedy of the Vietnam War, and – why not? – all the bad since then, too. But now Al is out of the game, and with very little instruction, Jake is in it.

I’ll go ahead and tell you that Jake takes on the challenge, because I don’t feel it’s much of a spoiler. (This book runs over 800 pages; something had to happen.) But I won’t tell you much more. This is a suspenseful ride through time and history with the most serious of potential consequences. It’s awesome. Jake is an awfully likeable character, very human, fairly well developed, with good intentions but human weaknesses as well. There is definitely some humor in his preordained knowledge of the past; and before you go thinking he can see everything’s future as he travels through 1958, and onward, across the United States, remember (as Jake will remind us) that he’s an English teacher, not a history teacher. In particular, the regular people he meets are beyond his future-sight, as he didn’t study up on them beforehand. And it’s the little people, the regular folks he comes to know in the Land of Ago, that will turn out to be important to Jake. How could it not be so? He’s just a regular folk himself.

As my mother (who read this book first and prompted me to do so; thanks Mom) pointed out, King is not terribly poetic or lyrical in his writing style. (For the exception that proves the rule, see my recent Teaser Tuesday.) But not all books have to be poetic, and this one loses nothing for it’s more straightforward style. What King does right is build characters, make us care, paint the world of the late 50’s and early 60’s so completely that we taste and smell it. The storyline is fabulous, and this book is a page-turner; if only I had started it sooner during my week off work I might have tried to do it in one or two sittings!! As it was I stayed up past my bedtime on a work night to finish it.

The history and culture of the past is great fun; the characters are engaging; the action is suspenseful. This book is fun and exhilarating and I highly recommend it! Go ahead and add it to my Best of 2011 list. (See, I knew I was jumping the gun…)

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book beginnings on Friday: Here Be Dragons by Sharon Kay Penman

Posted on December 16, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Thanks to Katy at A Few More Pages for hosting this meme. To participate, share the first line or two of the book you are currently reading and, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line.

I am loving Sharon Kay Penman these days.

This is the first in the Welsh trilogy. My experience with this author actually started with The Reckoning, the third in the same, so I’m out of order, but no matter. Here are two beginnings for you today; between them, they set the book up very nicely.

From the prologue:

Theirs was a land of awesome grandeur, a land of mountains and moorlands and cherished myths. They called it Cymru and believed themselves to be the descendants of Brutus and the citizens of ancient Troy.

And from Book 1, Chapter 1: Shropshire, England, July 1183:

He was ten years old and an alien in an unfriendly land, made an unwilling exile by his mother’s marriage to a Marcher border lord. His new stepfather seemed a kindly man, but he was not of Llewelyn’s blood, not one of the Cymry, and each dawning day in Shropshire only intensified Llewelyn’s heartsick longing for his homeland.

And so it begins. Stay tuned for my review, tomorrow.

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Teaser Tuesdays: 11/22/63 by Stephen King

Posted on December 13, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just open your current read to a random page and share a few sentences. Be careful not to include spoilers!

My mother ran right through this over-800-page book in a few days, and I’m looking like I’m going to do the same; my first day got me nearly 300 pages. I don’t often jump on the hot-new-book bandwagon, but this one grasped me: JFK’s assassination, dreams of a more perfect world, time travel, and Stephen King? Okay. Here are a few lines I liked:

I liked writing, and had discovered I was good at it, but what I loved was teaching. It filled me up in some way I can’t explain. Or want to. Explanations are such cheap poetry.

And I like the poetry of that final line. So tell me: what are you reading?

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book beginnings on Friday: Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky

Posted on December 9, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Thanks to Katy at A Few More Pages for hosting this meme. To participate, share the first line or two of the book you are currently reading and, if you feel so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line.

I hope you’ll forgive me for using this audiobook for this week’s Teaser Tuesday as well as today’s Book Beginning; it was just too good not to use. I love this beginning.

Hot, thought the Parisians. The warm air of spring. It was night, they were at war and there was an air raid.

Lovely. And sad.

What are you reading this weekend?

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The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Kay Penman

Posted on December 8, 2011 by pagesofjulia

This is Sharon Kay Penman’s first novel, although not the first of hers that I’ve read. I think she did an amazing job with her debut novel.

This is the fictionalized life of King Richard III of England, whose brief reign from 1483-85 ended with his death on the battlefield. We meet Richard – Dickon to his family and close friends – at age six, playing in the woods with his idolized oldest brother, Edward or Ned, under the rule of King Harry of Lancaster. Harry’s queen, Marguerite d’Anjou, refuses to trust the Duke of York, Dickon and Ned’s father; her unrest leads to a war in which Dickon loses a brother and his father, and Ned is crowned king. King Edward and his unpopular Queen Elizabeth rule for 22 years, with constant rebellions and threats to his leadership, the ongoing War of the Roses raging between the houses of York and Lancaster. During this time, Dickon is Edward’s most trusted friend, advisor, and military commander. Upon Edward’s sudden death, he requests that Dickon safeguard his minor son’s position as heir to the throne, which Dickon is happy to do. But the philandering Edward’s engagement to another woman prior to marrying Elizabeth is made known, thus (under the laws of the time) making his marriage null, his children illegitimate, and his son no proper heir at all. At this point Dickon is crowned King Richard III, although not without misgivings. We then anxiously attend Dickon’s disturbed and brief reign, still beset by betrayals and treachery, treason and rebellion, until he dies in battle.

Richard III is also the king whose two boy-nephews, “the princes in the tower,” disappeared during their imprisonment under his rule and are understood to have been killed. (These are Edward’s sons, the elder being the intended heir to the throne.) History has tended to hold Richard responsible for killing the boys, possible threats to his throne. But as Josephine Tey did in her Daughter of Time, Penman presents a different story, one that has Richard innocent of their murders and regretful of their loss. I think she does a fine job supporting this theory – and of course this is fiction, remember, we still don’t know what happened to them! – and within her story, Richard is a virtuous and upstanding man who would never have done such a thing. In this question, as in so many details of her stories large and small, Penman explains her decisions (and tells exactly where history ends and fiction begins) in the author’s note at the back of the book. (Attention to historical accuracy and an explanation of where she began to embellish are several of the most important strengths to Penman’s work, in my opinion.)

The action of the book covers less than thirty years, but in great detail. We get to know intimately not only Richard and his siblings, but their mother, and the reviled Elizabeth and her daughters, and various friends and attendants. Richard is raised alongside his cousin, daughter of the treasonous Earl of Warwick, Anne Neville, and their youthful expectation of marriage is finally fulfilled after many hardships (including Anne’s forced marriage to another ill-fated challenger to the crown). Anne & Richard’s love story is one of the uniting threads of this books, heartbreaking and touching and sweet and sad. (I am noticing that Penman is reliable in including deeply satisfying, fully-wrought romances within her novels.) The story of Bess, the eldest of Edward & Elizabeth’s children, is another sad and romantic tale.

The sketching out of so many individual characters, even some rather minor ones, is another of Penman’s strengths. I loved Francis and Veronique very much.

At over 900 pages, this read does require some commitment; but it’s amazing how easy it is to get lost in it and watch those pages fall away. Don’t be afraid of the page count. Penman really creates a world and draws us in; we love her characters (and dare I say hate some of them too!) and it becomes difficult to put this book down. I very highly recommend this and everything Penman has written, and I think there’s a fair chance I’m going to jump straight into Here Be Dragons!

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Teaser Tuesdays: Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky

Posted on December 6, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just open your current read to a random page and share a few sentences. Be careful not to include spoilers!

I am listening to Irène Némirovsky’s Suite Française on audio, and finding it absolutely delightful. It’s taken me a while to follow up on Pops’s recommendation (see his guest review here), but I believe you’re right, Pops, this one is worthwhile. I had some trouble choosing lines to share with you because so many are so beautiful. Now, this is a longer-than-usual teaser, but you might agree it’s worth it for the wit:

She was proud that she kept her servants for a long time. She insisted on looking after them when they were ill. When Madeleine had had a sore throat, Madame Péricand herself had prepared her gargle. Since she had no time to administer it during the day, she had waited until she got back from the theatre in the evening. Madeleine had woken up with a start and had only expressed her gratitude afterwards, and even then, rather coldly in Madame Péricand’s opinion. Well, that’s the lower classes for you, never satisfied, and the more you go out of your way to help them, the more ungrateful and moody they are. But Madame Péricand expected no reward except from God.

I am amused. What are you reading this week?

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