ESCAPE TO THE PAST WITH: Middlemarch by George Eliot

My final spring break book was not exactly a beach book. I wanted to work on my Back-to-the-Classics challenge, so I downloaded Middlemarch by George Eliot onto my ipad (trying to travel light).

What a great choice! Middlemarch is an extraordinary book.

I don’t necessarily recommend the free kindle version. It’s a bit hard going at first. It has an old fashioned, almost "dear reader" style as the narrator sets up who’s who and what’s what in the provincial Midland town of Middlemarch. It’s a long book, and my version didn’t have page numbers, just a vague kindle "quantity" of 12795. I’d been reading for quite some time only to find myself 2% done and I began having second thoughts. I prefer actual pages so I can judge better how far along I am and how much farther I have to go. But, I shouldn’t complain when I had the convenience of an easily portable classic for free.

And, it didn’t take long before I was so engrossed that I couldn’t put the ipad down. Middlemarch is chockfull of very real people that are so well portrayed, I needed to know what was going to happen to them.

Dorothea Brooks is our primary heroine. Stubbornly selfless, intelligent and beautiful, Dorothea wants to learn everything so she can do something great. She sees her chance when she meets a learned man more than double her age who has been spent his life on a study of mythology. His health and eyesight are now failing him. Dorothea believes that as a wife and helpmeet she can further his work. Although he never saw the need for a wife before, he can appreciate Dorothea’s devotion to him. Despite everyone’s better judgment, they are wed. It doesn’t take long for the marriage to become a prison for Dorothea.

A hero of sorts in the story is Dr. Lydgate. A young man come to town with high ideals and a passion for his profession, Lydgate is not wealthy, but he is well-born and that attracts the attention of a beautiful young social climber, Rosamunde Vincy.

Rosamunde and her brother, Fred, have been raised to think very highly of their own merits and to be dismissive of others. Rosamunde has had plenty of suitors, but finds no one in Middlemarch good enough. She sets her cap for Dr. Lydgate, primarily on the strength of his family connections. She doesn’t have much interest in the things that he cares deeply about.

Fred is a lazy young man. His father sent him to the university to be trained for the church, but Fred failed his examinations. Fred finds this to be of no real concern since he cannot see himself as a churchman anyway. And, he has a rich uncle who has no children. Everyone knows Fred is favored to be the heir. In the meantime, Fred is in love with Mary Garth, a plain and sensible young woman who is nurse to the ill-tempered old uncle. Mary loves Fred, but she can’t marry a man as useless as Fred seems destined to be.

These storylines are all carefully developed and then interwoven. We meet the family, friends, and co-workers of these main characters. We cheer for their successes but more often cringe for the problems that befall them, often the result of their own mistakes. There are very good people in Middlemarch, others who are all too human, and some who make life miserable for everyone else. The book examines the politics of the time, reform–both political and medical, religion, and the role of women and of marriage. It’s a hefty book, but it reads very easily because it’s all bound up in the lives of several fascinating characters.

This is the first George Eliot book I’ve read, but it won’t be the last. And it's my second read for the Back-to-the-Classics Challenge, hosted by Sarah Reads Too Much.

BOOK REVIEW: Soulless by Gail Carriger

We spent spring break in the Bahamas! After starting off with The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave on the plane, I wanted something lighter to take to the beach. Soulless by Gail Carriger was on my TBR pile list, so that went into my suitcase.

I bought this book nearly three years ago, curious to explore the genre-bending steampunk, comedy-of-manners, Victorian romance. Why has it languished on my shelf? It has an original premise, a delightful protagonist, and an entertaining plot. Alexia Tarabotti is a twenty-five-ish, half-Italian bluestocking. Her father is dead and her remarried, flighty mother and two attractive younger sisters despair of her, knowing that no man will ever be interested, since she does not fit conventional ideas of female beauty. Alexia has resigned herself to spinsterhood, but is independent enough not to let that bother her. The set-up so far is typical romance fare–the difference is that in this Victorian England, vampires, werewolves and ghosts live in harmony with mortals. In fact, some of the cream of society are supernatural beings. Alexia is not one of these; she is the opposite. She is preternatural. She has no soul.

Being soulless means that vampires and werewolves have no power over Alexia. In less enlightened times, preternaturals hunted supernaturals, but today, it is the preternaturals who are the oddity and who keep their identity somewhat secret. Alexia is registered with the governmental agency that keeps track of these things, but polite society only knows her as an unmarriageable female and that’s bad enough.

Bad enough–and then, Alexia accidentally kills a vampire at a ball. The vampire does not belong to any of the known London hives. Lord Conall Maccon, head of the London BUR (Bureau of Unnatural Registry) and a werewolf, arrives to investigate. Alexia and Lord Maccon have had embarrassing run-ins before, but nothing of quite this magnitude. He is extraordinarily masculine and handsome and although he finds her quite the troublemaker, he isn’t as put off by her looks and her advanced age as most men of her acquaintance. He’s disturbed by the unknown and now-dead vampire and what it all might mean. But he most definitely doesn't want Alexia to get mixed up in it any more than she is. Of course, she does.

Before long, the two learn of more vampire appearances and disappearances and threats against lone werewolves as well. A mystery must be solved as romance blooms in unlikely circumstances. The characters are amusing and the whole thing is a lot of fun. The world that Carriger creates is a lively and fascinating one and so fully imagined that I could whole-heartedly immerse myself in it. If there are going to be vampires and werewolves and such, let them be just like this!

The TBR pile-challenge is hosted by RoofBeamReader.

BOOK REVIEW: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave

With great enthusiasm, I signed up for four challenges this year, but I’ve been dragging my feet on two of them. For some reason, I’ve been slow to start the Back-to-the-Classics challenge and the TBR-pile challenge, even though I’ve chosen books that I want to read. This past week was spring break, and we had a family vacation planned, so the only books I brought along were books from those reading lists. I finished two and started one. Here’s the first:

For my "Classic that relates to the African-American Experience" I chose Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, written, of course by Frederick Douglass, although at the time of its publication (1845), detractors attempted to say that the book was too well-written to have been composed by a self-taught slave.



Actually, I read the Penguin Classics edition, not this one

It’s a compact narrative that relates the story of Douglass’s life as a slave from childhood until his escape. Douglass's situation changed a few times. He was primarily a city-dwelling slave, in Baltimore, although he briefly was sent to work in the fields. His explanations of how slavery lowers both slave and master are insightful and sad. An eye-witness account, it's a convincingly wrenching condemnation of slavery. The beatings, humiliation, tearing apart of families, the sexual brutality– it’s all there, laid out in straightforward, matter-of-fact prose that is somehow more horrifying with its lack of sensationalism.

Much of this narrative and Douglass’s personal philosophy does not seem particularly new, but I think that’s because so much of it has been incorporated into what we now know about slavery and how we view it. I can see how it would have been a revelation when it was published, at a time when many still tried to turn a blind eye to slavery’s evils or to pretend that many slave owners weren’t really that bad–as if there could be gradations of something so wrong.

One thing that surprised me, and brought home to me even further the reality of Douglass’s position, was the abruptness of his "escape narrative." There is none. He decides that he must run away. He makes his plan, but doesn’t give much detail beyond the fact that he is storing up the little bit of money he can get his hands on and lulling his owner into a false sense of security. And then, he is in New York. All he tells us is that the escape proceeded smoothly. He does not explain how he did it or mention who helped him because he doesn’t want to close the door behind him, cutting off the route for those who might follow. Also, telling what happened would be dangerous for those left behind. And, dangerous for him. He could still be caught and returned to his owners in Baltimore. For me, used to stories where the tension of the slave escape is a large part of the tale, for a moment, I felt like a chunk of the story was missing. But then I remembered that he was publishing this in 1845–in the midst of an ongoing fight. His own narrative was not yet completed. Douglass, and his book, still had a large role to play.

 

The Back-to-the-Classics Challenge 2013 is hosted by Sarah Reads too Much.

ESCAPE TO THE PAST WITH: Shadow on the Crown by Patricia Bracewell

After entering countless goodreads contests, I won my first book: Shadow on the Crown by Patricia Bracewell. I was thrilled! This is a fictionalized account of the life of Emma of Normandy, who became Queen of England twice, first by marrying Athelred the Unready and then the conquering King Canute. This all takes place in the early turn of the millennium, starting in 1002 in Bracewell’s novel, with the sixteen-year-old Emma being sent to wed the nasty King Athelred.

Athelred is significantly older than Emma. He already has six sons by a previous wife, and he is marrying Emma only for political reasons, to make a treaty with Normandy that he hopes will keep the Danes from England’s shores. He uses Emma as a hostage, treating her with the same disdain and mistrust that all his counselors and subjects receive. Athelred is a troubled man. He gained his throne as a boy after his elder stepbrother, Edward, was murdered–most people believe that Athelred's mother was responsible for plotting Edward’s murder. The rumors are true, and Athelred did nothing to warn his brother of what was to come. Guilt and his own ineffectiveness as a king have driven him more than half mad. He takes out his frustration and fear on his new wife and his sons.

Emma struggles to deal with the realities of her new life in the strange land with a husband she quickly learns to despise. She is able to make a few friends--most importantly, Athelstan, the king’s eldest son and heir. Athelstan has all the intelligence and steadiness that a king should have, everything his father does not.

Unfortunately, the only way for Emma to have any real standing in England is for her to produce a son. Once she does, the son will become a rival for the throne. She and Athelstan are aware of the difficulties that could cause for their relationship, but so long as there is no baby, there is no threat to Athelstan’s inheritance unless it comes from outside England.

At the same time, Athelred’s unending missteps have brought the wrath of the Danes upon England. Their leader, Swein Forkbeard, is determined to add England to his list of conquests, and it seems Athelred will be powerless to stop him.

Bracewell does a good job imagining the lives of these characters and places them in a vividly realistic, often brutal, historical setting. I’d recently read The Forever Queen by Helen Hollick and enjoyed seeing a different take on the same storyline. Shadow on the Crown covers a shorter segment of the queen’s life, taking us only into 1005. I suspect a sequel is in the works, since Emma’s life becomes increasingly exciting from here.

 The historical fiction challenge 2013 is hosted by Historical Tapestry.

BOOK REVIEW: Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter is an odd book, or at least an odd choice for me, but a very engaging one. It begins with the unlikely scene of a young Italian hotel owner, Pasquale Tursi, trying to build a beach along the rocky coastline of his remote, nearly inaccessible fishing village by throwing rocks into the sea. He needs a beach if he’s ever going to attract tourists to the hotel– The Hotel Adequate View – that he recently inherited from his father. They don’t get many guests, but, on this particular day, a boat puts into the harbor carrying a beautiful young American actress, Dee Moray.

It is 1962, and Dee Moray has been in Rome working on the film Cleopatra with Liz Taylor and Richard Burton. But--she was diagnosed with cancer. Now she has come to this remote location to decide what to do next. The film’s publicity agent/problem fixer, Michael Deane, has sent her here to rest until she’s ready to go to Switzerland for treatment. But Dee isn’t sure she wants to fight; her mother died of breast cancer and the therapy was no help.

Pasquale’s English is just so-so and Dee’s Italian is even worse, but they are able to make themselves understood. It only takes a short while for the smitten Pasquale to realize that Dee is waiting for a man to come meet her, and it doesn’t take much longer for Pasquale to come to the conclusion that the man is not going to come. Pasquale goes off to Rome to make this right, setting in motion a chain of events that lead the good-hearted innkeeper to reevaluate the things he’s done and plans to do with his own life.

The book jumps back and forth from Dee and Pasquale’s earlier life to roughly the present. Michael Deane is a famed Hollywood producer now, but after an enormously successful movie-making career, he has been side-tracked to reality TV. He doesn’t mind so much—money is money—but his intense young assistant, Claire Silver, is appalled by the drek they are turning out. She wants to make meaningful, artful movies. Working for Michael Deane should be a dream job but it’s a nightmare, until an elderly Italian man shows up at the studio one afternoon, looking for an actress from the sixties named Dee Moray.

This book weaves its plot around the lives of several messed up people, exquisitely characterized for us– some very likeable, some who are OK in small doses but they’d wear on you in real life, and one who is an unredeemable jerk. The plotting is larger than life (Richard Burton is a character?) and yet, it all somehow comes together believably. There are moments that were beautifully touching. And there are scenes that made me laugh.

I can’t remember where I saw the recommendation for this one. I put myself on the library waiting list and it took awhile to get the book. To be honest, a couple of chapters in, I considered giving up on it and moving on to something more my usual fare. It starts out a little messily scattered and I didn’t see where it was going. But I’m so glad I stuck with it because the characters reached in and grabbed me. Pasquale is a protagonist I’ll remember for a long time.

The library challenge is hosted by Book Dragon's Lair.

BOOK REVIEW: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn is one of those books that came to my notice because of the book blogging world. A contemporary psychological thriller, it’s not the type of book I would have picked up at the book store and decided to purchase on a whim. Someone would have had to have put it in my hand and said "Read this." But the novel whirled around the blogosphere and I decided I wanted to see what all the hoopla was about. Plus, my library carried it as an ebook, and it’s still kind of fun to borrow ebooks. I don’t do it that often. When the book is available you only get 3 days to download it and then 14 days to read it, so whatever book it is has to jump everything else in the TBR line. But there is still something a little thrilling about pushing a button and having a book appear...and knowing that in 2 weeks it will just disappear and I don’t have to worry about taking it back to the library. I’m old enough not to take that for granted but to find it kind of disturbingly magical.

Anyway, Gone Girl. This is a very good book about some truly awful people. Well, some are truly awful, others are just not very pleasant.

The story opens on the morning of the fifth wedding anniversary of Nick Dunne and Amy Elliott Dunne. These attractive young people were once happily wed writers in New York City, but they suffered a series of professional, financial, and personal setbacks and have ended up in a rental home in Nick’s hometown, New Carthage, Missouri. These two don’t do well under duress, so their marriage is not doing well, has not been doing well for quite some time. And, on this special morning, Amy disappears. Nick is left to deal with the obvious consequences of a missing wife.

The story is told in alternating POV’s, starting out with Nick in the present and old diary entries of Amy’s filling in backstory. This is another book where the plot cannot be summarized without spoiling the suspense. So I’ll stop here.

Gone Girl is an addictive read. The twists and turns of the plot kept me curious and racing to read to the finish. If you like your characters nasty and too smart for their own good, try Gone Girl.

This is another book added to my library challenge hosted by Book Dragon’s Lair.

ESCAPE TO THE PAST WITH: Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

I should have put Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel on my 2013 TBR pile challenge list–then I’d have one book checked off! Wolf Hall has been on my TBR list since it came out and on my bookshelf since 2010. My husband, who rarely reads fiction, was intrigued by all he kept hearing about it and actually read it before I did. He wrote a guest post for me back in January 2011. At that time, I imagined I’d get to it soon. I don’t know why, but the book kept dropping down my priority list.

And then, my historical fiction/history book club chose it for our next meeting. Finally! A deadline! I read the book.

As everyone knows, Wolf Hall is another Tudor book, but it’s not just another Tudor book. This one has literary cred. Not only did it win the Man Booker Prize in 2009, but the sequel, Bring Up the Bodies, just won another.

Hilary Mantel tells us the story of Henry VIII’s obsession with Anne Boleyn, but he tells it from the perspective of the man who is to become the second most powerful man in the kingdom: Thomas Cromwell.

The son of a n’er-do-well blacksmith, Thomas Cromwell leaves home at a young age to make his way in the world, and make it he does. He enters the service of Cardinal Wolsey, serving him faithfully, even when Wolsey’s break with the king (and Anne) means his ruin. Wolsey is ruined, but Cromwell lands on his feet and transfers his loyalty to the king (and to Anne.)

Cromwell is a man you want working on your side. Not only is he loyal, but he’s hardworking and clearly the most brilliant man in the kingdom. Whatever needs doing, he’ll get it done–even something as impossible as ending King Henry’s marriage to Queen Katherine to pave the way for the king’s marriage to Anne Boleyn.

Wolf Hall is a marvelously detailed work of historical fiction. Mantel teases out the political, religious, economic, and interpersonal period details so that you end up with a very broad (if one-sided) view of Henry’s court from 1500 to 1535. Cromwell is a fascinating character to choose as the protagonist (despite or because of the awkward third person narrative voice) because he had a finger in every pot. Cromwell can certainly inform the reader what is going on in England. Moreover, the moral ambiguity of his character adds a great deal of depth to the read. I can admire his many skills, but what, exactly, are his goals? Is it mere ambition driving him? Desire for vengeance? Wealth? Is it only the desire to serve his master–to prove himself? Is it that he craves the reward of having his talent recognized by those who want to believe themselves "above" him? He can be kind and introspective in one passage and in the next, ruthless and fatalistic.

　

Wolf Hall is, of course, a worthwhile read for historical fiction fans and for anyone who would like to know more about the Tudors. But I can’t honestly say that it was an easy read, or that I was engrossed. The novel had slipped down my priority list in part because of its reputation for being a "doorstop." I have the hardcover and it looks like a time-sink. In fact, it’s 532 pages, and the print is a reasonable font size, not tiny. So it isn’t a daunting book when you actually open it up and look at it. But, for me, it read like a much longer book. Mantel uses a very carefully crafted style that means you’ll have to concentrate while you’re reading. I often had to read passages more than once to figure out who was speaking or what character was being discussed. It isn’t necessarily a bad thing to make your readers slow down and pay attention to what you’re saying. There’s a lot of sly humor sprinkled through the book that I might have missed if I were reading along at my usual pace. But, Wolf Hall was the longest 500 page book that I’ve enjoyed that I’ve ever read.

The historical fiction challenge 2013 is hosted by Historical Tapestry. Join in!