Month: December 2006

Frangipani

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I got this book because the title makes me smile. Go ahead, say it: Frangipani. See?

This book, by Celestine Hitiura Vaite, made me smile, too. There’s really not much of a plot. It’s about a mom (Materena) in Tahiti, and her daughter Leilani. It’s about her hopes and fears for her daughter (and two sons, though she doesn’t really have many hopes for her oldest). It’s about her changing relationship with her daughter from infancy (I liked how she “welcomed the baby into her womb” and spent hours talking to her and telling her all about the world she was going to be born into.) through teenager (God help me: I’ll have four!) and into adulthood.

The picture Vaite (who herself is Taihitian) gave of Tahiti is simultaneously hopeful and depressing. Why is it that islander men are always portrayed as slackers? Are they, really? The common sense wisdom in Tahiti is not to marry a man until you’ve had at least one child with him because there’s less of a chance he’ll up and walk out on you. In fact, Materena’s man, Pito, walks out on her because she collects his pay so he won’t spent it all at the bar. And so they can have something to eat. The women are strong, though (they have to be, they say), and passionate, and wise, and, well, wonderful.

I loved the island lilt to the book (“girlfriend, eh?” “oh, bon cherie” — the French scattered throughout was fun). I loved Materena. She’s a wonderful character. I even liked Leilani, though not as much. And it had a good, satisfying ending.

A good read.

Merry Christmas

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I read two Christmas books this year (plus assorted picture books). We finally got an illustrated copy of Christmas Day in the Morning, by Pearl S. Buck. It’s beautiful. But A’s favorite picture book this year is The Last Straw by Frederick H. Thury. All our Nativity camels are now named Hoshmakaka, in honor of this book. (It’s about a camel chosen to carry gifts to the Baby Jesus. It’s very sweet.)

I read The Trees Kneel at Christmas by Maud Hart Lovelace, and Skipping Christmas by John Grisham. Trees is a very slim, very sweet book set in 1950s Brooklyn. Two Lebanese children — Afify and Hanna, ages 7 and 5 — are told a story by their Grandmother about how the trees kneel in Lebanon on the night of Christ’s birth. Their grandmother didn’t think the trees kneel in America, but Afify is determined to see if they do. They end up sneaking out just before midnight on Christmas Eve (when their family is all gone to Mass), and sure enough, through the faith of the children, they see the trees in Prospect Park kneel. It’s quite charming.

Skipping Christmas, on the other hand, is, well, obnoxious. At least I found it so. I know it was supposed to be funny — at some points I managed a weak smile — but I just found it annoying. The Kranks, who the previous Christmas spent $6,000 on Christmas (something that I can’t even imagine), and in the even that their only child isn’t going to be home for Christmas, they decide to skip it entirely. Which seems a bit extreme to me.Yeah, spend the money on a cruise. That’s a bit much to spend on Christmas, anyway. But, for heaven’s sake, don’t be a superior grump about it all. I think that’s what drove me nuts. The way Luther Krank felt so superior about his decision to forgo Christmas. And, yes, he did get his comeuppance in the end. Still, it made me annoyed. And that’s no way to feel at Christmas.

Happy Holidays, everyone. May you get many good books!

Since I like a little Challenge

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Now and again, and since my husband’s working Tuesday nights this semester, so I can’t go to my in-person book group, I thought I’d give Booklogged classics challenge a try. So, my list (to be finished by the end of February; we’ll see if that happens):
1. The Oddyssey, by Homer
2. Mrs. Mike, by Benedict Freedman (though this just barely makes the 50 years mark)
3. Alice in Wonderland (and possibly Through the Looking Glass), by Lewis Carroll
4. The Spy or Last of the Mohicans, James Fennimore Cooper
5. Eight Cousins, by Louisa May Alcott

Bonus Book: The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I’d put that on my list, but I don’t have a great track record with big Russian novels.

Wish me luck!

On Fortune’s Wheel

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More than a year ago, I re-read Jackaroo by Cynthia Voigt and discovered that she’d turned it into a series. And I’d mentioned that I’d wanted to read the others. See: I do finally get around to things on my to-do list, even if it takes me a year. Honestly, though, I’d forgotten about my desire of a year ago, and checked this one out because everyone over at Sequestered Nook was raving about it. And not wanting to be left out, I felt I needed to read it.

I really enjoyed this one. I can’t compare it to Jackaroo (it took me most of the book to get the connection between the two); I really don’t remember much about the books after a while. (That’s why I keep the blog!) But, this one was interesting. I enjoyed the adventure. I enjoyed the subtle transformation of Birle from impetuous girl to a calm, assured one. I really enjoyed the ending. (Okay, I’m a sucker for happy endings!) Voigt is such a talented writer: in all her stories, the characters ring true, and the world doesn’t get in the way of the story. And that’s the case here. I loved Birle, Orien and Yul. I even felt sympathy for Joaquin the Philosopher. Her “bad guys” are complex as is her conflict. And it’s just a pleasure to read.

The Stinkers

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Belladonna asked a good question in her comment on my last post. And it got me thinking: what are the worst books I’ve ever read?

I could come up with two right off the top of my head: Zel by Donna Jo Napoli and The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. I don’t remember why I had such a loathesome reaction to Zel. But I did. I hated it. And because of that, I’ve never read another book by Napoli becasue of it. The Sparrow I enjoyed for most of the book, but the end turned overly disturbing and explicit. I just felt nasty after finishing it. There are ways to do provocative that doesn’t have to be gross.

There are books I don’t like because of the language and/or explicit sexual content: High Fidelity by Nick Hornby, Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffengger and Neuromancer by William Gibson (though I didn’t finish this one) are three that come to mind in this category. Often I can look past the language, if the story or characters are sufficiently compelling. But in both of these cases, the language overtook the story and ruined it for me.

Interesting side note: much adult science fiction/fantasy falls into the worst book category. I love fantasy books, but too often the author spends too much time on the world and not enough on the story.

There are those chick-lit books I didn’t like because I just thought they were dumb: Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants by Ann Brashares, The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot, and The Monk Downstairs by Tim Farrington. I know “dumb” is a subjective thing. What I find “dumb” might be really compelling to another person. And, admittedly, it might be compelling to me on another day. It took me years to get through Pride and Prejudice. I always thought it was “dumb”. Likewise, I found Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley to be really compelling the first time through, but by the third, it was pretty dumb.

Notice all those were chick lit. Hmm…

I could go on. But I won’t. What’s your worst book ever that you finished?

Blessed are the Cheesemakers

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Not being a complete die-hard Monty Python fan, I didn’t get the reference in the title of this book by Sarah-Kate Lynch. Completely missed it (Hhubby, on the other hand, picked it up immediatly). The opening quote clued me in: “What’s so special about the cheesemakers?”

Unfortunately, this kind of warped my expecations of the book. I guess I expected it to be a bit sillier (I mean, it’s Monty Python folks. They’re not exactly serious) than it was. Granted, it wasn’t a straight up anything, so I guess I wasn’t too far off the mark. I guess I wanted more belly laughs, though.

The basic plot is a bit convuluted. There’s Corrie and Fee (who has a tendancy to “know” what’s going to happen) who make Coolarney cheese in Ireland. There’s Avis and the pregnant vegetarian singing milkmaids (that’s a funny concept) who help run the cheese farm. (Well, they milk the cows, and thereby are the “secret ingredient”.) There’s Abbey, who’s Corrie’s granddaughter, and running from a real schlep of a husband. There’s Kit, who’s trying to dry out after going on a drinking binge after he “lost” his wife. There’s Jesus, Mary and All The Saints, the three cats. Who really don’t have much to do with the story, except for their funny names. And somehow, they all come together and make cheese.

When Hubby asked me how I liked this book, I said that it wasn’t great but it didn’t suck. I know that’s a wide range there, but really, that’s how I felt. It’s not the worst book I’ve ever read, but it’s not the best. Maybe more silliness would have helped.

Selling out

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This is just wrong.

I was going to go on a long rant about how terrible it is that Katherine Paterson has sold out and allowed this movie to be made. But, it’s late and I’m tired. Still, some movies just shouldn’t be made. At least not like this.

East

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I had a hard time finishing this book by Edith Pattou. Not because of the book, though. Because my life wouldn’t let me sit down and just savor this book like a wanted to. I finally did, about 3/4 of the way through, because it was just too compelling. So, I let the home and Christmas stuff wait for a night. 🙂

The story is a retelling of the old fairy tale East of the Sun and West of the Moon. When I first read about this book in Chinaberry, I had no idea about the fairy tale, so we checked it out from the libarary as well. It’s a simple Norweigan fairy tale, one I think I’ve heard before. A white bear takes a girl from a poor family in exchange for wealth. He then takes her to live with him in his enchanted castle. It’s a fairly uneventful time, except that every night, someone comes to sleep with her in the bed. After a while, she aches to go home, and the white bear relents, with one condition: she must not be alone with her mother. She breaks this condition, tells her mother about the stranger in the bed, and her mother gives her a candle. Back at the castle she lights the candle and sees that it’s a man in the bed with her. Unfortunatly, though, with this act, she seals his fate: he’s taken away to marry the troll queen in the castle east of the sun and west of the moon. The girl then sets out to search for the man (whom she realized, too late, was the white bear). She walks for ages, picks up a golden spinning wheel, loom and harp, until the north wind takes her to the castle. There she trades the wheel, loom and harp for visits to the prince, finally succeeding in waking him up and breaking the troll queen’s curse.

East follows the basic fairy tale fairly well, but since I wasn’t attached to the original tale, I had no problems with Pattou’s changes to the story. She fleshes out the family, giving them reasons and motivations behind the departure of the girl (Rose, in the book). The relationship between Rose and the white bear is fleshed out. And the whole journey to find the bear is completely different. Rather than relying on magic, Rose relys on friends, common sense, and plain old inginuity. And, yes, she finally succeeds in the end, and it’s a completely satsifying success. Even the little (mostly unecessary) epilogue in the end doesn’t detract from the great ending to the story.

It was a wonderful book. Perhaps it was good that it took me so long to read. Maybe I enjoyed it more that way.