Adult Fiction

The Odyssey

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I chose to read the Odyssey for the Classics Challenge because I didn’t get around to it in college (being a journalism major, we weren’t required to read huge Greek classics), and I’ve always wondered about this one. Now I can say that I’ve read all 24 books and 462 pages of English translation (by Robert Fitzgerald).

Some thoughts:

  • It’s incredibly violent. People get eaten by the Cyclops (it drove me nuts that they spelled it Kyklops) and by someone else (when you go wandering through a forest, beware: you might get eaten!). And then there’s the huge slaughter of the suitors at the end. Not to mention killing off the women servants that helped the suitors.
  • I didn’t think it was fair that Odysseus gets to sleep with everyone (Kalypso and Kirke among others) just because he’s a man, and Penelope had to stay faithful. But then, this is now and that was then. Actually, when I told hubby about how Odysseus got Kirke to change his shipmates back from pigs into humans by sleeping with her, he said, “Well. He certainly knows how to get the job done.”
  • While we’re on the subject of Penelope, she spent the entire book crying or sleeping or inciting lust among the suitors. Her one claim to fame was her “trick”: saying she couldn’t get married until she finishd a death shroud, and then unweaving it every night. It went on for three years, until one of her servants gave her away. She needs get get better help.
  • It was surprisingly easy to read. I’m not much for poetry, but this was more like prose in column form. Once I got used to that — and to all the names that I wasn’t even going to try to sort out — then it wasn’t hard to read at all.
  • I found it interesting that the gods were so involved in Odysseus’ life. Spurring on his son, helping Penelope deal (Athena was always putting her in a deep sleep), helping Odysseus get revenge. I guess the worst thing in Greek life was to offend someone, thereby offending the gods. And I guess that’s why hanging out at Odysseus’ palace for several years eating his food (beeves, I love that word!) is worth the death sentance.
  • Odysseus was too dang perfect. I never really liked him. Or cared that much for his adventures.
  • I can’t say I’m going to ever read it again.

One down, four to go.

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.

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.

March

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First. It’s been a whopper of a week. We closed on our house on Monday, the 20th, and then spent the rest of the week prepping the house for our move on Saturday. Carpet people, vinyl/laminate people, cleaning (if you EVER sell a house, PLEASE clean it for the next owner. It SUCKS having to clean a house just to make it livable, and it’s still not done!), painting (the room was such a mess, M refused to move in until it was painted), packing, moving, hauling trash, and unpacking. Which gets us to today. Things are mostly unpacked. I’m happy to see our books, which have been in storage for the last four months. It makes me feel like I’m finally settled.

On top of all that, I tried to read Geraldine Brook’s March. I was excited about this one: she takes Mr. March from Little Women, imagines a backstory and fills in for the time that he’s missing in the book, until he gets ill and Marmee comes and gets him. Granted, I only got about 5 chapters in (it was a busy week), but I never could get into the book. It just didn’t feel right. I know, I didn’t exactly love Little Women. Still. I think it’s one of those books that everyone has their opinions about, and reactions to, and to… well, mess with the book is just wrong. Mr. March was too extreme in his views — too vegetairan, too abolitionist, too… too! — to make him the loving, caring, quiet father of the March girls. And Brooks tried to weave in the story line from Little Women, and it just didn’t fit with the wartime scenes, and the flashes of backstory that she gave him.

In the end, I put it down. It didn’t hold my interest, and at the end of some very long days it wasn’t what I wanted to be reading. Maybe someday I’ll try again. But probably not.

How Green was my Valley

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I can’t find enough good to say about this book. It was simple, poignant, honest, beautifully written, and totally engaging. However, when one asks, “What is this book about?”, it’s hard to say. It’s about a boy becoming a man. It’s about love. It’s about family. It’s about the disadvantage the worker has with the owners. It’s about coal mining. It’s about… life.

I felt a real connection to this book. My “people” as my grandmother calls them were coal miners in England. In fact, that’s why my mother’s side of the family came to America. Things weren’t going so well in the mines in England (something which Richard Llewellyn touches on in the book), so they immigrated to America to work in the mines in Wyoming. They were probably much like the characters in the book. At one point, Huw (don’t ask me how to pronounce that; in fact, if someone could tell me, I’d appreciate it), loses his chance at a scholarship to Oxford because he beats up a teacher. (Long story. Read the book to find out). His father laments because he wanted something “better”. Huw wants to work in the mines. His mother supports him in that: it’s been good enough for her husband and all her other sons, why not Huw? I got to thinking about how my family got out of the coal mines. Accidents, illness… I wonder if any left by choice?

My only complaints were the lack of information about time passing, but I think that’s nitpicking on my part. That, and I felt like it just petered out at the end, rather than having a good solid ending. But the rest of the book was so wonderful, I can forgive the little things. A great book.

Year of Wonders

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I was skeptical about this book. While I have enjoyed Geraldine Brooks’ writing in the past, I doubted that a book on the plague could be interesting. (Granted, I’d forgotten that I’d really enjoyed Doomsday Book, which is essentially a book about the plague.) Okay, so I was wrong to doubt. Year of Wonders is, while not an exquisite book, a very engaging one.

It follows Anna — a servant in the rector’s household in a fictional English mountain town (based on a real town, Eyam, in Derbyshire) — for a year, from the fall of 1665 to the fall of 1666, while her town battles the plague. Nothing new here, except that the rector — Mompellion — convinces the town to quarantine itself from the neighboring communities, thereby controlling the spread of the plague. And the book deals with the aftermath of that decision. There’s heartbreak (no mother of an infant should read the chapter where Anna’s baby dies. Much too hard.), there’s greed — both taking advantage of the ignorant and the weak; there’s anger; there’s more heartbreak. But in the end, there’s life and hope. Remarkable.

And Anna is an incredibly sympathetic main character. She’s strong, but she doubts. She does good by others, but not all the time. And she has desires, the biggest one being the will to live. Okay, I admit that she was probably more modern than the time period warrants, but for some reason this didn’t bother me. The ending — which was a bit abrupt — did bother me either. Perhaps because I’m lowering my historical fiction standards? Or maybe it was because the storytelling was so vivid that I didn’t let the little things nag at me like they sometimes do.

At any rate, it’s worth the read.

Katherine

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I think I picked this up from Guusje. She mentioned a while back (not going to find the post) that it was one of her favorite books. And, I have to say, it’s not a bad little bit of historical fiction. It’s one of those instances where I actually learned somthing from a fiction book. But, then, the amount of research that Anya Seton did to write this novel was admirable. (Okay, I’ll admit that I don’t have the book in front of me — it was due yesterday — so I’m going off the top of my head.) Reading Middle English, making sure even her minor characters were real people, having someone translate Latin. It made for a very authentic book. (We’ve talked about authentic books here before…)

The basic story: it’s the love story between John, Duke of Lancaster and Katherine Swynford. “Who?” you ask. It takes place in the mid- to late-14th-century, time of Chaucer (who shows up) and the black plague (which also shows up). John and Katherine have a 10 year affair, while John is married and after the death of Katherine’s husband, which results (in the long term) in children who become the parents of several kings of England. Not bad.

It held my interest and I enjoyed it for a long time. But… it’s a long book. And I’m short on time these days. Which adds up to me skimming the last 1/3. It all ends happily for John and Katherine, I’m happy to say. But I didn’t have the time to savor it. Or maybe I was just bored with all the plot twists and uprisings and courtly behavior. Whatever. Maybe I’ll come back to it someday.

Tooth and Claw

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What do you get when you cross Jane Austen with Anne McCaffrey? This chraming Victorian Dragon novel(Or is it a Dragon Victorian Novel?), by Jo Walton. It was a riot to read. The dragons acted like Victorian English: maidens couldn’t be without chaperones (I especially liked the way they “blushed” pink when they came into contact with the male dragons, which usually led to an engagement). They had a social system like the English: there were gently born dragons and servant dragons and lower class dragons. I loved the court scenes (there was a suit filed in the course of the story). I guess I just liked the whole premise of the story. Which, truth be told is quite simple: a father dies. The daughters go live with their siblings and find love. The son feels cheated out of his inheritance and takes his brother-in-law to court. Not much there. This book rides entriely on its premise. Thankfully, it’s a good one. Especially if you like Victorian novels and dragon books. Why not combine the two?

Rachel and Leah

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I have given my opinion of Orson Scott Card before. And I’ve come to the following conculsions: 1) he just can’t let things end. Rachel and Leah is the third in a series, and there’s going to be a fourth (for the good reason that the story was just too much for one book). Still. He does tend to draw things out. 2) I really like the first book I read in one of his series (Rebekah this time; I read them out of order), but the more I read, the less I like them. Maybe because they’re often the same story retold? 3) Card can’t write ancient women. Just can’t. I don’t know what they’re supposed to “really” be like, but I really doubt they had conversations with their betrothed about bearing children (and how it’s akin to the preisthood). He takes modern women and dresses them up in sandals and calls is Biblical. I felt The Red Tent was more authentic. And I didn’t even really like that one.

The good points: I liked how he balanced the four women. That’s a hard task, one that he did manage to pull off (in spite of my complaints). In my opinion, he tilted the scales in favor of Leah and Zilpah, rather than Rachel, as expected. I liked Leah, in the end, more than Rachel (perhaps that’s what he was going for in order to explain the whole wedding deception thing?). She was more honest, more forthright, more interesting. Maybe that’ll change in the next book.

In the end, I don’t know how I really think about this book. Nothing seems to leap to mind. Which is sad. Because Card can be a vibrant, exciting writer. I guess not just about Biblical women. (Maybe it’s that whole men writing about women thing again…)

Gap Creek

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I need to focus and actually write this. It’s been a busy week — M and C started school; it’s going well and it looks like we may become the proud parents of a cello (player) — and I’ve been meaning to get down to write this (shoot, we have DSL now; you think it would be easier) all week.

So. Gap Creek. By Robert Morgan. One of those Oprah books (I’ve yet to have a good experience with them.) Actually, it was for my church’s bookgroup (yay! a book group!) that I read it. And, it’s not bad. I kind of liked it. The story: Julie lives in the North Carolina Appalachian mountains in the late 1800s. She watches her brother and her father die. She works hard. She meets Hank, falls in love, moves to Gap Creek, South Carolina. Where she proceeds to Live Life. All sorts of trials happen: the man they live with is crumudgeony, he dies, they get swindled out of money, Hank is moody, the mother-in-law is cranky, the house floods, she delivers a premature baby, baby dies, and they Move On. There. Now you don’t have to read it.

I shouldn’t make fun of it. It really wasn’t a bad sort of time spent. It’s just that I’ve read similar stories that were written much better. And resonated much better. Which I think is the real problem here. Morgan put Julie through the paces, but I’m not sure if he ever really felt her. (Which begs the question: can men really write women well? Conversely, can women accurately write men?) If he did, I’m missing something, because I sure didn’t. But then, as we know, I often miss the boat on these Meaningful and Moving books.