The Night Watch, Sarah Waters

Clive Branson, Blitz: Plane Flying (1940)

(July 18) I’m still binging on Sarah Waters. This one is set during the blitzing of London in World War II and is third-person... so a departure from first-person faux Victoriana. The structural twist is in the sequence of the narrative; you know you’re going to find out why all the characters are behaving the way they do, and it’s fun to speculate on what those psychological turning points will be.

“Night watch” turned out to mean many different things, none of them dwelt on in a LOOK AT THIS SYMBOL way, which was a nice subtlety.

I liked it a lot, but Fingersmith is still my favourite.

Tinkers, Paul Harding

Dale Mathis, David Mechanica

(June 30) This is really a long poem, or that’s, at least, the kindest way of describing it... it’s another Housekeeping style description of lost souls, with the same aimless cataloguing of feelings and impressions as they wander in the wilderness. These people always wander in the wilderness for good lengths of time.

The thing is, it’s not a novel.

No wonder Marilynne Robinson is quoted on the cover (her comment: “Tinkers is truly remarkable”).

This is about the deaths of three generations of fathers and sons, all telescoping into one another. Because each of them tinkers in one way or another, I hoped that the climax of the “story” might be some tour de force of literary clockwork mechanics, something impressive in the invention of narrative. Alas, that was not to be.

Many BookCel members raved about it.

There were many beautiful moments in it; don’t get me wrong.

Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters

Portrait of Vesta Tilley, 1901 (artist unknown)

(June 11) This is Waters' first novel and is quite different from the second and third. The latter were more carefully structured and full of clever twists, and lesbianism was incidental; here, the narrative is a picaresque life, with wildly disproportionate pacing (like life), and lesbianism is first and foremost.

Also, the "voicing" of the Victorian narrator is not trying to be as authentic as it is in Affinity and Fingersmith; in fact, the narrator sounds quite modern.

But these are just differences I didn't expect. I can see why Tipping was an impressive first novel and won prizes, but I think Waters' best was yet to come.

It's odd to have read the second and third novels first, I suppose, but I don't think I would have been so keen to read more Waters had I read Tipping first. So... lucky for me.

Affinity, Sarah Waters

Evelyn Pickering De Morgan, Hope in the Prison of Despair

(June 1) Like Fingersmith, another well done twist... oh, Waters is good at making unreliable narrators seem reliable. Everything is so plausible. And this was a fascinating exposé of spiritualism. A little darker than Fingersmith in some ways -- different kind of dark, anyway... so interesting how one is quick to identify with a first-person narrator and see all her good points and empathize with her struggles, and ignore her weaknesses and illusions, even though they are all there for the observing.

Waters so authentically captures the way Victorians thought and expressed themselves. She has read a shit-ton of diaries, letters and novels of the period, fo sho.

The Little Black Book of Style and The One Hundred: A Guide to the Pieces Every Stylish Woman Must Own, Nina Garcia

(May 31, June 3) These are not "books" of course but, rather, really long fashion-magazine articles. But they're really good fashion-magazine articles. Nina Garcia has a good eye, in-depth knowledge and a charming writing style. Ah, it is so nice to read well-edited fluff! It's almost kind of "deep fluff." Garcia offers lots of practical, usable tips, as well as entertainment.





Ruben Toledo, Illustration for The Little Black Book of Style

Fingersmith, Sarah Waters

John Everett Millais, Twins, 1876

(May 21) This book Blew. Me. Away. By the end of Part One, I felt like an innocent country bumpkin who had wandered into Dickensian London and had been fleeced and filleted, and all my worldly goods fenced before I even knew they were gone.

Then the plot becomes a leeetle overcomplicated... but it is still a tour de force of mirroring and false identities and interweaving points of view. And -- the narrators! After Part One, I thought I could never invest in any other narrator but Sue... NEVER! Yet, the next narrator, Maud, was just as compelling, if not more. Sweet.

It's a faux Victorian novel, and hits all the beloved leitmotifs of the genre: pickpockets, orphans, grim prisons, lunatic asylums, "laughing villains," stolen fortunes and girls made out to be mad -- but it actually feels more authentic than even a genuine Victorian novel like The Woman in White (which it resembles a lot). It was well done.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, Alan Bradley

Russell H. Tandy, detail of cover art for The Secret in the Old Attic, 1944

(May 4) As fresh and cheerful as a babbling mountain brook and as bracing as a flash flood.

Loved this book, love Flavia. Her picture should be in the dictionary to illustrate "plucky." Loved the dramatic similes.

The Help, Kathryn Stockett

Larry "Poncho" Brown, Black Is Black (Female)

(April 23) This was surprisingly gripping: that is, it's straightforwardly gripping because it's set at the beginning of the civil rights movement in the States, so the reader is well aware that death and destruction could occur at any moment; but the setting is also completely small and domestic -- it's about women with families fussing over food, housecleaning, raising children; it's not about laws and statutes. Thus, it is so odd to be worried about what might happen to any of the main characters, whether black, or white, or "high yaller," when all they are doing on a surface level is trading tips for making cakes or sewing curtains or potty-training.

Yet, of course, these homely, homespun activities are as fraught with racism and inequity as any Jim Crow law, for it's still a time of slavery, if only the last few gasps of it. So that tension is there and is built up very skillfully.

The characters are engaging, and the good and evil is spread pretty evenly throughout the cast, no matter their colour.

Lord John and the Hand of Devils, Diana Gabaldon

William Hogarth, The Ball

(March 27) Really liked it -- really like Lord John, love Gabaldon's way with details and human nature, don't think she needs to bring in Jamie Fraser so much -- that is no longer the reason I'm reading the Lord John books -- in fact, John doesn't even sound like himself when he "writes" to Jamie.....

Anyway, so this is a collection of three novellas containing "supernatural" elements... these paranormal mysteries are kind of murky and never clearly resolved, although nothing is ultimately attributed to the unexplainable... and plot is not the thing you look for with Gabaldon anyway... but the novellas were enjoyable and I'm sorry I've got nothing else to read till a new Lord John or Jamie-and-Claire comes out.

Note to self: Apparently, there are no stories about John's spy work. Why do I think he's a spy?

Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade, Diana Gabaldon

Sir Joshua Reynolds, Alexander, 10th Duke of Hamilton

(March 17) Have come to love John Grey as much as Jamie and Claire. Gabaldon has a fascination with homosexuality, and also gore. Is this supposed to be a mystery? I guess so. But John doesn't really do detective work in the usual way. Maybe this will be more pronounced in the stories about his spy work??

Gabaldon writes in a "screenplay" way. You can see the action... right down to each breath and throat-clearing.

Anyways, love John, enjoyed the book. That's Percy above.

Like Water for Chocolate, Laura Esquivel (translated by Carol Christenson and Thomas Christenson)

Frida Kahlo. My Grandparents, My Parents, and I

(March 3) After years of hearing about this book, I was expecting "Betty Crocker meets Love Potion No. 9," but it was not that kind of book at all.

It was wonderful magical realism à la Gabriel Garciá Marquez or Isabelle Allende, which I love. And what was really fascinating and kind of satisfying about this version of it was that Esquivel carefully contrived all the supernatural events to have a rational interpretation... "it was Pedro's and Tita's undying passion that immolated the ranch, but afterwards people said that spilt wax was what started the fire that burned down the place"... that kind of thing. It's about how history becomes mythology. Well done.

Love it when love is the driving force in major events, sigh.

The Outcast, Sadie Jones

Ron Francis, Dad (Self-Portrait as My Father)

(February 23) Sad, sadder, saddest.

Took me more than six weeks to read these 346 pages... cf the 600 pages of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest in four days and the 850 pages of Echo in the Bone in about two weeks.

Because it was just so effin' sad. So many miserable things to happen to a grieving boy. Relentless.

I bore with it only out of respect for the presentation... it was well written... economy of words and all that.

There is a lovely scene at the very, very, very end -- but it feels like scant reward for the price paid.

Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel

Hans Holbein, Thomas Cromwell

(February) So I went into Wolf Hall with a certain amount of skepticism, first, because I gorged myself on Henry-VIII-and-his-wives books, TV shows and movies when I was a kid, and thought I was jaded, and, second, because of the comments at the copy-editing list and elsewhere about the sloppy pronominal antecedents.

But I really, really liked it -- Cromwell as the "good guy" and More as the "bad guy"? That was fascinating. And I thought the ambiguous-pronoun business was effective in the end. After a few backtracks to figure out whether it was Cromwell, Wolsey or Henry thinking or speaking, I decided Mantel was making the point that one of Cromwell's great talents was the ability "get into the head of" the magnate he was serving (or anyone else's, really). It was a cool effect. In fact, the narrative would have quite a different quality if the antecedence were "properly" copy-edited.

Despite the date stamp on this post, I didn't finish reading Wolf Hall till May 14. I waited in line for it at the library three times, through a 150-odd person queue each time. Which tells you: I liked it enough to wait for it three times, but not enough to buy it. I endured three long waits for it because it was compelling, fresh... even haunting. But it was not hard to wait.

"Is it me or ---?" comment: I think Mantel has Cromwell and his scholar friends inventing the internet at one point. Their dream system for organizing books was very internetty, anyway. Fun.

Lord John and the Private Matter, Diana Gabaldon

Thomas Gainsborough, Gainsborough Dupont

(January 7) Like the Outlander series, what's enjoyable is the author's attractive voice and her great love of the 18th century.

Lord John is really likable; he's gentle, genteel, honorable, enlightened; he has a dry wit: there's lots to like. He's a sympathetic point of view, for sure... different from Claire and Jamie in temperament, but equally someone whose party you want to join.

The novel is nominally a mystery, and questions do get answered, but Lord John is not a professional or even amateur detective in the usual sense. He's just able to put two and two together if enough clues fall into his lap.

Gabaldon indulges her fascination with the history of medicine once again -- it's entertaining to read how 18th-century coroners had to work out times and causes of death, given the lack of modern instruments and science to do such things as distinguish pig's blood from human and so on, and there's some interesting trivia, like the belief that a malarial fever could cure syphilis. Plus it's a bit of an exposé of the gay underworld of 18th-century London.

An Echo in the Bone, Diana Gabaldon

John Trumbull, The Surrender of General Burgoyne at Saratoga

(December 30) Love these books, this series. Love Claire and Jamie and the thousands of secondary characters, each one created in vivid detail, all of them interesting, right down to the dogs and cats. So much detail! In everything!

The author loves the eighteenth century, and she communicates her joy in it. Things go over the top sometimes, but I forgive her. I like her voice... something about her syntax, vocabulary, pacing, sense of humour, whatever else, is like a pleasant drug. I like her insights into human nature. There's an agreeable feeling that you're learning a lot about history, even though there is no scholarly annotation.

Never cared for the Bree/Roger thread when it first introduced, but I kind of liked them a lot in this take... perhaps because of the two time lines?? Or because Bree is less of a selfish diva now?? There are four threads in this book, I find out afterward from reading the jacket blurbs. I can't be sure what the fourth one is. Ian and Rachel? Rachel and Denzell? Percy Wainwright? Jennie and Ian Sr. and the rest of the folks in Scotland? Actually, it's probably William.

Liked the Lord John element as well... enough to make me go and purchase Lord John and the Private Matter. Well, this is partly because of newfound interest in Lord John and partly just to have more of Gabaldon's voice telling a story.

Woman is a storyteller -- no doubt about it.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest, Stieg Larsson (translated by Reg Keeland)

Johannes Wessmark, Ostgotastreet, Stockholm

(December 28) Inhaled it (600 pages) in four days flat... loved the whole series and was so happy to get ahold of the newest and, alas, final one. After The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, I was leery of Larsson -- he can get a bit graphic -- but that is, at the same time, part of the thrill of the books -- the fear that things will get worse than they already have.

Thankfully, this book is not as over the top that way as the first two were... although there is a freaky bit at the end there with a nail gun... heh.

It’s a good continuation of the series -- the plot gets so thick by this book that it sets a record for elemental density, I'm sure -- but basically it brings all the action and personalities to a fever pitch and delivers the necessary ending and ties up all the loose ends (except: what about Camilla?).

Mainly I love these books for the hero -- the anti-hero -- Lisbeth Salander -- except for her, these books are on the level of a decent television crime drama, or thriller novels like The Bourne Identity or The Little Drummer Girl, etc., -- but the creation of Lisbeth elevates them -- she is original -- dorky and punk and kind of soulless -- but your heart goes out to her the more for that -- and she is the equal of any classic female protagonist -- Lizzie Bennet, Miss Marple, Jo March, Anne Shirley, Nancy Drew, Clarice Starling... she inspires.

Love the food in these novels. People are always stopping for coffee and sandwiches that sound fabulous.

Official Book Club Selection: A Memoir According to Kathy Griffin, Kathy Griffin

Daniel Edwards, Monument to Pro-Life: The Birth of Sean Preston

(November 30) So funny. Sample story:

We started class, and in the Groundlings curriculum, one of the first exercises you do is the clichéd "trust" game. I made everyone stand in a circle, with me in the center, and I said, "Being onstage, you have to trust your fellow actors, especially when you're an improviser. You're going to be there for each other, and they're going to be there for you. For example, I'm going to fall back, knowing that you'll catch me."

Then I let myself fall backward, and sure enough, I was caught. Everyone gets out some nervous laughter, and then they all took turns doing it. By the time it got around to Mariska Hargitay, we'd already done it with ten or eleven students, and they clearly had gotten the point. Then it was Mariska's turn. "Okay, Mariska, cross your arms in front of you and gently fall back," I said.

She fell back and nobody caught her. She fell flat on her ass.

I was horrified. This had never happened in one of my classes before. I don't know if there was a fly buzzing in front of our faces, or being typical actors, we were just dIstracted. People must have turned their heads at the wrong time, but as the teacher, I took full and complete responsibility. And this was a 5'10" girl, too. It's true, the bigger they are, the harder they fall, and BOOM, she went right down on her coccyx. Like a ton of bricks. No, not a ton of bricks. A few very beautiful bricks. She giggled and got right back up like a pro, but it looked like it just fucking killed her. I mean, everybody else got caught except Mariska Hargitay. Nobody else wanted to do the trust exercise after her. Nobody trusted anybody. It was a terrible way to start that class.

I've laughed at Kathy Griffin's performances and thought I'd be reading about how she exaggerates and embellishes her stories to make herself sound more pathetic than she actually is and therefore funnier. However, now, after reading this, I don't think she actually is exaggerating much and is probably more pathetic than even she realizes. I mean -- still funny, but less self-aware than I thought. So, in fact, funnier.

The Lost Art of Gratitude, Alexander McCall Smith

William Holman Hunt, Mrs Wilson and Her Child

(November 5) More of wonderful same. As always, not much happens, but Isabel's every thought and deed is thoroughly analyzed. McCall Smith seems to be saying with this series that life is quietly bizarre.

Anything new or notable at all? Well, Jamie and Isabel have kind of morphed into a comedy team, which is nice, because it hasn't been absolutely clear before now what they see in each other. Second, Isabel is really duped by Minty (she's been misled before, but never so deliberately and evilly), and Minty is the first sociopath Isabel's had to deal with, which changes the rules of the game. Finally, Isabel gets really angry twice in this book -- something we haven't seen her do yet.

The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson

Louis Sullivan, Transportation Building

(November 2) I stuck with this book through to the end because I love architectural history and am OK with serial-killer biographies, and I kept hoping there would be a good reason the author was trying to entwine these two threads.

There wasn't! On the thin premise that large undertakings like the 1893 Chicago Exposition draw madmen, the author shamelessly holds out the carrot of lurid murder sprees while plodding through the story of building the fair. If there had been anything in common, no matter how minuscule, between Daniel Burnham and Henry Holmes, or if the Chicago fair had actually affected Holmes' activities in one little way, you could forgive Larson. But there are no parallels whatsoever.

So one has to assume that the author is not convinced the Exposition history is interesting on its own... or he didn't have enough material on either topic to make a book.

It's a drag when an author doesn't think his own narrative is interesting.

Other tell-tale signs: too much false suspense. Every section seems to end with "a decision that would affect the whole future of the exposition" and then you don't find out what that decision is for many pages. Also, the falsely energetic writing: people are not just "talented," they're "intensely talented"; they're not just "wealthy," they're "profoundly wealthy," etc.

All in all, a lesson in applying carny showmanship to writing.

The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold

Erik Nagels, You Girls

(September 29) I thought The Lovely Bones started out really strong -- Sebold seemed to have the same gift for combining cheerfulness and repulsiveness that Jeffrey Eugenides demonstrated in The Virgin Suicides, and I liked that book a lot, partly because of that weird combination.

But about halfway through, I thought The Lovely Bones got a little distracted from its original mission and wanted to be Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping or Ann Patchett's Patron Saint of Liars -- in other words, a book about a woman who takes road trips through America and can't quite focus, who's supposed to be charismatic and heroic but who's really a kind of a deadbeat.

So that was strange. And then all of a sudden that sidetrack wrapped up, and the original story was quickly dispatched, and it was like, "Oh, yeah, here's why I named it The Lovely Bones, a-a-a-and we're outta here in 3, 2, ...."

To me it seemed the author had never experienced losing a family member too soon, so I went and looked Sebold up to see if she actually had. There was nothing to suggest she'd had that misfortune, but I was shocked to discover that she had suffered a brutal rape and beating in real life... which ...should have given more edge and credibility to the murder scene in The Lovely Bones... but... didn't.

A puzzlement.