Book 15 – Something Borrowed

By Emily Giffin

It might seem a little odd (and extreme) to go from an uber-masculine book like The Hunter to ultra-feminine trash like Something Borrowed. But hey, that’s how I roll. The only thing the two books have in common is they’re the type of books I do not normally seek out. It makes sense that I wouldn't normally read a Parker novel, but I'm also far from being a girly-girl. Admittedly there are rare moments when I succumb to my more feminine urges and read a chicklit book of the moment.

Our local thrift shop Chainon has been a treasure trove of dirt cheap books for me and Olman. The problem is that the English fiction shelf is also riddled with mainstream chicklit fare such as Eat Pray Love, Sex and the City, Twilight, The Nanny Diaries, The Princess Diaries, etc etc. So when I "happened" to read the blurb for Something Borrowed, I thought why not? The maid of honor ends up having an affair with the bride’s fiancé, and the blurbs made it sound like the situation could be portrayed with some measure of maturity and complexity. The the new movie starring Kate Hudson sounds pretty bad, but I thought maybe the book would surprise me with some interesting insights. At worst, it’ll be a throw away book, right?

Boy, was I dead wrong. I can be so naïve sometimes!

A quarter way through, I was already regretting getting this far, as the novel was turning out to be just another stupid, hackneyed romance. And the writing was absolutely horrid (no surprise there). But like the Twilight books, I just couldn’t stop. Like a terrible yet gripping soap opera, I had to find out what happens next! Still, there were so many things wrong with this book, I don’t know where to begin. But since a Reading Group Guide was conveniently provided at the end of the book to provoke thoughtful discussion, let’s just use what we’ve got.

Reading Group Guide

1. What do you think was the real impetus behind Rachel’s decision to sleep with Dex after her birthday party? Was it about her desire to break out of her good girl persona? Was it about a long-standing resentment toward Darcy? Or was it both?
Maybe it was simply that Dex was hot and he was there? And Rachel was turning thirty, probably hadn’t had sex in months and was super horny?

The question is misguided because this Rachel chick lacks some serious self-awareness, which translates as she doesn’t know WTF she’s doing. From how it was described, Rachel acted (and responded) on impulse, something which she doesn’t normally do. It was far from a decisive action. Deep down she knew what a pathetic loser she was by letting her best friend take her man and this was the only chance she had to get inside Dex’s pants.

2. How do you view Dex? How would you describe Dex and Rachel’s relationship? What drew them together? Did you root for them to be together? Do you think they have true love?
Dex is the stereotypical Mr Dreamboat whose beauty and desirability is constantly mentioned throughout the book. You know this is the stuff of fantasy when Mr Dreamboat is secretly in love with a 30 year old woman with average looks and intelligence who actually hates herself (with reason). Coupled with the fact that he is named Dex is enough to draw guffaws. The “relationship” between Dex and Rachel yields the same reaction. At one point when they are deep enough into their affair, Rachel summons enough balls to try to end it, but then she gets an email from Dex with the subject line “You”. It basically starts like this:

You are an amazing person, and I don’t know where the feelings that you give me came from. What I do know is that I am completely and utterly into you and I want time to freeze so I can be with you the time and not have to think of anything else at all. I like literally everything about you, including the way your face looks when my cock is in your mouth…
Ok, I confess the last 8 words were actually my own, otherwise the guffaws will take over. But seriously. If a guy does write something like “I like literally everything about you including the way your face looks”, chances are likely he will also be thinking about his dick in your mouth.

Re: true love. Well, let’s take a look at Rachel’s take on “true love” at the end of the novel when she finally gets Dex and makes dinner for him for the very first time (as she doesn’t cook):

Only then do I acknowledge that what I am feeling might actually be true happiness. Even joy. Over the past several days… it has crossed my mind that the key to happiness should not be found in a man. That an independent, strong woman should feel fulfilled and whole on her own. Those things might be true. And without Dex in my life, I like to think I could have somehow found contentment. But the truth is, I feel freer with Dex than I ever did when I was single. I feel more myself with him than without. Maybe true love does that.
Wow, do grown women really eat up this shite? If I get this right, Rachel believes that true love is not about two completely independent people sharing a life together, but two people who are missing something in their sad single lives and only find true happiness in each other. True love means that Dex completes Rachel. And Rachel completes Dex. My, the perfect recipe for a codependant relationship, if I ever saw one. (It is interesting to compare Rachel's take on happiness to Cassandra Mortmain's take on happiness - whose do you think is more genuine? But it's not fair to compare since I do not put Emily Giffin in the same league as Dodi Smith). But hey, this book is marketed as a contemporary urban fairy tale and this is precisely what it’s delivering. What did you expect, an update of Jane Eyre?

3. Is anything about Rachel and Darcy’s friendship genuine? Do you believe it has changed over time?

No sane rational woman with any measure of self-respect would remain best friends with a self-serving narcissist like Darcy for so many years. I've known people in these sorts of friendships/relationships and you eventually have to break up with them after a year or two at most because you realize that they are unrealistically demanding and possessive. In other words, they SUCK.

The book does an ok job portraying why someone with major self-esteem issues like Rachel would be friends with someone like Darcy, but again, I was looking for a story that was more about how a decent person would betray her best friend, who happens to also be a decent person, and the ramifications of that kind of fallout; not a story about a goody-goody girl who ends up betraying her friend because she stupidly let her friend have her man and this friend turned out to be a backstabbing bitch in the end so that the goody-goody girl gets a kind of get out of jail free card. That neat ending stuff does not interest me.

4. Do you think Dex and Darcy would have married if it weren’t for Dex’s affair with Rachel? Why did he stay with Darcy for so long?
Although Darcy is shallow, self-centred and high maintenance, she is also smoking hot, fun and charismatic. That is enough for most guys, even someone like Dex. Oh, but Dex is supposedly secretly in love with Rachel, who is average-looking, boring and passive. So maybe that is why Dex has stayed with Darcy for so long, so he could have Rachel close by. Right.

I think Dex ended up with Rachel in the end because he probably realized that he could be with a girl like Rachel and still get with babes like Darcy, because Rachel will take it. Whereas if Dex married Darcy, and he cheats on her, Darcy is the kind of girl who would cut off his dick in a heartbeat.

5. How did Rachel’s flawed self-image contribute to the dilemma that she faces? What do you see as her greatest weakness?
Rachel’s greatest weakness is her total lameness and passivity. It is a total drag to read a book narrated in first person by someone like Rachel. The fact that Rachel lacks self-esteem and insight causes her to let her boss treat her like his personal slave, be loyal to someone like Darcy, and let Darcy have the love of her life. Rachel’s issues causes her life to suck. But what really sucks is having to listen to Rachel whine and fret about her problems for most of the novel.

6. Was Rachel’s moral dilemma made easier because of Darcy’s personality? Would she have acted on her attraction to Dex if Darcy were a different kind of person and friend? If Rachel had fallen in love with Julian, would she have pursued the same course of action? How does Rachel rationalize her affair with Dex?
The novel seems to support the idea that it’s okay to cheat on your best friend or lover if she turns out to be a selfish, backstabbing bitch. There was never really a moral dilemma that Rachel had to face, except her feelings of guilt, which she rationalizes like any insecure person in that situation who has never truly lived. Also, Rachel would not have fallen in love with Julian because he listens to The Barenaked Ladies (gag). She and Dex are obviously meant for each other because they share a deep love of Bruce Springsteen (Darcy, on the other hand, is a big Bon Jovi fan).

7. What risks does Rachel take when she pursues her relationship with Dex? What is the biggest moment of risk for her? How does Rachel grow and change in the novel?WTF? Rachel never took any risk. She just finally made an ultimatum to Dex and then took off to London. The novel made it clear that the only risk was Rachel's friendship with Darcy, who conveniently turned out to be a villain at the end. No big loss there. Except that Rachel still missed her fun, bitchy friend! What a loser. As for Rachel growing and changing, let’s look at the blurb which mislead this reader so:

As the wedding date draws near, events spiral out of control, and Rachel knows she must make a choice between her heart and conscience. In so doing, she discovers that the lines between right and wrong can be blurry, endings aren't always neat, and sometimes you have to risk everything to be true to yourself.
So did Rachel actually remain true to herself? What does that mean really, in the author's thinking? If it means Rachel achieving some self-realization and growing as a person, then hell no. Darcy got her comeuppance but never learned her lesson because Rachel never confronted Darcy about what a terrible friend she was for all those years. Rachel got her man in the end, which is what the main goal of the book was really about. Yet we don’t have a sense whether Rachel had gained any self-esteem or respect. Oh wait, Rachel did learn how to make dinner for her new boyfriend in the end. That’s something, right?

So you could say that Rachel did become true to herself: she became liberated from her unhealthy friendship with Darcy and found contentment in her new role as Dex’s subservient girlfriend!

8. Disloyalty is a major theme in this novel. How differently do men and women view cheating on a friend? Why is Darcy so indignant when she catches Dex and Rachel together when she has been having an affair of her own?
Because Darcy can't imagine why a super hot guy like Dex would cheat on her with an unattractive, gutless loser like Rachel.

9. Under what circumstances is it justified to choose love over friendship? How important is it for women to stick together? Have you ever been in a friendship like Darcy and Rachel’s?
The novel justifies love over friendship if your best friend turns out to be a backstabbing bitch. Of course it is important for women to develop strong friendships but I do not believe that is the book's message. I have never been stupid enough to be in a friendship like Darcy and Rachel's.

10. This novel is told from Rachel’s perspective. How do you think Darcy would tell the same story? How do you think she would describe Rachel? How do you think she views their friendship?
See answer to 5. I don’t mind reading books about a heroine with low self-esteem written in the first person, as long as she is interesting and has something to say. But this Rachel character is none of these things. She is really a pathetic loser with no backbone, substance or appeal. I would have an even harder time reading a whole novel told from the POV of Darcy in the sequel Something Blue (which focuses on Darcy's struggles to cope with the fallout of her engagement to Dex and her friendship with Rachel). Dear God. Not even if you paid me.

---Something Borrowed was truly one of the worst books I have read. EVER. Something will have to be borrowed because I won't get back the time I wasted reading this piece of crap. It actually made me kind of hate womankind and feel some anger and embarrassment for my gender because this was a bestseller and from what reviews I could find, it seemed every woman loved this book and would recommend it to their friends. At least the Twilight books were kind of fun, goofy and action-packed but this was just a horrible reading experience. After finishing Something Borrowed, I considered immediately reading another Parker book just to wash the taste of tacky chicklit from my mouth. Then I realized there was an even better antidote….

Book 14 - The Hunter

By Richard Stark

I’m not quite sure what finally lead me to Richard Stark’s The Hunter. Perhaps it was reading two books back to back about neglected young girls that I felt it was time for something more masculine. Something lean, mean and bad ass. I had heard plenty about the Parker novels from Olman as well as the other 50-bookers. I certainly have also been enabling Olman’s adulation of the series by getting him three new reissues by the University of Chicago Press for his birthday since 2008. So it’s high time I checked out what all the fuss was about.

Another thing - although I have a soft spot for vengeance movies, I’ve never really sought out the equivalent in fiction. I don’t know if there’s a vengeance niche, but I recently came upon the eye-for-an-eye style of vengeance with surprised glee in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo series. I wouldn’t be surprised if Stieg Larsson modeled Lisbeth Salander after the Parker character. Unusually intelligent and just autistic enough to be borderline anti-social, Larsson’s (anti-)heroine also operates within her own moral universe.

Since I’m sure all who bother to read this review are well acquainted with the storyline, I won’t go into summarizing The Hunter. I did appreciate the lean structure, taut pacing and sparse prose. Oh, which reminds me, another reason why I wanted to read this was that it simply made a bloody quick read. No wonder Olman bangs ‘em out so quickly – he just focuses on the slim genre books which dispense with all that descriptive, prosaic bullshit that is normally associated with literature. As Olman notes in his review, “there is no fluff here, no moralizing, no glee, no pornographic satisfaction in the revenge. It's like a short, direct punch to the gut that nobody else in the crowd notices until the guy crumples to his knees, gasping for breath”. Yeah, that pretty much nails it right there.

Indeed, the story starts off with Parker telling someone who kindly offers him a lift to go to hell (if this was written today, he would’ve told him to fuck right off). We soon learn that Parker himself went to hell and back, having been screwed over in a heist, thrown in the slammer, then escaping and living as a vagrant for a month. Damn right he is right bloody pissed and he won’t rest until he exacts his revenge, going about it patiently, cunningly and methodically. It was quite enjoyable reading how Parker steals and cons his way until he has the means to go after his enemies. When he finds out that his target Mal is a middle manager within a criminal organization, he single-handedly takes them on. Although he belongs to the criminal underworld himself, he still operates in his own terms.

I guess that’s the appeal of Parker - he’s a true loner - in a world that either wants to mess with him or have a piece of him. So he’s always a man on the move. The Parker character has endured and gained in popularity since The Hunter first appeared in 1962. Sorry if I keep comparing Parker to Lisbeth Salander (I’m not a Parker fan so I don’t have any pretensions of being a purist), but I think this is also why LS appeals to today’s readers (esp. those little old ladies who secretly like to kick a bit of ass) because she’s an updated (and more accessible) version of Parker.

Olman mentioned Parker as “an individual, a free radical, attached to no institution, organization, woman or job”. Parker is not autistic like Salander, but he obviously has sociopathic tendencies. His moral universe is even simpler than Lisbeth Salander’s: mess with me, and you die. Though he may come across as one, Parker is not exactly a misogynist as his black and white worldview applies to both men and women alike. It just so happens that being the wife of Parker allows a certain level of intimacy with this cold, calculating individual, if you catch my drift. This is how Parker ends up getting betrayed – his wife is his weakest link. Mal forces Lynn at gunpoint to choose: either kill her husband or be killed. When Parker finally confronts Lynn, being unaware of the back story, he never asks her what really happened. In Parker’s world, the fact of the matter is that his own wife shot him in the back, and even if he didn’t end up killing her for that, his wife was as good as dead to him. When Lynn ends up committing suicide, this brings little or no emotion in Parker. He just ends up watching too much bad TV and drinking a little too much that night. He just knows that he won’t make the same mistake again. Yup, this guy is bad ass.

A brutal yet entertaining read. And a refreshing change from the stuff I normally read.

Book 13 – The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

By Alan Bradley

As a grownup, I do fancy stories about precocious young misfits. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie is supposedly like a cross between Harriet The Spy and I Capture the Castle, the latter due it being about a motherless family living in an old Victorian mansion in post-WW2 England and told from the perspective of the youngest daughter, Flavia. But the comparisons pretty much stop there. Flavia de Luce is not your average 11 year old girl. Not only does she possess a brilliant aptitude for chemistry, but a morbid passion for poisons as well. It just so happens that when her “strange talents” had begun to manifest themselves, Flavia inherited the alchemist’s laboratory that once belonged to her dead Uncle Tar, conveniently tucked away in the attic of the De Luce mansion.

Soon enough, a dead body is found in the cucumber garden of Buckshaw Estate, and her stamp-collecting father, Colonel de Luce, is the prime suspect. The murder sparks Flavia’s curiosity as well as her obsessive-compulsive tendencies and she goes on a sleuthing spree that takes her all over the English county on her beloved bicycle and eventually leads her to father’s old boarding school. Flavia soon becomes embroiled in a philatelic conspiracy that involved a plot to assassinate Queen Victoria and a mysterious orange-tinted Penny Black stamp.

Alan Bradley is an Ontarian who has made several visits, but has never lived in, England though he does an admirable job capturing English rural life in the 1950’s. It’s interesting to note that this is Bradley’s first published novel at age 70, having taught scriptwriting at the University of Saskatoon for many years and having published non-fiction work. He is also a huge Sherlock Holmes afficionado. The events of TSatBofP unfold quite effectively and charmingly, and the pacing is quite efficient with some good page-turning moments.

However, even though the author has created a fairly original detective-heroine, there were still a few moments throughout the novel where it felt like an old dude attempting to write from the perspective of an pre-adolescent girl, albeit a highly intelligent one. Often it seemed that Bradley completely forgot that his character was only eleven years old. I suppose it’s possible that Flavia could recognize the “acrid protein smell” of insulin by sniffing a vial and deduce that the murder victim was diabetic, or single-handedly solve a cold murder case from 20 years ago (actually more than cold since the death was originally ruled as suicide), thus gaining the respect and admiration from Inspector Hewitt. But too often Flavia talks and thinks, well, like an old fart. Like any young girl who had lost her mother at a tender age, Flavia wants more than anything in the world is to be loved by her father. So when she manages to fanangle her way to see her father in the county jail, she is overjoyed when her father explains his story to her, even though she realizes that her poor deluded daddy thinks he’s talking to his dead wife, Harriet, instead of his youngest daughter.

Here we are, Father and I, shut up in a plain little room, and for the first time in my life having something that might pass for a conversation. We were talking to one another almost like adults; almost like one human being to another; almost like father and daughter…
… And so we sat, Father and I, primly, like two old women at a parish tea. It was not a perfect way to live one’s life, but it would have to do.

Then there is another time where Inspector Hewitt visits Flavia in her laboratory, and she makes him a cup of tea.

“Beautiful bit of bone china,” he said at last, raising the cup above his head to read the maker’s name on the bottom.
“Quite early Spode,’ I said. “Albert Einstein and George Bernard Shaw drank tea from the very cup when they visited Great-Uncle Tarquin—not both at the same time, of course.”

What kind of 11 year old girl talks like this, even if she is preternaturally intelligent and she grew up in an upper class English household in the 1950s? Would she really know or care what kind of china she’s drinking out of? And if she does, does she have to sound like a prim old lady?

Because of this, I found Flavia to be charming to a fault. Bradley has created a charismatic fictional character, but it sometimes feels like he’s trying too hard, with the result of having a heroine who’s much too good to be true. It’s the equivalent of having to watch those annoyingly precocious kids in Hollywood movies dispensing grownup wisdom to their elders. Flavia can’t quite come to life for me because too often I hear Bradley’s voice speaking through her. I understand that by making Flavia more child than adolescent allows her to insert herself in situations where an older person would be more conspicuous, but Flavia has far too much knowledge and experience than is possible for a gifted 11 year old. It would have been much more believable if Flavia was a few years older, say 13 or 14.

Another problem for me was how the other de Luce members were so superifically drawn. Flavia’s father is the same distant, taciturn figure as Daddy Mortmain in I Capture the Castle, and her older sisters Ophelia (“Feely”) and Daphne (“Daffy”) are merely self-absorbed, silly girls with a streak of nastiness. It’s unfortunate I was somewhat disappointed by the first book since Flavia de Luce has the potential to become a delightful mystery series (and the cover design strikes the perfect balance of whimsical restraint). Hopefully Flavia’s voice and the supporting characters will become more colourful and nuanced as the series develops. My brother also gave me the next book (The Weed that Strings the Hangman’s Bag) for my birthday, so I’ll see if things improve. Otherwise, I’m going to be moving on! There are far more interesting books to explore!

Book 12 – I Capture The Castle

By Dodie Smith

I had only recently heard about this underrated coming-of-age classic by the same writer who wrote The 101 Dalmatians. So captured was I by the irresistible premise that I requested it last Christmas (thanks M&A). In pre-WWII England, a family moves into a castle nestled in the countryside, the patriarch hoping that the isolated setting will inspire him to write a successor to his brilliant debut novel, Jacob Wrestling. Twelve years later, the castle is crumbling and the family has no means of income because the only breadwinner has had writer’s block the entire time. The family has become so desperately poor that they only have stale bread and tea for dinner.

Seventeen year old Cassandra starts a journal as an attempt to “capture” her thoughts and chronicle the daily lives of her rather eccentric family, which consists of her father James Mortmain, stepmother Topaz, older sister Rose, younger brother Thomas and pseudo stepbrother Stephen, the son of a deceased servant who has become a member of the household. Cassandra also serves as the narrator, as we see everything from her perspective as she writes her journal entries. There are many lovely passages, such as Cassandra’s memories of her family discovering the castle for the first time and descriptions of favourite nooks where she likes to write, such as sitting at the sink by the kitchen window or climbing up one of the castle towers to seek more privacy. But there are also detailed accounts about their near destitute lifestyle.

Our room is spacious and remarkably empty. With the exception of the four-poster, which is in very bad condition, all the good furniture has gradually been sold and replaced by minimum requirements bought in junk-shops. Thus we have a wardrobe without a door and a bamboo dressing-table which I take to be a rare piece. I keep my bedside candlestick on a battered tin trunk that cost one shilling; Rose has hers on a chest of drawers painted to imitate marble, but looking more like bacon.

One rainy night, something unexpected happens which will forever change the lives of the Mortmain family. Two American brothers show up at their doorstep, their car stuck in mud. It turns out they are the sons of the landlord who had recently passed away. The older brother Simon is to inherit the land, which includes Scoatney Hall and the castle grounds, and he soon becomes smitten with Rose. Their initial meeting is awkward and plays very much like a Jane Austen novel, with the Mortmains modeled after the Bennet family and the Brothers Cotton that of Mr Bingley and Mr Darcy as the potential suitors. The analogy is not lost on Rose and our narrator:

“Did you think anything when Miss Marcy said Scoatney Hall was being re-opened? I thought of the beginning of Pride and Prejudice – where Mrs. Bennet says ‘Netherfield Park is let at last.’ And then Mr. Bennet goes over to call on the rich new owner.”
“Mr. Bennet didn’t owe him any rent,” I said.
“Father wouldn’t go anyway. How I wish I lived in a Jane Austen novel!”
I said I’d rather be in a Charlotte Brontë.
“Which would be nicest – Jane with a touch of Charlotte, or Charlotte with a touch of Jane?”
This is the kind of discussion I like very much but I wanted to get on with my journal so I just said: “Fifty per cent each way would be perfect,” and started to write determinedly.

Indeed, the novel makes a number of literary references to Austen as well as other classics of that ilk. And it doesn’t take long for all the Mortmain women to use various stratagems to put Rose and Simon together, with Rose convincing herself that she is in love with him, even though she is not.

Rose’s ethics are questionable at first glance, but after seeing the extent of their poverty vis-à-vis Cassandra, you also understand Rose’s motive for wanting to marry a rich American. She feels a certain level responsibility as the eldest to look after the family since the father appears to have relinquished his role as head of the household. Topaz, a former artists’ muse and moonlit nudist, is torn between being a free spirit and a devoted wife but the Mortmain children find her to be a kind and generous stepmother. Interestingly, the main female characters are well drawn out, but the male characters are rather two dimensional. Mr Mortmain is the distant, self-absorbed genius/father/husband, Stephen is the simple but wise country boy with a heart of gold and the brothers Cotton are primarily there to serve as love interests for Cassandra and Rose.

I Capture the Castle was originally published in 1949, but the story is set in 1930’s England. Although it plays like a contemporary update of a Jane Austen novel, it’s more like a very early precursor to a Judy Blume coming of age story. The narrator Cassandra is seventeen years old, but I don’t know if this novel was aimed at young adults when it came out in the 1940’s because some of the themes are quite mature and adult, with a very non-romantic (hence realistic) take on relationships and love. There are suspicions of adultery, a Graduate-like scenario where a shrewd, older woman from London seduces the younger, but not completely naïve Stephen, and then there is Rose eventually bailing on her fiancé to run away with his brother.

Only one out of at least three potential romantic matches work out, and the running theme seems to be that the few who do find love are the lucky ones, while most everyone else ends up loveless, with unrequited love or stuck with ones whom they don’t love.

Despite the sadness and disappointment of our narrator not finding love, this is still a lovely, lovely book. There is a blurb on the cover from JK Rowling stating that this novel has the most charismatic narrator, and she is right about that. Even though Cassandra does not find love, she does learn to love herself and find contentment in solitude.

Once I got used to the idea of being by myself for so long I positively liked it. I always enjoy the different feeling there is in a house when one is alone in it, and the thought of that feeling stretching ahead for two whole days somehow intensified it wonderfully. The castle seemed to be mine in a way it never had been before; the day seemed specially to belong to me; I even had a feeling that I owned myself more than I usually do. I became very conscious of all my movements – if I raised my arm I looked at it wonderingly, thinking, “That is mine!” And I took pleasure in moving, both in the physical effort and in the touch of the air – it was most queer how the air did seem to touch me, even when it was absolutely still. All day long I had a sense of great ease and spaciousness. And my happiness had a strange, remembered quality as though I had lived before. Oh, how can I recapture – that utterly right, homecoming sense of recognition? It seems to me now that the whole day was like an avenue leading to a home I had loved once but forgotten, the memory of which was coming back so dimly, so gradually, as I wandered along, that only when my home at last lay before me did I cry: “Now I know why I have been happy!”

There was a film adaptation from 2003, which was a bit meh. You could say that the movie captured the setting quite well, but the cast didn’t quite capture the spirit of Dodie Smith’s book.

Book 11 – H.M.S. Surprise

By Patrick O’Brian It’s been almost two years since I returned to the most popular 50-Booker series since, if you recall, I was somewhat disappointed in Post Captain. I was spurred back on the horse (or more appropriately, ship) when Olman asked if I had a copy of the third Aubrey-Maturin book since a few Ramblekrafters were at the developmental stage for their upcoming Beat To Quarters game. And there was no way I was going to let Olman read the next installment before me! Good thing I distracted him with a sweet Hornblower hardback ;-) HMS Surprise proved to be a significant improvement over Post Captain in terms of structure, plot and engagability, though it shared similarities in lots of dramatic exposition and character development for the bulk of the novel, leaving the exciting battle between the East India Company’s China Fleet and a French squadron (with the HMS Surprise caught in between!) towards the end. At the beginning of the story, Stephen’s cover in Spain gets blown due to an inept person in a high political position. As a result, Stephen is caught and tortured by the French and then subsequently rescued by Jack. What's more, the Polychrest crew lose out on their prize money ( the capture of the Spanish gold ships at the end of Post Captain) due to some legal loophole so Jack can’t pay off his debts and marry Sophia. But thanks to Stephen’s fortuitous connection to Sir Joseph, some reward money is acquired for Jack so he is rescued from the sponging house and given a new post on the HMS Surprise, the very ship in which Jack spent his youth as a midshipman . The newly crewed HMS Surprise makes sail for the East Indies with the task of delivering a rather delicate and seasick-prone British envoy to the Sultan of Kampong. Along the way, the HMS Surprise languishes in the doldroms, suffers from mild scurvy, consumes a fair amount of rats, picks up some citrus fruit in Brazil (as well as a three-toed sloth – “the most affectionate, discriminating sloth you can imagine!” according to Stephen), encounters a devastating storm around the Cape of Good Hope, and stops in India to refit. Of course, while in Calcutta, Stephen schemes to meet his old flame Diana Villiers, now mistress to the uber-wealthy merchant Canning. It doesn’t end there. Lots of juicy things happen which I’d rather not summarize, so you’ll just have to read this installment for yourself and see. It’s interesting to note that the film adaptation Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World incorporates a few minor events from this book, such as J.A.'s initials carved in the top masthead of the HMS Surprise and Stephen’s DIY operation as he removes a bullet lodged in his own rib. And the final battle at the end was worth it too. Perhaps I’m getting better at comprehending O’Brian’s writing, or O’Brian’s writing has improved in clarity, but this was the first time I could clearly follow the bl0w-by-blow account of the HMS Surprise’s run-in with the formidable French squadron, not to mention Captain Aubrey’s risky collaboration with the merchant ships of the East India Company’s China Fleet to deceive the aged yet cunning Admiral Linois. And it was pretty damn exciting and well worth waiting for! It took an effort not to describe any of it -- so much better to just read it for yourself, but I will say that it was another capital game of naval subterfuge. As usual, there are many humourous and lighthearted gems scattered throughout the book. He came forward, showing his open hands, and said again, ‘Captain Melbury?’ ‘Who are you, sir?’ asked Jack. ‘Joan Maragall, sir,’ he whispered in the clipped English of the Minorcans, very like that of Gibraltar. ‘I come from Esteban Domanova. He says, Sophia, Mapes, Guarnerius.’ Melbury Lodge was the house they had shared; Stephen’s full name was Maturin y Domanova; no one else on earth knew that Jack had once nearly bought a Guarnerius. He un-cocked his pistol and thrust it back. ‘Bonden,’ cried Stephen, ‘take pen and ink, and write – ‘ ‘Write, sir?’ cried Bonden. ‘Yes. Sit square to your paper, and write: Landsdowne Crescent – Barret Bonden, are you brought by the lee?’ ‘Why, yes, sir; that I am – fair broached-to. Though I can read pretty quick, if in broad print; I can make out a watch-bill.’ ‘Never mind. I shall show you the way of it when we are at sea, however: it is no great matter – look at the fools who write all day long – but it is useful, by land…’ Jack stepped on to the western rail and looked down into the water… ‘Come on, then,’ he said, diving in. The sea was warmer than the air, but there was refreshment in the rush of bubbles along his skin, the water tearing through his hair, the clean salt taste in his mouth. Looking up he saw the silvery undersurface, the Surprise’s hull hanging down through it and the clean copper near her water-line reflecting an extraordinary violet into the sea: then a white explosion as Stephen shattered the mirror, plunging bottom foremost from the gangway, twenty feet above. His impetus bore him down and down, and Jack noticed that he was holding his nose: he was holding it still when he came to the surface, but then relinquished it to strike out in his usual way – short, cataleptic jerks, with his eyes tightly shut and his mouth clenched in savage determination. Babbington looked wretchedly from one to the other, licked his lips and said, ‘I ate your rat, sir. I am very sorry, and I ask your pardon.’ ‘Did you so?’ said Stephen mildly. ‘Well, I hope you enjoyed it. Listen, Jack, will you look at my list, now?’ ‘He only ate it when it was dead,’ said Jack. ‘It would have been a strangely hasty, agitated meal, had he ate it before,’ said Stephen… Stephen looked sharply round, saw the decanter, smelt to the sloth, and cried, ‘Jack, you have debauched my sloth.’ [Stephen] ‘… You must write that letter, Jack; for you are to consider, Sophie is the beauty of the world; whereas although you are tolerably well-looking in your honest tarpaulin way, you are rather old and likely to grow older; too fat, and likely to grow even fatter – nay, obese.’ Jack looked at his belly and shook his head. ‘Horribly knocked about, earless, scarred: brother, you are no Adonis. Do not be wounded,’ he said, laying his hand on Aubrey’s knee, ‘when I say you are no Adonis.’ [Diana] ‘But it was kind of him to send his compliments, his best compliments, to a fallen woman.’ [Stephen] ‘What stuff you talk, Villiers,’ he said. [Diana] ‘I have fallen pretty low for an odious little reptile like that Perkins to take such liberties. Christ, Maturin, this is a vile life. I never go out without the danger of an affront: and I am alone, cooped up in this foul place all the time. There are only half a dozen women who receive me willingly; and four of them are demireps and the others charitable fools – such company I keep! And the other women I meet, particularly those I knew in India before – oh, how they know how to place their darts!... [Jack] ‘… A most capital dinner, upon my word. The duck was the best I ever tasted.’ [Stephen] ‘I was sorry to see you help yourself to him a forth time: duck is a melancholy meat. In any case the rich sauce in which it bathed was not at all the thing for a subject of your corpulence.'

Book 10 – The City, Not Long After

By Pat Murphy

This pristine 1989 hardcover has been with me since I first bought it as a teenager. I went through a fantasy/sci-fi period back then, and Pat Murphy was one of my favourite writers. Although labeled a fantasy writer, her stories tend to be grounded in contemporary reality (kind of like Charles de Lint without the faeries and goblins).

Murphy also did double-duty as staff writer at the San Francisco Exploratorium, so her urban fantasies usually involved science and art. At the time, I had already read her Nebula award-winning novella “Rachel In Love”, about a human girl trapped in a lab chimpanzee’s body and The Falling Woman, about an archaeologist’s encounter with an ancient Mayan goddess.

When The City, Not Long After came out, I remember the premise really intrigued me, as it would be my very first introduction to PA fiction. The idea of a desolate post-apocalyptic San Francisco inhabited by a motley group of artists and weirdos appealed to my youthful romantic sensibilities. Now more than 20 years later, I thought it'd be a good time for a revisit.

At first, my older cynical self was suspicious: how could a disparate group of survivors just take over an abandoned city and live peacefully among themselves? But soon enough, I was able to immerse myself in the author’s world, which was starting to make some sense, at least in the realm of magic realism. I had forgotten also that the novel was aimed at young adults. There was some sex, violence and swearing, but it was all quite PG. The themes and social commentary were also fairly simplistic (make art, not war!), but not too annoyingly so, as Murphy is a pretty good writer.

The plot is straightforward: fifteen years before, a plague devastated human civilisation, and small pockets of survivors live in scattered groups. In San Francisco, artists and misfits have taken over, since they're the kind of people who don't mind ghosts of the past haunting the empty streets. However, the peaceful existence of this rag-tag community does not last. A rural army led by a fascistic dictator nicknamed Fourstar threatens to invade the city and impose a new world order. Here the symbolism of a rural dystopia invading an urban utopia is pretty cut and dry. The protagonist is a young nameless woman whose mother was taken by Fourstar’s soldiers, who then escapes to SF to warn the inhabitants about Fourstar’s militaristic plans. While there, she explores the streets and abandoned buildings (described in vivid detail by the author who obviously knows the city well), learns how to become friends with eccentric oddballs, names herself Jax and finds love in the form of paint-can wielding Danny-boy.

[Note some SPOILERS coming up]

The climax is pretty cool. The artists may be wacky, but they aren’t stupid, so they band together and wage a war of resistance against the invading army, made up of uneducated farmers who have been trained in traditional warfare, yet are ill-prepared for non-violent guerilla tactics. Guess it’s rather fitting that this takes place in San Francisco. Radical warfare, man!

Every artist has a speciality which comes to play. Sculptors and gardeners set up creative barricades of religious statues, wrought iron and poison oak. An audio engineer rigs gigantic speakers to blast mind-numbing noise while the soldiers try to sleep. A mechanically gifted autistic called The Machine flies around in his gyrocopter dropping smoke bombs to confuse the army.

----- Spoilers end here -----

As PA fiction goes, the novel has some interesting ideas, though these ideas don’t get explored to their full potential. The ending was fairly ambiguous, never really answering whether non-violent resistance can be achieved in a post-apocalyptic milieu, and the finale also resolved itself too easily and idealistically for my cynical taste. But as PA fiction with a magic realist spin for young adults, it had some good drama and action, making for a fairly enjoyable read. I can see why I got into this in my youth.

It's interesting to note the recent crop of young adult post-apocalyptic (YA PA) fiction, such as The Hunger Games and Enclave (Razorland) series, which seem pumped full of action and violence. Pat Murphy's novel may probably seem quite tame and subtlely nuanced in comparison, so I'd have to check out these trendy new PA YA books to find out!

Book 9 – Barney’s Version

By Mordecai Richler

Boy, am I glad I read this book before watching the movie, which was released last year, as the book was such a rich read. Also glad that I’d already read The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz because the titular character makes a few appearances in Barney’s Version, as well as Jerry Dingleman a.k.a. The Boy Wonder, night club owner and loan shark. Barney and Duddy inhabit the same fictional universe, yet are grounded in a very real Montreal of yesteryear that Richler knows intimately.

But it wouldn’t be a Richler book without its share of bitterness as well. Barney is a difficult, irascible individual who drinks a lot of 18 year old Macallan, and you betcha that there ain't more than a little Richler in the aging Barney Panofsky, who looks back at his life with much regret, speaks his mind and then some as he writes his memoirs.

Perhaps I should not have poked around on the internet before buckling down to post my thoughts about Richler's last novel (Barney’s Version was published in 1997 and Richler died in 2001), but this Yale review and this blog do a fairly damn good job and they also pretty much summed up how I felt.

What was also awesome was that I acquired this nice trade paperback copy of Barney’s Version from the giveaway bookshelf at work, as I would probably have read this much later, and probably after I had already watched the film, which is supposed to be ok. But I can imagine that the movie would gloss over many fine details. Film adaptations are fine when a novel has a good story yet sub-par writing. Part of the pleasure of reading is enjoying good writing, and Richler’s voice really comes through as Barney Panofsky. There are lots of criticism and poking fun of Quebec and Canadian culture, as well as self-indulgent artists and bourgeois Jews. Some samples:

We are dealing with a two-headed beast: our provincial premier, a.k.a. The Weasel, and his minions in Quebec City, and Dollard Redux, the fulminating leader of the Bloc Quebécous in Ottawa. Dollard Redux has lit a fire here. Soon the only English-speaking people left in Montreal will be the old, the infirm, and the poor. All that’s flourishing now are FOR SALE / À VENDRE signs, sprouting up every day like out-of-season daffodils on front lawns, and there are stores with TO LET / À LOUER signs everywhere on once fashionable streets. In the watering-hole I favour, on Crescent Street, there is a wake at least once a month for the latest regular who has had his fill of tribalism and is moving to Toronto or Vancouver. Or, God help them, Saskatoon, “a good place to bring up children.”

---

Self-satisfied Toronto is not a city I’ve ever warmed up to. It’s this country’s counting house. But plunging into the rush-hour din on Avenue Road that warm evening in early May, a spring in my step, I was in a forgiving happy-to-be-alive mood…. Such was my rapture that I guess I smiled too broadly at the young mother coming toward us, wheeling a toddler in a stroller, because in response she frowned and quickened her pace…

---

As for me, following my retreat from Paris and the artistic wankers I had wasted my time with there, I resolved to make a fresh start in life. What was it Clara had once said? “When you go home, it will be to make money, which is inevitable, given your character, and you’ll marry a nice Jewish girl, somebody who shops…” Well, I’ll satisfy her ghost, I thought. From now on, it was going to be the bourgeois life for Barney Panofsky. Country club. Cartoon scissored out of The New Yorker pasted up on my bathroom walls. Time magazine subscription. American Express card. Synagogue membership. Attaché case with combination lock. Et cetera et cetera.

Another pleasure derived as a Montrealer living in the same hood where Richler grew up is reading about Richler waxing remembrances of his old stomping grounds.

In those days Saul was no longer living at home, in the house I had acquired in Westmount after Michael was born, but was rooted in a commune, largely composed of middle-class Jewish kids, in a cold-water flat on St. Urbain Street, right in my old neighbourhood. I wander down there occasionally in unavailing quest of familiar faces and old landmarks. But, like me, the boys I grew up with moved on long ago: those who prospered to Westmount, or Hampstead, and the ones who are still struggling to the nondescript suburbs of Côte St-Luc, Snowdon, or Ville St-Laurent. These streets now teem with Italian, Greek, or Portuguese kids, their parents as out of breath as ours once were, juggling overdue household bills. Signs of the times. The shoeshine parlour where I used to take my father’s fedoras to be blocked has been displaced by a unisex hair stylist. The Regent Theatre, where I could once catch a double feature for thirty-five cents, and enjoy three hours of uninterrupted necking with the notorious Goldie Hirschorn, is boarded up. The lending library where I took out books (Forever Amber; Farewell, My Lovely; King’s Row; The Razor Edge) for three cents a day no longer exists. Mr. Katz’s Supreme Kosher Meat Mart has yielded to a video-rental outlet: ADULT MOVIES OUR SPECIALTY. My old neighbourhood now also boasts a New Age bookstore, a vegetarian restaurant, a shop that deals in holistic medicines, and Buddhist temple of sorts, all of which cater to the needs of Saul and his bunch and others like them.

What can I tell ya, except if you’re planning to watch the movie, do try to read the book first!

Book 8 - Murder, Incest & Cat Food Sandwiches: Collected Confessions from Notproud.com

By Scott Huot and GW Brazier

A book giveaway shelf was setup at our workplace, and I actually found a couple of books that were worth taking: a like-new copy of Catch-22, as well as a trade paperback of Barney’s Version, which I’m currently reading. Another good find was Murder, Incest and Cat Food Sandwiches, a selection of the “best” confessions from Notproud.com.

Launched in 2000, the website was organized according to the seven deadly sins. You could either make an anonymous confession according to sin category or simply “eavesdrop” on the thousands upon thousands of confessions, which range from harmless and hilarious to downright pathetic and debased. As the title promises, there is a murder (accidental), more than a couple of incestuous admissions, and an act of sweet revenge where a victim got tired of finding his lunch stolen from the shared fridge at work. So guess what kind of sandwich he made one day in order to get even?

Sadly, notproud.com is no longer operational, and the book is out of print. It was such a great idea. I remember being addicted to the website for the longest time, trying to keep it down to a few confessions a day (reading, not making, mind you). Yes, my addiction was based on a bit of that good ol’ schadenfraude and the reassurance in knowing there were many people out there who were way more pathetic than yours truly.

For instance, I remember a girl who confessed to being so lazy, she’d throw her dishes in the trash instead of cleaning them. Damn, and I thought I was lazy! The site comprised such an incredible range of human emotion, yet the book represented only a fraction of these confessions. The slim, minimally-designed book features only one confession per page with a total of over 200 pithy confessions makes for an all too quick read. The pamphlet-like feel of the book also makes it seem like a disposable item of amusement. It is truly a sin that the website is not maintained as an active archive of human frailty and fallibility.

Book 7 – Open & Clothed: For the Passionate Clothes Lover

By Andrea Siegel

In high school, I admired and envied my best friend’s eclectic wardrobe and the ease with which she wore her clothes. Her mom was an interior designer who always had Vogue and other fashion rags around the house. My friend and her mom would visit sample sales and church rummage sales and find the most amazing clothes and jewelry. Sometimes they’d invite me along and that was how I first learned to develop a sartorial eye, though it took many years for me to find my own style.

It didn't come easy for me. There were much in the way of trial and error and embarrassing mistakes. But it was due to the fact that I had made an attempt to explore. It wasn't to emulate what I saw in magazines, or to find a social niche in going goth or punk, but to simply explore what appealed to me. And if it were not for my friend and her cool mom, my wardrobe would probably be pretty safe and boring. Eventually, I figured out what my own tastes were and what was right for me rather than what was dictated by fashion trends. And though I actually don’t like to shop very much, I enjoy clothes without being burdened with too much clothing anxiety (though as a woman it’s not always possible to be completely free of it).

Andrea Siegel always loved clothes. But she always felt that something wasn’t clicking. When she wrote about her history with clothes, I totally understood where she was coming from:

When I leafed through a fashion magazine, viewed mannequins in a shop window, or glanced at a beautifully dressed woman on the street, I could see how each outfit was assembled. However, I didn’t understand that I brought complicating factors to the equation, that my unique face, body, proportions, preferences, and history mattered. Because of my confusion about clothing, I spent attention, time, and money inefficiently.

I investigated the relationship between wardrobe and the big picture—how cultural constructs about sexuality, frivolity, family, death, fashion, and appropriateness influence clothing choice. By then using all my senses, not just sight, to discover what is beautiful to me, by broadening my appreciation to include all that has been considered beautiful, I discovered my place in the dance, the distinctive qualities that make me feel beautiful.

Many of the things that Open and Clothed teaches is already common sense for the savvy shopper, ie. how fashion is cyclical, how the industry is exploitative, where to find bargains as it’s not all about buying retail. But it still has a lot of relevant things to say with plenty of pointed remarks and well-known adages such as:

When a woman who loves shoes finds a shoe that is beautiful to her as well as comfortable, something akin to rapture occurs.

[sigh] How true!

Even though this book was published in 1999, some things ring true more than ever:

The “individuality” and “statement” clothing, advertised by the industry, has a mass-produced extreme look. Not only does it lack uniqueness—thousands of pieces are made in each size—it also often looks remarkably unflattering. The clothes are meant to attract negative attention rather than enhancing the attractiveness of the wearer.

Maybe it’s because I’m older now and less tolerant of the latest fashion trends, but for the past several years or so, either clothes have gotten cheaper and uglier or I’m just having trouble finding clothes that are flattering or of decent quality. Anyway. It was still a lovely treat reading this book. And Siegel covers a lot of ground. It isn’t just frivolity that she's concerned about:

We who care passionately about clothes owe it ourselves to be educated about the numbers involved, to know who gets exploited and why. The fashion industry’s primary purpose is making money. We often forget this.

I also liked reading about what initially inspired the author to write this book. When she was in college in the early 80s, she always noticed how her Italian professor, “a kindly elegant gentleman of perhaps fifty”, was always beautifully dressed. His style was never ostentatious, just simple and pleasant to the eye, the material of good quality and cut, so his clothes always fit him perfectly. One day she boldly asked him what was up with that, and he gave a very serious and thoughtful response. In a nutshell, having lived through WW2, he saw terrible and unmentionable things. Though he likes to dress well for himself, he also feels a responsibility to look nice for other people.

I want to do a small kindness. It is important to bring harmony and beauty back to this troubled world. I do not feel I am the most beautiful person on earth, but rather that it was important to me to give in this way, to know that I am making a contribution.

She felt her old professor was on to something. Much like the famous Emerson quote: “The sense of being perfectly well dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquility which religion is powerless to bestow.” But how does one achieve this sartorial karma? The book does explore at length the mantra: “Clothes must fit you, they must fit the occasion, and they must fit together.” Indeed, Siegel has little tolerance for those who dress sloppily or inappropriately because they either don’t care about appearances or think they are making a statement. She argues these stances have "everything to do with reacting against good taste and seeking to offend rather than finding what’s true for oneself." She goes on to say:

It’s important to dress in a way that respects our fundamental needs and desires, but denying our participation in a social context is dishonest. When we don’t own up to this social influence, it will operate on us rather than our having control of it.

This sounds very similar to the philosophy of Stacy and Clinton of the hit TLC show What Not To Wear (which I love to watch, btw). But unlike WNTW, which encourages you to spend thousands of dollars on a new wardrobe, Open & Clothed teaches the anxious shopper to exercise caution and restraint:

Often people who love to shop are, paradoxically, the ones who don’t feel satisfied with the results. Do you take unmet emotional needs shopping? Next time they cry out to go shopping, meet a need instead. Or if you feel an overpowering urge to shop, stop for a moment, take a breath, and figure out where you can be alone and not shop — the woods? An art museum? … Walk around or meditate.

She goes on to say: “You’re going to make mistakes. The idea of unerring judgment is a prison. As you practice, your mistakes will diminish… The only danger of making mistakes is spending way beyond what you can afford on something you cannot or will not return. A little soul-searching is in order to prevent reoccurrence.”

One thing I didn’t like about this book was the format. The 9.9 x 7.9 x 0.6 inch dimensions made it too big and cumbersome to carry it around or read it during a relaxing bath. That size is fine if there are nice illustrations but there were only black & white stock photos for each chapter. This was also partly a self-help book so there were some creative exercises (to make you a better dresser or to improve your wardrobe), but it doesn’t necessarily mean it had to look like an exercise book. For a book about cultivating clothing taste, it was definitely lacking in the well-designed book department!

Another quibble was the lack of structure. Though the chapters were organized in a logical way, Siegel makes use of so many references, sometimes they're grouped together in a hodgepodge manner, instead of being integrated into a coherent thesis. The book is filled with quotes, interviews, lists, questionnaires, advice, exercises, footnotes… Granted, there are many excellent quotes as Siegel researches archives and interviews many friends, colleagues and well-known pros in the fashion industry. If only she integrated all these in a more book-like structure, this would’ve made a high level tome. In the end though, it makes for a great browsing book for anyone who has a passing or passionate interest in clothes. And that's not necessarily a terrible thing either.

Book 6 – Ripley Under Ground

Patricia Highsmith

I didn’t mean to read another Highsmith book so soon (see Strangers On a Train) , but I didn’t want to bring the thickish Barney’s Version with me on the train ride to Toronto. I wanted something more economically written and anyway, I was just dying to read the next Ripley installment.

The sequel takes place six years after The Talented Mr Ripley left off. Tom is living comfortably in the French countryside with his modest art collection and recently married to a free-spirited and somewhat amoral French heiress. In the past few years, Tom has somehow gotten himself involved in an art forgery conspiracy, as well as a fencing operation as a side gig. Oh Tom, ever resourceful, ever so shady! Naturally, Tom’s comfortable existence becomes threatened when an American businessman suspects that one of his Derwatt paintings is a fake.

Ripley Under Ground was definitely inferior to The Talented Mr. Ripley. One of the reasons I like the first book so much is because Tom Ripley is a sympathetic character. You could understand why he killed his friend Dickie Greenleaf. There are also certain moments throughout the novel where Ripley contemplates what he has done. With Ripley Under Ground, those moments are fewer and far between, and they don’t ring as true. Perhaps it has to do with the 15 year lag between the first two Ripley books.

The theme of authenticity versus fakery or forgery is explored early on but seems to sputter out after the halfway point. Bernard Tufts is a talented artist in his own right but is psychologically suffering from the years of forging the paintings of his dead friend Derwatt and living a lie. Tom, of course, sees things differently and regards Bernard as a kind of Van Meegeren, and loved the fake Derwatts as much as the real ones. He can’t understand why people like Murchison get so worked up about a fake painting.

He brought up Van Meegeren, with whose career Murchison was acquainted. Van Meegeren’s forgeries of Vermeer had finally achieved some value of their own. Van Meegeren may have stated it first in self-defence, in bravado, but aesthetically there was no doubt that Van Meegeren’s inventions of ‘new’ Vermeers had given pleasure to the people who had bought them.

‘I cannot understand your total disconnection with the truth of things,’ Murchison said. ‘An artist’s style is his truth, his honesty. Has another man the right to copy it, in the same way that a man copies another man’s signature? And for the same purpose, to draw on his reputation, his bank account?...’

The irony is naturally lost on Tom. Though he admires Murchison's intelligence and ends up even liking him (in the wine cellar while his housekeeper is washing dishes upstairs!), he murders Murchison anyway because he couldn’t be convinced to see things Tom’s way, which is skewed but nevertheless has an internal logic of its own.

Several times I had to suspend my disbelief at how Tom could get away with murder, though it is quite funny to read how his neighbours do not notice “his pink and almost bleeding palms, sore from the ropes around Murchison” as they make pleasant chitchat. When he confesses to his co-conspirators about murdering Murchison (Highsmith did have a knack for finding great names), they were dumbfounded but never questioned Tom’s sanity or what they were getting themselves into. There is never really a moment of danger that involves those who are close to Tom (close as in proximity if not in intimacy), his wife or housekeeper, who may suspect him of being a murderer. Tom dispatched Murchison before he could become a real threat. Subsequently his influence on Bernard to commit suicide in Vienna seemed almost effortless (Highsmith did not quite pull off the contrast between the two mentally unstable individuals – one who is emotional-less, the other emotionally volatile). And the London inspector seemed intelligent but conveniently ineffective.

I do enjoy how Highsmith writes about contemporary life in European cities, like how Tom appreciates London graffiti as he spots a defaced poster of the hit 1968 movie Romeo and Juliet and then goes shopping for his wife, buying her a pair of “flared hipsters of black wool, waist twenty-six.” These minute details add a nice flair of sophistication to the setting.

Sadly, due to my disappointment in the sequel, I may postpone reading the third book, Ripley’s Game, which is in Olman’s collection. There are plenty of other on-deck books to read!

Book 5 – Sense and Sensibility

By Jane Austen

Other than Pride & Prejudice, this is the only other Austen novel I’ve ever read. At the time she wrote P & P, Jane Austen wondered whether it was perhaps a little 'too light and bright and sparkling'. Though it also had its share of wit and satire, I found Sense & Sensibility to be sharper and more critical than P&P.

Of S & S, Wikipedia mentions that “the novel displays Austen's subtle irony at its best, with many outstanding comic passages about the Middletons, the Palmers, Mrs Jennings, and Lucy Steele.” But I found the best comical passages involved Marianne, the most passionate of the Dashwood sisters (the eldest sister Elinor is the rational one). Even though Austen supposedly modeled the character of Marianne after herself while basing the tactful and self-disciplined Elinor on her older sister Cassandra, she had no bones about making fun of Marianne’s self-indulgent and overblown romanticism:

When breakfast was over she walked out by herself, and wandered about the village of Allenham, indulging the recollection of past enjoyment and crying over the present reverse for the chief of the morning.

The evening passed off in the equal indulgence of feeling. She played over every favourite song that she had been used to play to Willoughby, every air in which their voices had been oftenest joined, and sat at the instrument gazing on every line of music that he had written out for her, till her heart was so heavy that no farther sadness could be gained; and this nourishment of grief was every day applied. She spend whole hours at the piano-forté alternately singing and crying; her voice often totally suspended by her tears. In books too, as well as in music, she courted the misery which a contrast between the past and present was certain of giving. She read nothing but what they had been used to read together.

Such violence of affliction indeed could not be supported for ever; it sunk within a few days into a calmer melancholy; but these employments, to which she daily recurred, her solitary walks and silent meditations, still produced occasional effusions of sorrow as lively as ever.

The novel is full of such wonderfully written passages, and neglectful family members who are too busy being obsessed with status cannot escape Austen’s satirical gaze either. John and Fanny Dashwood -- who break a promise to financially look after John’s stepmother Mrs Dashwood and her daughters -- are prime targets:

The dinner was a grand one, the servants were numerous, and everything bespoke the Mistress's inclination for shew, and the Master's ability to support it. In spite of the improvements and additions which were making to the Norland estate, and in spite of its owner having once been within some thousand pounds of being obliged to sell out at a loss, nothing gave any symptom of that indigence which he had tried to infer from it; no poverty of any kind, except a conversation, appeared-- but there, the deficiency was considerable. John Dashwood had not much to say for himself that was worth hearing and his wife had still less. But there was no peculiar disgrace in this, for it was very much the case with the chief of their visitors, who almost all laboured under one or other of these disqualifications for being agreeable--want of essence, either natural or improved want of elegance--want of spirit or want of temper.

Even though the most unlikable characters, such as John and Fanny Dashwood, Mrs Ferras and Lucy Steele never get their comeuppance, Marianne learns a valuable lesson and Elinor gains a valuable friend in Mrs Jennings, who at first comes across as intrusive and embarrassing, but turns out to be as generous and principled as the well-respected Colonel Brandon. Though S&S does not have the fairy-tale ending of P&P, Marianne and Elinor find some measure of happiness in the end. Not as satisfying perhaps, but in other ways, makes it more emotionally resonant. And I mean this in the most rational way ;-)

Book 4 – Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day

By Winifred Watson

I discovered this smart looking book at my local thrift shop. It’s one of those Euro-style trade paperbacks with a thick cover flap and nicely printed paper. Upon closer examination, the inner jacket explains that Persephone Books is a UK company that reprints neglected classics by 20th century (mostly women) writers.

“They appeal to the discerning reader who prefers books that are neither too literary nor too commercial, and are guaranteed to be readable, thought-provoking and impossible to forget.”

Well, that had me sold! And $3 for a book that used to go for Can $18, it was a steal.

Miss Pettigrew proved to be a very readable as well as a charmingly delightful story about a down-on-her-luck middle-aged spinster nanny in pre-WWII London who strikes an unlikely friendship with a glamourous nightclub singer. Adventure and capers ensue. Over the course of 24 hours, Miss Pettigrew discovers things about herself that she never thought possible. I would not say that the story is especially thought-provoking as it’s basically a contemporary update of Cinderella, but it does have a lot of heart and comedic appeal.

Here is a lovely review that does MPLFaD more justice than I.

Moreover, I enjoyed the book so much, I even rented the 2008 film adaptation a couple of days later, which stars Frances McDormand as the titular character and Amy Adams as Delysia LaFosse. But I thought Shirley Henderson as Edythe Dubarry really stole the show. A very enjoyable movie too.

Book 3 – Strangers On a Train

By Patricia Highsmith

Another Highsmith book down the hatch. Another enjoyable read by a writer who's quickly becoming a favourite of mine (thanks to Olman).

If you’ve seen or heard of the Alfred Hitchcock film adaptation (which I haven’t seen yet), then you’ll get an idea of the plot. Anyway, Partricia Highsmith is well-known for her psychological thrillers and her favourite thingof all is to write through the eyes of a murderer. This novel is titled Strangers On a Train - it doesn’t take a Sherlock to figure out what kind of story this is going to be!

What’s more, SOaT is funny, in a very black, wicked kind of way. The humour almost always involve Charles Bruno, the disturbed twenty-five year old mama’s boy who convinces budding architect Guy Haines to murder his father. When Guy first meets Charles (or rather Bruno, as he’s mostly referred as) on a train, there’s a huge protruding pimple on Bruno’s forehead. It’s a great image, since as their journey progresses, Guy grows more and more uncomfortable as Bruno gets a little too excited over the idea of murdering his father, and he can’t help but fixate on the glistening pimple as Bruno’s face gets shiny with sweat. Delightful!

And later on when Bruno stalks Guy’s estranged wife, his cutting thoughts made me LOL:

She was cute in a plump college-girl sort of way, but definitely second-rate, Bruno judged. The red socks with the red sandals infuriated him. How could Guy have married such a thing!

No wonder Olman enjoys Highsmith so!

How poor Guy Haines becomes gradually tortured by remorse was also done well to a fault - his guilt was always boiling under the surface, not spoiled by cheap gestures, like hand-wringing, though there were some nightmares and overwrought touches. But there were also little details, like Guy afflicted with “a slight case of diarrhoea”. Ah, only Highsmith can write about pimples and diarrhoea with such elegance and humour. Guy’s repressed guilt and Bruno’s mental deterioration reminded me a lot of what Raskolnikov underwent in Crime and Punishment. A peek in Wikipedia revealed that Dostoevsky was a major influence in her work.

The protagonists in many of Highsmith's novels are either morally compromised by circumstance or actively flouting the law. Many of her antiheroes, often emotionally unstable young men, commit murder in fits of passion, or simply to extricate themselves from a bad situation. They are just as likely to escape justice as to receive it. The works of Franz Kafka and Fyodor Dostoevsky played a significant part in her own novels.

Though this is only my third Highsmith novel, I’ll admit that SOaT is not my favourite novel of hers so far, mainly because some of the portrayals of mental deterioration and torture by guilt were overwrought at times. And she was wearing Dostoevsky on her sleeve a little too obviously. But my main concern was that I wasn’t entirely convinced of the quick-bonding relationship between Guy and Charles (the obsessive man-crush/homosexual undercurrent seems trite now, but it was the 1950’s after all á la Todd Haynes’ Far From Heaven), though each made for fascinating character study. In her later novels I found the characters’ motivations more believable when they lose it and commit heinous crimes. But SOaT was her first novel, published in 1950 when she was 29. The Talented Mr. Ripley, which I greatly admire, was her fourth novel, published five years later, and there she was already refining her own voice and style.

Book 2 – Fragile Things

By Neil Gaiman

Since this is a collection of short horror, sci-fi and dark fantasy stories and poems that have been previously published from various sources (magazines, anthologies, even a Tori Amos song lyric), the result was a very mixed bag o’ treats. I must say I was set up for major disappointment after a stunning start with the Nebula award-winning "A Study in Emerald" - a Sherlock Holmes/Cthulhu Mythos pastiche which left me excited to dip into the next story (I didn’t bother much with the poems). However, nothing really came close to that first story.

The next interesting tale wasn’t until several stories later, almost halfway thru the book. “Other People” was only a few pages but it was effective and memorable. The next promising story “Keepsakes and Treasures”, had me flipping thru a few pages to remember what it was about. An interesting enough premise at first: a young man exacts revenge for his mother who was raped by several men while committed in an asylum, then comes under the radar of a mysterious but powerful Mr. Alice. But sadly, what promised to be an exciting adventure for this anti-hero fizzled out at the end with a lame pseudo-myth about the most beautiful male youth in the world.

Other tales I enjoyed were "Harlequin Valentine" (but like “Keepsakes and Treasures” had a 'hard' start but 'soft' ending), "Feeders and Eaters" (traditional yet effective horror story), "How to Talk to Girls at Parties" (playful twist on the hot alien females preying on teenaged boys idea), "Sunbird" about a group of gourmands called The Epicurean Club who get a real treat when they feast on a rare Egyptian bird (quite a good fantasy story but is it because Gaiman was emulating another writer? R. A. Lafferty supposedly) and the novella The Monarch of the Glen, which is supposedly a sequel to American Gods (which I remember one of the 50-bookers was meh about – was it Print is Dead?).

At the start of the story, I was surprised to see that Gaiman name-checks Angela Carter with a quote from her short “The Lady of the House of Love”. Yes, it makes sense, as I can see Carter’s influence on Gaiman. But again, none of the stories matched "A Study in Emerald" in story crafting. It seems the stories that have won recognition were ones which involved Gaiman emulating other writers. Hmm, I’m just saying….

Gaiman explains the title Fragile Things: "Stories, like people and butterflies and songbirds' eggs and human hearts and dreams, are fragile things, made up of nothing stronger or more lasting than twenty-six letters and a handful of punctuation marks." I have to say I agree, as his stories tend to be very vague and fleeting, like gossamer threads. I tend toward short stories that are tightly structured with a concrete idea. But this fragile take on writing made many of the stories feel rather half-baked.

Gaiman is a good writer who can spin a good yarn when he wants to, but there seems to be something missing. Carter was known for writing about dark fantastic things seething beneath ordinary reality and had a dreamy, feverish prose style, but she also had a way of concretizing her worlds which Gaiman seems to have more difficulty doing. Perhaps this is the problem. Amusing like a flight of fancy, if you're in the right mood, but nothing to really sink your teeth into. In any case, the overall result was meh, and I’m in no hurry to read any more Gaiman for now.

Book 1 – Maus: A Survivor's Tale

By Art Spiegelman A Christmas gift from my brother in which Volume 1 and 11 came in a nice box set. It was the perfect gift as I hadn’t yet read the Pulitzer winning graphic novel and had been meaning to for some time, but was in no hurry. 

I guess for many people who have never experienced war or its ramifications, it seemed like the past few decades we've been an over-saturation by media pertaining to WWII, Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. Maus seemed like one of many. I think there was an interview where even Spiegelman was wondering at the same thing while creating Maus, whether we needed another Holocaust survivor story. 

 After reading Maus, the answer was a resounding yes. And yes for the obvious reasons, one being an important personal document about surviving the horror of war. Another to learn from history so we don't repeat the same mistakes. 

I only started reading Maus right away because its comic format was more appealing than having to read another vague Neil Gaiman short story (see Fragile Things). At first, I was dubious about using different animal species to represent the various races: mice for the Jews, cats for the Germans, pigs for the Polish, etc. I was thinking, wouldn’t using people’s faces be more realistic and impactful? But after a while, I got used to it and realized later that this device did work in a surreal (and yes, symbolic) way that got under your skin. And then the very human life story of Spiegelman’s father, Vladek, was incredibly absorbing and moving. 

 One evening, after taking my parents out for New Year’s dinner at an upscale Chinese restaurant in Richmond, I had trouble sleeping, which always happens when I over-indulge on rich food the evening before. I didn’t want to wake Olman so I went to the living room to finish reading the last volume of Maus. It quickly dawned on me that reading Maus with a belly full of lobster in foie gras sauce felt like a weirdly uncomfortable contradiction. But as a consummate consumer, I had to finish it. 

 Afterwards, my sleep was still fitful and images of Nazi felines and terrified mice haunted me for the rest of the night! I guess that served me right. Still, Spiegelman's expressive artwork lingers and his father's story is something that won't be easily forgotten.

Year End Wrap Up!

34 books - a new record where I'm closer to 50 than ever before!

It helps having settled down into marriage, and not having kids (yet?). I have also discovered that our local and mostly francophone thrift shop has a pretty good English book section, and I have found a few more while perusing new and used book shops in Berkeley, San Francisco, Toronto, Amsterdam, Seattle and Vancouver. I now have a shitload of books on my on deck shelf to get through for 2011, like at least 20-25!

I don't know if I'll surpass 34 this year, but I already have three down for 2011.

Looking forward to reading more and more and seeing a few long dormant 50-bookers coming out of hibernation!

Book 34 – To Kill A Mockingbird

By Harper Lee

I came across this article about how To Kill A Mockingbird is America’s most overrated book, which reminded me that I still haven’t read it. Luckily, last month while in Seattle, I picked up a cheap copy at a cute used bookshop at Pike Place Market.

Naturally, it is quite easy to hate on a widely popular Pulitzer Prize-winning classic that has been such an endearing influence and favourite amongst white Liberal elites and idealistic law students. Especially when you have Hollywood celebrity types like Bruce Willis and Demi Moore, who named their second child after the girl character Scout (which was actually a nickname), or Jake Gyllenhaal who named his two dogs Atticus Finch and Boo Radley.

The Allen Barra article makes some pretty valid points:

• Its sentiments and moral grandeur are as unimpeachable as the character of its hero, Atticus. He is an idealized version of Ms. Lee's father … Atticus bears an uncanny resemblance to another pillar of moral authority—the Thomas More depicted in Robert Bolt's "A Man for All Seasons"… Atticus does not become a martyr for his cause like Sir Thomas, but he is the only saint in a courtroom full of the weak, the foolish and the wicked. And like Sir Thomas, Atticus gets all the best lines.

• In all great novels there is some quality of moral ambiguity, some potentially controversial element that keeps the book from being easily grasped or explained... There is no ambiguity in "To Kill a Mockingbird"; at the end of the book, we know exactly what we knew at the beginning: that Atticus Finch is a good man, that Tom Robinson was an innocent victim of racism, and that lynching is bad. As Thomas Mallon wrote in a 2006 story in The New Yorker, the book acts as "an ungainsayable endorser of the obvious."

• Harper Lee's contemporary and fellow Southerner Flannery O'Connor (and a far worthier subject for high-school reading lists) once made a killing observation about "To Kill a Mockingbird": "It's interesting that all the folks that are buying it don't know they are reading a children's book."

I agree with all these points, but I still very much enjoyed TKAMB. Sure the novel had some of that “bloodless liberal humanism” which seems a bit dated now, but it was also extremely engaging human drama that hit all the right notes of childhood wish-fulfillment and romantic sentimentality. It's the equivalent of watching a really good Oscar-contending Hollywood film. If I were in my early teens I probably would have loved this book. So I don’t understand the full intent of this article. Yes, it may be overrated as a great work of classic American literature, but it is definitely a very American book. And wasn’t TKAMB always considered a children’s (or young adult) book? Isn’t this why it’s still required reading for junior high school English in America? And can you fault a book for inspiring generations of lawyers and civil rights activists, no matter how idealistic it is? Maybe we should just hate the unimaginative celebs who like to name their babies and pets after their fave TKAMB characters!

Book 33 – Pride & Prejudice

By Jane Austen

I remember how one of my Arts One professors professed, in her introduction of Austen’s most famous novel, that she was an Austen fan who made a point of re-reading Pride & Prejudice every year or two. At the time, I was like, whatever, but now I can kind of see what she meant. Though I wouldn’t read P&P every two years, it was definitely a delight and a treat to revisit this after 17 years, especially having read the silly mashup Pride & Prejudice & Zombies and having finally watched the 2005 film adaptation, which wasn’t bad considering my skepticism of the casting. Also helped that I found this Dover Thrift paperback for a buck in the P section at old reliable Chainon.

This year will be Napoleonic era year as I have several Austen classics and Patrick O’Brian Aubrey-Mathurin installments to get through on my every growing on-deck shelf. Very excited about 2011!