Book Eighteen: The Lace Reader
Finished: March 30
Pages: 385
I was drawn to this book when wandering around Borders with a 40% coupon burning a hole in my pocket. Since they didn't have the book that I wanted to buy, I thought I would just look around and pick up something that struck my fancy. The cover, of a woman standing in water, with lace around the edges of the book, was intriguing, and reminds me a lot of other books that I have read and enjoyed in the past, mostly the ones by Alice Hoffman (Don't judge, I was young!). In retrospect, I feel that I should have maybe looked a little further for a better book, maybe one that I would not have thrown across the room.
At first, and even up to half way through the book I really enjoyed the narration, the description, and the supernatural aspects of the book. The idea of reading lace: telling someone's fortune by looking at them through a veil of lace is interesting, and more unique than reading palms or Tarot cards. I also liked the atmosphere of Salem, with tourism encouraging witchcraft in a town that once killed "witches" although it could be an accurate depiction of Salem, I wouldn't know.
I will be perfectly honest with you. If you judge a book as "good" by your inability to put it down, then this book is certainly "good" by that standard. Usually when I say that I couldn't put the book down, at the end of the review I would talk about how much I liked the book and would recommend it to others. I literally could not stop reading this book, because I had to know more about what was going on. This book was often confusing, and ultimately made me so angry I couldn't think straight. At the end of the book I felt very betrayed, because although I had picked up on the fact that my narrator was unreliable (she admits to being in a psychiatric ward) I still did not expect the lies to be so all-encompassing. Honestly, I feel like I have read something similar a few years ago, where the narrator is such a liar that you don't even realize that whole characters are completely made up. It made me hate the narrator, because now I'm not sure what is and isn't real, and why some characters would be willing to die for her. It just didn't make sense.
Good Reading,
Caitlin
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Book Seventeen: The Sparrow
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
Finished: March 28
Pages: 405
I’ve been sitting here for about fifteen minutes just waiting to have the words to talk about this book without sounding ridiculous. After going a month of reading purely academic essays, and then reading the campy hilarity that was The Somnambulist, it was a definite change to read The Sparrow, a story of what would happen if we found life on another planet and wanted to contact that life. The religious aspect of the book is that the mission to this planet is funded and populated by several Jesuit priests, whose response to new life was “Let’s go meet ‘em” The book begins with Father Emilio Sandoz as the only survivor of the mission to this planet, and it takes until the very end of the book for him to tell his story, both in the “present day” of the book at an inquiry, and through flashbacks told through the eyes of the different mission members.
The hardest part of this book is that you fall in love with so many of the characters, but you also know form the very beginning that they are all going to die. This isn’t fair. If everyone is going to die, you should be able to create a space between you and the characters. You shouldn’t think to yourself “I would like to meet/be friends with/simply be like these people.” You shouldn’t like them, or laugh at their jokes or enjoy watching them fall in love. It’s not fair. And I did. I like all these characters, especially Anne and George Edwards, these mid-50-somethings who are just so outgoing and hilarious. Let me give some examples. The first comes from your first interaction between Anne and Emilio, who at this point is her Latin professor.
Or this:
“And yet,” Emilio said, “you behave like a good and moral person.”
He expected an explosion and he got it. She threw her fork down with a clatter on the plate and sad back. “You know what? I really resent the idea that the only reason someone might be good or moral is because they’re religious. I do what I do,” Anne said, biting off each word “without hope of reward or fear of punishment. I do not require heaven or hell to bribe or scare me into acting decently, thank you very much.”
Sometimes all the characters seemed a bit contrived, that everything came together too easily and cleanly. It's just to convenient that they had everything they needed, and everyone they needed in order to take a spaceship many light years away to Alpha Centauri: a person to be the doctor, and the linguist, and the ship captain, and the person who found the songs through the radio waves in the first place-"turtles put on fenceposts" they called it in the book, and that, therefore, it must have been designed by God. The final question of the book is, if God was behind all the good things, was he also behind the many ways in which the mission went wrong? Emilio spends the entire book trying to keep the truth away from his Father Superior because, he fears, that the truth will make them lose their faith much as he seems to have lost his, although the other priests on the trip with him are convinced that Emilio may very well be a saint. And I can see why they would have thought that at the time, and why Emilio, after all his suffering, would rage against that label as much as he possibly could. The book reminded me a lot of the movie Contact, and Emilio's struggle did have some parallels.
It was a difficult and dense read, and the subject matter and horrors it contained did not make it easier. I do think that it is a good modern sci-fi twist on the question of what would happen if we were faced with a "New World" to encounter and explore. I could certainly see that we would have similar difficulties were this to actually happen. And I could certainly see the Jesuits standing ready to be the first to go.
At the very end of the book, we discover the reason for the title:
“Matthew ten, verse twenty-nine,” Vincenzo Guiliani said quietly. “ ‘Not one sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it.’ “
“But the sparrow still falls,” Felipe said.
And the sparrow was Emilio Sandoz, Jesuit priest from the slums of Puerto Rico, who survived when he would have wished to die, and who was forced to tell the story of how he found and then lost his faith, and in doing so came even closer to God.
Good Reading,
Caitlin
Finished: March 28
Pages: 405
I’ve been sitting here for about fifteen minutes just waiting to have the words to talk about this book without sounding ridiculous. After going a month of reading purely academic essays, and then reading the campy hilarity that was The Somnambulist, it was a definite change to read The Sparrow, a story of what would happen if we found life on another planet and wanted to contact that life. The religious aspect of the book is that the mission to this planet is funded and populated by several Jesuit priests, whose response to new life was “Let’s go meet ‘em” The book begins with Father Emilio Sandoz as the only survivor of the mission to this planet, and it takes until the very end of the book for him to tell his story, both in the “present day” of the book at an inquiry, and through flashbacks told through the eyes of the different mission members.
The hardest part of this book is that you fall in love with so many of the characters, but you also know form the very beginning that they are all going to die. This isn’t fair. If everyone is going to die, you should be able to create a space between you and the characters. You shouldn’t think to yourself “I would like to meet/be friends with/simply be like these people.” You shouldn’t like them, or laugh at their jokes or enjoy watching them fall in love. It’s not fair. And I did. I like all these characters, especially Anne and George Edwards, these mid-50-somethings who are just so outgoing and hilarious. Let me give some examples. The first comes from your first interaction between Anne and Emilio, who at this point is her Latin professor.
“Are you allowed out of your room at night?” she asked. “Or do all the cute ones like you have a curfew until they’re senile?”
He flicked the ash off an air cigar and waggled his eyebrows. “What did you have in mind?”
“Well, I considered suggesting that we shatter our vows and run away to Mexico for a weekend of lust, but I’ve got homework,” she said, shouting the last word, “because some sonofabitch Latin prof thinks we should learn ablative way too soon, in my humble opinion, so why don’t you just come over for dinner on Friday night?”
Leaning back against his chair, he looked up at her with frank admiration. “Madam. How could I resist an invitation like that?” he asked. And leaning forward, “Will your husband be there?”
“Yes, dammit, but he’s very liberal and tolerant person,” Anne assured him, grinning, “And he falls asleep early.”
Or this:
“And yet,” Emilio said, “you behave like a good and moral person.”
He expected an explosion and he got it. She threw her fork down with a clatter on the plate and sad back. “You know what? I really resent the idea that the only reason someone might be good or moral is because they’re religious. I do what I do,” Anne said, biting off each word “without hope of reward or fear of punishment. I do not require heaven or hell to bribe or scare me into acting decently, thank you very much.”
Sometimes all the characters seemed a bit contrived, that everything came together too easily and cleanly. It's just to convenient that they had everything they needed, and everyone they needed in order to take a spaceship many light years away to Alpha Centauri: a person to be the doctor, and the linguist, and the ship captain, and the person who found the songs through the radio waves in the first place-"turtles put on fenceposts" they called it in the book, and that, therefore, it must have been designed by God. The final question of the book is, if God was behind all the good things, was he also behind the many ways in which the mission went wrong? Emilio spends the entire book trying to keep the truth away from his Father Superior because, he fears, that the truth will make them lose their faith much as he seems to have lost his, although the other priests on the trip with him are convinced that Emilio may very well be a saint. And I can see why they would have thought that at the time, and why Emilio, after all his suffering, would rage against that label as much as he possibly could. The book reminded me a lot of the movie Contact, and Emilio's struggle did have some parallels.
It was a difficult and dense read, and the subject matter and horrors it contained did not make it easier. I do think that it is a good modern sci-fi twist on the question of what would happen if we were faced with a "New World" to encounter and explore. I could certainly see that we would have similar difficulties were this to actually happen. And I could certainly see the Jesuits standing ready to be the first to go.
At the very end of the book, we discover the reason for the title:
“Matthew ten, verse twenty-nine,” Vincenzo Guiliani said quietly. “ ‘Not one sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it.’ “
“But the sparrow still falls,” Felipe said.
And the sparrow was Emilio Sandoz, Jesuit priest from the slums of Puerto Rico, who survived when he would have wished to die, and who was forced to tell the story of how he found and then lost his faith, and in doing so came even closer to God.
Good Reading,
Caitlin
Book Sixteen: The Somnambulist
Book Sixteen: The Somnambulist
Pages: 353
Finished: March 25
I really, really liked this book. I don’t think I can fully articulate why I liked this book so much, but god, it was just so entertaining. Just as the narrator says on the very first page, “Be warned. This book has no literary merit whatsoever. It is a lurid piece of nonsense, convoluted, implausible, peopled by unconvincing characters, written in drearily pedestrian prose, frequently ridiculous and wilfully bizarre.”, but that doesn’t stop it from being a wildly entertaining page turner that was methodically researched and ridiculously funny. There came a point that I was glad my students were reading articles just so I could finish the thing. I loved all the literary allusions: Coleridge, and Shelley, and Wilde. Not to mention that I was thinking of Robert Downey Jr.'s Sherlock Holmes doing magic for the entire book. I don’t think that I can tell you all the things that I loved without spoiling the mystery of the book completely.
Oh wait, I forgot, I don’t care about spoiling things for you, my illustrious fans, because, to be honest, you have all read the book.
Anyhow, I loved the narrator, and I loved the narrator’s twisting nature. When you find out the true identity of the narrator? I nearly dropped the book and my jaw, I almost yelled out loud. I wasn’t expecting it at all. I think mostly because I was reading without really thinking about the bigger picture, instead just enjoying being wound up in the mystery. There were many times when I stared at the book in confusion but then it always resolved itself, though I am still confused about so many things, but we will talk about that in a bit.
Here are some of my favorite parts of the book:
On page 194, I love this exchange between Inspector Merryweather and Mr. Moon:
“Coleridge,” Moon said mysteriously.
“Is there some significance?”
“Are you a poetry-lover, Inspector?”
“Not seen a word of the stuff since school.”
“Then at least you’ve learnt one valuable lesson today.”
“What’s that?”
“Read more.”
Later that evening, lulled by the rhythmic snoring of his wife, just as he was about to go to sleep, Inspector Merryweather would think of rather an amusing retort to this. But he would know that the moment had passed, and would roll over instead and hope for pleasant dreams.
I also loved the tone of voice that the narrator employs:
“Forgive me if the above sounds condescending—I add this last detail only for the benefit of the ignorant and for tourists. I should hope my readers educated enough to recognize the significance of Wren’s achievement without it being explained to them, but regrettably it remains the case that one must always make allowances for dullards. I cannot police the readers of this manuscript and it is a sad and tragic truth that I have never yet succeeded in underestimating the intelligence of the general public” (92). I mean, how great is that? I also love that he blatantly lies to the reader on more than one occasion, and I find myself liking characters either in spite of his warnings, or because of his little warnings throughout the book. For example, when he says that we will like the albino before the end of the book, I find myself liking him in spite of his proclivities toward arson and intimidation. I also found myself liking Mr. Moon, himself, just to spite the narrator.
The characters of Hawker and Boon were disturbing and twisted, and yet I found the Prefects to be very funny, which it would seem, would be quite the mistake to make were I to ever meet these two characters. They were easy to picture, and they were easy to see as the dues ex machina that even they professed (accurately, I might add) to be.
I enjoyed Mr. Cribb, whose very existence confuses and baffles me much as it did Mr. Moon. Is the ugly little man the spirit of the city, or something else entirely? Why does he live life backwards? I don’t know and I dearly wish to, much as I feel about many parts of the book. Why are so many things left unexplained? Like Barrabas, and how he once was Moon’s partner, and then the Fiend? Why is the book called The Somnambulist? Who is the Somnambulist anyway? What was up with the end of the book. I need explanations, Mr. Barnes! I want to know so much more, but instead we get all these little glimpses into all the little lives of all these little characters that, in the end are either completely valuable and you are glad to know them, or they are completely invaluable, and you never know until the very end.
Good Reading,
Caitlin
Pages: 353
Finished: March 25
I really, really liked this book. I don’t think I can fully articulate why I liked this book so much, but god, it was just so entertaining. Just as the narrator says on the very first page, “Be warned. This book has no literary merit whatsoever. It is a lurid piece of nonsense, convoluted, implausible, peopled by unconvincing characters, written in drearily pedestrian prose, frequently ridiculous and wilfully bizarre.”, but that doesn’t stop it from being a wildly entertaining page turner that was methodically researched and ridiculously funny. There came a point that I was glad my students were reading articles just so I could finish the thing. I loved all the literary allusions: Coleridge, and Shelley, and Wilde. Not to mention that I was thinking of Robert Downey Jr.'s Sherlock Holmes doing magic for the entire book. I don’t think that I can tell you all the things that I loved without spoiling the mystery of the book completely.
Oh wait, I forgot, I don’t care about spoiling things for you, my illustrious fans, because, to be honest, you have all read the book.
Anyhow, I loved the narrator, and I loved the narrator’s twisting nature. When you find out the true identity of the narrator? I nearly dropped the book and my jaw, I almost yelled out loud. I wasn’t expecting it at all. I think mostly because I was reading without really thinking about the bigger picture, instead just enjoying being wound up in the mystery. There were many times when I stared at the book in confusion but then it always resolved itself, though I am still confused about so many things, but we will talk about that in a bit.
Here are some of my favorite parts of the book:
On page 194, I love this exchange between Inspector Merryweather and Mr. Moon:
“Coleridge,” Moon said mysteriously.
“Is there some significance?”
“Are you a poetry-lover, Inspector?”
“Not seen a word of the stuff since school.”
“Then at least you’ve learnt one valuable lesson today.”
“What’s that?”
“Read more.”
Later that evening, lulled by the rhythmic snoring of his wife, just as he was about to go to sleep, Inspector Merryweather would think of rather an amusing retort to this. But he would know that the moment had passed, and would roll over instead and hope for pleasant dreams.
I also loved the tone of voice that the narrator employs:
“Forgive me if the above sounds condescending—I add this last detail only for the benefit of the ignorant and for tourists. I should hope my readers educated enough to recognize the significance of Wren’s achievement without it being explained to them, but regrettably it remains the case that one must always make allowances for dullards. I cannot police the readers of this manuscript and it is a sad and tragic truth that I have never yet succeeded in underestimating the intelligence of the general public” (92). I mean, how great is that? I also love that he blatantly lies to the reader on more than one occasion, and I find myself liking characters either in spite of his warnings, or because of his little warnings throughout the book. For example, when he says that we will like the albino before the end of the book, I find myself liking him in spite of his proclivities toward arson and intimidation. I also found myself liking Mr. Moon, himself, just to spite the narrator.
The characters of Hawker and Boon were disturbing and twisted, and yet I found the Prefects to be very funny, which it would seem, would be quite the mistake to make were I to ever meet these two characters. They were easy to picture, and they were easy to see as the dues ex machina that even they professed (accurately, I might add) to be.
I enjoyed Mr. Cribb, whose very existence confuses and baffles me much as it did Mr. Moon. Is the ugly little man the spirit of the city, or something else entirely? Why does he live life backwards? I don’t know and I dearly wish to, much as I feel about many parts of the book. Why are so many things left unexplained? Like Barrabas, and how he once was Moon’s partner, and then the Fiend? Why is the book called The Somnambulist? Who is the Somnambulist anyway? What was up with the end of the book. I need explanations, Mr. Barnes! I want to know so much more, but instead we get all these little glimpses into all the little lives of all these little characters that, in the end are either completely valuable and you are glad to know them, or they are completely invaluable, and you never know until the very end.
Good Reading,
Caitlin
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