My apologies to The Girl*

I don’t know how to say this, exactly. I don’t mean to be contrary, and I’m not looking to get all “mavericky” or anything. But I have to admit it, because I swore that if I was going to write a book blog I was going to be completely honest about my opinions. So here goes.

I didn’t enjoy The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

There, I’ve said it.

It's not you, Girl. It's me. I just don't find carnage enjoyable.

To be exact, I didn’t enjoy two out of the three main storylines that comprise Stieg Larsson’s preternaturally popular novel. Actually, I thought the Wennerström story, the industrial corruption storyline that got our hero Mikael Blomkvist into so much trouble in the first place, was very well conceived and executed. If the book had focused on that line, it might have been one of my favorite books of the summer -- clever and confusing, in a very good way.

But the book didn't focus on that storyline. Instead, it wandered into some places I just don't really want to think about. I found the Vanger family storyline unnecessarily creepy and violent. And the storyline involving Lisbeth Salander’s evil guardian was absolutely disgusting.

(Larsson paints a very ugly picture of Swedish society. I’ve been to Sweden, and met such lovely people there. But after I finished this novel I was wondering if I hadn’t been lucky to escape Stockholm with my life.)

The plot moves along quickly, and the main characters are so compelling that you want to know what happens next. But from a storytelling standpoint, I found Larsson’s use of italics completely distracting. It’s as though he didn’t trust the reader:

“I’m serious Lisbeth. About splitting the money.”
“I’m serious too. I only want to borrow it, and I need it tomorrow.”
She didn’t even ask how much her share would be. (Kindle p. 9726)

I know she didn’t ask how much her share would be, because I was just party to the entire conversation. What ever happened to “show, don’t tell?” Maybe it's a translation issue, but it struck me as odd.

Obviously, the world hasn’t gone nuts over this novel for nothing though, and there are a lot of things to like here. One of them is Mikael Blomkvist, a journalist convicted of libel by a system that favors industry. God knows journalism could use a champion right about now, and Blomkvist might fit the bill. Larsson makes him a kind of Sam Spade without a gun. He has a shady personal life, but you get the idea that he’ll do the right thing in the end.

Master hacker Lisbeth Salander is the most unique character in the book. And I imagine she is responsible in large part for the book's worldwide appeal --there just isn't another character like her. She goes from victim to avenging angel to super spy in the course of the novel. I think the best part of the subsequent books would be watching that character grow. But considering what Larsson put her through in this book, I'm not sure I want to know what happens next.

As a mystery, this was a page turner, and if you don't mind the gore, I imagine this would be a really good read. But I don't think my stomach can handle another installment.

Sorry, Girl.

*I've been using the "Girl" reference for the series since I read it on "How Mysterious," so thanks, Karen.

Summer reading wrap-up, and some plans for autumn

The calendar says I can wear white shoes for another week or so, but back-to-school means "autumn" to me, and with a couple of my reading challenges winding down, it's time to evaluate how I did on my reading goals this summer. Short answer: Not too bad at all.

My first goal was to enjoy reading for pleasure again. That may seem a bit looney, but after six years on the tenure track, I had gotten into the very sad habit of thinking of reading as a chore. And let's face it, it can be if you only associate it with work, work, work. Or even worse, when you associate it with guilt because you ought to be working. (You'd think as a stupendously lapsed Catholic I could discard the guilt, but it appears to be the one thing that stuck.) This summer I enacted what I already knew -- I am better at working when I actually make time to do little things for myself, like read or take a walk, or play a game of Scrabble with my daughter. My TBR pile is a source of potential pleasure, not anxiety. Even now that the semester has started, I'm still making time for reading. The joy is back. Goal one accomplished.

My second goal was to expand my reading horizons. I took two positive steps toward that goal. First, I joined a couple of different reading challenges: fitting books into the challenges introduced me to reviews of books across a wide range of genres, and by a variety of authors that were completely new to me. I've benefitted from the regional challenges in particular: the Japanese Literature Challenge 4 and the Scandinavian Reading Challenge were responsible for my two favorite books of the summer, Banana Yoshimoto's Kitchen and Tove Jansson's The Summer Book. (Okay, I also read a couple of lousy books, but the good books more than made up for them.)

As my second step toward widening my horizons, I started participating in discussions about books. I found some book blogs I really like to read. Checking my Blogger Dashboard with a cup of coffee has become part of my day -- a part I really enjoy. I owe a great portion of my current TBR pile to the insights provided in the thoughtful reviews of many book bloggers, and I'm really thankful for that. (I'm also thankful that I have access to one of the world's largest university library systems, but that's another blogpost altogether.) So I'd describe the state of my second goal as "progressing well." You can always be more "expansive," right?

So what's up next? After all, this is a blog about what I'm doing when I ought to be grading. With the papers about to roll in, I need to shore up my procrastination skills. Not to worry: I am happy to report my grading avoidance strategies for the fall will be many and varied!

• Number 1: Complete the challenges I've started, and find some interesting new ones. I've already started on this goal. I have three Scandinavian titles left to blog about, one of which I've already read. I'll probably add two more to the Japanese Literature Challenge as well (I'm Yoshimoto-obsessed, so thanks, Meredith). I've also joined the Middle East Reading Challenge over at Helen's Book Blog. For that challenge, I'm hoping to read at least 4 books from across the region: one from Israel, one from Lebanon, one from Egypt and one from Iran. If anyone has any suggestions for titles, I would love to hear them.

• Number 2: Participate in a read-along. I've read posts about read-alongs, but haven't done one yet. Since I haven't found a book club in State College, I feel like I might really enjoy this. One thing I know for certain about myself is deadlines keep me honest. Once I attach a date to something, I can usually do it -- not early, but at least on time. Again, any suggestions are appreciated.

• Number 3: Be a better blogger. I'm pretty new at this, but I already realize my site could be better. I'm going to work on designing some new pages and some indexing. I also plan to update more often. I only have a few, highly valued followers, and they deserve something new to look at more often than I've been providing it. I'm thinking four posts a week. Might be too much, but at least it's a goal!

We'll see how it goes.

Even when you hate a book you learn something

This summer, in my post-tenure euphoria, I have dedicated myself to expanding my reading horizons: meeting new authors, sampling new genres, and, most gratifying, making a few new friends along the way. One of the ways I have pushed my boundaries is by joining some reading challenges, including the voluminous Summer 2010 Reading Challenge at Goodreads. I figured reading the reviews of favorite books was a great way to expand my own TBR list.

This is how I first encountered the term “cozy murder.” Certainly, I read some Miss Marple books as a kid, and I watched Jessica Fletcher solve the murders of the Cabot Cove natives, who were slaughtered at a seemingly higher rate than Maine’s summer mosquito population. But I didn’t know there was A) a name for this kind of light mystery, and B) a proliferation of series in this “by women, for women mayhem” vein. My feminist sensibilities were intrigued, and I do love a good mystery now and then, so I tracked down one of the most ballyhooed series – the Hannah Swensen mysteries by Joanne Fluke – and got busy with The Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder.

But this post is not a rant about a poorly conceptualized and overly written beach book. (My alter-ego, Acerbi-Col, might have to share this sentence about the cat: "Moishe's favorite activities when she was gone were eating and napping." Really? Do I need to know this? Now if Moishe played the concertina, that would be worth mentioning. But napping? A cat? You get the idea.) Instead, today’s post is about accepting that there are some roads you just haven’t taken, and aren’t going to take. Some groups you can never be part of. Some jokes you are never going to get. And that’s actually okay with me, finally.

Is that a leap from forcing myself to read one (admittedly, well-loved) book from a whole genre? I guess so. My first reaction after finishing The Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder was this: “What am I not getting?” If thousands of people like this kind of thing, why can’t I enjoy it? But as I mulled it over, my reaction quickly evolved to this: “What do I need from reading that this book didn’t provide?” And that’s a much better question. Because there’s a difference between testing boundaries and wasting time. And the things I’m looking for – a deeper understanding of culture and family and womanhood and people’s inner struggles to do the decent thing in a wicked world – just can’t be found in some parts of the book publishing world.

Net result? Time to cull the TBR list. I’ll build it up again carefully, reading reviews and thinking about my objectives for reading – and not be influenced by the questionable wisdom of crowds. And no more reading a book just to fit it into a challenge. Life’s too short, and there are a lot of great authors out there with new takes on the age-old problems of living in a complex society. It’s not like comedy is off the list, or even absurdity. I just want my time to be well spent.

Stealing Buddha’s Dinner: Food as Culture

Bich Minh Nguyen’s Stealing Buddha’s Dinner is a memoir of one Vietnamese refugee’s path to self discovery, oriented around food. Nguyen hardly remembers the time before she lived in America – her father escaped the fall of Saigon with her older sister, her grandmother and two uncles when she was just two. Her life in Grand Rapids, Michigan, continues to be dominated by her outsider status long after she has lost the ability to speak fluent Vietnamese, however. The idea behind the memoir is to reflect on the author’s evolving conceptions of family, cohesion and identity through the one element of culture most accessible to outsiders: food.

A lot of the book focuses on what Nguyen is not: mostly, she is not white. And in her youthful view, white would be better. Conveniently (perhaps too conveniently), her frustration at not being American enough is in direct juxtaposition to the feelings of her 1st generation La Raza stepmother, who eschews everything “white.”

But Rosa didn’t want to be like the Vander Wals next door. She called the Midwestern dinners bland, sticking out her tongue for emphasis.” (p. 52)

As a communications scholar, I was particularly interested in the way media constructed Nguyen’s world. She does share some remembrances of media, but they do more to catalog the television commercials of the late 70s than to illuminate Nguyen’s feelings toward them, for the most part. There are some gems of self-reflection scattered through the text, however:

To me, life in commercials was real. Commercials were instructions; they were news. They showed me what perfection could be: in the right woman’s hands, the layers of a cake would be exactly the same size. In the right woman’s kitchen, a cartoon rabbit would visit the children and show them how to slurp down a tall glass of Nestle Quik with a straw. A shaken cruet would spill a stream of Good Seasons over hills of lettuce leaves. Commercials had a firm definition of motherhood, which almost all of my friends’ mothers had no trouble fulfilling.” (p.125)

That’s the kind of perspective-driven self-reflection I would have liked to have read more about. Instead, I found the food metaphor grew thin, and finally stretched toward incredulity. In trying to present her young self, Nguyen tried to divorce herself from the present, and her current realization of self in a multi-cultural America. But without knowing where she wound up, the memoir had less resonance.

Bottom line: because of my love of both food and culture, I wanted to love this book, but I only liked it. This is a good book. Nguyen is a talented writer. I would recommend it to anyone looking for a personal memoir of contemporary America. I just wish the author had dug a bit deeper, and offered more adult perspective – what does she think of living in the United States now? One hopes her conceptualization of being “white” has evolved as much as her conceptualization of being “American” or “Vietnamese-American,” but Nguyen never deals with anything but the caricatures. Her thesis remains undeveloped. The fact is we can only imagine the children we were. Who we are now seems so much more important.

Independent People: A rock-hard view of the human condition

Where to start with a novel whose main character starts out disagreeable and winds up almost monstrous—a novel that despite its main character’s obvious faults is still impossible to put down? This is my problem with Halldor Laxness’ Independent People. Reading it was worthwhile and even fascinating, but it was not enjoyable in any traditional sense. In fact, I suspect the ruggedness and hopelessness of the book was the author’s intention, capturing the plight of Iceland’s early 20th century croft farmers, many of whom endured lives of tremendous hardship to free themselves from the debts they were forced to incur to farm their own land.

Bjartur of Summerhouses insists on his family’s independence –independence ironically handed to him by a wealthy landowning family who needed to marry off a servant made pregnant by their son. He wields his independence like a weapon, bludgeoning dissent and enslaving his children. In fact, independence, in the form of his sheep, is Bjartur’s only loyalty. His actions lead to the deaths of both his wives and one of his sons, yet he counts himself virtuous because of his fidelity to his own independence. He is pitiless, but never pitiable, which makes the book hard to like.

And yet I actually did like it. The author’s storytelling is detailed, and yet spare, like the countryside I imagine it captures. But what was most interesting was the way the author was able to articulate his very sophisticated world view so powerfully through the lives of these obscure, desperately poor people. Laxness’ mistrust of government is a recurring theme:

To be poor is simply the peculiar human condition of not being able to take advantage of a generous offer. The essence of being a poor peasant is the inability to avail oneself of the gifts that politicians offer or promise and to be left at the mercy of ideas that only make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

The book manages to expound on organized religion, war, international trade, healthcare and sexual mores. No wonder it is often described as a modern “epic.” But from my point of view, it’s more an “anti-epic.” Rather than relating great deeds and expansive travels with broad strokes, it depicts commonplace occurrences in one very small part of the world in intimate, minute detail. The effect is the same, however: Independent People, like all epics, is at its heart a rendering of the human condition, in all its sadness, fear, anxiety, and hope. It won’t make you smile, but it will make you think. I highly recommend spending the time on this novel.

Wives and Daughters: Accessible Victorian

Like so many American public high school graduates, my knowledge of Victorian literature can basically be summed up in one word: Dickens. I have nothing against Charles Dickens. A Tale of Two Cities is a classic for a reason: it’s a really great story of love and lust and revenge, once you get past the archaic writing style. But one thing I remember hating about Dickens’ writing was the pathetic characterizations of women. Lucy Manette fainted at every important juncture of her life. Nell Trent’s saccharine persona induced nausea. The female villains were more interesting: both Madame DeFarge and Miss Havisham are iconic baddies, but only Miss Havisham can claim any kind of complexity. So when I saw SRC task 20.3, which required reading a Victorian era novel, I decided that expanding my definition of “Victorian literature” might be the key to actually enjoying the task.

Enter Elizabeth Gaskell, like her friend Dickens a writer who was originally published in serial format. Looking through the reviews, I settled on her last novel, Wives and Daughters, because I liked the descriptions of the female characters – words like “feisty,” “scandalous,” “conniving,” and “imperious” sounded promising. Again, by going outside of my comfort zone I have been rewarded.

Wives and Daughters is the story of Molly Gibson, the motherless daughter of a well-respected country doctor. When Molly becomes the object of affection of one of her father’s medical students, her father decides that he needs a woman in the house to manage the proprieties. So he marries Hyacinth (Clare) Fitzpatrick, a widow who was once the governess of the local lord’s children. Mr. Gibson considers her a very good match because she has a daughter, Cynthia, who is just a bit older than Molly. However, Molly’s one previous interaction with the doctor’s new wife indicates that her character is less caring and generous than it appears on first glance.

Gaskell puts the day-to-day life of women at the forefront of Wives and Daughters, and the detailed descriptions of their routines, chores and meetings provide a kind of social history of the period. A tremendous amount of time was spent on chores; even more seems to have been spent on communications, either in person or by letter. It’s clear from the book that people considered making visits and providing interesting conversation both a virtue and a duty. But what really struck me was how the detailing of those daily routines could say so much about the power structure of Victorian society. For example, I was surprised by the complete lack of independence that young women had within the family structure. Molly’s new stepmother could keep her from paying a visit to a desperately sick friend, just so that she didn’t have to go unaccompanied on one of her visits. I can’t even imagine asking my daughter to change plans unless an emergency presented itself – my how times have changed.

Molly’s interactions with other characters illustrate her position within the hierarchical structure of the town. Being a Victorian novel, a lot of this information comes in discussions of the suitability of potential mates. Squire Hamley and his wife initially consider Molly an unsuitable match for their treasured sons, although they come to love her like a daughter. Mr. Preston, who oversees Lord Hollingford’s properties, represents a poor match for Cynthia, despite her lack of wealth, as her social-climbing mother counts on her beauty to provide an advantageous marriage. Second son Roger Hamley cannot consider marriage to any woman until he finds employment, as the family estate is entailed to his older brother, Osborne. Osborne, for his part, keeps his marriage to a French Catholic woman of modest means a secret, to avoid being disinherited.

Boundaries are less rigid than they appear at first however – Gaskell’s characters both struggle with and reshape the boundaries, although the likeable characters do so out of virtue and the less likeable out of conceit.

Perhaps I found this book so appealing because of the well-developed and complex female characters, something I have not found in other Victorian novels I have read. Molly, the book’s heroine, is certainly virtuous, but not syrupy. Like other great female characters, she has flaws, pride and self-consciousness among them. She quickly opens her mouth to defend the people she loves, even at the risk of being rude. She knows what she should do, and Gaskell portrays her struggle to do it in a very powerful way. In contrast, her step-sister Cynthia is the most interesting and enigmatic figure in the book – she is absolutely aware of her own faults, and conscious and respectful of Molly’s sweet and naïve nature. She sees everyone – including herself – exactly as they are. In the hands of a clumsier writer, Cynthia might have been a “bad” character used to emphasize Molly’s “goodness.” But Gaskell exhibits a deep understanding of the pressures on women to make their way in a society designed by and for men. Through Cynthia, Gaskell provides a dispassionate look at the position of women in Victorian society, and chronicles someone who played the hand she was dealt extremely well, according to the mores of the time.

I really liked this book. One discovery of my summer reading seems to be a growing affinity for female authors, regardless of their culture or time period. I am growing more demanding in my expectations of portrayals of women, maybe because I have a better idea of how really difficult it is to be one than I did when I was younger. Another gift for expanding my reading horizons.

No splash from Fluke

I had no sooner finished the hauntingly beautiful Kitchen when the library sent me one of those annoying notices that indicates that even though you have taken out a book in good faith for a particular amount of time, some other patron would now like it, so your rights to said book are going to be coming to a close sooner than you had anticipated. I had planned for Christopher Moore’s Fluke, Or I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings to fulfill part of task 15.1 in the Seasonal Reading Challenge, a very clever old or new & borrowed or blue task. Since I had never read a Christopher Moore title (although I have had Lamb in my TBR pile for some time), its cover qualified it for the new & blue part of the task. Since I didn’t feel like scrapping the book completely, I decided to squeeze this book in before it had to go back to the library.

Maybe not my best idea.

Let me be clear – I didn’t dislike Fluke because I’m uncomfortable with the genre. I LOVE science fiction and absurd comedy. I firmly believe that there are still people who tell the story about the crazy young woman they saw standing on the LIRR between Woodside and Huntington in 1991 (it was a summer Friday, I couldn’t get a seat), laughing until she cried while reading The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. And the zanier the better. My darling husband once found me on the couch at 3 in the morning, gasping so hard with laughter while reading Boomsday that I couldn’t catch my breath (he rushed down the stairs thinking I was having an asthma attack!). Really, all I could do was snort! So even though my last few titles have been literary in nature, I was honestly looking forward to changing pace and sharing a hearty laugh with Christopher Moore at some point this summer.

I admit it, I was disappointed. But I haven’t quite figured out why. Maybe it was all the hype. Christopher Moore’s writing is so often compared to Douglas Adams’, but I just never found those lines where absurdity becomes hilarity. The character-to-character banter was self-consciously witty, but not sparkling. And all the sphincter references were just gross, not funny.

It may be the characterizations that turned me off. Nate Quinn, the cetacean biologist whose work on whale song brings him up against some mysterious undersea forces, is a likeable character, in that absent-minded professory way that often appeals to me – you could say I know the type. Clay Demodocus is the quintessential heroic sidekick, and Kona is a thoroughly likeable Jersey-boy-cum-Haole-stoner. Research assistant Amy is another story – she was written too snarkily to be a truly likeable smart ass. Ex-wife Libby and her life partner Margaret are caricatures, and without giving too much away, Moore’s rationale for the crystallization of Libby’s lesbian identity sounds like it was written from a point of view that my girlfriends might describe as “compensatory.” I don’t tend to love books where the women aren’t treated sympathetically, and I felt that was the case here.

Much has been made in other reviews about the environmental message of the book. I do believe that saving whales is a very good idea. But because of the ending, the message becomes a threat: SAVE THE WHALES OR ELSE! Not exactly a bio-diversity Kumbaya, is it?

This is a fantasy, so some of the completely ridiculous explanations that make the plot go are part of the fun. And there were a couple of funny bits – the part about not being able to throw a coconut in Lahaina without hitting a Ph.D. was good. But I never laughed out loud. Or even came close to snorting. And that’s when I know a book in this genre didn’t work for me. Still, it could have been bad timing - Kitchen was a tough act to follow - or not Moore’s best effort. I’m not taking Lamb off my TBR pile – but I’ll definitely give it a lighter segue than I gave Fluke.

Kitchen invites quiet contemplation

“Over and over we begin again,” says Mikage, contemplating another day in a life filled with loss, punctuated with the joy that only those who truly understand tragedy can ever feel. Kitchen, by Banana Yoshimoto, has left me thinking about this idea all day.

The one thing you figure you must be an expert on by the age of forty-seven is yourself – your tastes, your tolerances, your boundaries. But sometimes you have to rethink even that. When one of my favorite book blogs, dolcebelleza, announced the 4th Annual Japanese Literature Reading Challenge, I thought, “This is not for me.” I focused on Medieval/Renaissance history as an undergraduate, and my current research area includes Latin America. So I’m all about “international,” but outside of the Indian subcontinent, I haven’t focused much of Asian culture and literature.

The thing is, the challenge was only ONE book. One book? I thought, why not? So I found a Listopia entry for Japanese literature and saw Kitchen. I love to cook, but more than that, I love being in the kitchen, especially with other people. At 152 pages, the commitment wasn’t large. And there was a translation at the university library. Ka-ching. I had my Japanese title.

I opened the book on Saturday morning as I was stranded at my daughters’ dance recital dress rehearsal. By Sunday night, the book had been read. And I realized I needed to rethink what I like to read.

Yoshimoto’s first (and best) novella in the book tells the story of a young woman, bereft of family, who is taken in by strangers – strangers who were linked to her only by their fondness for her grandmother. The arrangement is a happy one for Mikage, but it brings stress to the day-to-day life of Yuichi, the young stranger who invited her to stay. Mikage and Yuichi are satellites in the orbit of Yuichi’s larger-than-life mother, Eriko. The exploration of the relationships between the three is the focus of the Kitchen Parts 1 &2.

The book also includes a short story, Moonlight Shadow. This story was far less satisfying than the first. It also told a story of loss, of a romantic kind. While both books include an element of mysticism, the second story’s resolution was far less realistic—and satisfying – than the first. Frankly, I’m not sure why the author didn’t leave Kitchen to stand on its own. In fact, my four-star rating is really based on the second story – on its own, I would have given Kitchen five stars.

Megan Backus’ translation of Kitchen is soft and restrained. Loneliness is a pervasive theme of the work, and I found myself feeling very quiet while reading. I even imagined the narrator speaking to me in a small, contemplative voice. Each sentence was meaningful. The book forces you to read deliberately – and re-read as well. There is a wonderful mix of personal narrative and global thought in Yoshimoto’s storytelling that I enjoyed immensely.

After reading and thoroughly enjoying The Summer Book and then Kitchen in succession, I have to admit that my tastes in literature seem to be evolving. Am I getting more contemplative in my old age? It’s possible. (Lee and Abbey, you can stop laughing now!) At least I’m getting what I hoped for out of the reading challenges I joined. I am pushing my boundaries, finding new areas of interest, and making time for myself to think and be, rather than do. I’m also increasing my TBR pile, because I’m anxious to read more by Yoshimoto.

WSJ List yields A Morbid Taste for Bones – and lots of possibilities!

The What’s in a Name 3 Reading Challenge got me hooked on reading as a competitive sport. But at only six books (five of which I’ve already finished), and with the next round beginning on January 1, 2011, I looked around for another challenge to motivate me to read for the sheer pleasure of reading this summer. Actually, I found four, but three of them will feed into my current uber-challenge, The Goodreads Seasonal Reading Challenge Summer 2010. It seems that every three months the Seasonal Reading Challenge community comes up with a group of clever tasks that are designed to stretch the participants’ reading horizons. It's a great group, and a whole lot of fun. The Summer 2010 edition began on June 1, 2010, and just plugging books into tasks has expanded both the breadth and the depth of my TBR list.

Take task 5.8, for example: To get the five points, the participant needs to go the Wall Street Journal Top 5 Books list, and choose any title to read. The lists are arranged by genre, and would be a GREAT find for anyone trying to break their old reading habits and try a solid book in a new realm. In a mystery mood, I clicked on Top Historical Mysteries and found 5 possibilities. At least two looked very gory – a red card in my book – but the other three were promising. Ultimately, I chose the first of the Brother Cadfael mysteries, A Morbid Taste for Bones, written by British scholar Edith Pargeter under the nom de plume Ellis Peters.

Despite the title, you won’t find anything ghoulish going on in Brother Cadfael’s Benedictine Shrewsbury Abbey, nor in the Welsh shire of Gwytherin where most of the action in this first volume takes place. This is a straightforward murder mystery, Holmesian in its devotion to deduction, clues leading to more clues and ultimately to the revelation of truth. But Brother Cadfael is no Holmes or Hercule Poirot – a former Crusader who tends the garden behind the monastery walls, but still keeps with him a affection for his former swashbuckling life – including the odd skills necessary therein. When looking for allies in a small Welsh town, he heads for the pub, not the Church: “A sound drinking companion with good sense is what I need.” (A very reasonable idea, I think.)

The “bones” of the title refer to those of the martyred St. Winifred, which the prior of Shrewsbury seeks to relocate to England from Wales in order to enhance the prestige of the abbey. Murder and mayhem ensue as not everyone is pleased to see their saint go – and others are over-eager to have her leave. The book starts slow, but finishes well. It was a very enjoyable mystery, and I would definitely read another in the series. I will also bookmark the WSJ Top 5 List, for the next time I need inspiration for completing a task!

Ice Land: Of Valkyries and Volcanoes

If I had no other knowledge of the time period and place, here’s what I would know about medieval Scandinavia after reading Betsy Tobin’s new historical fantasy, Ice Land: 1) men were brutal; 2) arranged marriages were unhappy; 3) Asgard was some prime Icelandic real estate before the volcano Hekla chose to blow her top; 4) being a Norse goddess – even the goddess of love – was not all it was cracked up to be; and finally, in reference to #4, 5) the feathers were a nice perk, though.

Tobin’s novel is both imaginative and derivative. The Norse pantheon is, ironically, less known to English-speaking audiences than their ancient Greek and Roman counterparts. Tobin attempts to bring the Aesir to life, also ironically, just as they are about to fade from the planet, with the coming of Christianity to Europe’s last pagan outpost, Iceland. Freya, the Norse goddess of love, beauty and loss, is the first person narrator of the adventure. However, her personal reminiscences are mixed with the omniscient narration focused on other main characters: Fulla, a beautiful young woman from a traditional pagan (or godi) family, in love with the young man whose father killed her father (an old motif, but one sure to cause tension); Dvalin, half dwarf/half Aesir, marked by Brando-like internal struggle; Hogni, one of the last of the godi, trying to secure his granddaughter’s future in a world he will not see, and cannot understand. The change in narrations does serve to give us different views of Freya, but it also means that the book is at times disjointed.

The short passages narrated by The Norns (Norse goddesses of destiny) are particularly dissonant, as they mix modern knowledge of plate tectonics and vulcanology with the mystic ability to see the future when explaining Hekla’s machinations. These interludes stood out as particularly silly, frankly, and not up to the rest of Tobin’s accomplishment.

The book is imaginative because Tobin presents us with a very different version of the Aesir than might be expected. They have powers that humans do not have, certainly – humans don’t go flying around in falcon forms unless one of the Aesir is willing to take them along for the ride. But Tobin makes them far more human than godly, with their power based on their own astute public relations as much as their exceptional gifts. When asked by a young dwarf to tell him about her people, she struggles:

Where do I begin? With our deceit, our jealousies, our failures? Or with our own imagined triumphs, the heroic tales we’ve told each other for so long we now believe them to be true…I realize that the lines between truth and falsehood have long ago become blurred in my mind. (p. 140)

The book is derivative because it harkens back on so many levels to Marion Zimmer Bradley’s amazing The Mists of Avalon. Small band of true pagan believers? Check. Forced baptisms? Violent and greedy men bent on using the new religion to consolidate power? Check and check. Misunderstood humanoids of extraordinary power and beauty at their fin de siècle? Check. Romance despite the backdrop of complete cultural and social revolution? Check. In fact, Tobin plucks Asgard right out of the heavens and plunks it down in a mysterious Icelandic valley that can only be reached through a veil of water. (Hello, Morgaine Le Fay, here! The drippy trip to the magical world was my calling card – can you please send that back?) And while the placement of Asgard subjects it to physical, rather than metaphysical, decimation, the threat to the magical world permeates the book, just as in MofA.

The book also suffers from major lapses in continuity. Iceland was settled late in European history (the late 9th century, by most accounts) by disaffected Norwegians and Swedes who presumably took their culture, including their gods, with them. Why then the placement of Asgard in Iceland? Were the gods and goddesses commuting to Trondheim from their summer places near Reykjavik during most of their pagan reign? It’s silly to quibble with a fantasy, I understand, but that breech in historicity was so clear that I found it distracting. Another lapse involves the overlapping of two significant incidents in Icelandic history that actually happened 100 years apart. It’s the kind of thing that makes my inner medieval history major cringe.

Ice Land is a very decent beach read, especially if you’re dreaming about cooler climes in summer. It moves quickly and lightly, and the plot is interesting enough to keep you turning the pages. But if the literature critic from The Times of London really called it “Not just a good story, but one of the greatest,” as noted on the back cover, he or she seriously needs to expand the library. I think I’ll help by sending a copy of The Mists of Avalon.

This book counts for both the Goodreads Seasonal Reading Challenge and the Scandinavian Challenge. Can't fit it into No Ruts though, as I've definitely read something like it before!