UNDER THE WIDE AND STARRY SKY by Nancy Horan

I have an emerging benchmark for author-centered novels: if it doesn’t make me want to read the protagonist’s books, it isn’t that good. I knew The Paris Wife was a fantastic read when I found myself putting A Moveable Feast on my Classics Club list, despite the fact that I HATE Hemingway. Nancy Horan’s Under the Wide and Starry Sky had the same effect on me. Despite the fact that I am not a fan of “boy” fiction, I have decided to read Treasure Island, because her story of the relationship between Robert Louis Stevenson and his feisty American wife, Fanny, was so compelling that I have to see for myself what that romance gave to English literature.

I am not sure that most people know that Scotsman R.L. Stevenson owes so much of his legacy to his indomitable, much older, American wife, Fanny van de Grift Osbourne. I certainly didn’t know it. They met when she escaped her philandering Californian husband to forge her own existence as an artist in Europe. When she left Europe to give her marriage a second chance and the behest of her family, Stevenson was devastated. But when she sent a telegram saying she was sick and needed him, he forsook his family and his own health and traveled in steerage to the US, and then across North America, just to rescue her. (Frankly, it makes Darcy spending a few hundred unearned pounds to buy off Wickham seem pretty shoddy, indeed.)

Horan writes directly but sensitively, so that you feel the characters’ turmoil, without ever hating them for their bad behavior. Fanny is quick-tempered but always sorry for erupting; Louis is a brooder, and sometimes seems ungrateful for all Fanny has sacrificed for him and his career. Their love story is jagged and gripping. But I actually think for me thesome of the best parts of the book were Fanny and Louis’ insights into their travels together, as in this reflection in the Pacific:

He was too much of a realist to romanticize the South Sea islanders or demonize the whites who traded with them and lived among them. But as far as he could see, not much good had come of Europeans bringing their notions of civilization. Of the islands they’d visited, it seemed that the ones with the least contact with the outside world had fared best. And in many places the kanakas, as the natives were called, had been hideously misused by the colonizers. p. 364-365

I recommend this book to lovers of historical fiction and literary fiction. But also to anyone who loved Treasure Island or Kidnapped or Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Understanding Stevenson’s own problems with health and medicine, as well as his quest for the “perfect” climate to accommodate his frail lungs, will surely add complexity to those classics. I am looking forward to reading them myself, “boy” books be damned!

I read this as part of a TLC Book Tour. Thanks to Lisa for including me on the tour! Click here for links to other opinions about Nancy Horan’s Under the Wide and Starry Sky.

Book Review: TO SAY NOTHING OF THE DOG by Connie Willis

Connie Willis’ To Say Nothing of the Dog introduces readers to a near future when Oxford historians routinely travel through time for investigative purposes. Their work is underwritten by a wealthy, overbearing American – Lady Schrapnell – whose pet project is the rebuilding of the Coventry Cathedral to reproduce its appearance on the day her revered Victorian-era grandmother saw it for the first time, and thereby changed the course of her life, as well as the whole family’s. But the small-scale interactions of the historians and their environment set up the possibility of large-scale disasters down the proverbial road: like the possibility of the Allies losing World War II.

The book represents a loving homage to Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat, whose subtitle was “To Say Nothing of the Dog.” Ned, the time traveler tasked with finding an artifact from the Coventry Cathedral called “the bishop’s bird stump,” has made so many time jumps that he has a form of the bends, and misunderstands the mission he’s on. And like Jerome’s crew, Ned and new found friends Terence St. Trewes and his absent minded Oxford don Professor Peddick travel the Thames in a skiff, and find more adventure than the relaxation they so desperately need.

I think it’s taken me seemingly forever to review the book because this Hugo-award winning novel defies simple description. Yes, it’s a time travel story. But after reading it, I’d probably categorize it under “humor,” before “science fiction.” Because unlike other novels that might focus on the mechanics of voyages in time and space, this book shoves those aside, focusing instead on the truly hilarious consequences of unintended actions. I adored the way Willis took a beloved classic and retrofitted it – even allowing the characters from the original to make a cameo appearance! Oh, and there’s even a couple of love stories.

In fact, if there’s any downside to the book, it’s that Willis seems to gloss over some information about the “world” she’s created that the reader could really use. For example, what is the new time traveling ability based on? Why do individuals react to it so differently? If I was in a mood to be particularly persnickety I’d call it somewhat troublesome that the book’s ending reveals that one of the science fiction “premises” the story was based on was completely unfounded. But it feels like quibbling, because those things didn’t diminish my enjoyment of the book.

If you’re looking for a light and amusing sci-fi title, this is definitely it. I’d also suggest it to those who love contemporary humor titles, especially Douglas Adams (although I’m certainly not promising you’ll love it as much as Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) and Christopher Moore (and I’d call this a clear winner over his Fluke). I was planning on counting this for Carl V’s Science Fiction Experience in January, but couldn’t get my act together to get the review up in time. Reading this did inspire me to seek out a few more sci fi titles, so it’s still a win!

In 140 Characters or Less: Time travel hijinks, in search of a cantankerous cat.

Book Review: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

I remember how jarring it was to find out about the Japanese internment camps that dotted the country during the Second World War while reading Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James Houston’s touching story, Farewell to Manzanar, in middle school. “My government would actually do something like that?” I wondered. I remember asking my father, who admitted that it was the case – and he was also honest enough to admit that he didn’t think right after Pearl Harbor most European Americans felt very bad about what was happening to Japanese Americans, even if in hindsight it makes absolutely no sense.

But I haven’t read anything else about that particular period in American history, so I was happy to see that Jamie Ford’s Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet was on the reading list for my book club’s December meeting. I was hoping to get more of an “adult” view of the time period, since Wakatsuki Houston was writing a memoir of her childhood. In retrospect, that expectation may have been my biggest problem with the book, because what Ford gives us is a very interesting novel told from the perspective of a Chinese American child, Henry Lee, who loses his closest friend, a Japanese American girl named Keiko Okabe, to the internment camps.

I enjoyed this book, but I didn’t love it. I did think Ford did a good job of bringing to life a tension that I frankly never thought about: the rift between the Chinese and Japanese diasporas living on the West Coast of the US during World War II. Pan-Asian tension over Japan’s actions during WWII, and accusations about the country’s subsequent attempts to “whitewash” those actions, still flares up regularly in Asia – in fact, it’s so common there’s a Wikipedia entry called “Japanese history textbook controversies.” Henry’s family in China was clearly at risk during the war, and his parents’ feelings might have been rendered comprehensible to the reader, even if they remained unjustified. Instead, Ford leaves Henry’s family completely unsympathetic throughout the book. I saw that as a major flaw, considering Henry’s decisions toward the end of the novel.

My other big problem with the book was the relationship of Henry and Keiko. Sure, my dad is always saying that people “grew up faster” during the Depression and the War. But I had a really hard time buying into a love story centered on 12-year-olds. If they had been friends for years before the internment order, the story would have made more sense to me. Or perhaps if they’d been older when they met, it might have worked better. The action seemed kind of abrupt, and the rationale simply wasn’t well-developed enough to capture me completely.

My book club had mixed opinions on this one. Many agreed that the characterizations of two of the supporting characters, lunch lady Mrs. Beatty and street sax player Sheldon Thomas, were the best in the book. We also loved the way Ford used the device of the abandoned items from Japantown in Seattle to anchor the story. “Sweet” was a word that came up often in our discussion. But while some were enthusiastic about Ford’s writing style and narrative flow, others weren’t as impressed. Some thought the book had a YA feel, which isn’t necessarily bad, but indicated a lack of character development and ambiguity. I can see why this book has a real following, especially for those who love historically based romances. It is definitely a standout first novel and I would definitely read another Ford title.