LITERARY BLOG HOP: A CLASSIC WIN!

Some of the best reading time I have put in this year has been through my Classics Club list, finally getting to Classics I have somehow missed until now. Some of the books were inspired by The Guardian’s 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read list, but others are lesser known titles from the NYRB Classics imprint. So here’s my Blog Hop idea – why don’t you read along with me?

Here’s how to play: 1) go to my Classics Club list above, and take a look at the titles; 2) follow my blog if you'd like (not required, but very nice); and 3) leave a comment below, including your email address, telling me which book you’d like to read from my Classics Club list. (I’d be surprised if you can’t find one title you’d like to read, but if that’s the case, you can substitute another book from either of the two lists I’ve mentioned, and tell me why you’d rather read that one instead!) Entries close at 11:59 GMT on November 13. At that time I’ll let random.org generate a random integer based on the number of comments I get. And if it’s your number, the book is yours! This is worldwide stop on the Blog Hop, open to anyone in a place where Book Depository or Amazon delivers – $30 limit, but I think all the books on my list can be found for far less!

Thanks, as always, to Judith at leeswammes for hosting this Literary Blog Hop. Good luck, and Happy Hopping!

FIESTA OF SMOKE by Suzan Still

I love novels about novelists. I love novels about Mexico. I love novels about love. I love novels that are descriptive, written so that other places, people and relationships practically walk off the pages and into my living room. Suzan Still’s Fiesta of Smoke is that kind of novel.

Graduate student Calypso Searcy meets Javier Carteña when he accidentally knocks her over, running away from a shoplifting incident. He tracks her down and breaks into her apartment to apologize. This marks the beginning of a love affair that will span decades and borders and marriages and love affairs with other people, as Calypso slowly comes to take on Javier’s cause – social justice for Mexico’s indigenous people – as her own.

Still writes characters I’d like to meet, in circumstances I have trouble imagining. I absolutely love how she brought the unlikely chemistry between Calypso and Javier to life, as when they meet after years and sit next to each other at a jai alai game:

At the point where their bodies met – their hands and arms, tips of their shoulders, their thighs and feet – all along the left side of her body, in fact, there was blissful peace, as if that portion of her flesh, at least, had finally come home to roost.
He leaned into her in that way he always had when they were at odds, of ignoring her and communicating with her at the same time. It was the feeling of utter physical intimacy. She relaxed into this sensation, precious beyond thought. The jai alai games continued below but Calypso was sunk in a sea of both remembrance and immediate awareness. At last, she understood Camus: she was lucid and in ecstacy. p. 163

What do I not love? Novels that bounce around in time. I’m a chronological kind of girl, and I don’t really enjoy starting at the end or in the middle. And then heading somewhere else. My one quibble about the book was the way it ricocheted between decades and locations and different parts of characters’ lives in a way that I found kind of confusing. And let’s face it, the situation in Mexico – corrupt politicians, paramilitary organizations, unbelievable wealth next to unfathomable poverty – is confusing enough.

In general, though, I loved the book, and would certainly recommend it to lovers of contemporary fiction. The military themes and the precarious situation in Mexico give the book, especially the ending, a bit of the feel of a thriller. I read this book as part of a TLC Book Tour, and received a free copy of the book in return for my honest opinion. Thanks to Trish for including me on the tour! Follow this link to see what others had to say about this title.

Book Review: FLAUBERT'S PARROT by Julian Barnes

Julian Barnes’ Flaubert’s Parrot is a strange book, indeed. I spent the first half thinking I was reading a book about a literary obsession when I suddenly realized I was reading a book about a widower trying to understand his relationship with his late wife. Talk about confused! Several months have gone by since I read it, and in retrospect I believe one story was actually told through the other. But somehow I can’t quite decide whether or not I think Barnes pulled it off.

Let’s start with the fact that although I have read Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, it was a long time ago. And that is the only Flaubert novel I have read. I have not read, most importantly, A Simple Heart, also known as The Parrot which winds up being central to the plot – or at least what there is of a plot. I had no idea about Flaubert’s family life, his philosophy, or his, shall we say, eccentricities. That didn’t actually detract from my enjoyment of the novel, because I found reading the biographical bits on Flaubert really fascinating. But it certainly may have impacted my ability to decipher the story.

The ostensible plot involves a retired British doctor and Flaubert aficionado, Geoffrey Braithwaite, touring through France in search of the answer to a mystery: which of two ancient stuffed parrots claiming to be so is actually the one that stood on Flaubert’s desk while he wrote A Simple Heart? What, in a nutshell, is the inspiration for genius, appeared to be the question to which Braithwaite was seeking an answer. But what the asynchronous narrative slowly reveals is that Braithwaite believes understanding Flaubert’s life and inspirations will help him understand his own domestic story – one that has the small, sad dimensions of a Flaubertian tragedy.

The book was slow-going, but it wasn’t as heavy as it sounds. In fact, there are quite a few very funny bits. One of the most interesting chapters in the book is entitled “Braithwaite’s Dictionary of Accepted Ideas,” which encapsulates the conventional wisdom about Flaubert and his work with tongue-in-cheek encyclopedia entries:

WHORES: Necessary in the nineteenth century for the contraction of syphilis, without which no one could claim genius. Wearers of the red badge of courage include Flaubert, Daudet, Maupassant, Jules de Goncourt, Baudelaire, etc. Were there any writers unafflicted by it? If so, they were probably homosexual. (Kindle location 2525)

The book is beautifully written, I’ll say that. But there was something of Joyce’s Ulysses in this to me, so think with literary illusions that I couldn’t get a fix on the book I was actually supposed to be reading. The book ought to come with The Parrot as a pre-req – maybe I would have understood it that way!

Book Review: THE FORRESTS by Emily Perkins

I love big novels about small things. Because no matter how strange the events and circumstances surrounding individuals are, it’s a person’s relationship to those events that imbues them with meaning in the end. I think my predilection for those kinds of small insights in writing explains why I was so totally captivated by Emily Perkins’ latest novel, The Forrests.

Lee and Frank Forrest grew up in wealthy households, but by the time we meet them the money they had counted on has been squandered away. They leave the US with their four children – Michael, Evelyn, Dorothy and Ruth – for an unconventional life in New Zealand. The third-person narrative focuses on the two middle children, Evelyn and Dot, and their attempts to make a life for themselves despite the uncertain, hand-to-mouth existence their parents have provided – a lifestyle that seems to be fine with Frank, but which is increasingly difficult for the children’s mother, Lee. It also focuses on Daniel, a child taken in by the Forrests, whose presence at first anchors the family, and then pulls it apart.

The Forrests live a patched-together life, which Perkins emphasizes in the patched-together chapters of the novel. I’m not usually of a fan of non-linear narrative, but in this case the device gave me real sympathy with the Forrest siblings, whose circumstances were constantly changing because of their parents’ inability to plan for them. I had to figure where I was and what had happened to get me there at the beginning of each chapter, reorienting myself to new circumstances like an often-uprooted child must have to do. At times, I admit, it was slow going, but it kept me focused, trying to understand their world.

To say that The Forrests is beautifully written doesn’t really do it justice. Reading it is like driving a circuitous route through varied terrain, each vista totally gorgeous, but not wholly connected to the last. Perkins’ words spill together, leaving the reader awash in emotion, stretching to reach the plot beneath it:

The mention of his name made Eve want to rip a hunk of grass from the earth. This could not be done, and nothing could be said to her sister. Better to bury Daniel because face it, she’d had no right to him and she’d wanted him for so long and followed him across the world and by anyone’s standards she probably deserved to have him leave her but she could never, never tell Dot. How to know whether the secrecy – really the lying -- came from love, or shame, or the sheer envy of having been the one left out by those two for all that time? They’d never talked about it but she knew, like she knew Michael being a pot fiend when their parents insisted it was just that he was shy. Could she judge whether or not Daniel had been worth it? She was frightened that, if she looked in her heart, she would discover that he was, and would have to face up to what that meant, now he was gone. “Actually, I should get home. I’m on dinner. What should I make?”

I cannot recommend this book highly enough for lovers of contemporary literary fiction. Perkins is inventive and daring with language, describing in extraordinary detail what might have been ordinary, even tawdry lives, if they had not been examined closely. I will definitely be seeking out her previous books.

I read this book – albeit in delayed fashion – as part of TLC Book Tour. I received a galley of the book in return for my honest opinion. Many thanks to Lisa Munley at TLC for shifting around some deadlines to accommodate my unexpectedly difficult schedule this summer. I’m glad to be back blogging, and I’m looking forward to seeing what has been going on while I’ve been away!

For other reviews of this book, check the TLC links here.

Book Review: Ama Ata Aidoo's Changes, A Love Story

How does a university-educated Ghanaian woman independent enough to divorce her first husband despite the objections of her traditional family wind up the second wife of a handsome philanderer?

Is it possible that the best way to really think about marriage is to approach it from a completely different perspective?

That perspective is the amazing gift of Ama Ata Aidoo’s Changes: A Love Story, a book that grabbed me from minute one, and still had me turning pages until the last one. Esi is a wealthy, educated civil servant who loves her job. Her husband, Oko, feels neglected by her devotion to duty. Their clashes eventually lead to the dissolution of their marriage, although Esi’s “Western” notions of autonomy find little support even among her staunchest allies – her grandmother, her mother and her best friend are all perplexed by her desire to leave a perfectly good man.

If her dissatisfaction with her marriage is based on imported Western values, her fascination with Ali, the well-to-do travel agent, is completely primeval: they are attracted to each other from the second they meet, and soon start a steamy affair. Ali is obsessed with Esi, so much so that he becomes jealous of her, despite the fact he is himself cheating on his own family. The fact that he’s already married is not an insurmountable problem to possessing Esi in Ghanaian society: Ali can make Esi his second wife.

And that’s the most fascinating issue in the book. Living in a traditional society with a host of non-traditional ideas, Esi starts to see the things a marriage provides to women: security, partnership, networking. These are the things that Western ideas about marriage, focused almost completely on love, tend to ignore. She also looks at the negative aspects of marriage for women, including their presumed subservience to men in traditional relationships. Is it possible to find the perfect balance of freedom and dependency in any marriage? Could being a second wife allow a woman to live a less conventional lifestyle while still operating within the comfortable framework of a traditional society? I certainly never thought about it before I read Changes, but I will admit that the novel really forced me to think about relationships in a completely unique way.

It’s probably obvious that I loved this novel, and I’m really grateful to have found it because of Judith’s Book Bloggers Abroad 2011 Challenge at Leeswammes! I would absolutely recommend this book to lovers of world fiction and feminist fiction, as well as those who are interested in African literature. But I really believe the book deserves a wider audience, as it speaks to the very essence of what makes society work. Aidoo writes beautifully and with great compassion – I will definitely seek out more of her work.

Book Review: Alina Bronsky's The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine

When I dislike the main character in a novel, I usually don’t like the novel. So how can I explain my fascination with Alina Bronsky’s The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine? Rosalinda represents all that is wrong with motherhood – she constructs her relationships with her daughter and later her granddaughter completely strategically, always thinking how she might benefit from their interactions. She’s seems almost completely unaware of how she is viewed by others. It’s totally over-the-top. Which is probably why she’s makes such a compelling unreliable narrator.

Rosalinda is inordinately proud of her Tartar heritage (which comes along with a host of folk medical remedies that are truly hilarious). She’s proud of her beauty and youthful appearance (especially her shapely legs, which she believes men swoon over). She’s proud of her family (or at least she believes she could be, if they’d simply do as she tells them). Her lack of self-awareness has benefits, as she walks around Russia and later Germany convinced of her own important place in the world, even if she’s cleaning someone else’s toilets – or rifling through someone else’s private papers.

Of course, her megalomania has disastrous effects on the people in her life, especially on her daughter Sulfia, who can never quite escape Rosalinda’s sphere of influence and therefore misses every chance at happiness with her own daughter, Aminat. Aminat herself watches Rosalinda with a keen eye, and the reader has the impression that she’s just waiting for her chance to act – she reminded me of a mouse eyeing a big, Persian cat, just waiting for the cat to lower it guard enough for the mouse to make its move.

What Bronksy gives the reader with The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine is a true tragicomedy, which succeeds only because Rosalinda is so totally outrageous that it’s funny, in a thoroughly disturbing way. It reminded me of Voltaire’s Candide, but without the main character’s growing realization that perhaps everything wasn’t alright with the universe after all – despite tragedy after tragedy, Rosalinda remains convinced of her own omnipotence from start to finish. This book really worked for me, although I can appreciate that it might not work for everyone. With a good sense of gallows humor, I think the reader will enjoy the novel despite their feelings about the narrator, a pretty interesting feat for Bronsky to pull off, in my opinion.

I was planning on this being a weekend cooking post, but after reading the novel, it doesn’t seem right – the only thing foodie about the book was the title. But it still counts for the Europa Editions Challenge, and I’ll be cross posting this on the Challenge Blog. The semester ends on Friday, so I’m still hopeful I can finish up a couple of the challenges I have lingering before then. If only I had some little elves to do my grading for me, so I could just read my holiday break away!

Book Review: Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand

I was really happy to be asked to join a book club. And even better, I was thrilled to see the list of books the club had already decided on. Some were totally new to me, but many were already on my TBR. One of those was Helen Simonson’s Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, which wound up being the next book on the list. I have to admit, I thought it started slow – but in the end I found myself completely captivated by it.

We meet the widowed Major Pettigrew at a horrible moment: he has just learned that his younger brother has died unexpectedly. Mrs. Ali, owner of the local store, happens upon the Major in a horrible state. She comes to his aide, making him tea and giving him someone to talk with. And thus begins a most unlikely friendship: one human’s completely decent response to the distress of another.

As it turns out, the retired Major and Mrs. Ali have a lot in common: both have recently lost dear spouses, both honor their families, both have a sense of history and a love of books. But their friendship appears improbable because to most observers, even their dearest friends, what are most noticeable are their differences: the Major is from an old, aristocratic, English family, while Mrs. Ali is a shop keeping Pakistani Muslim.

With this premise, Helen Simonson could have written a very predictable “East Meets West” kind of story, but for the most part she didn’t. That is perhaps a function of the sensational cast of supporting characters that inhabit Edgecombe St. Mary, the increasingly suburban (and decreasingly idyllic) home to the Major’s small ancestral estate. Abdul Wahid, Mrs. Ali’s nephew, is an angry young man, trying to decide if his love or his faith is more important. Roger Pettigrew, the Major’s son, is a crass, overindulged, self-centered British Millennial who longs for wealth to match his social status. British-born Amina eschews her family’s traditional Pakistani values, but as tough as she is she still struggles as a single parent in a society that will never fully accept her or her illegitimate son, George. The Major and Mrs. Ali are also well drawn, wryly humorous and insightful, but it’s really the overall effect of the personalities converging on Edgecombe St. Mary, from the upper-crusty but highly taxed peers to the eco-terrorists next door, that set this book apart for me.

That said, I’m going to admit that the book was not entirely successful from my point of view. And that is because Simonson, an ex-pat Brit who apparently lives in the New York area, committed one of the current literary offenses that ticks me off most: employing the “stereotypical American” as symbol of all that is wrong with the world. (My little diatribe begins about here, so you can feel free to skip it if you’d like.)

Here’s the thing: Simonson’s own discussion points indicate she wanted to show that all British people are not the same. Fine. So why are all Americans the same in so many recent books that come out of the former British Empire? Note to writers – we are quite a diverse group. We put the “multi” in multicultural. We are not all hegemony-minded business majors with great teeth (okay, our teeth are usually pretty good), too much money and no manners. And we don’t all have a burning desire to buy up your country and titles. That American represents a literary trope at this point. If you can write with understanding about a misguided bunch of codgers who wouldn’t dream of allowing a Pakistani couple join their club (and to your credit, you did), I’d think you could steer your way clear to writing an interesting – and by that I don’t mean perfect, but at least imperfect in an interesting way – American. And while we’re at it, it doesn’t count to have one British person – in this case the Major’s son Roger – be just as awful as an American. I’m talking about relative levels of interest here, and not relative levels of evil. (End of diatribe; it’s now safe to go back to the review.)

For the most part this was a very successful novel. The more I got to know the characters, the more I enjoyed it. The ending is both exciting and unexpected. And it provided a great night of discussion for my book club. There was a great diversity of opinion about what Major Pettigrew’s “last stand” actually was – nearly everyone had a different take. So the book is highly recommended for readers of literary fiction and romance, diatribe notwithstanding.

TLC Book Tour Review: Susan V. Weiss’ My God, What Have We Done?

How do we deal with the unforeseen consequences of our greatest efforts? What is the opportunity cost of action versus inaction? These are the questions that Susan V. Weiss’ new novel, My God, What Have We Done?, asks the reader to consider throughout the two stories she has surprisingly woven together in this remarkable new novel.

The first story is Pauline and Clifford’s. It’s the story of a modern, young married woman’s loneliness in her marriage. Pauline loves her self-possessed husband Clifford, and her needy children. Still, she can’t quite find happiness. She married a man who was quiet and distant, only to be disappointed by his solitary nature. Pauline is a frustrating character – she seems to desire movement and change when none is really necessary. Instead of enjoying the different phases of her life, she wishes them away for some other future that isn’t well defined, except for the fact that it isn’t the one she is currently building. Still, her struggles are both commonplace and touching:

But as much as a mother may love her child, the unvarying replay of challenges that need to be mastered during the process of growth and the repetitive schedule can become tiresome. While Jasper worked with all his might to become a toddler, I escaped the monotony of our days together by reading, and during these lapses of vigilance, my son sometimes would fall and cry, get frustrated and cry, miss my attention and cry. (page 131)

What young mother hasn’t felt that way? And yet Pauline seems to think that if she isn’t actively engaged at every moment, something is lost.

The second story is that of Pauline’s historical “crush,” J. Robert “Oppie” Oppenheimer, and his wife Kitty, as Oppenheimer feverishly tried to finish the atomic bomb at Los Alamos, New Mexico, during the final days of the Second World War. Kitty and her young son Peter have been dragged to the middle of the desert by her husband, where isolation and loneliness lead her to alcohol. Maybe it’s the historian in me, but it was this remote story that touched me the most. Kitty’s plight seemed out of her hands, compared with Pauline’s. The circumstances of her husband’s life separated him from almost everyone – even her, the person who had been his closest confidante. She knew enough about her husband’s work to know that she might be waiting for not the end of some annoying childhood phase, but the end of the world as she knew it, which served to make her struggles far more heartbreaking to me, despite the fact that her behavior was in many ways shocking.

Weiss dares the reader to compare the relative ease of our day-to-day existence with the hardships faced by the scientists working at Los Alamos. Their common purpose is extraordinary, although their diligent activity ultimately brings about the worst kind of destruction. How do we judge the result?

I enjoyed this book immensely, although I admit I found it a bit uneven. Both stories were very compelling, but Weiss’ philosophical musings on the meaning of the atomic bomb struck me as too direct – almost like some kind of omniscient Greek chorus. This would be a fabulous book for a book club – I can imagine people reacting to this book completely differently, depending on their age and life experience. I would recommend this book to both lovers of contemporary literature and historical fiction, as well as those who enjoy literature about the Second World War. There is something here for all of those groups.

I read this book as part of a TLC Book Tour, and received a free copy of the book in return for my honest opinion. I hope you’ll visit these other stops on the tour:

Monday, October 10th: Steph and Tony Investigate
Tuesday, October 11th: Col Reads
Wednesday, October 12th: Regular Rumination
Wednesday, October 12th: The Well-Read Wife

Novella Review: Christopher Morley's Parnassus on Wheels

When Frances of Nonsuch Books mentioned the Art of the Novella Challenge, I was intrigued. But also a bit intimidated. My limited experience with novellas led me to believe that they’re rather like black holes – small yes, but incredibly dense. I’m thinking Kundera’s Slowness or Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men -- a short but intense intellectual workout. And anyone who’s checked in here recently knows that I’m on intellectual hiatus until the end of summer.*

Still, I love the near immediate gratification of a slim book, so I decided to poke through the Melville House catalog and see if there wasn’t something less than grim. I threw out the Russians immediately. Sorry Leo and Ivan – definitely winter fare. Every memory of Joyce I have involves a headache, and the Dublin pub crawl is only one of them – bye my Irish friend. But eventually I got to a part of the catalog that seemed far less threatening, inviting even. Being a Long Island girl, I was familiar with Christopher Morley from the beautiful park that’s named after him. So far so good. Then I read the description of his Parnassus on Wheels and saw it was a romantic comedy. No black hole there! Yippee – I could participate in the Art of the Novella challenge without harshing my summer groove! Good thing, because it was a fun little find!

The story is narrated by Helen McGill, the long-suffering spinster sister of nature essayist Andrew McGill. She’s been baking bread and cleaning up after her famous but selfish brother for 15 years when Roger Mifflin stops by their farm to try and sell Andrew his Parnassus, a bookstore on wheels, so he can retire to Brooklyn. Helen realizes that she’ll have even more work to do if her brother gets his hands on Parnassus, so she rashly decides to buy Parnassus herself and have her first-ever holiday. Mifflin comes along to show her how to work Parnassus, her brother can’t believe he’s been left high and dry, and hilarity and romance inevitably ensue.

The novella isn’t really deep or complex, but what was so very interesting was Morley’s ability to take on the voice of a 40ish woman who believes life has passed her by. At one point, Helen finds Mifflin’s notebook, and considers the impact he’s had on the people he’s met:

It seemed as if I had stumbled unawares on the pathetic, brave and lonely heart of the little man. I’m a commonplace creature, I’m afraid, insensible to many of the deeper things in life, but every now and then, like all of us, I come face to face with something that thrills me. I saw how this little, red-bearded pedlar was like a cake of yeast in the big, heavy dough of humanity: how he traveled about trying to fulfill in his own way his ideals of beauty. I felt almost motherly toward him: I wanted to tell him I understood him.

The way Helen is beginning to cherish Mifflin is so sweet, and rang so true, that I actually went to the internet to confirm that Christopher Morley wasn’t a pseudonym for a woman!

“Dear” is the perfect word for this novella – it’s a prototypical romantic comedy, something that could easily have been made into a Hepburn/Tracy movie. It’s completely different than any other novellas I’ve read: a breezy, summery story to usher me into fall.

And all those weightier tomes I’ve been putting off until then.

*That would actually be Monday, but I realize what a luxury it is to have the summer off in the first place, so I promise not to whine about it, no matter how sorely I’m tempted.

Book Review: Banana Yoshimoto’s The Lake

Death is always so close in a Banana Yoshimoto story that you can almost touch it. The Lake is no exception. But in this novel I felt like Yoshimoto was exploring something slightly different: the ways in which people choose life, despite the certainty of death.

Chihiro, a young muralist, narrates the quirky story of her love affair with a shy, sincere medical student, Nakajima. Both of them are motherless, and somewhat estranged from their fathers. They come into each others’ lives slowly and cautiously, first as a comforting presence in the window across the street, then as acquaintances, then as friends and finally, almost accidentally, as lovers. But there’s something so terrible in Nakajima’s past that he can’t discuss it – something that makes him seem somehow out of step with the rest of the world.

Compared with other Yoshimoto heroines, I found the tone of Chihiro’s first-person narration very direct and accessible. I appreciated Chihiro’s mixed feelings about her family and her lover – nothing comes easy in her world.

Playing at marriage, playing at being a dad, playing at being a full member of society.

Everything in my life revolves around people playing at being something.

But that’s only because we have to be that way in order to get on with our lives. Just because people are playing doesn’t mean their hearts aren’t in it. p. 141

And yet even Chihiro is aware that she is not fully engaged in anything – in her work, in her love affair, in her family – because there is a part of her life that she is not being entirely honest about.

This is a slim book, but it travels a mysterious terrain, making it slower going than you might expect. Dreams provide an alternate form of reality, which is a bit unsettling when juxtaposed with Chihiro’s apparent realism. Readers more familiar with current events in Japan may have guessed more about the mystery of Nakajima’s past than I did,* but I don't think the effect will be any less jarring.

This book lacks the sweetness of the other Yoshimoto books I have read, but I think that’s okay. It has a certain grittiness instead, something I liked almost as much. I think Yoshimoto fans will embrace this book too. But the edgier voice may help find a wider audience for Yoshimoto among those who like a more mysterious – or even gothic – read.

This is my first book for this year’s Japanese Literature Challenge 5, hosted by Dolce Bellezza. I’m trying to expand my readings this year, so this will probably be my only Yoshimoto title. Then again, I enjoy her writing so much, it’s possible I’ll add another if I can squeeze in the time.

*Let me say that I’m glad I heard about this book from Dolce Bellezza’s site, and not by reading the publisher’s description, because it gives A LOT away – avoid it if you want to let the book reveal itself to you in layers.

Book Reviews: The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate

A while back, I read a review of Nancy Mitford’s Love in a Cold Climate by Bina of If You Can Read This. I had never even heard of Nancy Mitford, but I enjoyed her review, and I popped the book on my Goodreads TBR. And then promptly forgot about it. Until last week, that is. Looking for some books to load on my Kindle before vacation, I saw the title again, and decided to grab it on impulse. Lucky for me! I couldn’t put it down. So after I devoured it, I downloaded the book Mitford wrote first, The Pursuit of Love. I cannot believe it took me this long to discover these little gems: A perfect vacation reading duo!

Both books share a narrator, Fanny Logan Wincham, a well-born young woman who lives on the fringe of aristocratic society due to her parents’ scandalous behavior (her mother’s serial marriages have earned her the moniker “Bolter,” while her father has bucked up his part of the family fortunes by attaching himself to a series of wealthy older women). Through this classic “poor relation,” Mitford provides the reader with a humorous take on a British society that was poised for change in the period between the two World Wars. The books are not about Fanny, however. In each, she is sharing the coming-of-age (read “courtship and marriage”) story of a woman close to her: poised and polished friend Lady Leopoldina (Polly) Hampton in Love in a Cold Climate and cousin and best friend Linda Radclett in The Pursuit of Love.

That’s where the books really diverge, giving each of the books a character all its own. Fanny’s devotion to Linda and her other cousins at Alconleigh makes The Pursuit of Love laugh-out-loud funny, loving and bittersweet. In contrast, her detachment from Polly, an heiress of astounding beauty, and her terror of her conniving mother, Lady Sonia Montdore, is what gives Love in a Cold Climate its legendary bite.

Lady Montdore dominates Love in a Cold Climate, clinging to the status quo for dear life, worrying that any change would threaten “all this,” her generalized term for her wealth, her station, and her comfortable surroundings. Nobody is more aware of Lady Montdore’s importance than Lady Montdore, and her goal is to always remain at the center of society. In one great passage, Fanny details Lady Montdore’s calculations about who got picked up from the train:

Lady Montdore’s writing paper was headed Hampton Place, Oxford, Station Twyfold. But Twyfold, with the change and hour’s wait at Oxford it involved, was only inflicted upon such people as were never likely to be in a position to get their own back on Lady Montdore, anybody for whom she had the slightest regard being met at Oxford. “Always be civil to the girls, you never know who they may marry,” is an aphorism which has saved many an English spinster from being treated like an Indian widow. (p. 18 )

I have read that Love in a Cold Climate was revolutionary in its time for its inclusion of an openly gay character, the Montdore heir Cedric Hampton. And I suppose it was. Over time, however, that characterization seems a bit dated, probably because serious, literary, modern novels are not likely to play a gay character for effeminate laughs. Cedric becomes Lady Montdore’s “sassy gay friend,” which is all well and good, but there were times when the sharing of jewels and make-up made Cedric seem a ridiculous foil for Lady Montdore, rather than an interesting and complex character in his own right.*

Common wisdom refers to Love in a Cold Climate as Mitford’s “best novel,” but I can’t agree. For me, The Pursuit of Love was the more enjoyable of the two, mostly because of the wacky antics of the Radclett cousins and their eccentric father, Uncle Matthew, a country squire of the decidedly old school. Uncle Matthew’s vociferous rages, contempt for all things not English and obsession with hunting are truly hilarious. And the Radclett clan reminded me of the brood from Cheaper by the Dozen, always letting their imaginations lead them into a good time, on the way to a bunch of trouble.

But both books are charming time capsules, bringing the reader right back to a particular time and a very specific part of society that are now largely gone. I loved reading about the “London season” young girls enjoyed – or endured, depending on the girl – while looking for a husband. Both books drip with irony, something I adore. And who knows, had I read them in the correct chronological order, I might have liked Love in a Cold Climate even more than I did. I heartily recommend them both to those who love literary fiction (and even those who usually read historical fiction) with a humorous side. You won’t be disappointed.

Because of Cedric's groundbreaking part in it, Love in a Cold Climate counts toward the GLBT Reading Challenge. And “pursuit” counts as a movement in the What’s in a Name 4 Challenge. Thanks to BethFishReads for hosting!

*If you haven’t seen Second City's wildly popular and irreverent Sassy Gay Friend videos, they involve a character from literature changing her hideous fate with the help of a sassy gay friend. Here’s a link.

Book Review: The Mistress of Spices

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s The Mistress of Spices has been on my TBR list for some time, so when Jess over at Desperado Penguin and I were looking for our next foodie simul-blog, I suggested it. It seemed to have at least three elements I love in a novel: a strong, female protagonist, a focus on food and a clash of cultures. And I was right. Divakaruni has written a very modern novel steeped in magic realism with interesting, likeable characters and a real multi-cultural vibe. I should have loved it. But somehow, the balance was just a bit wrong for me, like a curry that has too much cumin and not enough ginger to smooth it out. It was good, it was punchy, but it wasn’t totally satisfying.

I think one problem might have been the balance of the story arc. We meet Tilo, our mystical Mistress of Spices, in Oakland, California, a seemingly ancient spice vendor with an Indian grocery in a rough part of town. Tilo’s first person narration dispatches two former “selves” – her childhood as a sorceress and her young adulthood as a pirate queen – in just a few unflattering pages. So when she arrives at the Island of Spices to begin her long apprenticeship to learn the magic arts of healing through spices and become an immortal mistress charged with helping the people of the subcontinent wherever they are in the world, I wasn’t convinced that the selfless, diligent life of a Spice Mistress represented her real destiny.

The other problem was the spices themselves. Who knew condiments could be such demanding characters? Divakaruni emphasizes their individual properties by naming each of her chapters after different spices. But rather than giving them unique personalities or voices within the book, they function together as a kind of harping Greek chorus. First they love Tilo. Then they’re angry at Tilo. They do her bidding. Then they don’t. But Tilo is still Tilo. At the end of the novel, Tilo is still a fabulously gifted but restless woman who doesn’t listen. She didn’t listen to her parents. She wasn’t content on the pirate ship. Why would we think she could follow the rules of a collection of seeds and leaves somewhere on the Pacific Coast?

Tilo how little you have understood. From the deep the voice is a hiss, like water on a hot iron. Or is it a sigh? Like the waterfall the avalanche the forest fire, we do not hate. We only do what we must. p. 304

What saved the book for me was the very quirky, forbidden love story that winds through the novel. Raven, Tilo’s “American,” is the only one who can see through her ancient body to the beautiful, immortal woman underneath. His story is one of the most interesting aspects of the novel. I loved Divakaruni’s musings on the expectations that people bring to multi-cultural relationships. And the story brought a great deal of tension to the end of the book, as I wondered whether or not Tilo could ever find a way out of the mess she’d made by interfering with the work of the spices.

Magic realism lovers and lovers of South Asian fiction will definitely find something to like in this title. It has a trippy, romantic feel that would probably be very appealing to chic lit readers – and indeed, my 16-year-old, chic lit-loving daughter adored this book. For me, it was a good but not great read. But it was a fun simul-blog, as it provoked some fun twitter chatter as we were reading. Why don’t you head over to the Desperado Penguin and her review?

This book also counts for two challenges, the South Asian Challenge and the Immigrant Stories Challenge. Thanks to Swapna and Colleen for hosting!

Book Review: The Paris Wife

I do not like Hemingway.

I was blessed with a fabulous high school English program, where we tackled the likes of Shakespeare, Dickens, Hesse and Faulkner. I loved it all. Except for Hemingway. The Snows of Kilimanjaro? Too dull. Hills Like White Elephants? Misogynistic. The Old Man and the Sea? I rooted for the sea. God bless Mrs. Dose, Ms. Mormile and good old Dr. Kelley. They did their best. They pointed out the vivid story arcs and the beauty of the spare language. But I never learned to like Hemingway.*

Which is my way of saying that unlike some readers of Paula McLain’s novel The Paris Wife, I was willing to dislike Hemingway the person as much as I had always disliked Hemingway the writer from the get-go. And that may have driven my reading of this book. Where his first wife, Hadley Richardson, saw charm and spontaneity, I saw oiliness and rashness. Where she saw genius, I saw vainglory. Where she saw bravery, I saw bravado. And from the perspective of the novel, I think it worked really well. Right from the beginning, I adored Hadley, and couldn’t see what she saw in the young and callow Ernest anyway. At least for me, McLain was able to conjure a sense of protectiveness about Hadley.

The book is heartbreakingly narrated from Hadley’s perspective, and we watch her slowly awaken to Hemingway’s insatiable nature. On her first trip to Italy, she visits the place where Hemingway fell in love with his nurse, only to be devastated when she rejected his marriage proposal. He says he’s glad they can visit together, but Hadley senses more:

I knew he was telling me the truth, but I also knew that if it were possible, he would have preferred to have me and Agnes both there – his past and his present, each of us loving him without question – and the strawberries, too. The wine and the sunshine and the warm stones under our feet. He wanted everything there was to have, and more than that. pg. 100

Hadley is extraordinarily sympathetic, but almost too saintly at times. She is that girlfriend that you just want to shake some sense into – “He’s treating you like garbage, for God’s sake! You’re better off without him!” And there were times when her forbearance bordered on the creepy, suffering through Hemingway’s flagrant adultery at an excruciatingly close distance. But her story of a life lived around genius is extremely compelling, and the characters of the Lost Generation – Alice B. Toklas, F.Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound and John Dos Passos – come alive in this novel, as do the locations they visit in the interwar period, from Italy to Austria to Paris, of course.

Based on the title, I wonder if McLain is planning a sequel – The Key West Wife? That would be tricky, because Pauline Pfeiffer, the woman who stole Hemingway from Hadley, is pretty hateful in this book. I’m not sure I could read it.

I still hate Hemingway.

*I admit that I did learn to love John Donne, however, the other author that Dr. Kelley predicted would “grow on me” over time. One out of two isn’t bad.

Book Review: Rebecca

I had planned to read Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca during A Literary Odyssey’s Read-Along in January. Unfortunately, I experienced a rare Total Library Fail – the wild, snowy conditions kept the book from being transferred between campuses, and I didn’t receive it until the Read-Along was nearly complete. It finally did arrive, though, and since I loved the Laurence Olivier/Joan Fontaine movie, and had always wanted to read the book anyway, I decided to add it to my GLBT Reading Challenge titles.

Du Maurier weaves a wonderful and haunting tale, told completely from the perspective of The Second Mrs. de Winter, Maxim’s young wife. This gives the book the air of a mystery, since the young bride is understandably in the dark about her husband Maxim’s life before she met him. It can also make things difficult on the reader, as The Second Mrs. de Winter is very short on self-esteem, so the reader is sometimes confused by and doubtful of her high society husband’s love for her, just as she is.

No surprise, I really enjoyed the book. But the movie made such a huge impression – and now having read the book I can see how true to the novel the film adaptation was to the book –I’m afraid the novel didn’t have a chance to stand on its own for me. I found my reading of it was totally dominated by the movie – kind of like The Second Mrs. de Winter is dominated by Rebecca. And that’s too bad, because Joan Fontaine was such a lovely actress, and I couldn’t make the frumpy, déclassé Second Mrs. de Winter “be” anyone else, so I think a bit of Du Maurier’s original intention was lost on me.*

There are some differences between the book and the movie, of course. In the book, it’s clear that Manderley is more than a setting – it’s the tangible symbol of the first de Winter marriage. That marriage was dominated by Rebecca, and Manderley remains awash in a wave of scrawling “Rs” attesting to her dominance. She turned Manderley into the showpiece that Maxim always dreamed it could be. So by taking his young wife back to Manderley, Maxim doesn’t actually start a new marriage – he really brings the Second Mrs. de Winter into his and Rebecca’s unresolved union:

Rebecca, always Rebecca. Wherever I walked in Manderley, wherever I sat, even in my thoughts and in my dreams, I met Rebecca. I knew her figure now, the long slim legs, the small and narrow feet. Her shoulders, broader than mine, the capable, clever hands. Hands that could steer a boat, could hold a horse. Hands that arranged flowers, made the modesl of ships, and wrote “Max from Rebecca” on the flyleaf of a book. I knew her face too, small and oval, the clear white skin, the cloud of dark hair. I knew the scent she wore, I could guess her laughter and her smile. If I heard it, even among a thousand others, I should recognise her voice. Rebecca, always Rebecca. I should never be rid of Rebecca. pg. 232

You can just feel the young bride’s distress and frustration in du Maurier’s evocative writing, can’t you?

And that’s really what I feel I got most out of finally reading Rebecca: an appreciation of du Maurier’s considerable writing abilities. I loved the way she slowly built the story through the narrator’s undependable narration. I am anxious to read Jamaica Inn now, as I haven’t seen either the movie or TV adaptation.

So I have finally knocked one book off for the GLBT Challenge! I’m glad I made small commitments to such a wide range of challenges this year, because it’s really pushing me to read some books I’ve neglected until now, like this one. Thanks to Amanda, Christina and Jen for hosting!

*This is why I’m a firm believer in book-before-movie timing! Gone with the Wind wouldn’t have been the same book if I’d been primed with wimpy Leslie Howard while I was reading it the first time. Why would Scarlett have fallen to pieces over him? When I read it, I had Robert Redford in mind – handsome and romantic, but also capable of toughness. I know, I know, but give me a break, I was reading it in the 70s.

Audiobook Review: Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

If a book can be distilled to a chapter, a chapter distilled to a sentence, and a sentence distilled to a word, then the word for Winifred Watson’s Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day is “charming.” I listened to Frances McDormand’s narration of the audiobook, and I have to say it was wonderful.

Miss Pettigrew is the literary equivalent of a screwball comedy, and it’s easy to see why Persephone Books chose to pluck it from obscurity. Unemployed and unaccomplished governess Guinevere Pettigrew reports to what she believes is an interview for another dull position, only to be thrust into the glittering high society world of actress Delysia LaFosse. Miss Pettigrew quickly becomes an ally to Miss LaFosse, and an asset to her circle of friends, because of her quick wits and straight-forward style.

The book takes place over a one-day period, and we watch the dowdy, downtrodden Miss Pettigrew blossom with every small triumph. She can hardly believe her luck, and dreads the end of the wonderful day, when she believes all her fun must come to an end:

For years she had lived in other people’s houses, and had never been an inmate in the sense of belonging. And now, in a few short hours, she was blissfully and serenely at home. She was accepted. They talked to her. And how they talked. She had never heard the like before. Their ridiculous inconsequence. Every sentence was like a heady cocktail. The whole flavor of the remarks gave her a wicked feeling of sophistication. And the way she kept her end up. No one would ever dream that she was new to it. “I never believed,” thought Miss Pettigrew with pride, “that I had it in me.” (1:54:58, Audiobook).

You can’t help but root for Miss Pettigrew to embrace this new lifestyle on a permanent basis!

I imagine this was a rather racy book when it was first published in 1938, what with Miss LaFosse maintaining three love affairs at one time – I suppose that’s what makes it feel so “modern,” overall. However, it also contains some shocking cultural signs of its times, including ethnic slurs aimed at Italians and Jews, that are decidedly out of step in 2011. The character of Miss Pettigrew – the spinster who’s sure life has passed her by, only to find she may have one last chance at happiness – is truly timeless.

Frances McDormand, who played Miss Pettigrew in the 2008 movie (I haven’t seen it, but would really like to), reads this book beautifully. You can practically watch prim Miss Pettigrew’s hair come down through her narration. The men are gruff, but not overdone. The women’s voices are all very unique, and capture their personalities perfectly. This was really a perfect match between book and reader – McDormand’s comic timing enhances the book tremendously. I highly recommend it for those who love literary fiction, humor, and fiction about women. And if you’re thinking of trying an audiobook for the first time, I would definitely suggest this one – it will give you an idea of how pleasant the experience of listening to a book can be. This is one of only four Persephones available as audiobooks, and I certainly hope they will do more.

This book counts for a Life Stage in the What's in a Name 4 Challenge. Thanks to Beth Fish Reads for hosting. I'll be posting a link to this review on Audiobook Jukebox – if you’re looking for audiobook reviews, that’s the best place to start!

Book Review: The Prophet

I love when books reference literature. Here’s an exchange I read a few weeks ago, as Pepper Cartwright sums up her feelings about her first, disastrous weeks as a Justice:

“As for embarrassment, I am way beyond that. On the other side of the wall of humiliation is liberation.”

Declan stared, “Kahlil Gibran or refrigerator magnet?” ~Christopher Buckley, Supreme Courtship

This exchanged made me realize something: the reason I usually enjoy those references is because I understand them. Getting the lit joke is part of my nerdy DNA. But not having read Gibran’s The Prophet, I wasn’t quite sure what Buckley was getting at. What’s a nerdy girl to do?

Well, making little headway with another book for Helen’s Middle East Reading Challenge (which is still ongoing through the summer, and has no book limit, so check it out), I moved The Prophet to the top of my TBR pile. I’d read some reviews about this book, both positive and negative, and I really didn’t know what to expect. So I tried to go at it with an open mind.

The book consists of short essays on philosophical topics, related in the form of a discussion between the Prophet and the people of the city he is about to leave. The Prophet touches on the questions common to most religious traditions: love, work, sorrow, poverty, religion. What Gibran presents is basically a philosophy of kindness – kindness to yourself, kindness to others, kindness to the planet. His writing is gentle. His tone is caring. It’s easy to understand why so many people have loved this book. Originally published in 1923, it has never been out of print.

But I also understand where Buckley was coming from with the refrigerator magnet quip.

Gibran focuses on dualities throughout the essays. The aphorisms come fast and furious in this short text:

“To measure you by your smallest deed is to reckon the power of the ocean by the frailty of its foam.”

“Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil. For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?”

“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.”

You get the idea. Great stuff, but there comes a point of adage-overload that I reached about half-way through. And some of them are pretty abstruse:

“Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. But you are eternity and you are the mirror.”

I’m still trying to work the physics of that one out.

Overall, this is a lovely book. I can see why it came from a Lebanese author: it celebrates the humanistic convergence of Islam, Christianity and Judaism, and Lebanon was blessed to have large populations of Christians, Jews and Muslims living together for so much of its history. I liked it, but it was a bit much as a book – it would have been smarter to read the essays one at a time, like meditations to start or end the day. Still, it’s a classic for a reason, and if you haven’t read it, you really should.

You’ll get the jokes. But you might also get inspired.

So I have finally added to my Middle East Reading Challenge total: I’ve made it to four. Thanks so much to Helen for hosting! I still want to finish an Israeli title before July, and any suggestions would be welcome!

Audiobook Review: Old Filth

Jane Gardam’s Old Filth is a portrait of successful barrister at the end of his life. To outsiders, Sir Edward Feathers’ journey appears to have been uneventful, charmed even. He attended a boarding school for young gentlemen during the Great Depression, served in a prestigious unit deployed in the English countryside in World War II, read law at Oxford directly after the war, and was admitted to the bar quickly. His legal success was legendary, his marriage was long and happy, his wealth was enviable. Gardam emphasizes this “outsider” view by starting each of the parts of the book with a dramaturgical scene, with acquaintances discussing Feathers in the format of a play: scene setting and character names followed by lines.

Of course, the interior life doesn’t match the exterior, and Gardam reveals the hidden sorrows of Eddie’s life through a present, first-person narrative and disjointed flashbacks in the days after his wife’s sudden death. We slowly learn about his miserable life as a “Raj orphan,” one of the thousands of children sent back at the age of 4 or 5 from the British Empire’s outposts in tropical Asia to be fostered by perfect strangers, who were paid to bring them up in the English way.

We also learn about the preternatural fear of homosexuality that the boarding school culture engendered. “Sir,” Eddie’s headmaster, impresses on the boy from the start that he runs a “clean school.” His friendship with another boy, Pat Ingelsby, is suspect, and it appears that the schools went to great lengths to keep young men from forming close and exclusive friendship, for fear that they signaled something “unsavory.” Not surprisingly, his childhood experiences leave Eddie emotionally distant and distrustful.

Gardam’s use of language is spare and evocative. Eddie’s seemingly serene life winds up packed with adventure, pain, and loss. The subject matter is heavy, but like all lives, there are wry moments, as when we learn why Sir Edward coined his own nickname (“Filth” stands for Failed in London, Try Hongkong). There’s plenty of irony too, as the least “savory” characters he’s met in his life prove to be the closest things he ever has to real friends.

The Raj orphan phenomenon was new to me. I found myself wondering why their parents bothered to have children that they had no intention of raising, but I suppose it made perfect sense at the time. Gardam paints a pretty unflattering portrait of the British Empire bureaucrats, who cannot seem to get far enough away from England, but don’t seem to be able to leave it truly behind and embrace the warm and sensuous cultures in which the find themselves.

The book was very good, but I did have some definite problems with it. The stream of consciousness musings were often disjointed. This may have been particularly pronounced as I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Graeme Malcom. The dramaturgical passages, especially, were read so fast that I felt some of their meaning was lost. Old Filth is a great character, but some of the plot twists rang false, and one or two interesting storylines simply petered out. I waffled between 3 and 4 stars on this book, but in the end it came down to enjoyment – I simply didn’t enjoy listening to it as much as I have other recent audiobooks. Gardam shares a great story, though, and I wouldn’t hesitate to read The Man in the Wooden Hat, which recounts the Feathers’ marriage from his wife Betty’s point of view. But I will read it, not listen. I’m not sure Gardam’s complex style is the right fit for an audiobook for me. Her work appears to take more concentration than I can muster at the gym, which is how I generally fit audiobooks in to my schedule.

Book Review: A Long, Long Time Ago, and Essentially True

Brigid Pasulka’s A Long, Long Time Ago, and Essentially True reminded me of why I am a reader. Because reading puts you in touch with the endless possibilities of the human condition.

The story is told in two voices and in two time frames, but both are set in motion by the same small miracle: one man’s enduring love for a beautiful young woman. The Pigeon loves Anielica so completely that he wants to make the world a perfect place for her. He starts by turning her father’s hut into a house worthy of her. But after the Germans roll through Poland at the beginning of the Second World War, the Pigeon works to change Poland itself, as a member of the Polish Resistance.

The second story takes place in post-Soviet Krakow, and is told by “Baba Yaga,” a young woman who has recently lost her beloved grandmother. She is living with some of her only relatives, Irena and her daughter Magda. While they are kind – in their bantering way – to the country cousin, Baba Yaga seems rudderless and apathetic. In fact, it was her story that gave me a slow start with this novel, as I kept wondering what this boring little bar girl had to do with the heroic, romantic events in the older narrative.

I am so happy I stuck with it.

A Long, Long Time Ago, and Essentially True is ultimately a novel about the ingenuity and perseverance of the Polish people. Pasulka tells that story beautifully and with great depth of feeling, as when Anielica’s brother tries to convince her that the Pigeon will return safely to them:

”I was in the woods with him for five years, and there was never anything he couldn’t manage. We just need to wait a little while longer, and I’m sure he will be back any time now.” But the words coming from his mouth were too abundant to be reassuring. Reassuring words were tall, sparse, stoic. “Don’t be silly.” “He’s fine.” Trust me.” But Anielica did not press. She knew that her brother was worried too. She had noticed the furrows in his forehead deepening, his eyebrows slowly creeping upward for the past hour. Kindle location 4488

And while many reviews have described this book as “sad,” what I thought Pasulka captured best was the profound ability of the Polish people to find happiness despite history. Happiness in small things. In a wedding shared with 9 other couples in a post-war Poland with too few priests and too many deferred dreams. In an open-air bed. In a secret shared between sweethearts.

This is a wonderful book. In addition to the gripping storylines, the book also offers a glimpse into the recent history of Poland, which I found fascinating. In fact, it made me realize I need to learn more about the post-war years in Eastern Europe in general, and Poland in particular. I would absolutely recommend it to those love contemporary literary fiction, as well as those whose tastes run to historical fiction and even to lighter romances – there’s something here for those in any of those groups.

This book counts for a “Size” in the What’s in a Name 4 Challenge, and is my first book for this year’s Eastern European Reading Challenge at The Black Sheep Dances. Thanks to Beth Fish Reads and Amy for hosting!

Audiobook Review: Bitter Sweets

Scandalous lies. Sweet lies. Treacherous lies. Nimble lies. Lies of omission. Roopa Farooki’s Bitter Sweets tells the story of a Bangladeshi family built on a lie – and of three generations of suffering because of all the subsequent lies it takes to hold the unhappy group together.

Henna, a lazy and illiterate shopkeeper’s daughter from Dacca, convinces wealthy Anglophile and Oxford student Rashid (Ricky) Kareem that she is his poetry-loving, tennis-playing soulmate – a pretense that she manages to keep up until their wedding night. The first lie yields a second, as Ricky covers up his wife’s inadequacies for the sake of family honor. And the lies continue from there, each piece of happiness marred by some part of the truth missing.

Henna and Rashid’s only child, Shona, lies to keep peace. She falls in love with Parvez, a Pakastani, and they elope to London, where they start married life living over a confectioner’s shop. Intelligent and driven, Shona works tirelessly to create a perfect world for her little family. But even her kindly-meant lies take their toll, and eventually have repercussions for her twin sons, Omar and Sharif. (**Digression: Yes, that’s Omar and Sharif. Like the actor. It makes total sense when you read the novel, I promise.**)

Bitter Sweets is a solid family saga, romantic, funny, sad, and suspenseful in turns. I liked the complexity of the characters. Everyone has mixed motives, so their actions aren’t predictable. In fact, the ending provided a great plot twist that I never saw coming. I love that.

I thoroughly enjoyed this audiobook. Tania Rodrigues is a wonderful narrator, with a range of accents and voices that take the reader from Bangladeshi high society to the streets of London effortlessly. I had a couple of “driveway” moments while listening to the book, sitting in the car to listen to the end of a chapter – she has a great voice that you don’t tire of.

I’m starting to realize how very important the narrator is to the success of an audiobook. Actually, this book has me thinking about doing an experiment: I plan to read the actual book, and compare the two formats, to see how much of my enjoyment was because on the narration. Based on the mixed reviews I read of the book, and my own enthusiastic response, I wonder if Rodrigues’ masterful performance may have accounted for quite a lot my positive review.

Or maybe this is just my cup of tea. I will report back.

This book counts for THREE challenges: that’s a personal record. It counts for Evil in the What’s in a Name 4 Challenge, as well as for Immigrant Stories and the South Asia Challenge. Thanks to Beth Fish Reads, Colleen at BooksNYC and Swapna at S. Krishna’s Books for hosting.

Oh, and I’ll also be putting up a link on Audiobook Jukebox. It’s a great blog I recently found out about, with links to hundreds of reviews for audiobooks.

The unsatisfying nature of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

I start 2011 with a simul-blog on a food-related title, shared with my very dear friend (and incidentally, the maid-of-honor at my wedding), Jess of Desperado Penguin.

Aimee Bender’s The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake represents an interesting strain of magic realism in current U.S. literature. It has a really cool premise. And some really interesting characters. Still, I have to admit that in the end it’s not a book I can easily recommend to others.

The totally cool premise is this: a girl finds out that she can “taste” the emotions of whoever has prepared her food. This presents a particular predicament in her case, as her mother is unhappy in her marriage – hence, the “sadness” associated with the lemon cake so devotedly prepared for her birthday celebration. Ironically, Rose tastes her mother’s hollowness and bitterness every day, in every lovingly prepared school lunch and every carefully crafted family dinner. She comes to love the mechanized, mass-merchandised foods that are never touched by human hands, as their inhumanity allows her a respite from the feelings that are thrust upon her by others. This is a weird and counter-intuitive message, to say the least.

I see this book as an indictment of both the “helicopter” parent and the uninvolved parent, although the uninvolved parent is by far the biggest loser in Bender’s calculus.

If I was quiet enough, he wouldn’t send me to bed. We colluded in this way: as long as I didn’t announce that I was a kid, he wouldn’t rise up as parent, and for an hour, we could both have a little respite from our roles.

Rose’s helicopter mom counts on her brilliant older son to guide her through life. Her absentee father never bothers to share with his children the one piece of information that might have helped them make sense of their lives. But Bender never gives us an example of a “good” parent, so I’m not sure what she would change about either of the parents she portrays so unsympathetically in this book.

One of the unique aspects of this book is the relationship between Rose Edelstein and her older brother, Joseph. Rose, as might be expected, adores her older brother. But in the end the reader is left wondering how her selfish brother could possibly deserve her adoration. Only Joseph’s best friend, George, seems to care about each of the members of the family as an individual, but in the end he realizes he cannot make them be “normal,” no matter how much he cares for them. They are who they are – but George’s withdrawal leaves the family without an anchor in the normal world.

I have spent some time thinking about this book, and I have to admit I don’t understand what Bender wants me to take away from it. The ending is so unsatisfying that I felt agitated when I finished: “THAT’S where this was going?” was my final thought. It’s not a bad book, but not a good read either. The lack of quotation marks was annoying to me, a mark of laziness, not creativity, from my perspective. I think magic realism devotees will be interested in this highly Americanized iteration of the genre. But aside from that, it’s not my cup of tea – or my piece of cake. I can honestly admit that if I wasn’t simul-blogging this book with buddy Jess, I would have shelved it.