So, I thought I'd get this
blog started back up by talking about six pretty different books I picked up at
an independent bookseller outside of Pittsboro the first summer I visited Kate
in her new diggs (they were still new at the time, anyway). I enjoyed all of
them in different ways, and most of them were books I wouldn't have sought out
on my own at a Barnes & Noble or Amazon (at least not without a couple of
recommendations). I'll talk about them in the order I read them.
Heading Out to Wonderful is probably the furthest from my usual fare. The
(beautiful) cover of this edition gives almost a chick lit feel, and it's clear
early-on that this is not a plot-driven novel. The story begins in 1948, when a
stranger drives into town, "Brownsburg, Virginia ... the kind of town that existed in the
years right after the war, where the terrible American wanting hadn't touched
yet, where most people lived a simple life without yearning for things they
couldn't have, where the general store had tin Merita bread signs as door
handles ..." bringing a briefcase full of cash, a cardboard suitcase, and
a set of butcher's knives. There were
times, especially in the beginning, that I worried this would be a too
idealistic take on rural Virginia – the opening chapter includes such
assertions as "They just accepted their lot, these five hundred or so men,
women, and children, black and white, the blacks knowing their place, as they
said then, which meant that the whites knew their place, too, and were pretty
pleased with their lot in the evolutionary parade." – but as the story
unfolds, characters begin to clash, power dynamics are laid bare, and this
reader stopped suspecting the narrator owned any rose-colored glasses.
(Although the narrator's identity isn't spelled out until the end of the book,
it's obvious to anyone paying attention to the hints dropped in the opening.)
There's a feeling of a
pastorale about many of the passages. Some of the most memorable describe the
newcomer, Charlie, sleeping outside by the river in his truck. ("The
summer moonlight filtered through the willow branches and made shadows on his
pale, gleaming back. The black, cool water sparkled as he shook out his wet
hair, turned from brown to the black of the water and the starlit night. ...
Then he knelt by the truck with the singing of the crickets loud in the dark
and the murmur of the night moths like a fluttering in the heart, and he said
his prayers, even though he knew deep down he had lost his faith somewhere
along the way.") I also appreciated the insights that accompany Charlie's
visits to the local churches and how their congregations respond to him. The
end of the novel takes the same slow-paced, lyrical approach as some of the
earlier chapters but dives into chillingly stark, distilled meditations on
human nature and motivations.
***
A far future heroine named
Artemis, raised on a "library planet" and coming of age among the
criminals of planet Cuchulainn? You know I had to pick that one up. The first
section ("Revenge") of Artemis is what you what you might get
if Tarantino directed sci-fi. It opens with a magnificent, visceral prison
break and expands to tell a story of assassination and revenge. It also comes
with the baggage of trendy, pulpy action films – an overabundance and
aestheticization of violence and its share of gratuitous sex. In the first part
of the book, these are easily out-weighed by the Artemis' vibrant and powerful
first-person narration, on-fire pacing, a cinematic feel, and a sense of
originality.
While entertaining, the rest
of the book doesn't live up to the first section. As soon as the second
chapter, we're treated to a giant chunk of exposition that, if I had to guess,
is a lengthy plot summary of Palmer's novel Debatable Space. (It does
make me want to read the book, although part of me fears there wouldn't be much
to add to the summary!) As the book goes on, the focus widens from Artemis'
personal story to bring in both her family story and a larger, galactic war.
Sadly, Artemis' mother (who I'm guessing stars in one of Palmer's earlier
novels) steals the focus, making our vivid protagonist Artemis seem like
heroine-light, and the war story pales next to Artemis' revenge saga. On the
other hand, Palmer creates some fascinating aliens, even if their participation
in this novel is marginal (and they sometimes appear as deii ex machina).
***
Witches on the Road
Tonight is probably the favorite of
my McIntyre's selections. I was surprised I hadn't heard of it, since it was
published in 2011, and I tend to pay attention to news of author Sheri Holman.
(I've heard her speak, and her first book, A Stolen Tongue, about the
medieval "translation" of saints' relics, was marvelously strange.
Her next book, The Dress Lodger, was probably her most popular, though I
found it a little grim. I hadn't read her next effort, The Mammoth Cheese,
because I didn't feel like I was particularly in the mood for biting, comic
critique of rural Virginian politics and dairies, but reading Witches made
me want to give The Cheese a try!)
After a present-day prologue,
the story begins in Panther's Gap, Virginia, 1940, when two young WPA
employees, sometimes-couple Tucker and Sonia, a writer and photographer working
on an annotated tourist map for the Virginia Writer's Project, drive into the
rural southwest. Tucker hits young Eddie Alley on a mountain road, and although
the boy isn't seriously hurt, it leads Tucker and Sonia to take an unscheduled
stop in the bare-bones cabin where Eddie lives with mother, Cora. Soon Tucker
finds himself attracted Cora, who has a local reputation as a dangerous witch
who on occasion roams the mountains in the skin of a panther; meanwhile, young
Eddie is fascinated by Tucker's film projector and an early Frankenstein.
The story skips back to the
present day, where an aging Eddie lives in New York, contemplating the end of
his life and his somewhat-strained relationship with his adult daughter,
Wallis. We see Wallis in present day as a risk-taking journalist but follow her
memories into smalltown Virginia in the 1980s, where Eddie has worked for years
as Captain Casket, introducing the weekend horror movies for the local
television station. Now, the station faces rocky financial straits. Young
Wallis is largely oblivious to this, but she notices the strains in her
parents' relationship when the family takes in a homeless teenage boy who works
part-time for Eddie. As Wallis tries to adjust to the changes in her family
life, she ultimately finds herself haunted by an act of witchcraft and a
weekend spent visiting the old family cabin in Panther's Gap.
The strength of the novel is
in the insight with which Holman describes the complex character motivations
and interactions. We see and understand both Sonia's attraction to Tucker and
to her work; Tucker's fears and warring ideals; the conflicts between Eddie's
and Wallis' passionate desires and their legacies and responsibilities.
(Although Holman makes an effort to round out Eddie's wife/Wallis' mother with
a brief section from her point of view, she remains the least interesting
figure.) There's also real suspense, especially as the reader begins to wonder,
and fear, what really happened in 1980 ... and 1940. Meanwhile, Holman treats
her magic with both seriousness and mystery, taking an approach that's not
quite magic realism. Saturated in the details of the personal, Holman
nevertheless touches on big ideas as her themes echo through the generations:
art and family, death and mystery, life and love.
***
City of Bohane begs to be read aloud in a thick Irish accent. Of
course, I couldn't produce a satisfactory accent and had to be content with
imagining one. In one way, then, the novel can be slow going, since it can't be
read any faster than the speaking rate of my imaginary inner Irish storyteller.
But why would you want to rush? The earthy, exuberant, self-aware storyteller's
prose is the heart of the book. An example from an early chapter:
"Smoketown laid out its grogshops, its noodle joints, its tickle-foot
parlors. Its dank shebeens and fetish studios. Its shooting galleries, hoor
stables, bookmakers. All crowded in on each other in the lean-to streets. The
tottering old chimneys were stacked in great deranged happiness against the
morning sky. The streets in dawn light thronged with familiar faces. The Gant
felt at once as if he had never been gone." Above all, City of Bohane
has style.
The tale is one of gang
rivalries in Bohane, an invented (yet mythically vibrant) west coast Irish city
on the edge of the Big Nothin'. Logan Hartnett (with some assistance from his
mother Girly, his lieutenants Wolfie Stanners and Fucker Burke, Fucker's
Alsatian Angelina, and Jennie Ching the hoor) has dominated the city and the
enterprising young thugs of the Hartnett Fancy for years when the Gant rides
into town and upsets the balance of things. The darkly comic tone is
reminiscent of the Galway-set film The Guard with Brendan Gleeson (but
with more epic overtones). The plot takes place in a not-terribly-distant
future (it's hard to figure out whether Girly grew up as a contemporary to the
reader or in a somewhat earlier or later time), and while the details of
exactly how much time has elapsed and what events have brought Bohane to its present
state are sketchy, they don't really matter for enjoying the novel. The rivalry
and the word play are what's important here, and both are to be relished.
***
The Fifth Servant is the rare medieval-set tome with the energy and
pacing of a contemporary detective story. The point-of-view switches between
the noir-like first person narration of Benyamin Ben-Akiva, a poor scholar new
to town and filling the humble role of fifth shammas for the Jewish community, and various third person
interludes (when, for example, we need to find out what the Christian serving
girl or the corrupt clergy are getting up to). The narration is notable for
both using contemporary slang without calling undue attention to it and being
deeply immersed in the details of Jewish religious life and practice –
sometimes proverbs, but mostly exceprts from Talmudic stories and
interpretations of law. (“The Talmud asks, ‘Why are scholars compared to a
nut?’ The answer given is that even though the outside may be dirty and scuffed,
the inside is still valuable. But I could think of other reasons for the
comparison.”) The story kicks off with a murder that must be solved before
Passover. Ben-Akiva finds himself the go-between between the Jewish and
Christian communities (as well as the more literal Talmud scholars and rabbis
and those who follow the mystical bent of Rabbi Loew), hindered by religious
strictures, threats of violence from the Christian community, and the Jews’ position,
not as citizens but as property, of the Hapsburg Emperor (who makes an
appearance).
This novel set in
sixteenth-century Prague makes an interesting companion piece with the
historical sections of Everything Is
Illuminated. I suspect the characterizations of the rabbis and the
plotlines surrounding Rabbi Loew would be even richer for a reader better
versed in Jewish history, but even this amateur found a lot to appreciate. (And
between the Foer and Wishnia, I found myself delving into the very interesting
Learning to Read Midrash, with scholarly but entertaining explanations of
stories – intriguingly found in both Midrash and the Qu’ran but not in the
Bible/Torah – and exegesis of Biblical word choices and seeming contradictions.
I also checked out Swimming in the Sea of
Talmud and Searching for Meaning from
Midrash, mentioned in The Fifth
Servant’s useful acknowledgments, but didn’t get far: these much drier
tomes, while chunked into shorter sections, focus more on interpreting duties
and regulations and are less friendly to a reader unfamiliar with Jewish law.)
***
Alif the Unseen
calls to mind the work of Ursula K. LeGuin. The characters may not be quite as well
rounded or the deeper layers as philosphical as Earthsea’s, but Alif shares the ambience of quick-moving
fairytale with a serious side. Whether it’s due to the upper-class girl he’s
secretly been seeing, the illegal security and encryption services he provides
his online customers, or the rare book that has suddenly fallen into his hands,
Indian-Arab hacker Alif knows he’s in trouble when he finds the national
security services surrounding his house.
Fortunately, the cat that
sometimes sneeks onto his balcony turns out to be a jinn (one of several,
friendly and otherwise, he will encounter in his travels) and Alif finds fellow
travellers in his neighbor Dina and a contact that goese by the screenname
NewQuarter. There are fantastic locales, exciting episodes (like the escape
from the secret desert prison), and cogent reflections on religion, politics,
and ethics. While the end (written in the midst of the Arab Spring and
published in 2012) reflected both the chaos and hopes of current events and
incorporated a mythic hacker showdown, I did feel it left a little to be
desired. Overall, however, Alif
brings a bright energy and fresh setting to the fantasy and
modern-day-fairytale genres.
