I think I'm done reading novels for the month. (Perhaps I could finish a few other things in my life if I got out of the family habit of saying "just one more chapter..."!) Here's the list.
The Man in the Queue, by Josephine Tey
Sometimes I wish our library had a section for books written before I was born – both the out-of-print and hard-to-find gems, and the things that have really kept their value even to the point of staying in print throughout the decades. Josephine Tey is great. This 1929 mystery introduces her main sleuth, the winsome Inspector Alan Grant.
Forest of the Pygmies, by Isabel Allende
I’ve always thought I ought to try reading something by Isabel Allende. Now I wish I hadn’t. Perhaps I’d have lower expectations if she weren’t such a “famous writer.” This one may not be her best: just happened to be on the shelves and looked accessible. At any rate, it’s part three of a series featuring a couple of teenagers who (I guess this is realistic) think they are different from everybody else and have the whole world figured out, and that nobody understands them – except each other, of course. When trouble comes (this time on an African jungle safari), they outwit all adults on the scene using their convenient magical powers. I found them very patronizing and annoying.
The Christian missionary in this story was particularly two-dimensional and unpleasant, which was odd since the author apparently dedicated her story to the man on which he was modeled.
Silence, by Shusaku Endo
“Shusaku Endo is Japan’s foremost novelist, and Silence is generally regarded to be his masterpiece.” It tells the story of a seventeenth-century Portuguese priest who goes to Japan, illegally, at the height of the terrible persecution that was destroying the Christian community of that nation (which once numbered 300,000). It’s a very moving exploration of what it’s like to be a foreigner working in a very different, sometimes wonderful and sometimes hostile situation, where the deepest commitments of your life are seriously questioned by those around you.
One thing really bothered me. A chief aim of the government leaders at this stage was to destroy Christianity in Japan by forcing influential Christians to recant their faith (by trampling on holy images). Some were brutally tortured. The Portuguese characters in this book found themselves in an excruciating situation: Though they desired to lay down their lives for the Japanese, their resistance to apostasy meant many Japanese died for them. The torturers put it on their heads: apostatize, and we will let these peasants live. The only way to be like Jesus and show mercy on the people was to deny Jesus. What would you do? None of the characters point out that it’s the torturers who are destroying the Japanese Christians, not the missionaries. So frustrating. But I’d certainly recommend the book.
It’s haunted by the absence of God: in these terrible situations, why is God silent?
Remake, by Connie Willis
“It’s the Hollywood of the future, where moviemaking’s been computerized and life-action films are a thing of the past…. Humphrey Bogart and Marilyn Monroe are starring together in a remake of a A Star Is Born, and if you don’t like the ending, you can change it with the stroke of a key.” Creative, interesting, and chock full of tribute to classic movies.
Not bad, but not her best either. So I strolled over to the Connie Willis shelf in our library and picked up D.A., my all-time favorite. It’s short: you can read it in less than an hour. But really fun. (Meg says her favorite CW book is Lincoln's Dreams, and many are the fans who favor To Say Nothing of the Dog.)
Seaside, by Terri Blackstock
Christian novella about two sisters, both operating under a great deal of stress and somewhat jealous and resentful towards one another. “And what neither of them realizes is how their frantic drive for achievement is speeding them headlong past the things that matter most in life.” Their mother (whose life has recently taken a more spiritual and sane turn) realizes they are just the kind of women she always encouraged them to be, and regrets it: “I taught you to run the treadmill and now I want to teach you to get off,” she says. So she invites them to spend a week of vacation with her and goes so far as buying their plane tickets, then watches them fight over the phone because neither is getting away, willingly (and somehow there isn’t any cell phone coverage at their Florida cabin!)
I enjoyed this novel and am a bit challenged – as I am by the stories and examples of several around me – to think again about my sometimes-rocky relationship with my own sister.
Jane Austen’s Charlotte, by Julia Barrett
When Austen died she left notes or drafts for this novel, now fleshed out by Julia Barrett. The colorful Parker family has a dream: they want to see their community on the Sussex seaside become the next great, fashionable watering hole. Like some other Austen tributes this one tries too hard to recreate her style and plays up things that she probably took for granted. I had to Google the “bathing machines” and “dippers” who operated them, a Victorian/regency excess that went out of use in later years. This book moves slowly and has a large cast of characters; we do not see the leads very much.
This book did get some really terrible reviews on Amazon, I see now (though they liked the other 'completion' of this novel, titled 'Sanditon').
Once I adjusted my expectations I enjoyed it as bedtime reading. Charlotte herself is a houseguest, a young woman from inland farming country invited to stay with the Parkers. She sees through them yet is charmingly loyal to her hosts and (of course) meets her future husband before we’re done.
The House of Bilquis, by Azhar Abidi
“A haunting novel about a mother and son and the emotional consequences of leaving home.” What happens when an aging Pakistani aristocrat, comfortably surrounded by her servants, realized her foreign-educated son is never coming back? Samad has married an Australian girl and plans to stay in Melbourne. He invites his mother Bilquis to join them, but it would mean leaving everything she knows – or, that is, what is left of it, because the Pakistan she once knew is slowly disappearing. Recommended.
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