Setting the Bar

I got this book for Christmas and just got around to reading it now.  And it’s probably good that it took me as long as it did to really start reading it because I’m at a place in my life where I think that I can appreciate it more. It made me want to read more books by Jim Harrison.

In this novel, Harrison’s latest, we meet Cliff. Cliff is a spirited and somewhat eccentric 60 year old farmer, who majored in English in college and spent ten years teaching before he grew food off of his father’s farm. He says goodbye to the family farm and his prior life because the farm has been lost in a sketchy real estate deal orchestrated by his adulterous broker wife, Vivian. In order to find himself and come to terms with his life, he elects to travel around the United States for one year. He brings along a childhood jigsaw puzzle of the United States and tosses a piece out for each state that he gets through. Part of his quest is to rename the states, their birds and give them new mottoes.  During a portion of his journey, he is accompanied by Marybelle - a former student of his and twenty years his junior, with whom he engages in an on again, off again love affair. We also meet Cliff’s affluent son Robert, who is a movie producer in San Francisco. As Cliff travels through Montana, Wisconsin, California and other Western States, we see a portion of the dark depths of Cliff’s soul (and perhaps Jim Harrison’s?).

I couldn’t say that I was CRAZY about this book because there wasn’t really a plot.  But I really enjoyed the characters that Harrison introduced me to. They were quirky, unique and off the beaten path, just like most of Harrison’s other characters. I had to laugh at some points. The journey does get tedious in parts, which is why it took me so long to finish it - I had to put it down once in a while to distract myself with other reading material - blogs, newspapers, magazines, whatever. I did really enjoy the writing style - the way that Harrison strung his sentences together was magical, even though the subject matter could get a little bit tedious at times. I enjoyed how Harrison attempted to tackle the themes of adultery, disconnect from technology and redefining oneself when things beyond your control rip your identity from you. These are not easy task and Harrison took them head on, wonderfully and magically.

Generally speaking, this book was a mixed bag.  Some parts of it were thoroughly wondrous while other parts lacked.

Book 59/100

I’ve been on an historical fiction reading kick lately, and this one continued the trend. Ericka Robuck had a pretty decent first attempt with this novel set on the tropical island of Nevis. We are introduced to two women - one living in the present day (Meg) and one who lives during the 1800’s on a sugar plantation (Catherine).  Meg, a somewhat high powered public relations professional for the Governor of Maryland, loses her parents suddenly in a car accident and, in the wake of their loss, realizes that her father not only has come to his wealth deceptively but also owns a massive amount of land in Nevis. That land was the plantation named Eden, owned by Catherine and her father Cecile in the 19th century. As Meg begins to explore her family’s history on the Island, we are also treated to Catherine’s perspectives in alternating chapters.

I enjoyed this book.  Both women were pretty strong characters that were similar in the sense that they were striving to gain absolution from the sins that their fathers had committed.  As they both went along their journeys,  though, I felt that only Catherine really grew and changed. Meg seemed to remain the same throughout the novel. I enjoyed the alternating chapters and the book moved at a fairly rapid pace. The prose was somewhat simplistic and was nothing special - it was jerky in places, but never downright atrocious. There were glimmers that showed Robuck’s promise. The plotlines were somewhat predictable with maybe, one or two surprises.

This book was a good first attempt at an historical novel.  Hopefully in the next novel, there will be more character development.

I won’t deny it - I have a penchant for historical fiction, especially when it’s about the European royalty.  It all began with The Other Boleyn Girl by Phillippa Gregory and, more recently, The Other Queen, which I reviewed here . There’s just something juicy and sly and sexy about that whole lot and the intrigue that follows them around. And let’s face it, The Tudors have made it downright sexy to be a king or queen in this particular era.

So when I heard that there was a new novel out about Catherine DeMedici I was resolved to get it and read it.  And I did! And it was so worth it.

The Devil’s Queen is written by Jeanne Kalogridis and is the masterful story of Catherine DeMedici from her early years through the St. Barthlomew’s Day Massacre. When we first meet Catherine, we realize that she is, perhaps, more sophisticated than most people twenty years her senior. Her family is dethroned from power in Florence when she is a child and she is imprisoned by her family’s enemies, after being orphaned shortly after her birth.  She is imprisoned in various convents and is then denied the opportunity to return to Florence to rule it by her own family members. This novel follows her life from her first encounter with the astrologer who helps her understand her destiny and helps her shape it, Cosimo Ruggieri, to their final days as allies at the French court, which Catherine now rules as Regent and mother of the king.

Kalogridis promptly and wonderfully deals with the more salacious aspects of Catherine’s rule - her interests in astrology, mathematics and philosophy were controversial for men at the time that Catherine lived and ruled and were even more so because she was a strong, powerful, ambitious woman. I think she specifically and consciously rejects religion, which is really ironic because her country is torn apart by religious conflict. I also really liked how Kalogridis dealt with Catherine’s relationship with Cosimo Ruggeri, her astrologer.  It was amazing and I was immediately sucked in.

I thought that this novel was very well written and very well researched. Kalogridis did her homework and, in doing so, she was able to do a masterful job in putting a humanist and somewhat sympathetic face on one of the most hated queens of all time.

Book 57/100

I have to admit that I love a good memoir, even ones that everyone has seemed to read.  This book was one of those. Kelly Corrigan documented her own fight with breast cancer as well as her father’s battle with prostate cancer in The Middle Place .  And I realized as I was reading it that it was immensely popular not because so many people have breast cancer or know someone who has it or know someone who has lost someone to it (even though that is all true - I know of at least 20 people that have it or have a family member that has it or had it as the case may be) but because this memoir was phenomenally good.

Kelly Corrigan had the perfect life (in some ways, she still does!). She was married. She had two beautiful daughters and a husband that adored her and worked hard for her. She had a career that she loved but which would give her the flexibility to be a mother and a Corrigan (which partly means having many more children then two!). During the early chapters of the book, we learn that she has a cancerous lump in her breast.  As she undergoes treatment, she learns that her father - “Greenie” as he is affectionately known - also has cancer. It’s his third go around with it.

I loved the title of the book and what it meant. The middle place is the place between childhood and adulthood.  It’s different for most people. For Kelly, it was the period of the cancer treatments that she undergoes, where she officially grows up.  What’s odd is that Ms. Corrigan and I have had similar life experiences in the sense that our families are similar and that we seem to come from the same place. So her description of the Middle Place and her life struck close to home.  It would have also been very, very easy for Ms. Corrigan to wallow in self-pity and depression, but she doesn’t, even during the parts where she talks about chemo, radiation and surgeries or her dad getting cancer. This young mother moves the reader from the middle place, a place where she learns she has breast cancer, to her past with stories of her life as her parents’ child and her brothers’ sister. The book moves fairly quickly, even though it covers a pretty intense and serious topic.  But you shouldn’t discount it merely because it moves so fast because the writing is still pretty good.  Ms. Corrigan’s career as a journalist definitely helped her to make her own story accessible to all readers.

I picked up this book on a whim. I saw the title and liked it. Seriously - because my husband always says that to me when we’re fighting and he does it just to tell me that my concerns are stupid to my face without calling me stupid. Which, of course, infuriates me more.

This is a memoir, but it’s not like any that I’ve ever read before, really. She writes with a voice that is much more wise than her years on this earth should allow her to be.  And she’s HILARIOUS. It’s really a memoir disguised as character studies of the men that she has come across - with each given a chapter (or sometimes more, if it’s her son, her current man or her ex). What I loved though, is how she managed to describe how each impacted her and her own personality and life.  It was always about her, in the end, which is how a good memoir is constructed.

I thought that the book was honest and warm, and really, it felt like Ms. Joseph was coming to us as the reader and presenting herself, as is.  What you see is what you get - no ifs, ands or buts - even including all the roughness around the edges. And this was something I appreciated - the genuineness was alluring and earnest and tough at the same time.  Bravo Ms. Joseph!

I, probably like many American schoolchildren in the 90’s, had to read the Old Man and the Sea and because of this experience, if you were like me, you were completely turned off from ever reading another book by Hemingway ever. I opted to try another book though, because, hey, it couldn’t be much worse than a guy trying to catch a fish. But this novel proved that my previous negative feelings towards Hemingway were misplaced.

A Farewell to Arms is a semi-autographical novel about a soldier - Mr. Henry - who is an American fighting in the Italian army during World War I. Henry is an ambulance driver. The novel is split into five sections. In the first section, we meet Henry who is living in Italy and trying to seduce a beautiful English nurse named Catherine Barkley, which he does sucessfully. He is then dispatched to the front where he is severely wounded - his knee is completely shattered and I was surprised that he didn’t end up losing his leg completely. The second book focuses on his recuperation in Milan and his growing love of Catherine, who travels with him to Milan and acts as his nurse during his stay at the hospital there. By the time that he is healed, Catherine is three months pregnant and Henry has received orders to return to the front. During the third book, Hemingway focuses on Henry’s time at the front, including the retreat that the Italian arm undergoes and his defection as well as the defection of other troops. In the Fourth book, Catherine and Henry are reunited and they flee to Switzerland in a row boat. They set up a home in a small rural town in the mountains, where they live peacefully until she goes into labor. The book ends shortly after the birth.

I thought that this book was a tragic, historical romance in addition to being a commentary on war - World War I specifically - and it served both ends masterfully.  Hemingway used deceptively simple language to get his points about romance and war through.  His characters - the main ones at least - were living, breathing characters that learned with each page that went by.  Henry was not the same person he was at the end that he was at the beginning and I really appreciated that.  I thought that the symbolism of the rain, although very obvious and over played in some parts, generally was used very well and appropriately.

This is a book that I see myself reading again in the future just so that I can peel off another layer for interpretation.  The book was very enjoyable and I look forward to reading another by Hemingway in the future.

Book 54/100

Novella Carpenter is an interesting woman. She is a total urbanite in every sense of the word - she lives and breathes cities and the culture that they encapsulate. But she can’t leave behind or ignore her roots - she is the child of two back to the earth hippies who owned their own farm in Idaho and successfully lived off of the land that they owned. She is drawn to backyard self-sufficiency, having majored in biology and studied with Michael Pollan , who wrote The Omnivore’s Dilemma. So she decides that she’s going to try to have it all and create a garden in her own backyard.

So she buys ducks, turkeys, geese and chickens. She buys bees and seeds and even bunnies and pigs. And the next thing she knows is that she  has a garden/farm going in the backyard of her Oakland home. While creating her own self-sufficient diet, she interacts with her neighbors. Lana, an interesting woman who love all animals, lives across the street where she runs a speakeasy/salon out of her home. Bobby is the local homeless guy who lives out of the car.

Novella is truely a magnificent writer and her character and voice shine through in her writing.  She has a lot of heart, compassion and childlike wonder, all combined with nerves of steel and a desire to suceed and not give up, where I completely would have.  I loved reading her descriptions of her neighbors and her pets, especially Harold and Maude (the turkeys) even through her narrating her slaughter of them for dinner. She manages to convey how complex killing her animals for meals is…and I never imagined that it could be like that.

For those of you that enjoyed books like the Omnivore’s Dilemma, this one is a must read.

Book 53/00

Joanne Harris has such a way with words, which I remembered from her novel, Chocolat (or maybe it was because chocolate played such a big role in the book, and I am a bona fide chocolate addict). This book is a sequel to the book that was released about a decade ago and features the same major characters.

This book takes place five years after the actions in Chocolat. Some things have changed - Anouk is now 12 and has a four year old sister - Rosette. The trio lives above a choclaterie in the Montmartre section of Paris, where Anouk attends secondary school and Rosette and Vianne run the chocolate shop. Life seems to be settled - Vianne has learned to conform and to fit in. Vianne has changed her name to Yanne Charbonneau and Anouk is now known as Annie. We don’t know who Rosette’s father is initially (although some fans would have their guesses). The trio then meets Zozie de l’Alba, a young, gifted woman (who reminds us of Vianne from Chocolat, but who isn’t as trustworthy) - she mysteriously appears one day and volunteers at the store.  Her gifts include withcraft, trickery and fraud, as well as assuming identities that aren’t hers.

Ms. Harris continues with her masterful work in this novel.  The novel is told from three different perspectives - Zozie, Vianne and Anouk - often alternating, but not necessarily and this was a wonderful mechanism when used that the way that Harris used them.  The plot was such that it couldn’t be moved forward unless Ms. Harris told the stories from different perspectives because, unlike Chocolat, this novel involves deception by at least one character that the other characters wouldn’t know about. The characters were well-developed and learned things about themselves and their motives as the novel progressed. Her prose was sweet and pure and I loved it. Even though it was simple, the subjects that Ms Harris wrote about so eloquently were anything but - family and the definition of family, mother/daughter relationships, identity and what and who decides a person’s identity. It was fantastic!

I would highly recommend this novel to anyone.