Royalty Rules Challenge Wrap-Up

The first challenge of the year is done! And with six days to spare, which is much better than I usually manage. I read three books for the Royalty Rules Challenge (links to reviews):

The Daughter of Time - Josephine Tey (A-)
William’s Wife - Jean Plaidy (C+)
Antony and Cleopatra - William Shakespeare (B)

All the books featured real, reigning monarchs as their touch of royalty: Richard III, Mary II, and CLeopatra. All were above average, but I was disappointed by William’s Wife. (On the bright side, it just occurred to me that I should find a biography of Mary II to see if she really was that dull. I love it when books lead to other books.) My favourite of the three was The Daughter of Time, an interesting fictional perspective on the real historical mystery of the Princes in the Tower. It served as the final nail in the coffin of any lingering belief I had of Richard III’s guilt and fuelled my interest in the Wars of the Roses.

Thanks to Ink Mage of Ink Magic for devising this fabulous challenge.

Now reading: The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas (EC)
                                The Big Over-Easy - Jasper Fforde (888C)

Book Review: Arabella by Georgette Heyer

Eponymous Challenge #1

Arabella Tallant is the eldest of four sisters in a family of eight children and modest means. As such she knows it is her duty to marry as well as she can, in order to assist her younger siblings. With her godmother’s offer of a Season in London and her family’s contrivances to get her finely arrayed on a budget her chances look good. Then her uncle’s carriage breaks down, obliging her and her chaperone to seek shelter at the home of the fabulously wealthy Mr. Beaumaris. There she overhears a comment revealing that he thinks her a gold-digger and her ‘carriage accident’ a mere ruse. Impulse gets the better of her and she pretends to be an heiress travelling to London in order to conceal her wealth and be courted for herself alone - before giving him a firm set-down. Not liking such treatment, Mr. Beaumaris decides to have word of the mythical Tallant fortune spread all over town, and to pay Arabella enough attention to make her the most popular girl of the Season.

Sure enough, Arabella is beset by suitors, and when she realises what Mr. Beaumaris’s gossipy friend Lord Fleetwood has done she’s in a quandary. She must marry; but how can she accept a proposal when to do so means revealing that she has no fortune - and the origin of the story that she does? She also finds it hard to keep up the pretence of being a fine lady; as a vicar’s well-brought-up daughter she can’t help rushing to the aid of creatures in need - even mongrel dogs and climbing boys. Mr. Beaumaris is disconcerted to discover that instead of being just a harmless bit of amusement, he actually likes her - and can’t say no when she needs a home for one of her rescued unfortunates. It takes the calamitous London career of Arabella’s incognito brother Bertram to sort things out - after making them vastly more complicated.

It’s about time I posted a review in my own challenge! (But, well, reading slump, blogging slump, whole-life slump . . . my mother is currently making better headway through my TBR box than I am.) This book I finished . . . er, a while ago, so it wasn’t part of the aforementioned slump - quite the opposite, in fact. While reading it I frequently had a broad smile on my face - especially if Ulysses was on the page. The little dog had a marked personality and simply adored his new owner, leaving many gentlemen comically confused as to whether having a dog following one everywhere was a new fashion they should all be adopting. (Except for Mr. Frederick Byng, who I’ve recently discovered was a real figure, and who took drives in the park with a perfectly coiffed and clipped poodle.) I liked Mr. Beaumaris’s willingness to poke fun at the slavish followers of fashion even though they were following him; but my favourite of the two was Arabella. She was kindhearted, able to hold her own in repartee with all the city people, and prone to getting into scrapes by not thinking about the likely outcome of her good intentions. Her agonising about how to extricate herself can’t have been much fun for her, but certainly is for the reader.

I just wish I could have seen the oh-so-fashionable Mr. Beaumaris happily pottering about the parsonage with all Arabella’s relatives; or her first meeting with his dragonish grandmother. (Somehow I think Arabella and the Dowager Duchess would have liked each other immensely.) And a glossary of Regency slang terms wouldn’t have gone amiss.

Rating: B+

Now reading: Antony and Cleopatra - William Shakespeare (RRC, EC)
                                The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas (EC)

Book Review: The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber

888 Challenge #9

In Church Lane, a prostitute named Caroline lives and works in a single room in a building close to falling down. Her old friend Sugar lives in somewhat more salubrious surroundings near Silver Street, where she has achieved city-wide fame as the girl who never says no. Suger’s new patron is William Rackham, heir to a perfume empire in which he previously took zero interest. That changes when he needs the money in order to set Sugar up as his mistress. Through him she enters a new sphere of society, one from which it becomes increasingly difficult to return to visit her old friends.

She also becomes acquainted with the doings of the people William knows. His wife Agnes is mad, given to erratic or childlike behaviour and unaccountable sayings. His daughter Sophie is hidden away in the furthest reaches of the house. His old friends Ashwell and Bodley are determined to set the literary world on its ears with their irreverent publications. And his brother Henry’s attempts at a religious life are hampered by his persistent lustful thoughts about Emmeline Fox, a do-gooding widow with frizzy hair, a long face, and what all but she believe to be a terminal case of consumption. In the end it is Suger’s knowledge of the Rackhams that will seal her - and their - fate.

I wanted to love this book. And for a time I did. The beginning hooked me; the odd way of narrating that was like first, second, and third person rolled into one and the following of one character in order to meet another. The narrator is omniscient, in the manner of real Victorian novels, and addresses the reader much in the way of a tour guide showing you around a strange time and place and helping you make the right connections. I could almost picture myself walking the crowded London streets in the wake of one character or another. Bodley and Ashwell made me laugh with their discussion of their book on the efficacy of prayer (or rather the lack thereof), and I hoped that Sugar would turn out to be a new Becky Sharp.

But as the book wore on my interest in it did an Emmeline Fox and went into a decline. Sugar’s manipulations, Agnes’s madness, and William’s increasingly bad temper became tedious, and I’d catch myself thinking, “Why am I reading about you?” The characters I liked, or at least liked reading about - Caroline, Henry, Emmeline, Ashwell and Bodley - were only secondary ones, not present often enough to compensate for my frustration with the main cast. Sugar was no Becky; granted it’s been a while - okay, nearly six years - since I read Vanity Fair, but I recall her as being in some degree impulsive. Sugar was the ultimate schemer - everything she did was planned, and hardly a word left her mouth without its possible effects being carefully considered. I didn’t much like Agnes, either, but if her diaries were anything to go by she was too much of an airhead to be any more pleasant sane. Emmeline I did like, but in a modern novel it was disconcerting that she was one extremely few women in the whole 800+ pages who couldn’t be pigeonholed as saint or whore. (Yes, Agnes was mad, but she was also an exaggerated Victorian ideal: petite, blonde, religious, dependent, so innocent as to be monumentally ignorant, and not the brightest candle in the parlour.)

Overall this was a terribly difficult book to grade. At its best it was brilliant, depicting the lower end of Victorian life in all its well-researched seediness (and be warned that that does include the c-word . . . not infrequently, either). Even at its worst I retained a curiosity about what happened. At the same time I wanted it to end quickly, just to get it over, with the result that I sped through many dozens of pages each night to emerge with my brain feeling groggy and glutted with words. When it at last arrived, the end didn’t satisfy, leaving too many loose ends and an urge to slap William. Yet I am sure that it will prove to be a book not soon forgotten.

Rating: C+

Now reading: Antony and Cleopatra - William Shakespeare (RRC, EC)
                                The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas (EC)

Book Review: The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

888 Challenge #7

In post-war Spain, 10-year-old Daniel Sempere’s bookseller father takes him to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. Inside this building of rambling stairs and labyrinthine passageways, he is allowed to choose a volume to care for so that others may one day read it - or does the book choose him? Either way, Daniel leaves with a copy of The Shadow of the Wind by Julián Carax. The book is obscure and the author shrouded in mystery; he disappeared from Barcelona, surfaced in Paris, vanished from Paris, and turned up murdered in Barcelona. Now his works are becoming increasingly rare due to the actions of a literary arsonist - a man who torches every Carax novel he can; a man with a charred face and blazing eyes who wants Daniel’s book for himself. So Daniel does the only thing he can think of: hides The Shadow of the Wind deep in the Cemetery where no-one else can find it.

The years pass, but Daniel’s curiosity about Carax doesn’t. One by one he tracks down the people who hold a piece of the mystery, and so uncovers a story as laced with darkness as any Carax wrote. He’s helped in this by a number of friends, including bookshop assistant Fermín Romero de Torres, the ‘man in Havana’ under the old regime and a man in hiding under the new one. His nemesis is Inspector Javier Fumero, a sadist of mercurial loyalties and no love for anyone seeking information on Carax. His presence makes perilous an adventure that is already eerie. Not only is there a haunted house, but Daniel looks like Carax - and now his life is coming to resemble Carax’s as well.

This is one of those books that I close with a sigh and think, ‘If only I didn’t have to give you back to the library.’ And it’s a book I’ll want to read again; not only because it’s so good, but to pick up all the things I’m sure I missed the first time around due to the rate at which I barrelled through the pages. It’s more than unputdownable; it’s a book that draws you in from the very first word and doesn’t let go. One moment I was right there with a dying man on the streets of Barcelona; the next, the chapter had ended and I was back in Brisbane, coming to the belated realisation that the microwave had finished - I didn’t even hear it beep - and dinner was ready. And even as I loved it, it made me despair of ever creating anything half so good.

Daniel is the narrator for most of it, and it was great to watch him grow up, solve the mystery, and confront the major flaw in his character. But of all the memorable characters, my favourite was Fermín; I defy anyone not to adore Fermín. After being taken in off the streets by the Semperes, he repays them with absolute loyalty. He can take care of anything from sourcing rare books at knockdown prices to smuggling a hooker into a nursing home run by nuns; and despite the horrors of his life is indefatigably cheerful (and frequently comical). The mystery is absorbing and filled with unexpected turns; for though some parallels do appear, Daniel’s and Carax’s lives never come to resemble each other closely enough for you to predict what will happen to one based on what’s happened to the other. And it was a refreshing change to meet an amateur detective so willing to confide in people and obtain assistance in his quest. The villain, too, is good: Fumero is devoid of redeeming features and common humanity, but enough is shown of his past that he doesn’t seem one-dimensional; rather, chillingly and sociopathically real.

I could probably ramble on for several more paragraphs, but I will say just this: If you haven’t read this yet, reach for the bookmark, lay down whatever you’re reading, and get thee to a library!

Rating: A

Now reading: Antony and Cleopatra - William Shakespeare (RRC, EC)
                                The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas (EC)

Book Review: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

2008 TBR Challenge #6

In the eyes of the Puritan settlement of Boston, Hester Prynne stands doubly condemned - first for bearing a child out of wedlock, then for refusing to name her partner in sin. She is sentenced to wear a scarlet letter A upon her dress, marking her as an adulteress for as long as she remains in the town. Hester retires with her daughter Pearl to a forest cottage, and in time her needlework and her charity gain her a measure of acceptance.

With all but one person. The physician known as Roger Chillingworth has seen what no-one else has: the identity of Pearl’s father. And he has reasons of his own for wanting to stamp out any chance at contentment that Hester or her lover might try to take.

For the time in which it was written. this is a remarkable book; focussing on a ‘fallen’ woman without condemning her, but rather the Puritan regime which judged her so harshly. Hester is a very sympathetic character, and I loved seeing the attitudes of the towspeople toward her change as they saw the quality of her conduct under the burden of the scarlet letter. Chillingworth’s motives were soon obvious,, but he still made an effective . . . well, I guess you could say villain. Certainly his presence was a malevolent one, although he scarcely did anything; it was psychological villainy, in keeping with the nature of the rest of the book’s drama. If it was longer, it would have run the risk of being boring; and as it was, my mind didn’t lack opportunity to wander off and start comparing Pearl to the typical possessed child of the horror genre. (Not that she was possessed, merely unpredictable and to Hester’s imagination a little sinister.) I should confess here that I made it shorter than it is, by skipping the entire Introduction on Chris’s advice.

The slow pace I could live with, but some of the dialogue was more of a problem. There were moments when Pearl, though little more than a toddler, spoke just like an adult. Admittedly I’m no expert either on the seventeenth century or small children, but to me it sounded wrong. Still, it’s a book I definitely recommend.

Rating: B

Now reading: Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes (CC)
                                The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafón (888C)

Book Review: Imperium by Robert Harris

888 Challenge #6

In the last decades of the Roman republic, imperium is power. The height of political imperium is the consulship, and Marcus Tullius Cicero won’t settle for anything less - quite an ambition for a farmer’s son. Learning the art of oratory and marrying sufficient money to buy his way into the senate is easy enough; achieving rank within the senate is harder. The opportunity to do so arrives on his doorstep in the form of a Sicilian named Sthenius, hiding from the murderous intentions of Sicily’s Roman governor. Gaius Verres could scarcely be more corrupt if he tried, and makes an ideal target for an ambitious advocate clever enough to outwit the devious defence lawyer.

In politics, drawing attention to yourself can cause trouble. Cicero finds himself caught between the feuding generals Pompey and Crassus, beholden to one and dodging the enmity of the other. Having helped Cicero during the Verres case, Pompey expects some assistance in return - help to gain his own, military brand of imperium; and Crassus is planning something that Cicero will need all his political ingenuity to stop.

A novel about law and politics . . . bound to be a bit dull, you think? Not a chance! Even elections can be interesting when the process is subject to the kinds of manoeuvrings the Romans delighted in. Add in Caesar’s ambitions and Crassus’s fortune, and they can be thrilling. So can trials when you have Verres in the dock and Hortensius defending him; the one vile, the other a first-rate schemer with an endless supply of tricks for ensuring things go his client’s way. The sheer scale of Verres’s numerous crimes was mind-boggling, and I wondered if history had ever produced an official more corrupt . . . and then the book introduced Catilina, who governed in Africa and almost escaped prosecution because no-one could be found brave enough to take on the case.

The people in the book are all real, and so is the narrator - Cicero’s secretary-slave, Tiro, who developed a 4000-symbol shorthand system in order to cope with his master’s torrents of words. He’s ideal for the rôle - close to Cicero and his work, and able to observe without being much noticed. He can just stand back and watch the drama (and the comedy) unfold. Between Tiro’s observations (‘I learned one valuable lesson that day, which is that if you seek popularity, there is no surer way of achieving it than raiding a syndicate of tax collectors.’) and the comeuppances delivered to various characters, it was funnier than I had expected. The characters are all fabulous, and it’s generally easy to keep track of who’s who - but it ended when Cicero became consul and I wanted to know more!

Rating: A

Now reading: Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes (CC)
                                The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne (TBRC)

The Historical Fiction Reading Challenge

As soon as I saw this, I knew I had to sign up. (‘This’ meaning the challenge - not the button. Nothing at all to do with the button. Really . . . ) Historical fiction is always in plentiful supply in my TBR pile(s), and Annie has defined it to include classics too :-) Not that one needs an excuse to re-read Jane Austen!

In chronological order of setting, my choices are:

Here be Dragons - Sharon Penman (12^th century)
Katherine - Anya Seton (14^th century)
The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas (17^th century; overlap with Eponymous Challenge)
Joseph Andrews - Henry Fielding (18^th century)
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (19^th century)
Cocaine Blues - Kerry Greenwood (20^th century; overlap with 888 Challenge)

Now I just have to wait until 1 April to start!

Now reading: Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes (CC)
                                The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne (TBRC)
                                Imperium - Robert Harris (888C)

Book Review: The Key to Rebecca by Ken Follett

What’s in a Name? Challenge #2

He arrives out of the desert on foot, carrying with him the means to create an all but unbreakable code. He knows Cairo like the back of his hand, able to vanish among its alleyways and appear as either foreigner or local. He’s a German spy behind British lines, and his goal is to ensure that Rommel can advance across North Africa unhindered.

There’s just a few hitches in this plan. The first is an army captain who (albeit belatedly) sees through his cover and reports him to Cairo. The second is Major William Vandam, who agrees with the captain’s assessment and is determined to investigate, no matter what his singularly unhelpful boss has to say about it. He just needs someone capable of getting close to his target - someone like Elene Fontana, for whom helping the British is a ticket to a new life, one where she doesn’t have to rely on rich men to pay her bills. Both end up in more danger than they anticipated, and they’re not the only ones to do so.

At first glance it’s an odd title, but it does make sense. Rebecca is the basis of the code, the code can’t be used or broken without the key, and the British have to get their hands on the key if they want to halt Rommel. I would have liked a better overview of how the code worked - just how would he have managed to encrypt an uncommon letter like X? - but even incompletely described it’s still ingenious. The background which enabled Alex to blend so seamlessly into Egyptian life was unlikely (to my mind, at least), but plausible enough for me to accept it and read on. His close connections with Cairo low society help the local colour to shine through; Egyptian attitudes to the British - and vice versa - play a significant part in the story. These were most prominent in a side plot that left me with the niggling feeling that the name Anwar al-Sadat should be ringing a bell.

Vandam is an eminently likeable hero, and you have to admire a man with the patience to put up with a boss like that every day. Bogge is almost comical in his obstructiveness, a rampant snob with no intention of being outshone by a postman’s son with a Dorset accent. (Which is, of course, exactly what happens.) Elene is an interesting addition to the spy-catching plan; Vandam disapproves of her lifestyle, and she understandably resents him for assuming she’ll have no problems with letting herself get picked up by Alex as part of the plan. She was the character I liked most, but was also connected to the part of the book I liked least. Alex has an accomplice with twisted tastes, and I could have done with knowing less about what they got up to, either with each other or with Elene.

Rating: B

Now reading: Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes (CC)
                                The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne (TBRC)
                                Imperium - Robert Harris (888C)

Book Review: The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Penman

Chunkster Challenge #1

Sixty years after the House of Lancaster usurped the throne, the House of York is trying to do the same. The third Lancastrian king, Henry VI, is simple and saintly and completely under the thumb of his formidable wife, Marguerite d’Anjou. Determined to hold on to her crown, she has gone to war against the Duke of York, a man who has a stronger claim to the throne than does her husband. He has no choice but to fight, and ends up dying in the battle for a crown he never wanted.

His eldest son Edward does want the crown, and succeeds in grabbing it after the Battle of Towton. England loves its handsome young king, but Marguerite loathes him. And Marguerite’s not giving up - particularly if the Earl of Warwick, who’s already made one king, can be persuaded to switch sides and help remake another. It’s ten years before the House of York has a firm grip on power - and with it the Woodvilles, the numerous and ambitious relatives of Edward’s beautiful, hated Queen.

After Edward’s death the Sunne in Splendour turns out to have been just a little tarnished. A bishop drops a bombshell that sees Edward’s sole remaining brother take the crown, producing one of the great unsolved mysteries and leading to one of the blackest reputations in history.

It was big, heavy, awkward to hold and not quick to read. And I loved every last page of it, no matter how many nights I ended up with aching hands and thumbs from keeping it upright and open. After I finished it, it was a full day before I could bring myself to pick up another book. In the absence of time travel, a good historical novel is the next best thing; and this novel makes you feel as if you’re right there with the characters. This can be nerve-wracking at times, as the Plantagenets weren’s a family given to happy endings - and some of them ended rather unpleasantly.

From a series of names and dates, the Wars of the Roses have become a collection of distinct personalities who will be remembered long after the last page. Most of these are from the second and third generations of the battle: the descendents of Richard of York, Warwick the Kingmaker, and Marguerite d’Anjou. Because they were still children when Edward took the throne, the years skip by quickly at first - from 1459 to 1470 in 166 pages. For a while I wondered how the years that remained could be stretched to fill the rest of the book. I needn’t have worried; there was no such thing as a quiet life in the royal family of the time, particularly not with Clarence and Elizabeth around. Elizabeth reminded me of Becky Sharp - I didn’t like her, but couldn’t help admiring her ingenuity and determination. All the characters are well-drawn, so much so that I rarely had trouble distinguishing between the multiple Elizabeths, Richards, and Edwards; and I now almost feel like I know them. When something comes so much to life it can be hard to remember that it’s just one person’s interpretation of the historical record. This difficulty is compounded by Edward’s extraordinary luck; there were so many places where things could have gone horribly wrong and didn’t, and the Battle of Barnet is something no writer would dare invent. Such a series of chances and coincidences would be laughably absurd if fictional.

Having read a couple of other interpretations of the same period in the last few months - The Goldsmith’s Wife and The Daughter of Time - I had a good deal of fun playing spot-the-difference. Penman’s answer to the Princes in the Tower mystery is, I think, more plausible than Josephine Tey’s - in fact, the most plausible I’ve yet read. And of all the versions of Richard I’ve read, this one is my favourite. I liked him from the first page, and he’s about as far as you can get from the monster of Shakespeare. I actually procrastinated over finishing the book just because I knew what history and Henry Tudor had in store for him, and didn’t want to see it happen. Instead of a calculating villain he comes across as, if anything, not calculating enough; unable to always think three steps ahead the way his brother did. I read the final chapters, watching things start to go wrong, and couldn’t help thinking each time: “What if-?”

Rating: A

Now reading: Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes (CC)
                                The Key to Rebecca - Ken Follett (WIAN?C)

Book Review: William's Wife by Jean Plaidy

Royalty Rules Challenge #2

As the favoured elder daughter of the Duke of York, the Lady Mary has a charmed life, marred only by the presence in her household of the grasping Villiers family. That changes after her father converts to Catholicism, and doesn’t hesitate to make the fact known. In a country determined never to see a repeat of the persecutions of Bloody Mary, the thought of a Catholic heir to the throne is not well received. But there is a way to reassure the populace: Marry his daughter to one of Europe’s most devout Protestants.

Aged just fifteen, Mary finds herself married to William of Orange, the dour cousin she hardly knows, and dispatched to The Hague. Her new life isn’t made easier by the discovery that William’s lack of appeal hasn’t deterred her lady-in-waiting Elizabeth Villiers. Her husband might not be loyal, but Mary is determined to be, and soon that loyalty is tested. For James II has not proved popular as King, and she and Willaim have been invited to rule in his stead; and Mary must decide whether to support her father or her husband.

I like to pick up a bit of history while I read, so I was glad of the chance to read a book about figures I knew little of, and set - at least in part - outside England. (And it was indispensible on the morning I was stuck at Coopers Plains for an hour when a signal failed.) Public transport mishaps aside, though, it was a book I could probably have done without; not as good as I’d hoped or expected. It was impossible not to feel for Mary, sent away from her home and family to marry a cold fish like William, but sympathy and liking don’t necessarily coincide. (Though I did at least warm to her more than did my mother, who read the book after me and frequently evinced a desire to slap her.) The depiction of her sister Anne wasn’t much better; I found myself wondering how anyone so indolent in both body and mind could make a suitable monarch.

I think the biggest problem was the point of view. There are times when first person just doesn’t work, and this is one of them. Mary isn’t that interesting, and her narration is little more than mere reporting. She was little more than a child when she left England, didn’t return to it until after her father and his family had fled into exile, and was married to a man not in the habit of discussing state affairs with his wife; so all the political intrigue of the time - like the stirrings of Titus Oates - were related secondhand and after the fact. And her thoughts kept going back over the same ground again and again. If only her father had kept his faith a secret . . . If only her cousin Monmouth hadn’t let his head get filled with such grand ideas . . . If only she had thought to ask that Elizabeth Villiers remain in England . . .

If only I’d borrowed it from the library instead of buying it . . .

Rating: C-

Now reading: Don Quixote - Miguel Cervantes (CC)
                                The Sunne in Splendour - Sharon Penman (CC)

Book Review: Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland

What’s in a Name? Challenge #1

In a teacher’s house hangs his greatest secret: A painting of a girl dressed in hyacinth blue, caught in an idle moment by a window. He is trapped between the urge to share the beauty of (maybe) a lost Vermeer, and to atone for the ugliness of its acquisition. From there the tale works its way back through time, visiting some of those who have loved and lived with the painting, and whose lives have shifted course beneath the girl’s abstracted gaze. A Jewish family keeping Passover in 1942; a couple about to say goodbye to their only daughter; a French diplomat’s wife longing for Paris; a woman in the middle of a flood who finds the painting and a baby and longs to keep both; and her secret benefactor. At last it reaches the artist himself, and the chance moment that inspired its creation.

Read. This. Book.

Okay, I’ll be more specific. I ploughed through this in a couple of days, eagerly turning the pages because I was impatient to read more. Then once I’d finished I wished I’d read it more slowly so that it wouldn’t have been over so soon. I still can’t quite decide whether it’s really a novel or a linked sequence of short stories; in that respect it reminds me of The Girl’s Guide to Hunting and Fishing; dreadfully unfortunate given that that merited a D- (I think) while this is a case of literary true love. The writing is beautiful, the scenes of Dutch life delicate and clear on the page, and the descriptions of the painting will have any art lover salivating. You can just see the brushstrokes creating the texture of the basket, and the way the colour shifts with the light. If you’re so lucky as to have a Vermeer somewhere nearby it would be enough to make you want to rush out and visit it.

It’s impossible not to draw comparisons with Girl with a Pearl Earring; it was interesting to note that here once the family moved in with Maria Thins, Vermeer hardly painted at all due to the poor light - yet that is the house where the other novel was set. Both are good, but this is the better of the two; only this left me with the feeling of holding something precious. I have to say, however, that some of the Dutch names give one a certain pause for thought - of the ‘How on earth do you pronounce that?’ variety. As I’m sure there must be a reasonable number of manageable Dutch names available for use, that is the only thing that keeps it from perfection.

Rating: A

Now reading: Don Quixote - Miguel Cervantes (CC)
                                The Daughter of Time - Josephine Tey (RRC)

Royalty Rules Challenge

The Magic of Ink has a wonderful idea for a challenge: A royal theme! From 1 Feb to 30 April, the challenge is to read from two to four books that somehow feature a royal (real or otherwise). I’ve decided to take the middle road and read three:

William’s Wife by Jean Plaidy (Mary II)
Anthony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare (The Queen of the Nile)
Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey (Richard III)

Which should be, er, royally entertaining!

Now reading: The Messenger - Markus Zusak
                                The Collectors - David Baldacci
                                The Quiet American - Graham Greene (888C)

Book Review: Sophie's Choice by William Styron

2008 TBR Challenge #3

In the summer of 1947, a young southern writer - known only by the nickname ‘Stingo’ - moves into a pink boarding-house in New York City. There he plans to write his first novel, a bound-to-be-blockbuster of Tidewater Virginia. He’s soon distracted by the opportunity to be the third wheel in the strange relationship being carried on upstairs between Nathan Landau and Sophie Z. The former is a charming bully, the latter a survivor of Auschwitz. Stingo is entranced by her beauty, but also by her story, which she gradually reveals to him in not-always-truthful bits and pieces. Eventually he manages to piece together her tale, including the thing she never told to anyone else - the choice she had to make.

After finishing this book I was amazed. I looked it up on Amazon, and sure enough most of the reviews were 5 star; in fact, of over two hundred only 21 were 3 stars or fewer, placing me squarely in the minority. This is, as I believed, a much-acclaimed and raved-about book, yet it is a book I think I must have been mad to continue reading. I only perservered because I thought, given how great it’s meant to be, the choice of the title would be a stunning compensation for all that went before. It wasn’t.

How did I loathe thee? Let me count the ways . . . The narrator was mildly entertaining at first, until I realised he was utterly incapable of keeping either his mind or his pen out of the gutter. He was obsessed with sex - his and everyone else’s - and happily took long detours away from Sophie’s story to chronicle his attempts to get it. Every female he knew was either a dog or a potential source of it, and he worked it in at seemingly every opportunity - frequently, gratuitously, and vulgarly. He was also a fool for becoming involved with Nathan and Sophie when any sane person would have kept well clear of such an impending disaster zone, and a pretentious git for his habit of throwing around words that sent even me running for the dictionary. I wished there could have been a way to tell the story without his presence. Then I started wishing Styron had chosen to write about Wanda instead. She was a far more interesting and courageous character than ineffectual, passive Sophie could ever hope to be, and one of the extremely few things I actually liked.

I kept (idiotically) hoping the nature of the choice would be dramatic enough to redeem it somewhat. Objectively, it was: about the worst one anyone could be faced with. Subjectively, it bombed. The whole scene fell terribly flat and was followed, not by Sophie’s reaction, but by an attempt to psychoanalyse the man who forced her it make it. But the worst thing, for me, was by far Stingo’s one-track mind. It was utterly tasteless and left me feeling almost as if I needed to disinfect my brain. Part of me is actually tempted to commit the ultimate sacrilege: shred the damn thing into the compost where it might do some good, and where no-one else will make the mistake of reading it. If not for Wanda, it would have scored a big fat E (perhaps for Execrable).

On the bright side, though, there’s still 50 weeks of the reading year left and things can only go up from here.

Rating: D-

Now reading: The Bourne Supremacy - Robert Ludlum
                                To Say Nothing of the Dog - Connie Willis (888C)
                                Death at the Bar - Ngaio Marsh

Book Review: The Mesmerist by Barbara Ewing

Now that she’s in her forties, Cordelia Preston’s acting career is all but over, as is that of her best friend Amaryllis Spoons. After an ignominious exit from a third-rate tour of Hamlet in which they were to be replaced by an elephant, the workhouse looms in both their imaginations. Then Cordelia has an idea that will secure not only their futures, but those of Rillie Spoons’s mad mother and her murder-obsessed companion Regina. With the aid of her aunt’s former mentor, Monsieur Roland, she combines her two inherited talents and sets up as a Lady Phreno-Mesmerist. Business quickly booms; mesmerism is all the rage in early-Victorian London and its practise by a lady is a novelty. But just when they have all the success they could wish for, it all falls apart. Cordelia has something more in her past than treading the boards, and that something more has come back to bite. Then a prominent citizen is murdered, and Inspector Rivers of the recently-formed detective division is anxious to get the papers off his back by doing whatever it takes to catch the killer. Cordelia is called as a witness before the coroner, and a scandal promptly ensues. For Cordelia is not eager to talk; and while a lady mesmerist is one thing, setting up a business without the aid of a man and daring to dispense advice to young ladies about wedding nights is entirely another.

Although there is a corpse, this is as much a straight historical novel as it is a mystery: the body doesn't appear (not in lifeless form, at least) until halfway through the book. And, unusually, Cordelia’s past is revealed early, so there’s no mystery there. Once the corpse is actually produced, though, there’s an investigation complete with police and the puzzle is not only whodunnit, by why Cordelia won’t speak about what she may or may not have seen that night. It does take a while to get going, but the story is so interesting that the pace an atmospheric stroll rather than a dull drag. The historical setting was well done and ranged from cheap actors’ hangouts to the homes of the nobility, and I’d like to learn more now about mesmerism and hypnotism. I liked both Cordelia and Rillie; they had a great friendship and were, for their day, quite audacious in their plan to stay out of the workhouse. I enjoyed watching their growing success and thought it a wonderful change to see a pair of middle-aged women in a novel’s starring rôles (I can’t remember the last time that happened). It was impossible not to be moved by the events that followed the murder, and there were more than half a dozen characters that I hoped would get a happy ending. This is a book that will keep both the historical fiction and mystery fans happy.

Rating: B+

Now reading: The Man Who Knew Too Much - G. K. Chesterton
                                Cranford - Elizabeth Gaskell (TBRC)

Book Review: The Goldsmith's Wife by Jean Plaidy

Armchair Traveller Reading Challenge #6

The goldsmith’s wife starts out a mere mercer’s daughter, one whose extraordinary beauty quickly begins to get her into trouble. Anxious to see her become the responsibility of someone else, her father pushes her into marriage with the eminently respectable Will Shore. Married, Jane will be safe from scoundrels like Hastings, a courtier who had plans for her that didn’t include asking her permission. But outgoing, outspoken Jane chafes under the dull routine of being a respectable wife, and after only a few years of marriage leaves her husband in favour of another man: King Edward IV. Her wit and good heart make her the darling of both the court and the public; and coached by Elizabeth Woodville (who accepts her husband’s affairs as the price of her throne) she secures her position as Edward’s favourite mistress, to whom he always returns. But nothing lasts forever, not even kings. After Edward’s death Jane knows she should retire from court life, but can’t bear to leave - not when the court includes the late king’s stepson, Dorset - and an older and wiser Hastings. She also knows she shouldn’t meddle; but when the position of young Edward V is threatened, she can’t help herself, even if it means going against the coldly practical Richard III.

I had never heard of Jane Shore before reading this book. Her rise and fall make a remarkable story - all the more so because she lasted so long at court, despite a notoriously fickle king and a tendency to interfere. She could be the model for the hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold archetype, for all her meddling was done with the very best of intentions and for other people’s sakes. In some cases she was almost too soft-hearted; if she could only have ignored the princes in the tower she might have ended her days happily. But then she wouldn’t have been Jane. Her kindness made her likeable, but she also came across as rather foolish; following her heart when her head was offering by far the wisest choice and always thinking that there would be someone to provide for her and better days ahead. She was also, for someone so willful, very susceptible to domineering men and prone to doing whatever they asked of her - even treason.

The flaws of the main character, even when added to a few melodramatic moments, couldn’t detract too much from the opportunity of discovering a new piece of history. It was not only Jane’s story, but that of the court itself during the transition from the newly-restored Edward IV to the takeover by Henry VII. The most interesting figure was Richard of Gloucester; I’m always curious to see how an author will portray one of the most infamous of English kings. Very well, in this case; not the monster of Shakespeare, but a sober man devoted to England but with no clue how to win the affections of its people. Not a murderer, either; a different explanation is offered for the disappearance of the two princes (though still not one to top that in Elizabeth George’s story I, Richard).

You do need some knowledge of fifteenth-century history going in; there are no dates given and it took a few dozen pages for me to calculate that it opened c. 1469. It also makes it easy to spot the foreshadowing, which if you know what’s coming takes on a tint of irony. And one thing puzzles me: near the end of the book, one of the princes was looking forward to the prospect of a reunion with someone who, I’m quite sure, died before they were imprisoned. Surely he would have known? Or am I getting my dates muddled?

Rating: B

Now reading: The Man Who Knew Too Much - G. K. Chesterton
                                Marley & Me - John Grogan
                                Rescuing Rose - Isabel Wolff

Book Review: The Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory

The youngest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella knew her destiny from a young age: she was to become Princess of Wales and then Queen of England. Accordingly, in her early teens she leaves the glorious palace of the Alhambra for the cold and comparative dinginess of the English court. Her new home is ruled by a former rebel with rough manners, backed by his dragon of a mother; and her new husband is studious and awkward. Despite these shortcomings Catalina of Aragon finds a great deal of happiness with Arthur, planning how they will rule the kingdom when it becomes theirs. Then tragedy intervenes and leaves her widow with only half her dowry paid, unwanted by either England or Spain. Through the poverty and power-plays that follow, Catalina clings to one hope: that the lie she has told will give her a chance of becoming Katherine, Queen of England some other way. Any other way.

I know where I’m going next time I’m at the library - straight to the history section. There’s a few things in here I’d like to read some historians’ perspectives on. Henry VII’s plans for her after the death of Arthur, for instance, or the Battle of Flodden (she wasn’t mentioned in the documentary I saw a few weeks ago, but then that was only about the battle, not the march). I’d also love to read a non-fiction biography of her. Usually the name ‘Katherine of Aragon’ conjures an image of the dull, middle-aged woman who tried to hold her throne against Anne Boleyn. Here she is teenager and young woman who could take her place alongside Elizabeth Woodville and Margaret Tudor in terms of ambition. Convinced that her accession to the throne is God’s will, and unwilling to take the reduction in rank that would follow a return to Spain, she’s happy to scheme as much as necessary. In a way her tenacity is admirable; but at the same time the lengths to which she’ll go are a little unnerving. Her story as presented here is almost a coming-of-age tale, following her progress from pampered young Infanta to a queen and a woman able to see where her parents went wrong in their reign. The pace derailed in the last part of the book, skipping through - and over - the years much more rapidly; and I would have liked to see Katherine with Mary, her only child to survive infancy. But the book redeemed itself by finishing in just the right place.

Rating: B

Now reading: The Man Who Knew Too Much - G. K. Chesterton
                                Marley & Me - John Grogan
                                Rescuing Rose - Isabel Wolff

Book Review: Doomsday Book by Connie Willis