Books I Read in 2011
I read a lot more books this year than in 2010... a definite inverse corollary to writing less and seeking more escapism and/or inspiration.
Bold = recommended
* = best
This year I continued my voyage through Patrick O’Brian’s wondrous Aubrey-Maturin series, a deeply reliable source of reading pleasure. His vivid, inexhaustible vocabulary, vigorously real characters, startlingly exact detail, and rich intricacy of story never fail to liven up my writer’s brain, making it ping and crackle with phrases and ideas. I am sad that I only have 4 more of these books to read for the first time (though I look forward to many repeat readings).
O’Brian’s opus doesn’t really divide into tidy, distinct volumes or even episodes; it is instead one neverending flow of story... much like real life. He has a magnificent disregard for conventional narrative formulae like three-act structure; he writes as he pleases, and entirely pulls it off.
Treason’s Harbor. Solidly enjoyable, a lot of variety in scenes and subjects.
The Far Side of the World. I had feared this would feel repetitive since I'd seen the movie version, but not so at all; the movie had remarkably little to do with the plots of any of the books, mainly using the mood and characters. In fact, the plot of this book makes much more sense than the plot of the film. Above all, the movie does not have O’Brian’s ever-sparkling, generous, endlessly rich and varied prose. Movie makers seem to often forget that the power and quality of a story lies as much in how it is told as in what it consists of. Even movies that faithfully adapt the scenes, dialogue, and characters of a book often fail to preserve the essential flavor of the language.
The Reverse of the Medal. The usual satisfactory installment
The Letter of Marque. A bit uneven, not my favorite overall.
The Thirteen Gun Salute. Quite enjoyable, with intrigue and exotic locale and various unexpected twists of events.
The Nutmeg of Consolation. A lot of variety, a chewy moral dilemma.
Clarissa Oakes. A rather different story, amid the usual setting; it is more about psychological contrast and tension. Clarissa herself proves fascinating, with a life story that could have been a full gothic novel in its own right.
The Commodore. The great flow of story and the infinitely reliable pleasure continues, and the infinite sadness of reaching the end of my first read approaches!
****
Knowing how much I like O’Brian, ceruleanfleur recommended Naomi Novik's Temeraire series, whose premise is Napoleonic wars + dragons: the sentient dragons bond with their captain and are flown into combat with a crew in the manner of Man o'war ships.
I don’t think Novik has really thought through her cause and effect; the premise is an exact replica of the Napoleonic period, but with the addition of aerial combat capabilities. If the world (especially China!) had had that capability so much earlier in time, history would not have unfolded in a way remotely resembling anything we know. But it’s a cute conceit; you just have to go with it.
Of course people compare Novik to O’Brian because of the Napoleonic Wars subject matter, and it’s clear (she says as much) that her work is very much in homage to him, but there’s no comparison in prose quality. Novik is a perfectly competent writer; O’Brian is simply a brilliant one.
His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik. A reasonably engrossing, not very taxing read. The prose is okay, it gives a decent feel for the period, but it’s not amazing; the phrasing is a bit formulaic and sometimes over the top. (So help me, I will never use ‘husked’ as a verb of speech.) The main flaw is that protagonist Captain Laurence is a really bland stock character, generically brave/ honorable, no distinctive personality features. Still, I enjoyed the book.
Throne of Jade. Better written than the first, and a lot more varied and interesting. The sea voyage goes on a bit long (though that’s realistic), but the part in China is pretty interesting, exploring a culture that involved dragons in a very different way than Europe did. Capt. Laurence gets a little more personality (though mostly in the form of a touchy temper), but the dragon Temeraire is mostly rather whiny and brooding, whereas in the first book he was more childlike and charming. But the issue of his lack of freedom is interesting, and the way Novik develops her alternate Chinese culture is convincing and well done, a good job of taking her initial premise a lot further than in the first book.
Black Powder War. Novik’s style and writing has hugely matured from the first book, showing a much greater grasp of period idiom, greater imagination of alternate history ramifications, and lovely descriptive detail. I liked the part in Istanbul, but got bored with the ground war in Prussia; too much military slogging. Temeraire gets awfully moody and complain-y; I didn’t like him much in this book.
Empire of Ivory. I didn’t enjoy this one very much, felt the plot got off track from the events that developed in the first three. Temeraire continues to mostly brood and sulk; I found him less interesting with every book.
started to read: Victory of Eagles. Seems like Novik keeps hurtling her characters through different settings and scenarios, setting up for big personal and social changes that need to happen, but not finding room to accomplish them among the hurly-burly... It starts to feel like she's stalling until she can figure out how to manage it. I got interrupted reading this, and found I had no interest in going back to it.
In sum: I thought the first 3 or 4 books in the series were a fun entertaining read, perfect for a plane trip or a day at the beach, but later the author seemed unable to fully pull off the situations she had set up.
****
*The Passion of Artemisia by Susan Vreeland. A novel told from the pov of late-Renaissance painter Artemisia Gentilleschi. Aside from O’Brian, this was probably the best book I read in 2011. It's what Girl with a Pearl Earring tried to be, but didn’t convincingly pull off: a beautiful evocation of a painter’s mind and heart. It depicts a character very rarely seen in fiction: an artist who lives a fulfilling life. Artemisia transcends a terrible trauma in her youth and pursues a moving struggle to earn recognition in a male-dominated world, and to balance her roles as artist, wife, and mother. The book is magnificent in terms of researched detail, but above all Vreeland captures the artistic thought process, the development of ideas, the obsessive passion of an artist for their work: joyful or painful, it is what they must do.
The Miracles of Prato by Laurie Albanese and Laura Morowitz. Okay, but not great. It’s very similar in setting and subject to Artemisia (Italian Rennaissance painters, redemption of a molested woman), but nowhere near as well written or characterized. I don’t find this version of Fra Filippo sympathetic or dimensional (he never felt like a character in his own right, just a slot in the story: poof, instant passionate artist /devoted lover!). I felt sorry for his lover/muse Lucrezia, but she isn’t all that interesting. The authors never penetrate what would make an artist’s inspiration tick on the inside... never get past the beauty of the woman in the paintings to unveil any depths within. Lucrezia is young, innocent, loving, and pretty... that’s it. The book is not as effective as Artemisia in turning historical details into narrative; there is a tendency to infodump and tell rather than show characterization, and villains are one-dimensional. Still, they do a reasonably good job creating events and motivations to fill in between the known facts.
*Scent of the Missing by Susannah Charleson. A compelling memoir of a volunteer canine search and rescue team. Anyone interested in forensic crime or human and animal psychology should definitely read this (shiningmoon, I'm looking at you!). Charleson writes with wonderfully vivid and exact description that can be hilarious or fascinating, showing an impressive acuity of observation (which makes sense given the type of work she does). She makes the various dogs’ personalities really clear and vivid (more so than the people, actually!). I’m impressed by her candor in revealing her struggles to bond with and discipline her dog, and in showing how few of their searches end with a tidy, satisfying conclusion... how few have any conclusion at all. Yet the life and the work go on.
Bachelor Brothers’ Bed and Breakfast by Bill Richardson. Pleasant persiflage, nicely phrased vignettes, though completely drama- and plot-free.
Bone vol. 5-9 by Jeff Smith (graphic novel). The epic fantasy and mythology really kicks into high gear in these volumes, though still interspersed with some of the playful slapstick that dominates the earlier parts. Bone is an impressive story, expertly told, multi-textured and deeply felt.
The Color of Earth and The Color of Water by Dong Hwa Kim. Lovely and lyrical Korean manwha (graphic novels). Delicate, poetic coming of age and romance of a mother and daughter in traditional Korea. The setting atmospherics are incredibly exquisite, the trees and weather as beautifully rendered as in an antique scroll. I look forward to reading the third installment.
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. I picked this up out of idle curiosity, because when I first started going to writers’ conferences, this was the big Breakout Novel everyone was talking about. Sure enough, I read the first couple pages and couldn’t put it down. This is not my usual kind of book, and the serial killer aspect makes it an uneasy read for me, creating images I’d rather not have in my head; I don’t know if I’d want to read it again. But it is awfully well written...insightful and filled with detail so exact it makes you sit up in your chair in recognition. It is a story of expertly crafted suspense interwoven with the thoughtful, poignant examination of how grief injures and alters a family. I was dissatisfied with the ending, though.
*Tao te Ching by Lao Tzu, translated by Ursula Le Guin. An astonishing rendition of the classic work. Simple, clear, deep, like still water. I am still reading it and will continue reading it; I need to read from this every day. This slim volume contains a lifetime of wisdom that, if grasped, could lift the mind free of so much suffering.
***
The Illumination by Kevin Brockmeier. I have mixed feelings about this book: it is so brilliantly conceived and written, and yet so harrowing and painful that I kept not being sure if I could finish reading it. (I finally did, but it took real effort.) It is an in-depth exploration of physical and emotional pain in all its tragic variety.
The book is not truly a novel, rather an interlinked series of stories developed around a magic realism premise. It unlocks a mesmerizing visual metaphor: what if our pain was visible in the form of light that radiated from our bodies? One day this change inexplicably happens, and everyone in the world can see the evidence of everyone else’s injuries and illnesses, from stubbed toes to cancer. Brockmeier explores this premise with astonishing invention, coming up with endlessly varied ways to describe the effect. Amid this, the stories follow a trail of lives affected by an object: the notebook of endearments written by a man to his dead wife. Lives are altered, redirected, destroyed, or uplifted by their brush with this notebook.
The prose is absolutely astonishing, the kind of exquisitely observed detail that makes me feel like I’ve been sleep-walking with my own writing. This is how I wanted to write when I first set out to do it, to exalt the ordinary with this painful acuity of observation. It is writing that takes my breath away, makes my mouth fall open in recognition and pained sympathy and surprise: so intense, so extraordinary, searing, blazing, savage, harsh, gorgeous, haunting.
It is a book full of agonized wonders... everyone cherishing pain that is no longer secret from the world. The problem is that no one’s life is going to work out. The characters’ pain is transcendant, but they will not transcend their pain.
***
Memory by Linda Nagata. Both fascinating and frustrating. At first impressive, depicting a complete, distinct culture with its own mores and terms, a strange artificial nanotech-infused world whose inhabitants have forgotten their own origins. But somehow the setting is more vivid and engrossing than the characters; they’re bloodless, lacking distinctive personality. In 400 pages all I could tell you about the MC is that she’s stubborn and reckless, and asks a few too many rhetorical questions. There is never any love conveyed between her and her fated lover; we’re just informed there is passion. The plot has some missing gaps in cause and effect. After a lot of build-up that seems like it will lead to answers, there is never a full explanation of the mysterious world origin, just inference; a lot of its aspects never do make sense. That could maybe work in a fantasy novel, but the persistent hard SF label made me want more hard explanation. I still might look at her other books, though... she has interesting ideas, and paints a vivid scene.
The Oracle of Stamboul by Michael Lukas. Beautifully visualized, full of wonderful detail in the exotic setting of 19th c. Turkey, the emergence of an intriguingly precocious and gifted girl ... but I felt the author chickened out on his premise, or didn’t know how to fully realize it; the story ended abruptly and unsatisfyingly, the MC’s fascinating potential never achieved. Still worth reading for the evocative imagery, a nice escape into another time and place.
The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry. I had mixed feelings about it, kind of wish I hadn’t read it. It’s an eerie, unsettling novel of psychological suspense, mingled (not always successfully) with quirky social satire. At first it seems like a standard, even banal chick-lit setup: an eccentric family in small-town Mass. uncovering the dark secrets hidden in their past; a variety of weird townsfolk; an unexpected death that might be a murder. But the story is gradually revealed to be something much stranger, involving divination, precognition, mental illness, and above all an unreliable narrator whose fundamental perception of reality comes into question. It’s never possible to completely piece the events together or reconcile the versions... Overall I found it more unsettling than satisfying, but it definitely was thought-provoking. (shiningmoon, you might like this one better than I did.)
The Lace Reader is told in the present tense, something which seems to be in vogue right now and which I generally dislike. Partly it's just that it often seems pointless, a gimmicky way to be different. But I think it also tends to camouflage lazy writing, allowing a lot of ordinarily unacceptable to-be verbs and passive voice to slip under the radar. And because present tense is traditionally used for picture captions, stage directions, and synopses, I feel it creates a static effect in a story, a lack of the momentum that arises from knowing an event has occurred, an action has been completed. One of the only books I've seen where I think present tense narration was logical and successful is The Time Traveller's Wife; because that story shifts constantly in time, sorting out past tense would have been utterly confusing.
******
Re-read:
5 Chanur books by C. J. Cherryh. I never get tired of those; always a rousing good read.
*Pere Goriot by Balzac. This was on my list of books to re-read so I could decide if I still need to own it. I read it in college and could remember only that I had liked it more than the average assigned book. I'm so glad I gave it another try; it's excellent, and now I want to read more of his novels! Balzac's scathing, mordant wit skewers and dissects the foibles and failings of Paris highlife and lowlife, detailing their indiscretions with piercing acuity. It is surprisingly modern in feel, yet at the same time, nobody constructs novels this way now. For instance, his leisurely opening includes many pages describing the decrepit boarding house where the story is set. Modern editors would say cut all this, you can't have pages of description with no dialogue and no characters! Yet the passage is hilariously entertaining and informatively evocative of middle class tastlessness. How happy for us that Balzac wasn't saddled with a modern editor.
************
Started to read but gave up on:
Changing Planes by UK Le Guin. One of very few Le Guin books I don’t like. I started to read it when it first came out, gave up on it. This year I gave it another try, still don’t like it. It consists of dry little mental games and anthropological sketches; they have occasional tidbits of insight/ interest, but are not really stories; there is scant emotional engagement.
Murther and Walking Spirits by Robertson Davies. Starts off in fine Davies form, mordant and funny. But once the dead character begins watching 'movies' about the past lives of his ancestors, I got bored... It's another case where present tense narration creates a lack of momentum, and because the narrator describes stories that he watches rather than experiences, it's like reading a synopsis instead of being fully engaged with the characters’ pov. Also, because each chapter deals with different characters, I found it hard to get invested in any of them.
***
I note that a lot of my reading this year was influenced by the free Advance Reading Copies available at work. Lovely Bones, Oracle of Stampoul, Artemisia, Miracles of Prato, The Illumination, and the Lace Reader all came from that vector.
Bold = recommended
* = best
This year I continued my voyage through Patrick O’Brian’s wondrous Aubrey-Maturin series, a deeply reliable source of reading pleasure. His vivid, inexhaustible vocabulary, vigorously real characters, startlingly exact detail, and rich intricacy of story never fail to liven up my writer’s brain, making it ping and crackle with phrases and ideas. I am sad that I only have 4 more of these books to read for the first time (though I look forward to many repeat readings).
O’Brian’s opus doesn’t really divide into tidy, distinct volumes or even episodes; it is instead one neverending flow of story... much like real life. He has a magnificent disregard for conventional narrative formulae like three-act structure; he writes as he pleases, and entirely pulls it off.
Treason’s Harbor. Solidly enjoyable, a lot of variety in scenes and subjects.
The Far Side of the World. I had feared this would feel repetitive since I'd seen the movie version, but not so at all; the movie had remarkably little to do with the plots of any of the books, mainly using the mood and characters. In fact, the plot of this book makes much more sense than the plot of the film. Above all, the movie does not have O’Brian’s ever-sparkling, generous, endlessly rich and varied prose. Movie makers seem to often forget that the power and quality of a story lies as much in how it is told as in what it consists of. Even movies that faithfully adapt the scenes, dialogue, and characters of a book often fail to preserve the essential flavor of the language.
The Reverse of the Medal. The usual satisfactory installment
The Letter of Marque. A bit uneven, not my favorite overall.
The Thirteen Gun Salute. Quite enjoyable, with intrigue and exotic locale and various unexpected twists of events.
The Nutmeg of Consolation. A lot of variety, a chewy moral dilemma.
Clarissa Oakes. A rather different story, amid the usual setting; it is more about psychological contrast and tension. Clarissa herself proves fascinating, with a life story that could have been a full gothic novel in its own right.
The Commodore. The great flow of story and the infinitely reliable pleasure continues, and the infinite sadness of reaching the end of my first read approaches!
****
Knowing how much I like O’Brian, ceruleanfleur recommended Naomi Novik's Temeraire series, whose premise is Napoleonic wars + dragons: the sentient dragons bond with their captain and are flown into combat with a crew in the manner of Man o'war ships.
I don’t think Novik has really thought through her cause and effect; the premise is an exact replica of the Napoleonic period, but with the addition of aerial combat capabilities. If the world (especially China!) had had that capability so much earlier in time, history would not have unfolded in a way remotely resembling anything we know. But it’s a cute conceit; you just have to go with it.
Of course people compare Novik to O’Brian because of the Napoleonic Wars subject matter, and it’s clear (she says as much) that her work is very much in homage to him, but there’s no comparison in prose quality. Novik is a perfectly competent writer; O’Brian is simply a brilliant one.
His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik. A reasonably engrossing, not very taxing read. The prose is okay, it gives a decent feel for the period, but it’s not amazing; the phrasing is a bit formulaic and sometimes over the top. (So help me, I will never use ‘husked’ as a verb of speech.) The main flaw is that protagonist Captain Laurence is a really bland stock character, generically brave/ honorable, no distinctive personality features. Still, I enjoyed the book.
Throne of Jade. Better written than the first, and a lot more varied and interesting. The sea voyage goes on a bit long (though that’s realistic), but the part in China is pretty interesting, exploring a culture that involved dragons in a very different way than Europe did. Capt. Laurence gets a little more personality (though mostly in the form of a touchy temper), but the dragon Temeraire is mostly rather whiny and brooding, whereas in the first book he was more childlike and charming. But the issue of his lack of freedom is interesting, and the way Novik develops her alternate Chinese culture is convincing and well done, a good job of taking her initial premise a lot further than in the first book.
Black Powder War. Novik’s style and writing has hugely matured from the first book, showing a much greater grasp of period idiom, greater imagination of alternate history ramifications, and lovely descriptive detail. I liked the part in Istanbul, but got bored with the ground war in Prussia; too much military slogging. Temeraire gets awfully moody and complain-y; I didn’t like him much in this book.
Empire of Ivory. I didn’t enjoy this one very much, felt the plot got off track from the events that developed in the first three. Temeraire continues to mostly brood and sulk; I found him less interesting with every book.
started to read: Victory of Eagles. Seems like Novik keeps hurtling her characters through different settings and scenarios, setting up for big personal and social changes that need to happen, but not finding room to accomplish them among the hurly-burly... It starts to feel like she's stalling until she can figure out how to manage it. I got interrupted reading this, and found I had no interest in going back to it.
In sum: I thought the first 3 or 4 books in the series were a fun entertaining read, perfect for a plane trip or a day at the beach, but later the author seemed unable to fully pull off the situations she had set up.
****
*The Passion of Artemisia by Susan Vreeland. A novel told from the pov of late-Renaissance painter Artemisia Gentilleschi. Aside from O’Brian, this was probably the best book I read in 2011. It's what Girl with a Pearl Earring tried to be, but didn’t convincingly pull off: a beautiful evocation of a painter’s mind and heart. It depicts a character very rarely seen in fiction: an artist who lives a fulfilling life. Artemisia transcends a terrible trauma in her youth and pursues a moving struggle to earn recognition in a male-dominated world, and to balance her roles as artist, wife, and mother. The book is magnificent in terms of researched detail, but above all Vreeland captures the artistic thought process, the development of ideas, the obsessive passion of an artist for their work: joyful or painful, it is what they must do.
The Miracles of Prato by Laurie Albanese and Laura Morowitz. Okay, but not great. It’s very similar in setting and subject to Artemisia (Italian Rennaissance painters, redemption of a molested woman), but nowhere near as well written or characterized. I don’t find this version of Fra Filippo sympathetic or dimensional (he never felt like a character in his own right, just a slot in the story: poof, instant passionate artist /devoted lover!). I felt sorry for his lover/muse Lucrezia, but she isn’t all that interesting. The authors never penetrate what would make an artist’s inspiration tick on the inside... never get past the beauty of the woman in the paintings to unveil any depths within. Lucrezia is young, innocent, loving, and pretty... that’s it. The book is not as effective as Artemisia in turning historical details into narrative; there is a tendency to infodump and tell rather than show characterization, and villains are one-dimensional. Still, they do a reasonably good job creating events and motivations to fill in between the known facts.
*Scent of the Missing by Susannah Charleson. A compelling memoir of a volunteer canine search and rescue team. Anyone interested in forensic crime or human and animal psychology should definitely read this (shiningmoon, I'm looking at you!). Charleson writes with wonderfully vivid and exact description that can be hilarious or fascinating, showing an impressive acuity of observation (which makes sense given the type of work she does). She makes the various dogs’ personalities really clear and vivid (more so than the people, actually!). I’m impressed by her candor in revealing her struggles to bond with and discipline her dog, and in showing how few of their searches end with a tidy, satisfying conclusion... how few have any conclusion at all. Yet the life and the work go on.
Bachelor Brothers’ Bed and Breakfast by Bill Richardson. Pleasant persiflage, nicely phrased vignettes, though completely drama- and plot-free.
Bone vol. 5-9 by Jeff Smith (graphic novel). The epic fantasy and mythology really kicks into high gear in these volumes, though still interspersed with some of the playful slapstick that dominates the earlier parts. Bone is an impressive story, expertly told, multi-textured and deeply felt.
The Color of Earth and The Color of Water by Dong Hwa Kim. Lovely and lyrical Korean manwha (graphic novels). Delicate, poetic coming of age and romance of a mother and daughter in traditional Korea. The setting atmospherics are incredibly exquisite, the trees and weather as beautifully rendered as in an antique scroll. I look forward to reading the third installment.
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. I picked this up out of idle curiosity, because when I first started going to writers’ conferences, this was the big Breakout Novel everyone was talking about. Sure enough, I read the first couple pages and couldn’t put it down. This is not my usual kind of book, and the serial killer aspect makes it an uneasy read for me, creating images I’d rather not have in my head; I don’t know if I’d want to read it again. But it is awfully well written...insightful and filled with detail so exact it makes you sit up in your chair in recognition. It is a story of expertly crafted suspense interwoven with the thoughtful, poignant examination of how grief injures and alters a family. I was dissatisfied with the ending, though.
*Tao te Ching by Lao Tzu, translated by Ursula Le Guin. An astonishing rendition of the classic work. Simple, clear, deep, like still water. I am still reading it and will continue reading it; I need to read from this every day. This slim volume contains a lifetime of wisdom that, if grasped, could lift the mind free of so much suffering.
***
The Illumination by Kevin Brockmeier. I have mixed feelings about this book: it is so brilliantly conceived and written, and yet so harrowing and painful that I kept not being sure if I could finish reading it. (I finally did, but it took real effort.) It is an in-depth exploration of physical and emotional pain in all its tragic variety.
The book is not truly a novel, rather an interlinked series of stories developed around a magic realism premise. It unlocks a mesmerizing visual metaphor: what if our pain was visible in the form of light that radiated from our bodies? One day this change inexplicably happens, and everyone in the world can see the evidence of everyone else’s injuries and illnesses, from stubbed toes to cancer. Brockmeier explores this premise with astonishing invention, coming up with endlessly varied ways to describe the effect. Amid this, the stories follow a trail of lives affected by an object: the notebook of endearments written by a man to his dead wife. Lives are altered, redirected, destroyed, or uplifted by their brush with this notebook.
The prose is absolutely astonishing, the kind of exquisitely observed detail that makes me feel like I’ve been sleep-walking with my own writing. This is how I wanted to write when I first set out to do it, to exalt the ordinary with this painful acuity of observation. It is writing that takes my breath away, makes my mouth fall open in recognition and pained sympathy and surprise: so intense, so extraordinary, searing, blazing, savage, harsh, gorgeous, haunting.
It is a book full of agonized wonders... everyone cherishing pain that is no longer secret from the world. The problem is that no one’s life is going to work out. The characters’ pain is transcendant, but they will not transcend their pain.
***
Memory by Linda Nagata. Both fascinating and frustrating. At first impressive, depicting a complete, distinct culture with its own mores and terms, a strange artificial nanotech-infused world whose inhabitants have forgotten their own origins. But somehow the setting is more vivid and engrossing than the characters; they’re bloodless, lacking distinctive personality. In 400 pages all I could tell you about the MC is that she’s stubborn and reckless, and asks a few too many rhetorical questions. There is never any love conveyed between her and her fated lover; we’re just informed there is passion. The plot has some missing gaps in cause and effect. After a lot of build-up that seems like it will lead to answers, there is never a full explanation of the mysterious world origin, just inference; a lot of its aspects never do make sense. That could maybe work in a fantasy novel, but the persistent hard SF label made me want more hard explanation. I still might look at her other books, though... she has interesting ideas, and paints a vivid scene.
The Oracle of Stamboul by Michael Lukas. Beautifully visualized, full of wonderful detail in the exotic setting of 19th c. Turkey, the emergence of an intriguingly precocious and gifted girl ... but I felt the author chickened out on his premise, or didn’t know how to fully realize it; the story ended abruptly and unsatisfyingly, the MC’s fascinating potential never achieved. Still worth reading for the evocative imagery, a nice escape into another time and place.
The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry. I had mixed feelings about it, kind of wish I hadn’t read it. It’s an eerie, unsettling novel of psychological suspense, mingled (not always successfully) with quirky social satire. At first it seems like a standard, even banal chick-lit setup: an eccentric family in small-town Mass. uncovering the dark secrets hidden in their past; a variety of weird townsfolk; an unexpected death that might be a murder. But the story is gradually revealed to be something much stranger, involving divination, precognition, mental illness, and above all an unreliable narrator whose fundamental perception of reality comes into question. It’s never possible to completely piece the events together or reconcile the versions... Overall I found it more unsettling than satisfying, but it definitely was thought-provoking. (shiningmoon, you might like this one better than I did.)
The Lace Reader is told in the present tense, something which seems to be in vogue right now and which I generally dislike. Partly it's just that it often seems pointless, a gimmicky way to be different. But I think it also tends to camouflage lazy writing, allowing a lot of ordinarily unacceptable to-be verbs and passive voice to slip under the radar. And because present tense is traditionally used for picture captions, stage directions, and synopses, I feel it creates a static effect in a story, a lack of the momentum that arises from knowing an event has occurred, an action has been completed. One of the only books I've seen where I think present tense narration was logical and successful is The Time Traveller's Wife; because that story shifts constantly in time, sorting out past tense would have been utterly confusing.
******
Re-read:
5 Chanur books by C. J. Cherryh. I never get tired of those; always a rousing good read.
*Pere Goriot by Balzac. This was on my list of books to re-read so I could decide if I still need to own it. I read it in college and could remember only that I had liked it more than the average assigned book. I'm so glad I gave it another try; it's excellent, and now I want to read more of his novels! Balzac's scathing, mordant wit skewers and dissects the foibles and failings of Paris highlife and lowlife, detailing their indiscretions with piercing acuity. It is surprisingly modern in feel, yet at the same time, nobody constructs novels this way now. For instance, his leisurely opening includes many pages describing the decrepit boarding house where the story is set. Modern editors would say cut all this, you can't have pages of description with no dialogue and no characters! Yet the passage is hilariously entertaining and informatively evocative of middle class tastlessness. How happy for us that Balzac wasn't saddled with a modern editor.
************
Started to read but gave up on:
Changing Planes by UK Le Guin. One of very few Le Guin books I don’t like. I started to read it when it first came out, gave up on it. This year I gave it another try, still don’t like it. It consists of dry little mental games and anthropological sketches; they have occasional tidbits of insight/ interest, but are not really stories; there is scant emotional engagement.
Murther and Walking Spirits by Robertson Davies. Starts off in fine Davies form, mordant and funny. But once the dead character begins watching 'movies' about the past lives of his ancestors, I got bored... It's another case where present tense narration creates a lack of momentum, and because the narrator describes stories that he watches rather than experiences, it's like reading a synopsis instead of being fully engaged with the characters’ pov. Also, because each chapter deals with different characters, I found it hard to get invested in any of them.
***
I note that a lot of my reading this year was influenced by the free Advance Reading Copies available at work. Lovely Bones, Oracle of Stampoul, Artemisia, Miracles of Prato, The Illumination, and the Lace Reader all came from that vector.