The Uncommon Reader

By Alan Bennett (120 pages)

Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Bookish rating: 4.5

Where has Alan Bennett been all my literary life?

Queen Elizabeth (the second) discovers the joy of reading when her dogs run into a mobile library. When asked what sort of book she’d like, Her Majesty is stumped: “She’d never taken much interest in reading. She read, of course, as one did, but liking books was something she left to other people” (p. 6)

As a doer, the Queen ponders the nature of literature and what kind of truth it reflects—is there something to it, or is reading really just a passive thing? “Few people, after all, had seen more of the world than she had. There was scarcely a country she had not visited, a notability she had not met. Herself part of the panoply of the world, why now was she intrigued by books, which, whatever else they might be, were just a reflection of the world or a version of it? Books? She had seen the real thing” (p. 29). Regardless, the Queen starts sneaking books into her royal duties, perfecting a smile-and-wave that allows her to continue reading.

The Queen, ever so proper and dutiful, finds that she can be common as she reads, as she is really just any other reader (“Books did not defer. All readers were equal…” [p. 31]). She begins developing tastes and opinions, and this absolutely freaks out her staff, irritates the Prime Minister, and sort of amuses Parliament. When she decides that perhaps, as a doer, she should write instead of read, well, the empire comes crashing down. (Metaphorically. Sort of.)

Bennett brilliantly satirizes the British monarchy while also paying homage to literature (purely tongue-in-cheek, but homage nonetheless). The entire tone of the novella is deliciously ironic, but the Queen’s voice is the most pronounced, the most hil-AR-ious, as “one” always ensures the utmost propriety by referring to one in the third-person, despite one simultaneously developing a new sense of self at one’s ripe young age of 80. Absolutely delightful, and highly recommended.

Reader’s Ink February Book Pick: The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine

For the bleak, chilly month of February, Reader’s Ink member Emily selected The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine by Alina Bronksy. I mean, where else would we all want to mentally spend February than Russia?

Set in a Soviet apartment and narrated by an unlikeable and overbearing matriarch, we have teen pregnancy, Soviet health care, and apparently lots of raunchy wit. And well, who doesn’t secretly like a little raunchy wit?

That’s all I know, as I shall not plunge into reading the February book until February. You’ve got a week to find a copy and a month to read it—discussion begins March 1st. Or, well, whatever. We’re pretty casual. Procure a copy and read at your leisure.

I, for one, was oh so OLD SCHOOL in obtaining a copy. I went to a bookstore and bought it. IN PRINT—I’m talking paper and ink. Shocking, I know. No library, no Kindle, no high-jacking it from a friend or relative. Nope, I bought it. Fair and square. You’re welcome, dear publisher. You. Are. Welcome.

Note. You can check out or join Reader's Ink by clicking on the widget at the bottome of this blog.

A Crimson Warning

By Tasha Alexander (322 pages)

Published by Minotaur Books

Bookish rating: 3.25

What is it about young and well-off (and thus jobless)Victorian widows who meet up with handsome detectives, marry them, and have lots and lots of bedtime romps without ever getting pregnant, despite lack of birth control?

A Crimson Warning is the latest in the Lady Emily mysteries by Tasha Alexander. A couple years ago, I read the first Lady Emily mystery, And Only To Deceive, which I enjoyed. This new one, while good in some parts, never quite delivers.

The good? The dialogue is witty and there is something undeniably appealing about the idea of sipping port in front of the fire in a London drawing room filled with dark woods and hundreds of books, pondering the latest mystery to involve Scotland Yard.

However, Lady Emily herself seems insincere—her concerns about the plight of London’s poor and infirm, and her efforts to promote the vote for women, seem half-baked, as though Alexander herself is uncomfortable with the plain fact that her heroine is a spoiled girl, an intellectual dilettante (really? Emily reduces mystery-related stress by reading The Aeneid in the original Latin?), with lots of wealth and nothing to do but meddle in her husband’s job. And since yoga didn’t yet exist in the higher societal rungs in the 1890s, how else could she fill her days?

Lady Emily’s (second) husband, Colin, is a Scotland Yard detective. He patronizes her, almost to the point of seeming father-like, as though her dabbling in mysteries is slightly eccentric but cute. She always defers to both him and his judgment, but Alexander seems to anticipate that Lady Emily is most definitely a sidekick, so she has him deliver a couple of flat lines that describe their marriage as a “partnership” and he dully exhibits verbal support for suffrage. Yawn. Anyway, we’re supposed to believe that they’re “blissfully” in love, but there’s really nothing about Colin to make him alluring. In short, I didn’t buy it.

The writing is fast-paced to the point of feeling rushed, and the mystery unfolds with countless and clues and lots of running around, but the reader misses what exactly it is that Lady Emily is hunting for. The last 75 pages or so are needlessly cluttered with vying mysteries. Instead of lending credibility to the fact that a real investigation would most likely hit some bumps here and there, which perhaps Alexander was shooting for, the codes and multiple trips to the London Library and British Museum are just . . . confusing. Finally, we end with the motivation for one of the two murders utterly unclear. I read the “confession scene” twice (lordy, what would an author do if a villain just kept his or her mouth shut?), and nope, I couldn’t detect a clear reason for murder #2. Perhaps it’s somewhere else, but methinks fewer loose ends and relatively irrelevant subplots would have made this rather crucial plot point a bit cleaner and more obvious.

Aspects of A Crimson Warning were genuinely enjoyable, as this is a fun time period and the banter among Lady Emily and her peeps is quite amusing and well done. The book is not bad. However, Deanna Raybourn writes a similar type of mystery series (Lady Julia Grey mysteries) with more polished writing and more interesting characters.

The Boy Book: A Study of Habits and Behaviors, Plus Techniques for Taming Them

By E. Lockhart (193 pages)
Published by Delacorte
Bookish rating: 4

Oh, the angst of being a high schooler, especially when your friends are all mad at you and you’ve become a social pariah (or, to use Ruby Oliver’s word, leper). And what to do about all those crushes?

Junior Ruby Oliver narrates The Boy Book, which takes place at a prep school in Seattle (earning the book its first point). I’ve read a lot of young adult literature, and this is the best and most believable teen dialogue that I've read in a long time. I almost started taking notes to improve the dialogue in my own writing. Actually, I did take mental notes. And have since regretted not taking actual notes.

Anyway, Ruby’s friends are all peeved because she sort of accidentally made out with a guy who one of her close friends had already gone on record liking, so they ditch her. Meanwhile, she still pines for the dude and struggles to make other friends who are a little less A-list. Really, the plot isn’t what is important. Ruby’s voice, not to mention her compulsion to make hilarious lists and then hyper-footnote her own narration, is freaking adorable. To boot, the dialogue among the teensters is just spot on, and with just the right amount of edge. Finally, Ruby’s relationship with her parents (her mom continually tries to remind her that it’s a-okay if she’s a lesbian and they will not freak out if/when she chooses to come out) is a riot, as she reads their parenting books so she can stay one step ahead of them. Highly recommended for anyone interested in writing YA lit, as your own dialogue and writing will suddenly seem totally old-fogey. Also recommended for anyone interested in reading YA lit.

My Name Is Mary Sutter

By Robin Oliveira (384 pages)

Published by Viking

Bookish rating: 4.25

“Did you know this book won the Langum Prize for historical fiction?” asked the librarian at my teeny tiny local library, slamming the book down on the counter (she’s the loudest librarian I’ve ever met. She yells, too—not at you but to you, as part of normal conversation. I find it refreshing, as librarians have always scared me, mainly because they’re usually—in my experience—cranky, controlling beeyotches.)

“No, I didn’t know that,” I said, not wanting to admit that I had no clue what the Langum Prize was, though I certainly appreciated how up to date the loud librarian was on bookish prizes. “It didn’t have much of a queue for the holds,” I added. “Are people not reading it?”

She shrugged and asked me if I wanted a print-out of my books’ due dates. I declined.

In the mood for a good, absorbing historical novel, I remembered my quasi-conversation with the librarian and selected the Civil War–era My Name Is Mary Sutter from my rather ambitious stack of reading material.

I was hooked by the first page, which dumps us into a birthing scene that’s not going terribly well. Mary Sutter, a talented midwife, swoops in, turning the baby and saving the day. I am not typically a nail biter, but I’ll freely admit that I nibbled a bit on my pretty nails during the first pages.

Obviously, the novel starts out strong. Continually blocked from entering medical school, and thus becoming a surgeon, Mary is stuck delivering babies (which I think would be far more exciting and gratifying than hacking off legs, but whatever.) As the Civil War dawns, she seizes her opportunity and moves to Washington to care for the wounded. There, she’s sort of apprenticed as a surgeon.

Oh, the horrors of (1) war, (2) DC summers, (3) lack of flushing toilets, and (4) 19th-century medicine. Mary comes face to face with disease, death, the futility of war, and the Union’s sheer lack of preparedness. The logistics alone—how do you transport thousands of wounded soldiers to Washington for medical care? What will you use for supplies? Where should you put all those legs you chopped off?—were fascinating.

Also fun (for this Marylander, anyway) was the constant referencing of areas right here in our neck of the Potomac. In fact, my teensy town was mentioned in the novel as one of the places for makeshift hospitals housing the wounded. I read that and thought, that’s right! Our old, brick, one-room church was made into a makeshift hospital after the Battle of Ball’s Bluff! Snuggled in my bed, a quarter mile from the church, reading about my quaint town (and my old church) so vividly, I loved the unexpected connection to the story. And that’s some top-notch research done by Oliveira.

My Name Is Mary Sutter is a highly entertaining, wonderfully written novel. (My only quibble was that President Lincoln was portrayed as a way better dude than he actually was.) Highly recommended.

CORRECTION: This book won honorable mention for the Langum award. My thanks to the anonymous commenter for pointing this out.

Ew.

My friend Greg brought this bit of publishing irony to my attention, with the apt comment, “You’ve got to be effing kidding me.”

Jerry Sandusky’s autobiography is titled Touched.

I’m not kidding. I’m not even effing kidding.

Fortunately, this is not a case of book marketing losing its soul. The book was published in 2000, before Sandusky became (publicly) oh so icky.

The Little Giant of Aberdeen County

By Tiffany Baker (368 pages)

Grand Central Publishing

Bookish rating: 4

The Little Giant of Aberdeen County has the lucky-duck honor of being the first book reviewed on Bookish and of being the Reader’s Ink book club choice for December.

I feel like I’ve sort of talked this book to death already, as we’ve been discussing online, but the first book is the first book, and this is the first book. I’m a stickler. Live with it.

Truly (the name of our heroine, not an adverb) is a giant, though how big we never really learn. She has a super pretty sister, Serena Jane, who in contrast makes Truly seem even butt-uglier. The townsfolk just sort of pity her and the fact she has to wear ugly clothes (which--I won't lie--I too would pity), while the local doctor maniuplates her. We follow Truly through several decades of (literal) growth, until finally her spunk and power matches her heft.  

Baker creates a lovable, complex, and slyly humorous character in Truly, and she writes beautifully. One weird thing: The narration is done via first-person omniscient.* I’m undecided as to whether it worked. In some ways it did work, perhaps due to Truly’s slight mysticism. At the same time, Truly’s knowledge of what everybody else is thinking causes problems . . . how did she not know of the secrets kept from her? Eh? On the whole, though, the reader can easily forgive this. At least Baker got a little ballsy with her character’s point of view.

Overall, the tone of the book, which I suppose is Truly’s voice, is resigned but in a fiery sort of way. Fiery resignation, if you will. (Sound paradoxical? Just wait. I've got a list of paradoxes coming up.) The resignation takes away from the immediacy of what little action there is, which can make for slow reading, but it also simultaneously suggests a heavy-footed plodding forward, like a big, big woman moving. In that sense, we really do get a strange sense of Truly’s girth.

Lots of big themes occur and Baker (or Truly?) seems to have trouble wrangling them all into one book. The novel lacked the direction I usually need to effortlessly read through a book. The writing is very good but not so amazing that I could accept and enjoy the lack of action; it needed more oomph to propel me forward, without running smack into Yet Another Theme or Issue (e.g., euthanasia, homosexuality, beauty, rape, Vietnam). Finding such balance is part of what makes literary fiction so stinkin’ tricky. Baker handles the (many) themes in non-cheesy, creative ways, always with Truly’s voice. But still.

My favorite part of the novel was how stuffed with paradoxes this story is. For starters, we have a "little" giant. Then Truly's heavy, earthy body-ness gets contrasted with her almost mystical powers (omniscient point of view, potions and poultices). And she grows when being starved for love, and shrinks when evil (the doctor) dies.

Overall, a solid, unique book. Recommended.

Note. *Chris requested a definition. First-person = "I"; omniscient = the character sees all and knows all. We are not limited to only what Truly would actually know. You can see why this combination would make for some challenging narration. 

Welcome to Bookish

Bookish is a place for all the word-related posts (book reviews, book club updates, writerly whining, grammar gripes) that have, for some time, seemed out of place on my mommy blog, This Hofmann Life. 

Now that you’re here, welcome! Stick around, get yourself some coffee, and tell me what you’ve been reading . . . .