In the Kingdom of Ice

In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette
By Hampton Sides (454 pages)
Published by Doubleday
Bookish rating: 4

As I've said before, I have a weird love of survival stories. I love the extremes, the testing of the human spirit, the power of nature. The drama.

This book covers--extensively--the American polar voyage of the the Jeannette in the late 1800s. So far, this was unexplored territory, and it caught the fancy not just explorers (armchair explorers or otherwise) but also the general public. Alas, the crew of the Jeannette based their voyage on a soon-to-be-debunked theory that the North Pole was a warm, freshwater bowl of water, surrounded by ice. It was just a matter of finding the right way in.

So, the Jeannette heads north. She gets stuck in ice and stays put for TWO YEARS. Then sinks. And the 33-person crew must travel over jagged, dangerous ice, aiming for Siberia. And oh, it makes for dramatic reading.

Do not, do not, do NOT google the voyage. I almost did about a dozen times, because I wanted to know would happen to everyone and I couldn't get through the 454 pages fast enough. But I didn't google it and was raptly reading, waaaaaay too late into the night. (The sign of a very good book, methinks.) What would happen to them?

Yes, this is nonfiction that reads like fiction, as good survival stories do. My one criticism is that it took FOREVER for the Jeannette to finally get to sea. I get that such a voyage requires a lot of prep---securing funding, figuring out routes, finding and renovating a ship, accumulating provisions, and so on. But at one point I snapped at my open Kindle, "Set sail already!" Sheesh.

But never you mind about that. This is good, absorbing nonfiction reading. Highly recommended.

Acedia & Me

Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's Life
By Kathleen Norris (334 pages)
Published by Riverhead
Bookish rating: 4

I loooooved Kathleen Norris's Dakota: A Spiritual Geography, so I excitedly checked out this book from the library.

There's something about Norris's way of processing feeling and information, her insight, her self-awareness, her use of language, her honesty---they simply resonate with me. In this book, she tackles the ancient idea of acedia, known as the "noonday demon"---that sense of who cares, I don't want to, it doesn't matter, everything is futile that can sometimes get mixed up or conflated with depression. She traces acedia through its various conceptualizations as she also cares for her husband, who is seriously ill, and continues to write write write. (Or not, depending on acedia.)

Predictably, the book is beautifully written, with lots and lots to glean. However, it does meander and lacks structure. Perhaps this is meant to mimic the way our lives actually function, but I know that Norris had been storing away this book inside her for a long time, so there's a sense of it being cobbled together a bit. I do think the text could've been edited and shortened, and more structure wouldn't have hurt. But these are minor complaints, when the bulk of the book is such good, meaty reading. Recommended.

The Good Daughters

The Good Daughters
By Joyce Maynard (278 pages)
Published by William Marrow & Company
Bookish rating: 3

Maynard is not a bad writer. In fact, she has some interesting turns of phrase, gets at the heart of farming, and covers a lot of ground in a pretty readable way.

Oh, but I have some quibbles. For starters, the Big Fat Secret is so freaking obvious that it gets tiresome waiting 278 pages for the characters to figure it out themselves. And it's SO anticlimactic when they do.

Premise: Two "birthday sisters" are born on the same day in the same hospital in rural New Hampshire and their lives get strangely (or, um, not) linked thereafter. Exactly. Now YOU know what the Big Fat Secret is, don't you?

And so we cross about 60 painful, long years. And 278 pages.

Quibble #2: The story is told in the alternating viewpoints of the girls, Ruth and Dana. I found the constant switching jarring, probably because the author was clearly more interested in Ruth's story than Dana's. And I was, too. I think this affected the plotting, which seemed rushed, direction-less, and never ending, all at once.

Perhaps in an effort to make Dana "interesting," Dana is a lesbian. In one of my big pet peeves of current lit depicting same-sex relationships, Maynard has Dana fall gloriously in love with the very first lesbian she finds, and their relationship IS PERFECT for the rest of the novel. No fights, no tension, sheer love, they feed each other blueberries and clutch each other during storms and have the very best sex all the freaking time. Yawn. Idealized, one dimensional, uninteresting. Because lesbians are PEOPLE, I'm pretty sure they have disagreements, somebody neglects to pick up her socks from the floor, they don't spend allllllll day making out.

Finally, there's a sense that this story is over told. Like, a few sentence go on a bit too long, a point is made less subtly than I wanted. Not overwritten, per se, but over explained. There's really zero trust in the reader not being an idiot.

Now, this is not a BAD book. It just didn't have enough steam to hold my interest.

The Snow Queen

The Snow Queen
By Michael Cunningham (258 pages)
Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Bookish rating: 4.25

One goes in with high expectations for a novel when its author has won the Pulitzer, especially when that novel was The Hours. And you know what? This novel met my expectations.

The Snow Queen is NOT about Elsa (har har). This is a fantastically complex, multi-layered tale of two brothers, Barrett and Tyler. Barrett, getting over yet another break up, lives with his brother, Tyler, and his wife. One night, Barrett witnesses an inexplicable light that seems godlike. Meanwhile, Tyler toils to write a non-shitty song for his super ill wife.

So, what is the novel ABOUT? Hard to say. I think a lot of readers would zoom in on certain parts more than other. I mean, yeah it's annoyingly hip and inevitably set in New York and there are inevitably no children to distract the characters from their super duper Deep Thoughts, but glib it's-so-hipster aside, Cunningham delivers a character-driven, compelling novel that explores artistic ambition, caregiving, identity, death, and God--and other stuff, too. I read it slowly and thoroughly, deeply enjoyed it. The joy of language and story and character. Loved it. Definitely recommended.

The Painted Girls

The Painted Girls
By Cathy Marie Buchanan (357 pages)
Published by Riverhead
Bookish rating: 4

A satisfying historical read set in Paris in 1878. The van Goethem sisters find themselves nearly penniless after their father's death, and their mother spends what little they have on absinthe. Marie is sent to the Paris Opera to make a bit of money getting trained for its ballet company while her sister toils, works in the theater, and falls for a less-than-stellar guy.

As Marie works her way through the classes, she catches the eye of Degas, eventually becoming a model for him. She's none too thrilled with his depictions of dancers in their less pretty, less idealized states, but hey, he pays well. Finally, she becomes the subject for his famous statuette, Little Dancer, which I had the joy of seeing in person once, at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena. I believe it's temporarily at the National Gallery now, and the Kennedy Center has staged a musical of the stautette, starring New York City Ballet's beloved Tiler Peck. I was DYING to see the musical, but you know. KIDS.

I loved reading about the inner-workings of the historical ballet company, and the slummy side of 19th-century Paris is very realistically rendered. I also liked the accidental coincidence of reading of Marie's ballet class as I sat in the waiting area of at Charlotte's ballet academy, listening to plunking piano music for the advanced class's barre. A tad trippy, but fun.

My only criticism is that Buchanan devotes waaaaaaay too much story to an actual criminal case that occurred in Paris at this time. I didn't care much about it, and I felt it slowed Marie and her sister's stories down far too much and was overall a distraction.

Still, this is a book worth reading for those who love their historical fiction.

Lottery

Lottery 
By Patricia Wood (320 pages)
Published by Putnam
Bookish rating: 3.25

Set in working-class Everett (Washington State, y'all), Perry--a man with some sort of developmental delay or intellectual disability--wins the lottery. Suddenly, his indifferent family moves in to capitalize on his sudden fortune.

Overall, the book is not bad. All the elements are there, I suppose. And it was reviewed oh so very highly. But I dunno. The voice of Perry is very distinct, which is good, but he has a Forrest Gump-ish quality that reminds me of literature's tendency to idealize a marginalized set of people. Sort of how the early writings of gay and lesbian lit portrayed hyper-romanticized ideals, when same-sex relationships still involve PEOPLE and are therefore also prey to, like, PROBLEMS.

Which is a long-winded way of me saying that I'd rather see a character with an intellectual disability who also has some traits that are BAD. The innocence of children? Well, maybe, but children can also be little shits. Let's see more of that.

The writing registered a tad bland for me, and I was ready for the book to end. Were there aspects I liked? Yes. Exploring the effed up nature of money from the perspective of someone who doesn't give much of a hoot about it is interesting. Lots of well-developed characters . . . but I was just sort of bored. Not really recommended.

Dakota: A Spiritual Geography

Dakota: A Spiritual Geography
By Kathleen Norris (256 pages)
Published by Mariner
Bookish rating: 5

Prepare to love this book. I was so taken in by Norris's language, her ability to GET the weirdness of Dakota AND the excruciatingly small town, the vastness of its prairie, theological-slash-spiritual acumen, her portrayal of the depth and hospitality of the small (super duper small) church, the process of writing---oh yes, this book hit on a ton of relevant areas for me.

Quasi-memoir, quasi-meditation, quasi anthropological essay, this book is unique. I enjoyed it so thoroughly that I deliberately slowed myself down in reading it, stretching it out for eight months. Fortunately, Norris has published other stuff. So, even though this book is done, I'll survive.

Highly, HIGHLY recommended for anyone interested in the Dakotas, the writing process, monks (no, really), parallels between modern and ancient practices of Christianity, small towns, and . . . well, just good writing.