Really Really Bogged Down

Note to self: Posts about why you are not blogging are really boring for readers.

Nevertheless I feel compelled to give an update. I am currently reading three books: Wolf Hall (by Hilary Mantel), which is 560 pages, Faithful Place by Tana French, merely 416 pages, and A Dance with Dragons by George R. R. Martin, a whopping 1040 pages. I have already explained here why I can't read ADwD in bed so that is relegated to whatever time I can spare during the day (which isn't much). The other two are just dragging. Last night, instead of reading either of them, I played Boggle* on my smart phone. That is a bad sign.

I supposed I could blog about Methland, which I finished a few weeks ago. Look for that post in a few days. Don't get all excited, though, because it wasn't a very good book. I will probably just dismiss it in a few peremptory sentences.

*Technically, Bogged! a free Boggle-like game with a crappy dictionary that accepts almost any combination of letters as a "word." I've resorted to just randomly clicking on letters to see what it will take. For example, last night it took "ers," "kae," and "gink." What do these words even mean?

Pinterest

Often after I read a book I spend time on the Web reading about the book: reviews, articles about the setting, websites about the movie version, articles about the author. Occasionally I include these links in my blog post but usually not. I don't like to clutter up the post with too much extraneous stuff. But some of what I find is really interesting and I want to share it! So for the past few days I've been fooling around with the aggregator site Pinterest. Pinterest lets you create a virtual bulletin board and "pin" links to the board. You can keep your board private, or make it public so other people can see it. You can have multiple boards, collaborative boards, etc. Lots of people seem to use it for fanboards or for saving links to things they want to buy, but I have found some book-related boards, too.

Here is my board. I'll also put a link to it on my sidebar. Apparently you can also "follow me" though I'm not really sure what that entails. If you like it, check it again in a few weeks. I'll keep putting up new links as I find them.

A Book a Week on Pinterest

Evening is the Whole Day by Preeta Samarasan

This book combines my love of domestic fiction with my love of reading about unfamiliar places. I heard about it from Nancy Pearl who included it in her list of 10 Terrific Summer Reads back in June. Several books on her list appealed to me but this was the only one the library had in, so it’s the only one I’ve read so far.

Set in Malaysia in the 1980’s this book is the story of an affluent Indian family: father, mother, grandmother, three children, and several servants. Uma, the oldest girl, is leaving for Columbia University in New York as the book opens. Samarasan uses a mostly backwards-running story line to tell the family’s history, focusing especially closely on Uma, her little sister Aasha, and a servant girl called Chellam (without neglecting the rest of the family, the neighbors, the distant relatives….it’s a long book).

Like all families, these people have agendas, secrets, and hidden loyalties. Are theirs any worse than anyone else’s? Samarasan focuses her camera so closely on each character that their foibles sometimes seem magnified into something larger than they really are. Uma spends the months before she leaves for New York in a period of what seems like melancholy, pushing her parents and siblings away, spending hours alone in her room. While the family and Samarasan make much of her gloominess, to me she just seemed like a typical teen girl dealing with her fears of impending adulthood.

But this is a minor complaint. Samarasan has a lovely original voice, and much of this book is quite funny. Aasha is especially delightful – her best friend is the ghost of a 19th century child who was the daughter of their house’s original owner. Can Aasha really see ghosts? Or does she just have a good imagination? Aasha’s grandmother Paati and mother Vasanthi relish their decades-long toxic feud, complete with vendettas, sabotage, and character assassination. The father Raju has a mistress, the neighbors have a soothsayer in their family: what more could a reader want?

(Book 24, 2011)

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

I can’t believe I haven’t written about this yet. I read it over a month ago. I think I have been saving it up as a treat because I loved it so much. Ann Patchett (Run, blogged about here) is a great writer who can manage a complicated story with the right mixture of action and explication, create sympathetic, compelling characters, and explore unknown territory with vigor and excitement.

State of Wonder describes a Heart of Darkness type journey, with the Amazon standing in for the Congo and a renegade doctor, Annick Swenson, as Kurtz. Charles Marlow is transformed into Marina Singh, a pharmaceutical researcher sent by her employer in Minnesota to Swenson’s research station in Brazil. Marina is charged with discovering the answers to several mysteries, including what happened to Anders Eckman, the man originally sent to find Dr. Swenson, and what, exactly, is taking Dr. Swenson so long to finish her promised research. What is she up to out there in the jungle? And why is she so reluctant to communicate with her sponsors? The answers to some of these questions provide unanticipated plot developments that kept me reading late into the night.

Marina, unprepared and alone, must navigate a complex web of social and environmental obstacles to find Swenson and figure out what’s going on. Some of these obstacles include a complicated past history with Swenson, who was a former teacher of Marina’s; Swenson’s recalcitrant gatekeepers (a hippy dippy Australian couple); a journey up the Amazon river; and crushing heat, insects, snakes, native tribe members with poisoned arrows, and psychedelic mushrooms. I really enjoyed the tension and sense of adventure that this book offers. It’s a great combination of relationship story and action novel.

(Book 23, 2011)

When Books Make You Hungry

Who knew George R. R. Martin was such a gourmand? I can't read Dance with Dragons without getting the urge to raid the refrigerator, except my refrigerator doesn't contain the bounty that his characters seem to enjoy, even the ones living on the edges of civilization.

In Pentos, Tyrion Lannister enjoys the hospitality of Magister Illyrio, where they dine on mushrooms sauted in garlic and butter, and "a heron stuffed with figs, veal cutlets blanched with almond milk, creamed herring, candied onions, foul-smelling cheeses, plates of snails and sweetbreads, and a black swan in her plumage" (which Tyrion refuses, claiming that it "reminded him of supper with his sister"). While all this sounds appealing, the dish that really pulled me in was one that Godric Borrell, Lord of Sweetsister, serves to Davos Seaworth when Davos arrives soaking wet and freezing cold at  Borrell's island castle. One of Borrell's daughters serves Davos a stew that is "thick with leeks, carrots, barley, and turnips white and yellow, along with clams and chunks of cod and crabmeat, swimming in a stock of heavy cream and butter." Oh my. It sounds like a supercharged version of clam chowder, and I want some right now. Should I keep reading, or get cooking?

ETA: An anonymous commenter just left me this link to a blog called Inn at the Crossroads. These bloggers are creating recipes based on the foods GRRM talks about throughout the series. I am so impressed and can't wait to start cooking everything. And they've beaten me to the Sister's Stew, the chowder I describe above. 

Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson

Last time I looked at Kate Atkinson’s web site I got the impression she was done with Jackson Brodie, at least for a while. That was back when I read When Will There Be Good News, which I blogged about here. But apparently I was wrong! What a pleasure to discover a new mystery featuring this complicated man (ex-cop, ex-soldier, private investigator, denizen of Edinburgh and other northern cities).

As usual in Atkinson’s books, multiple plot strands (from both the past and the present) intertwine to create a twisted web of crime, corruption, moral ambiguity, and emotional wreckage. This story also features a new character, ex-detective Tracy Waterhouse, who seems to have a lot in common with Brodie: On the same day that Brodie kidnaps a dog from his abusive owner, Tracy kidnaps a little girl from her abusive mother. Meanwhile, Brodie wants to talk to Tracy about her memories of a case from 40 years ago, another kidnapping of a child. Tracy is as tightly wound as Brodie, and just as respectful of the rules (sarcasm). I liked her.

So can you follow it? Yes, because Atkinson is always up to the task: no loose ends, nothing left to coincidence. She is an expert at this form. If you haven’t read these books, you should start with the first one, Case Histories (blogged about here). They are really really good.

And here is another treat: when I visited Atkinson’s web site I discovered that the BBC has made a TV series of the first few Jackson Brodie titles, starring Jason Isaacs, who is skinnier than I imagine Brodie to be, but who otherwise looks perfect for the part. I don’t think Netflix is carrying this yet in the U.S. but I’m sure it will arrive soon enough.

(Book 22, 2011)