Review: The House of Mirth

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

From the rows of books on my reading shelves, Wharton's immaculate writing is unmatched. Her clarity, balance and syncopated sentences are works of art. She creates uncanny characters; they all seem perfect simulacrums of the haughty and half-witted people we've all known at some time in our lives.

In Lily Bart, Wharton has created a character perfected sculpted to reflect the caste system of late 19th/early 20th century America. In Lily's world, Wharton meticulously crafts the double standards to which women were held - especially those traveling the hallowed halls of Society. She also points a condemning finger at the hypocrisy and debauchery of high society. It must have been a scandalous book to read during that time. The anti-semitism in early 20th Century New York was very evident throughout this book and was really shocking (and unattractive!).

But, Lily. She suffers so many indignities while beating her beautiful wings against a cage she has climbed into willingly. A victim of circumstance, yes, but she also creates many of these circumstances herself.

I thought the role of gambling in the story was especially clever - while some characters (including Lily once or twice) lose real money while really gambling, the entire story is actually about Lily's symbolic gambling with her own future. Throughout this reading, Kenny Roger's words from The Gambler kept playing through my head:

You've got to know when to hold 'em
Know when to fold 'em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run
You never count your money
When you're sittin' at the table
There'll be time enough for countin'
When the dealin's done

Lily was surely a product of her upbringing. She was elegant, intelligent and not without gifts, but her actions were tragically ill-timed. It was truly sad.





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Review: The Underground Railroad

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Colson Whitehead delivers page after page of devastation in this raw and piercingly graphic story.

Cora is a young, terrified slave desperate to escape the bloody, brutal machine of slavery in the South. She discovers the underground railroad where brave people risk all to help slaves escape to safe states. However, here she discovers a different kind of control, a different set of assumptions -less violent but still reeking of the privations of parity.

If your knowledge of slavery in America comes from history books, as does mine, you will have the breath knocked out of you with this depiction of the gears of human bondage.

Whitehead has a distinct voice and a forceful writing style. There is nothing elliptical about his sentences. He whips with his words and you will feel wounded by them. I think this is his aim. Although Mr. Colson himself seems to have had all of the advantages of wealth and a superb education, he taps into the depravity of the ownership of humans by other humans as though he had been right there. That's the power of this book. It makesyou feel. The pain migrates away from the journalistic toward the experienced, where it is felt and not dismissed, not shelved.

The economics of slavery -- the cotton business -- is a leitmotif throughout. It underscored (for me) the grave danger of a culture that worships big industry. Industry and the making of money has the (ruinous) potential to diminish humanity .

I found The Underground Railroad very hard to read and more than once turned my head and my heart away from the wickedness inflicted on the enslaved. I found I had to catch my breath. This is a powerful book.

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Review: Magpie Murders

Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was splendid from start to finish. It is a mystery within another mystery and you will appreciate the sheer genius of Horowitz in pulling this off so artfully and flawlessly.

It draws on the works of Agatha Christie; it has structure and it has glorious pace, as well as discipline and cunning throughout. The detective, Mr. Atticus Pund, is a charming copy of Hercule Poirot.

Magpie Murders is a proper whodunnit replete with the reliable cast of characters: a vicar and his wife, the castoff sibling, the unfaithful wife, longheld secrets, and an obnoxious Mr. Moneybags! And everyone looks a bit guilty.

If you seek a solidly great read straight out of the golden age of crime writing, this is your ticket!

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Review: Cousin Bette

Cousin Bette by Honoré de Balzac
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

My first time reading Balzac and I now know why he is so revered. Cousin Bette is a brutal and satisfying study of debauchery of every kind.

Lisbeth (Cousin Bette) is an un-monied, unattractive old maid without prospects, who is sort of adopted by her beautiful cousin, Adeline. Through a series of unfortunate events, she finds herself ill-used by a man on whom she had pinned her hopes and also deceived by her own family. As Shakespeare put it, "Hell hath no fury ...."

What unfolds is a blow back of epic proportions. Like a chess grandmaster, Bette carefully and skillfully plows a path of destruction through the lives of all who have contrived to dismiss and devalue her. Those lives, all propped up to accommodate great flaws and frailties, are highly susceptible to manipulation. She chooses a partner-in-crime, Valerie, who is equally determined to bend the will of the world to her own, and who is a thoroughly detestable woman.

Adeline is the most decent human in the story, even though she is weak and lets her husband squander all of their resources on young women who use him.

As this exploration of human vice and virtue unfolds, the reader sees destruction everywhere.

Balzac is brilliant.


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Review: Parable of the Sower

Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Published way back in 1993 (!) this work of science fiction has an uncanny resemblance to many aspects of life in the USA in 2020. I did not know what this book was about before I started. I only knew these two things - it was science fiction and authored by a black woman (Octavia Butler). My repertoire is light in this realm, so I decided to give it my full attention.

Small business are outlawed, most people live behind walls and arm themselves against common thieves and outlaws. No one goes out without a gun. No one. There are no church services. It is not safe, so people worship in groups in their homes. There is no school attendance. Kids are taught in their homes in small groups. The walls serve to protect the law-abiding against the "illegals" but this system is failing as the outlaw class grows more and more bold, aggressive and blood-thirsty. Police and fire departments do not respond to calls unless they are paid in advance. (Defunded)they became privatized and now only the very wealthy can get any real protection or response.

The central character, our heroine Lauren, is an empath, feeling the pain of others. An inconvenient thing when there is so much horrific violence everywhere. Still, she learns how to protect herself and studies survivalism, becoming a low-key prepper.

The story is set in California. All state lines throughout the USA are closed. People are shot dead if they try to leave one state to enter another.

The author has drawn a frightening picture of the future. Along the way, she has accurately (and I think accidentally) created a fictional version of antifa and similar militant groups seeking to operate outside laws, outside decency, and outside humanity.

The author has developed a theory of god that she repeats throughout the book, like the chorus to a long song with many stanzas. God is change, she says. We can't fight change, she adds at one point. Her theory of god is interesting but not compelling and it does not color or change the chain of events.

This book scared me because it is already happening. As Butler predicts throughout this book, the unraveling begins with the dissolution of the family. No good thing follows this.

A great read!

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Review: Cold Mountain

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Lyrical and haunting historical fiction depicting the savagery of The Civil War, Cold Mountain reads like a long, miraculous poem. The author's deep knowledge of the land itself - its trees, hills, dirt, seeds, animals, weather - and his masterful storytelling, together, deliver the goods. Frazier creates a powerful rendering of the disillusionment, hardship, and unimaginable suffering all around.

Inman, an injured soldier, decides to walk away from the war and travel on foot back home in the Blue Ridge Mountains. In this Odyssey he struggles to find his way back to Ada, the woman he loves, and to Cold Mountain.  He has to fight many attacks along the way, and it is quite dangerous at times. Ada, meanwhile, has struggled to survive on her father's farm and has faced many hardships and threats from the outside, as well.

This is a book that can help one understand the scars upon our land and help one grasp the eternal anguish and regret that Civil War Americans were steeped in over those years.

On every page, the sadness of the story is mitigated by the beauty of this author's descriptions of the Southern landscape.

This is a remarkable book.

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