Someone - by Alice McDermott

I like Alice McDermott's work. But this one never really engaged me. I don't know why. It is the story of Marie Commeford, a life in glimpses. Somewhere in the middle she says she wants to find someone who will love her. Perhaps this is the "someone" of the title, but more likely it is Marie herself, an ordinary person who is still "someone". Perhaps we all want that more than anything else: to be "someone". We follow Marie as she weathers tragedy and disappointment, into her life working in a funeral parlor, work that seems to suit her, her personal life with a troubled brother, her life as a mother. Somehow I didn't connect this time but I suspect many others will and have.

Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides

You could call this a different kind of coming-of-age novel. Or a historical novel. Or whatever Mendel's Dwarf is called. Curiously, my copy of Mendel's Dwarf was classified as a "romance" by the library it came from. I don't think this is the right category, although both books do involve romance.

Calliope Helen Stephanides was born twice, you'll read in the first line of the book. Cally was a girl until age fourteen, when she learned that in fact she was born with a condition sometimes called pseudohermaphroditism. She was born with the XY chromosome, identifying her as a male, but she had elements of both sexes. How does this happen? Eugenides is happy to tell us, in this case, that it was a rare genetic disorder passed on down from Cally-Cal's grandparents. They were brother and sister and carried the gene(s) for this condition.

We get to meet Cal's grandparents first, when they were young and lived in a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus, not far from the old city of Smyrna. In 1922, after the end of the First World War, when the area was occupied by the Greeks, it was invaded by the Turkish army. Greeks and Armenians in Smyrna died in what became known as The Great Fire of Smyrna. Desdemona and Lefty, Cal's grandparents, barely escaped. They ended up in the U.S., in Detroit, living with relatives.

It is not uncommon in these cultures for cousins to marry and have children. Sister and brother, not so much. When Desdemona learned that there is a good reason for this ban, she feared what her offspring might become.

We thus get to know her children as well. And finally, their children.

Cal's story is interwoven with the tales of his antecedents and their lives. Their stories are laced with a healthy dose of history. And so it is that while the book is 529 pages long (paperback edition) the story of Cally-Cal is actually pretty light.

I do find it interesting when actual historical events are included in good novels, particularly when those events are not well-known. I am less interested in lives set in a general historical period, where a lot of guesswork goes on. So I found the lives of the grandparents and their silk "farm" and the Great Fire, and the lives of their children in the U.S., interesting and informative. But my curse is that I want so much from characters, and I felt that while there certainly are well-rounded characters there are just so many of them!

It's an absorbing book, worth reading for the atmosphere and events, the sense of history, and for the information on "hermaphrodites", however they are called. It leaves open where one would go from here, having been both female and male.

City of Bones, by Michael Connelly

One of Connelly's best.

Harry Bosch is sent out to see a bone unearthed by a citizen's dog. The discovery leads to the remains of a twelve-year-old boy, at least 20 years old, in the hillsides of the Santa Monica mountains.

As with all cases, Harry is impatient and wants to find the apparent killer immediately. He works night and day to identify the body,then track down possible suspects. In the course of the investigation he meets Julia Brasher, rookie cop, and finds a soulmate in her.

The investigation leads down one alley and then the other, at each turn encountering snags big and small. As usual, he is dogged by upper levels of police management wanting quick solves and willing to bend the truth to get there. The pursuit of image never interests Bosch and he insists on telling the truth every time.

More than once in the course of the story Bosch asks himself or is asked by others - what does he believe in? He says he believes in the "blue religion". The pursuit of the killers, the pursuit of justice, the truth. He is, however, as Deputy Chief Irvin Irving says, a "shit magnet". Bad things happen to Harry. Perhaps more so in this novel than in others.

IN the end the case is solved. But not particularly satisfactorily. We never really find out what happened, exactly, and the ending is ugly.

I have lived in Harry's body, in a way, for many months, as I read through this series. He would probably not find me interesting but I find him fascinating and very real. That reality comes from Connelly's attention to details. He doesn't have to trot out every injury in a homicide. Describe it fully. He doesn't have to tell us what a rich woman's house appears like to Bosch. He doesn't have to take us into the paperwork. But he does. And that's why I buy it all.

Note: I wrote this in 2009. I don't usually post reviews of mysteries here but I make exceptions.

Bone by Bone, by Peter Matthiessen

There is a lot to recommend this book. It provides remarkable pictures of the US, in particular Florida, during the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. It provides one way to view the world of E.J. Watson, a legendary character in Florida in that time. It offers a bit of a cautionary tale about ecology, albeit in the background. Yet for me its story of Watson was almost relentlessly awful. That is, the things Watson did and the things that were done to him were almost all bad. The small lights in his world did not shine brightly enough to turn his character around, and his actions led to retaliation of the worst sort.

Watson was a real person. The people surrounding him were based on real people, including his three wives and I-forget-how-many children. However, this is not history. It is not even fictionalized biography. It is the author's effort to explain the little he was able to find out about this man. 

Watson's start in life did not bode well for the future. He fled from an abusive dirt-poor home when he was sixteen. He had a powerful work ethic, which helped him build a sugar cane plantation in Florida, along with other efforts. He fell in love seriously with his first wife, who died young. Perhaps his loveless childhood and the loss of this wife were contributors to his view of the world. Try as he might, he was unable to maintain an ethical, decent manner toward all. Instead, when pushed he would push back, and worse. He "did right" by a few people but even in those cases there was a limit to what he could offer. He put himself first.

The book is written in an interesting way, almost, in some places, like a book on the environment or a historical nonfiction book. As Matthiessen has written nonfiction as well, I think it was natural for some of that style to slip in here. The passages about Watson himself are well-drawn, yet I was never able to be fully sympathetic. Not having that connection made it difficult at times for me to push on.

Certainly it is a remarkable book. The author has taken what little he could find and pulled it together in not one but three books. This is the third of a trilogy on the Watson saga. This is the one that gets into the flesh and blood of the man. I found I was less impressed by it than were others because of the constant beating of awful awful awful. It was hard for me to swallow some of his actions and to continue wanting to know what would happen next. I sincerely hope that this book finds other readers who do not find it as much a chore as I did. 

Atonement, by Ian McEwan

I finally got around to reading this. I saw the movie version a few years ago and loved it. I remembered it perhaps too well, so wondered if I would enjoy the book, knowing the ending.

It really is very different. The book is long - 480 pages in my paperback version - so covers a great deal more ground.

As in the film, the book essentially starts out with 13-year-old Briony Tallis viewing, by accident, an incident involving her older sister Cecilia, and Robbie Turner, the son of the family's housekeeper. It is 1935. Cecilia's father favored Robbie and was happy to pay his tuition to top schools. Cecilia is home from college for a break and has uncertain feelings about Robbie.

Briony misinterprets events. Not just the triggering incident but later events. As a result, she tells tales about Robbie, and her actions reverse Robbie's promising future. As we follow members of the family, and Robbie, into later years, we find that both Cecilia and Briony have gone into nursing, but are separated, have not seen each other in years. Robbie has gone into the military and is wounded. As a young student nurse, Briony steals time to write, her love from years ago. She later regrets not writing down the details of her days in nursing, but instead inventing stories that glide over the details. When we visit her again in old age, she is a famous writer and is celebrating her birthday with remaining family members, and she thinks back on these days.

Did she ever atone for her bad judgment as a thirteen-year-old? I leave it for you to find out. 

Dark Places, by Gillian Flynn

Dark places, inhabited by unstable, unpredictable characters.

The main character, Libby Day, is 31 at the opening, a bitter, angry young woman not given to trusting others. Or even having others in her life. She's always been a bit standoffish but events in her early life sent her down a road of manipulation and guardedness.

At the age of seven, in early 1985, Libby was in the house when she heard others being attacked. Although she did not see anything, she head enough to make her afraid. She managed to slip out of the house and hide in the nearby woody area. She heard her brother Ben calling for her a little later but remained hidden.

Her mother and two sisters were killed that night: her mother was knifed, then shot in the head, her sister Michelle was strangled in her bed, and her sister Debby was axed to death. Libby herself stayed out all night, made it to a gas station to call for help, and ultimately lost two toes and a finger to frostbite.

Ben was charged with the murder, and in part because of Libby's testimony, he was sent to prison for life. Libby grew up with her aunt, the subject of much attention from the press, and at age eighteen inherited a large amount of money from collections made for her. In her twenties she was persuaded to co-author a self-help book, a pop survival book, but she herself didn't believe much that was in it.

At age 31 she learns she is almost out of money. Getting a regular job just seems too much to her. She feels too tired and she doesn't get along well with others. So when the opportunity to earn a little money by talking to a group of "murder fans" comes along, she takes it. She meets this odd assortment in an old building, where they are split into interest groups - interest in various sensational murder cases. Her case draws interest because many people believe Ben to be innocent. They want to locate the real killer.

Eventually, although she is upset to find that everyone in the group believes Ben to be innocent and her to be complicit in his conviction, she comes up with a plan to get more money from them. She will talk to various key players in the episode, ask them questions that possibly only she can ask. And thus she sets off on a journey that takes on a life of its own.

The chapters alternate between 1985 and "now". Libby's chapters are in first-person, the others in third. Gradually we creep up on the actual night of the murders, inch by inch, through the experiences of Ben, Libby's mother Patty, and a few others, with breaks for Libby's current travels. The technique builds suspense to the point where I found it almost unbearable to go on. Or to not go on.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, by Nathan Englander

This collection of short stories is varied in style and point of view but all represent Englander’s perception of his Jewish faith. One story tells of his investigation into his own family history. Others approach the Jewish holocaust experience. Others let us into the lives of those who experience prejudice. And there are insights into just what it is to be a “good Jew”.

There is some wit or humor in each, though in some cases it is hidden. And not a little irony. As a whole, the collection informed and entertained me. My favorite is the title story. In this story, two Jewish couples get together for dinner. One couple is Hassidic and is visiting from Israel. They have taken new names and do not touch each other in public. The other is of a more relaxed faith. The two had known each other before the first turned Hassidic, and the narrator (the man of the second couple) refuses to think of them in their new names.

Discussion turns on a “non-game” that the wife of the second couple has played in her mind since childhood. If you were non-Jewish and your Jewish friends were threatened, would you risk your life by providing shelter for them?

I liked the idea of this “non-game” as well as the ultimate end of the story, and the insights into the couples it offers. Of course it gives me something to think about myself, about how I would react depending on who the persons are who need help, what they represent to me. Would I be able to ignore what they are to me?

The second story is a bit of a fable, about a woman who is part of one of two families who settled Israel many a year ago, and how through the years fate did not shine kindly on her. In this one we discover some of the basis of the belief in the God-given Jewish state, the unwritten promise. And we can make of it what we will.

“Camp Sundown” I found to be hilarious, if edgy hilarious. The camp has two parts: for elderly folks and for young folks. At times the twain do meet. The conflict that throws it off kilter happens when one elderly couple accuses an elderly man of having been a Nazi in WWII. The camp director, Josh, can’t believe it, as the old man seems to come alive only when playing bridge. Josh takes great pleasure in seeing the man’s eyes light up.

It’s a voyage of discovery, in a way, this collection. Entertaining and biting at the same time. Revealing and confessional. 

Salvage the Bones, by Jesmyn Ward

I found this book, at times, difficult to read. But ultimately highly rewarding.

The story features fifteen-year-old Esch, living with her family in New Orleans, who discovers that she is pregnant. Her father, who drinks too much, doesn't have a lot to offer the family, other than the land held by his family over generations. Her older brother Randall is hoping for a career in basketball, hoping that he will be chosen to go to basketball camp this summer. He is a solid family member, helping with the younger members as needed. Junior is the youngest and mostly hangs around hitching rides on others' backs or riding a bicycle without a seat. The other primary character is Skeeter, a year younger than Esch, who has a dog, China.

Skeet enters China in dog fights. This is where the novel became difficult for me. I worried about the dog, who is pregnant at the beginning of the book, and I worried about the place dog fighting has in the story. I found a different kind of view of these dogs than the one we often hear about, the Michael Vick type story. We find that Skeet loves China, perhaps more than any other creature. This love is not inconsistent with the fighting that she does: pitbulls are known for their desire to please, which may be even stronger than that of other dogs. This is the real reason they make good fighters.

Of course I found it difficult, still, to think of these dogs facing horrible injuries and of the owners having few resources for helping them with their wounds. Skeet does an admirable job in this regard. But I could imagine there would be many instances when his skills would not be up to the task.

We follow this family through the days leading up to the day Hurricane Katrina hits. By the time it does its worst we know them. We understand why they did not leave their home. We understand why it would be so difficult to understand what a category 5 hurricane, particularly this one, would be so different from the hurricanes they have experienced in the past.

I found the book enlightening both in the way that it describes how a very poor southern family sees the world and in the details of living through Katrina. In all the coverage I read and saw of that hurricane I never before heard it described as it is here.

Bury Your Dead, by Louise Penny

Complexity! And lots of it!

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache (of the Surete) is pulled into a strange case while taking a leave of absence. An amateur archeologist, bent on discovering the grave site of the founder of Quebec, is found murdered in the basement of the Literary and Historical Library, an old and treasured library of books in English. The local police ask Gamache's informal assistance. Although he tries to stay out of it Gamache cannot help himself. His mind churns endlessly, searching for answers.

Meanwhile, he is haunted by memories of a recent confrontation with the kidnappers of a young subordinate. Bits of the final scene and the hours before it play in his mind like a tape, stopping and starting seemingly without his control. His broken memories gradually reveal to us the mistakes he made and the consequences of his actions, as well as those of others in command, until we finally get the full picture.

But that isn't all. A previous case has been kept alive in his mind as well. The partner of a convicted man remains unconvinced of the guilt of his friend. He writes a note to Gamache every day, asking "Why did he move the body?" When Gamache finally decides the case deserves another look, he sends Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir in to Quebec to investigate quietly, informally. Neither man is particularly convinced that they got the wrong guy, but Beauvoir is willing to do his best to find out.

These three cases run alternately through the book, to the setting of Quebec and particularly Old Quebec City. I did have to pay some attention to the description of this lovely city and to think about visiting myself some day. Or at least looking at it in Google Earth. For Ms. Penny seems determined to impart some of her own love of the city to the reader.

We learn, too, of the uneasy alliance between the French and English in Quebec, where the English are a decided minority. Although their fighting times are long over, memories seem to span generations.

An interesting introduction, for me, to Chief Inspector Gamache. I felt I got to know him a little in this long book, to know his heart, as well as that of his mentor and a few of his subordinates. The case of the dead archeologist turns out to take many different turns, while Gamache does a great deal of reading at the Lit and His and beyond. I am wondering how he behaves in more familiar stomping grounds now.

The Red Door, by Charles Todd

A different kind of mystery, at least to me. Shortly after the end of WWI, Inspector Ian Rutledge is assigned two investigations: into a man who has been attacking people at night, and into the disappearance of a prominent citizen. He sets his own pace, however, not always showing up where he is expected to be.

The disappearance is of a former missionary, Walter Teller, followed his hospitalization for a mysterious illness. He apparently came out of the paralysis that siezed him and took off out of the hospital, sight-unseen. Teller and his brothers were "assigned" their vocations by their overbearing father, and while they complied with his wishes none of them found their careers satisfying. Some people suspect that Walter was reacting to a call from his church to return to the field, a return he clearly did not want to make.

But there is a wrinkle in the whole family story. A woman is found dead in another community, and it turns out her last name is Teller also, and that she married someone named Peter Teller, the same name as Walter's brother. Coincidence? After all, Peter already has a wife. IS this a relative or is it bigamy or what? This is the question Rutledge has to answer.

We get to know Rutledge in part through his work on these cases. We learn that he is suffering from "shell shock"and hears the voice of a former subordinate in his head. He has bad memories of how this person died and is careful not to let anyone know that he is talking to him. I found his investigative method a little odd. Perhaps I expected more of a standard procedure to be followed. Nonetheless, he followed his own instincts and got there in the end. It's as much a story about Rutledge as it is about the people he investigates. I am always on the side of stories that dig into characters like this.

Freedom - by Jonathan Franzen

The main character of this large book appears to be Patty Berglund. Her husband Walter figures prominently as well, as do several other characters. But Patty is the only one who gets to write portions of her own "autobiography", oddly in the third person.

Patty was an athletic young girl who got knocked off the track to a basketball career when she injured her knee. She changed her dreams, married Walter, had children, did her best to become a super housewife. She knew all along that she was not as nice as others thought she was, but there was much she did not know about herself.

Patty was originally attracted to Walter's best friend, Richard Katz. Katz was a musician, womanizer, who initially did not respond to Patty's hints. Patty, however, found herself increasingly attracted to Walter anyway. Walter was almost an anti-Richard. Thin, geeky, an environmentalist. Something in him, though, responded to something in Patty, the ex-athlete who was not much aware of the environment.

We follow Patty and Walter through many years, dipping into the lives of their children and parents as well. Until comes a time when something has gone out of their marriage and Patty is dissatisfied in general. She has become less and less fun to be around for just about everyone. In spite of which Richard is drawn to her.

What is "freedom" in this context? The freedom to do as we please? The freedom to be away from others, to be alone? We watch as Richard continues his self-destructive life, as free as can be. We see Patty and Walter's son free himself from the nest, then later engage make some questionable choices in his career, free from interference. Patty and Walter live their own lives, essentially free of each other.

Some reviewers have called this a novel of its time, and as I think of it I can agree. In a way, it sums up life today in the US for many in the upper middle class in a way that reminds me of John Cheever. There is a lot of humor but underlying that is real warmth. Something you don't see so much in Cheever. 

Drift: by Rachel Maddow

Rachel brings us a clear, well-documented account of how our military has expanded and changed since WWII. She takes us from the entry into Vietnam, through Johnson's and Reagan's presidencies, and on through to Iraq, Pakistan, and beyond. She shows us how each step was taken that led to where we are now. And where are we?

A president can wage war now without bothering the rest of us. Fewer than 1% of US citizens are in the military, and as a rule we tend not to care about modern-day mercenaries: the employees of Brown, Kellogg, & Root, Halliburton, and Blackwater by whatever its current name is. At this time the private companies are putting more boots on the ground than is the US military. Because of sloppy or nonexistent oversight, these companies are costing us far more than just the cost overruns: they have wiped out our image in many companies, where they behave as ungovernable bullies - and in fact they are.

The privatization of war has consequences beyond even this, however. We can spend our way into and out of wars and keep going on about our business. We see no difference in our day to day lives. We don't pay for these wars in sacrifice or any other way. And therefore we have become numb to what they really are.

Years ago I remember reading an economics textbook. I remember little of it, but I remember this point: you can't have a successful economy manufacturing destruction. You have to build, not destroy. It is hard for any of us "regular folks" to comprehend the deficit we've created by waging these wars, and even harder to comprehend that payment will have to be made. In fact, it appears that collection has started. Our economy has been in the tank for a while now. It isn't just because of inflated housing.

I don't read many "political" books. I'm not a political junkie, although like many I hold strong views. This may be why I personally like Rachel so much. She does the work! And she explains it really really well. She rarely gets it wrong because she's passionate about facts. I came away from this book understanding how our constitution got to be irrelevant, how our standing army gradually and then exponentially increased, how we started farming out the work, even how we built up our nuclear arsenal, and even after the end of the cold war how we keep building it.

At the end Rachel offers us a checklist of what we need to do to get back on track. I believe that every member of congress and the president and his advisers all need to read this book and pay attention. I think it's possible that many of them are so caught up in day to day politics that they have lost the thread. It's here, it's clear, and we all need to pay attention.

I can't leave it there. Rachel brings to this tale all of her usual wit, which helps when we try to swallow.

The Worst Hard Time, by Timothy Egan

An extraordinary book about the dust storms on the High Plains in the 1930s. This book takes us into the lives of several people who made up the "nesters" - farmers, along with cowboys, ranchers, doctors, teachers, and newspapermen. We follow the history of the plains from the early twenties, when land was free or cheap and hopes were high, when government policy fed the ambitions of the settlers, on into the 1930s and the worst of the storms.

It is clear from our present perspective that the horrors of the "dust bowl" were man-made. It took a few years and some gutsy thinking people to get that message out during the worst of it and to start the process that would lead to some recovery. Not that these plains have ever fully recovered.

Of particular interest are the extraordinary details. What the storms did to people, animals, buildings, and what happened on the rare occasions when it actually rained. While in the air (which was most of the time) the dust created such static electricity that people were afraid to touch each other. The touch could knock them across a room. The electricity shorted out engines and started fires. The dust destroyed just about everything it touched, killing the natural animal and plant population while bringing in insects that thrived on what was left. Millions of acres of land were left sterile, while the swarms of dust moved into the cities, over other parts of the country, and into the ocean. The storms even reached New York City and Washington, D.C. on occasion.

How the government responded is another fascinating tale, featuring a president who couldn't think of anything to do - Hoover - followed by one who did everything possible - Roosevelt. It's possible that the biggest hero of the time was the person who took on a new governmental position under Roosevelt, Hugh Bennett, and came up with ways to hold the soil down. He didn't stop there, of course. He took his mission to the loners who made up the plains settlers and convinced them that they had to work together to fight this thing.

The story is devastating and often heart-breaking. And so very readable.

Started Early, Took My Dog - by Kate Atkinson

Kate Atkinson's novels just delight me. I get great pleasure reading them. There are books that I like but these I love.

As in the others, this novel features a range of characters, some central and some peripheral. Jackson Brodie is again featured, former detective now supposedly retired. He falls for one more case: to find out who gave birth to a woman, Hope McMaster, a woman who now lives in New Zealand but who was born in England. Jackson figures it shouldn't be that hard, considering he's already traveling. Wandering, really, not settling anywhere. Might as well look into the case while he's on the road.

Another major character is Tracy Waterhouse, former police detective, present head of security for a retail store. Tracy is an amply-built woman who has made her job her life, for the most part. She is not married, has no children. When she spots a familiar woman on the street, pulling a small child, she can guess what will happen to that child when she gets home. She confronts the woman, a drug addict Tracy had arrested when she was with the police. On the spur of the moment she does something highly unusual and unexpected, which changes the course of her life.

When Jackson starts to hunt down birth and adoption records he runs into a blank wall. The presumed birth parents do not appear to exist. So who really did give birth to Hope?

There are other minor characters whose lives are intertwined with these and whose actions surprise and delight at times. It's like a full, satisfying meal that left me feeling just right. 

The Secret River, by Kate Grenville

Curious story. A kind of historical fiction that I can live with.

In 1806 William Thornhill, illiterate waterman, is convicted of theft and sentenced to hang. By paying for letters pleading his case to be sent to authorities, he manages to get his sentence commuted. He is sent to New South Wales (now Australia), along with his wife and small children, to live out a life sentence there.

The system in New South Wales allows Thornhill to work his way out of his life sentence. He is still "branded" as a former convict but is able to be free on the continent. Working on the water again, he discovers a piece of land that is fairly remote from any kind of civilization, and he covets that land. In time he moves his family there and they take on the task of creating a home and growing food, while he continues to run his boat.

Throughout this time he encounters "savages". There is a conflict, because they were there first, although they don't tend to have the same concept of property ownership. Thornhill and eventually his convict workers push against the land, forcing it into submission. He even makes a kind of peace with the savages, an uneasy one.

His wife Sal is strong and capable but not in love with this land. Thornhill is deeply in love with his wife and struggles with his two loves: the land and Sal. Eventually the savage situation comes to a head, an ugly and violent one. Throughout the book the tension is almost unbearable. In a way the ultimate "resolution" was almost a relief.

I read The Fatal Shore years ago. It impressed me with its details of convict life in early Australia and the settling of the continent at the expense of the aborigines. I remember life for the convicts being harder than indicated in this book, but there were different settlements. I have no reason to doubt the details in this book, written by an Australian writer and praised by fellow Australians. This fiction story fills out the story I read so long ago.

State of Wonder. by Ann Patchett

Ah, to have another novel with the same sense of wonder as Bel Canto! And even named "State of Wonder" to boot.

Dr. Marina Singh, employed by a pharmaceutical company, follows fellow scientist Anders Eckman into the Amazon at the behest of her boss (and lover), Mr. Fox. Mr. Fox had received a letter from a field scientist, Dr. Swenson, saying that Eckman, who had come to urge her to provide more frequent reports of her progress, had gotten a fever and died there. Swenson's work is part of an effort to develop a fertility drug for the pharmaceutical company.

There are complications. Not least of them is the fact that Swenson is notoriously difficult to find and to persuade. She wants to do things her way and not be hurried or harassed. She has a young couple set up in her "town" apartment whose main job is to divert those who are interested in meeting with Swenson.

Marina was chosen in large part because she was a student of Swenson's years ago. Supposedly she knows how to get through to her. Marina is not so sure but allows herself to be persuaded to go. The main reason she decides to go is that Eckman's wife wants to be absolutely certain that her husband is dead. She wants Marina to find proof. She prefers to believe that he is still alive until she is given that proof.

The first many days in the little town are spent trying to connect to Dr. Swenson. When she is finally successful she follows the good doctor into the Amazon, on her boat. There she is soon absorbed by Swenson's work and by meeting and learning about the natives.

Marina's character is caring and giving, and also very human. It is easy to relate to her and to want the most for her and even to want her affair with "Mr. Fox" to go well in spite of the large difference in their ages (Fox is many years older.) There is a warmth and kindness not only in Marina but in many of the other characters as well, even, to some extent, the unyielding Dr. Swenson. Is it this that attracted me to this book? Yes, but there is more. There is the way Marina faces her life in the Amazon, how she makes her decisions, what she actually does, that is just delightful, although that word may not seem appropriate at times. As in Bel Canto, there is unexpected pleasure throughout. What more could you want?

Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage. by Alice Munro

Short stories by a master. This collection features stories about man-woman relationships, as the title suggests. Some of the stories have unexpected and delightful endings. All of them are rich with detail and humanity. 

The Grandmothers. By Doris Lessing

Doris Lessing used to be one of my favorite writers. Perhaps she still is, with reservations. Over time I found some of her work to be heavily imbued with her political positions, and they were positions I did not especially like. Perhaps if I were on the same track I would have liked them more.

In this case, just one of the stories - The Reason For It - reeks of a kind of moral position. It is the story of a civilization from long ago, where education and work become of little interest to the primary leader and over time to the citizens. Little by little the fabric of the community becomes frayed and there is nobody to care, except "the old ones", including the last of "the twelve".

I can't disagree that a lack of intelligence and learning and a lack of appreciation for work is going to send a community down the tubes. The story does seem heavy-handed, though.

I rather liked the title story - the Grandmothers - in spite of the subject matter, which I admit is a little out there. There is a nice sense of the characters and an emotional charge that's hard to forget. I liked the other two stories as well, perhaps most especially A Love Child. In his youth, a WWII soldier is sent to India to keep the peace (not where he would prefer to be given that the actual war was elsewhere). He is a bit naive in the world of love, and when he falls for a young married Englishwoman there, he believes it is forever. Over the years he cannot get her or her son (clearly his son) out of his mind. Twice he travels to India to find his lover and his son, the second time with his understanding wife. With this kind of single-minded focus, though, can this man ever find peace?

Reading Lolita in Tehran. By Azar Nafisi

There was a faded receipt left in the book, a few pages from the beginning. I couldn't read it all, but read this much: it was purchased new from a shop in San Francisco on August 16, 2004. The buyer paid $12.08 for it. Somehow the book found its way from SF to Jackson, New Jersey and eventually to me. It may be that I am the first to have actually read it.

I read about this book in various places when it first came out. It got good reviews yet I wasn't at all sure that I wanted to read it, although right now I am not sure why not. But when I had the chance to check it out I took it. Obviously it was not high on my list or I would have read it before now.

 The author is a professor of English literature, originally from Iran. She left with her family for the U.S. when she was 13 and returned thirteen years later. She arrived at a tumultuous time in Iran, during the time that Iran was changed to the Islamic Republic of Iran, and led by the Ayatollah Khomeini, hard-line religious fundamentalist.

While Nafisi was teaching at the University of Tehran, the laws gradually tightened around the populace, especially the women. While men were permitted to have more than one wife, including several "temporary" wives, women were required to be covered whenever in public, be accompanied by a male relative in many places, and whenever a couple had a child and then split up, the child automatically was given to the male.Women could not wear makeup or allow their hair to be seen.

And that was the least of it. There were arrests, imprisonment, and executions every day. A woman could be arrested for being too attractive, and what awaited her in prison can be imagined. One way that Nafisi found to deal with the restrictions was through English literature, possibly her greatest love. She taught classes on the great English writers, including Nabokov, Bellow, Austen, and others. She tried to reach her students through fiction, conveying how a fictional story can make you think and even break down prejudices and preconceptions.

Her students were not used to frank discussion and offering their own opinions.Some of them were "revolutionaries", dedicated to the current regime and distrustful of the characters in fiction, especially where morals were concerned. Nafisi refused to bow to the preferences of this type student by blacking out words like "sex", that might offend them. She insisted that fiction must be taken for what it is, and for where it comes from, and cannot be modified to suit one's religious beliefs. It became increasingly more difficult to teach during these times, with interruptions, bombings, students leaving for demonstrations or to join the army, and eventually Nafisi left the university.

Some years later, in 1995, she quietly formed a small class that met in her home, comprised of only women who were specifically invited to attend. These were young women who had showed a real interest (even passion) in literature and a mind capable of getting something from it. These weekly meetings became more than a class; they also revealed much about the students as well as about Nafisi herself. It was here that they discussed Nabokov's Lolita, among other masterworks. And related them to present-day Iran and the lives of women there. Nafisi is compelled to teach. She used this book as a means to reach us as well, to demonstrate what it means to discuss a work of literature. Thus we find out how she read Lolita, and Austen, and others.

Her view of Lolita is that it is the story of a dreadful pedophile who uses and destroys a 12-year-old girl. She feels for the girl, and not at all for Humbert Humbert. Her views are so damning that I was disturbed by them. I read Lolita several years ago and thought it was amazing. I had not expected to like the story of a middle-aged man with a 12-year-old girl. I was amazed that I developed sympathy for Humbert, even while I could not condone what he was doing. I also felt that Lolita was not a simple victim, but a strong character in her own right. That, of course, does not make it right that Humbert should have taken advantage of her. Still, to me, it makes the story remarkable in a different way from how Nafisi saw it. After reading her treatise on the subject I thought maybe I should read it again, but I didn't look forward to it (I rarely reread even my favorite books). My decision was to order a copy of the audio book. I will be able to listen to it while out and about and think while driving.

An interesting and rather odd part of this tale is the part of "the magician". Nafisi refers to this man this way, not because he performs typical tricks, but because he has a gift for helping others with their lives. Not a therapist but an insightful man who gives of himself while never wanting anything in return. Somehow Nafisi learns of him and during a bleak time in her life she calls him up and asks to see him. Thus forms a bond, at least on her side. The magician always is polite and kind. Offers a rare treat - chocolates - and tea, and listens. Makes comments. Helps her to see herself differently, and ultimately helps her develop "a plan". This is the type person I suspect most of us would dearly love to have in our lives: someone who just listens to us, knows us, understands us. There is nothing we want more than to be understood. Did he really exist? Nafisi poses the question later, but of course we aren't meant to take it seriously.

The story gives us an inside view of Iran during those difficult years (not that today life is a picnic there, but it is improving in some ways), into the effect of forced religious law (often having the effect of driving people away from their beliefs rather than the contrary), into the intimate lives of young muslim women, not allowed to express love except for their country's leader. The story also gives us insight into serious reading, really dissecting and thinking about great literature. I expect it would be a pleasure to be in classes like these, for those of us who value well-written words. It's a valuable book for these reasons. But I didn't love it. I couldn't get close to Nafisi. I felt she was pouring it on at times, telling rather than showing, and even making excuses for her lack of action during the revolutionary times. More than once, though, she points out that "we are responsible" for putting these people in office. But I wonder. How much power does one really have in a situation where dissent can lead to death? For whatever reason I did not warm to her. I also was confused by her way of jumping back and forth in time. Near the end she refers to the several years the group met at her house, yet it was only two years. I had to track down the dates to put it together. In spite of my misgivings I still came away with a new way of seeing, and that is what makes a good book.

Man Crazy. by Joyce Carol Oates

I have read many books by Joyce Carol Oates. She may be the first contemporary writer that I have accorded a special position in my mind. That's because she can create characters and situations that touch me, that I can recognize, identify. Characters whose lives sometimes make me cry. I don't usually leave a book behind if it was written by her.

This one differs from many of her others in that it is surprisingly short. The chapters are short and announced with full-page separators, making the number of words total even smaller than you'd think from hefting the book. She is capable of creating whole worlds full of intimate detail, thus drawing me in and captivating me. I can't say that about this one, although it does contain some elements of the others that have held my attention longer.

As most of her novels are, this one is set in upper New York state, and involves a young girl, then woman, whose origins are less than ideal. Oates herself grew up in a family of few means. Even if she did not herself experience the same kinds of pressures her characters do, she was undoubtedly close to those who did. The young woman in this story is naturally beautiful, similar to her striking mother, but she works hard to destroy that beauty.

Why? I think it all begins with her father. Something of a larger-than-life character, Ingrid Boone's father flits in and out of Ingrid's life, appearing out of the blue and then disappearing just as fast. A veteran of the Vietnam War, he learned how to pilot a plane and how to kill, and he uses both skills back in the "civilized" world. As a young girl Ingrid adores her father and can't understand why he keeps leaving her. Eventually it becomes clear and Ingrid's eyes are no longer clouded by her love. Yet there is always something there.

Ingrid's mother brings other men into their lives as a way of helping to stabilize their household. Usually she cares for them but we are not fooled into thinking she loves them unconditionally. Her presence represents a threat to married women in the different small towns where they live, and then move from. She has few women friends, many men.

As Ingrid grows and becomes more attractive, she becomes obsessed with friends. She takes to counting her friends in her mind, even as she suspects that none are true friends, that they talk behind her back. She finds popularity of different kinds, yet is always suspicious. An intelligent girl, she is nonetheless careless about her homework and thus is valued only by one teacher. This one sees the promise in Ingrid's poetry. When Ingrid wins a prize for one of her poems, she does not think the poem worth it, and when she is chosen to read it in front of the school the idea frightens her into committing a strange act. Poetry has not given her a way out.

Meanwhile, she digs at her face. Pimples, blackheads, mosquito bites, imagined or real. Her fingers cannot keep from seeking them out and digging, until her face is a moon surface. Yet it comes and goes: sometimes she looks like any other teen plagued with acne.

In this state she meets Enoch Skaggs, the leader of a strange cult of often-murderous followers who will do anything for him. Skaggs has three "wives" already when he takes on Ingrid as a lesser lover, to be loaned to other men from time to time. In spite of the dirty, unsanitary, often cruel conditions, Ingrid is drawn to Enoch like, as they say, a moth to the flame. She accepts his cruel treatment, the abuses and uses of others, until a time comes when she is thrown into the basement of the house where they all live, and left there with little food or other attention for many days, as punishment for some action of hers.

By then heavily into drugs, she has few resources. But she has some. Perhaps from memories of good times with her father, even perhaps memories of some small affection from her mother. Somehow, in spite of the hands she was dealt she has something inside her that wants to live.