This book was so wonderfully weird, it's very hard to describe, let alone value on a typical star scale. At times I found it a bit too vulgar, but the overall contemplative themes and writing are what keep the score at 4 instead of 3.Willie Lincoln has died and found himself in the Bardo (hence, Lincoln in the Bardo) - an in between place of purgatory essentially, where those souls who refuse to move on are made to ceaselessly live out their evenings in crude caricatures of their former selves. For his part, Willie is waiting for his parents, who he is certain must surely come to get him, as if this is all just a grand mistake. Within purgatory, he is accompanied by Mr. Vollman and Mr. Bevins. Vollman is a man struck down by a roof beam the day before he and his wife of almost a year are finally, finally, set to consummate their marriage. He has cursed himself to walk around purgatory always anticipating this event and therefore, naked and aroused, he's a sometimes frightening figure to behold. Bevins, on the other hand is a young, kind gentleman, unable to deal with his homosexuality and his lover's moving on from their relationship, slit his own wrists, only to find at the precipice of death, that indeed, he did not want to die. So focused is he on the last sights, smells and touches of the worldly things, he has become a grotesque oddity of only hands, noses and eyeballs in purgatory. But Willie Lincoln is special, as his father, Abraham Lincoln, does indeed come to see him. And hold the boy's lifeless body as the soul looks on. The visit causes Willie not to move on when the angels come, and he is thus in danger of not moving on at all. Vollman and Bevins, having come to care for Willie, set out to help him understand that he should move on, as all children should. But the longer Willie stays, the more in danger he is of never being able to leave. In order to effect their plan, Vollman and Bevins must go "into" Abraham Lincoln's body and become one with his mind. Ultimately they get far more out of the experience than Lincoln does. I thoroughly enjoyed the explorations of the meanings of life and death and thoughts on the afterlife. Some of the characters in the Bardo are filthy and unnecessarily vulgar which I think sometimes detracts from the overall readability of the book. And again, the book is such a genre bending oddity that I'd have a hard time explaining it or recommending it to someone, even though I myself really enjoyed it.
4/5 Stars.
In Greek mythology, Cassandra of Troy was given the gift of prophecy but was cursed by Apollo so that when she spoke her prophecies, no one would believe her. Cassandra see the future destruction of Troy and despite her warnings of the Greeks hiding within the gifted Trojan Horse, she is not believed. The city is sacked, Cassandra herself is captured, raped, and becomes a concubine to King Agamemnon before she is killed by Agamemnon's wife and her lover. The Greeks really have some uplifting stories, no? All this is to say is that sometimes life is unkind to figures of prophecy, or those that are able to discern outcomes before a wider populace can see them. William Dodd, Ambassador to Germany from 1933 to 1937 was one such figure. A quiet college professor, Dodd was Roosevelt's eighth or ninth choice to serve as ambassador to Nazi Germany. It seems other men weren't interested in risking their diplomatic careers by stepping into such a politically sensitive arena. But that didn't mean that those same men weren't eager to criticize Dodd for the job he was doing. Not fitting the typical mold of an ambassador, Dodd tried to live within his ambassador's salary and clung to principle over traditional trappings of statesmanship. He refused to attend the large Nazi rallies at Nuremberg. He gave a rousing speech of the dangers of autocratic leadership. He cultivated relationships with moderate elements of the Nazi party. All this while receiving the scorn and derision of the State Department officials in Washington who were intent on ignoring Dodd's warnings of potential calamity in Germany and insisting that Dodd remain vigilant in attempts to secure American debt owed from the previous World War.
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| William Dodd 1869-1940 |
Dodd was way ahead of everyone in understanding Hitler's intentions. And Larson spends 90% of the book engaged in Dodd's first 18 months as Ambassador where Dodd's own hopes and optimism for a moderating force within Germany are diminished and then extinguished as Hitler wraps himself in greater layers of power. That a hundred or more (counts vary by historian) members of the party were killed in one evening at Hitler's command without trial or conviction was an event that shocked Dodd and should by all accounts have shocked and angered the world. But Hitler saw that he was able to get away with this action and so was able to more steadily increase his own ambitions while the world sat idly by. That Dodd was scorned by the State Department "leadership" for this is embarrassing and some part of me hopes those gentlemen felt their own comeuppance at being so terribly wrong. Larson does a good job creating a sense of foreboding and generally building tension as Dodd would have felt it. The last chapters seemed rushed, as I would have liked more analysis of Dodd's actions following the full outbreak of the war. I think some of the earlier material could have been trimmed down in order to address these aspects as well. But overall this book was highly informative, impeccably researched, and readable.
4/5 Stars
Let me start by saying this is a wonderful piece of short fiction. Thomas Fowler is a British journalist living in Saigon and doing his best to remain independent and indifferent to the French Indo-Chinese War occurring in Vietnam. Already the seeds of America's Vietnam conflict are beginning to be sown as Fowler meets Alden Pyle, an American with the Economic Relief effort.
Pyle seems naive to the extreme, having read and relied on a text by York Harding, a man who once visited the region for a week and somehow came up with theories on how the entire region could be saved by communism. The simple arrogance of the presumption is completely lost on Pyle, who has found a mission and the blueprint for making a lasting effect on the country. Pyle, intent on this outcome is willing to overlook all the casualties in its wake as a reasonable cost for the desired effect.
Prior to Pyle arriving, Fowler was living a quiet life of boring cables, opium filled evenings, and the affections of a simple unassuming Vietnamese woman, Phuong, who bides her time with Fowler ostensibly until someone better (unmarried) comes along who can marry her and take her to the west. Pyle sets himself up to be just such a suitor, and Fowler, who was comfortable not facing the inevitable conclusion of his time in the East, has to face his own limitations and fears as an aging man. He ultimately comes to understand that indifference is impossible: "Suffering is not increased by numbers: one body can contain all the suffering the world can feel. I had judged like a journalist in terms of quantity and I betrayed my own principle; I had become as engaged as Pyle, and it seemed to me that no decision would ever be simple again."
See, there is a ton of stuff packed into this short work! That both Pyle and Phuong are seen through Fowler's lense means that they are ultimately misunderstood and given a flawed presentation in the novel. It's too simple to merely accept them both as naive and simple characters as Fowler does.
5/5 Stars.
I'm so tickled by this series. The Pale Horsemen follows the story of Uhtred, who in the prior book (The Last Kingdom - you can read that review here) had defeated Ubbe Lofbrockson at the battle of Cynuit (sorry guys about the spelling here, I listened to the audio version of this book and my spelling is gobshite). Having killed Ubbe, Uhtred races home to his wife and child to ensure their safety and then travels to the king, only to find out that Odder (The Younger) had beaten him there and taken credit for the victory.
Nursing his ego, Uhtred is sent home by a displeased King Alfred. Bored and restless, Uhtred takes a ship of Saxons and raids up the coast of Cornwallum. This leads him to meet a Shadow Queen, Iseult, with whom he falls in love (in a very Uhtred way). When he returns to Alfred, he finds himself accused of burning the newly made monastery at Cynuit and killing the monks there. He elects to stand trial by combat against Steapa. In the middle of the trial, the Saxon town is overrun by Danes.
Uhtred finds Alfred retreating to the swamp lands and helps him regain his army and self-respect. Nothing works out quite as Uhtred planned (fate is inexorable - he reminds us constantly) and there are many turns to the ultimate battle at Ethandun.
The writing in these stories is engaging and Uhtred is a wonderful narrator for the events. He's realistic and has the right amount of cynicism for a soldier and story teller. I'm looking forward to reading the next book in the series (listening). Tom Sellwood as the narrator for the audio book is so amazing and funny (he did the original CD version that the library has, I have no idea how Jonathan Keeble is at narrating but I know I'll be disappointed when it comes time to switch narrators).
Apparently this is now a BBC series. If there's some way I can start watching this I will.
4/5 Stars.
Terry McCaleb is a medically retired FBI agent whose prior job hunting down serial killers in California somehow put too much of a strain on his heart. Following retirement and a heart transplant, Terry seeks to live on his boat, fix it up and then sail off into the sunset touring islands, or well something. But this is disrupted when the sister of the woman whose heart now resides in Terry's chest shows up and asks for his help in catching her sister's killer.
The details of Terry's investigation are interesting and his motivation is clear. Some of his actions are a bit bizarre but for the most part he follows along regular procedures to find the things the original police officers missed. Along the way he alienates his cardiologist and falls a little to conveniently in love with the sister (his heart's sister? too sappy).
Finally when the killer is found, it's the killer's own motivations, having to do with an old grudge which don't really make sense. I liked how they figured out who the killer was, but the overall connection that is drawn is just a little too much (as is the final confrontation).
Overall it was a good book to cleanse with after coming off some heavier stuff. This is a good pick for a beach bag or lake house. There is apparently a movie associated with this book starring Clint Eastwood that I'm interested in watching. I'll post an update with my thoughts on the movie adaptation.
UPDATE: I've watched the Clint Eastwood flick. Interestingly in the acknowledgements to the book, Connelly thanks Eastwood for reading the book and giving him advice, so maybe Eastwood had this in mind from the very beginning. A couple things changed from the book, Graciela (the sister) is a waitress and not a nurse as in the book (this was a bigger plot point in the book but not necessary for the movie adaptation), the killer's catchphrase shifted from "take the cannoli" to "Happy Valentine's Day" which actually fit more into the motivations of the killer, and finally, well the killer was changed so that was kind of huge. It affected the entire ending. I can't say it was worse. Some elements were changed to be more ridiculous, and some of the changes actually were better than the book. So it's a mixed bag folks. Also, Clint Eastwood is too old for this romance stuff. Jeff Daniels was great though. Best character in the movie.
2.5/5 Stars for this book.
This was can't put down good. The premise is a grandson asking his grandfather about the war. You know, THE war, WWII. The grandfather was a Soviet citizen in Leningrad (St. Petersburg) at the time and the grandson wants to know what his grandfather did during the war.So we get the grandfather's version of what he did. Lev Beniov lives in The Kirov, an apartment building in the outer ring of Leningrad. He serves on the building's fire brigade, there to put out any fires should the building get shelled during the Nazi siege of Leningrad. One evening, while standing watch on the top of his building with his friends, Lev spots a dead German paratrooper falling from the sky. As the city has been starving for months and people are dying from starvation daily, the youths figure the German paratrooper may have food on his person and decide to be the first ones there to investigate the possibility. Except, as an enemy soldier in Leningrad, the dead body is now government property and taking anything from the body would be considered "looting" and stealing of government property. When he pauses to help a friend running from the police, Lev is caught and taken to a Leningrad prison. Sometime in the night he is joined by an army deserter, Kolya. The head of the NKVD gives them the task of finding 12 eggs in the next five days for his daughter's wedding cake. Lev and Kolya then go about the impossible task of procuring a dozen eggs in a food wasteland. It is Kolya's indomitable spirit through the Lev's pessimistic lens, that carries this story from horror to humor and back again in endless and glorious cycles as the two undertake their quest. I didn't want this book to end.
5/5 Stars.
I'm torn on this review. I started out really liking this book, then it started to wear on me. Really really wear on me. And then it ended well enough. So this is probably a 3.5 Star review, for what it's worth.This is a classic YA coming of age story about June Elbus, 14 yo Renaissance fan and her dying uncle, Finn Weiss, who, in 1986 is dying from AIDS related complications. June and Finn have a special relationship which is full of inside jokes and stories. What doesn't work in this premise is the reliance on YA tropes. June is "quirky" and feels unloved and misunderstood (she's not). She thinks she's ugly and doesn't understand why anyone would like her (sigh). But Finn loves her, and she believes he loves her above all others. So she has a romantic crush on her own uncle, and she has a lot of self-loathing associated with this fact. When my sister and I were little, we spent weeks in the summer and over Christmas Break at my grandparent's house in Canada. My mom's much-younger brother still lived at home until my sister and I were approaching Tween years. We both loved him desperately. Not in the romantic way June feels about Finn, but close enough that the truth of love, and child love felt real about the book.In any case, Finn dies and June learns that he's had a boyfriend for nine years. Toby seeks June out to try to have a relationship with her - seeking kinship in the one other person he believes is grieving Finn's loss as much as he is. June is hurt to learn that Finn led another life separate from her. This is common enough for children on the brink of adulthood, to learn that the people they love have other lives and interests. But man does June take it hard. She becomes a paragon of self-absorption and jealousy. It's not pretty. And if I was just left with Carol Rifka Brunt's great phrasing, it may be okay, but it goes on too long, becomes too much. Poor Toby. He has no one, and Finn leaves a note for June, asking her take care of him. But instead of really feeling for the Toby character, I found him a little creepy, and their budding friendship, built on mutual grief, somehow never seemed to blossom to me. Toby gets June hooked on cigarettes and even gets her drunk. He's in his 40s. I think it's meant to show what a mess he is, but it's hard to really feel for an adult who lets a 14 year old get wasted on volcano bowls. In the background is June's malicious sister Greta, her uninvolved boring father, and her uptight vicious mother. None of these characters were endearing, except maybe toward the end, Greta became redeemable. The stuff this family was willing to say to each other, good god. There was a jot of jealousy flying around here and a lot of self-righteousness that got old and felt staged. In the end, it was just a bit much and took a lot of shine off an otherwise nice looking apple.
3.5/5 stars
