Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal
This book annoyed me so much, I gave up on it about 20 pages in. Before I hurled it across the room, however, I did scan my way through the rest of it and found it oddly easy to hit on what seemed to be the major plot points. What I saw of those annoyed me as well. I think an editor could have saved this book–or at least gotten me past page 20. But maybe Stradal’s editor was as green as his writing.

The book starts off in Minnesota and the very first line is “Lars Thorvald loved two women.” I was born in Minnesota and spent about 25 years of my life there. There may indeed be multiple people in Minnesota named Lars Thorvald, but in a chapter called “Lutefisk” (disgusting, Norwegian fish dish), it is so cliche to pick a name like that. It’s like Rose from the Golden Girls decided to tell one of her stories. Now this takes talent, a cliche in the first two words of the book. And then on page two there’s St. Olaf’s Lutheran Church. There is more than one St Olaf’s church in Minnesota for sure, but again, choosing this name smacks of the Rose Nyland school of Minnesota storytelling.

Perhaps my biggest problem with Stradal’s writing is his constant need to use proper nouns. He does this in two ways. The first won’t bother the average (non-Minnesotan) reader, but it sure got me fired up. He does so much name dropping of places and businesses that it feels like he is trying way too hard to create an authentic setting. But for those of us who know the place, it comes off like he is trying too hard. It feels fake. Second, Stradal just uses too many proper nouns. There is no subtlety. It’s nostalgia masturbation. It feels like those kids’ books where you send in details about your child to the manufacturer and then they send you books with all the information included in the story. Here are some examples with my suggestions for editing:

“…gotten him into a nice Lutheran school like Gustavus Adolphus or Augsburg,”

“…proper pesto, he had learned during a previous job at Pronto Ristorante, is made with…”

“Where’d you get it from? St. Paul’s Farmers’ Market?’  How about just “the farmers market”?

“…sat in his Dodge Omni…” I suppose this is to make the reader think “OMG, remember Dodge Omnis?”

“Mom’s Chicken Wild Rice Casserole” Stradal packs the book full of forced Minnesota authenticity and then uses the word casserole. No. We call them hotdish. The only time I even heard the word casserole as a child was on TV.

“Lars’s younger brother and his girlfriend also lived in St. Paul, a few miles away.”

“Lars was lying on the brown shag area rug, reading to his daughter from James Beard’s Beard on Bread…” Just saying “cookbook” would be even better, but short of that, why oh why does Stradal have to spell out for us that Beard on Bread was written by James Beard? We have Google, or a cultural frame of reference, or it’s a detail that really doesn’t matter.

“…the famous West Coast sommelier Jeremy St. George” Sounds like one of the fancier characters on All My Children.

“…she opened a single-vineyard Merlot from Stag’s Leap that she’d been saving…” I might even strike “single-vineyard” but okay, he is trying to show that she really does know her wine.

“…Lars’s rounds at the St. Paul’s Farmers’ Market were more logistically difficult…” and then in the next paragraph: “But the St. Paul Farmers’ Market would, as always, reward their efforts.” Really? Wait, which farmers’ market? Could we have the address including zip code?

“That’s where the New French Cafe gets their tomatoes…referring to the trendiest of the new Minneapolis restaurants.” Stradal doesn’t allow his readers any credit. You don’t have to know the New French Cafe–or have it described–to understand they are referring to a business that wants quality tomatoes.

“The Southeast Asian vendor sat on a blue Land O’Lakes milk crate…” OMG, another Minnesota brand! This book is SO authentic. If only he would mention 3M. (He eventually does.) I even object to “blue” the only purpose of which seems to be to show the reader that Stradal didn’t miss the day they talked about descriptions in his creative writing class at the Learning Annex.

“…unsmiling, through Ray-Ban sunglasses…” I don’t object to the proper noun here, what I object to is the need to add the word “sunglasses”. We aren’t stupid J. Ryan.

“By the afternoon, he was calling wineries he knew they might have visited: Stag’s Leap, Cakebread, Shafer, Ridge, Stony Hill, Silver Oak.”

And it just goes on and on and on. There are so many capital letters you can pick out these annoying instances just by flipping through the book. Which is what I did.

I had more to say, but I think I’ve tired myself out. Time for a nap.

As you will see as soon as you take a look at the photo, the system breaks down a bit at this point. My largely alphabetical arrangement suddenly gets fudged up by some non-fiction related to Barbara Pym; a stack of Melville House novellas; and the start of my Persephone collection. The homogeneous design of the both the Melville House and the Persephones required me to keep them together rather than intershelve them according to their authors. I’m not saying I won’t ever do it, but I truly can’t imagine ever doing it. And just wait until you see the next shelf. One shelf of nothing by Persephone gray.

SHELF NINETEEN: 50 Books, 19 unread, 31 read, 62% completed

Pym, Barbara – No Fond Return of Love (completed)
Pym, Barbara – Crampton Hodnet (completed)(twice)
Pym, Barbara – Excellent Women (completed)(twice)
Pym, Barbara – Less Than Angels (completed)
Pym, Barbara – Jane and Prudence (completed)(twice)
Pym, Barbara – A Glass of Blessings (completed)(thrice)
Pym, Barbara – Some Tame Gazelle (completed)
Pym, Barbara – A Few Green Leaves (completed)
Pym, Barbara – An Academic Question
Pym, Barbara – Civil to Strangers 
Pym, Barbara – An Unsuitable Attachment (completed)
Pym, Barbara – The Sweet Dove Died (completed)
Pym, Barbara – Quartet in Autumn (completed)
Pym, Barbara – A Very Private Eye (non-fiction)
Cocking, Yvonne – Barbara in the Bodleian (non-fiction)
Burkhart, Charles – The Pleasure of Miss Pym (non-fiction)
Holt, Hazel – A Lot to Ask (non-fiction)(completed)
Bell, Hazel, ed. – No Soft Incense: Barbara Pym and the Church (non-fiction)
Pym, Hilary and Honor Wyatt – The Barbara Pym Cookbook (non-fiction)(completed)
Wow. If you couldn’t tell from reading my blog, you most certainly can see now how much I LOVE Barbara Pym. Not only have I read all but two of her novels, I’ve read three of them twice and one of them thrice. The odd thing is the ones I have read multiple times are not necessarily my favorites.

So, what’s that? You say you haven’t gotten around to Barbara Pym yet? Well, get off your butt, get one of her novels, get back on your butt, and read one. The one that gets the most attention, and for good reason, is Excellent Women. However, I think Some Tame Gazelle is wonderful and not a bad place to start with Pym. And for those of you that like things a little darker, try Quartet in Autumn. It’s a bit Brookneresque but sunnier. For the academic nerd in your life, you can’t go wrong with No Fond Return of Love. It starts at an indexer’s conference and turns into a bit of a stalker tale.

Pym really was a genius. The world she creates is gentle but not twee. Her powers of observation are superb. Her writing is lovely and often funny. But she’s got stuff to say. These are far from fluff. At the risk of overhyping her, I think there is no other author that makes me as happy as Pym does.

And by the by, I have indeed baked a few things out of the cookbook. The recipes are a bit like the technical challenges on The Great British Bakeoff in that they don’t always give you enough information for a successful bake. A little baking intuition and cross-referencing with other recipes of the same type are recommended. If you would like to see my baking efforts from Pym Week in 2013 follow this link.

 

Svevo, Italo – The Nice Old Man and the Pretty Girl
Melville, Herman – Benito Cereno
James, Henry – The Lesson of the Master
Wharton, Edith – The Touchstone (completed)
Howells, William Dean – A Sleep and a Forgetting (completed)
James, Henry – The Coxon Fund
Turgenev, Ivan – First Love
Dostoevsky, Fyodor – The Eternal Husband
Constant, Benjamin – Adolphe (completed)
Joyce, James – The Dead (completed)
Twain, Mark – The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg
Gogol, Nikolai – How the Two Ivans Quarrelled
Tolstoy, Leo – The Death of Ivan Ilych
Morely, Christopher – Parnassus on Wheels
Proust, Marcel – The Lemoine Affair
Austen, Jane – Lady Susan (completed)
Chopin, Kate – The Awakening (completed)
Flaubert, Gustave – A Simple Heart (completed)
Kipling, Rudyard – The Man Who Would Be King (completed)
Jewett, Sarah Orne – The Country of the Pointed Firs (completed)
Pushkin, Alexander – Tales of Belkin (completed)
von Kleist, Heinrich – Michael Kohlhaas (completed)
Tolstoy, Leo – The Devil (completed)
de Balzac, Honore – The Girl with the Golden Eyes
Stevenson, R.L. – The Beach of Falesa
Back in August 2011 Frances at Nonsuch Book decided to read all Melville House’s Art of the Novella novellas in one month. At that time there were about 42 of them. She was crazy to try and I was even crazier for joining her. I think it was the lure of a set of books that caused me to order all of them. I only finished 19 of them, and oddly, not all of those 19 are here. Either I got rid of them at some point or they are lurking somewhere else. Of those I completed, I really loved A Simple Heart by Flaubert, Austen’s Lady Susan, and surprisingly given how much I hate his other work, I really loved The Dead by James Joyce. And The Awakening is one of my favorite books. One that I didn’t keep was Mary Shelley’s Mathilda. I hated that book so much it made me angry.

Benjamin Constant’s Adolphe arrived just as I finished re-reading Anita Brookner’s novel Providence. So what? I’ll tell you what, the protagonist in the Providence was a scholar of Adolphe and the work was woven into the Brookner novel. I liked Adolphe, but the experience of reading right after Brookner heightened my enjoyment and comprehension of it.

Downes, Mollie Panter – Good Evening, Mrs. Craven (completed)
Dickens, Monica – Mariana (completed)
Whipple, Dorothy – Someone at a Distance (completed)
Strachey, Jessica – Cheerful Weather for the Wedding (completed)
Crompton, Richmal – Family Roundabout (completed)
Burnett, Frances Hodgson – The Making of a Marchioness (completed)
The two Persephone books at the left in their gray livery are indicative of the cover design for almost all Persephone books. However, they also publish some of their more popular titles with more colorful colors. In general I really like and often love most of what Persephone reissues. From the group above, I absolutely adored the Crompton, I liked Making of a Marchioness far more than I did The Shuttle, Burnett’s other Persephone. Someone at a Distance is a very popular Whipple but I think it is my least favorite. Next shelf, you are going to get to see nothing but Persephones.

NEXT TIME: Persephone to Persephone

The Dubious Salvation of Jack V. by Jacques Strauss
I think I picked this book up off a remainder shelf in Gaylord, Michigan last September when Simon Savidge and I were on our road trip to Booktopia. I didn’t know anything about novel or author, just thought I would take a chance on an inexpensive book. It paid off well. It turned out to be a charming, funny, gay coming-of-age story in 1990s South Africa.

Something Light by Margery Sharp
I fell in love with Sharp’s Cluny Brown and find myself buying up her books whenever I find them. However, I think this is only the second one of hers that I have read. She goes through a series of men hoping to find one to marry. There were parts of it that were charming and funny but overall it was kind of tedious.

The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing
The dead body of Mary Turner opens the pages of this 1940s tale of life on a farm in southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). The timeline flips back to just before Mary married Dick Turner. Mary’s bad attitude (and racist outlook) goes from bad to worse as she realizes she made a big mistake marrying Turner and going to live with him on his remote farm. Their lives are bleak, bleak, bleak, punctuated only by arguments. A fascinating and depressing novel.

The Transcriptionist by Amy Rowland
I read this back in August and know this short comment will not do it justice. Lena Respass is a transcriptionist at a New York Times-like newspaper. Her job is to put on a headset and type out what reporters have called in. I found Lena’s job and its setting delightfully old fashioned, a bit like the marketing firm in Calvin Trillin’s brilliant Tepper isn’t Going Out. The story pivots on the news that a blind woman is mauled by a lion after swimming the moat at the zoo. Turns out Lena had had a conversation with the woman on a bus just that week. She becomes obsessed with the blind woman’s story and plight and goes about finding out more. I found the book funny and enlightening and sad. Although I really liked it when I read it, I find I am liking it, perhaps even loving it, the more that I think back on it. Thanks to Leslie at This is the Refrain who recommended it to me during a book blogger meet-up at Capitol Hill Books.

Death’s Dark Abyss by Massimo Carlotto
I enjoy Massimo Carlotto’s Italian hard-boiled detective fiction, but I feel there are misogynistic scenes that are worse than they need to be to convey the fact that his characters are misogynistic. One begins to feel like it’s indicative of Carlotto’s view as well as his characters’. Despite that, I find these books quick, enjoyable, if disturbing, reads.

Let’s Pretend this Never Happened by Jenny Lawson
Another hilarious memoir from a very funny, quirky blogger with lots of issues. I’m not sure what I would think if I read print versions of Lawson’s books, but she does an amazing job with her audiobooks. They had me laughing like crazy in the car. Just don’t listen to with kids around.

The Blue Guitar by John Banville
I enjoyed this book so much more than I expected–my prior experience with Banville was just okay. This time around I was captivated and amused by washed-up painter Oliver O. Orme. He is a philandering kleptomaniac who is dealing with the fallout of stealing his friend’s wife. Banville has an interesting style that suits this quirky character well.

The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo by Amy Schumer
This kind of comedian memoir book is almost always an audio book for me. They work really well in the car, making the time fly by. That was true of this book, and I love Schumer’s stand-up and sketch comedy, but I feel like she was really tired when she recorded most of this. Lots of funny stuff and plenty of serious stuff, but she just sounded somewhat sleepy and bored.  It was still funny, but I can’t help but feel that if she had put as much energy into it as say Rachel Dratch did with her audiobook or Jenny Lawson with hers, it would have been a lot better.

As I do shelf by shelf, I am finding that the monoculture shelves are kind of boring to write about. Not because I find the authors boring, be silly to own so many if I felt that way, but it just isn’t that interesting when there aren’t a lot of different authors on the shelves. But it also makes me worry what I will do if I keep collecting the full catalog of authors I like. I could end up with full shelves but few authors. But two things come to mind:

1. Just because I love an author doesn’t mean I have to keep every book by her/him if I don’t love every title. I’ve already done this with Margaret Atwood. I’ve read Alias Grace two times and I found it just as boring the second time as I did the first, so I gave it away. I also sent her most recent novel on its way as well. I wasn’t bored by it, but I did find it a let done after the brilliant MaddAddam books. I’m also going to do this with Timothy Findley (not to pick on another Canadian). I went through a period fifteen years ago where I wanted to read and own everything by him. But one of these days I am going to start re-reading that collection and if I don’t love it, it goes. I have a feeling Murdoch is headed for the same treatment, but more on that below.

2. As I have been plowing my way through that stack of 26 hardcover novels that I purchased in the last year, I have been ruthless about what I keep. I’m starting to settle more and more on the idea that I am only going to keep books that I think I may want to re-read. I realize that some of my urge to keep certain books is because I like the physical proof that I read them, or I want imaginary guests in my library to think I have wide ranging tastes, or read important books, or something silly that. I don’t need to prove any of those things. So these days, my approach that, aside from my TBR, I’m only keeping books I think I will want to re-read. It’s really quite liberating.

 

SHELF EIGHTEEN: 27 books, 14 unread, 13 read, 48% completed

Murdoch, Iris – The Black Prince
Murdoch, Iris – The Bell (completed)
Murdoch, Iris – The Sand Castle (completed)
Murdoch, Iris – The Italian Girl (completed)
Murdoch, Iris – The Sacred and Profane Love Machine (completed)
Murdoch, Iris – An Unofficial Rose
Murdoch, Iris – The Book and the Brotherhood
Murdoch, Iris – The Philosopher’s Pupil (completed)
Murdoch, Iris – The Green Knight
Murdoch, Iris – Under the Net (completed)
Murdoch, Iris – A Word Child (completed)
Murdoch, Iris – The Good Apprentice
Murdoch, Iris – The Red and the Green
Murdoch, Iris – Nuns and Soldiers (completed)
That is quite a load of Murdoch. I am a little surprised I’ve read that many of them. I thought there were more of them I hadn’t gotten to yet. And on top of these I have read an additional eight that I have read that I don’t own. Wow, that makes 16 Murdoch novels that I have read. And that, brings me back to my discussion above about monculture shelves. Since I took this photo a few months ago, I re-read The Italian Girl and I must say I wasn’t a fan. I’ve already put it on the donate pile. And it’s made me rethink how I feel about her work in general. Even without re-reading I know I will keep a few of these and I know that I will probably want to re-read The Sea, The Sea, and A Fairly Honourable Defeat for sure and I don’t even own them. And I have yet to read (or own) A Severed Head, which I know some people swear by. There is still much I love about Murdoch, so regardless of how many I get rid of, I’m pretty sure I will always have  more than a few of her novels on my shelves. 

I would be remiss if I did not say something about Under the Net, Murdoch’s first novel. I say it is my favorite Murdoch, but it was also my first, so it has been some years since I read it. I’m very curious to see what I would think of it now and to be reminded of the young Murdoch. However, the real story here is that on my first date with my husband I mentioned how much I loved Under the Net. A week later, after returning to DC from a business trip, John gave me that  very nice first edition–on our third date no less. Any wonder why I kept him?

Naipaul, V.S. – The Mimic Men
Naipaul, V.S. – In a Free State (completed)
Despite some of the truly stupid things Naipaul has said in recent years, I still like his novels. I’ve read his more famous titles The Enigma of Arrival, A Bend in the River, and A House for Mr. Biswas. And those I think I would re-read. Hmm, something to buy.

Nichols, Beverly – A Thatched Roof
Nichols, Beverly – Laughter on the Stairs
Nichols, Beverly – Merry Hall
Nichols, Beverly – Down the Garden Path
I hope I like these more than I liked Evensong. These are house and garden related so even I hate them I probably can’t get rid of them until John has read them. Funnily, when I was a kid I checked out Down the Garden Path from the library just because it had a few illustrations.

Norris, Frank – The Octopus
I bought this doorstop just because I like these Penguin editions. We will see if I ever read it.

O’Brien, Kate – Mary Lavelle
O’Brien, Kate – The Land of Spices

O’Farrell, Maggie – Instructions for a Heatwave (completed)
O’Farrell, Maggie – After You’d Gone (completed)
O’Farrell, Maggie – The Hand That First Held Mine (completed)
O’Farrell, Maggie – The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox (completed)
Nothing really to say here is that I love O’Farrell. The Hand that First Held Mine is the only advanced copy I have ever accepted from a publisher. (I’m pretty sure that is true.) She is an author I will never hesitate to buy.

NEXT TIME: Pym to Persephone (don’t ask, it gets v. complicated)

About a year ago at the final Booktopia, I sat in front of an audience in a room in Petoskey, Michigan discussing the many merits of Any Human Heart by William Boyd with Simon Savidge, and Ann and Michael of the podcast Books on the Nightstand. When Michael chose AHH for us to read, I had already had it in my TBR pile for quite some time. I think I had been drawn by the cover and the jacket blurb certainly tripped some of my triggers. But for some reason it was pretty low on my list of what to read next. Something about its size and seeming complexity gave me that feeling I was never going to get to it. But then Michael assigned it and I ended up loving it. It wasn’t perfect but had so many things going for it, the imperfections really only seemed to exist to provide a little grist for the discussion mill.

Sweet Caress by William Boyd
As we wrapped up Petoskey and our road trip back to Washington, Simon gave me a copy of Boyd’s (then) newly published novel Sweet Caress. From all accounts it was similar to AHH. And now, having read it, I can say it is similar to AHH but from a female perspective–kind of. Like AHH, it takes us through most of the 20th century and the protagonist is an artist with a fairly unconventional approach to life. Whereas AHH was chock full of fun, faked, non-fictional seeming, footnotes, Sweet Caress had black and white photographs littered through the novel like a scrapbook depicting many of the characters that crossed the pages. From what I understand, Boyd used photos that he found for sale  at flea markets and antique shops. Just like the footnotes in AHH, I loved the way the photos gave added depth the the story and made the characters feel so real.

Despite the similarities Sweet Caress can easily stand on its own. The stories in the two books are in no way linked, and one doesn’t have to have read one to enjoy the other. Amory Clay is a photographer who knows at an early age that she wants to be out of her childhood and into something exciting. The fact that she tries to seduce her gay uncle at the age of 19 gives you some indication that there is a fire burning somewhere. Through the years we follow the ups and downs of her unconventional (for the times) personal life and her life as a photographer. From society photography, to ‘obscene’ interwar photos of Berlin prostitutes, to being a war photographer in both WWII and Vietnam.

A totally compelling, enjoyable read. It somewhat satisfied my need for a sweeping, epic tale of the 20th century from a female’s point of view. However, I’m not sure I entirely buy the female point of view. I will set aside whether there is a such a thing as a male or female POV and whether or not one sex can write from the perspective of the other. But as much as I am willing to believe and celebrate characters that go against traditional gender roles, I’m not sure Boyd’s depiction feels authentic. I won’t say too much more about that because it’s all very squishy and subjective, and subject to long, complex, discussions. But I think there is one objective observation that begins to prove my point.

Almost every phase and facet of Amory’s life relies on the agency of men. Pretty much every advancement of her career was due to the intervention of some male. And I don’t mean that men made the decision whether or not to hire her, but too often she only gets an opportunity or a leg up because of some male who essentially does her a favor or who has an ulterior motive. I don’t think there is one instance where her career trajectory seems self-propelled. One could argue that it is easy to see a male character having a similar trajectory, but there is no implied or explicit commentary in the book that gives you any feeling that Boyd did it on purpose. It felt more like he was completely unaware of it–as if he couldn’t fathom how a female could progress through the 20th century without the continual help from men with whom she had a personal connection. Even if Boyd was deliberately trying to show the obstacles a female photographer would have faced, I think his lack of comment on it feels more like ignorance than insight. My guess is that a female author would have allowed Amory at least one thought or comment in passing. It’s particularly jarring when it’s her former lover who is continually responsible for the success of her career. It’s clear that Amory’s work is successful at different phases in her life but never once does Amory have a moment where she thinks “God damn it, I’m good at what I do. Why do I have to grovel for favors just to make a living?”

I would love to know what female reader’s thought of Boyd’s female point of view. I found the book totally enjoyable and worthy of a read, but I wonder if it would have made me nuts if I was a woman.

After my recent spate of DNFs, and one that I actually did finish but hated and couldn’t believe I didn’t DNF it, I don’t really have other progress to report. I am in the middle of Sweet Caress by William Boyd, which I love, and also Visitors to the Crescent by Mary Hocking, which I quite like. It’s nice to finally be back onto something I don’t hate.

In the meantime, why not give the folks what they want. A picture of a shelf.

SHELF SEVENTEEN: 31 books, 15 unread, 16 read 52% complete

McCarthy, Mary – The Group (completed)
McCarthy, Mary – Birds of a America (completed)
A million years ago I won some sort of Virago related contest on someone’s blog. The result was I won the Virago of my choice. I think I let the blogger chose what they sent me. Or I might have had some choice and chose The Group because I had seen the cover of the newish Virago reissue all over the blogosphere in recent days and wondered why. I ended up absolutely loving it. Such a fantastic read and such an important book. That set me off buying up used McCarthy’s every chance I got. And I was totally delighted by Birds of America.  Might be one of my favorite books.

McCourt, James – Mawrdew Czgowchwz
Say that title three times fast.

McEwan, Ian – The Cement Garden (completed)
McEwan, Ian – The Comfort of Strangers (completed)
McEwan, Ian – Black Dogs
McEwan, Ian – On Chesil Beach (completed)
McEwan, Ian – Sweet Tooth (completed)
I find that McEwan is two writers. One is dark and quirky. The other is not quite as dark and not quite as quirky. If I am not mistaken The Cement Garden falls into the first category and On Chesil Beach and Sweet Tooth fall into the second category. I don’t remember enough about The Comfort of Strangers to put it in a category. I should also note that On Chesil Beach is one of my favorite books of all time.

McPherson, William – Testing the Current

McFarlane, Fiona – The Night Guest (completed)
The first ever summer read along on The Readers. I ended up liking it more after we had our discussion and hearing from our listetrners about their thoughts on the book.

McGrath, Patrick – Constance (completed)
I don’t remember anything about this novel, but I remember really liking it.

Mendelson, Cheryl – Morningside Heights (completed)
Mendelson, Cheryl – Anything for Jane (completed)
Part of a trilogy written about a group of friends/acquaintances in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. I really like these books.

Merrick, Gordon – The Strumpet Wind (completed)
A not very well-written novel about post WWII France that is, none the less an interesting read. Written by a novelist who would later go on to write gay bodice rippers in the 1970s.

Messud, Claire – The Woman Upstairs 
Since this photo wa taken I got halfway through this book and then got really bored with it. I’ve kind of liked her other novels, but not by much. It has been moved to the donate pile.

Michaels, Leonard – The Men’s Club

Miller, Merle – The Warm Feeling (completed)
Miller, Merle – Reunion (completed)
Miller, Merle – A Gay and Melancholy Sound (completed)
Miller, Merle – The Sure Thing
Miller, Merle – A Day in Late September
Miller, Merle – That Winter
Nancy Pearl is responsible for Miller being on my shelves. I had never heard of him and he remains pretty obscure. She put A Gay and Melancholy Sound on a list of books too devastating to read again, if I am not mistaken. If I remember correctly, I enjoyed Reunion and The Warm Feeling more. I just decided that sometime between now and he end of the month I am going to start reading A Day in Late September.

Mitchell, Larry – My Life as a Mole

van der Merwe, Andre Carl – Moffie
It is only because of The Dubious Salvation of Jack V. by Jacques Strauss, which I just read this week, that I now know what a moffie is. Although I did know when I bought it that it was a gay-themed South African novel.

Monette, Paul – Afterlife (completed)
And speaking of gay, I read this way back in college when all gay fiction seemed to be about AIDS. Not surprisingly and right so. This is one of the better ones. I bought it recently so I could re-read it, which hasn’t happened yet.

Moody, Rick – Hotels of North America
This one is on my pile of 27 newish hardcovers that I am pushing to finish or DNF and donate by the end of the year.

Moorcock, Michael – Mother London
A novel about London I picked up for 50 cents. Worth a chance.

Mordden, Ethan – How Long Has this Been Going On? (completed)
Without Googling to check, I am pretty sure this is an omnibus of Mordden’s three volumes of short stories. Part of my reassessment of gay fiction I read in high school and college. Haven’t yet re-read it.

Morley, Christopher – The Haunted Bookshop

Munro, Alice – The Progress of Love
I have never read any Alice Munro and this was free somewhere.

Murdoch, Iris – The Message to the Planet
I am going to save any discussion of Murdoch until next time when I have a whole mess of them to comment on.

NEXT TIME: Murdoch to O’Farrell

When I finished chapter one of Alexander Chee’s Queen of the Night this morning I was in very high dudgeon. After only 18 pages I knew this novel about a 19th century opera diva, wasn’t for me. I was dubious about the melodramatic twaddle. Since then I have read reviews that suggest Chee meant it to be melodramatic. Just like an opera. The only problem is that in opera I am moved because of the music and in spite of the melodrama. It’s only the music that allows me to overlook the insane, implausible plots of most operas. If you want 553 pages of sugary, tragic, over the top, operatic writing, then this is the book for you. It was lines like this that leapt off the page:

I’d had a premonition in accepting the role of Marguerite that, in returning to Paris this time, I would be here for a meeting with my destiny.

Later, after a writer proposes to write a role for her (that just happens to be her hitherto unknown life story–and still unbeknownst to the writer) she comes up with this gem:

Here it was, the source of my premonition, the meeting with my destiny.

Of course it is. And it only took 3 pages to get from premonition to postmonition. (It’s a new word.) And just in case we missed the fact that the libretto he wants to write is based on her life story as a young singer from America–which he still doesn’t know is her story–he says:

My novels…it would seem they have a way of coming true.

Did I mention we are only on page 12? All of this is told against a backdrop of Chee trying to prove to us how much research he has done as well as his inability to let the reader figure details out for herself. For instance, he can’t just mention an opera by name, he has to tell us who the composer is. Similarly he can’t just say La Scala or Mariinsky, he has to tell us they are in Milan and Saint Petersburg respectively. I hate that kind of writing. I’m not a huge fan of the inverse where the author is too opaque with facts, but I think I prefer it over the let me spell everything out for you as if you have no cultural literacy or don’t have access to a dictionary or the internet, style of writing. Even worse, he refers more than once to the Jewel Song aria from Faust. How about just calling it the Jewel Song from Faust? You don’t need to prove, or explain to your audience, that it is an aria.  Or maybe the first time you could have written something like “the Jewel Song,–the aria where Maugeurite…” and then the next time just call it the Jewel Song. I know this sounds like small cheese, but to me it is the hallmark of a bad writer when they feel the need to spell everything out.

There were also factual implausibilities that kept popping up–something historical fiction tends to do to me. For instance I don’t even want to get into a debate over whether candlelight or gaslight at home is going to give our heroine a better sense of what her gown will look like under the brilliant chandeliers at the ball. And, in the age of made to order clothes and the absolute and complete absence of read-to-wear, are we really to believe that her dressmaker just happened to have a black-beaded gown with a train that she could could put on at a moment’s notice. Let’s skip the fact that this dress swap literally happened when the heroine left the party in her ugly dress that had been reduced to tutu length (no, just no) by two nobleman who get sexual pleasure from cutting women’s dresses with their (literal) sabers. The dressmaker just happened to be closing up (he dressed other women for the ball don’t you know, the Rachel Zoe of his day) and had the perfect thing for her that apparently required no alterations.

And don’t get me started on the plausibility of a singer of her caliber and renown never having originated a role. And the unlikihood that she would even consider it without knowing the composer first. And if he was a protege of the FAMOUS Verdi–who was also her close, personal friend (he is more proud of his risotto than Aida!)–why the hell didn’t she at least know of the composer already?

 

This only gets us to page 18! That seems like a great place to stop and hurl the book across the room to my donate pile.

I liked the premise of this book a lot. And I started out finding it quite intriguing. And then 200 pages of reminders of why I have avoided DeLillio since I tried to read White Noise in 1991. So not my cup of tea and so close to becoming a DNF. But I did F and am so glad it’s over.

My quest to plow through as many of these 26 hardcover books before the end of the year continues apace. I finished the first one in short order and then I moved on to The Goldfinch. Huge, three years old, and either loved or hated. I am totally ambivalent about it which is why I’m stopping after a hundred pages. I found parts of it enjoyable, and I can understand why some people love it. I was starting to tire of it, but then the bomb exploded and I thought, wait a minute, I didn’t see that coming. Unfortunately, I found the immediate post-bomb sections a little tedious and frustrating, and then I found Theo’s move to Park Avenue a little lazy and it began to remind me of the intellectual laziness of A Little Life. But only a little, a whiff, if you will.

A worthy book perhaps, but not for me. So it goes into the donate pile with 600-odd pages unread.

Meanwhile, I realized I had another newish, biggish, hardcover that I failed to put into my pile. Benjamin Markovitz’s You Don’t Have to Live Like This.

I haven’t posted a shelf since July. I almost forgot this is something. I think I was subconsciously worried that Hogglestock was becoming too shelfy. I was also kind of tempted to take new photos of the shelves that I have yet to write about as some of them have changed noticeably since I photographed them. But I thought better of that notion because I had always intended it to catch one moment in time, and updating photos could really get me into a loop of updating that would never end.

SHELF SIXTEEN: 29 books, 21 unread, 8 read, 28% completed

MacInnes, Helen – The Salzburg Connection (completed)
MacInnes, Helen – The Double Image
MacInnes, Helen – Rest and Be Thankful
MacInnes, Helen – The Snare of the Hunter
MacInnes, Helen – The Hidden Target
MacInnes, Helen – Agent in Place
MacInnes, Helen – Message from Malaga
MacInnes, Helen – Prelude to Terror
After I became wildly enamored of the vintage thrillers of Eric Ambler thanks to a tip on Twitter, I asked the Twitterverse if they new of a comparable female author. A friend mentioned Helen MacInnes. She was a little hard to find at first but then when Nonsuch Book and I made a roadtrip to Baltimore to go to Book Thing (the “store” where all the books are free) I found a cart load of them.

Marouane, Leila – The Sexual Life of an Islamist in Paris (completed)
I don’t remember anything about this book but I know I liked it and found it amusing.

Martinac, Paula – Out of Time (completed)
Woman walks into an antique shop, takes home a vintage scrapbook of four women, ends up haunted by the lives of “the Gang”. Good Lesbian fiction from small press. Very under the radar.

Maugham, W. Somerset – Christmas Holiday (completed)
Maugham, W. Somerset – Catalina
Maugham, W. Somerset – Mrs  Craddock
Maugham, W. Somerset – Then and Now
Maugham, W. Somerset – The Complete Short Stories Vol 1
Maugham, W. Somerset – The Complete Short Stories Vol 2
This is another example of a prolific author I very much like but is way underrepresented on my shelves. Novels of his that I have read and are missing here include Of Human Bondage, The Painted Veil, The Razor’s Edge, Up at the Villa, and Cakes and Ale.

Maupin, Armistead – Tales of the City (completed)
This is really only on the shelf for the sake of nostalgia. I doubt I will ever read it again and the million other follow-ups leave me kind of bored. But, back in the day I loved this book.

Mavor, Elizabeth – The Ladies of Llangollen
Two women from titled Irish familes set-up housekeeping in Wales in 1780 and live together for 50 years.

Mawer, Simon – The Glass Room (completed)
Mawer, Simon – Tightrope
Mawer, Simon – Mendel’s Dwarf
I loved The Glass Room. It is so well written and plotted and the subject matter is fascinating. I’ve only read one other Mawer: Trapeze (not pictured). It was enjoyable, but nowhere near as accomplished as The Glass Room.

Maxwell, William – Over by the River
Maxwell, William – All the Days and Nights
Maxwell, William – The Chateau
A well-regarded author (especially of short stories?) who I have never read. These three volumes are here merely because he is supposed to be so good. Maybe that should be my next self-imposed challenge: to read at lest one book by authors I haven’t read but who have multiple books on my shelves.

Mayle, Peter – Anything Considered (completed)
I realized recently with another Mayle book just how fluffy and superficial his books are. Although I really enjoyed this caper about truffle hunting years ago when I read it, after my most recent experience I know I will never go back to this one so I moved it to the donate pile just last weekend.

McCarthy, Mary – Cast a Cold Eye
McCarthy, Mary – The Groves of Academe (completed)
McCarthy, Mary – A Charmed Life
McCarthy, Mary – The Company She Keeps
My two favorite McCarthy’s (so far) are on the next shelf and I have only read one of these. I don’t really know much about McCarthy but I loved The Group so much that I buy her novels whenever I see one I don’t have. But more about her next time when I walk about my two favorites.

NEXT TIME: McCarthy to Murdoch