Monday, April 1, 2013

Exiles in the Garden by Ward Just

Exiles in the GardenExiles in the Garden by Ward Just
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Another quiet, beautifully written tale of "moral ambiguity" from Ward Just about life and politics in the nation's capital with forays to Eastern Europe through several characters.  While not as suspenseful as others of the author's books, I found the book compelling as the aging photographer protagonist contemplates his life and his accomplishments.  Equally interesting are the well-drawn characters of his ex-wife and her father, a Czech dissident soldier who appears late in the story but captivates the characters and the reader.


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Fine Romance by Cynthia Propper Seton

A Fine RomanceA Fine Romance by Cynthia Propper Seton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Many critics praised Seton's work, calling her "a latter-day Jane Austen, writing a comedy of manners." Her third novel, A Fine Romance, was nominated for a National Book Award in 1976. In addition to writing, Seton lectured on literary and feminist topics and taught at the Indiana Writer's Conference."

So many fine books and authors just slip away yet they gave me such pleasure on first reading.  I'm not a re-reader but I remember and treasure authors like Seton for their lasting position in my literary life.  If I were to run a reprint publisher, she'd be one of the first.


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Nada by Carmen Laforet

NadaNada by Carmen Laforet
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Laforet's novel of post-Civil War Spain is as fresh and as compelling as it was when it won the Premio Nadal in 1944.  Her main character, 18-year-old Andrea, exemplifies the romance, optimism and utter despair of being a teenager, starting off in college, housed with a half-crazed, impoverished family on the Calle de Aribau.  Analogies to the economic and desperation in Spain after the war are inevitable, but the story rings with the truth of "having not" amongst classmates who have plenty and the agonies of youth as Andrea observes, weeps, roams through the memorable streets of Barcelona.


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Howards End by E.M. Forster

Howards EndHowards End by E.M. Forster
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Reading the book in class was rewarding as we talked about far meatier subjects than I might have tackled on my own:  the industrial revolution which brought aspirants like Leonard Bast and Jacky, too,  into the city from the farm and made money for others like the Wilcoxes; the rise of feminism for those with time and education to embrace it; the mystical, ghostliness of Mrs. Avery, the housekeeper at Howard's End; changing morals with the rest of the cultural & social changes occurring; the altered landscape of London and affordable housing at the expense of the countryside and large estates; and what kind of future for Baby who is assured of money, education and WWII(portents of doom from Germany).


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Home by Toni Morrison

HomeHome by Toni Morrison
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It is a beautifully written book about the return of a young man from the Korean "Conflict" to his Georgia home, from the American Army to the segregation of the USA, a perfect Memorial Day read.  His Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is in full flower and his coping mechanisms at low ebb as he crosses the country from discharge in Seattle to his Georgia town.  I found something wanting in the tale, perhaps character development?  I'm not sure.  The plot was credible although the evil doctor seemed tacked on at the end and his work shrouded in haziness and the disloyalty of Sarah continuing to work for him as his victims passed through troubled me.


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More Was Lost by Eleanor Perenyi

More Was LostMore Was Lost by Eleanor Perenyi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Insightful recollections of the author's short marriage to a Hungarian nobleman at the beginning of WWII as their estate is flung back and forth between warring factions placing them in Hungary, Czechlaslovakia, Ruthenia, and the Soviet Union in a few short years.  Her youth and naivete as an  American girl abroad is evident but it also allows for for her enthusiasm and bold spirit facing historically entrenched culture and prejudices.  She wrote a marvelous gardening book Green Thoughts: A Writer in the Garden on planting and growing on this property which lead me to More Was Lost.


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God on the Rocks by Jane Gardam

God on the RocksGod on the Rocks by Jane Gardam
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Humor and heartbreak in delectable prose.  I adore Gardam and have for decades.  As the first paragraph of the NYT review by Nancy Kline puts it:
“God on the Rocks” is so charming a novel that you don’t want to give away a single one of the many twists of its plot. As its central character might ask: “Why can’t she just — not?” But Jane Gardam must be shared. She’s a find who’s just beginning to be found, at least on our side of the Atlantic (thanks to the novels “Old Filth” and “The Man in the Wooden Hat”), although more than 20 of her books have been published in England and she has won numerous prizes. Now at last comes the American publication of her early novel “God on the Rocks,” which was a finalist for the Booker Prize back in 1978. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/31/boo...



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You Deserve Nothing by Alexander Maksik

You Deserve NothingYou Deserve Nothing by Alexander Maksik
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

You Deserve Nothing is set in a private international high school in Paris (the setting being yet another character in the story), with compelling first-person narrations by two students and their revered English teacher who challenges them to think about their reading in moral and philosophical terms.  They try to translate his intellectual messages to their lives and suffer the universal response of teenagers to the disappointments of adulthood as their beloved teacher seems to throw away his livelihood and career in careless, unwary behavior.  I read it with total absorption. The following passage about teachers stuck with me:

"The ones who stay are so often some of the most depressing people you've ever met in your life.  It has nothing to do with their age.  They've stayed because of their dispositions--bitter, bored, lacking in ambition, lonely, and mildly insane....This is what it takes to teach for half a life-time.  The ones who care, who love the subjects, who love their students, who love, above all, teaching--they rarely hang around."

Maksik is a gifted writer and I look forward to more of his work.


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Dancing to "Almendra" by Mayra Montero

My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Alternating stories of a young journalist investigating the organized crime activity in gambling in 1950's Havana and the confessions of his girlfriend, a one-armed former circus performer.  Strange and bloody tale and I found it hard to care about the characters, although the Cuban atmosphere was authentic and rich.  You could almost hear the danzon music.



A Book of Secrets: Illegitimate Daughters, Absent Fathers by Michael Holroyd

A Book of Secrets: Illegitimate Daughters, Absent FathersA Book of Secrets: Illegitimate Daughters, Absent Fathers by Michael Holroyd
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A Book of Secrets: Illegitimate Daughters, Absent Fathers was a bit of a slog for me.  While the characters were interesting, the information provided seemed too thin to merit a book.  The author based it on a villa in the South of Italy but then we moved to England, to France, to Vita & Violet, to an Italian friend, disparate characters, places,  and the book's focus and especially its passion suffered.

"With his oblique anecdotes about Salman Rushdie, and a footnoted reference to one of his wife Margaret Drabble’s novels, Holroyd, too, sometimes gives us his literary-social milieu instead of real emotional involvement" Laura Marsh writes in the online New Review piece below http://www.tnr.com/book/review/michae... and perhaps that is what is missing from the book.  I could not connect.



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Absolution by Patrick Flanery

AbsolutionAbsolution by Patrick Flanery
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Dostoevsky says that everyone remembers things he would only confide to his friends, and other things he would only reveal to himself...But there are other things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself."  In Absolution a first novel about memory and guilt and censorship, the author has produced a stunning, compelling tale of an aging South African author, Clare, and her biographer, Sam, told in multiple points of view.    Absolution brought the country and its tragic past to life as much as anything I've read by  classic authors such asCOETZEE JOHN M. and Nadine Gordimer.  The characters were well-drawn and the plot moved forward sometimes at rapid pace as I flipped ahead, unable to await the resolution of an incident, the clues to a possible future.  The writing is very good and Clare's voice rings true.  I closed the book with satisfaction that reading this book was time well spent and sparked my interest in learning more about the country and people of South Africa (rueing a missed travel opportunity a few years ago).  The author looms large on my radar for future works.  He is a writer to watch.


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Leviathan by Paul Auster

LeviathanLeviathan by Paul Auster
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

For me the tale did not merit the lengthy narrative, the book within the book seemed contrived and interfered with the tension.  I felt it was too much blathering and was in need of editing.  Perhaps it's a case of not being able to latch on to either of the main male characters as sympathetic or interesting.  The female protagonists started out as more captivating particularly since I'd seen museum exhibits of Sophie Calle and immediately recognized her in Maria but they were reduced to pretty much sexual objects as the tale continued.  Is the narrator Peter Aaron the novelist Paul Auster and is it important to the story?  The book talks a great deal about identity and stories and whether Aaron's recreation of Sachs' life is true and how far does truth go when told by another in a memoir.  Did Sachs really die in Wisconsin?  Is Aaron a reliable reporter of his friend's motivations and life?  Is Auster?  Do I need to read Hobbes Leviathan to find out?  Other Auster books I liked better were Moon Palace, City of Glass.
Favorite quote:  Books are born out of ignorance and if they go on living after they are written, it's only to the degree that they cannot be understood. (Auster. Leviathan, p. 40)


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Left Handed Dreams: none by Francesca Duranti

Left Handed DreamsLeft Handed Dreams by Francesca Duranti
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Unusual first-person, philosophical book about an Italian professor now living and cooking (tasty-sounding recipes) in New York City who examines her life and particularly her dreams in terms of being retrained to be right-handed when she was a child in Italy and how that affected her.  While I found it fairly compelling and thoughtful, there is very little action.  The book was translated by the author.


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The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes



The Sense of an EndingThe Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

** spoiler alert ** The Sense of an Ending was a beautifully written, compelling tale whose main character, Tony Webster, is an unreliable narrator, always a challenge to the reader. I have a problem recommending the book because I had difficulties with the plot which seemed unbelievable. The denouement was a surprise to me and I did not feel the key characters, the mother and Adrian, fit into this scenario. Did the woman flip off her marriage and daughter as casually as she did the broken egg? Was this our clue? And would this same woman have chosen the path she did with the child? Or remembered Tony in her will? Would the Adrian who went to the trouble of writing Tony that he was seeing his ex-girlfriend slip into a relationship with her mother? For any of this to offer a ring of truth, I would need a lot more information.

I appreciated Tony's comments on aging, life and memory. His goals of stereotypically English "peacebleness" countered his determination and email stalking of Veronica who remains a cipher. I too closed the book with a feeling of dissatisfaction.



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A Thousand Pardons by Jonathan Dee

A Thousand PardonsA Thousand Pardons by Jonathan  Dee
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A Thousand Pardons is a beautifully written and engrossing story about marriage, divorce, celebrity and public relations with their companion wrinkles and tragedies and the ever present need for forgiveness.  The characters are not particularly affecting, perhaps too removed from the reader as well as from each other, but their stories are and Dee presents them with skill and insight .  The section involving the two men marooned together in the house was amusing and truthful.  The ending leaves me in doubt as to this family making the changes necessary to sustain their new lives. The teenage daughter is insufferable.  The husband is a cipher.  The celebrity actor and the wife were most appealing and their stories sustained my interest in the book.  I did read it quickly and eagerly.  If you are looking for a runaway read, I  recommend A Thousand Pardons for the writing and its modern story line.  If you are a fan of character development and psychological insight, perhaps you might prefer  Adam Haslett's Union Atlantic or Jess Walter's Beautiful Ruins or Jean Thompson's The Year We Left Home.


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The Believers by Zoë Heller

The BelieversThe Believers by Zoë Heller
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

 An unsentimental and compelling family drama about a political lawyer, possibly modeled after William Kunstler, who has a stroke and how his family reacts in various ways, particularly intensely by his distressed and furious wife, Audrey.  I have friends who will say "but I didn't like the characters" to which the author replies in an interview in the October 1, 2008 issue of Time Out:
I read a review the other day that said, "Joel is the one charming character in the book, and we're left with this pain in the neck." And in one sense that exactly expresses what she's had to deal with all her life, being the less desirable companion to this charming, charismatic, fabulous man, who is also this gigantic egotist. It's quite hard work living with that kind of star. [...:] It's amazing how often, both giving readings in book shops or reading reviews on Amazon, or even reading supposedly sophisticated criticism, that charge arises: "You've written somebody that I don't like." And you want to say, well, how do you feel about Iago? I take umbrage at all that. [...:] I very strongly feel that the job of fiction is not to write admirable figures, but to imagine one's way into all sorts of people, often people who ostensibly at least are deeply unlikeable or unpleasant. The question is not whether you like them but whether you understand them.
—[11:]


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