The 1936 Club: A Shilling for Candles

After missing out on the 1956 club in 2020 because I can’t read a calendar apparently, I am really glad I managed to both READ a book and POST about it for the 1936 Club hosted by bloggers Karen at Kaggsy and Thomas at Stuck in a Book I was super pleased to find I actually owned a copy of A Shilling for Candles by Josephine Tey which was first published in the UK in 1936. I have now read all but one of Tey’s mysteries. On the whole, her books are in my opinion a little hit and miss, but so far all have been well worth reading, even if every title didn’t always blow my socks off.  If you like Golden Age crime fiction, Tey should be on your reading list for sure. 

In the opening chapter of A Shilling for Candles, a man taking an early morning walk on the beach finds the body of woman in a bright green bathing dress who has clearly drowned. He hurries to the nearest coastguard station to phone the police. Unfortunately suicides are not uncommon in this particular area of costal Kent, but eventually the police determine that the woman drowned most likely at the hands of a person or persons unknown based upon a couple of small details about the body. The police also determine that the woman was renting a nearby cottage and that the obvious suspect is her “house guest”, a young man named Tisdall whom she impulsively invited to stay with her when she discovered him about to pawn literally the clothes off his back in London a few days earlier. It turns out that the drowned woman was the famous movie star Christine Clay and that generous, impulsive action of helping a person in need, such as the house guest, was characteristic of her. Who would want to kill her? Was Tisdall? Or her explorer husband who was allegedly out of the country at the time of death? Or was it the composer Jacob Harmer, who was working with her on her current film and who wagging tongues rumor was her lover?

I enjoyed reading it this book. I gulped in down over the course of two days, which was very satisfying. However, I didn’t think this is Tey’s best mystery. The resolution was a little out of left field for my tastes. But up until that point, I enjoyed the investigation along with its obfuscation and red herrings.

There are quite a few colorful characters in the book. There is a really awful journalist, Jammy Hopkins, dogging the detective's, Inspector Grant, heels. The readers are introduced to Grant’s friend and connection to the theater world, actress Marta Hallard who will feature in at least two future books. Grant is an atypical lead detective when compared to literary detectives created by Tey’s contemporaries like Christy, March, or Allingham; he isn’t in and of himself very interesting or quirky. Not that this detracts from the books, however. It is just something I’ve noticed. 

The real highlight for me in A Shilling for Candles was the eccentric Erica Burgoyne, the daughter of the local Chief Constable, who does some mighty good sleuthing in the book.  Tey could have easily spun off a series featuring teenage Erica solving crime, having romantic escapades and cracking wise. 

Interestingly enough, Tey calls out class consciousness front and center when Grant finds out the husband of the victim is a lord and is loath to question him in a confrontational manner. I found it noteworthy that Grant recognizes this behavior and knows it’s not “right” and yet, it’s how one is expected to behave. On the other hand, one of the characters is Jewish and Tey uses some weird backhanded comments on this as an ethnicity which is not atypical for a book published in the 1930s but it is always jarring when I encounter it. 

The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann

Herr Settembrini hauled him over the coals quite properly and managed to firm up his conscience at least temporarily extracting something like a promise never again to participate in such horrors. “Pay attention,” he demanded, “to the human being inside you, my good engineer. Trust it clear and humane thoughts and abhor this wrenching of the brain, this intellectual swamp. Illusions? Secret of Life? Caro mio! When the moral courage to decide and differentiate between fraud and reality begins to melt away, that marks the end of life itself, of formed opinions, of values, of any improving deed, and the corruptive process of moral skepticism begins its awful work.” Man was the measure of all things, he added. Man had an inalienable right to make knowledgeable judgments about good and evil, about truth and the sham of lies, and woe to anyone who dared confound his fellowman’s belief in that creative right. It would be better a millstone were hung about his neck and here were drowned in the deepest well.

I read The Magic Mountain last year and had I had my act together, would have used it for the Back to the Classics 2020 challenge.  But it took me seven months to read it because I read it in German, which meant I had to stop and look things up many, many times. I also acquired the English translation for those passages that were particularly convoluted; where it was more than just a vocabulary word standing in my way.  It is hard for me to not want to “understand everything” when reading in German.  I have to remind myself that I don’t always understand everything in English either - hello Henry James!  I think that Mann used about 5 different words to say “mountain side” or “slope”, for example, not one of which I knew. I read the first third fairly enthusiastically …then let it languish and read only sporadically for months until I made myself read the final third in a go in December 2020.   I think though, in the long run, it wasn’t a bad idea to take such time to read it. It is a book that has a lot of complex ideas which take time to sink in. 

Reese at Typings asked me to review it anyway, and so here goes nothing. 😃 The plot of The Magic Mountain is very easy to sum up. In the first decade of the 20th century, Young Hans Castorp goes to visit his cousin at a sanatorium in the Swiss Alps and doesn’t come down for seven years.  But of course, it is about much more than that. Hans physically stays on the mountain, but his mind travels widely. This is a novel of ideas where Mann uses the characters to express various philosophies that interest him and presumably the reader. The blurb on the English translation I used by John E. Woods suggests that the characters in the sanatorium are metaphors for Europe on the brink of the First World War.  That is no doubt true, but I couldn’t help but also feel that the book was taking the pulse of the time it was published in 1925. Of course, I have the benefit of knowing what is coming historically, but much of the text felt prophetic to me about the upcoming reign of European fascism and I also believe the arguments and ideas expressed in the novel are still relevant to our current culture, in particular, in its positing of humanism versus populism.  

This debate between humanism and populism is literally expressed in the characters of Herr Settembrini, whom I quote above, and Herr Naphta.  I’m linking this online essay that I found which expresses  this argument and its bearing on our current situation in the West better than I ever could:  Reading the Magic Mountain in the Age of Populism. Both Settembrini and Naphta are wrestling for Hans’ soul as they argue their points in the novel. I don’t think that Mann tips his hand as to which philosophy he personally supports.  I imagine, in their extremes, he supported neither but I appreciate that he lets the reader draw their own conclusions as to right and wrong.  

The beauty of The Magic Mountain is it is one of those books that one could read probably every year and get something different and deeper out of it every time. And don’t let my droning on about philosophical debate give the wrong impression of the book. It is also quite funny in places. Hans Castorp is a bit of a bumbling fool and many of the guests/patients are ridiculous. It is an interesting juxtaposition of the ridiculous and the deadly serious. I’m glad I read it, though for an introduction to Mann, I would suggest reading Buddenbrooks first. It is shorter and more approachable, for sure. I’ve not read any other books by Thomas Mann yet, though I may try the novella, Death in Venice, next. 

The 1920 Club - In Chancery by John Galsworthy

“He had long forgotten how he had hovered, lanky and pale, in side whiskers of chestnut hue, round Emily, in the days of his own courtship. He had long forgotten the small house in the purlieus of Mayfair, where he had spent the early days of his married life, or rather, he had long forgotten the early days, not the small house,-a Forsyte never forgot a house - he had afterwards sold it at a clear profit of four hundred pounds.”

Having read A Man of Property a couple of years ago, I was really pleased to find I could read its sequel In Chancery by John Galsworthy for the 1920 Club.  These books are volumes one and two respectively of The Forsyth Chronicles which compromises a total of nine novels. Pictured are my paperback copies of the first six that my mom bought at a church rummage sale many, many years ago which I inherited, so to speak. The Scribner box set has the price of $11.70 on it and I am sure my mother would have paid less than a dollar for them in circa 1975 at the rummage. This set was issued by the publisher to take advantage of the T.V. series broadcast on National Educational Television (the precursor of PBS) in 1967(?)which actually kicked off/created that venerable institution in American Television "Masterpiece Theater". Pictures from the T.V. show are on the box. 

I don’t want to say too much about the plot of In Chancery since it is a sequel, but in terms of its main characters, both books are set at the end of the 19th century and focus mainly on Soames Forsyte and his beautiful but aloof wife Irene and Soames’ first cousin “Young” Jolyon Forsyte. 

The Forsytes as a clan have humble beginnings. Two generations earlier in the late 18th century their forefather was a modestly well-off farmer. But his son, through the acquisition of property and subsequent investment, prospered so much so that his progeny, the third generation, became very comfortably middle class and by the mid-1800s their children, the fourth generation, go to all the right schools, dress in all the right fashions and dine at all the right places.  As they say, money begets money. 

Soames is the titular "Man of Property". All Forsytes appreciate money and possessions and one of Soames’ most prized possessions is Irene, who does not love him. Soames can and does meet, if not exceed, all of Irene’s material needs but she cannot love a man who does not see her as a person but rather covets her as an object to be admired and envied by others. Soames contrasts with his cousin, Young Jolyon who is estranged from the family because he left his first wife after he fell in love with another woman. To make matters worse, he has designs on becoming a painter. Young Jolyon’s father and the patriarch of the Forsyte clan, Old Jolyon, longs to reconcile with his disgraced son, but doesn’t quite know how to go about it.  In Chancery takes place 12 years after the first book, still with its spotlight on the doomed relationship between Soames and Irene, but it also ushers out the old generation of the family and brings in the new, fifth generation who will come of age in the new 20th century. 

All in all, this is a very soapy series, full of affairs and intrigue. But I think it is intelligently written and I find it often quite moving emotionally and also not without plenty of sharp satirical commentary. In particular, Galsworthy reminds me of Trollope in his depiction of the plight of married women in the Victorian and Edwardian era when such women were legally the property of their husbands. Galsworthy doesn’t quite have the charm of Trollope, but I imagine a reader who likes the one will probably like the other. I’m not sure when I’ll get to the rest of the books but I am looking forward to finishing out the series, or at the very least, these six books I own. 

Many thanks to Simon and Karen for hosting The 1920 Club. I can't wait to hear what year will be chosen for November 2020. 😄

TOURNAMENT OF BOOKS 2020 - THE WINNER IS...

Oliver models my 2020 TOB t-shirt.

I hope all my blogger friends are staying safe and healthy during these strange days.  I am currently (a) still employed and (b) able to work from home, so I consider myself lucky in that respect. I know that some of you, like Kathy at Reading Matters, are still interfacing with the public the service sector, which must be unnerving. I also have friends and family who work in hospitals, which is also a cause for worry, as well as friends who are laid off or furloughed without pay. It's hard not to let our panicky lizard brains take over too much. 

But we still have each other via the internet and we have books to read and discuss and for that I consider myself especially lucky. And I have The Tournament of Books which absolutely can be enjoyed while maintaining a six foot distance from other humans.

I did end up reading all 18 of the shortlisted 2020 Tournament of Books.  And the winner was Normal People by Sally Rooney. It wasn't my favorite from the list. My top favorites were:

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo: This was this year's Booker Prize winner and it features 12 characters, almost all exclusively female, black and British. It was a real joy to read and suss out the links between the characters. I think it is a real credit to the author that I was both irritated and empowered by every character’s opinion or actions at times. Evaristo compellingly presented each person in all their contradictory glory, warts and all.  No one person is representative of anything other than themselves and their own unique trajectory. The only thing that spoiled it for me what the epilogue. I thought the book didn't need it.  

Your House Will Pay by Steph Cha: This was a taut novel that rolled out like a Greek tragedy. It is based on a real life shooting of a young African-American woman by a Korean-American convenience store employee in Los Angeles in the 1990s. The book starts with a similar incident and then fast forwards 25 years focusing on the families of both the victim and the perpetrator and showing how this crime has affected them. As the story progresses, the events conspire to bring the incident back to life and the reader is asked if one can ever reconcile one's pasts with the present. It wasn't always easy reading but I thought it was a thoughtful portrayal of a tragic situation.    

Normal People was a fine book. I would encourage any reader to give it a try if it sounds interesting to them or if they are curious about Sally Rooney, who isn't even thirty yet and has two best sellers under her belt along with much critical acclaim. I read Normal People last summer before the TOB shortlist was published. It is about two young people in Ireland who meet in high school and maintain a strong bond, though not necessarily a relationship (friendship or otherwise) up through university. What brings them together and what pulls them away from each other is the novel's focus. Their communication is so deep on many levels and yet completely inadequate on others. If it weren’t for the fairly explicit sex scenes, I would consider this YA. It often read like that to me, in any case.

March Mystery Madness 5.0 TBR

For the third year in a row, I will read books for the March Mystery Madness read-along which was created by booktubers Lizzy Faye Loves Books and Troi Towel and is co-hosted by them along with many other equally fantastic booktubers.  Below are the prompts which all correspond to the number five because this is the fifth anniversary of the read-along.

→ Read the 5th book in a series
→ Read a  book with 5 or more words in the title
→ Read a book with a page count divisible by 5
→ Read a book with the number 5 or Fifth in title
→ Read a book first published in a year divisible by 5
→ Read a book published in May of any year
→ Since the 5 year anniversary gift is wood, read a book with something made  of wood on the cover.

Honestly? I’m skipping the prompts this year.  Too much math is involved. 😜  At a minimum, all one needs to do is read five books in March that fall in to any mystery genre/sub-genre.   I can count that high and here are the books I have chosen:

1. The Full Cupboard of Life by Alexander McCall Smith.  This is ACTUALLY the fifth book in the Ladies Number One Detective series, it has five words in the title,  AND it has a wooden cupboard on the cover. *mic drop* 

2.  Taken at the Flood by Agatha Christie – I’m always down to read something from the Queen of Crime.

3. The Minotaur by Ruth Rendell – This book has been floating around my house for years. It’s gonna get read. 

4. Sunburn by Laura Lippman – I’m going to check this one out from the library.  I know nothing about it, I’ve enjoyed her books in the past and this was on the Tournament of Books longlist in 2019.

5. The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz – Should be a fun and quick read.  Horowitz wrote for T.V. before authoring mystery novels and I think he has the formula down pat.

THE 2020 TOURNAMENT OF BOOKS

My favorite sporting event of the year is gearing up for its March smack down. That's right, it's time for the 2020 Tournament of Books. 

Detailed information can be found on the Morning News website.  However, to summarize if you've not heard of it before, the Tournament  is a semi-serious, semi-tongue in cheek, on-line book prize. The winner wins an actual rooster - though I believe all previous winning authors have donated said prize via a charity to a family in need. 

The books go head to head in this competition using bracket eliminations.  Each reader-judge reads two books and makes the call, allowing only one book to move forward. The reasoning behind the judgment is posted on the Morning News’ website and commentary from the booth (the website organizers or their assigns) and the crowd (anyone on the internet with a Disqus account) follows.  I really enjoy the transparency of this book prize.  Unlike the Pulitzer or Booker prize, we know exactly why the judge advanced one book over another, whether we agree with such reasoning or not.  

Below is the shortlist showing what I have read and what I have yet to accomplish. 

TITLE	AUTHOR	READ?
All This Could Be Yours	Attenberg, Jami	YES
Fleishman is in Trouble	Brodesser-Akner, Taffy	YES
Girl, Woman, Other	Evaristo, Bernardine	YES
Lost Children Archive	Luiselli, Valeria	YES
Mary Toft; or, the Rabbit Queen	Palmer, Dexter	YES
Normal People	Rooney, Sally	YES
Nothing to See Here	Wilson, Kevin	YES
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous	Vuong, Ocean	YES
Optic Nerve	Gainza, Maria
Overthrow	Crain, Caleb	YES
Saudade	Peres da Costa, Suneeta
The Testaments	Atwood, Margaret
Trust Exercise	Choi, Susan	YES
The Water Dancer	Coates, Ta-Nehisi
Your House Will Pay	Cha, Steph
Golden State	Winters, Ben H.	YES
Oval	Wilk, Elvia	YES
We Cast A Shadow	Ruffin, Maurice Carlos	YES

The Tournament doesn’t start until mid March 2020, so I still have plenty of time to read the titles I’m missing. The majority of my contemporary reading is a direct result of following this contest.  

Of the titles I've read so far, my favorites have been Girl, Woman, Other (the writing is quite stylized but once I got used to it, I found myself swept up in this stories of black British women of all backgrounds, ages and opinions), Mary Toft (slightly quirky historical fiction but with a serious look at groupthink and human inclinations to believe in the unbelievable), and Trust Exercise (when I first read this last summer I was ambivalent about it but it has really stuck with me and so gone up in my estimation).

Have any of you read any of the shortlisted books or would you like to? Do you follow the Tournament or any other book prize?  Let me know! 

21 by 2021

Happy Holidays to all you lovely readers! 

I realized with my Back to the Classics Wrap Up done I didn’t have any posts planned for December. So I thought I might share with you 21 books from my shelves that I spontaneously stacked up over the weekend and am challenging myself to read before 2021. 

I’m on track to have finished 125 books in 2019 but only 57 were from my shelves. The rest were mostly library books with the occasional loaner from a family member. I need to constantly kick myself metaphorically in the pants to read my own damn books! So here goes, as shown in the stack left, the titles I gathered:

The Duke’s Children by Anthony Trollope – If Karen does the Back to the Classics Challenge again, I will probably be able to choose this for one of the categories. This is the last book in Trollope's Palliser series. 

Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens – see comment above. Also, this is the last of Dicken’s completed novels that I have to read. I’ve been parceling them out since I “discovered” Dickens back in  2005. 

Mom, the Wolf Man and Me by Norma Klein – I bought this on a whim in 2019.  I think I might have read it as a child and I had a sudden nostalgic urge to read it again. 

The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz – I liked The Magpie Murders so why not read more from this author?  I will likely include this in my March Mystery Madness list in 2020. 

To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers – I have really loved the first three novels by Chambers in her Wayfarer series and I expect no less from this novella. 

O, the Brave Music by Dorothy Evelyn Smith – recently raved about by Simon at Stuck in a Book. He made it sound so charming, I had to find a copy and read it. 

Taken at the Flood by Agatha Christie – this was a recent purchase at Barnes & Noble. I was actually there browsing while waiting for my car to be serviced and well...one thing led to another. 

The Minotaur by Barbara Vine – I bought this at a library sale years ago.  Barbara Vine is a pen name of the author Ruth Rendell. Why haven’t I read it yet? I will probably also use this for March Mystery Madness in 2020.

Kapitoil by Teddy Wayne – I bought this also years ago when it was recommended on the podcast So Many Damn Books.  But I have also read and didn’t really like Wayne’s the Love Song of Jonny Valentine so I am a little worried about this one. 

The Winds of Heaven by Monica Dickens – A Persephone by Charles Dickens’s great granddaughter. I don’t really know what to expect and I don't remember how I came across it as a recommendation.   

Skippy Dies by Paul Murray – Purchased based on the recommendation of many online sources. It is supposed to be darkly comical. Usually I like dark comedy. 

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles – This was a recent spontaneous purchase at a library sale.  I generally like good historical fiction, so hopefully this will hit the spot. 

The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley – Another recommendation from Simon but this time on the podcast Tea or Books with Rachel from BookSnob. 

Smoke City by Keith Rosson – I mentioned this book in a post in December 2018.  It just sounds so banana pants, I have to try it. 

Brick Lane by Monica Ali – This was a thrift store purchase and it has been languishing too long unread. I think once I get into it, I will really love  it. 

Homer & Langley by E.L. Doctorow – I loved Ragtime by Doctorow but didn’t like Billy Bathgate.  I need to read a third book as a tie breaker.

The Golden Hour by Todd Moss – This is a thriller my dad gave me after he read it. I think it will be pretty forgettable, but you never know. 

Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver – This has been on my shelf for way too long.  I really enjoyed The Poisonwood Bible and need to try more from Kingsolver.

Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield – I adored The Thirteen Tale when I first read it back in 2006 and Lory at The Emerald City Book Review liked this follow up by Setterfield so I am hoping lighting will strike twice!  

Big Sky by Kate Atkinson – I have been a fan of Atkinson since I first read Case Histories and this is the latest in her series featuring private detective Jackson Brodie.  I have some crazy idea to read all the Brodie books before starting this one…I got as far as re-reading Case Histories in 2019...we'll see about the other three books.  

The Old Drift by  Namwali Serpell – I bought this earlier this year to give to my dad but ended up gifting him something else and keeping it.  I think I will like it. It is a family saga that takes place over generations in Zambia. If I do like it, I can always loan it to my dad when done. It's a win-win situation. :D

RIP XIV – WRAP UP

Well today is the last day of RIP XIV and also appropriately Halloween. Here’s my wrap up. I did pretty well, if I do say so myself. 😎  I read all four books that I planned to read which makes up for being a total loser last year when I read none! 😩

• Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson: The verdict is in: I thought it was really good! I really want to read her three other early novels now. I am not a big short story fan. I know that is what Jackson is known for but lazy reader me doesn’t want to read them…but novels, yes please! Hangsaman is a coming of age novel as only Shirley Jackson could write one. It is funny at times but generally unsettling.  The main character is 17 year old Natalie Waite who goes from her dysfunctional home to her first year at an all woman’s college to possibly a mental breakdown...like in The Haunting of Hill House, Jackson leaves room for the reader to imagine what really happened in the interstices.  If you are a reader who is comfortable with a certain amount of ambiguity, this might be one to pick up and try. 

• Slade House by David Mitchell: This is the one book that really suits the season since it is sort of a ghost-cum-horror story. If anyone has read The Bone Clocks by Mitchell, Slade House makes a nice complement to that novel but can also stands alone as a short, creepy read.  In the book, Slade House is a place that does and does not exist. It can only be accessed by certain people through a small iron door in a wall in a grubby, dark ally. Every nine years someone is invited to enter that door and find out what lies beyond, but leaving is another story...(sounds like the lyrics to Hotel California...LOL). 

• Appointment with Death by Agatha Christie: I enjoyed this one a lot. I think the plotting of the mystery was really interesting  and the resolution was unexpected. The red herrings are particularly good ones.  The story features sadistic Mrs. Boynton who has terrorized her stepchildren all their lives. Now as adults, they are pathetic shells, still flinching at her baits and switches. When Mrs. Boynton ends up dead (was it natural or was it murder?), the list of suspects is pretty clear.  I also have a particular fondness for Christie novels set in North Africa or the Middle East as  Appointment with Death is. I think Christie does a good job of giving the reader a good sense of place when her books are set in these regions.

• Snake Ropes by Jess Richards: This was the one non-starter for me. I think this book would appeal to fans of Helen Oyeyemi…readers who enjoy the fantastical and books with dark fairy tale overtones. That’s just not my jam but it might be yours.  The story is about two young women whose narration alternates chapters throughout the book. The first narrator is Mary. She on an island under a matriarchy where the handwork of the women is the main source of trade with the “Tall Men” who come from the mainland. Since the death of her mother, Mary has been the main caregiver of her baby brother, whom she hides for his own safety when the Tall Men arrive.  The nother narrator is Morgan. She is imprisoned in her family home, not allowed to wear shoes and forced to keep house for her narcissistic mother and her enabler father. Her only solace are the books she reads and her dreams of escape. Eventually the two stories converge and both women discover how to battle the forces trying limit their power and potential.

As I Lay Dying – #1930Club

As I mentioned in my last post, I have been trying to read all 100 books listed on the 100 Best Novels which is a list of English-language novels published in the 20th century.  I do understand that this 100 Best Novels list was a marketing ploy on the part of the Modern Library, an imprint of Random House, which – SURPRISE- publishes all 100 titles.  I also understand that any list of "best" books is incomplete and subjective.  But for me it has been an interesting challenge to try and tick off every title and while there have been a few stinkers, there have been wonderful discoveries too.  

When the 1930 Club (hosted by Simon, who blogs at  Stuck in a Book and Karen, who blogs at Kaggy’s Bookish Ramblings) was announced for November, I saw that As I Lay Dying, which is on the 100 Best Novels list, was published that year. My choice was made! I worried at first that I wouldn’t finish it in time for the 1930 Club, but it is pretty short (my edition had 244 pages) and aside from some of the stream of consciousness bits, not too difficult to digest.   

As with some high falutin’ modern classics, the story is simple: Aggie Bundren is dying. Her feckless husband has promised her that she will be buried in Jackson where her “people” are from, which is 40 miles away from their farm. She dies and the journey with her corpse is bedeviled by bad luck and ignorance on the part of the Bundren family.   A journey that should take a couple of days ends up taking over a week and meanwhile, the body starts to decompose in the summer heat.

This is the second novel I’ve read from Faulkner and I am confident he will never become a favorite of mine. Despite the book's brevity, it still behooves the reader to read it fairly slowly. I did think the sections that were straight dialogue were great. I looked up a few samples of Mississippi accent on YouTube so I could get the right voice in my head. U.S. Southern dialects and accents are all really different from another and I needed some verisimilitude. 

In Faulkner's depiction of the various character’s innermost thoughts, he often uses references and vocabulary that wouldn’t be known to persons of the Bundren’s socio-economic class.  It is here where the book didn't work for me. I get that there is a line between what one states and what one thinks and we don’t think in words but it was jarring nonetheless.  Especially when the speaker/thinker is supposed to be a child. The characters also drove me insane! I realize it was purposeful, but they all make the worst choices, whether out of ignorance or spite or selfishness. I think what makes the book and the characters so frustrating is that, while the book doesn't come right out and say it, in death they are honoring their mother in a way they neglected to when she was alive. But this is foolish. She is dead and there is no point to this ritual. It only damages and impoverishes them further. The devotion should have been shown when she was alive and could have had some benefit from it. But this is often the way of human motivation I think. 

In some ways As I Lay Dying reminded me of Erskine Caldwell's Tobacco Road which also features poor, rural whites in the American South in the first half of the 20th century. But Caldwell went more for comedy - dark comedy, but still comedy. I guess some readers might find humor in the various setbacks that plague the Bundren family as they journey (or maybe in the youngest child Vardemann's confused thoughts, "My mother is a fish") but I found As I Lay Dying pretty bleak. 

I am glad to have read it however. I am glad that Faulkner’s works exist. He had an significant influence on other writers;  Cormac McCarthy for one, whom I’ve never read and Toni Morrison for another, whom I revere. I can see the through line to Morrison, although I find her books and her style to be much more compelling. 

RIP XIV

I'm a little late but still keen to participate in RIP XIV.  I was a total loser last year and read NOTHING.  Officially I will try for Peril the Third which is read one book between September 1 and October 31 that fits thematically in to the RIP categories:

Mystery * Suspense * Thriller * Dark Fantasy * Gothic * Horror *Supernatural

What could be easier, right?  My four possible picks are:

Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson: I've read her better known novels We Have Always Lived in the Castle and The Haunting of Hill House. I am super curious about her other four. Why are they not as popular? 

Slade House by David Mitchell: I have been meaning to read for the past three years... Will 2019 be the charm? This is the one book that might actually be classified as Horror...

Appointment with Death by Agatha Christie: I've seen the televised version of this with David Suchet but I don't remember who the murderer was luckily! I will probably re-watch the adaptation for fun after I read it.

Snake Ropes by Jess Richards: I honestly don't really know if this book fits any of the prompts.  I have an idea it might be "gothic". I bought it for a read-along hosted by a now defunct podcast a few years ago.  

I'll come back in November and wrap it up if I manage to read any of the planned titles. RIP is a fun exercise to read seasonally which I appreciate and I love seeing what other bloggers list and read as well. 

Happy Reading!

Robertson Davies Reading Week - August 25 to 31- Fifth Business by Robertson Davies

"Those roles which, being neither those of Hero nor Heroine, Confidante nor Villain, but which were nonetheless essential to bring about the Recognition or the denouement, were called the Fifth Business in drama and opera companies organized according to the old style; the player who acted these parts was often referred to as Fifth Business."

That above definition of Fifth Business (which I think Davies must have invented…I didn’t find any other reference to it when doing a google-search) comes at least half way through the book.  But it works and if you think about it, there are plenty of literary figures who fit that bill; characters who act as catalysts and observers of the main event while not being main players themselves.

In this book, it refers to the protagonist, Dunstable (aka Dunston, aka Dunny) Ramsay who narrates the book in the form of a letter to his former boss, the headmaster of a private boy’s preparatory school in Canada.  Ramsay has just retired from 40+ years teaching, and he is expressing his dissatisfaction with the reductive, anodyne farewell article in the school paper, written by a college who barely knew him.

It is a little difficult to write what this book is about because the narrative itself dodges and weaves.  The reader fairly quickly forgets the epistolary setting, though Ramsay will remind the reader of the format from time to time. At first it feels like a cradle to grave autobiography as Ramsay recounts his upbringing by stolid, Scotch stock Canadians in a small village in the early part of the 20th century.  But then there is an event that will change young Dunny’s life forever.  While walking home at age 10, he ducks to avoid being hit by a snowball thrown by his friend/nemesis Percy Boyd (aka Boy) Staunton. The  snowball instead hits young, pregnant Mrs. Dempster, the wife of the local Baptist minister, causing her to go into labor prematurely.  That event and its repercussions will reverberate all through the book right up to the last line…but as I stated above, the narration dodges and weaves so when it does pop up for the final time, it is a bit of a gut punch.

I have to wonder if John Irving read Fifth Business and was in any way inspired to write A Prayer for Owen Meany with its stray baseball which has consequences further on in THAT novel.  In fact, I was reminded more than one of Irving while reading Fifth Business, in particular in its themes of guilt/redemption and coincidence/destiny, and yet they could not be further apart in many other ways, not the least of which is length.  Fifth Business came in at a concise 252 pages which is a fraction of Irving’s typical tome pages. 

There is a lot to chew on here in terms of themes on faith, obligation, guilt, self-invention and self realization... Presbyterian Dunny has a religious experience during WWI that sets him off on a quest to research and write about the lives Catholic Saints.  He also never forgets his debt to Mrs. Dempster or her premature child. Boy Staunton becomes filthy rich and politically powerful, a nice counterpoint to what Dunny is not or does not want to become, but is Dunny using Boy or is Boy using Dunny?  And I haven’t even gotten the characters of Liesl and Magnus Eisengrim and how they will figure in Ramsey’s life. 

I read Fifth Business for the Robertson Davies reading week August 25 to 31 hosted by Lory at the blog The Emerald City Book Review . This was my first experience of Robertson Davies’ works and it is probably his most famous.  I feel like Davies is building towards something here, even though Fifth Business totally stands on its own. Therefore, I will very likely read the other two books in this trilogy: The Manticore and  World of Wonders. But I highly recommend it if you are looking for a good read that might make you ponder about deeper subjects. 

The 1965 Club: At Betram's Hotel and God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

I read two other books for The 1965 Club that I wanted to post about. The page count of the two books COMBINED is only a little more than half of the total page count of The Magus, which was refreshing.  I read both in a matter of a couple of days.  Also, both are by favorite authors of mine:

At Bertram’s Hotel by Agatha Christie is the third to last of the Miss Marple mysteries. It is probably not the best jumping in point for any reader who is new to Miss Marple since it is fairly slow and the murder comes only very near the end.  Miss Marple, however,  is my favorite of Christie’s detectives and I unreservedly love all the books which feature her.  I just wish Christie had written more Marple mysteries for me to enjoy.  

The story is that Miss Marple spends a fortnight at Bertram’s Hotel as a gift from her nephew and his wife.  Miss Marple spent time at the hotel as a girl at the turn of the century and at first is delighted to discover that the establishment is practically unchanged since the Edwardian era. There is quite a bit of discussion in the book about how times have changed, in particular how young women of a certain class are not looked after by their mothers as they should. 

However, soon our elderly sleuth starts to notice that the hotel is too perfect …or rather a facsimile of an Edwardian Era hotel; she begins to wonder what the hotel is fronting behind its facade. Meanwhile, the London police are also taking a closer look at Betram's since it has been linked ever so tenuously to some recent heists. But it isn’t until absentminded Canon Pennyfather, who was staying at the hotel, goes missing that the mystery really starts. 

God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut could have been written today it many respects. It is an angry satire about greed and America.  But it was to me mostly message and not a lot of story.  Personally I think Slaughterhouse-Five and/or Cat’s Cradle are better crafted.  But this short book might be like music to your ears if you are left-leaning and appalled by the lack of compassion in much of the current political scene in the West. 

The story (what story there is) is about two men named Rosewater.  The first one is Eliot Rosewater, who is the beneficiary of an enormous corporate trust fund, the Rosewater Foundation, which he is barred from managing but from which he reaps the cash rewards. The other man is Fred Rosewater, a distant relative of Eliot, who sells insurance and while not poor, is decidedly not rich. An ambitious lawyer working at the Rosewater Foundation realizes that if he can get Eliot deemed incompetent and convince Fred to sue as the legitimate recipient of the Foundation’s funds, he (the lawyer) can make a pile of cash on the lawsuit and subsequent transaction. 

There is a lot of quotable stuff in this book, but the t-shirt slogan and truest message of the book is this one, when Eliot is asked how he would baptize children. This is pure Vonnegut: 

'Sprinkle some water on the babies, say, "Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule I know of, babies-: God damn it, you've got to be kind.'"