Very Colorful!

<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4555477-the-color-of-earth" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="The Color of Earth (Color Trilogy, #1)" border="0" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1312054129m/4555477.jpg" /></a><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4555477-the-color-of-earth">The Color of Earth</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1224011.Kim_Dong_Hwa">Kim Dong Hwa</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/202384322">3 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
This is a charming coming-of-age story set in Korea.  I am now really annoyed that the next two books in the trilogy are checked out! Grr!  <br/>Ehwa is a young girl filled with curiosity, which her mother, a widowed tavern keeper, gently teases her about.  This first book covers Ehwa's discovery of the many facets of love and sex - from the point of view of a child and then one verging into womanhood.  She interacts with children her own age and overhears adult conversations, which she doesn't understand.  Her adventures are funny and touching in their realism.  <br/>Korean customs and expressions are explained in footnotes.  I never knew shoes were so expressive!
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 The html code doesn't seem to be working here anymore, so I guess I'll stop duplicating my reviews to this blog.

There's No Place Like ...

Okay, I won't go there.  I'm sure it's been done to death.

<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11277216-the-iliad" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="The Iliad" border="0" src="http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg" /></a><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11277216-the-iliad">The Iliad</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7778.Richmond_Lattimore">Richmond Lattimore</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/198841342">5 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
No matter how many times I read this, I still find something new. This time I marveled at the similes.  Many of the similes in the battle scenes dealt predictably with lions and wolves, but there were others that evoked daily life (the widow measuring her wool) or inanimate forces of nature (rocks falling like snow).  The most striking thing about them is that they aren't all that brief (like my examples), but can go on for a while, longer than you would expect in a narrative. They'd be full-blown metaphors if they'd not been prefaced with "as" or the like. <br/>I discussed this online with a group and found that very satisfying. <br/>This translation just happened to be one I have, but I see that it's recommended by many (including Dr. Vandiver who does the Homeric Great Courses lectures) for being translated line by line (so you can make comparisons to the Greek) and for preserving the archaic flavor and the poetic "formulas."  Dang, I just thought it was a great story!<br/>Amusing note: on the back of my copy, Robert Fitzgerald is quoted as saying no one need ever produce another verse translation of the Iliad ... but I guess he changed his mind 25 years later. Heh!
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Crouching Reader, Hidden Head-Desk

Crouching Vampire, Hidden Fang by Katie MacAlister

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I was ensnared into reading this by the amusing title. The plot is about as complicated as the film whose title it parodies, except there are fewer entanglements.  There are some attempts to be amusing, but mostly this is your alleged standard women's wish fulfillment romance with a plump, needy heroine who just happens to be able to summon deadly amounts of light.
These supermythophagilisticexpialidocious stories are starting to get on my nerves.  You have to absorb too much cant to follow the plot.  What the hell's a zorya?  A llargi?  A lich?  I don't even know how to pronounce this stuff, much less keep track of the spelling.  Half the time I suspect they make this stuff up.  Oh, wait, of course they do.  Sorry. 

Pia (uffda, that name!) continues her saga of being torn between her "job" as some kind of light spirit helping some mysterious Brotherhood and her new supernatural linking to the vampire-cum-Fabio-impersonator, Kristoff - the Italian guy with the German name (I've been to Northern Italy - I know it happens).  In a previous book they "hooked up" as the kids say and now he doesn't call.  Is she too fat?  Was it something she said?  She got his soul back (some way - I dunno - it was in the previous book) and now he's supposed to be permanently linked to her.  What's wrong?  She spends the whole book not believing his answers even after they become linked telepathically.  Oh, man!  I mean, oh, WOMAN!  You've got cool supernormal powers!  Either he puts out and adores you or you roast him, right?  Half of this book is spent with him being diminutive-for-a-housecat-whipped into admissions of adulation.  [I'd never do that, right, Bob?  BOB?!]

And then the plot comes to a complete halt for the over-the-top sex.  I have to admit I skipped over those bits because after reading the first ones I decided that they are less arousing than head-desking.  Once you've superlatived someone to the point of explosion, what is left to life?  More plot, please.  Let me amend that: more comprehensible plot, please.
But it was okay.  As mindless, harmless (I hope - this doesn't cause dissatisfaction with life because it sets up unattainable scenarios ... does it?) entertainment, it does the job. 



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Greek Letters Don't Scan Well

Light From the Ancient East Or The New Testament Illustrated by Recently Discovered Texts of the Graeco Roman World by Adolph Deissmann
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Deissmann has done what I consider to be typically German research (involving the painstaking collection of material from disparate sources and comparing minute detail - all of which can probably be done these days in seconds with computers) and made it interesting.  He studied the use of common Greek used at the time of the writing of the Gospels as it appears in papyri, stone inscriptions, or ostraca to evaluate whether the Gospels contain neologisms or if there were some prior usage of phrases and vocabulary.  Being that sort of person myself (German extraction - I think I can make fun of us Squareheads - and the sort who combs the Iliad for each killing, lists it, then sorts the information by verb usage and weapon used), I found that fascinating.  It wore thin when he ended with descriptions of what he felt would be a necessary project to create a lexicon and some flowery stuff about religion.  Note where my interest flagged.
This Gutenberg Project edition (read on the Kindle) was an unfortunate mass of intriguing gobbledygook that I was tempted to correct (being almost able to read the German footnotes), but it has none of the Greek available in an intelligible form.  Not that my Koine Greek is anything worth speaking of (I've only had 7 weeks of Ancient Greek and some unofficial study), so I would not really be able to make the comparisons even if Greek characters had been available.  It would not be useful for the serious student.
I am sorely tempted to find out how you can correct these Gutenberg files.  It would be incredibly tedious, time-consuming, and unrewarding financially - which means it's right up my alley.


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Requiem for a Humanist

The Clue Bible: The Fully Authorised History of  "I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue", from Footlights to Mornington Crescent by Jem Roberts
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A thorough, if repetitive, study of the history of the antidote to panel games, this read is full of familiar gags.  It takes a similar format to From fringe to flying circus: Celebrating a unique generation of comedy, 1960-1980 and covers much the same people as it starts with the college shows and works its way through ISIRTA and beyond.
If you are looking for sexy photos of Samantha, forget it.  She's apparently not giving out - photos, anyway.
It was all very amusing until I came to the death of Humph at the end and I cried at that and at the description of the funeral, where they played the recording of him playing "We'll Meet Again."  Oh, gosh!
This is all the more touching because Tim, Graeme, and Bill brought me and my husband together.  Okay, maybe it was Alison Bean, but we've already thanked her.


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The Wrong Way to Woo

The Power of Persuasion by Shelagh Watkins

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I'm not a huge fan of Jane Austen, in fact, I think the zombies improved Pride and Prejudice or, if not the zombies themselves, the kicking of Darcy into the fireplace, which was so richly deserved.  Consequently, Beth Durban's disdain for F. William D'Arcy, the overweening critic at the newspaper, seems to me equally richly deserved.

The style of writing in this novel of modern manners reminds me of some of Alexander McCall Smith's Edinburgh stories, with meandering digressions and flashbacks giving a snapshot of Beth's travels and past.  Her wanderings take her to places I know as well as to exotic locations: Chichester and Singapore, Boston and New Zealand.  Her life is so full, it's not surprising that romance was not her focus.

I did sort of wonder if it was paranoia that kept D'Arcy popping up.  Was it all in her head?  Is there anyone named D'Arcy in the real world?  And, if there is some man saddled with the name D'Arcy, can't he be forgiven for hating Jane Austen?



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Reminds Me of an Old Boyfriend ...

The Knife Man: Blood, Body Snatching, and the Birth of Modern Surgery by Wendy Moore

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This was an interesting book, if a bit dry and lacking in illustration.  Hunter's controversy-bedecked life is an interesting one.  He was both admirably correct and terribly wrong on many counts, but relied on his own observations and testing and not on prevailing opinion.  His minute studies of anatomy (thanks to wholesale body-snatching and a ruinous collecting of animals) led him to the conclusion that life on earth evolves.  His study of fossils eroded away any idea that one forty day flood was responsible for the amount of life contained within.  His written work on this idea of the development of life was never published because a fellow scientist suggested he amend "thousands of centuries" to "thousands of years" because it might incite the rabble in those revolutionary times. 

His conservative methods were rejected by other surgeons, he died in debt, his brother-in-law published Hunter's work as his own and then burned the papers, but his legacy lived on through his museum and his students. 

He was not a pleasant man, but he was driven to understand and to share his knowledge, even if what he knew tomorrow was different from what he knew yesterday.  He was not so hidebound that he could not correct even his own conclusions.  A lesson for all of us.

Note: my copy had a different cover. I wish I'd had one with his portrait, so minutely described by the author but conspicuous by its absence in the book.



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A Series of Impossible Events

Ape House by Sara Gruen

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


This book was so disturbing that I just skimmed it.  I have a problem with the innocent and helpless being put in jeopardy, even in fiction.  I know this is just my problem; I'm dealing with it, okay? 
The premises behind this book are so horrific to me as to be impossible to believe: firstly, that someone who wants to air a reality animal show would pretend to be an animal rights terrorist group, create a front page story of explosives and mayhem to effect the transfer of bonobos from a research facility to this ridiculously public display ... as if no one would notice?  Or that a man would conspire with this group, leading to the disfigurement of his fiancee, let her fish and plants die while she was in hospital, and still want to get back together with her although he's obviously a horndog who would screw anyone.  Why would that person care one whit for her? 
All my complaints aside and despite the speed read that glossed over quite a bit, it was an exciting read.  Somehow, however, I just knew Amanda would go through an apotheosis that turned her into a clean freak.  The mother's finding of the sex toys and zippy-bagging them was ... humorous.  I find it hard to believe that a writer in California would be subjected to the same pressures as an actor, but it is California after all.  If it was meant to be humorously satirical, it just wasn't funny enough.




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Plump and Juicy Mystery

Too Big to Miss by Sue Ann Jaffarian

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Disclaimer: I'm fat, middle-aged, and a former paralegal.
I devoured this in one day.  Most of the ickier bits (the death is a gritty one that's revisited through retrieved screen captures) I skimmed over.  Jaffarian has created some interesting characters, many of them plus-sized which is nice to see.  The mystery was a good one and there is a spot of romance, where Jaffarian falls into the fatal blunder of making the sex "the best [Odelia] ever had."  Writing like that makes me want to bang my head on the desk.  Every now and then I run into an author who has the ovaries to write that the sex was "pretty good ... and worth repeating to see if it got better."  If it's the best, chances are it will only go downhill, you know.  Real life says that sometimes it's really, really good and sometimes it's adequate and sometimes it knocks off socks you weren't even aware you had on. 
Odelia's cherished friend and mentor in the plus-sized world has committed suicide.  She did it on an internet camera, making it fairly obvious what happened ... or did it?  Odelia has her suspicions but the police have called it suicide.  Then Odelia discovers that her friend had many secrets in her life, each more shocking than the next! No! You don't say!  Ahem.  Was one of them the incredibly handsome but poisonous man who came to the funeral?  Or the little man who attacked him, blaming him for the death? 



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Hold the Mayo

A Red Herring Without Mustard by Alan Bradley
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Audio-version.
Perhaps this was annoying because the child-like voice with the excruciatingly plummy accent of the reader grated on me.  It's a tone of voice very popular in theatre because the nasality is very penetrating and projects really well.  Nine cd's of it is very wearing.
On to the story - Why do I expect things in mysteries to make sense?  What sort of infant baptism holds a fragile child by the ankle and dunks them like Achilles?  Why would a murderer hang a body from a statue when leaving it where it was would hide it longer while hanging it would expose the murderer to a bigger chance of being discovered?  Kill, hang the body, leaving the weapon in place?  Oh yes, yes, people under stress do strange things.  Usually, they just run away though, or wipe their fingerprints.
And if Flavia only wears dresses, she must give the villagers a lovely view when she rides Gladys with her feet on the handlebars.
I was surprised by the amount of blood that came from a non-fatal head wound.  Not that I'm a forensics expert or anything, but ... who would have thought the old woman had so much blood in her?
The first book in this series annoyed me by having poison ivy in an English garden.  I keep asking Brits about that and get no clear answer.  I suppose it's far-fetched enough having an 11 year old genius-chemist.
The family conflict is getting old.  You know, I only had one older sister who did things like tie me to chairs so I wouldn't bug her when her friends came over, but even I think this family is out of control.  And the father needs a good smack up-side his head and a torch put to his stupid stamp collection.
What is my problem?
I really appreciated the addition of Porcelain (not sure of spelling because this was the audio) when she behaved with good sense, cutting off exploration of a dark place or fetching help when the plot called for it.  But how old is she?  She has no parents, so where does she live ... besides "London"?
Next time I will read the book (I will keep reading them) because the turn of phrase is good.


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The Slippery Slope

Not Just a Witch by Eva Ibbotson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Ibbotson writes in the simple declarative sentences of someone telling a bedtime tale ... and then guides the reader gently by the hand into horror.  Because it's a children's book, all has to turn out for the best.  In the meantime, the most unimaginable cruelties can take place. 
There are two witches who were best friends in witching school but had a falling out and went their separate ways.  Because they are "good" witches, they try to do good.  This seems to consist of finding very bad people and either turning them into interesting animals (that are now "nice" so they must be cared for) or to stone. 
If you are a child, this might make sense, and two out of the three children who get involved are happy to help.  The third child, a very very smart Asian girl, is reluctant, but she loses her reservations when a white supremacist comes to town.  Ah, how easily we respond to fear! 
We can also be gulled by love, which steers the witches blindly into cruelty on a mass scale. 
If the actions in this book seem horrifying, they are told in a fairytale style, softening them and making them seem palatable until the little snowball runs out of control and the avalanche ensues.  This is a cautionary tale.  It's about right and wrong.  And Ibbotson has very clear ideas what constitutes right and wrong.



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Fully Rounded Pig

Death in the Truffle Wood by Pierre Magnan

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


First of all, I'm appalled by the cover.  How do I know this takes place in France?  Perhaps by the man in the horizontally striped boating shirt and the red beret?  Where's his baguette?
Alyre has a prized Trüffelschwein who indicates clues everywhere but is ignored.  Alyre is proud of his beautiful but unfaithful wife but, as he apparently loves the pig more, he doesn't let it bother him much.  He is more upset when someone throws a stone and injures the pig. 
Hippies who come to his town tend to disappear, so Laviolette is sent to look into the matter semi-unofficially.  He prefers to stay at small boarding houses and hang in the background observing.  The local police cooperate with him.  He investigates.  Magnan manages to make it all come off sort of quirky.  Maybe it's the pig.  Maybe it's the very nearly humorous grotesqueness.  It stoops to the "get everyone in the room and make calculated insinuations to see who blinks" wheeze then builds to a climactic if ridiculous chase scene.  And it has a nicely cynical coda.  All in all, it was worth reading.



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Bertie Wooster Writes a Thriller

The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Hugh Laurie manages to mix humor with thriller, but I think I need less thrill in my life.  I am assured by my husband, who used to work for a US defense contractor, that while it is true that footage from the Gulf War is used to advertise military hardware, etc., no one, but no one, would develop a prototype helicopter or anything for the military without first being paid by the military and this hasn't happened since Abraham Lincoln took a consignment of rifles with interchangeable parts.  This takes a load off my mind.

Thomas Lang finds himself forced to become an international terrorist in this plot-with-more-twists-than-a-twisty-turny-thing.  As an Amurrikin, I am horrified to think that 1) the good ole US of A would sponsor terrorism for any ... ruh-roh, 2) that anyone would think that would even be a plausible ... aw, shee-it, and 3) Why doesn't everybody love us?! [Breaks down and sobs.]

Sprinkled herein are many witticisms about modern life as well as metaphors about sex stretched tighter than sausage casings on Lance Armstrong's thighs.  It's so easy to see the goofy side of Hugh Laurie in the lead role, right up until he starts killing people.  And he seems to know an awful lot about guns.  This does seem to be running backwards: a Brit going on lovingly about guns and an Amurrikin with a growing horror of them and descriptions of death, but it'd be a funny old world if we all ran to type.

I don't blame the author for hitting the US too hard.  In fairness, the Brits seem to be complicit in the scenario and the baddies are described as renegade CIA.  There's plenty of blame to go around.  Lang's background even includes his tour of duty as a servant of the oppressor in Northern Ireland, which goes to explain his military acumen as well as a reminder that the Brits don't always get it right either when dealing with terrorists.  Or at least it reminds me, since I seem to be one of the few that remembers IRA terrorism at a time when everyone else in this country seems to think terrorism was invented by a different religious group.

But, as I said, this was a bit too thrilling for me.  I've been typing this review for some few minutes and my heart rate is still up.  Other folks might find this tame, but it was a rollicking, riveting read and should satisfy the tastes of most people who aren't as namby-pamby as I.


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Maybe Wodehouse Ripped Off Lomax for Spode

The Seven Dials Mystery by Agatha Christie

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I read this book many years ago as a teen when I was in my Christie phase.  I remember being annoyed with it because it appeared to be ripping off P.G. Wodehouse.  There were the typical Wodehousian characters in situations where people were actually being killed!  Re-reading it this month, I decided it was more an homage to Wodehouse.  And even though I'd read it before, I guessed wrong.  That's what's so wonderful about having a poor memory; a few months/years later, and it's almost a whole new book! 

If you read this, look for the characters comparable to Jeeves and Wooster and to Lord Emsworth.  If the subtleties don't pop out at you, Lord Coote's secretary, the Efficient Bateman is clearly the Efficient Baxter.  Of course, Baxter would never have the nickname "Pongo," but there is a Pongo Twistleton in Wodehouse.

Christie says she was intending something lighthearted (aside from murder, of course, which is not that frothy) and while she isn't Wodehouse, she does succeed.  There are several charming and humorous scenes, such as George's proposal to Bundle and Lady Coote's demeanor at the bridge table.  If you obsess too much with the Wodehouse connection, as I did in my early read of the book, you might find the murders and genuine danger incongruous.  Taken by itself, though, it's a cracking read.



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The Holy Art of Lying

Forged: Writing in the Name of God by Bart D. Ehrman

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


If you've read the rest of Ehrman's oeuvre, there won't be a great deal more in this book to sink your teeth into.  Right now I suspect Ehrman's a popular New Testament exegesis factory but even a factory turns out good material, even if it all starts to look the same.  He does, however, footnote everything.  He gives you the location of his source material in English so you can check up behind him.  He does not make things up (as colorful as Borg and Crossan's book might have been, they made stuff up, just showing how easy it is to extrapolate, infer, and they produce a factual lie) and it doesn't lose anything for being relentlessly factual because of Ehrman's easy-going, highly readable style.
A better title for this book, though, might have been "Forgeries and Other Bare-Faced Lies."  Ehrman stretches the definition of "forgery" to the breaking point over Acts. Perhaps the title as it stands is the last punch pulled.  Ehrman's gloves are off (as my husband pointed out) as he makes no bones about lies perpetuated in the name of an alleged "Greater Truth."  Normally we call such lies "Fiction," or perhaps "Politics As Usual."  At no time does Ehrman deny the existence of an historical Jesus.  All he's saying is that the people who were inspired by his story fibbed about some things.  And if they fibbed about who wrote what or made up false attributions, what else might they have fibbed about, eh?
The last chapter of the book does make a person think about Lying.  Do you side with Augustine, that a lie is never excusable?  Do you permit small social lying?  Where do you draw the line?  To get a child to take its medicine?  (To get my mother to the hospital to have her tonsils taken out, my grandmother told her she was going to get a pony.  My mother felt utterly betrayed and refused to lie to us kids about anything like that.)  Is a lie permissible to save someone from eternal damnation?  It might depend on how hard you believe in that damnation to make you think it's not just okay, but imperative, to lie in the name of Truth.



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Fresh As the First Time I Read It

Something Fresh by P.G. Wodehouse

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I dearly love this book and its author, so take that into consideration when you read the review.  I also used it for a dramatic reading in college (just happened to see the notes for that in my paperback copy) and managed to get through what I thought was the funniest part without breaking up.  To my best recollection, the listeners did not fall over in paroxysms of hilarity, but I may have been numbed to their reaction in order to get through it.

Yes, it's as funny as it was the first time. 

The Hon. Freddie Threepwood is engaged to Aline Peters, but his father (Clarence, the third Earl of Emsworth) has just "stolen" her father's prized scarab in a typical fit of forgetfulness. He now wants to retrieve some letters he wrote to Joan Valentine when she was on the stage but his go-between, R. Jones, has decided to milk more out of him than the 500 pounds he didn't need to give Joan because she said she threw the letters away.  Joan is an old friend of Aline and promises to help her retrieve the "stolen" scarab, however, Joan's new friend, Ashe Marson has been hired by Aline's father for the same dark purpose.  George Emerson fell in love with Aline on board ship and is using his friendship with the Hon. Freddie to get close to her again.  Got all that, or do you need a diagram?  They all convene (save R. Jones) at Blandings Castle where they land under the beetling brow and jaundiced eye of Freddie's father's secretary, the Efficient Baxter.

Wodehouse tackles the theme of equality of the sexes with a deft hand one would not expect from an author of that time period (ah, but it's comedy, so he can get away with that).  Sadly, it's not developed fully and it does wobble at the end when Joan succumbs to Ashe's petition for marriage.  We don't get to see her fall in love with him the way we see him fall for her and her sudden craving for dullness in place of adventure doesn't ring true.  We do get to see Aline fall in love with George and we are with her when she does.  She is obstinate in her keeping the engagement to the Hon. Freddie in the face of George's high-handedness, but begins her melt when he realizes that it rightly doesn't work to badger the one you love into loving you.  Her subsequent interview with her fiance gives her the opportunity to view what life would be like married to a complete ass.  The romance of living in an English castle among the peerage loses its appeal. 

One of Wodehouse's earliest successes, Something New (or Something Fresh) introduces the third Earl of Emsworth and the gang at Blandings.  It is also rich in over a dozen Biblical references and about 40 other literary and Classical references (at least according to the annotations I found online).  Unlike the Bertie and Jeeves stories, it is narrated by what is normally called an omniscient narrator, but you can see an inkling of Bertie in the narrator's casual forgetfulness as well as the Biblical saltings (Bertie having won a Bible verse contest of some kind in his youth).  The novel also demonstrates the winning formula Wodehouse finally developed and delightfully abused for another 70 books or so: something needs to be stolen (whether scarab, silver cow creamer, painting, manuscript, or necklace) and returned to its true owner, true love will out, and the Hon. Freddie and his chinless comrades will never get married.  Although Wodehouse admitted to writing the same story over and over, it's the details of characters, the lovely language, and the absurd slow-motion description of slapstick that make each successive novel something fresh.



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Only 47?

47 Rules of Highly Effective Bank Robbers by Troy Cook

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


The title captivated me and once I got beyond the gore, the senseless violence, the incest, the anti-social behavior, the "guy humor" - I relaxed and enjoyed the story.  It was a quick read.  Tara was raised by her father to be a bank robber.  One of those 47 rules is No Crying because she blubbed after accidentally shooting him in the foot.  Tara needs excitement in her life, and so does Max, the son of a local sheriff.  Max doesn't need Tara's help to get in trouble, but he decides having her in the mix adds spice to life.  Unfortunately, her father doesn't approve of her choice in men - ever.  The book is peppered with unforgettable characters (whose names escape me at the moment, but names were never my strong suit) on both sides of the law.  Cook toys with the concept of good and evil, so don't expect any black and white distinctions here.  You have good cops and bad, and good bank robbers and bad, good psychos and really, really bad ones.  You want to root for the robbers, but if you're like me, you feel guilty about it. 



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Let's Do Science!

Dry Store Room No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum by Richard Fortey

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Richard Fortey peppers his description of the behind-the-scenes views of the Natural History Museum with salacious gossip about the past denizens.  Apparently, scientists are not immune to the amorous arts.  Who'd've thought?! Historically, the museum changed from being run by the elite in scientific fields and wealthy dilettantes to bean counters.  These days its all about how your research can aid commerce or agriculture and there is precious little science for its own sake.  Scientists around the world can't keep up with species yet to be cataloged, some that are only interesting for their own sake and some that may provide medical value.  Fortey is lucky to have done his trilobite research back when research was an end in itself. 

Statue of Darwin overseeing the entrance hall to the Natural History Museum -
from our trip to London (see other photos from my Flickr set).

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Mad? MAD?! Who Are You Calling "Mad"?!

Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


This was quite a potboiler!  Reminded me of that Thomas Hardy book, Desperate Remedies that was published in the years following, especially the part where someone attempts to burn their way out of their problems.  I had to stop halfway through because it was about to turn into something that I find even more disgusting than burning someone to death: calumny.  Lady Audley embarks on a scheme to discredit her persecutor by insinuating that he is mad, that there is madness somewhere in his family, and that his behavior towards her is a sort of mania.  Why she abandons this very effective ruse and instead tries to fry two birds with the same arson is beyond me - except that she has to lose in the end. 
Her antagonist (who is, I suppose, the protagonist in this story, being the "hero" and all, but Lady Audley is at least titular character) is "Bob" Audley, a lazy dullard who hands over all the clues and witnesses he has amassed so that she can (a) steal them, which she does or (b) kill them, which she never quite gets around to, but she has the information just in case she needs it! 
All is sorted out because this is a Victorian novel and Lady Audley must have a punishment that fits the crime and everyone else must live happily ever after, getting married and having adorable children. 
I was able to finish this book by sneaking a peak at the Wikipedia article about it and learning about the happy solution of setting fire to people instead of convincing their friends and relatives that they are mad.  Originally I read it to see if I could fit it in with my Cozy Mysteries discussions, but decided against it and moved on to P. G. Wodehouse instead.  The writing styles are similar in the more light-hearted sections of Audley where the author stops to describe love and that idiot Bob. 
This was a Gutenberg Project book read on the Kindle



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Y'All Drive Me Crazy With Your Adult Over-Caution

Island of the Aunts by Eva Ibbotson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I see a lot of objections in the reviews of this book to the "kidnapping" device of the story.  Adults are having a big problem with the concept of kidnapping - but not the fantasy.  I think we often stint on giving credit to children's intelligence.  You only have to look at the cover of this book (with the giant eye of the Kraken and the mermaid) to see this is a book of fantasy.  The first sentence tells you what you already know, that kidnapping children is not a good idea.  Nor, I might add, is luring them away. 
The author has to find a way to get three children from their mundane or painful lives to another place.  One of them has to be a mistake.  No sane child who is old enough to read this would make the assumption that being kidnapped is a fun thing to have happen.  The children in the book know what kidnapping is really about - it's about being tied up and awful things happening.  They have been taught properly.  But this is a book of fantasy where things don't happen as expected in real life. 
I think we need to let go of our adult sensibilities (we read murder mysteries, don't we, and we don't complain about people getting killed or tortured in them for our pleasure or it leading to readers who will go out and murder in real life) and enter this fantasy world that Ibbotson creates where there are nice people and not-nice people who do wicked things for what they think are good reasons and have silly opinions on "aristos" or men or whatever. 
Ibbotson's work is great fun to read.  There's lots of imagination and gentle humor and they are slightly sillier than, say, Diana Wynne Jones's books. Another fantasy writer who would appall adults and raise the hairs on the necks of kids is John Bellairs. 



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