Read in 2012 - 24: What To Do When Someone Dies

This was not my first Nicci French book, but it was quite different from how I remembered the ones I have read previously; they were somehow darker (don't get me wrong, this one is dark enough), more on the "thriller" side. But it could just be my memory, since it's been many years.

"What To Do When Someone Dies" was recommended and given to me by my Mum who bought it at a church sale for 1 Euro. She said she often thought of me while reading, and wanted me to read it as well. Now, her thinking of me is not so surprising if you know that the basic storyline is about a married woman who becomes a widow very unexpectedly, tragically and way too early in her life (at 34), and if you also know that I became a widow very unexpectedly way too early in my life, almost three years ago when I was 41 and came home from work one Thursday evening to find my husband dead on the floor in our living room.

The parallel is obvious, and there ARE a lot of parallels, but of course this wouldn't be a Nicci French book if it wasn't built on a mystery: Ellie's husband died in a car crash (nothing mysterious about that, I hear you say; it happens every day), but there was a woman in the passenger seat who nobody knew, and who had apparently no connection at all to Greg.
Of course, everyone jumps to the easiest conclusion: that Greg was having an affair with the woman, and when Ellie refuses to believe this and instead starts to investigate on her own, her friends and the police all think she reacts this way because she is beyond herself with grief and simply can't accept that the man she loved so much was cheating on her.

Ellie goes about her investigation thoroughly and systematically, and in the end she does find out what really happened. Until she reaches that point, two more people die, and she herself almost becomes the fifth victim.

Some bits about Ellie and the way she reacts to her husband's sudden death are very credible and did indeed remind me of myself: how she tries to capture his scent from his jacket, how she opens the fridge and looks at all the things he liked to eat, how she truly does not want people about her all the time but needs time on her own, how she feels when tidying up that everything she clears away means losing a bit of the life they had together. When my husband was still alive, he did all our washing and ironing (as well as the shopping, cooking and cleaning), and I remember very well how I stood in front of my wardrobe, looked at my pretty summer dresses (he died in November) and thought that these were all still ironed by him and one day I would be wearing them again, washing them and then, piece by piece, all the items that had still been dealt with by Steve, would be replaced by items I had washed and ironed myself.
I also can relate to how she does not necessarily conform to how everyone else expects her to react, to play her role, and how she dislikes people making thoughtless remarks and watch her closely with a somewhat perverse interest in wanting to see her crumble and cry, because she MUST crumble and cry at some stage, doesn't she? 
An acquaintance of mine came over a few days after Steve's death, to "cheer me up". What she did was telling me in all detail about how her mother died several years ago. Much as I appreciated her visiting me, I must admit I wasn't particularly interested at that moment in hearing of her late mother. Maybe that was cold-hearted of me?

There is a lot more about Ellie to which I can not relate, one of the things being her seemingly constant drinking, either on her own or with her friends, and how hard she finds it to keep the house clean and warm, does not dress properly for the cold weather and opens her door to everyone who rings the bell without checking who it is.

Also, Ellie seems to look at the way things are done at the crematorium with contempt because group after group are having their funeral services, and there is a slightly accusing note in her observation of how other people go on with their normal lives and do their jobs. Well, that's life for you, I'm afraid. The world does not stop simply because a young man died in a car crash in London and you are now a widow. It didn't stop for me, and it does not stop for the thousands of people who die every second, some in such atrocious ways and horrible circumstances that it hardly bears thinking about.

A few details in the book don't really match, and I wonder why they weren't spotted by an editor. For instance, at one point Ellie is said to have no money for food, and only a few pages on she goes and buys herself a mobile phone. Also, she always seems to have enough money to go to restaurants for meals and drinks with her friends. Another detail I can't find credible is when one evening her friends drop in, bringing groceries (now that is, of course, entirely credible and very nice of those friends) to Ellie's kitchen. While they talk, the shopping bags are put on the table, and one of the friends starts chewing on a carrot from the bags. Now, come on! Nobody does that, do they? If you eat a raw carrot, you peel it first, you don't simply grab it from the shopping bag and start chewing on it, do you? Sorry - but I do like the details to be right.

Fairly early into the story, I was quite sure who was behind Greg's death and that of the mystery woman, and I was right. That didn't take away from the book, though. I liked it and found it good company yesterday, when I spent about 2 1/2 hours on various trains for going to see a customer and on the way back. It will go into a parcel I am going to send to my mother-in-law; I imagine she will like it.

Read in 2012 - 23: Containment

A book like no other I have ever read, "Containment" by Jack Retsoff left me with mixed feelings; I was glad when I finally finished it last night, but somehow would have still liked to have a bit more clarity about what had actually been going on.

It is not an easy read, sometimes moving so slow and conversation between characters being so stilted that you want to give them a little shove with impatience, but highly atmospheric with some beautiful word pictures forming inside the mind while reading.

The outer frame is an institution where terminally ill and contagious patients spend their last years; some of them have admitted themselves, others are there against their will. But they all seemingly have settled into routines that give them the appearance of more or less normal lives, with visits to the library and the pool, taking their modest meals in the cafeteria, working (such as mopping the floors) and forming relationships among each other.

The patients are not allowed outside and do not receive visitors, being completely contained in their own world. An outlet for them seem to be their appointments with the doctors of the facility, where they are described as "garbling on", complaining about the food and other such issues. The mental health team consists of four doctors, all of which we meet through the fourth and youngest of them, newcomer Erik Perhkin. The doctors live in comparative luxury; they have coffee, elaborate meals, alcoholic drinks and a grand piano in their lounge, whereas the patients have none of that.

Erik soon learns that there is one special case among the many: a woman who is, unlike everybody else here, not contagious, not even physically ill, but was put into the facility because of her mental health: She has "incurable writer's block" and has been living at the institution for four years. We never learn her real name; she is referred to throughout the book as "the Writer", while her closest attachment is to a male patient called "the Reader". The two of them are lovers with all the emotional involvement but none of the physical, since the Reader is contagious and does not want to infect the Writer.

For every doctor at the facility so far, the Writer's case has proved one they were unable to solve. Erik now comes along and makes another attempt, gaining the Writer's trust as well as the Reader's - for a time.

He manages indeed to "cure" the Writer, but the consequences are tragical.

I won't say more, and hopefully have not given away too much already...!

A really strange book (strange in a good way); the language is never vulgar, always elegant, even a bit old-fashioned at times, something I truly appreciate. Unfortunately, there are many typesetting errors in the book, something I always find hard to tolerate, as those of you who have been reading my reviews for a while will know. The dream sequences are sometimes rather long for my taste, but other readers probably appreciate them more.

Something For John, and A Moony Picture

Those of you who know Scriptor Senex aka CJ aka John possibly also know that he loves Florentines; they find mention on his blog every now and then, such as here.

When I was still living at home, we would regularly get Florentines (and other, equally delicious sweet bits) from the bakery a few minutes walking distance from where we lived, but ours looked different; they were larger and flatter, and were nicknamed "armour plates" for their shape and texture (don't worry - nobody lost any teeth because of them).

This week, when I was having my usual once-a-week lunch break at my parents', my Mum offered Florentines for dessert. They were different again; softer and thicker than the ones I remembered from my youth, but delicious!

And I did remember to take a picture with my Mum's camera, especially for you, John.

A few nights ago, we had a full moon and the whole set up of the sky with fast moving clouds was so dramatic and beautiful to look at that I want to share it with you:

Over this weekend, the Perseids (meteorite shower) are supposed to be visible, and best to be observed between midnight and pre-dawn. With RJ arriving here tonight and staying the weekend, there is a good chance we'll still be up at that time, and I am going to look for them.

Read in 2012 - 22: A Lady Of Quality

You guessed it - another free title from the Kindle store that found its way onto my Kindle in spring:

"A Lady Of Quality" by Frances Hodgson Burnett.
If, like me, you loved the author's "Secret Garden" as a child, you will be surprised by this book; it was published in 1896 and, unlike her most famous books, not aimed at children.

Meet Clorinda Wildairs, born in 1690 to an uncaring brute of a father and an unloved mother who dies right after giving birth to her, almost taking her with her.
Clorinda grows up without any female to turn to for guidance; the only "education" she receives is from her father's servants, who succumb to the little monster's every whim, and teach her how to swear, ride and drink at a very tender age.
Nothing is tender about Clorinda, though; she is physically as big and strong as mentally, and only when she is already six years old, her first encounter with her father finally makes him acknowledge her.

As she grows up, she becomes more of a ladette every day, much to her father's and his drinking and riding companions' amusement; but at some point in her teenage years, she decides she wants to escape this way of life, and knowing full well that the only way is through marrying well, she improves herself to the point of becoming the most sought-after beauty of her time.

This improvement seems really too good to be true, and deep down, Clorinda's character changes little - at first. She still has her iron will, matched by an iron hand with which she rules over her household. But then, the inevitable happens:
She falls in love...
...and of course, that changes everything, and Clorinda turns into something that can hardly be described as human anymore.

All those lovely qualities now present in her are so unlikely, making her a super-heroine and not a credible human character anymore.
Her new, super-holy and super-happy life is endangered by someone revisiting her from her past, but she deals with that in a manner that the author clearly intended to be surprising, with a "mystery" twist to it that is revealed only at the very end of the book, but to be honest, nothing about it was really surprising or mysterious.

I did stick with the book and not break off midway through (as I was tempted to do a few times), because I confess I wanted to know whether Clorinda was going to be found out or not. F. H. Burnett clearly wanted to give this book the impression of an authentic account, written shortly after the events had taken place in the late 1600s and early 1700, and used a style and language she obviously thought would have been used in those days, 200 years before her lifetime. I don't know how successful she was in emulating the writing style of the Queen Anne period, but it does get a bit much when nearly every sentence starts with " 'Twas so that..." and people ask each other "what dost thou mean?" and so on.

My overall verdict of this book was: too much of everything. Too much "old fashioned" style, too much of the bad at first and then the good in the heroine, too much dramatic emotion, expressed in too much of a dramatic language to make the characters feel life-like.
What a contrast to "A Fair Barbarian", which I reviewed here; just goes to show that one can not rely on liking a book simply because one likes other works by the same author.

Read in 2012 - 21: A Housefly in Autumn and The Marriages

Another "two in one" book review - both "books" were so short that I am counting them as one, and both ended in such an abrupt manner that I wonder whether I actually downloaded the complete work or just something like a teaser.

The first one, "A Housefly in Autumn", is by Scott Nagele and tells the story of a certain Anders Christiansen who, growing up the son of a humble fisherman and his wife, learns the art of storytelling from his father, then goes on to studying in town because his teachers recognize his extraordinary talent, and seems to have a bright future ahead until something happens that brings his shining prospects to sudden end.

Exactly as sudden as the book ended, yes. And now I know why: on doing reasearch about this book just now, I found this piece of information on a different website (not on Amazon itself, mind you): "A Housefly In Autumn - 2012 ABNA Quarter Finalist in the YA Fiction Category (5,000 word excerpt free on Amazon)".

Now, I obviously downloaded this 5000-word-excerpt, but why wasn't that information available on the product page on Amazon? All it says there is that it is a 2012 ABNA entry (whatever ABNA stands for).

Anyway, the excerpt was interesting enough to make me want to read on, although the writing itself is not exactly brilliant.

Why I am saying this should become obvious from this paragraph, to be found at the end of the 1st chapter:

Whether Anders Christiansen's story is a happy one or a sad one depends upon how you look at it. I leave it to you to look at it how you will and decide for yourself whether you think it is a happy story or a sad one.

Sounds a bit... like someone who has not much practice in writing, and his editor apparently did not mind the repetition. Still, as I said, it would have been nice to read the whole story and not been cut off after the first five chapters.

The second one was "The Marriages" by Henry James. For me, it was the first time ever I read anything by Henry James, which might surprise some of you, seen that I was originally trained as a librarian, and Mr. James has certainly contributed largely enough to the world of literature. 

"The Marriages" was written in 1891 and is classified as a novella on Wikipedia - again, this information was not available on the Amazon product page, but it would have been good to know beforehand, since then the shortness of the book would not have come as such a surprise.

I liked this book - not for the main character, young Adela, who to me comes across like a rather selfish person, given to hysterical and over-dramatic reactions, but for its language. The descriptions of characters and settings are beautiful and atmospheric without being too lengthy, and the age of this novella does not diminuish the pleasurable reading experience, since it is still easy enough to understand, without needing a dictionary.

Two marriages - actually three - are the background for this book; one that sadly ended in the death of the wife long before the events of the novella take place, one that should never have happened, and one that never comes about - but maybe would have been good. And it is this that I missed in the book, this exploring of what could have been, how the characters could have developed further.

Still, "The Marriages" was certainly not a waste of time. I just wish I would have known from the start it was not a full-length novel, but a novella.

Read (and not read) in 2012 - 20: The Morrow Plot and Banzai!

Does it sometimes happen to you that you start reading something and never finish it, because you are too bored or the style is too awful (or for some other reason)?

It did happen to me yesterday.

When I was on my Kindle downloading spree earlier this year, one of the 80 or so books was "Banzai" by Parabellum (which is the pseudonym of an author named Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff).

This English edition was published in 1909 in New York. I was looking forward to the elegant language of the time (and, stylewise, was not disappointed), and found the foreword rather intriguing. Among other things, it says

That the Pacific Ocean may become [...] the Peaceful Ocean, and never resound to the clash of American arms, is the devout wish of one who believes - implicitly - with Moltke in the old proverb, Si vis pacem, para bellum - If you wish for Peace, prepare for War.

This apparent contradiction (and I'd heard this particular proverb before) and the connection the author would make to the events described in the book - which I took to be for real, after having read the introduction - was what interested me in the story.

And it began interestingly enough. The settings change from an officer's club in Manila, where the gentlemen are so bored out of their minds by their military routine as well as affected by the tropical heat that all they manage to do in the evenings is drink whiskey and smoke, to a tiny train station in the middle of nowhere in the Oregon prairie, to the office of the rich owner of a factory producing pianos in New York, to the post office in San Francisco where telegram boys wait their orders, trying to keep awake on a sleepy Sunday morning.

Then, though, the military part takes over, and a seemingly endless series of troop movements, ship's names, strength of batteries and all sorts of war tactics follow, and I am not so keen on that. I skipped a few pages, only to find more of the same, and eventually decided to let it drop, when I was just short of being half way through the book.

As I said, I thought the events described were real. But when I did research this particular period of time on the internet, everything that had to do with a Japanese-American conflict lead to Pearl Harbour; there were references to massive anti-Japanese sentiments (and terrible riots) and racist legislation in the late 1800s and early 1900s (the book being set mainly in 1907), but not going as far as open war being declared between Japan and the US. And finally having found out that Mr. Grautoff originally wrote his story (in German) in 1905, of course the events he describes as to having taken place in 1907 can't be anything than fictional.

Maybe someone who really is massively into all things military appreciates "Banzai" - I certainly don't.


For some lighter reading, I started then on "The Morrow Plot" by Sarah Wisseman.

I had made the mistake of never checking the length of the book and expected a novel - and was surprised when it came to a sudden end after less than half an hour's worth of reading. Not the author's fault, of course, but I think "The Morrow Plot" could have profited from some filling in of character's descriptions and a bit more of a story to it. It is supposed to be an archaelogical mystery, but there is really nothing much mysterious about it, and therefore, I was a bit disappointed.
Also, for a text so short, there were way too many typesetting errors in it. Sarah Wisseman should definitely talk to her editors.


Both books were for free, so, apart from a bit of my time, not much was wasted :-)

Read in 2012 - 19: Netherwood

This is the 2nd book of the small pile Mary gave me when my sister and I went to see the family in England back in May, as mentioned here (plus, if you are interested, there are several blog entries from our week there under the label "Travelling").

"Netherwood" by Jane Sanderson was a good read throughout, although in some cases, I was left with the feeling that I would have liked for the author to explore more of certain character's lives; but, as I gather from the (very nicely done) author's website, there is to be a sequel out in September, so my curiosity may be satisfied then.

The story itself sounds simple enough: Young woman from the humblest of backgrounds meets tragic events that could turn her life this way or that - she decides to fight, and with the help of loyal friends and powerful allies, works her way up to become a successful business woman, finding true love (who would have guessed!) along the way.

What gives "Netherwood" its special appeal to me is that it is set in South Yorkshire, in a small mining town near Barnsley, an area I know well, because it is were my late husband's family come from (in fact, Steve proposed to me in a pub in Barnsley).
I can hear the character's voices, picture the small houses and smell the cooking.
Yes, there is plenty of cooking and baking going on in the book - and some of the recipes are at the end of the book as well as on the website.

Most of the time, I can relate to what the characters do and how they feel; places and people are described in a manner that makes it easy to visualize them, and the flow and pace of the story is neither too complicated nor too fast, but makes for a relaxing read.

I learnt many new and was reminded of old words by the book. Some examples are batch of parkin, knur and spell, laikin, bramleys, filly, britches, pleached hornbeam, attar of roses, and obeisance. Someone's thirst is slaked (never heard that expression before), and Gibson Girls are mentioned. The countess "peals with laughter" at a party, and that made me realise I have no idea how anyone's laughter can be compared to the sound of pealing. Can you? A young man "unfolds himself from the stone balustrade on which he was artfully draped", and can't you just picture that? (Needless to say, that particular young man is quite full of himself and doesn't care much about anyone else but His Lordship.)
Sometimes the way speech is written as dialect can get a bit in the way of reading. Not because I wouldn't understand it (I do), but because of all the 's for dropped letters. An example:

"Aye, well, if Percy Medlicott 'its t'knut, it's a blasted miracle," said Arthur. " 'E's t'only fella I know who calls 'imself an expert at a game 'e can't play."

And that is pretty much how every sentence uttered by the humble Yorkshire miners and their families looks like, and how Eve Williams, the heroine, talks.
So, a bit less of the ', and the book would have been even more pleasurable to read. Yes, I do understand the author used this way of dialect writing to add to the atmosphere, but it wasn't always necessary, I think.
Very good editing; I didn't find any typos or inconsistencies.

And I am probably going to try to make drop scones - they sound easy enough, even for someone like me :-)
Let me finish with a picture of Yorkshire puddings straight from the oven:

Steve made these often for us on Sundays, and I know how to make them, too. Next time, I'll make sure to take new pictures and post the recipe Steve got from Mary.