The Bonesetter's Daughter

 

The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The story of a daughter trying to understand her mother. Then she finds a memoir that fleshes out her mother's life in China, before coming to America. That was the most interesting part and I wish there would have been more of that. But the whole book is really a study in the ways we don't or can't communicate--whether because of deformity, illness, personality, secrets, mis-translations, secrets, death, etc. Sometimes the miscommunication is necessary, even desired (war-time) but most of the time it leads to sadness, calamity, grief.

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A Fatal Grace

A Fatal Grace by Louise Penny
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

So much better than the first installment in this series, this is the perfect cozy mystery. Two cases improbably intertwined with plenty of suspects, action, and perfect pacing. I enjoyed the quiet moments as well when characters recalled moments when they "met God" and others tried to give grace to others. On the whole, it's a pleasurable escape even if it does involve murder.

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Electricity is like a living thing.  It's desperate to stay alive.  It races from one form to another, through the metal, through the body, and into the earth.  And along the way it races through the heart.

Still Life

 

Still Life by Louise Penny
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A woman whom everyone seems to like is killed in the woods of a little village in Canada and Armund Ganache must figure out who did it and why. It's a pretty good detective story, with plenty of red herrings and and misdirects, but there were a few things that bothered me to the point of distraction. The main one being that soon after the discovery, Gamache assembles the town to update them and then asks for their advice. Why give the murderer a look into the investigation and give them a chance to get rid of evidence? If you don't know anything about archery, call an expert, don't ask the community! He also becomes too friendly with townspeople who may well be the perpetrator. Also, what is the point about the rookie, Nichols? Seemed unfinished in that regard. Still, it is a first book in a very recommended series, so might give it a second chance.

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A Gentleman in Moscow

 

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This had a sort of Oceans Eleven vibe, although it involved only a Count and some hotel staff. I couldn't help but see George Clooney as Count Rostov, making the most of this in-house prison sentence on good food, good manners, and some carefully orchestrated hijinks. There were certainly some good life-lessons here, but at the same time, it never really felt real. The horror of what was WWII seemed to boil down to the difficulties of getting good ingredients, and the anxiety he must have felt waiting for Nina to come back was transposed by the difficulty of answering precocious questions by her daughter. But taking it for what it is, it was a joy to read, fun to see how he gets himself out of various difficulties, and the descriptions of food made me want to order some lamb stew or Bouillabaisse.

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how long did it take for them to fashion coins, crowns, and swords?  That unholy trinity to which the common man was enslaved for the next one thousand years?

if attentiveness should be measured in minutes and discipline measured in hours, then indomitability must be measured in years.

If you are ever in doubt, just remember that unlike adults, children want to be happy.  So they still have the ability to take the greatest pleasure in the simplest things. 

They had created the poetry of silence.

We are prepared to destroy that which we have created because we believe more than any of them in the power of the picture, the poem, the prayer or the person.

The Veiled Throne

The Veiled Throne by Ken Liu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

it's been awhile since I visited the Dandelion Dynasty but I love it now as much as I did back then, even if I can't clearly recall everything that went on before. Liu creates a world so completely--he explores the political, social, and personal impacts invasion and colonialism has on the invaders, the enslaved, and those who lay outside the conflict but debate about whether or not to get involved. The Asian-leaning "slik-punk" culture is also very detailed and so interesting. Even a competition between restaurants becomes fraught with mysteries, contraptions, wonders, and schemes in the hands of Liu. Throughout the book Liu explores the question of language, what it is, how it is preserved or not how we communicate our stories or information and how that affects future generations. Meanwhile, there are mysteries yet to be solved, alliances to be made, wars to be fought, and love to be rekindled. This book may seem a bit of a build-up more. than the actual event, but even when it lays down ground-work, it is still a fascinating read.

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Whether you're listening to a language you're born into a language you barely comprehend, every utterance is first filled by expectations before it is parsed for meaning.  

She had not known that she was cold until she was no longer cold.  Change was what made knowledge possible.  

But without embarrassment, it was impossible to learn.

Therefore speech, being thinking-breath, was as mortal as the speaker.  No matter how hard one tried, one could not hold on to speech.  For that, she loved it all the more.

Are we defined by the stories we know and love?

The Shadow King

The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This novel is hard to critique, because it is more like poem in novel form. The Shadow King refers to a double of Haile Selassie, the king of Ethiopia, who inspired Ethiopian resistance fighters to attack Italian invaders prior to WWII. Navarre Ettore is a Jewish Italian photographer, who sees himself as simply a chronicler of the atrocities of war without seeing the damage those photos can do, and fears for his and his family's safety in a increasingly hostile anti-Semitic regime. Hirut is the protagonist, the subject of Ettore's photos, the bodyguard of the king's double, and a young woman caught between the dark and light of war and love. While the story is mostly linear, the unfolding story is interrupted by a chorus, who though not told in song or poem form, you can almost feel the collective consciousness recounting their parts in a multitude of concerted voices. It is also interrupted by descriptions of photos Ettore has taken, described so perfectly you can almost see them. The idea of of light and shadow plays so prominently throughout the book its significance cannot be missed, and yet its obviousness underscores and enhances rather than becoming tiresome and weary. Having finished it, I left with impressions that were more akin to a series of photos than of a moving picture of what has taken place and that alone shows a brilliance in the writing.

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The Portable Veblen

 

The Portable Veblen by Elizabeth Mckenzie
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Writing satire, or claiming to be "laugh out-loud funny" is a precarious endeavor. I never once laughed out-loud. I did see the points she was trying to make with consumerism and big-pharma, as well as how we treat disabled. But instead of the being ludicrous to the point of making you think, or laugh out-loud, it came off as slightly disturbing. I so enjoyed Veblen talking to the squirrel, and the part the squirrel played in the whole thing. But the relationships between everyone else was simply toxic and I have no idea why someone as kind-hearted as Veblen could possibly be interested in Peter, whose resentment and verbal abuse of his disabled brother was more than alarming. Perhaps other people with different ideas of humor will find this charming, but aside from Veblen and the squirrel, I don't get it.

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The Story of the Lost Child

 

The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

So now it comes full circle. What was a childhood incident has become reality. The idea that has been flitting in and out of the pages has become front and center--the visibility and identity of the main characters--as women, as political players, as mothers, as lovers, as people who move in this world. What could make a person completely disappear? What happened, why, who is responsible? Some characters physically disappear but as Ferrante's narration completes, we realize there are so many moments when the main characters were invisible, either by choice or by circumstance. They defined themselves by each other, by their friends, money, education, connections, political affliations, familial obligations, but did they really ever discover who THEY were? Were they ever truly seen by another? Are we? Often we are invisible, but just as often we choose to hide behind others and belittle our own existence. Perhaps it is inevitable. Of course, as these women slide into old age, their lives become more and more about routine and the "author" even lets whole decades go by in a few paragraphs. I look back to The Story of a New Name where most of the book is one summer--but while sometimes I felt I was plodding along just to finish the saga, I couldn't give up on the two characters that truly grew on me and I cared how they ended up. So many insights and truths along this journey, and although I didn't always like what the main characters did, they felt real and I couldn't wait to see what they would do next.

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At those moments I saw myself suddenly for what I was: a slave, willing to always do what he wanted,

I, whatever I among those I was accumulating, I would remain firm, I was the needle of the compass that stays fixed while the lead traces circles around it.

When, in spite of her defensive manipulation of persons and things, the liquid prevailed, Lila lost Lila, chaos seemed the only truth, and she—so active, so courageous—erased herself and, terrified, became nothing.

Being close to him gave you the impression of being visible, especially to yourself, and you were content.

that if I went on like that I would lose myself.

Finally it was clear that what I was wasn’t her, and vice versa.

I was I and for that very reason I could make space for her in me and give her an enduring form.

But if she disappears, if you no longer know anything about her, there’s not a thing that remains in her place, in your life.

Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

 

Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ah, middle age. We have the same strivings, questions, longings, but also responsibilities and routines and in spite of recurrent dramas, they seem a bit flat compared to youth. Even in Ferrante's talented hands, Lina's and Lena's lives feel a bit past their prime. Lenu tries to balance career with family life (and quite frankly makes a mess of it) while Lina's seeming happiness is great for her but a bit boring for us. There is still plenty of sparkling moments, don't get me wrong. And the realization of how long we (especially women) struggle to define ourselves is at once sad and inspiring. Less happens with age (especially with women) becomes we become more invisible. Perhaps that is why Lenu especially seems intent on creating her own drama even if it involves self-sabatoge.

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THOSE WHO LEAVE AND THOSE WHO STAY

No, we remain us and they are they.

And she went on, but taking a self-mocking turn. She wove the praises of her own cleverness, slipping slowly from the luxuries that she had acquired by winning Solara to the solitude of her duties as a bride. Michele, she said, is never here, it’s as if I were getting married by myself. And she suddenly asked me, as if she really wanted an opinion: Do you think I exist? Look at me, in your view do I exist? She hit her full breasts with her open hand, but she did it as if to demonstrate physically that the hand went right through her, that her body, because of Michele, wasn’t there. He had taken everything of her, immediately, when she was almost a child. He had consumed her, crumpled her, and now that she was twenty-five he was used to her, he didn’t even look at her anymore. He fucks here and there as he likes.

It’s as if you fabricated your very own torture, she exclaimed, and I realized then that she wasn’t capable of thinking that she was her self and I was my self; it seemed to her inconceivable that I could have a pregnancy different from hers, and a different feeling about children.

who am I if you aren’t great, who am I? I whispered: Don’t worry, always tell me what you think, that’s the only way you can help me, you’ve helped me since we were children, without you I’m not capable of anything.

I couldn’t get Nadia’s insults out of my mind, the way she spoke, as if it were nothing, in my house.

Did it mean that for him I was no longer Lenù, Elena, Elena Greco? For him and for how many others? Even for me? Did I myself not almost always use my husband’s surname, now that mine had lost that small luster it had acquired?

I took the train, playing with the girls and feeding them, but saddened by another me—the poor, uneducated girlfriend of the wealthy and hyperpoliticized student Franco Mari: how many me’s were there by now?—who had been lost somewhere and was now re-emerging.

This time I decided to try it, but only because, in spite of the wine, I felt I hadn’t a single solid thing to hold on to. My sister-in-law became furious, then stopped talking and burst into tears. I couldn’t find a single word of comfort. I felt her tears, it seemed to me that they made a sound sliding from her eyes down her cheeks. Suddenly I couldn’t see her, I couldn’t even see the room, everything turned black. I fainted.

my body weighed heavily because of an excess of discipline, and the lexicon of books and journals dripped anguish as if suddenly the signs of the alphabet could no longer be combined.

When I insisted on staying, he was irritated, and whispered: I’m not myself, go away.

I remembered details of what Stefano had done to Lila, details that I imagined while Silvia was narrating, and it seemed to me that the words of both stories were animal cries of terror.

he appeared willing to love me only provided that I continually demonstrate my nothingness.

In other words I couldn’t rely on Pietro, he looked at me without seeing me.

His wife—I wished to think—did not absorb him. Eleonora was one of the many pieces of his busy life, but had no influence on him, Nino went forward on his own path without attaching any importance to her.

They show up inside us and withdraw, leaving, concealed in our flesh, their ghost, like a lost object.

The Story of a New Name

 

The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It starts out as a trip to the beach and what takes place in that fateful summer changes the course of their lives. There is a reunion and a betrayal. Who did Lina really betray? Was it inevitable? Why? As Lenu's and Lina's friendship becomes more complicated and interconnected, the question of who needs whom, what education and money truly means, and why we love the ones we do swirl around as these young adults try to figure out what is important and who they truly are.

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Yet they appeared to have lost those feminine qualities that were so important to us girls and that we accentuated with clothes, with makeup. They had been consumed by the bodies of husbands, fathers, brothers, whom they ultimately came to resemble, because of their labors or the arrival of old age, of illness.

Day by day the sense of myself that had so unexpectedly expanded after the party diminished, I felt dispirited.

impression—recurrent in our story—that I was losing something and she was gaining.

She had taken possession of my old feeling, had made it her own.

but to wait for her life and that of the baby to lose their outlines, any possible definition, and she found that there was nothing left in her mind, not even a trace of the thing that made her spiteful, that is to say the awareness of abandonment.

as if the pure and simple fact that he loved me were the public sanctioning of my talents.

I had quickly understood that Franco, his presence in my life, had masked my true condition but hadn’t changed it, I hadn’t really succeeded in fitting in.