Category: Lust To Go

Cabin Fever

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Jolley, Elizabeth. Cabin Fever. New York: Harper Perennial, 1990.

We don’t really move forward chronologically in this “sequel” to My Father’s Moon. When we last left Vera, she was a single mother dealing with her own overbearing mother. The story bounced between Vera’s present and her past. Cabin Fever is more of the same, only with more detail about the time period. In this installment Vera is in New York for a conference but for almost all of the plot we are in the past, when Vera is a new mother trying to make ends meet. She is still as sad and lonely as she ever was. It is at this point that we learn Vera’s mother made Vera change her baby’s name from Beatrice to Helena. We also learn more about the affair between Vera and Dr. Metcalf, a doctor she worked with at the hospital. Vera bounces from one live-in nanny/housekeeper situation to another until she lands at the Georges residence (enter sequel number three). Brother and sister live together and already have a live-in, Nora. Vera finds a way to stay in the house by filling another need of the household. I’ll leave that bit unspoken. You just have to read it to find out…

Quotes that moved me, “Playful spinsters and exuberant lesbians give birth and special seminars are held to discuss the phenomenon of these people wanting to keep their babies” (p 6), “In my secret game of comparisons Bulge us far worse than I am in every respect, her hair, her stockings, her spectacles, and her shape” (p 12),

Confessional: because I didn’t really like Vera in My Father’s Moon I wasn’t looking forward to her story in Cabin Fever. By the end of Cabin Fever I didn’t learn to like her any better. There is a scene towards the end (p 164) when Vera’s daughter is crying. Vera doesn’t go to comfort her. All she can do is watch her four-year-old from across the room. It’s really sad.

Reason read: Cabin Fever continues the series I started earlier in February to honor of Jolley’s passing.

Author fact: According the the back flap of Cabin Fever Jolley conducted writing workshops in prisons. I find that so fascinating.

Book trivia: Cabin Fever is the second book in the Vera Wright Trilogy.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Australia, the Land of Oz: fiction” (p 30). As with My Father’s Moon, Cabin Fever has nothing to do with Australia. Jolley started writing after she moved there. So, I guess it’s like the Olympics. You can represent a country even though you weren’t born there. You just have to have some connection to it.

Men of Men

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Smith, Wilbur. Men of Men. New York: Doubleday & co., 1983.

Because Men of Men picks up where Flight of the Falcon left off we rejoin Zouga Ballantyne. Now he is ten years older and married to a society girl named Aletta. Despite many miscarriages she has given him two boys, Ralph and Jordan. Somehow Zouga has convinced his family to join him in Africa where he is still searching for riches, only this time instead of elephants and gold it is diamonds. His eldest son, Ralph, is exposed to gambling, violence and prostitution at sixteen, literally coming of age in the bush. It’s Ralph we continue to follow for the most of Men of Men although most characters from Flight return. Robyn, Mungo, Clinton and Charoot, to name a few. In reality, it is everyone’s greed we bear witness to. As with all of Smith’s other books, Men of Men is rich with African history and adventure as well as strong characters, only there are more of them to play with.

Typical quotes, “It was a beautiful stabbing, a glory which men would sing about” (p 291),

Reason read: Men of Men continues the series started with Flight of the Falcon in December. Read in honor of Rhodesia’s Shangani Day.

Author fact: Wilbur Smith’s middle name is Addison. What a cool name!

Book trivia: Wilbur uses the same picture for his photo on the dust jacket. Except this photo has been darkened a little so there is a strange shadow across half his face.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Zipping Through Zimbabwe/Roaming Rhodesia” (p 268).

Ocean of Words

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Jin, Ha. Ocean of Words. New York: Vintage International, 1996.

Ocean of Words is made up of twelve short stories, all centered around Chinese soldiers on the brink of war with Russia in the early 1970s. In every story there is a Chinese soldier wrestling with suspicion, loyalty, individualism and power. They all wave weaknesses or flaws that render them human above all else. Each character possesses a depth of personality that leaves the reader thinking about him long after the story has ended.  I particularly liked the title story in which the “ocean of words” is a dictionary indexed in Chinese, Latin and English.

In order, the short stories are:

  • “A Report”
  • “Too Late”
  • “Uncle Piao’s Birthday Dinners”
  • “Love in the Air”
  • “Dragon Head”
  • A Contract”
  • “Miss Jee”
  • “A Lecture”
  • “The Russian Prisoner”
  • The Fellow Townsmen”
  • “My Best Soldier”
  • “Ocean of Words”

My favorite quotes, “Once you’re conquered by foreigners, you’ve lost everything” (p 27), “History is a mess of chances and accidents” (p 77), and “Mind modeling is more important” (p 174).

My favorite stories: “A Contract” and “Ocean of Words.”

Reason read: Celebrating Ha Jin’s birth month.

Author fact: Ocean of Words is Ha Jin’s first fiction.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called, “China:the Middle Kingdom” (p 61).

My Father’s Moon

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Jolley, Elizabeth. My Father’s Moon. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1989.

Veronica Wright (Vera) is trying to find her way. As a mother to young Helena. As a daughter to an overbearing mother. As a nurse in war-torn England. As an unpopular student at a stuffy boarding school. She find solace in the little things, like the promise of a moon she and her father can both see, no matter how far apart they may be. We start at the end, when Vera is a single mother, but then weave our way back through Vera’s beginnings. At times, the story is disjointed and meandering; I think of it as chronologically schizophrenic. I didn’t care for all the jumping around. And. I didn’t care for Vera and her miserable personality. There. I said it. There is something so hopeless and lost about Vera’s spirit.  She isn’t in touch with her feelings, doesn’t know when to laugh, is awkward around her peers, has been told she has no sex appeal, is ignored in most situations…Her relationships with fellow students, nurses and family are suspicious. Jolley drops hints about the true nature of them, but nothing is clear.

Quotes I liked, “That day she asked me what time it was, saying that she must hurry and get her wrists slashed before Frederick comes back from his holiday” (p 9), “There is something hopeless in being hopeful that one person can actually match and replace another” (p 53), “there are times when an unutterable loneliness is the only company in the cold morning” (p 69), and, last one, “The feeling I have of being able to reach out to take the sky in both hands is one of the most restful things I have ever known” (p 108).

Reason read: Jolley died in the month of February (2007). Read to honor her passing.

Author fact: Even though this was in the Australian section of Book Lust To Go, Jolley isn’t Australian. She was born in England and moved to Australia.

Book trivia: This is the first book in the Vera Wright Trilogy.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Australia, the Land of Oz (fiction)” (p 30). I’m not sure why My Father’s Moon is in this chapter.  Technically, Jolley wasn’t Australian and the book doesn’t take place in Australia. Yes, she lived in Australia, began her writing career in Australia and made herself a name as a writer there…

Palladian Days

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Gable, Sally and Carl I. Gable. Palladian Days: Finding a New Life in a Venetian Country House. Read by Kathe Mazur. Westminster, MD: Books On Tape, 2005.

How does a person thinking about buying a vacation home in New Hampshire wind up intent on home ownership in Italy? Better yet, how does a Hot-lanta couple decide they need to live in a 16th century villa in the Vento region? We’re talking about a house built in 1552! Sally and Carl Gable’s story of buying Villa Cornaro is fascinating and, by the way Sally tells it, very funny. Palladian Days is a great combination of historical facts about the region, the architect, the owners of the house as well as modern day Italian ways. Everything from fixing the villa to opening it for tours, recitals and concerts is covered. Gable includes Italian recipes, hilarious stories of the many, many visitors, the 15 minutes of fame when Villa Cornaro was featured on a Bob Vila show.
As an aside, I borrowed both the audio version and the print version. I recommend doing both because you will miss out on something if you do only one. Kathe Mazur’s reading of Palladian Days is brilliant. I loved her accent. But, the book version includes great photographs that really bring the entire villa into perspective (it really is massive!). And don’t forget about those recipes!

Reason read: So. There is this food fight festival called the Battle of Oranges that takes place in Italy every February. Something I would love to see one of these days.

Author fact: Both Sally and her husband, Carl, have musical backgrounds.

Book trivia: Even though this was delightful as an audio book, it is better read in print. Gable includes a bunch of recipes in the appendix that are not to be missed!

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the odd chapter called “So We/I Bought (Or Built) a House In…” (p 211).

Artist of the Floating World

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Ishiguro, Kazuo. An Artist of the Floating World. New York: Vintage International, 1986.

This is story about a change in cultural attitudes. After World War II many things are different for artist Masuji Ono. At the very simplest, his grandson idolizes the Lone Ranger and Godzilla instead of ancient emperors. At the most complicated, Masuji’s art is not received as it once was. His war efforts are not as admirable and are now making it difficult for his youngest daughter, nearly a spinster at twenty-six, to get married. Ono does what he can to eliminate “bad interviews” when the detectives investigate the family. But, as one former acquaintance remarks, “I realize there are not those who would condemn the likes of you and me for the very things we were once proud to have achieved” (p 94). Ono’s past is a heavy threat to the happiness of his daughter’s future. Throughout the story there is the theme of bondage. The conversations are retrained. The delicate relationships are bound by decorum.

As an aside: is it customary in the Japanese culture for people to repeat themselves so often? Complete sentences are uttered time and time again.

Reason read: On the second Monday in January there is a Japanese holiday to honor the tradition of coming of age. Since An Artist of the Floating World takes place in Japan….

Author fact: Ishiguro is better known for his book Remains of the Day which is also on my list to read.

Book trivia: An Artist of the Floating World won the Whitbread book of the Year Award in 1986.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Japanese Journeys” (p 116). Simple enough.

After the Dance

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Danticat, Edwidge. After the Dance: a Walk Through Carnival in Jacmel, Haiti. New York: Crown Publishers, 2002.

The premise for After the Dance is really quite simple. Danticat, despite growing up in Haiti, has never been to Carnival. Being one of the largest cultural events that defines the island, this seems impossible to imagine. But, the explanation is just as simple. While growing up, Danticat’s uncle convinced her Satan was at work during Carnival. To avoid the voodoo and zombies every year this uncle made his family leave town for the week to work on a relative’s farm. As an obvious result Danitcat grew up afraid of Carnival. After the Dance is her response to that fear, faced head on. She researches the symbolism and history behind it, but curiously enough, she doesn’t describe the actual event until the last 20 or so pages of the book. It isn’t until the very end (page 147) that she gives in to the emotion and describes what she feels. I have to admit, the result is anticlimactic. She eventually loses herself in the joy of Carnival but that joy is understated like a passing flicker of interest.

Quotes I liked, “There is a saying here: houses don’t have owners, only cemeteries do” (p 27).

Reasons I like Edwidge Danticat: “I have always enjoyed cemeteries” (p 25).

Reason read: January is Journal Month. It is also the anniversary of the earthquake that devastated Haiti in 2010. It is also when Carnival traditionally takes place (the first Sunday in January).

Author fact: Danticat moved to Brooklyn, New York when she was twelve but never forgot her roots.

Book trivia:  This is a short read – only 158 pages. It would have been great to have photographs to supplement the text.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Cavorting Through the Caribbean: Haiti” (p 55).

A Falcon Flies

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Smith, Wilbur. A Falcon Flies. Read by Stephen Thorne. Hampton: BBC Audiobooks America, 1980.

A Falcon Flies opens with Dr. Robyn Ballantyne sailing to southern Africa on a mission. She hopes to bring medical aid and Christianity to the people of her birthplace, single handedly bring an end to the slave trade, and find her famous-yet-missing missionary father. Along for the ride is her brother, Zouga. Once in Africa, Zouga plays a big part in solving the mystery of his missing father while Robyn is distracted with the attention of different men. Luckily, this only occurs in the beginning of the book. Subsequently, Robyn becomes a fierce, brave, independent woman, hellbent on finding her father and delivering kindness to every native she meets.
Wilbur Smith’s style of writing is, at times, soap-opera exaggerated. Robyn’s emotions are extremely dramatic. Once I was able to accept this bewilderment as fact I was able to enjoy the book that much more. Since it goes on for over 500 pages, this was a good thing!

As an aside: For me, personally, there is something positively creepy about a man writing about desiring a man from a woman’s point of view. I don’t know what it is, but the sexual tension scenes in A Falcon Flies seemed over the top. Smith’s description of Captain Mungo St. John’s body from Dr. Robyn Ballantyne’s point of view was a little ridiculous. Ballantyne is attracted and repelled by the captain, but you know which side wins out. The scene with her waiting in the captain’s bedchambers with pistols drawn is a little silly. Maybe I should read more bodice-rippers in an effort to get used to such high-fainting drama.

I find it increasingly frustrating to listen to an audio book that skips all the time. As a librarian, I feel it is my moral responsibility to loan material that is pleasurable to the patron. I would have deaccessioned this audio book a longtime ago!

Reason read: Shangani Day (December 4th) was an official holiday in Rhodesia, back in 1895. Read in honor of that day.

Author fact: Smith has quite the flashy website here. It was fun to poke around.

Book trivia: A Falcon Flies was published in the United States as Flight of the Falcon.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Zipping Through Zimbabwe/Roaming Rhodesia” (p 269).

In Patagonia

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Chatwin, Bruce. In Patagonia. New York: Penguin Books, 1977.

Chatwin’s In Patagonia has been called a masterpiece. It’s short, but a masterpiece nonetheless. This is not your typical travel book. Chatwin doesn’t linger over landscape and sights to see. Instead, he focuses on the historical and follows in the footsteps of legendary characters like Butch Cassidy. He journeys through Patagonia with a thirst for all that Patagonia is rumored to be, past and present. Don’t expect to have a clear picture of Patagonia in your head when you are finished. You won’t know the best restaurant or the biggest tourist attraction, but you will have captured the nostalgic and the profound instead. My only regret is there are only a quiet collection of photographs that don’t quite add up to the narrative.

Quotes I liked, “She still had the tatters of an extraordinary beauty” (p 61) and “Never kick the woman you love” (p 299). Great advice, if you ask me!

Reason read: According to a couple of travel sites, December is the best time to visit Patagonia. Hence, the December read.

Book trivia: Introduction was written by Nicholas Shakespeare who also wrote a biography of Chatwin.

Author Fact: Bruce Chatwin died at 48 years old of AIDS.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter simply called “Patagonia” (p 173). Also, in More Book Lust in the chapter called “True Adventures” (p 223).

Housekeeper and the Professor

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Ogawa, Yoko. The Housekeeper and the Professor. Translated by Stephen Snyder. New York: Picador, 2009.

Told from the point of view of the unnamed housekeeper, The Housekeeper and the Professor is a beautiful yet complex tale about an unlikely relationship. She is a single mother to a ten year old boy, cleaning the house of a once-brilliant professor. He is a mathematician who suffered a traumatic head injury that has left him with a memory that lasts only 80 minutes at a time. It’s an unusual predicament. The housekeeper must reintroduce herself to the professor every day she comes to cook and clean for the man. If she is at his tiny bungalow more than 80 minutes she must reintroduce herself in the same day. To try to compensate for his lack of memory, the professor has pinned notes about his life to help him cope. Included in his notes are details about the housekeeper and her son who the professor calls, “Root.” Despite the obvious obstacles the professor and the housekeeper develop a beautiful friendship. At the “root” of their relationship is ten year old Root, baseball, and the undying love for a left-handed pitcher.

Line that bothered me to no end, “He traced the symbol in the thick layer of dust on his desk” (p 1). This bothered me because the title of the book is The Housekeeper and the Professor. The housekeeper is speaking about the professor’s desk. Hello? Shouldn’t the desk be rid of dust if she is the housekeeper or does the definition of housekeeping differ in Japan?

As an aside, it was interesting to read two different books that have a left-handed pitcher in the plot.

Reason read: Emperor Akihot was born in the month of December.

Author fact: Ogawa also wrote The Diving Pool which is not on my list to read but seems like the better book because the back of The Housekeeper and the Professor has praise for The Diving Pool.

Book trivia: The Housekeeper and the Professor is short, only 180 pages long.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Japanese Journeys” (p 117).

Panther Soup

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Gimlette, John. Panther Soup: Travels Through Europe in War and Peace. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008.

John Gimlette is a travel writer with a flair for the historical with a bit of humor thrown in along the way. In Panther Soup Gimlette decides to retrace the European footsteps of the U.S. Army of 1944. He chooses to take Putnam Flint, a veteran of the tank destroyer battalion, “The Panthers” as his guide. Together, along with Flint’s son, they travel Flint’s path through France into Germany, starting with the seedy city of Marseille. This sets the tone for the entire travel adventure. Marseille had been described as “lethally weird,” and “a freak show for the chronically unhygienic” (p 26). Having Flint along as a guide allows Gimlette to dip into history and provide commentary on the regions as Flint experienced them in 1944.

Too many quotes, but here are a few of my favorites: “He remembered…a huge vat of Tunisian wine that it’s taken his comrades a week to drink. It was only when they had reached the bottom that they had found a dead New Zealander pickling in the dregs” (p 73), “The more you paid, the less you got; or at least you got a bigger piece of nothing” (p 92), “Clearly, to live a la Bouruinonne is to enjoy a life of red wine and cream, and to die aged forty-two under someone else’s wife” (p 100), and one more, “Over at the Beat Hotel, meanwhile, they’d written little that made any sense at all” (p 177).

Reason read: The Panthers traveled from Northern France in October 1944.

Author fact: Gimlette won the Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize and the Wanderlust Travel Writing Award AND practices law (according to the back flap of Panther Soup.)

Book trivia: In addition to photographs, Panther Soup has delightful illustrations and informative maps.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Explaining Europe: the Grand Tour” (p 82).

At Home in the Heart of Appalachia

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O’Brien, John. At Home in the Heart of Appalachia. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001.

Quite simply, At Home in the Heart of Appalachia is about family and home. However, right from the beginning you know there is a darker story bubbling under the guise of a memoir about a place. The quote on page three is very telling, “The flurry of phone calls two days ago made it clear that my presence would only add the family stress.” Later you learn that father and son have not spoken in 18 years. This is the backbone of O’Brien’s story. He weaves family memories and specific anecdotes of his dad into the landscape of Appalachia. A secondary motive is to make excuses and offer explanations for the misconceptions about Appalachians in the areas surrounding Franklin, West Virginia. Time and time again O’Brien refers to the region as “redneck” or “hillbilly” or “backward.” It is a way of life that is complicated and simple all at once.

Endearing quotes and whatnot: “West-By God-Virginia,” and “I often thought of my father that summer but did not call because of my own emotional tangle” (p 193), and “I sometimes think there is a tragedy at the center of every family that never stops reverberating” (p 210).

Reason read: The Old Time Fiddle Fest is held in September.

Author fact: At Home in the Heart of Appalachia is John O’Brien’s first book.

Book trivia: One of the best things about At Home in the Heart of Appalachia is the unique photographs. They are randomly throughout the text rather than in a chronological clump in the middle of the book.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Approaching Appalachia” (p 22).

Conspiracy and Other Stories

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Kross, Jaan. The Conspiracy and Other Stories. Translated by Eric Dickens. London: Harvill Press, 1995.

Eric Dickens, the translator for The Conspiracy and Other Stories felt it was necessary to stress the fact these six stories were written then Estonia did not have independence. The political climate of World War II is woven into the fabric of every story. The title of each short story is a major plot twist in each tale. For example, “The Wound” is about Peeter Mirk’s relationship with a woman named Flora. Flora suffers a life altering wound after taking a nasty fall. “Lead Piping” is another tragic tale involving a death by a lead pipe and “The Shahl Grammar” is a sad tale about a writer sacrificing his friend to save himself.

Reason read: The Baltic Singing Revolution took place in August.

Author fact: Conspiracy and Other Stories is a bit autobiographical. Jaan Kross is a lot like his main character, Peeter Mirk: a law student in and out of prison for various crimes.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “The Baltic States” (p 33).

Abide With Me

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Strout, Elizabeth. Abide With Me. Read by Gerrianne Raphael. New York: Random House Audio, 2006.

This was a reread for me. Before I started the challenge I picked up Abide With Me as a recommendation from LibraryThing. I liked Amy & Isabelle so why not give Strout’s next novel a try? I didn’t get too far and the reason I gave for giving up was I couldn’t take the run on sentences. Listening to the audio is definitely better. My mind is not tangled up in sentences that seem to go on forever.

In the late 1950s, in the gossipy and close-knit community of West Annett, Maine lives Tyler Caskey, a minister who is floundering on the pulpit after losing his wife to cancer. With two small children to care for, Caskey relies on his mother for help. But, Strout writes with wide strokes. Her story take in details of many people and places no matter how minute their importance is to the storyline. You meet many different parishioners.  Luckily, after a while they sort themselves out and Strout concentrates on a select few. That being said, character development didn’t really happen for me. I found myself not really caring about any them. The plot plods along slow enough to make me wonder about its direction. Peppered throughout are quiet social commentaries on Freud and sex, Khrushchev and the Cold War.

One pet peeve. If you are going to read a story that takes place in Maine, please take the time to learn the pronunciations. Bangor is not Banger. It’s Bang-gore. Augusta is not Ooh-gust-a it’s Ah-gust-ah. Enough said.

Reason read: Maine celebrates a lobster festival the first week of August.

Author fact: Strout won a Pulitzer for Olive Kitteridge, a collection of short stories. This is also on my list.

Reader fact: Gerrianne Raphael has also performed opera.

Book trivia: Abide with Me was met with mixed reviews when first published. For the most part, people loved it. I read one review where the reviewer was put off by the bitter and catty community. I wasn’t a fan of the characters either.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “The Maine Chance” (p 132).

Return of the Dancing Master

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Mankell, Henning. The Return of the Dancing Master. Read by Grover Gardner. Blackstone Audio, 2008.

I love the way Henning Mankell writes. There is something so dramatic about each and every word. A warning though, his scenes of violence are not for the faint of heart. Even if you have never been victim or even witness to a violent crime Mankell makes you feel right there in the moment. It’s as if the violence is happening to you. Very cringe-worthy material. Case in point – the brutal torture and murder of retired policeman Herbert Molin sets the stage for the Return of the Dancing Master. Stefan Lindman takes a medical leave of absence from his job as a police officer in order to battle mouth cancer. While in the waiting room of his doctor he reads about the murder of Molin. As a way to keep his mind off his illness Lindman decides to investigate Molin’s murder as Molin was once a colleague of sorts back in the day. Lindman finds himself getting deeper and deeper into the investigation when another man is murdered. As he comes to realize Molin was not the man he thought he knew, Lindman starts to question his own relationships.

Small disappointment – the crime scene of Molin’s murder is his house. Lindman breaks into the house after the real police assigned to the case have left. He is able to discover Molin’s diary wrapped in a raincoat which proves to be a vital clue. How did the real investigators miss that? There are other pieces of evidence that Lindman uncovers before anyone else, like the camping site of the killer. Again, how did the police miss that?

Postscript ~ the audio version is amazing. For starters, there is a whole cast of people reading the parts so women actually play women and so on. Also, at the end is a small piece of music so one can picture the dancing master taking a spin on the floor with a student. It’s a little eerie.

Reason read: July is the best time to visit Sweden.

Author fact: To learn more about Mankell go here.

Book trivia: Most of Mankell’s books include a character named Kurt Wallander. Mr. Wallander doesn’t make an appearance in The Return of the Dancing Master.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Swede(n), Isn’t It?” (p 232).