Tag: 2010

Little Friend

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Tartt, Donna. The Little Friend. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002.

In a nutshell The Little Friend is about Harriet Cleve Dufresnes, a twelve-year-old girl who decides she simply must solve the mystery of who killed her nine-year-old brother when she was just an infant. All Harriet knows of the incident is that little Robin was found hung from a tree on Mother’s Day and nobody knew why. During her attempts to solve the mystery Harriet and her sidekick Hely get themselves into troubles far more adult than their years. Larger Mississippi-southern issues such as poverty and prejudice encircle  more complicated crimes such as deception, drugs, and death.

I love the way Donna Tartt writes, but was confused by plot. 555 is a long time to be reading about a mystery that doesn’t really get solved. The ambiguous ending is ripe for a sequel. Yet, there are seemingly unimportant characters that float in and out of the plot without an apparent role in the story (like Harriet’s sister Allison). Could they come back with a stronger presence in another book? One other concern is that The Little Friend is supposed to be a story set in the 1970’s. Were there meth labs back then?

When you first meet Harriet you think she has all the beginnings of a serial killer: “She could set the house on fire if she wanted to, and no one would be there to stop here” (p 67), and “…this was the hallmark of Harriet’s touch: she could scare the daylights out of you, and you weren’t even sure why” (p 74).

BookLust Twist: There is no doubt in my mind that Nancy Pearl loved this book and thought of it often. Case in point: it’s mentioned in Book Lust in the chapters “Families in Trouble” (p 82) because after little Robin is found murdered, nothing is ever the same for his family, and “Girls Growing Up” (p 102) because Harriet, Robin’s sister, grows up between the 555 pages of The Little Friend, as well as in the introduction (p xi) where Pearl says she knew she would love The Little Friend from the very first sentence. Little Friend is also mentioned in More Book Lust in the chapters “Lines that Linger; Sentences that Stick” (p 143) – the same first sentence Pearl mentioned in Book Lust, and “You Can’t Judge a Book by Its Cover” (p 238) because of its creepy doll face – a total of five mentions between the two Lust books. I can’t blame Pearl because Little Friend does fit nicely into each and every chapter mentioned.

Sorrows of Young Werther

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Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Sorrows of Young Werther. Boston: Frances A. Niccolls & Co., 1902.

There are so many little facts about this 134 page story that I just loved! First, I find it enticing that this eighteenth-century novel was written anonymously. It was if it really was meant to be autobiographical. There are many similarities between Young Werther and Johann Goethe. Another interesting tidbit about The Sorrows of Young Werther is that the story was both banned and embraced in eighteenth-century Germany.

To put it simply, Sorrows of Young Werther is about a young, impressionable artist who moves to a new, yet fictional town. He is enamored with his surroundings and shares his new-found joy with his friend, Wilhelm, through enthusiastic, vividly descriptive letters. For the first month the letters contain glorious accounts of the landscape, the sights, the sounds, and the people – everything around him. After that first month though, Werther’s entire focus centers on a young woman he met at a party. It’s obsession at first sight and he can think of nothing else but to be with her constantly. Unfortunately, Werther’s affections are doomed as the object of his affection, Charlotte, is already engaged to be married to a “worthy” gentleman. In an effort to remain near to Charlotte, Werther befriends her husband-to-be. Things becomes complicated (as they also do in this kind of situation). Of course this love triangle cannot last and ultimately ends in tragedy.

Telling lines: “We should deal with children as God deals with us, – we are happiest under the influence of innocent delusions” (p 35), “…a man under the influence of violent passion loses all power of reflection, and is regarded as intoxicated or insane” (p 47), and “I sometimes cannot understand how she can love another, how she dares love another, when I love nothing in this world so completely, so devotedly, as I love her, when I know only her, and have no other possession” (p 81). In these three quotes we see Young Werther growing more and more obsessed with Charlotte. It can only end badly and as we see on the very last page, it does, “The body was carried by labourers. No priest attended” (p 135).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Epistolary Novels: Take A Letter” (p 79).

Semi-Attached Couple

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Eden, Emily. The Semi-Attached Couple & The Semi-Detached House. New York: Dial Press, 1982.

From everything that I have read it seems that Noel Perrin single-handedly revived an interest in Emily Eden’s The Semi-Attached Couple, calling it “what to read when you run out of Jane Austen.” He mentions this in his book, A Reader’s Delight and again in The Washington Post.

The Semi-Attached Couple is a humorous and witty look at a Victorian couple who didn’t exactly marry for love. Surrounding their romance, or lack-thereof, is busybody family members, a cultural protocol for decorum, and good, old-fashioned Victorian society standards. Of course, Sarah married too young and Lord Teviot married too quick. Neither understands the other and isn’t sure of themselves. There is plenty of gossip, secrets, and satire in The Semi-Attached Couple.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in two different chapters. First, “The Book Lust of Others” (p 34), and “Viragos” (p 227). Pearl basically says the same thing in both chapters: Emily Eden is a recommendation of Noel Perrin (as mentioned before).

Hole in the Universe

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Cole, K.C. The Hole in the Universe: How Scientists Peered Over the Edge of Emptiness and Found Everything. New York: Harcourt Inc., 2001.

January is quickly becoming my month for nonfiction (sorry, S.!). The Hole in the Universe is what Nancy Pearl calls a book about nothing and author K.C. Cole supports that with her subtitle, “How Scientists Peered over the Edge of Emptiness and Found Everything.” Cole combines physics, science fiction, literature, mathematics, and humor to make her case. Who knew a book about nothing could be so entertaining? Cole has the ability to take scientific fact and not-so-exact speculation and make nothing about something.

Line to scratch your head over: “Potential, it turns out, is one of the most impressive properties of nothing” (p 3). From that sentence on, I knew I was in for an interesting time.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust” in the chapter called, “Zero: This Will Mean Nothing To You” (p 256).

In Search of Robinson Crusoe

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Severin, Tim. In Search of Robinson Crusoe. New York: Basic Books, 2002.

I have no idea why but in the beginning of reading In Search of Robinson Crusoe I couldn’t tell if it was fact or fiction.

Reading In Search of Robinson Crusoe reminded me a great deal of the show “Myth Busters.” Everyone knows the story of (or at least heard of) Robinson Crusoe. Tim Severin sets out to explain the landscape of Daniel Defoe’s imagination, beginning with the Isla Robinson Crusoe, 400 miles off the coast of Chile. Weaving together fact, fiction, myth, mystery, history and adventure Severin is able to produce a believable retracing of one of literature’s best known castaways, Robinson Crusoe. What’s more, Severin is able to retrace the ancestry of Man Friday as well.

Oddest sentences: “The overpowering influence is the surrounding ocean. Its weather system brings over 40 inches of rain each year, and although the average temperature is a mild 15 degrees Fahrenheit, the daily conditions veer abruptly from warm sunshine to gusts of cold wind and rain showers” (p 46).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called, “Islands, Desert and Otherwise” (p 128).

High Five

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Evanovich, Janet. High Five. New York: St. Martin’s, 1999.

I always read chick lit in a day or two. For some reason it goes by a lot faster than other, more serious reads. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t any good. I thought it was great. Perfect for New Year’s Day.

Stephanie Plum is a sassy bounty hunter who starts out High Five looking for her uncle as a family favor (seeing as how she finds people for a living). Of course, nothing is as simple as it seems, and soon Stephanie is hip-swinging deep in a murder mystery, flanked by two very attractive, very sexy, strong men vying for her attention. The action never stops for Stephanie. If she isn’t beating up an angry little person or gorging on junk food, she is being stalked by a rapist, narrowly missing being blown up by bombs (twice), or being harassed by a supposed bookie. Add a former prostitute, a sassy grandmother, an astute gerbil, and a sarcastic Arab teenager into the mix and the fun never stops. In a word, High Five is fun. Something I would appreciate of all series is the fact you don’t have to read Four to Score in order to get High Five. The characters allude to previous Plum escapades, but they don’t confuse the story at all.
It took me a little while to get the purpose of the title until I remembered the elaborate high five/handshakes Stephanie could never get the hang of throughout the story. What cracked me up was even her grandmother knew how to do one.

An example of Stephanie Plum’s sexuality, “The note wasn’t signed, but I knew it was from Morelli by the way my nipples got hard” (p 25).

Something I admired of Stephanie – after she binged on junk food she mentions not owning a scale. She didn’t own one. Instead, she judged her weight gain and loss by how her jeans fit.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called, “Ms. Mystery” (p 171). I have to admit I am thrilled I will be reading the entire series.