Graced Land
Posted: 2020/01/20 Filed under: Book Reviews, BookLust I, E-Books, Fiction | Tags: 2020, book lust i, book review, chick lit, Elvis Presley, Fiction, january, Laura Kalpakian, Music, relationships Leave a commentKalpakian, Laura. Graced Land. New York: Grove Press, 1992.
Reason read: Elvis Presley was born in the month of January and if you couldn’t tell by the title of the book, Graced Land has an Elvis slant…big time. Read in his honor.
Emily Shaw, fresh out of college with a degree in social work, thinks she can heal the world Candy Striper style with her notes from her final Sociology class. Elvis has died five years prior and Emily’s first welfare client, Joyce Jackson of St. Elmo, California, is obsessed-obsessed-obsessed with the fallen idol. Joyce doesn’t need a Candy Striper. She needs to spread the work of Elvis. As she sits on her porch-turned-shrine to the king with her two daughters, Priscilla and Lisa Marie (of course), Joyce tells anyone who will listen how Elvis’s job was to sing, entertain, and look pretty, but his life’s work was to spread love, charity, and compassion. To make the world see Elvis as a humanitarian is a tall order considering many see his final years as a drug-addled, overweight has-been. Emily, instead of spending the prerequisite twenty minutes with Joyce on the first visit, ends up listening to Joyce and drinking the tea for three hours.
Later we learn how Joyce came to be such an Elvis fanatic. We leave Emily’s little life and follow Cilla’s childhood, describing how her mom was obsessed with Elvis since forever. I think the story would have held up better if Kalpakian had stuck with the story from Emily’s point of view, rather than brief first person narratives from Cilla. They didn’t serve much purpose other than to fill out Joyce’s personality as a mother. There is one critical scene that Cilla had to narrate, but I think Kalpakian could have found a different way.
But, back to the plot. Along the way, Emily learns Joyce is scamming the government by making money on the side. As a new social worker she needs to make a decision, turn Joyce in or give in to Elvis.
As an aside, I don’t know if Kalpakian did it on purpose, but a lot of the characters have alliterate names: Penny Pitzer, Marge Mason, Joyce Jackson…
Confessional: I had never heard of the Old Maid’s prayer before this book.
Author fact: Kalpakian also wrote Educating Waverly, also on my challenge list.
Book trivia: Real people and events from Kalpakian’s life make cameo appearances in Graced Land. Another interesting tidbit is that Graced Land was also published under the title Graceland.
Nancy said: Pearl said Graced Land is an example of a novelist using the facts of Elvis’s life to “explore themes of love, family, relationships, and even religious and socioeconomic issues” (Book Lust p 79).
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the obvious chapter called “Elvis On My Mind” (p 78).
Apology for the Life of Mrs Shamela Andrews
Posted: 2019/08/07 Filed under: Book Reviews, BookLust I, Fiction | Tags: 2019, april, book lust i, book review, Fiction, Henry Fielding, relationships, satire Leave a commentFielding, Henry. An Apology for the Life of Mrs Shamela Andrews. Cambridge: Gordon Fraser at St. John’s College, 1930.
Reason read: This was supposed to be read way back in April with Pamela by Samuel Richardson. It sort of didn’t happen that way.
Everyone loves a good cat fight…but a fair one. An Apology… was Fielding’s direct satirical attack on Samuel Richardson’s Pamela, however Fielding was a coward. He first published An Apology…under the false name of Conny Keyber. It was supposed to be the true events or what really happened with Pamela in a mere sixty pages. According to Fielding, Pamela is not a chaste and sweet girl. Instead she is wicked and full of lust. Instead of being seduced by her former employer’s son, Fielding thinks she entrapped him into marrying her.
I have to admit I can’t speak to the steadfast morality of a teenager, but I agreed with Fielding in that I found it completely unbelievable that a fifteen year old girl would continue her diaries through all the chaos and upheaval.
Author fact: Henry Fielding also wrote the novel, Tom Jones which is not on my Challenge list.
Book trivia: According to the introduction to Shamela, written by Brian Downs, it is necessary to be familiar with Pamela in order to understand Shamela. Of course.
Nancy said: Pearl said Shamela is a portion of the novel Joseph Andrews. In actuality, Shamela was published before Joseph and if they are one and the same I completely missed it..
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Epistolary Novels: Take a Letter” (p 79).
Alligator
Posted: 2019/08/06 Filed under: Book Reviews, E-Books, Fiction, Lust To Go | Tags: 2019, book lust iii, book review, Fiction, july, Lisa Moore, Newfoundland, relationships Leave a commentMoore, Lisa. Alligator. New York: Black Cat Publishing, 2005.
Reason read: In Newfoundland they celebrate Orangemen’s Day and the Battle of the Boyne in July, specifically on the 12th.
Alligator’s strength as a first novel lies in its character development. Each chapter is dedicated to a different person loosely connected to the one before. Beverly and Madeleine are sisters. Colleen is Beverly’s daughter. Isobel is Madeleine’s friend. You get the point. Every character is flawed and vulnerable in their own way.
My favorite element to the book was how sharply Moore brought grief specifically into focus. When Beverly loses David to a sudden brain aneurysm her numb emptiness is palpable. These simple lines illustrate the heaviness of loss, “More than once she noticed orange peels next to her lawn chair and realized she was already eaten the orange” (p 49) and “David was dead but she would apply mascara” (p 54).
My least favorite aspect to the plot was the unexpected brutality of some of the characters. This was a much darker novel than I expected.
Quotes to quote, “Somehow Beverly has raised a daughter whose voice can be shrill as a fire alarm” (p 22), “Flexibility meant a prismatic comprehension of all aspect of experience” (p 68), and “You store your saddest memories in your feet, she said” (p 186).
Author fact: Moore also wrote February. I will be reading that one in a few years.
Book trivia: Alligator is Lisa Moore’s first novel.
Nancy said: Pearl was actually gushing about Moore’s other novel, February, and only mentioned Alligator as an aside.
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the super obvious chapter called “Newfoundland” (p 153).
By the River Piedra…
Posted: 2019/08/05 Filed under: Book Reviews, BookLust I, E-Books, Fiction | Tags: 2019, book lust i, book review, Fiction, july, love, Paulo Coelho, relationships, translated Leave a commentCoelho, Paulo. By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept: a Novel of Forgiveness. Translated by Al;an R. Clarke. New York: Harper Perennial, 2006.
Reason read: July is the month of summer romances…or returning to one. One of the most romantic places on earth, in my opinion, is Monhegan Island, Maine. Ten miles out to sea there is something about the smell of the salty ocean, the cries of gulls and crashing surf amidst summer wildflowers and dusky fireflies. Boats rock in the harbor shrouded by early morning fog. I was able to read the novella By the River… in two nights amidst all this on said island.
By the River Piedra romances its reader from start to finish. Protagonist Pilar is twenty eight years old and making her way through life as an independent and capable young woman in Spain. By coincidence she reunites with her boyfriend from eleven years ago. He has turned into a handsome spiritual guru who happens to be a much trusted healer. Together they rekindle their romance while on a journey to the French Pyrenees. Age and time have given them a fresh perspective on love, forgiveness, and spirituality.
Author fact: Coelho also wrote the more famous novel, The Alchemist, which is not on my list for whatever reason.
Book trivia: By the River Piedra… was an international best seller.
Nancy said: absolutely nothing.
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Latin American Fiction” (p 144).
Framley Parsonage
Posted: 2019/07/30 Filed under: Book Reviews, BookLust I, Fiction | Tags: 2019, Anthony Trollope, book lust ii, book review, classic, Fiction, july, relationships, series, society Leave a commentTrollope, Anthony. Framley Parsonage. New York: Penguin, 1993.
Reason read: to continue the series started in April in honor of Trollope’s birth month.
As usual Trollope’s fourth novel in the Barsetshire Chronicle is laden with characters. One of the first people readers meet is Mark Robarts, a vicar with ambitions to further his career. The gist of the story is that Robarts loans Nathaniel Sowerby money even though Robarts realizes Sowerby is an unsavory character, always gambling and up to no good. Of course there is some good old fashioned courting of the ladies going on that complicates the story.
Trollope explores human emotions such as humiliation (Robarts not being able to afford to give a loan but does it anyway), romance (between Mark’s sister, Lucy, and Lord Lufton), greed (inappropriate relationships because of lower class status) and affection (bailing a friend out of a sticky situation). The subplot of Lucy and Lord Lufton is my favorite. Lady Lufton doesn’t think Lucy is good enough for her son (what mother does?).
Author fact: Trollope wanted to be a political figure at one point in his life.
Book trivia: At the end of Framley Parsonage Doctor Thorne gets married. Remember him?
Nancy said: Pearl said nothing specific about Framley Parsonage but she did say that Trollope is one of her favorite writers.
BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Barsetshire and Beyond” (p 15).
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter
Posted: 2019/07/25 Filed under: Book Reviews, BookLust I, E-Books, Fiction | Tags: 2019, book lust i, book review, e-book, Fiction, humor, july, Mario Vargas Llosa, Peru, relationships Leave a commentLlosa, Mario Vargas. Aunt Julia and the Script Writer. Translated by Helen R. Lane. New York: Avon, 1982.
Reason read: July is the busiest time to visit Peru.
As a struggling writer, eighteen year old Marito (Mario) makes ends meet by writing news stories for a local Peruvian radio station while in law school. He welcomes two new distractions into his life and uses them to spice up his storytelling: his beautiful aunt (by marriage only), Julia, and the brilliant but crazy radio scriptwriter, Pedro Comancho. Thirteen years his senior, Aunt Julia begins a clandestine romance with Mario and at the same time Comancho takes Marito under his wing as his ever-growing confused confidant.
It is the differing point of view narratives that keep the story interesting as the reader bounces between the first person account of Marito and Comancho’s soap opera dramas told in the third person.
As an aside, when Aunt Julia says she’s old enough to be Marito’s mother I just had to do the math. Julia is only thirteen or fourteen years older than Mario. Yes, fourteen year olds have babies. It is possible, but it made me shudder all the same.
Lines I liked, “He was a creature given to short-lived, contradictory, but invariably sincere enthusiasms” (p 10), and “In the span of just a few seconds I went from hating her with all my heart to missing her with all my soul (p 157).
Author fact: Aunt Julia and the Script Writer is autobiographical. Also, Llosa has won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Book trivia: Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter was made into a 1990 movie called “Tune in Tomorrow.”
Nancy said: Pearl called Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter her favorite Llosa novel.
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Latin American Fiction” (p 144).
