Bride of the Rat God by Barbara Hambly

BRIDE OF THE RAT GODBarbara Hambly

Kindle, 2011, Open Road

Reviewed by Carol

★   ★   ★   ★  1/2

After the first two pages, I admit, I was worried. Over-dramatic, stereotypical imagery: a helpless, pursued heroine, a moonlit night, bloody hands, steep cliffs. I persevered with faith in my fellow reviewers, and discovered the campy beginning was only a scene from Chrysanda Flamande’s latest movie, “Kiss of Darkness.” Her sister-in-law, Norah, and she are at the movie’s premiere when an elderly Chinese man tries to get their attention “about a matter of life and death.” Pushed off as yet another admirer, it is the first in a series of strange events that have Norah worried.

The first edition of this book has a 50′s pulp cover, terribly misleading to both the story and writing style. Past president of the SciFi Fantasy Writers of America, multiple Locus award nominee and Nebula winner, Hambly is a highly skilled and successful writer. Her bibliography ranges from epic other-world fantasy to Star Wars and Star Trek novels to historical mysteries to historical fiction, but nothing in her writing comes close to the fast and loose sensation-focused writing of pulp magazines.  Bride combines her best: a lavish historical setting with a disconcerting mystery of supernatural origins. I loved the beautiful, eerie atmosphere, Hollywood in the 1920s, the characterization, the plot–it is almost easier to say what I didn’t like. This is a book I’ll be re-reading.

The summary: Widowed in the war, Norah has come to L.A. from England at the request of her sister-in-law, Christine, lead actress for Colossus Studios. Christine is mistress of Frank Brown, the studio owner who is under heavy pressure to buy out another studio–or be bought out himself. Besides being Christine’s companion, one of Norah’s jobs is taking care Christine’s three Pekingese dogs. In true Hollywood fashion, they go everywhere with her, even to the movie set. A multi-thread plot line explores the movie-star lifestyle of Christine/Chrysanda, filming the latest movie, a mysterious elderly Chinese man that seems to be following them and Norah’s feelings of loss and growing attraction to Alec the cameraman. 

Hambly skillfully builds a sense of tension and supernatural influence from the beginning.

“They turned their heads at the sound of her voice, three flat-nosed faces weirdly human, like enchanted children deformed by fairy malice.“

“The room looked strange in the dim light, as rooms did late at night when one had been wakened from uneasy sleep.“

Characters were a high point for me. Although I was slightly overwhelmed with names in the beginning, it soon sorted out. For the most part, all the characters felt multi-dimensional. The Big Bad Evil developed, mysterious at first and then gradually more present. Special note should be made of the wonderful, realistic description of the three dogs who play an important role in the plot–Black Jasmine (with one eye), Chang Ming and Buttercreme (the princess). It was no surprise to read the afterward and learn that Hambly has four Pekingese dogs. She’s able to capture the sense of three different dog personalities without excessive anthropomorphizing their behavior.

“Then, with an air of having settled something to their own satisfaction, the three of them scurried to her feet and licked apologetically at her ankles, her hands, and their own noses, three flat, anxious faces gazing up at her, begging to be forgiven, hoping she understood.”

“Across the court the greater Ned dropped a bean sprout; the little dog bolted in instant pursuit. For the next five minutes he lay, holding the vegetable upright between his paw and licking it perplexedly, before giving up.“

Hambly struck the perfect balance in characterization. Although Christine runs the risk of being a stereotypical star, dramatic and self-centered, her clear affection for Norah and rough upbringing save her from being completely unlikable and ridiculous. In many ways, she becomes the supporting character to Norah’s story. Likewise, though Norah could have been a facile stereotype of the dowdy, downtrodden lady’s maid, she actually has a good deal of influence and determination in her own life as well as Christine’s. She and Christine are often more like partners in crime, particularly when thwarting unwanted admirers.

“Like all her gestures, the movement combined glowing theatricality with genuine warmth. Everything Christine did was fifty percent sham, but the other fifty percent, Norah reflected, was pure gold.“

“Norah answered the apology her sister-in-law intended rather than the worlds themselves.“

One of the challenges in writing a period piece is acknowledging the racism and sexism in a way that is consistent without completely alienating the modern reader. Without being too spoilery, the artifact that begins the trouble in this story belongs to a demon/god of the Manchu tribe, who was then worshipped in secret after the Manchu took control of the Chinese empire. To me, Hambly acknowledged much of the racism in the 20s in the way the Western characters interacted with various Chinese people, but without engaging in the worst offenses. One clever way this is dealt with is through Christine’s ‘love’ of all things Chinese–although she is confused by Chinese history and why Chinatown “doesn’t have those decorative round gates.” It emphasizes the appropriation of the ‘exotic’ without any real understanding or appreciation.

The plot ends up being rather straightforward, with most of the tension developing as characters gradually recognize and then manage their danger. Hambly keeps events moving, from the beginning movie premiere, to an after party in a cafe/bootlegger’s, to Christine and Norah’s hillside home. It doesn’t take long before a murder occurs and an actor goes missing. Production is whisked off to the desert, partly to escape the press and the rumors, and partly due to script.

I have a quibble or two, which I suspect can be blamed on the Kindle edition. There’s a few rough transitions where I didn’t realize we changed scenes or speakers. I suspect that might have been better understood by visual separation in a paper version, and the Kindle ruined the formatting. Although I don’t usually notice it, there was a misspelling or two in the Kindle as well. On the other side, I enjoyed Hambly’s afterward and note on her dogs. I honestly don’t think I have any other quibbles.

Overall, an immensely satisfying read that went down in a couple of days. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why it came to my attention, but when I recognized the title on a Kindle special, I snapped it up. Thankfully, I can now re-read to my heart’s content without angering the Librarian Gods.

William Shakespeare's Star Wars: Verily, a New Hope

William Shakespeare's Star Wars: Verily, a New Hope
by Ian Doescher

Reviewed by Sesana
Four out of five stars

This is absolutely a book only for people who love Star Wars. But why would you read it if you didn't? You'd also need to have a certain love, or at least appreciation, for Shakespeare. Sure, it's a niche audience, but I'd bet it's a pretty sizable niche. And, astonishingly, Doescher does an admirable job serving that niche.

What I expected going in was that this would essentially be the script of Star Wars, with a lot of "anon"s and "prithee"s thrown in. I wasn't expecting that Doescher would actually rewrite the entire thing in iambic pentameter, creating new lines, new speaking parts, and new monologues where none existed before. Some of these work amazingly well. Like Leia's aside as she grieves for Alderaan. Or, far more fun, the glimpses he gives into the convoluted thought processes of stormtroopers. And of course, the most quoted lines from Star Wars are represented, in altered form.

But Doescher really should have restrained his impulse to write in pastiches of well-known lines and monologues from Shakespeare. I could have lived a long time without reading, "What light through yonder flashing sensor breaks?" I also felt like there were a few too many "anon"s and "aye"s in places where they seemed like they were being included just for color and to keep the iambic pentameter going. And I bet somebody who has studied more Shakespeare than me could find a lot more fault than that.

But is it enjoyable? Of course. I'd pay cash money to see this performed live. There probably isn't a single good reason for this to exist, but does there really have to be?

The World of Downton Abbey

Jessica Fellowes
St. Martin's Press
Reviewed by Nancy
5 out of 5 stars

Summary

A lavish look at the real world--both the secret history and the behind-the-scenes drama--of the spellbinding Emmy Award-winning Masterpiece TV series Downton Abbey

April 1912. The sun is rising behind Downton Abbey, a great and splendid house in a great and splendid park. So secure does it appear that it seems as if the way it represents will last for another thousand years. It won't.

Millions of American viewers were enthralled by the world of Downton Abbey, the mesmerizing TV drama of the aristocratic Crawley family--and their servants--on the verge of dramatic change. On the eve of Season 2 of the TV presentation, this gorgeous book--illustrated with sketches and research from the production team, as well as on-set photographs from both seasons--takes us even deeper into that world, with fresh insights into the story and characters as well as the social history.

My Review

As a huge fan of the Downton Abbey TV series, I was thrilled to find this book beckoning to me from the library’s front desk display.

It’s a lovely book with gorgeous photos and historical information about British life during the World War I era. It shows the contrasts between the wealthy Crawley family and the servants below stairs and goes into detail about the servants’ duties and the hierarchy within the staff. There are also tidbits about the people and places that inspired the series.

There are sections devoted to family life, romance and marriage, house and furnishings, clothing styles, war, and the lives of the servants.

In the section on hunting, there is a description by Ernest King on how he cleaned his master’s hunting clothes:

“From horse and rider perspiring, from a fall in a muddy ditch or field, they can come back in a pretty mess, especially the coat tails. When in this state we would ask the housemaid to save us the contents of the chamber pots, at least a bucketful. It was truly miraculous in getting the dirt out. That was immediately followed, I hasten to add, by brushing with clean water. I’ve often wondered if all the smart and fashionable hunting folk ever knew of the means taken to keep their coats so smartly turned out.”

The last section gives a glimpse behind the scenes – historical details, camera work, hairstyles and makeup, military uniforms and war scenes. At the end is a list of books for further reading.

If you enjoy the series, this is an excellent companion book.

Also posted at Goodreads.

A Perfect Winter Read

The Snow Child
by Eowyn Ivey
Published by Reagan Arthur Books

4 Out of 5 Stars
Reviewed by Amanda

Poignant, melancholy and slow-moving, The Snow Child probably isn't for everyone and I'll admit that it probably would have been a 3 1/2 star if I hadn't read it at such a seasonally appropriate time. With temperatures in the single digits, the wind whipping outside, and my part of the world brought to a halt by the "wintry mix" falling from the sky, this was the perfect book to curl up with and therefore I'm tacking on that extra half star anyway.

Well past middle-age, Jack and Mabel strike out on their own when they move to Alaska in the 1920's. Such an adventure would typically be a young couple's game, but Jack and Mabel are lured to the recently acquired U.S. territory in the hope that it will allow them to leave behind the one great disappointment in their lives: the stillborn child they buried in an orchard back home. Proximity to friends and family who have children of their own means that Jack and Mabel's emotional wound has never fully healed, so they purposefully break away in the hope that they will be drawn closer together and move past their grief.

It's not long, however, before the long, dark Alaskan winters take their toll on the couple. Isolated in their own spheres--Jack in the fields, Mabel in the home--depression and blame begin to settle into an otherwise happy marriage. In a moment of youthful spontaneity, the couple builds a snow child one night and it's not long before they begin to see a young girl, a wild thing at home in the cold and the forest, moving through the woods and causing them to tentatively believe that maybe they've at last been granted a child of their own making.

Based upon a Russian fairy tale, The Snow Child could easily be maddening to those who like definitive answers and clear resolutions. Is the young girl (whose name, we learn, is Faina) an orphaned child, a daughter born of snow and winter come to life, or a figment created from depression and longing? There are no clear answers to these questions, but I don't think they are questions that really matter because, in the end, The Snow Child is about grief and forgiveness.

In her portrayal of Jack and Mabel, Eowyn Ivey gives us the basic template for any marriage: no matter how strong the bond, individual grievances, both real and imagined, can build and fester. Whether or not a couple confronts these grievances determines if the marriage will fall apart or hold together. There's also complexity to the characters. At first, Mabel seems too refined and erudite for survival in the rugged wilderness, while Jack faces both the past and the future with unflinching stoicism. As we're allowed into their interior lives, however, we learn that Mabel has hidden strengths that hold her in good stead and Jack hurts far more than he's willing to admit, lest it render him unable to protect Mabel. Through their relationship with Faina, Jack and Mabel confront the painful past together and are ultimately blessed with the life they believed was well beyond their grasp.

Love and Greasepaint

Tipping the Velvet

Sarah Waters

Review by Zorena

Four Stars

Summary

This delicious, steamy debut novel chronicles the adventures of Nan King, who begins life as an oyster girl in the provincial seaside town of Whitstable and whose fortunes are forever changed when she falls in love with a cross-dressing music-hall singer named Miss Kitty Butler.

When Kitty is called up to London for an engagement on "Grease Paint Avenue," Nan follows as her dresser and secret lover, and, soon after, dons trousers herself and joins the act. In time, Kitty breaks her heart, and Nan assumes the guise of butch roue to commence her own thrilling and varied sexual education - a sort of Moll Flanders in drag - finally finding friendship and true love in the most unexpected places. (The Daily Telegraph)

My Review

While I have seen this book classified as a romance novel I was well pleased to find out it wasn't just that. It has romantic parts and sure there's some sex but it doesn't seem to be the mainstay of the story. Still, for those that like that, you'll get enough to titillate you but not so much that it would make the book considered trashy.

I can only describe it as a really good read and that is mostly due to the stellar writing and research done by the author. Like Tim Powers, Ms Waters has done her homework. This is the gritty and very real city of London in the late Victorian era. Her heroine has some very harsh life lessons handed out by the city itself and her perceived status in it. I have to say that I really enjoyed learning about turn of the century music halls and all the backstage doings that went with them. The history lesson in the hidden gay subculture was also a delightful eye opener.

This is a very different coming of age story and I love what the author did with it. Speaking of which, I think I'll be hunting out more books by Sarah Waters.

Ghost on the Throne: The Death of Alexander the Great and the War for Crown and Empire by James Romm
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“There are no more worlds to conquer!”
― Alexander the Great


Mosaic of Alexander the Great discovered at the House of the Faun in Pompeii

In 323 BC when Alexander the Great died, (from what some believe to be poison, but a growing number of others think from ingesting bacteria filled water from the River Styx), his great empire was held together by his charisma and his force of will. The power vacuum left in his wake was too large for any man (he was a god after all, a very mortal god as it turned out) to fill. His soldiers were the best fighting men on the planet, but were weary of war, and ready to start enjoying the plunder they had accumulated from their victories. His generals were well trained and most would have made good governors of provinces. Everything was in place to begin to make the transition from war to governing during peace except that Alexander died before that transition could be accomplished.

There would be no rest for anyone.

There is something missing, a second in command, a person respected by all who could assume the mantle and continue Alexander’s plans. It goes back to the previous year, 324 BC, when Alexander’s lifelong friend Hephaestion died. Alexander looked on him as more than just a friend, some speculate they were lovers, but there is no documentation from the period to support that. Maybe that says something about us that we assume that people who are that close have to be sexually involved. Here is an example of how Alexander felt about Hephaestion.

”When Alexander and Hephaestion went together to visit the captured Persian royal family. Its senior member, the queen Sisygambis, knelt to Hephaestion to plead for their lives mistaking him for Alexander because he was the taller and both young men were wearing similar clothes. When she realized her mistake she was acutely embarrassed but Alexander reassured her with the words, "You were not mistaken, Mother; this man too is Alexander." Wikipedia quoting Diodorus, Arrian, and Curtius.


Hephaestion a Prado bronze sketch

Hephaestion was second-in-command and was well respected by the tight knit group of generals whom he would have been commanding if he had lived. Alexander had taken Stateira a daughter of Darius, as his wife, to ally himself more firmly with the Persian ruling class. He also had all of his generals take Persian wives with the idea that their offspring would be the perfect hybrids of East and West to continue to rule the world. This was extremely controversial. His Macedonian commanders still had difficulty accepting Greeks as officers in the army and they are basically cousins genetically. The idea is sound, a true attempt to create peace for generations if it could be accomplished. Creating blood alliance is not a new concept, but actually intentionally doing it with a race of people that don’t look like you and don’t even worship the same gods is truly radical for the time. With an eye to the future Alexander had Hephaestion marry Stateira’s sister Drypetis. The hope was those cousins from those unions would be able to rule Eurasia together.

When Hephaestion died Alexander mourned so deeply and so fervently that his loyal friends worried he would ever recover. It was impossible for Alexander to even think about naming Hephaestion’s successor. So maybe Hephaestion, who believed so zealously in Alexander’s plans for the future of the empire, could have held together those capable commanders that Alexander had so carefully nurtured into leaders. He certainly would have had a better chance than poor Perdiccas.

Alexander, unfortunately, was so sick that he was unable to speak from his death bed. He pressed his signet ring into the hands of Perdiccas, and by so doing elevated him from a distant third-in-command position to; ultimately, upon Alexander’s final rattling breath, control of the empire.

Alexander the Great’s death is a thunderbolt heard by the entire known world. Men who had accepted their fate to being ruled by Macedonians suddenly felt the stirring winds of opportunity. Athenians and tribes people all over Asia and Europe rose up in revolt. Perdiccas dispatched his armies to suppress these outbreaks, and by doing so gave the Generals, who commanded them, the means (an army) by which to challenge his authority.


Perdiccas depicted on Alexander’s sarcophagus.

Alexander had trouble more than once with rebellion in his own ranks, and so it is no great surprise that these proud goat herders turned soldiers, these Macedonians, start to feel that they have as much right to rule as Perdiccas. Perdiccas does his best to reward these men with provinces rich with plunderable assets, but soon he finds himself killing men who were once his friends in a continuingly desperate attempt to keep control of the empire. One night he is set upon in his tent by his own knife wielding soldiers and his brief stint as ruler of the world ends.

Alexander’s older half brother, Arrhidaeus, later renamed Philip III after their father for political purposes, is proclaimed King of Macedonia, and becomes one of the many pawns passed around amongst the generals to legitimize their own ambitions. He is mentally handicapped, so severely, that he is barely functioning. Perfect candidate for some 300 BC era Karl Rove. Alexander also had three sisters. Cleopatra was a full sister. Cynnane and Thessalonice were half sisters. All attempted to find husbands amongst the leadership staff of the Macedonian army, but these men tended not to live long. As the civil war raged with changing alliances the sisters all eventually end up backing the wrong candidates and become casualties of their own bid for power. Adea, daughter of Cynnane, marries Philip III. Yes, that would be her uncle. When the royal couple are no longer useful they are both forced to take poison. The Argead line is disappearing quickly.

Alexander did have two sons. Heracles by a mistress is the oldest. Alexander IV is the son of his wife Roxana of Bactria. Once they reach their teens they become too dangerous and are strangled.


Depiction of Olympias on a gold medallion found at Abukir

Alexander’s mother Olympias staved off several attempts to kill her. She was so regal that Macedonian soldiers found it impossible to fight against her and wouldn’t even think about harming her. She took full advantage of the pageantry of her position.

”Olympias, on one side of the field, appeared in the fawn-skin wrap and ivy headdress of a bacchant, as though leading an ecstatic procession for the god Dionysus, and marched to the beat of drums.”


Ptolemy made the leap from Macedonian general to Pharaoh of Egypt

Ptolemy, yet another Macedonian general, takes his portion of the Alexander army to Egypt. When Alexander’s sarcophagus is travelling back to Macedon for burial Ptolemy intercepts, and steals it. He brings it back to Memphis.

Alexander's body was laid in a gold anthropoid sarcophagus that was filled with honey, which was in turn placed in a gold casket.According to Aelian, a seer called Aristander foretold that the land where Alexander was laid to rest "would be happy and unvanquishable forever".Perhaps more likely, the successors may have seen possession of the body as a symbol of legitimacy, since burying the prior king was a royal prerogative.

Absconding with Alexander’s body is a pretty good trick, but Ptolemy did something else that had an even more lasting impact on world history.

”Ptolemy rejoined his burgeoning household with its two trophy women. Thais, the beautiful Athenian courtesan who had already borne him three children, and now a new bride, Antipater’s youngest daugher, Eurydice. One brought him pleasure and the other power, but Ptolemy was still vulnerable to a third impulse, love. By this time he had taken notice of his bride’s young cousin and lady-in-waiting, a widow by the name of Berenice. Soon he made this woman his mistress, and ultimately his wife. She bore him his two heirs, Ptolemy II and Arisnoe, a brother and sister who following an old Persian royal custom, married each other. Through his children by Berenice Ptolemy founded a dynasty that ruled Egypt for almost three centuries, until their great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great granddaughter, Cleopatra VII, the lover of both Julius Caesar and Marc Anthony, killed herself by the bite of an asp.

Berenice was the original “it” girl and whatever she had, that mystical quality that made her irresistible, was also alive and well in her descendent Cleopatra VII.

There is one more general that I want to bring up. He started out life as a clerk for Alexander’s father. His name was Eumenes and he was a Greek. Alexander’s generals cared very much about the fact that Eumenes was of inferior origin, but Alexander recognized intelligence and natural talent. He promoted him from his clerk duties to leadership of a cavalry unit. After Alexander died Eumenes should have had the lifespan of a fruit fly, but the wily clerk came up with some unique ways of keeping himself alive. He won his battles, even as Perdiccas was losing his battles with Ptolemy. As his Macedonian troops began to grumble about being led by a Greek he had a shrine to Alexander built where he and the soldiers could worship.

It was bloody brilliant.

He was able, with this shrine, to give the impression that he was still being lead by Alexander and that he was not the man in charge making decisions. As long as his men felt that Alexander was still having influence over Eumenes they would follow him. He also discovered a plot by one of the other Macedonian commanders to have him killed by his own officers. Eumenes had each of his officers loan him a large sum of money. It diffused the plot because nobody wants to kill the guy that owes them money.

Eumenes was a well read, well educated individual, and obvious his intellect was far superior to even the better educated Macedonian commanders. He had observed and absorbed the very best of Alexander’s tactics and showed true brilliance on the battlefield. If Alexander had lived Eumenes would have achieved fame and would have proved to be a valuable asset not only to Alexander, but to his heir as well.

I’ve read several books on Alexander the Great, but it has been a long time since I’ve ventured back into 300 BC. This is the first book that I’ve read that covers the results of the aftermath of Alexander’s death. The commanders are brought vividly to life. James Romm also spends a significant amount of time covering the events in Athens as well. Unfortunately, due to space concerns in this review I did not discuss those wonderful segments.



It would have been curious to see if Alexander would have proved as adept at ruling a peaceful, but geographically large empire as he was conquering the world. He was very good at recognizing talent and developing men into very able commanders. He had progressive ideas about race and knew for the empire to survive that those they conquered would have to become followers and not just people to be subjugated.

It was often a point of frustration to his soldiers, and his officers that he never set up a hierarchy. Even with a solid chain of command in place the empire might have still crumbled into civil war, but without the certainty of knowing who was expected to be in charge, if the unexpected happened, there was simply no chance. All his commanders felt as equally qualified to rule as any other. Alexander trusted Hephaestion with his life, but he didn’t have that relationship with any of his other commanders and may have felt that keeping everyone else on a relatively equal footing might have kept someone from becoming too ambitious. The very type of ambition that might initiate a regime change. Without his presence the empire did not survive him.

This book is so well researched, so full of great information, so compellingly written that I would wake up in the middle of the night thinking about Craterus, Antipater, Eumenes, Olympias, Perdiccas, Antigonus One-Eye, Ptolemy, and wonder about the fate of the boy that was born to rule an empire. So let James Romm take you on a little tour of the 300 BC era. You might find yourself as enamored with these Macedonians as the kids touring Jurassic Park were with dinosaurs. Books may be theme parks for me, but with one advantage, when the electricity goes out you won’t be facing Macedonian warriors, but will be looking for a candle so you can keep reading.


View all my reviews

The Wonderful World of Illusion and Reality

World of Wonders

Robertson Davies

Penguin

Reviewed by: Terry  

5 out of 5 stars

 

 My 5 star rating of this book really reflects my feelings on how I think Davies masterfully wrapped up the Deptford trilogy than it does an individual rating for this volume itself (don’t get me wrong, it’s great, but I think Fifth Business is the strongest, and best, volume in the trilogy). I guess I’d say that the individual books themselves range from around 3.5 to 4.5 stars, but the series overall is a five star read. As with all of the Deptford books World of Wonders is a personal memoir that gives us further insight, from yet another angle, into the lives and motivations of the characters we met in earlier volumes, most of whom hailed from the small Ontario town of Deptford. The ‘problems’ of the memoir style itself (the inescapable desire to make oneself into the hero, the inability to really understand the motivations and actions of others from one's limited point of view, the unreliability of looking back onto the past from the vantage of the present) are perhaps brought even more to the fore in this volume than they were in the others as we sit back and listen to the harrowing tale of the life of the mysterious magus Magnus Eisengrim, né Paul Dempster.

Magnus, along with our old friends Dunstan Ramsay and Leisl Vitzliputzli, is in the midst of starring in a film in which he is portraying the legendary conjurer Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin. During the course of filming, and in a completely characteristic attempt to demonstrate his own personal greatness and provide a ‘sub-text’ to the film, Eisengrim decides to reveal to his friends and the filmmaker’s entourage the details of his life that led to his becoming, in his own words, the greatest conjurer that has ever lived. It is certainly not a story that bears any resemblance to the romantic ‘biography’ fashioned by Ramsay as a piece of propaganda for Eisengrim’s Soiree of Illusions. What we are instead presented with is a tale of abuse, loneliness, and fortitude as we see young Paul Dempster kidnapped from his awful home in Deptford only to have it replaced by an awful purgatory in the travelling carnival Wanless' World of Wonders.

Eisengrim (only the last in a long line of many aliases) is truly a ‘self-made man’. As he himself mentions, the treatment and conditions under which he lived from the age of ten onwards were of a kind that would either have killed him early or strengthened him beyond expectation. Luckily for Paul Dempster the latter proved to be the case. We see how a lonely, frightened boy could be transformed into the monster of ego and talent that was Magnus Eisengrim, and once again observe how the ripples of effect from one small action (the throwing of that fateful snowball on a cold winter day in Deptford in 1908) helped shape yet another life. Eisengrim, for all of his suffering, is not a sympathetic hero (though hero he is, in all of his outsized grandeur) and once again it is fascinating to see the same characters and actions from the previous volumes of the trilogy as viewed through a completely different lens. Luckily (in my opinion at least) we once again have the voice of Dunstan Ramsay, that clever old schoolmaster and saint-hunter, though in a decidedly minor key. Eisengrim is certainly not going to let anyone interfere with his own personal hagiography, but Ramsay’s caustic tongue is given some range of expression and his scholar’s eye is always on the look-out for ‘the truth’ (at least inasmuch as he is able to perceive it).

We discover in this tale the final pieces of the puzzle in the coming together of Magnus, Leisl and Ramsay and the production of that great work of illusion and art, the life of Magnus Eisengrim (as depicted in his own Soiree of Illusions), but I will leave the details of Paul Dempster’s ‘hero’s journey’ to you. Rest assured that the culmination of it is a thoroughly entertaining, one might even say enlightening, tale that takes us very far indeed from the environs of little Deptford but still manages to come full circle and comment on the series that was born there as a whole. Boy Staunton, that unchallenged giant and yet largely obscure figure in the lives of others, makes his final appearance and we can now look back on the many stories of the Stauntons, the Ramsays and the Dempsters in order to get a much fuller (though still never really complete) picture of those intertwined lives that affected each other in such significant ways. So, I would guess, do all of our lives (knowingly or unknowingly) intertwine and create an inextricable web of story and interdependence, whether we realize it or not. 

 

 Also posted at Goodreads

An Explosive Mystery

The Maid's Version by Daniel Woodrell
2013
Reviewed by Diane K. M.
My rating: 5 out of 5 stars


What an extraordinary novella this is! It's the story of an old woman telling her grandson about what she knows of a horrific event that happened decades ago. It's also the story a small town in Missouri and how it deals with a tragedy. It also has a love story.

That Woodrell has accomplished all of that in 164 pages is impressive. And with such beautiful prose! This is my first Woodrell book, but it won't be my last.

The story opens with Alma DeGeer Dunahew sharing what she knows about a 1929 explosion at a dance hall that killed dozens in the town, including Alma's sister, Ruby. Alma is spending time with her grandson, who begins the book with this description of her:

"She frightened me at every dawn the summer I stayed with her. She'd sit on the edge of her bed, long hair down, down to the floor and shaking as she brushed and brushed, shadows ebbing from the room and early light flowing in through both windows. Her hair was as long as her story and she couldn't walk when her hair was not woven into dense braids and pinned around and atop her head. Otherwise her hair dragged the floor like the train of a medieval gown and she had to gather it into a sheaf and coil it about her forearm several times to walk the floor without stepping on herself. She'd been born a farm girl, then served as a maid for half a century, so she couldn't sleep past dawn to win a bet, and all the mornings I knew with her she'd sit in the first light and brush that witchy-long hair, brush it in sections, over and over, stroking hair that had scarcely been touched by scissors for decades, hair she would not part with despite the extravagance of time it required at each dawn. The hair was mostly white smeared by gray, the hues of a newspaper that lay in the rain until headlines blended across the page ... It was years before I learned to love her."

I italicized the line about being born a farm girl because I liked it so much. Anyway, Alma was a longtime maid of Arthur Glencross, who was an important banker in town. We soon learn that Arthur had been having an affair with Ruby, and Alma wasn't happy about it. When Ruby broke up with Arthur, it caused a rift. The night of the explosion, several townsfolk saw Arthur acting suspiciously, running through streets and speeding away in his car. 

But wait! Before you jump to conclusions about who or what caused the explosion at the dance hall, you need to meet the rest of the town. Each chapter brings us different voices, different narrators, and the pieces of the puzzle start to come together. We meet Alma's husband and children, Ruby's lovers, and many of the people who were at the dance hall that night. An especially moving chapter was the description of the memorial service for the victims: 

"The town was represented from high to low, the disaster spared no class or faith, cut into every neighborhood and congregation, spread sadness with an indifferent aim. The well dressed and stunned, the sincere in bibs and broken shoes, sat side by side and sang the hymns they had in common."

I like writers who can masterfully share multiple perspectives of a story and create a narrative that flows between the past and the present. The structure of the book reminded me of a few others I had liked: "So Long, See You Tomorrow" by William Maxwell and "The Sweet Hereafter" by Russell Banks. The prose truly is lovely; I paused numerous times to reread a pretty sentence.

If you prefer a linear story with only one narrator, you might not enjoy this book. But if you like beautiful prose, a rich cast of characters and stories with a bit of mystery, you might love this.

The Historical Jesus

Zealot by Reza Aslan
2013
Reviewed by Diane K. M.
My rating: 5 out of 5 stars


This is a fascinating look at the historical, social and political context of the First Century in Palestine and of Jesus the man. The information will be familiar to religious scholars, but Reza Aslan writes so well and synthesizes so much knowledge that he makes it accessible to the layperson. 

The book begins with a touching author's note, which tells how he first became interested in Jesus. It happened when Aslan was attending an evangelical summer camp in California: 

"For a kid raised in a motley family of lukewarm Muslims and exuberant atheists, [Jesus' sacrifice and resurrection] was truly the greatest story ever told. Never before had I felt so intimately the pull of God. In Iran, the place of my birth, I was Muslim in much the way I was Persian. My religion and my ethnicity were mutual and linked. Like most people born into a religious tradition, my faith was as familiar to me as my skin, and just as disregardable. After the Iranian revolution forced my family to flee our home, religion in general, and Islam in particular, became taboo in our household. Islam was shorthand for everything we had lost to the mullahs who now ruled Iran. My mother still prayed when no one was looking, and you could still find a stray Quran or two hidden in a closet or drawer somewhere. But for the most part, our lives were scrubbed of all trace of God. That was just fine with me. After all, in the America of the 1980s, being Muslim was like being from Mars. My faith was a bruise, the most obvious symbol of my otherness; it needed to be concealed. Jesus, on the other hand, was America. He was the central figure in America's national drama. Accepting him into my heart was as close as I could get to feeling truly American."

Aslan, who became a religious scholar, goes on to explain his interest in the origins of Christianity: 

"The moment I returned home from camp, I began eagerly to share the good news of Jesus Christ with my friends and family, my neighbors and classmates, with people I'd just met and with strangers on the street: those who heard it gladly, and those who threw it back in my face. Yet something unexpected happened in my quest to save the souls of the world. The more I probed the Bible to arm myself against the doubts of unbelievers, the more distance I discovered between the Jesus of the gospels and the Jesus of history -- between Jesus the Christ and Jesus of Nazareth. In college, where I began my formal study of the history of religions, that initial discomfort soon ballooned into full-blown doubts of my own. The bedrock of evangelical Christianity, at least as it was taught to me, is the unconditional belief that every word of the Bible is God-breathed and true, literal and inerrant. The sudden realization that this belief is patently and irrefutably false, that the Bible is replete with the most blatant and obvious errors and contradictions -- just as one would expect from a document written by hundreds of hands across thousands of years -- left me confused and spiritually unmoored."

After sharing his personal background, Aslan sets the stage for the First Century in Palestine, which was teeming with political activity and zealotry. The Romans were in control and demanded high taxes from everyone they conquered, which often led to revolts. Anyone charged with sedition against Rome was put to death. Meanwhile, the Romans disliked the Jews and tried to wipe them out. In 70 C.E., Roman soldiers stormed the gates of Jerusalem, massacring Jewish citizens and setting the city on fire. 

This is important to note because Aslan is trying to correct the long-held belief that the Jews killed Jesus, when it's more historically accurate to say that the Romans put Jesus to death because he was a revolutionary and was threatening sedition by trying to be "King of the Jews." 

Aslan goes through the Gospel stories and explains how and why they were written. For example, the Book of Mark has a story that Pontius Pilate offered to release a prisoner to the Jews, and instead of picking Jesus, the Jews demanded the release of a murderer named Abbas. Aslan argues that the scene makes no sense, especially since Pontius Pilate was "a man renowned for his loathing of the Jews, his total disregard for Jewish rituals and customs, and his penchant for absentmindedly signing so many execution orders that a formal complaint was lodged against him in Rome." 

So why would Mark write such a fictitious scene, one that Jews would have recognized as false? "The answer is simple: Mark was not writing for a Jewish audience. Mark's audience was in Rome, where he himself resided. His account of the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth was written mere months after the Jewish Revolt had been crushed and Jerusalem destroyed ... Thus, a story concocted by Mark strictly for evangelistic purposes to shift the blame for Jesus' death away from Rome is stretched with the passage of time to the point of absurdity, becoming in the process the basis for two thousand years of Christian anti-Semitism."

That's just one example of how knowing the historical context of the New Testament helps to better understand what was really going on. There are many other insightful details in the book, such as addressing Jesus' birth, his baptism, the prophecies, the title of Messiah, how Jesus died, and the stories of his miracles and resurrection. Each chapter focuses on a different aspect of Jesus' life, and Aslan references the religious texts and historical documents to better understand it.

Perhaps I should share that I do not belong to a religion, although I was brought up in the Christian faith and spent my share of childhood in Sunday school. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, and I loved learning the details of what some biblical phrases and stories really meant. I would recommend it to anyone interested in the history of Christianity.

Cowboys of Cthulhu

The Cowboys of Cthulhu: A Weird Western Grindhouse Novelette by David Bain
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

John Dunsworth Brodie hooks up with General Kang's sideshow and soon finds himself chasing some alleged braineaters to the Canyon of Cthulhu...

I love weird westerns and when I saw I could read this novelette for free due to it being part of the Kindle Lending Library, I was all over it.

This book has all the winning weird western ingredients: gunfights, humor, the Necronomicon, non-Euclidian geometry, and a bloody shootout at the end with Lovecraftian beasties.

However, the ingredients came together in the form of an appetizer rather than a main course, and as far as appetizers go, it was a pretty small portion. There was very little setup before the big battle and then it was all over except for the aftermath.

So it was engaging while it lasted but it didn't last nearly enough. With that in mind, I'm giving it three out of five stars purely for the entertainment value.

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