Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World - I'm a sucker for old-style adventures like those of H. Rider Haggard, and Conan Doyle's book fits right into that category. His characters are drawn into a journey deep into the Amazonian jungle in search of a plateau where prehistoric creatures roam. The characters are unique and interesting, their adventures exciting, and it's overall a fun, satisfying read.
Zane Grey, The Rainbow Trail - Grey is definitely wordier and more highfalutin' than his compatriot L'Amour, and his characters tend to be more romanticized. This book is no exception - it takes place after the events in Riders of the Purple Sage, carrying on with that storyline. The hero is a tenderfoot in many ways, searching for answers in the west, but those answers and the search itself fall by the wayside when he falls in love with a desert flower who is in danger from the Mormons. I like Grey, but I think in writing this book he lost his way a bit.
E. Nesbit, The Phoenix and the Carpet - Nesbit's children aren't clean or clever or particularly nice, which is part of their allure. They're normal children caught up in unusual situations and forced to deal with the consequences of their own hasty wishes and lack of forethought ... and as such, they prove themselves to be quite resourceful.
Elyssa East, Dogtown - I picked this up because I've only recently become aware of the existence of Dogtown, a large tract of wilderness and ruins in the midst of Gloucester, Mass., and I was curious. East weaves together the history of Dogtown itself, ancient and modern, with the tale of a 1984 murder and how that affected Dogtown and Gloucester itself, and with her own history and experiences there. I found myself wishing that she had explored all three themes in more depth, but overall it was an enjoyable and interesting book.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
book reviews
Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus - I was cautiously optimistic about this story ... until I saw that it is set in the present tense and has a framing device that is both first-person and present tense. Those set off warning bells in my mind and turned out to be an excellent predictor of the book's main issue - the author's complete overreach. As a first novel, this book attempted to be an entire smorgasboard of theme and plot and character and setting and every possible thing the writer could cram into it. In the process, she lost her characters and her plot in the depth of her setting, and did her setting no favors by trying to describe it, but at the same time not describe it, so that it could remain mysterious in the readers' minds. It was a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too book for the author, and clearly paid off for her, based on its popularity. But in my mind, her characters were paper dolls, placed here and there for effect but sparking no emotion in each other or in me, and her plot was as vanishingly thin as the smoke and mirrors her magic pretends to be. And without characters or plot (and without a real sense of the 19th century, the time period in which the book pretended to be set), the magical setting lost its glamor for me.
Elizabeth Peters, The Snake, the Crocodile & the Dog - Peters keeps managing to find ways to keep her characters fresh and interesting while keeping them true to themselves. Amelia Peabody Emerson's refreshing wit, the well-drawn supporting characters, and the somewhat zany but always unusual circumstances the characters fall into keep me coming back for more.
Wilkie Collins, Man and Wife - The rather fragile thread this plot depends on is an old-fashioned set of morals and the somewhat confusing Scottish marriage law of the 19th century, but despite the archaicness of the plot and the characters' values, Collins manages to make his heroine sympathetic, his plot complex but interesting, and his six hundred pages feel like three hundred.
Juliette Fay, deep down true - What a refreshing change of pace! After modern novel after modern novel of sharp cuts in point of view, chopped up timelines, characters sacrificed in an obeisance to setting, it was such a relief to sit down to this book - a simple slice of a wo life, simply told, but told so well I was sad to close the book because I miss the main character as though she was my best friend who just moved away. One of the best books I've read this year!
Elizabeth Peters, The Snake, the Crocodile & the Dog - Peters keeps managing to find ways to keep her characters fresh and interesting while keeping them true to themselves. Amelia Peabody Emerson's refreshing wit, the well-drawn supporting characters, and the somewhat zany but always unusual circumstances the characters fall into keep me coming back for more.
Wilkie Collins, Man and Wife - The rather fragile thread this plot depends on is an old-fashioned set of morals and the somewhat confusing Scottish marriage law of the 19th century, but despite the archaicness of the plot and the characters' values, Collins manages to make his heroine sympathetic, his plot complex but interesting, and his six hundred pages feel like three hundred.
Juliette Fay, deep down true - What a refreshing change of pace! After modern novel after modern novel of sharp cuts in point of view, chopped up timelines, characters sacrificed in an obeisance to setting, it was such a relief to sit down to this book - a simple slice of a wo life, simply told, but told so well I was sad to close the book because I miss the main character as though she was my best friend who just moved away. One of the best books I've read this year!
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