A good old-fashioned murderbook

I have to admit that when I hear the word "academic" used with a negative connotation, it makes me feel a little downhearted. I get that not everyone enjoys school things, but I have always enjoyed school things and even when a subject seems narrow or uninteresting to me, I enjoy enough niche things to appreciate other people's interest. And then all my close college friends went to grad school (I think 50% of the people at my 21st birthday have now finished their PhDs), and my own department is so friendly that I've had remarkably little exposure to conniving, petty, self-important types. Plus, a lot of grad students develop awesome hobbies and side projects in grad school (not me, I'm lame). When I think "academics" I think adorably nerdy people who are about as intimidating as a muppet.

And when I think "academic books" my heart warms, because what is better than an academic book? Academic books have a clearly defined focus, they delve deeply into their subjects, and they provide you with all the information you need to judge them -- or if they don't, then there's your assessment right there. But I appreciate that for plenty of people none of this is true, and alas, "academic", which is a rather accurate descriptor for me, is not a positive for the general public.

All of this is a long lead-in to an excellent book that strikes a happy medium between academic and general interest. The University of Chicago Press has clearly pulled out the stops to make Blood Runs Green: The Murder that Transfixed Gilded Age Chicago accessible for the general book-reading public. It's very reasonably priced, for one thing, and has a catchy title. It has maps, illustrations, a cast of characters, and a glossary. There are no superscript footnotes, and the technical parts of the introduction (historiography, methodology) have been pulled out and placed in a separate section at the end. It starts with an attention-grabbing introduction and carries on from there. Very easy to read. At the same time, it's well researched and all those important citations are there as endnotes, formatted in a gratifyingly efficient way for those of us who like that kind of thing. Seriously, I hate endnotes but these are very easy to use.

The book itself, as the subtitle suggests, tells the story of a sensational murder that took place in Chicago in the late nineteenth century. It's very much a narratively-driven book: it introduces the players, describes the victim's disappearance, the discovery of the body, investigation, and trial, before concluding with some considerations about the legacy and impact of the case. Now, murders are fairly interesting in themselves, but this was a case of a member of a secret Irish republican society being bumped off by his rivals within the group, so the story encompasses terrorism and financial misdeeds as well as nationalism and racism. Oh! And also the interplay of the press and the justice system. There's a lot here, is what I'm saying, but it's all straightforward and readable. If you like historical murder things -- and I know you do -- you'll like this.

(PS. I am delighted to find I already have a tag for "murder".)

Hewers of wood, drawers of water, and inspectors of prisons

I have a long relationship with the cover of this book (Parrot and Olivier in America, by Peter Carey).

Gosh, I love that cover art. The red ink, the handwritten title! Every time I went into a Waterstones I would end up picking it up and considering it, but it's a chunky book to have to fit in your suitcase, not to mention the price of hardcovers; and then the description just didn't seem all that interesting. "An irrepressibly funny portrait of the impossible friendship between a master and a servant." The heart wants what it wants, and the heart likes the cover art way better than that description. But sometimes fate intervenes: I found a copy of the UK hardcover at the Newberry book sale over the summer priced at only $2 ("...that must be a mistake!" said the checkout volunteer as I mentally willed her to just finish the transaction) and obviously.

This was a very enjoyable book in the end, although it gets off to a slow start. The story is told from the perspective of Olivier, the French aristocrat, and Parrot, his multi-talented servant/secretary, in alternating chapters. Parrot is pretty clearly the "main" character here in terms of development/mystery/conflict/interest, although, fittingly for the society they're living in, Olivier's chapters provide the real start-to-finish timeline for the novel as well as the engine for the plot in the novel's present. The book starts out with each character narrating his childhood; you then get Olivier narrating up to the "present"; then Parrot comes into the story, and we find out about his intervening years as we go along.

Parrot's life in particular is shaped by a whole slew of historical forces, and I recognized a lot of the things Carey was playing with in terms of the movement of people and ideas. I feel like there's a more sophisticated reference to make here than Forrest Gump, but let's don't stand on ceremony; Parrot's life story at times feels a bit Gumpian, not because he crosses paths with famous people and events but just because of the sheer number of settings he goes through. He's also blessed by his author with intelligence and skills that make him an equal with Olivier. It's not just "a master and his servant" in other words, but rather more a story of how this guy ends up as a servant as one odd episode in a life full of odd episodes; odd episodes that are nevertheless all firmly within the experience of the working class at this time. I felt aware of all this as I read, but I was still moved by the pathos of his situation.

The inside flap of my copy describes the book as "an improvisation on the life of Alexis de Tocqueville" and although that description made me skeptical at first, in the end I was totally on board. Somehow Carey manages to strike the right tone of being historically inspired but not quite claiming to be historical fiction, if you follow. Describing it as an "improvisation" is actually perfect: it's pulling out the really fascinating aspects of Tocqueville's life and world and blowing them up so you can get inside and really look at them. As you know(?), I often approach historical fiction with a heavy dose of skepticism, but this book seems like a good example of how fiction can be a means of interpreting and commenting on a particular time and place. Plus it's just plain fun to read (once you get past the childhood chapters, those are slightly rough going although key to the character development).

Now: a final note; an extremely mild observation. This book seems like an example of something else, the diversity problem in publishing, as it was apparently shortlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize. Now, I don't know how those awards work and I have even less clue what else was eligible in 2010, but while I enjoyed this book and thought it was really masterfully written I have a hard time seeing it as major-award-worthy. This isn't to take anything away from the book or its author whatsoever, and I've already noted that it succeeds at something I don't often see books succeeding at; but just, when I think about the whole world of UK publishing and English-language writing... it just strikes me as a data point that would, on its own, support the notion that the publishing industry favors established white guys writing about white guys. I will leave the strong criticism to people who actually have a clue about the real world. If I'd read this in 2010 it might have made it onto my shortlist of best books published in that year, but as we all know I only ever read two books a year that were actually published in that year so that's not a particularly high honor.

If there are awards for cover art though, I'm behind it all the way.

Nothing to declare

I am back!

You probably didn't even know I was gone, but I was: two weeks in Rome. It was grand. (Unintentional Grand Tour pun? No one will believe it.) I had this fine book with me, letting me impress my friends with borrowed knowledge:

It's a bit heavy, being printed with colored pictures on nice paper, and the author sometimes seems to assume that just telling you the name of the architect or artist is enough, but it was a lifesaver enough times to make lugging it around worthwhile. The pages on the Vatican Museums were essential (omigosh the Vatican Museums are ENORMOUS) and unlike most guidebooks I looked at, this one gives plenty of time to all the zillions of churches you're obviously going to want to visit.

Even better, I bought this book with the gift card from when my Something Other Than God post won the drawing at Conversion Diary.

It's a major award!

Even if I had spent my own money though: worth it. I think I will be revisiting the Blue Guide series for future travels.

Now, I must get unpacked, do the laundry, and get reading something so I can post again in a reasonable interval. Hashtag: summer.

Love and cynicism in a cautiously optimistic place

I have sprinted through two books in the last five days, and it feels good.

The Exiles Return is a book I first became aware of through Persephone but appears to have been published last year by Picador ("appears" = this library copy was published by Picador with a copyright date of 2013) (I am like Sherlock Holmes with the deduction). The Persephone description is really (too?) detailed, but what it shares with the Picador edition is its emphasis on the historical place of the book, the circumstances in which it was written and the historical situation it depicts.

This isn't all that surprising. Exiles is a posthumously published novel about 1950s Vienna, written by a woman with personal and family experience of that city at that time. Early in the book, a character returning to Vienna for the first time after the war arrives by train and is shocked by what he sees:

Formerly, there had been a long and high, cavernous, glazed-in hall into which the trains used to glide; it was old-fashioned, dingy, and yet somehow sumptuously dignified like the well-worn attire of a high-born elderly spinster who has clothed herself once and for all in her best and scorned to change her style. But now there was just -- nothing: an open space where the bombed wreckage of the old station had been cleared away; stacks of building material, steel girders and concrete mixers for the new modern station under construction. Adler experienced a violent sense of shock. It was his first actual contact with the fact to which he had hitherto not given much thought: that not everything would look the same -- or be the same -- as it had looked and been when he left it. I shall have to learn the lesson of the Western Station, he though, and this phrase, repeated silently many times in the coming months, summed up and symbolised for him the situations and experiences he would be having to deal with in the course of his attempt at repatriation.

 Given that it's Vienna, the baggage here isn't just the Second World War, but also Nazism and the Anschluss, as well as the end of Austria-Hungary. The descriptions and blurbs are right: the book does capture a uniquely complex time and place well. There are some passages and incidents -- like the one above -- that really bring the setting alive. Interestingly, I felt that the overtly "historical" aspect of the book slid to the background as it went on (although it never really goes away, of course; it's the setting and creates some of the conditions for the denouement). Again, I don't really like this kind of strawman hypothetical, but I think this is the difference between someone writing a novel about a situation they lived through rather than sitting down to write a historical novel about an Important Time: the latter sort of book would probably keep historically-significant set pieces at the center.

All that being said... and I am not confident of this judgment so let me know what you think if you've read this book... I'm not sure this is all that great a novel. I mean it's fine, I liked it. But the plotlines in the second half were a little meh for me, and I'm not sure Marie-Theres in particular ever really made all that much sense to me as a character. Maybe there's a reason why all the summaries of this book stress the historical side. Or maybe I just read it too fast. (Eee, that's a possibility this time! *flexes muscles*)

It's beautiful outside! Let's talk about CALAMITY

The first thing to say about this book (Sean McMeekin's July 1914 -- I have this feeling that half the posts I write don't actually identify what I'm talking about) is that it came from Powell's Books, and they are awesome. When I went to see (online) how much this newly published hardcover book might cost, I noticed that Powell's had a used copy listed at a respectable discount. Sweet! So I ordered it. What arrived, however, was a brand NEW book with an adorable note saying that the used copy was no longer on the shelf and so they'd sent me a new one. That is thoroughly awesome.

shiny and eager!

So, on to the content of the book. In my world, the fact that this year marks the centenary of the start of the First World War is a really big unmissable deal, and this book, July 1914, is one of many that have been published for the occasion.

McMeekin's account of the July Crisis that led to the declaration(s) of war has several distinct features. For one, it is almost entirely focused on the highest reaches of government and diplomacy. There are a few mentions of public outcry, public reaction, etc, but mostly it keeps to the point: the men who had the power to actually make or influence the decisions about war and peace. Toward the end of the story, there are mentions of "rumors" and "reports" of border crossings and skirmishes which McMeekin dismisses as "mostly false" without much explanation of what's going on here; but you can't fault the guy for sticking to his own can of historical worms and not opening another. (I'll return to this below.)

Most of the book consists of day-by-day chapters, with a few covering overnight periods. Helpfully, there is a "dramatis personae" in the front of the book as well as a summary timeline. The really delightful thing is that McMeekin is meticulous -- like, meticulous -- with his sources. Time and again his analysis slows down to take into account the time a message was decided on, composed, approved, encrypted, sent, arrived, decoded, (possibly translated,) delivered to, and read by various people. I am totally serious when I say that this is THRILLING. Not just because I am a document nerd, but also because it allows the book to retain suspense even when you know all along that everything's going to end in disaster. McMeekin is not telling a story of dominoes falling but of a constantly shifting landscape in which people are choosing from the options they see on the table, based on the options they wish they saw or hope will be made available to them shortly.

One of the themes of the book is thus communications. McMeekin is constantly pointing out where people are making decisions based on bad, outdated or ambiguous information. (This is where I think it could have been proper to discuss the "rumors" that start to factor into decision- and excuse-making at the start of August. But as I say, that's a whole 'nother kind of research, and McMeekin is quite within his rights to leave it alone!) Individual diplomats and politicians tell lies, make unintentionally misleading statements, deliberately leave their answers vague, send cables at the worst possible times and choose exactly the wrong words. I kept thinking about the speed of modern communications as I read this book, and wondering whether we might consider that to be a factor in the crisis.

McMeekin's book prior to this one is titled The Russian Origins of the First World War which might give you a sense of some of his conclusions here. He firmly refutes the idea that the Germans had some special predilection for war, for instance, and argues convincingly that France and Russia were just as guilty of underhanded war mongering as Austria or Germany. In fact, in McMeekin's view, Germany is often disadvantaged by being too honest and rule-abiding, where her enemies are lying and sneaking around and thus saving face. The epilogue contains a straightforward discussion of blame -- which is nice; by that point I was ready to hear how the author would make his judgements.

Perhaps what comes across most of all is human frailty. These men all have their own weaknesses and interests, not all tied to the national interest (however that might be construed). Fear and anxiety, not least over reputation and one's own political future, all play a role in what gets said, when, and in what tone. I don't have an in-depth knowledge of this subject (the July Crisis or the First World War) so I can only judge the book so far; but I thought it was very worthwhile and informative. Above all, this note of human frailty, so effectively conveyed by a focus on the nitty-gritty and practical aspects of diplomatic communications, is an important counterpoint to easy generalizations about national interest and national character. Fathers Day (also Mothers Day -- #FEMINISM) is coming up, and if a War Book is something that qualifies as a good gift in your household, this is a solid choice. It's a bit complex -- there are a lot of names, and sometimes German diplomats have French-sounding surnames and so on -- but I really was surprised how it sucked me in in spite of that, and it ended up being a compelling read. So maybe not the best choice for my dad, who spends a lot of time in airports waiting for flights (to be cancelled) (poor dad), but for a dad who does lots of reading in an armchair. But YDMV.

In which my childhood is not ruined

Anne of Green Gables, y'all. Like so many other girls my age, I was obsessed with Anne of Green Gables when I was 10ish. I read all the book in the series multiple times; I don't think I ever owned them but I knew right where to find them in the library. My Victorian dollhouse Playmobil figures were always Anne and Gilbert and family, acting out incredibly dramatic scenes.

I didn't have this puppy, so I would use masking tape to make a house floorplan on my bedroom floor.

When I got to the end of the series, I would start over; at one point I remember feeling vaguely like maybe I should read something else, but ANNE was all I wanted to read, so ONE MORE TIME. That's just the kind of groove I get into now with 30 Rock on Netflix so, as they say in Quebec, plus ça change.

For all that, I discovered in conversation with some friends this winter that I had mostly forgotten what the books were about. I mean, I recognized various incidents ("oh yeaaaah...") but I couldn't have summarized anything to save my life. So when I saw this very attractive Oxford Children's Classics edition:

the book magpie strikes again

I thought I should re-read it. Not without some trepidation! You may remember that my re-reading of Nancy Drew was rather disappointing. And in general, what are the odds that a book for little girls published in 1908 wouldn't be embarrassing in 2014?

Actually, as it turns out, the book holds up pretty well! A lot of that has to do with one of Anne's key characteristics: that she is a whiz kid at school. There's no conflict about this in the book; I hate hypotheticals like this, but if it were a historical novel being written today, would the author have refrained from making "Anne is made to feel unfeminine for being smart" a major plot point? As I was reading, I both recognized that this is why I identified so intensely with Anne and also that this book, with its glorification of studying to win top marks, really shaped the way I approached my schoolwork as a kid.

And, not unrelatedly, Gilbert is still such. a. dish.*

Let's review, shall we? Gilbert Blythe (SIGH sigh sigh) is a boy who teases Anne about the color of her hair and she not only schools him good at the moment, she swears eternal hatred. Anne and Gilbert battle it out to be the top student in school on every assignment, exam, etc. Gilbert is clearly attracted to this girl who is so able and willing to fight back. Anne is mostly contemptuous, but by the end of the book they agree to be friends.

Amen amen, my fellow Ameriwomen, you can put away your tired "ooo, Disney princes gave me unrealistic expectations" meme, because that right there is kryptonite. Oh, you mean the most handsome boy in school will only love me more if I whoop him on spelling tests? I CAN DO THAT. And definitely, an antagonistic relationship like that will resolve in mutual respect and eventual love. Oh yes; Gilbert Blythe (SIGH sigh sigh) remains my one and only fictional crush.


* I've never seen the Canadian TV movie (series?), mind you. It seemed relevant to mention that at this particular moment.

Something Different: Something Other Than God

A few points to note before we get started today, class:

1. This is a review of a Catholic book written for a Catholic audience. Act accordingly.
2. This post contains links to where you can buy the book, but they are not affiliate links.
3. This post is being entered in a random drawing for a prize being offered by the author of the book to mark its launch and encourage people to read and write about it. However, the post is not sponsored or anything like that, and the opinions here are 100% my own, blah blah blah.

Now, on with the post... 

It occurred to me this afternoon that the Church gives us saints in response to our desire for celebrities. A celebrity is someone we want to think we know; they represent something — sex, or genius, or a particular system of belief — and we watch them like hawks. We think we know them, and we think we know their story, ignoring the fact that they are human beings like we are, in the middle of an uncertain life with unknown twists and turns ahead. When our celebrities fall or stray from their designated narrative we criticize them, we question or abandon our beliefs and affiliations, we recontextualize and rationalize and talk and talk and talk. We want so much to see particular values played out in someone else’s life, to have someone to point to (not always positively; we want someone to represent wrongness as much as to be our role model). The saints are an answer to this. Their lives have been lived, with all their messiness, but they have lived out particular virtues and heroisms, and we know that they have run the good race. In short, the Church tells us that if we want someone to model for us what virtue and devotion look like, we should look to these saints who are now eternally with God. (True to Philippians 4:8, the Church apparently isn't particularly concerned with providing bad examples.)

I was thinking about this because the book I’m reviewing here, Jennifer Fulwiler’s Something Other Than God (click for links to buy, a free excerpt, a video featuring a man in a banana suit, &c), is an example of a genre I really don’t ever read: the conversion story.

This is the gif Fulwiler made to celebrate the book launch. She is my people.

Fulwiler grew up as an atheist (in Texas, no less), without any real knowledge of religious culture or lore, and her objections were more to religion itself, as a guiding principle in someone’s life, than to any particular doctrine. This is more the culture that I recognize in my own surroundings, and part of the reason why I like reading Fulwiler’s blog. Her explanations and ponderings speak to the kinds of pushback I feel around me, and the currents I feel invited to fall into (that’s a terrible metaphor but whatever). The other reason her blog is so great is because Fulwiler is a funny, lively writer, who’s able to tell a hilarious story in all its absurd glory. She’s been working on this book for years (always a good sign), and when it was finally available to preorder I jumped on it. I also set up text alerts from Amazon to let me know when it was on its way. One of those texts arrived as I was counting down the minutes to a phone interview; if it had been my mother texting to wish me good luck I might have been annoyed at the near-heart attack it gave me, but since it was this book, I was just that much more excited. Priorities.

I was so psyched when it came I had to document the moment. And the tiles in my building's foyer. FEEL THE EXCITEMENT.

If I had to pick two words to describe the writing I might choose “clear” and “tight”. I was seeing reports on Twitter of people reading it in four or five hours, and I believe it. It’s not a quick read in the sense that there’s nothing to it, but in the sense that it draws you in and doesn’t slow you down. Since I’m a grad student I am contractually obligated to (a) like books, but also (b) make critical remarks, and this is really my only criticism: the book is so lean and focused that it can feel, well, too lean and focused. All the description of Fulwiler’s pre-conversion life is centered on her spiritual crises and the questions she had trouble answering within an atheist worldview. I would have liked a little more — I hate phrases like “word painting” or “pen portrait” but fine. I would have liked a little fuller pen portrait of atheist Jennifer Fulwiler, rather than getting it later on as a contrast to whatever was currently happening in the narrative. That being said, this tight focus gives the book a humble quality: it's not here to offer too much interpretation beyond the demands of the narrative. So, in my usual academic way: it's a plus and a minus.

The focus of the book is on the conversion process itself which is wrapped up in several dramatic changes that took place in her and her husband’s lives at the same time. This story is really interesting and relatable, even though it deals with fairly unusual circumstances, and in spite of the (realistic) complexity of all this, it's easy to follow. If you want to know the details, you should buy the book (also available as an ebook).

Which brings me around to the thoughts I opened this post with (eh? eh? I’m a writer). Conversion stories are like memoirs, being autobiographical narratives published while the writer is still alive. (That sentence is mocking me, pointing out that there is a ton of theory on exactly this topic that I have not read, but I am pushing through.) A conversion story could potentially play into a desire to latch onto celebrities, pulling us away from the real spiritual growth that could come from studying the lives of the saints into the roller coaster drama of constantly evaluating someone else’s life and opinions. As I was reflecting on the book, I thought about how difficult it would be to publish a narrative of your life like this. It would be strange to read a book written by a friend, offering her decided-on version of the part of her life which included you, particularly if you were part of the “before” picture. So what’s the point? Given that we don’t want to be idolizing our contemporaries, what’s the point of reading a story like this?

My answer to that question is that a book like this offers a unique kind of faith-sharing, where we can see what thoughts were going through someone else's mind and what challenges they faced, all in the context of a larger trajectory. Each of us is in the midst of our own story, striving to make little before-and-afters out of our faults and failings. Each of us is called to conversion throughout our lives: am I embracing that, or am I just trying to get comfortable? A story like this can also make us reflect on how we are helping others on their own way. Am I the camp counselor who pressures people in my care to conform? Am I the parishioner who celebrates the presence of a seeker?

This isn't a book that has all the answers, and of course it shouldn't be; Fulwiler, still alive (and long may she be) is not a saint, and she wisely isn't setting herself up as a celebrity either.* What it is, is a fascinating story about how — to quote the subtitle — the author "passionately sought happiness and accidentally found it." Something Other Than God is more than just a blog book; for one thing it gives a much more complete version of Fulwiler's story than I ever picked up reading her blog. More importantly, it's also a thoughtful account of how "conversion" means changing your life along with your mind. I enjoyed it just as much as I thought I would, and I can't wait to read/hear other people's thoughts about it.

* I am emphatically not telling Jennifer Fulwiler "Careful Icarus", just to be clear.**
** Mostly I added that footnote so I could link the Careful Icarus clip. I'm only human.

Remember eBooks?

Oh, I know, you're probably thinking something like "eBooks are still a big deal, you dork, prissy articles about them get published all the dang time even though it's like almost 2014" but what I mean is remember when ebooks (and, eh, internal capitals) were like a thing in my life, and I had a Kindle and whatnot?

(If that's our standard, then remember blogs, those were a thing once upon a time and where did they goooo, is what you're thinking sarcastically (don't think I don't know) and I say to you

shameless Alice pandering

but also yeah, ok.)

BACK TO ME. So there I was sitting on the train the other day, fiddling with my phone and thinking about how I had Les Miserables in the Penguin Gorgeous Brick Edition sitting at home, when a lady got on the train with her Kindle and I had a wistful moment.

That was the nice thing about the Kindle, it made an excellent commuting companion because you didn't have to decide what to bring with you or whether or not your shoulder could stand it; it was just you and the text and a consistently dainty extra thing in your bag.

My Kindle is currently in my parents' basement after losing my page one time too many. Ultimately, I don't miss it that much. And I'm halfway through le brique and I've got a shelf of physical books I should get through, so, you know.

I do always like a good accessory, though, so here are some new e-reader cases from the British Library to ogle. They have a weird adhesive thing that sticks the device into the case (see it in action), and what they don't seem to have is any kind of closure dealie. But they have one that says "A Very Naughty Girl" on it so I guess you have to weigh it yourself.

especially about the way to end a post

I'm not convinced anything in this post makes sense

I'm sitting here having something of an omg moment, because there are so many things in the world and in my life that I want to (help) accomplish and yet I do so very little and, hello, exhibit A, there are two emails I've been avoiding in my inbox for two weeks now. And that's reminded me of something I could do to avoid those for a wee bit longer.

Welcome to this blog post, about The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.

I really liked this book. More specifically I was in awe of and delighted by it. From about halfway through I tried to put together my reaction and here's the best I came up with: say you're visiting an art museum for the first time. You're on vacation, or it's Sunday, or whatever, and it was free, so you're sort of drifting merrily through the galleries. Pictures pictures pictures: landscapes, ladies, naked ladies, landscapes, Dutch interiors, shoopdedoo. And then as you're casting your eye lazily across one wall, a picture jumps out at you. This, you think, this is the real thing. I've looked at all these other pictures that are superficially doing the same stuff: but this one works. This is the piece of art all those other paintings are trying to be.

You know you like my pretentious analogies, don't lie

I haven't read many (any?) other books about Jewish-Americans or golems or comic books or whatnot but somehow this book felt like it got something that other books I've read missed. It just clicked for me in a way I wouldn't necessarily have predicted. And it was darn entertaining too. I don't think it's changed my life or anything, and maybe I won't remember it at all in a few years, but man! It hit me the right way this time.

So lemme tell you a little story about this book. I bought it for £2 used with the express intention of getting rid of it when I was done. I actually finished it when I was staying in a hotel, and when I saw a bookshelf in the lobby with miscellaneous books on it, I got super excited about this perfect chance to pass the book on, indirectly, to someone else. So excited that I got rid of the book before I'd made any notes about favorite passages or copied out any quotes.

*~*~so genius~*~*

But, to cycle back around to the start of this post, I think one of the reasons I liked this book so much was the character of Josef Kavalier. Of all the characters, he was the one I was most interested in (and really, he's the main character, so that's good). During the Second World War, he gains a sort of notoriety among his fellow soldiers because he never opens his mail, and when someone confronts him about it he (I think, see above) responds that... he just didn't open it. He couldn't quite deal with it, so he didn't. So, uh, I don't think it says anything good about me and my psyche that I do that sometimes too, but it was a detail that I liked.

Insanity! No, really: prepare the padded room

Lady Audley's Secret: it's no Woman in White.

Penguin knows that we cannot resist Coralie Bickford-Smith's beautiful clothbound designs, and so they've introduced (in the UK anyway; have these made to America yet? can't remember) the Penguin English Library. The fiends. I mean, look at this cover:

These are paperback editions with a slightly rubbery matte finish, and very reasonably priced; this one is £6. I noticed that this series started with the usual suspects, Austen, Dickens, etc, and you can tell it's been successful because they're digging pretty deeply into the classics catalog now. Coralie Bickford-Smith: cover design crack. (Side note: I was relieved when I saw her name credited on the back of these volumes; at first I was concerned that Penguin had genuinely ripped themselves off, so I'm glad that it's rather a case of a good designer getting more work.)

This was not an especially notable book; it takes far sterner insaner stuff than this to impress a veteran of Alice's Woman in White Readalong.

memmmmries

There are a couple of notable things about it, though. I did like Robert Audley, who's a sort of lovable layabout who nevertheless gets sucked into Mysterious Doings when he can't just let his friend's mysterious disappearance go. It's a sort of Code-of-the-Woosters thing. Braddon doesn't recognize the good thing she has here though, and like a true killjoy Victorian sensationalist, she seems to think we'll actually dislike Audley for being a nominal barrister who doesn't really care about making a legal career but is happy to lounge around leading a mildly dissolute, unstriving bachelor life. In the final analysis, Audley is only an embryonic awesome character; Braddon sort of leads him through a conversion to being serious-minded and diligent and booooo-ring.

Granted, it's been many, many weeks since I finished this book and therefore stopped actively thinking about it, but is it even slightly possible to see Audley as a predecessor for Bertie Wooster? Maybe through several other literary degrees of separation that I can't think of? Alternatively, I'm reading the fully developed awesomeness of a character like Bertie onto the unlikely-hero lead of a fairly unpretentious popular thriller. (Yeah, okay, I'm seeing it.) Still.

Audley is embryonically awesome in another way: he's clearly (that is, clumsily) presented as a man qualified to become, for the purposes of the story, the Detective. As someone with legal training, Audley knows about evidence and reasoning and so can investigate the case. In our modern post-post-post-conventional genre world, Audley could carry a whole series of increasingly tenuous mystery novels. Dame Crawley's Enigma. Viscountess Grande's Private Affair. Comtesse L'Enfant's Confidence (the foreign installment). Princess Edwina's Riddle: The Stunning Conclusion of the Robert Audley Chronicles.

As I flip through my dogeared pages, I'm reminded that there's a lot of entertaining wackiness in this book of both the intentional and unintentional variety. For instance, I'm pretty sure Braddon's having a larf when she puts this reflection into Robert Audley's mouth (or brain) (you get it):

The Eastern potentate who declared that women were at the bottom of all mischief, should have gone a little further and seen why it is so. It is because women are never lazy. They don't know what it is to be quiet. They are Semiramides, and Cleopatras, and Joan of Arcs, Queen Elizabeths and Catharine the Seconds, and they riot in battle and murder and clamour and desperation. [sic] If they can't agitate the universe and play at ball with hemispheres, they'll make mountains of warfare and vexation out of domestic molehills; and social storms in household teacups.

Suddenly I don't really care to give this blog post an ending. My first sentence stands as my final verdict.

I got yer GIFs right here

*phoo*phoo* Huh, I guess no one comes and dusts in here when I don't do it...

I always thought it was a wise rule not to start posts with "sorry it's been so long" but it's been months, so: yeah. The good news is, it's not like I was ever much of a book blogger to begin with. Low standards save the day!

Learn from teacher, kids.

I'd like to say that I've been reading, just not blogging, but the fact is that I haven't been doing much reading at all except spiritual reading and work reading. Work reading definitely doesn't get a post here, not least because "reading" is kind of an exaggeration in most cases.

"Right, the sooner I can bulk up this footnote, the sooner I can go take a nap"

Spiritual reading is a mild temptation because I do a fair amount of it, and I do love me some Catholic books, but then again I realize that's a limited audience (LOL, as if I had any audience). The thing is, spiritual reading is so personal: I like things because they help me with whatever I'm struggling with. Plus, I tend to dip in and out of things, and/or read three or four pages at a time. So really, bottom line, spiritual reading does not help me here and it would need its own blog.

Yeah, that's right: I need two blogs.

Anyway, the bottom line is: I feel like my fiction-reading is on its way back, and this blog with it, now that the Worst Time of the Year is almost behind us.

I'm not just saying that: just as crocuses suggest the changing seasons, I have had signs and portents indicating a revitalization of my reading habit. Namely: feeling stuck about what to read. I have a lot of unread books hanging around, however I am leaving the country (yes, again) in a week and I don't want to take up room in my luggage for what will be deadweight coming back (unless a book is really awful I want to keep it, for hoarding purposes).

We all come back!

"That's easy," you say, "buy ebooks." YOU THINK YOU'RE REALLY SMART, HUH. Last time I used my Kindle, I felt like its age was starting to show and the whole thing was feeling kind of buggy. The magic is gone there, I'm afraid, and I'm honest and shallow enough to acknowledge that I just don't wanna. And what puts the kibosh on basically any solution to this problem is that I've given up buying books for Lent.

Second Catholic reference in the post: I'm not sorry

"Well that was stupid," you say, and I ignore your sarcasm because I had a very good reason. I was giving up buying clothes and makeup and shoes, since those are my usual mindless frittering purchases, and it struck me that books were also a problem. In fact, possibly even more of a problem because while at least I know I'm mindlessly frittering when I buy a new blush on a whim, when I books I tend to justify it as... well... it's a book, of course I need it! When in fact I not infrequently spend sums on books as a way of scratching that spending itch in just as mindless a fashion. So it seemed like a very good candidate, in itself, but also as a way of closing a loophole.

Now I just cut checks for charities, which is better for all concerned.

So anyway, the bottom line is, I'm sort of weirdly between various things at the moment, but I'm fairly sure things will be moving again shortly.

And hey! I've just used up almost an hour I was supposed to be spending dissertating on this post! Ah, blog, I forgot just how great you are.

Odi et amo

This book fascinates me because it is such a perfect example of why I love my Kindle and also why I so often neglect it.

It's a huge, heavy book that's available for free as an eBook. Instant travel companion! Thanks Kindle!

But just look at that gorgeous cover! Clothbound, yum yum. And a well-regarded translation besides. Thanks Penguin!

Sorry, wallet.

(Yes, I am actually going to read this. I was much surprised by friends who liked the movie but insisted the book was better. I didn't think anyone would compare the movie to anything but the musical. And I really didn't think anyone outside a French literature class actually read Hugo... but I'll save all that for the post...)

Paper and ink versus words and ideas

Regretsy once again has set out to make us cry:


Yeah, it's "a great way to display vintage books" if by "books" you mean "part of books". "The part that makes the actual valuable part of the book possible".

The offensive stupidity of this craft project being given, I have to say I am not the hugest fan of old books these days. When I was a young lass I was an enthusiastic buyer of crumbling old books and had a "collection" of items I had gathered up at library book sales. But there's a fine line between "delightful old book smell" and "gross moldy stank" just as there is between "quirky old stories" and "boring stuff that probably isn't worth reading anymore." Once upon a time I was all about the romance of decrepit old used book stores, and now, I gotta be honest, dust and brittle pages are just not worth it for me 99% of the time. The content of some old books can be better conveyed through digital copies, frankly. While I am all in favor of libraries and archives preserving the past, I also recognize that some specimens are maybe... superfluous, whether because there are already versions of the book available for those who need them, or because an individual copy is beyond help.

Not that I don't own and delight in plenty of gross offenders on all these points. Alice got me an old etiquette book for Christmas last year that leaks some sort of charcoal-like black powder from its broken-down spine; but it has hilarious old-timey advice and endpapers, and I absolutely love it even if I do have to wash my hands after handling.

Is it maybe okay if some books get chopped up for "craft projects"? I feel like that's where I'm working around to here, but I just can't go there. As my mother said so many times as I was growing up, That's not how we treat our books.

Maybe what I dislike most is this notion that such crafts are "giving old books new life" as the subtitle of this manual of horrors book suggests. If you want to give an old book new life, read it, write about it, tell people about it. That's the only way to give it "new life". Otherwise you're just recycling the paper. Which I guess I'm okay with, if the book, for whatever reason, is in fact trash.

I think my bottom line is, if you want to admire the beauty of books, then admire some freaking books, not parts of books that have been reassembled into decorative items. It's ridiculous to destroy a book in order to "repurpose" it into something supposedly celebrating your great love of books.

Still and all, I do love those endtables shaped like a giant stack of books. Classic.

Update: Lemony Snicket says: "It has always been my belief that people who spend too much time with my work end up as lost souls, drained of reason, who lead lives of raving emptiness and occasional lunatic violence. What a relief it is to see this documented."