Mr. Shakespeare's Bastard - Richard B. Wright

This book caught my eye because I'm always a bit of a sucker for historical fiction. Especially good historical fiction; and the author of Clara Callan promised a good read. (As a side note, I read Clara Callan back when it first came out, and absolutely loved it. I couldn't believe that a male author could express female feelings in a first person narrative so deeply and accurately that I kept forgetting that it wasn't written by a female author.)

The plot in a nutshell? As the title implies, the main character, Aerlene Ward, is the illegitimate daughter of Mr. Shakespeare, author of such well known plays as Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Hamlet. Her mother Elizabeth had an affair with Shakespeare when she was a young woman recently moved to London, and Shakespeare was a young actor and playwright living in London while his wife and young children were left behind in Stratford Upon Avon. It is written as though Aerlene at age 80 is dictating her memoir, and jumps between the "present day" with Aerlene as an elderly housekeeper; her mother's story of growing up and moving to London as told to Aerlene; and Aerlene's own childhood.

It didn't have the same emotional clout (in my opinion) as Clara Callan, but again I was amazed that such believable female characters could be written by a male author (no offense intended to any men reading this!). It was a pretty easy and enjoyable read, and I passed it on to my sister to read as she recovers from an appendectomy. I thought it was a well crafted book in terms of the storytelling, and was sad when it ended.

And that's about all I have to say. There were no deeper meanings in this book to discuss; no controversy to pick apart; no unresolved issues. I enjoyed the book, and will leave it at that.

Practical Jean - Trevor Cole

After reading and loving The Best Laid Plans, winner of the 2008 Stephen Leacock Award for Humour, I was looking forward to reading Practical Jean, the 2011 winner. Unfortunately I was disappointed.

While The Best Laid Plans made me laugh out loud (literally), Practical Jean left me feeling depressed instead. The blurb on the back of the book describes it as "tragicomic fiction", but in my opinion, the emphasis was on the tragedy rather than the comedy. Some of the adjectives used in the review quotes include black comedy, social satire, comic portraiture, piquant, hilarious, wickedly funny, diabolical deadpan, and mischievous. While I consider myself to have a very keen and sharp sense of humour, the humour in this book was lost on me.

The Jean in the title cares for her mother over the last few months of her life as she dies of cancer; and then decides to spare her best friends the pain and torment of a lingering death by killing them now. While she is presented as being very logical and practical; to me the tragedy is that here is a woman very obviously suffering from depression to the extreme who neither seeks out, nor is offered any sort of support or help. I'm afraid that the humour of a woman with depression systematically murdering her friends was lost on me. There isn't even a comic reversal at any point that would have added to the humour.

I can almost compare it to Swift's A Modest Proposal, but without the social commentary. In that case, it was the reversal of the expected that made it funny. Practical Jean is supposed to be a satire, but to my eyes it isn't satirizing anything.

If anyone else has read this book, please help me out! What did I miss? Why didn't I find it funny?

The Stepsister Scheme - Jim Hines

Yes, I know that this book isn't usually my cup of tea. But I am now visiting a friend who was my supplier of pulp fiction (not the movie sort) through university, and her husband loaned me this book (which I finished in about 24 hours). This said friend's husband is friends with the author, and told me that the author wrote this book so that his daughter (then 8, now 12) would have a princess option other than the saccharine Disney variety.

Imagine, if you will, what happened after Cinderella's Happily Ever After. Imagine that her stepsisters have turned to magic and become witches, kidnapped Cinderella's prince, and are holding him hostage in the land of the fairies. And imagine that Cinderella's mother-in-law (the queen) has a personal body guard consisting of Sleeping Beauty and Snow White. And now imagine that Sleeping Beauty, contrary to the popular tale, was actually raped by the prince sent to wake her up and was awakened by the pains of childbirth; and that Snow White was poisoned by her mother who was jealous of her magical abilities and then watched her lover choose to be murdered by the queen rather than to kill Snow White (the 7 dwarves are, in fact, the 7 Anthropomorphic Incarnations of Elemental Magic - Earth, Air, Water, Fire, Light, Darkness, and Magic).

You would end up with three supremely pissed off princesses. And the story goes on from there.

I don't read enough fantasy in order to be able to judge this one, but it was certainly an enjoyable romp as far as such stories go. And yes, it offers a radially different re-telling of the stories from the Disney versions, featuring strong female leads. I just don't know that I would want my daughter to be reading it at the age of 8, or even 12. There is a lot of violence, and a number of references to sex. It doesn't seem quite geared to the pre-YA crowd... But it was a pleasant way to pass an autumn day; though I suspect that I won't be looking up the other books in the series. Like I said, not quite my cup of tea.

State of Wonder - Ann Patchett

I wanted to like this book. Really, I did. Especially after hearing the author interviewed by Shelagh Rogers (best interviewer ever for authors, in my opinion), and downloading and listening to the full, uncut version. She was so entertaining, and witty, and I loved the passage of this book that she read.

But I come away from it with mixed feelings.

Yes, it was entertaining. Yes, there were parts that were laugh out loud funny and the author can see the humour and irony around her. And yes, it kept me reading to the end, quite quickly (a plane ride on Friday made for good uninterrupted reading time). But in the end, there was too much suspension of disbelief required to make me fully enjoy it.

The premise? A drug company in Minnesota is sponsoring a researcher in the Amazon jungle who is developing a drug that will extend fertility for as long as a woman is alive. The drug company sends another scientist down to get an update on her work. He is reported dead. They send another scientist (Marina, the main character of the book) down, to both find out what happened and finish the work that he set out to do. She ends up, by the end of the first chapter, deep in the Brazilian rain forest and clueless about how to survive.

The characters were really unique and memorable, but at times Marina (who is supposed to be intelligent) is just so stupid. I wanted to smack her and ask what she was thinking at times. And none of the characters were infallible - they all had their quirks and faults which made them much more believable.

It was when Marina reached the tribe where the women bear children well into their 70s that the plot became ridiculous. I managed to suspend disbelief long enough to enjoy it for a while, but then reality came back to me and I could only sit back and shake my head. I also found the tribe to be a caricature of themselves - almost what a European in the 1700's might imagine a "savage tribe" to be...

So a mixed review overall. Like I said, interesting enough to be good airplane reading; but not good enough for me to ever want to re-read it. I've already given my copy to the friend that I'm visiting. Has anyone else read this book? What did you think?

The Cat's Table - Michael Ondaatje

I don't know why, but I always look forward to the publication of a new Micahel Ondaatje book. I loved The English Patient when I first read it back in my university days, enjoyed In the Skin of a Lion almost as much. However with his more recent books (Anil's Ghost and Divisidaro), I have found myself wavering in my loyalty.

I think that I enjoyed The Cat's Table as much as his earlier books, and certainly more than his more recent books, but only time will tell if it is as memorable. I think that is what I didn't enjoy about Anil's Ghost and Divisidero - they were very forgettable. If you were to ask me know, I wouldn't be able to tell you what they were about.

The Cat's Table is different. I found both the plot line, the setting, and the characters to be engaging, and therefore, I hope, memorable. Michael (yes, the author has stated that this book has autobiographical tendencies) is an 11-year old passenger on a ship traveling from Sri Lanka to England in the 1950's. He is assigned to take his meals at the Cat's Table - the table farthest from the captain's table. The story revolves around his interactions with fellow passengers both at his table and from other tables; as well as the happenings at sea as they journey half way around the world.

In the second half of the book, there are some happenings from the time after Michael arrives in England interspersed with the story of the ocean journey. This was not intrusive, and the past and the future link together so that both story lines make more sense.

There is a bit of a mystery on board that Michael didn't understand as an 11 year old, and he is gradually able to piece together as an adult, as he encounters other people who had been on board the ship.

This book has made it to the longlist for the Giller Prize, and I am hoping that it makes it to the shortlist when it is announced next week.

Reference and Thank You

It's always humbling to discover that your opinion is valued enough that others will reference it and use it as a source; so I was quite chuffed to find out that a friend of mine quoted an essay that I wrote a few years back in a sermon that she gave yesterday. The full sermon can be found here, and the original essay was published by the CBC and can be found here. Thank you Laura Marie! I feel very honoured.

Le Petit Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

It has been a bit of a joke of mine that there is only room in my brain for one language other than English. So when I learned and became fluent in Swahili, I had to delete my French in order to make room. However I have since discovered that the French is still there, just a bit rusty from lack of use.

This summer when I was in Paris, I picked up a copy of Le Petit Prince from a book stall on the left bank of the Seine. This is a book that I read back in high school French class and remembered liking it a lot, though I couldn't remember any of the plot. I also remember that most of the class (probably all of the class - there were only 6 of us!) tracked down English translations and read the book in English rather than French. And I remember that we had to write an essay on the book; though fortunately I don't remember what I wrote about - probably some pompous BS (as are most high school essays) regurgitating something that the teacher had told us.

I've had a very stressful week. Actually, make that a very stressful 6 months that flared up into an acute state of stress a week ago. This was a perfect book for me to be reading this week. Those vague impressions of liking the book back in high school proved to be true.

It is a hard book to describe for those of you who haven't read it as there are so many layers to the story. On the surface, the narrator crashes his plane in the middle of the Sahara desert where he meets a young boy. It turns out that this boy (the Little Prince) has traveled from a tiny astroid far far away, via some other stars, to the earth in search of some friends. He is now trying to get back to his own planet.

Along his journey he encounters a series of people and animals and each encounter is almost a little morality tale unto itself. He encounters a series of people who show to him the ridiculousness of many people - a king with no one to rule over; a drunk who drinks to forget the shame of being a drunk; a businessman who acquires things for the sake of acquiring them; and a geographer too proud to go exploring to have something to write about.

On the earth he meets a fox who teaches him the message that he needs to learn, which the Little Prince then shares with the narrator. That what is truly important is invisible to the eyes and can only be seen with the heart. To the Little Prince, his rose that he left behind on his planet (the rose that he escaped due to her vanity and self-centredness) is important since she depends on him for protection. To the narrator, it is the relationship that he develops with the Little Prince that is important.

I could list so many favourite quotes from this book that I would lose any readers for this posting, so I will try to limit myself to just a few (all translations by me).

"Nous écrivons des choses éternelles." (We write of the eternal things.)

"Mais si tu m'apprivoises, nous aurons besion l'un de l'autre. Tu serais pour moi unique au monde. Je serai pour toi unique au monde." (The fox to the prince - But if you tame me, we will need each other. You will be unique to me; and I will be unique to you.)

"On ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux. C'est le temps que tu as perdu pour ta rose qui fait ta rose si importante. Les hommes ont oublié cette vérité. Mais tu de doeis pas l'oublier." (We don't see except with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eyes. It is the time that you have spent on your rose that makes your rose so important. Men have forgotten this truth, but you must not forget.)

"On est seul aussi chez les hommes." (You are also alone when you are with men/humans.)

"Les grandes personnes sont décidément très très bizarres." (Adults are decidedly very, very bizarre."

"Ce sera comme si je t'avais donné, au lieu d'étoiles, des tas de petits grelots qui savent rire..." (It will be like I have given you, in the place of the stars, little bells that know how to laugh..)

Reading this book reminded me of another quote from high school, this time from English class. "No man is an Island, entire of itself; ... because I am involved in mankind." (John Donne - my very favourite English-language poet). Both the Little Prince and the narrator learn that it is relationships that are important to this life.

Another quote that came to mind is, "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 18:3) The innocence and child-like curiosity of the Little Prince are highlighted throughout the book; and yet he is the one that learns and teaches true wisdom at the end.

I'm glad that I was reading this book in the original French (with a dictionary at my side to look up the occasional word that i didn't know), since it forced me to read more slowly and take in every word rather than skimming. And I'm glad that I re-read this book this week. All is going to be OK with the world. I have a feeling that this book is going to be on my "to-reread-regularly" list.