Anne McCaffrey: 1926-2011

I have to confess that I have not read much fantasy; but having confessed that fact, I also have to state that I love the dragon books by Anne McCaffrey, and so I was very sad to read of her death last week, at age 85, of a massive stroke.

I read her Harper Hall trilogy (Dragonsong, Dragonsinger, and Dragon Drums) back in high school, on the recommendation of my cousin and fell in love with the books and the planet of Pern. I didn't want to be a dragonrider, I wanted to be a harper and study at Harper Hall. I did go on to read many of the other Pern books, and while none of them caught my attention the way that the Harper Hall trilogy did, I found all of them to be engaging and entertaining.

I think that what captured me most was her ability to make Pern such a real place. When I am reading one of her books, Pern is more real to me than the world around me. Her books are also responsible for my love of dragons, for in her books, they are the "good guys", fighting to save the planet from devastation. Because of this, whenever dragons appear in any other book, I am always rooting for the dragons and the humans belonging to the dragons.

In an ironic twist, I have spent the past week re-visiting the Harper Hall books, so I was deep in Pernese life when I learned of the author's death. I have now picked up The Masterharper of Pern, a book that has been on my shelves for at least 10 years and that I was sure that I had read; and yet 100 pages it, it is not striking any chords in my memory. And so I am enjoying a new (to me) tale from Pern and the Harper Hall.

These are books that I hope never get made into movies. I can't imagine that any director's rendition of Pern could live up to the vividness of the writing, and my own imagination!

After Tehran - Marina Nemat

A year and a half ago, I read Marina Nemat's first book, Prisoner of Tehran, and absolutely loved it (I have to confess that my review was a bit of a rave). This is the sequel, and though it is a very different book, I loved it just as much.

Prisoner of Tehran tells the story of the author's arrest and imprisonment in Tehran's Evin Prison at age 16 in the early days of the Islamic Revolution. She was held there for 2 years and when she was released her family and friends did not want to acknowledge what she had been through. She married her sweetheart from before her imprisonment and eventually emigrated to Canada where she lives today.

This book tells the story of how she came to write Prisoner of Tehran. After her mother died in 2000, she started to experience hallucinations and flash-backs to the time of her imprisonment. In denying what had happened to her, she was denying part of herself. As she says in an interview that was posted today on the CBC website, "I decided that I had two options: one was to jump off a bridge, and the other was to write." I thought that the subtitle of the book was very appropriate - A Life Reclaimed.

Prisoner of Tehran is written as a relatively straightforward narrative - a straight line going from point A to point B. It is so gripping that I couldn't put it down and I read it in a single day. This book is different in that it is more of a series of interconnected essays. The introduction describes packing a suitcase of items to take with her to the next world, and each of the 23 essays is named after an object that she would pack in that suitcase. They jump back and forth a bit, and describe the process of confronting her family about her experiences in Evin Prison; joining a creative writing class at the University of Toronto and working her way through several drafts of her first book; having the book published and distributed around the world and the aftermath of book tours and award presentations; dealing with people who denied the veracity of her book; and re-connecting with old friends from both her childhood and imprisonment. The narrative line also sometimes wanders back and includes some stories from her imprisonment and her life afterwards up to the present day. All in all, the essays together made for a satisfying, and equally compelling if less gripping read as compared with the first book (I read most of this book in one-essay chunks at bedtime).

One thing that jumps out at me from both books, despite their dis-similarity is the author's voice. It is so clear and engaging and distinctive that it makes the books a pleasure to read. She is writing in her second language; and I only wish that I could write half as well in my first language! I suspect that she is finished now writing about her life, as there is an air of finality about this book that wasn't there in Prisoner of Tehran (because her story didn't end there). But I hope that she continues to write and publish books and I will be the first person in line to read them!

Minding Frankie - Maeve Binchy

In the last Maeve Binchy book that I reviewed, I said that opening up a new Maeve Binchy book was comforting, like curling up with a cup of tea. This book was more of the same. If you like her books, you will like this one too. If you don't like her books, give it a miss.

She included many of the characters from previous books, along with some new ones. Frankie is a baby girl born to a mother who is dying and desperate to find someone to look after her daughter. Instead of finding one person, she finds a whole community to take Frankie in.

It is set in the same neighbourhood as her last book, Heart and Soul, and it was fun to find out what happened to the characters from that book. This is probably as close to a sequel as she has ever written, while taking on new plot lines.

I do have to ask, what man treated the author so badly in her past that she keeps writing him into her books? You know, the one who can't commit, the one who is selfish, the one who borders on sociopathic? She is married to writer Gordon Snell and has publicly denied that he is the model for this character that seems to appear in every book.

What is different about this book is that there is a strong, like-able male main character. I found myself cheering for Noel through the whole book.

I'll keep reading her books as long as she keeps writing them!

The Stone Angel - Margaret Laurence

For this year's Canadian Book Challenge over at The Book Mine Set, I'm trying to re-read 13 Canadian Books from my past. I'm a bit behind schedule, but here is my second contribution.

Book: The Stone Angel, by Margaret Laurence (point of interest - my first re-read for this challenge also had angels in the title - The Rebel Angels)

First Read: I can be quite specific here - it was the summer of 1994, between grade 12 and 13. I had received a French language bursery and spent 6 weeks in the town of Rivière-du-Loup, living with a family and taking courses at the local CEGEP. I had limited access to English books, so read everything that I had packed in my suitcase, including the 4 Manawaka books.

Original Impressions: I didn't like it. In fact, if I hadn't had such limited book access that summer, I probably wouldn't have read the rest of the series. But I did read all of them, and found each book better than the one before, until I came to the last book, The Diviners, which I quite enjoyed.

Current Impressions: I re-read The Diviners a year or so ago and absolutely loved it, so I thought that this book was probably worth a re-read. I was staying with my sister last week, and she noticed that I was reading The Stone Angel and asked why I wanted to read the ramblings of a bitter old woman (note - she had to read it for school, while I first read it of my own free will and never had to study it). I certainly enjoyed it more than I did the first time around, but I wouldn't count it as one of my all-time favourites - I didn't click with Hagar the way that I did with Morag in The Diviners.

Hagar is a 90 year old woman who, as she approaches death, reflects back on her mostly unhappy life. She grew up as the only daughter of a relatively well-off merchant in the fictional prairie town of Manawaka. She married against her father's wishes and discovered that she wasn't happy in marriage. She became estranged from her elder son; left her husband; and then lost her younger son. She ends up lonely and resentful, living with her elder son and his wife. Come to think of it, my sister wasn't too far off calling Hagar a bitter old woman!

But really, it is a story of pride and ultimately redemption. Hagar realizes, close to the end of her life, that, "pride was my wilderness, and the demon that led me there was fear. I was alone, never anything else, and never free, for I carried my chains within me, and they spread out from me and shackled all I touched." She reflects, "I must always, always, have wanted... simply to rejoice. How is it I never could? ... Every good joy I might have held, in my man or any child of mine or even the plain light of morning, of walking the earth, all were forced to a standstill by some brake of proper appearances - oh, proper to whom? When did I ever speak the heart's truth?"

So I like to think that Hagar found redemption in the end and was able to leave her bitterness aside.

It was a much more enjoyable read now than it was 17 years ago; as I can see more meaning and purpose in the story of Hagar's life. I look forward to re-reading the rest of the Manawaka books.

Regarding the cover - I was reading my mother's copy which she purchased for $1.95 in the late '60s (I suspect). The McClelland and Stewart website has 3 different editions for sale (I picked my favourite cover for this post), the cheapest of which, an e-book, sells for 12.95!

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.