Book Review: Redeeming Love, by Francine Rivers

I read Francine Rivers's Mark of the Lion series a number of years ago and thought the books were wonderful. The plot was original and fascinating, and the stories had very well-developed characters. I absolutely loved the Mark of the Lion books. On the flipside, I sort of liked Redeeming Love.

This isn't a bad story or even a poorly written book. It's fairly well written (as far as Christian fiction is concerned, although frankly my standards are kind of low in that regard), and the characters are interesting enough to keep the reader turning the pages. For the most part, it's a solid story, but I really didn't love it. More on that below.

Rivers has based her story on the book of Hosea: Michael Hosea is a young, unmarried farmer in the "glory days" of post-goldrush California. Unlike many of the men who have flocked to California to make a fortune (and frequent the brothels), Michael is a good Christian man who is waiting for God to lead him to the right woman. Upon visiting the rather seedy town of Pair-a-Dice one day, he spots a startlingly beautiful young woman and feels that God is telling him she is his intended. To his complete surprise, Michael discovers that this young woman -- known as Angel -- is a prostitute, but he still feels God's nudging, so he pursues her and eventually marries her. The story actually opens with Angel's story, so the reader gets a good understanding of her background and what has caused her to persist in her life of prostitution. (She was the love child of a married man and his mistress and was rejected by her father; she lost her mother when she was eight and was subsequently sold into a brothel as a child prostitute; she attempted to escape prostitution by going to California but found that it was the only way she knew how to survive.) Like the character of Gomer, Angel returns to her old life at least once -- believing that she is good for nothing else but to sell her body to men -- but she eventually comes to know Christ, and the happy ending prevails in Redeeming Love. This is where my biggest gripe about the book applies. Almost the entire way through the story, Rivers keeps the tone appropriately grim and even slightly angsty at times. The reader is meant to understand Angel's pain and Michael's consistent (even persistent) love for her. After all, the topic is quite grim, and I don't know that there's any other way to discuss something like child prostitution or its lingering mental and emotional effects.

But then...oh, dear. Rivers attaches an epilogue that pretty much makes a mockery of the story she has just written. It's as though once Angel comes to repent of her life and her hard heart, everything is all right. All problems -- physical and emotional -- seem to vanish, and life is good. I don't question that Christ can bring peace into a person's life and heal hurts, but that doesn't mean that every moment from the point of salvation is going to be sunshine and roses. But in the epilogue Angel and Michael live happily ever after, and everything does seem to be sunshine and roses. Frankly, it's dreadful. I'd call it TMI, and I have to point out that the best writing leaves a good deal of the story untold. Rivers would have been better off to leave out the epilogue and end the story as she does. At least it leaves a little to the imagination and allows the reader to think of all the ways in which Angel and Michael's life might turn out. I feel as though this might have been Rivers's initial intent. The epilogue reads like her editor told her she needed something, so she sat down, took fifteen minutes to type it up, and then emailed it to him. And it's embarrassingly anti-climactic.

With that in mind, the only way that I can recommend the story is to encourage readers to skip the epilogue and pretend that it doesn't exist. The story is more enjoyable that way and has far more impact.

Year of publication: 1997
Number of pages: 468

Poetry Study: One Grecian Urn...

"Ode on a Grecian Urn," by John Keats

1.

Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

2.

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

3.

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

4.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e’er return.

5.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

I used to laugh at this poem. (Anyone remember "One Grecian urn..." from The Music Man?) But one of my college professors pointed out that this poem -- in addition to being a representative of near-perfect poetic form -- is actually quite fascinating. Keats is writing it as though he is staring at an ancient piece of pottery and watching the figures who are captured in mid-movement. It seems to me that he compares the urn to poetry itself, in that both offer a kind of immortality or something that isn't bound by time but can span generations or millenia. His now-famous remark about beauty and truth at the end of the poem remains under debate in its intent: some scholars see it as a motto for the Romantic poets, while others see it as a more sardonic commentary from Keats about the value of beauty and thus of truth. If the urn represents such intangible qualities as beauty and truth, is its value ultimately fleeting (as in, an ironic twist on the rest of the poem)? Or do beauty and truth have lasting and essential value for the world? I guess this one's up to the reader.

Saint Calendar: Augustine of Hippo

28 August

His father was a pagan who converted on his death bed; his mother was Saint Monica, a devout Christian. Trained in Christianity, he lost his faith in youth and led a wild life. Lived with a Carthaginian woman from the age of 15 through 30. Fathered a son whom he named Adeotadus, which means the gift of God. Taught rhetoric at Carthage and Milan. After investigating and experimenting with several philosophies, he became a Manichaean for several years; it taught of a great struggle between good and evil, and featured a lax moral code. A summation of his thinking at the time comes from his Confessions: "God, give me chastity and continence - but not just now."

Augustine finally broke with the Manichaeans and was converted by the prayers of his mother and the help of Saint Ambrose of Milan, who baptized him. On the death of his mother he returned to Africa, sold his property, gave the proceeds to the poor, and founded a monastery. Monk. Priest. Preacher. Bishop of Hippo in 396. Founded religious communities. Fought Manichaeism, Donatism, Pelagianism and other heresies. Oversaw his church and his see during the fall of the Roman Empire to the Vandals. Doctor of the Church. His later thinking can also be summed up in a line from his writings:

Our hearts were made for You, O Lord, and they are restless until they rest in you.

Died 28 August 430 at Hippo.

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Text derived from Patron Saints Index.

Book Review: Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser

"If we eat McDonald's hamburgers and potatoes for one thousand years, we will become taller, our skin will become white, and our hair will become blonde." -- Den Fujita, Japanese billionaire

This book has been on my "to read" list for a couple of years now (which usually means that I may or may not read it -- after all Harry Potter has been on my "to read" list from the start, and I haven't the slightest inclination toward the series). In any event, I confronted it in the library recently and decided to give it a try. My husband and I watched Super Size Me about three years ago, and it made such an impact on us that we now avoid fast food restaurants as much as possible. I assumed that Fast Food Nation was similar in focus, so I wasn't in a hurry to read it, but it piqued my interest while I was at the library, so I brought it home.

I quickly discovered that Fast Food Nation and Super Size Me, while similar in overall conclusions, approach the issue of fast food from entirely different points of view. Morgan Spurlock's documentary is an experiment to see what would happen if he only ate McDonald's for a specified amount of time. Eric Schossler's book is a philosophical analysis of what brought about the fast food craze in America and what has continued to drive it. Schlosser literally begins at the beginning by considering the rise of automobile ownership, the construction of highways, the availability of cheap resources, the increased mechanization of food preparation, and so forth. This book takes the reader on a journey that twists and turns through twentieth-century history in America -- and occasionally seems to lose its direction (although Schlosser usually jumps in right around the point where the reader is preparing to say, "So what does this have to do with..." and explains where he is going), but the end result is a surprisingly detailed look at the rise of the fast food industry in America and an intricate explanation of just how dependent Americans have become upon this kind of food -- not to mention how ignorant most Americans are about the way that fast food, as well as the food we buy in grocery stores, is produced. After reading about the way that the large meatpacking firms slaughter and prepare cattle for consumption, I'm just about ready to go buy my own cows or find a small rancher who sells free-range beef.

To some extent, this book was "preaching to the choir" for me. My husband and I don't eat much fast food; to my knowledge we haven't eaten McDonald's burgers and fries even once in the last three years, and we have no intention of serving McDonald's food to our children, should we have any. But it was a good reminder for me about why we have made these decisions about the way we eat. Schlosser isn't merely going after fast food companies: he's revealing to Americans a philosophical shift in what defines "the American way," and frankly it's ugly (not to mention obese...). Most surprising to me was the fact that the vast majority of beef production in the US takes place at one of three major firms. Just three? How is that possible? Whatever happened to diversity in business providing options for the consumer? It occurred to me that by merging and buying up smaller competition, large companies in the US are essentially creating a twenty-first century version of feudalism, owning the land and the businesses and thus turning the so-called "powerful" American consumer into a serf. At the rate we're going, America is going to bring a kind of new medievalism to the world instead of democracy.

The one major problem that I had with Schlosser's analysis is that it becomes heavily partisan as the book progresses. He makes vague attempts in the early pages to keep politics out of the discussion, but by the end he's made it clear that the lack of regulation in the meatpacking industry (and elsewhere) is the fault of the Republican Congress and administration. On page 210, he makes the following claims:

The Clinton administration's efforts to implement a tough, science-based food inspection system received an enormous setback when the Republican Party gained control of Congress in November of 1994. Both the meatpacking industry and the fast food industry have been major financial supporters of the Republican Party's right wing.

Now, I have no doubt that there are a good number of sleazy Republican members of Congress getting paid all kinds of big bucks to support these industries, but I think this claim is a bit generalistic. For one, the efforts may have been blocked due to cost or due to other extras that may have been thrown onto the bills. What's even more ironic about the placement of this claim is that exactly one page before it Schlosser provided a clear and detailed example of a fast food company that made its own decisions about improving the quality of the beef that it purchased and as a result made great strides in reducing bad beef from being sold in its restaurants -- all of this without any government involvement. So, there's a strange disconnect in Schlosser's position about regulation/non-regulation. His one positive example is free of government involvement, and he even claims at the end of the book that there's only so much Congress can (and will) do, and that it's up to consumers making demands on these industries and refusing to buy such low-quality products. But he still feels the need to complain. Frankly, Schlosser's little rants come off sounding more like personal grousing sessions than pertinent information.

This aside, I recommend Fast Food Nation to anyone who is interested in learning more about the fast food industry and the various industries that support it. There's probably a lot here that people already suspect, but it's simulatenously frightening and useful to discover the details. By the way, I included the quote at the top because it both amused me and horrified me. It's obviously ironic that Fujita would make claims about McDonald's hamburgers and fries making people tall, white, and blonde. There's no doubt that the McDonald's menu has had an impact, but it's more of an impact on weight and cardiovascular problems. I'm sorry to say, but it seems like McDonald's and other fast food restaurants have become the most identifiable American exports and the most obvious sign of "Americanism." How tragic. And deadly.

Year of publication: 2001
Number of pages: 416

Art Study: Personification of Ktisis (Byzantine Mosaic)

This monumental bust of a richly bejeweled lady who wears large pearls in her ears, a necklace of delicate stones about her throat, and two brooches—one clasping her yellow mantle and another at the tie of her dress—is an example of the exceptional mosaics created throughout the Early Byzantine world in the first half of the sixth century. Both her elaborate diadem and the neckline of her dress are bordered with alternating black and white tesserae meant to suggest pearls. The addition of blue glass to represent sapphires, or "hyacinths," among the red and green glass gemstones on the mosaic is characteristic of sixth-century Byzantine taste. The modeling of the lady's face with small olive-green and beige tesserae highlighted in white and shades of pink and the slightly asymmetrical arrangement of her large, softly staring eyes are typical of Byzantine painting of the period, which survives in the form of icons. Women with similar faces, hairstyles, necklaces, and pearl-bordered diadems carry martyrs' crowns in the early-sixth-century mosaics in the nave at Sant'Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna. A mosaic image of the archangel Michael, dated to 549, and in the Church of Sant'Apollinare in Classe, near Ravenna, has the same hair and eyes, as does the mid-sixth-century bust of the "Lady of Rank," thought to be from Constantinople, also in the Museum (The Cloisters Collection, 66.25).

The rod that she holds, the measuring tool for the Roman foot, identifies her as a personification of the abstract concept of "Ktisis," or Foundation, and symbolizes the donation, or foundation, of a building. Personifications of abstract ideas, as developed by the Stoic philosophers, remained popular in the Early Christian era. Images of Ktisis inscribed with her name, and often showing her holding the same measure, survive on the floor mosaics of bathhouses as well as churches throughout the Byzantine Empire, from Antioch and Cyprus to such African sites as Qasr-el-Lebia and Ras-el-Hilal.

Dated first half of 6th century.
_____________________________________

Text and details derived from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Saint Calendar: Bernard of Clairvaux

20 August

French nobility. At age 22, fearing the ways of the world, he, four of his brothers, and 25 friends joined the abbey of Citeaux; his father and another brother joined soon after. Benedictine. Founded and led the monastery at Clairvaux which soon had over 700 monks and 160 daughter houses. Revised and reformed the Cistercians. Advisor to, and admonisher of, King Louis the Fat and King Louis the Young. Attended Second Lateran Council. Fought Albigensianism. Helped end the schism of anti-Pope Anacletus II. Preached in France, Italy, Germany. Helped organize the Second Crusade. Friend and biographer of Saint Malachy O'More. Spritual advisor to Pope Eugenius III, who had originally been one of his monks. First Cistercian monk placed on the calendar of saints. Proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius VIII.

Every morning Bernard would ask himself, "Why have I come here?", and then remind himself of his main duty - lead a holy life.

Died 20 August 1153 at Clairvaux.

Patronage
--beekeepers
--bees
--candlemakers
--chandlers
--Gibraltar
--Queens College, Cambridge, England
--wax-melters
--wax refiners

Readings
Love is sufficient of itself; it gives pleasure by itself and because of itself. It is its own merit, its own reward. Love looks for no cause outside itself, no effect beyond itself. Its profit lies in the practice. Of all the movements, sensations and feelings of the soul, love is the only one in which the creature can respond to the Creator and make some sort of similar return however unequal though it be. For when God loves, all he desires is to be loved in return. The sole purpose of his love is to be loved, int he knowledge that those who love him are made happy by their love of him.

--from a sermon by Saint Bernard

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Text derived from Patron Saints Index.

Poetry and Language: "Mist Covered Mountains"

In Scottish Gaelic, with English translation.

O chi, chi mi na morbheanna
O chi, chi mi na corrbheanna
O chi, chi mi na coireachan
Chi mi na sgoran fo cheo.

Chi mi gun dail an t-aite 's an d'rugadh mi
Cuirear orm failt' 's a' chanain a thuigeas mi
Gheibh mi ann aoidh agus gradh 'n uair ruigeam
Nach reicinn air thunnaichean oir.

Chi mi ann coilltean, chi mi ann doireachan
Chi mi ann maghan bana is toraiche
Chi mi na feidh air lar nan coireachan
Falaicht' an trusgan de cheo.

Beanntaichean arda is aillidh leacainnean
Sluagh ann an comhnuidh is coire cleachdainnean
'S aotrom mo cheum a' leum g'am faicinn
Is fanaidh mi tacan le deoin.

(Translation)
Oh, roe, soon shall I see them, oh,
Hee-roe, see them, oh see them.
Oh, roe, soon shall I see them,
the mist covered mountains of home!

There shall I visit the place of my birth.
They'll give me a welcome the warmest on earth.
So loving and kind, full of music and mirth,
the sweet sounding language of home.

There shall I gaze on the mountains again.
On the fields, and the hills, and the birds in the glen.
With people of courage beyond human ken!
In the haunts of the deer I will roam.

Hail to the mountains with summits of blue!
To the glens with their meadows of sunshine and dew.
To the women and the men ever constant and true,
Ever ready to welcome one home!
_____________________________________

Here's a video with my favorite version of the song, by the Rankins. You can ignore the pictures -- I have no idea what their relevance is. (I like Dante Gabriel Rossetti as much as the next person, but I'd never use his artwork to illustrate a Gaelic song about the Scottish Highlands.)

Book Review: The Watsons Go to Birmingham -- 1963, by Christopher Paul Curtis

I have a student who is currently reading this book, so I read it in advance of discussions about it. I'm only sorry that I didn't read it when I was a teenager and as a part of my literature program, because this is a wonderful book that should be on everyone's reading list. I'm not usually a fan of Civil Rights literature, not because I don't care about the movement or what it accomplished but because I dislike the strongly political and often partisan tone that this kind of writing takes. Paul takes a different approach, however. Instead of trying to force an ideology down the throats of readers, he simply tells a story about a family and in the process demonstrates what the Civil Rights movement was ultimately about: people.

As the title suggests, the book is about a trip to Birmingham during the ill-fated year of 1963 when the church was bombed and four young girls were killed. But the story is also about much more than that. It reads a bit like a series of anecdotes in the life of the Watson family (they call themselves the "weird Watsons"), and it doesn't cover the trip itself and the tragic bombing until the very end of the story -- and then it feels almost anti-climactic. But by that point, Curtis has shown readers that the real story is not in the bombing itself but in the lives of the people who were affected, directly and indirectly, before and after.

At the center of the story is ten-year old Kenny Watson, who narrates his family's adventures with a delightful sense of humor. His parents are hard-working, good-hearted people who want the best for their children. His siblings are normal, American school children who are growing up in a world that has marginalized them because of their skin color -- but they don't always realize it. What's interesting about Paul's take on the Civil Rights situation is that he sets the first part of the story in Flint, Michigan, where the Watson family lives. There, they face considerably fewer issues about race. But when the Watsons go to Birmingham to visit Mrs Watson's mother, they enter a world where race issues are rampant. It's as though Paul is taking the reader into the Civil Rights movement by showing us a family to whom it's largely foreign. The Watson children cannot understand why someone would bomb a church full of little girls, anymore than we can understand it today, and it seems as abominable to them as it does to us today. To the Watsons, the little girls are simply little girls -- just as they should be -- and aren't separated by their race. Granted, the Watson family belongs to the race that is being mistreated, but by the time the story arrives at the church bombing the reader has come to forget anything about race and has come to appreciate the Watsons for who they are: kind, lovely, and incredibly genuine people. This, I believe, is Paul's goal in The Watsons Go to Birmingham. He is showing readers the Civil Rights movement by giving us the names and stories of the people who were a part of it, and then making us realize that race is irrelevant because people are just people, and all people share the same kind of hopes, dreams, and family love.

I've never read a book that manages to be so color-blind while also providing an important glimpse into race relations in American history. For this reason, I recommend it highly for teenagers and adults alike.

Year of publication: 1995
Number of pages: 210

Book Review: The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody, by Will Cuppy

The first paragraph of this book reads as follows:

Egypt has been called the Gift of the Nile. Once every year the river overflows its banks, depositing a layer of rich alluvial soil on the parched ground. Then it recedes and soon the whole countryside, as far as the eye can reach, is covered with Egyptologists.

The moment I read this, I knew that The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody and I were going to have a great relationship.

There's no real way to characterize this book except as a kind of spoof that still manages to get a good number of historical facts correct. Cuppy divides the book into several sections: Egypt, Ancient Greece and Rome, medieval Europe, the monarchs known as "the Great" (Peter, Catherine, Frederick, etc.), England, early America, and a rather silly section on royal pranks and royal diets. Each section (excluding the last) contains a brief history of a select number of people, all of whom suffered some kind of decline and/or fall that has been noted in history. I felt that some of the selections were a little odd -- Lucrezia Borgia as a major mover and shaker? -- but the writing is so humorous as to distract from any inconsistencies. At times the humor verges on being just a little too self-aware, but Cuppy usually keeps things on track, and he keeps each chapter flowing so smoothly that you forget you're actually learning about history.

Not surprisingly, nothing is sacred in this book. In the chapter on Cleopatra, Cuppy offers the following commentary:

Caesar was fifty-four to Cleopatra's twenty-one, but he was still a ladies' man -- the thin, wiry type, and smallish. He stayed in Egypt from early October until late June settling affairs of state. It was a boy and they called him Caesarion, or Little Caesar, so Cleopatra now regarded herself as practically engaged. Caesar might have married her, but he had a wife at home. There's always something.

It's a little sacrilegious, but Cuppy does have a point, and embedded in the humor is a hint that while history may change human nature remains the same.

I smiled and giggled from start to finish, so I definitely recommend The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody. It's short and fun, and it has appeal for those who love history (and know the stories that Cuppy tells in a more...ahem...formal version) and for those who never enjoyed history at all because it was too dull. This book is anything but dull and has some real gems in it. I should note, though, that this kind of humor won't appeal to everyone, and some might find it just a bit too dry. It's a true classic, though, so I can only encourage that readers give it a chance and see if Cuppy's humor catches on with you.

Year of publication: 1950
Number of pages: 230

Take Your Pick: "Fire and Ice," by Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

I think that the point of this one lies not in determining the end of the world but in understanding the nature of the human heart. It's as if Frost is saying that we have within us the means for great destruction and that we are, in reality, our own worst enemies.

Saint Calendar: Blessed Karl Leisner

12 August

Studied theology in Münster, and tried to establish Catholic youth groups. However, the Nazis sought control of all work with youth, and he had to take teenagers "camping" in Belgium and the Nederlands in order to freely discuss Catholicism.

He spent six months in compulsory agricultural work during which, despite Nazi opposition, he organized Sunday Mass for his fellow workers. His home was raided by the Gestapo, who seized his diaries and papers. These meticulously preserved documents tell how the spiritual young man became a heroic religious leader.

Ordained deacon by Bishop von Galen in 1939. Imprisoned in Freiburg, Mannheim and Sachsenhausen for criticizing Hitler. Transferred on 14 December 1941 to Dachau, where he was secretly ordained on 17 December 1944 by French bishop Gabriel Piquet, who had been admitted to the camp with the help of local religious authorities. Leisner was so sick he had to postpone his first Mass for over a week.

Still in the camp when it was liberated on 4 May 1945, but was immediately transferred to tuberculosis sanitarium of Planegg, near Munich for the remaining months of his life.

Died 12 August 1945, of tuberculosis.

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Text derived from Patron Saints Index.

Book Review: Feint of Art, by Hailey Lind

This is a book club selection, and when I got it from the library I was delighted to discover that it encompasses two subjects of which I'm very fond: mysteries and fine art. In fact (and as the title rather vaguely indicates), Feint of Art is a mystery about the forgery of fine art. It's also the first in a series of books called the "Art Lover's Mystery Series," all by Hailey Lind. I wasn't familiar with Hailey Lind before reading the book, but I was interested to discover that the author is actually two authors, or more specifically two sisters. One of these sisters (Carolyn J. Lawes) is a professor of history, and the other (Julie Goodson-Lawes) is an artist with a business very like the character in the story. Their combined skills add a great deal of color and authenticity to their storytelling. (You can read more about them here.)

The plot of Feint of Art follows Annie Kinkaid, a talented artist who (like Julie Goodson-Lawes) owns a faux-finishing business in San Francisco. Kinkaid was once on track to becoming a full-fledged art restorer with the highly prestigious Brock Museum in San Francisco until the museum owners discovered a dirty little secret about her: she's the granddaughter of a notorious art forger and was trained in all his many skills, even spending some time in jail when she was caught by the French police. All of that is long past, and Annie is eager to redeem herself in her fledgling business. Until a mystery comes her way. Annie's ex-boyfriend (and current Brock employee) Ernst asks her to look over the museum's valuable Caravaggio painting, and she discovers that the Caravaggio is, in fact, a forgery. She also recognizes the forger's hand, although she doesn't tell Ernst that. Shortly after her discovery, though, she learns that someone has been murdered at the Brock and that Ernst has disappeared. These events send her head-first into a series of discoveries and complications, each of which takes her deeper and deeper into the murky world of art theft and art forgery. Even though she's already familiar with the latter, Annie isn't prepared for the dangers that she faces. Fortunately, she has some luck, pluck, and a few good police officers on her side, and she successfully brings the mystery to a close.

This isn't the cleverest or even the most complex mystery that I've read, but it was more than worth the few hours that it took me to complete it. The story is written in first-person, with Annie's excellent narrative voice taking the reader on what an Amazon reviewer correctly described as a "madcap escapade." She's a hilarious narrator, and there are comments all the way through that made me laugh out loud. In addition, Annie's descriptions of San Francisco and everyday life there are excellent and really draw the reader into the story. For me, this element added a genuine touch to the story's setting and made it more interesting. (I love to be able to say that an author has woven the setting in so well that I couldn't picture the story anywhere else, and in Feint of Art the authors have succeeded in doing this.)

On the downside, I have to say that the mystery itself was just a bit convoluted. I realize that some of the confusion relates to Annie's narrative style: she's deliberately depicted as a fairly scattered, if well-meaning, person, and I think the reader is meant to share in her confusion about what is happening. But the problem for me was that I never quite had a grasp on what was happening. I did understand about the initial forgery and the search for the original painting, but once a second forgery and some forged drawings were thrown into the mix, I began to get lost. When the mystery was finally solved at the end, I felt as though some of the explanations got too short of a shrift. I wanted more answers, but the authors/narrator doesn't offer them. All in all, I have a pretty good understanding of what happened; I just think there was a hint of the anti-climactic at the end.

That aside, this is a fun story and as I said before definitely worth the time. I personally think the title is a little cheesy and felt a bit too on the nose for my taste -- kind of like when a local hair-cutting salon goes by a name like "Shear Genius" or "The Cutting Edge" -- but that's no reason to pass this one by. To be honest, I'm not in any hurry to search out the other books in the series right now, but I might consider reading them at another time. (For those who are interested, Iain Pears writers a series of art history mysteries that are excellent and considerably more complex than Feint of Art.) But I definitely recommend Feint of Art as a stand-alone mystery and an all-around fun read.

Year of publication: 2006
Number of pages: 336

Happy to Be Nobody: A Little More Dickinson

This poem has been in my mind for the last few days, and I wanted to post it. I've always loved this particular Dickinson poem, and I think it could be the motto for my life, so to speak. In our celebrity-driven culture, where everyone wants a reality show, it's nice to be reminded of the value of anonymity. (I'm not sure how having a blog fits into this theory, but the blog is more for my own thoughts and interests than for becoming "famous." And my screen name offers anonymity. How's that for convoluted reasoning?)

A note on the side: the word anonymity derives from the Greek word ανωνυμία, which meant "without a name" or "nameless." I love word studies!

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there’s a pair of us—don’t tell!
They’d banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

Taken from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, number XXVII.

Book Review: The Black Tower, by P.D. James

Believe it or not, there really is a black tower that inspired the title of this story. And it's not Orthanc.

Shown in the image, Clavell Tower was constructed in 1830 for the Reverend John Richards Clavell, an eccentric clergyman (no surprise there...). Perhaps more interesting, Thomas Hardy played the doting lover to a Miss Eliza Nicholls at the same tower and even used the tower's image on the cover of his publication of Wessex poems (1898). P.D. James first saw the tower in 1973 and found inspiration for her story. According to this article:

The 87-year-old author said that when she first laid eyes on Clavell Tower she "had this dark picture of a woman in a wheelchair being pushed over the top of the cliff and that formed the story of the Black Tower."

And this is pretty much a good intro to the plot of The Black Tower. More specifically, the story begins when Adam Dalgliesh -- who is recuperating from a severe illness -- receives a letter from his old friend and mentor Father Baddeley, requesting that Dalgliesh visit him and hinting that he has something important he'd like to discuss. Father Baddeley resides at Toynton Grange, a quiet rest home on the Dorset coast, where he is chaplain. When Dalgliesh finally arrives at Toynton, he discovers that he is about a week too late and that his elderly friend has died of a heart attack. Dalgliesh's detective instincts immediately kick in, but he is repeatedly assured that Father Baddeley died of natural causes, and Dalgliesh remains at Toynton Grange for several days to sort out the details and to gather the books that the priest left him in his will.

Suffice it to say, with each day that passes Dalgliesh makes new discoveries that arouse his suspicions, but nothing is certain enough for him to pursue a formal investigation. He learns that only a few weeks before, a cantankerous male patient had apparently committed suicide by rolling himself over the cliffside (apparently, James's initial vision evolved a bit as the story progressed). Only a few days after Dalgliesh arrives, someone sets fire to the black tower, and the person within it -- the warden of the Grange -- is nearly killed. And then there are a few more deaths, each of them explainable but all of them suspicious, and Dalgliesh begins to realize that something much more sinister is going on at Toynton Grange than merely the day-to-day discomfort of invalids living in close quarters. When Dalgliesh finally arrives at the realization of what is happening, it nearly comes at the cost of his own life.

What was so interesting to me about this story was not so much the discovery of the murderer -- for whatever reason, I figured that out early on -- isn't really the primary mystery. The motive behind it, the reason for the deception and the murders (and, yes, Dalgliesh is right to suspect that the so-called "natural deaths" are very unnatural) proves to be the main mystery, and that part I didn't understand or see until the very end. Which makes for a nice surprise, of course. Through it all, the black tower stands as a symbol of darkness and of the danger of human nature -- an emblem of everything that drives people to their own destruction. It's a slightly confusing theme in the story, and I don't know if it fit in as well as I would have liked, but it's still strongly evocative, and James's writing is good enough to make a slightly weak theme powerful in perception.

Overall, this is a fascinating story and worth the time of anyone who loves mysteries in general and P.D. James in particular.

Note: Clavell Tower was recently dismantled and reconstructed a few feet from its original location, in an effort to prevent its collapse due to erosion of the coast. For anyone who's interested, here's an image that explains where the tower stood and where it's been moved. I'm including it because it provides a clear image of a coastline that plays an important role in the story's setting, offering a relentless hint of danger and violence. And as mentioned throughout the story, the coast is such that those standing near it can hear the sea without actually being able to see it, providing an eerie sense of something that is simultaneously distant or out of reach and something that constantly surrounds and threatens.

Year of publication: 1975
Number of pages: 346

The Selective Soul: Emily Dickinson

The Soul selects her own society,
Then shuts the door;
On her divine majority
Obtrude no more.

Unmoved, she notes the chariot’s pausing
At her low gate;
Unmoved, an emperor is kneeling
Upon her mat.

I’ve known her from an ample nation
Choose one;
Then close the valves of her attention
Like stone.

I've always loved this poem. In my mind, Dickinson seems to be trying to explain her own anti-social tendencies and perhaps to understand why she was drawn to some people instead of others. I can appreciate that.

I've also read an argument that this is Dickinson's conversation with Christianity, but that argument doesn't work as well for me. The key with studying Dickinson is in not squinting too hard to understand her meaning. I always think that you should be able to read her poems and have a basic idea of what she means, without looking too closely at it. The moment you look more closely, all analogies seem to collapse. Her syntax is just far too ambiguous for a universally valid close reading.

Taken from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, number XIII.

Saint Calendar: Oswald of Northumbria

05 August

Son of the pagan King Aethelfrith the Ravager of Bernicia and Princess Aacha of Deira, the second of seven children. Brother of Saint Ebbe the Elder. Nephew of Saint Ethelreda. When his father was killed in battle when Oswald was eleven years old, his mother fled with the family for the court of King Eochaid Buide at Dunadd in modern Scotland. There he converted to Christianity. Educated at the Iona Abbey with his brother Oswiu. Soldier; known to have fought at the Battle of Fid Eoin in 628. Contemporary writings describe him as having "arms of great length and power, eyes bright blue, hair yellow, face long and beard thin, and his small lips wearing a kindly smile." Reported to have had a pet raven for years.

In 634, Oswald formed his own army, returned to Northumbria, defeated King Cadwallon of Gwynedd, and took the throne of Northumbria. Prior to the battle, he had received a vision of Saint Colman; he had also erected a large cross on the field on the night before, attributed his win to his faith and the intervention of the saint, and the victory is known as the Battle of Heavenfield. Brought Saint Aidan to Northumbria as bishop to evangelize the kingdom. Built churches and monasteries in his realm, and brought in monks from Scotland to help establish monastic life. Married the daughter of King Cynegils of Wessex, and convinced Cynegils to allow Saint Birinus to evangelize in that kingdom.

Due to victories in combat, and family alliances, Bede claims that Oswald was recognised as Bretwalda by all of Saxon England. His Royal Standard of purplish-red and gold forms the basis of the coat of arms of modern Northumberland. Because he was killed in battle with invading pagan forces, he is sometimes listed as a martyr. Noted for his personal spirituality, piety, faith, his devotion to the kingdom, his charity to the poor, and his willingness to take arms to defend his throne.

Died in battle [fighting] with invading pagan Welsh and Mercian forces on 5 August 642 at Maserfield, Shropshire, England, and thus often listed as a martyr; reported to have died praying for the souls of his dying bodyguards; body hacked to pieces with his head and arms stuck on poles; the dismembered limbs eventually entered relic collections in monasteries around England; remaining body buried first at Bardney Abbey, Lincolnshire, England; later translated to Saint Oswald's church, Gloucester, England.

_____________________________________


Text derived from Patron Saints Index.

From a Window: The Boulevard Montmartre, by Camille Pissarro

The Boulevard Montmartre on a Winter Morning, 1897

(Camille Pissarro -- French, 1830–1903)

As it turns out, this is more accurately the boulevard to Montmartre that Pissarro could see from his hotel room. Montmartre was (and, to some extent, still is) a gathering place for progressive, if destitute, artists. Among them, Pissarro (of course), Picasso, and Modigliani.

The painting currently hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and may be viewed here.

Book Review: Cordelia Underwood, by Van Reid

I was on the phone with my sister the other day, and in trying to describe this book I came upon the only simile that worked for me: Cordelia Underwood is like a weird dream. In weird dreams -- and by "weird" I mean first-class bizarre -- a series of strange and seemingly unrelated events occur and somehow manage to unite briefly for the duration of the dream. Not only this, but the dream is usually peopled with singular characters who do singular and often inexplicable things. All of this seems to make sense in the dream...until you wake up, of course. None of this makes any sense in Cordelia Underwood.

During the course of the story, I made note of the following elements: an escaped circus bear named Maude who stands on her head, a ghost ship that appears only during the most violent of storms, a lady parachutist most renowned for the tights that she wears as a costume (and in no way connected to the circus from which Maude escaped), pirates and buried treasure (once again, not actually connected to one another), mysterious Indian tribes, a brotherhood of giants who are scared off by a polar bear (not Maude), and (I kid you not) the Kraken. All that was missing was Jack Sparrow dancing the ländler with Pocahontas. And this disorienting array is followed in weirdness by the names of the characters themselves, with the only rival for bizarre creativity being the names of contestants from the most recent season of So You Think You Can Dance.

I would love to tell you what this story is about. But I have no idea. There is no clear plot, and I felt from start to finish that Reid had simply taken a selection from his favorite adventure stories and tried to stitch them together like some kind of crazy patchwork quilt -- except that the result is just plain weird instead of charming and quirky. Whatever connection there was among the startling variety described above is beyond me. I finally had to start skimming about halfway through the book in hopes that I'd find a point to the story. To his credit, Reid is a clever writer and often gives the reader a skillfully crafted phrase, but frankly the cleverness is a bit too self-aware and takes away from the reader's enjoyment of it. Additionally, the characters are woefully flat in portrayal, and I could sense just a little too strongly Reid's attempts at "showing not telling." It didn't work. I keep reading reviews of this book that indicate its delightful humor and fun storyline. Perhaps I'm getting to be a cantankerous old thing (in my 27th year...), but the whole book was just absurd to me.

I'm going to leave it up to the individual instead of recommending that people avoid it. Apparently, there are faithful readers of the series (see here) who love everything about it. This might be your cup of tea. But it definitely isn't mine.

Book News: "The Great Chick Lit Cover-up"

I read a very interesting article here about the way that publishers are now redesigning the covers of books that are written by (and often for) women. As an excerpt:

When we look at a book, its cover tells us what to expect. A pink paperback featuring a smiling young woman is most likely a female-centric summer read, whereas a gun on a black background is probably a murder story. A few simple aesthetic rules narrow our options, make life easier and ensure none of us has to wander Waterstone's for hours, wailing in confusion. And yet the rules seem to be changing.

Having cottoned on to the fact that chick lit books sell like cupcakes, publishers are now adding chick lit-style covers to any book written by a woman whether it fits the genre definition or not.

No wonder I pass over most books like this. How sad that publishers have pigeonholed their female readers into salivating followers of Oprah's Book Club.

By the way, I think the best part of this article is the comment section. Great stuff!

Lazy...

For reasons that can only be attributed to laziness, I've been unable to get my derriere in gear this week. I'm lost in Cordelia Underwood and trying to get through another P.D. James. I'm shooting for three books next week to get myself back into a routine.