EIGHT SHORT REVIEWS

My reading outpaced my reviewing. These are short reviews of some of the books I read in the last 4 months or so.



MADAME BOVARY by GUSTAVE FLAUBERT (1856)
Third reading

Although Madame Bovary was written in the 19th Century, it seems remarkably modern because of Flaubert's psychological insights into the mind and character of his protagonist. Emma Bovary is a woman who has read too many romantic novels and so believes that she can somehow leave her middle class life with a mundane husband and find a life of luxury and romance with a dashing hero. As she betrays her husband and ruins him with her debts in an attempt to achieve her goals, she is repeatedly disappointed by the disparity between her dreams and real life.

Haven't we all known someone similar, someone never satisfied with life as it is, someone who wishes for the kind of life only present in fiction and in the imagination? Isn't it sometimes a struggle not to fall into the same mind trap?

It is perhaps surprising to modern readers that this novel caused such a sensation and so much criticism when it was written, but this was a new kind of novel at the time -- one that realistically portrayed life without the gloss of romanticism. Highly recommended.


A GOOD AND HAPPY CHILD by JUSTIN EVANS (2007)
Second reading

What a creepy book this is. It's a psychological thriller, wherein the reader never knows if the events are actual or only in the narrator's mind. It could portray a case of demonic possession or it could portray a psychotic break resulting from grief and abandonment issues. The narrator, a new father, visits a psychiatrist because he finds himself reluctant to even touch his baby. Through a journal given to him by the doctor, he recounts a series of startling events from his childhood.

The author is particularly adept at the pacing of the narrative to provide maximum impact. This is a short book, easily and quickly read, and it will make you believe that demonic possession can occur.


GABRIELA, CLOVE AND CINNAMON by JORGE AMADO (1962)
Second reading

This most entertaining novel by the Brazilian author Jorge Amado tells the story of Nacib, the owner of a popular cafe, and of the free-spirited migrant girl he hires in desperation as a cook. She proves to be not only inspired in the kitchen but also an enticing beauty, once she is cleaned up. Needless to say, Nacib falls in love with her, but once they are married and he begins to expect her to behave like a traditional wife, their romance takes a bad turn.

The novel is richly comedic, very funny, in fact, so the reader knows that somehow everything will turn out for the good. The question becomes how. Recommended when you feel in need of a well-done romantic comedy.


FIVE QUARTERS OF AN ORANGE by JOANNE HARRIS (2001)
Second reading

This novel has two time lines -- World War II's Nazi occupation of France and modern-day France. The protagonist, Framboise, is a 9-year-old girl in the earlier time line, who comes under the sway of a Nazi soldier. Emotionally estranged from her harsh mother, she unwittingly brings about a tragedy which results in her family being cast out of their small village. When she returns to the village many years later, she bears a new name and is unrecognized (she thinks), opening a restaurant, using her mother's recipes. When the restaurant becomes well known throughout the country, she runs the risk of being recognized and of the shame of her past being revealed.

Five Quarters of an Orange provides both a picture of occupied France, with the conflicts of conscience which occurred, and a tale of redemption and forgiveness. It is very pleasantly written and emotionally affecting. It is not a novel to be long remembered, but it makes for interesting reading.


THE HOUSE OF MIRTH by EDITH WHARTON (1905)
Third reading

I re-read this book not too many years ago, but I chose to read it again because I so enjoy Edith Wharton's elegant prose style and the mastery of her story telling. The House of Mirth is not a feel-good book at all. In fact it is a tragedy, in the classical sense. The heroine's downward spiral is of her own making. Her tragic flaw is her inability to bring herself to marry for money while being incapable of living without it. This is a tale of the highest society in late 1800s New York City, the society of which Wharton was a member, so the details are not imagined so much as they are remembered.

Wharton is a peerless novelist, and is thus able to make a story so foreign to the life experience of most readers fascinating. Perhaps all can relate to the obstacles social expectations and upbringing can place in our lives.

This is a must-read, as is Wharton's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Age of Innocence. Ethan Frome is also impressive, involving a different class of society.


MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA by ARTHUR GOLDEN (1997)
Second reading

This fictional memoir is fully believable as a true, first person account by a former geisha, covering the years just before, during, and just after World War I. The author is said to have based his novel on actual interviews he conducted with a retired geisha. However, she later sued him because he revealed her identity and was not accurate in his account of geisha life.

However true-to-life this book actually is, it makes for fascinating reading, not only offering a glimpse of a life-style unfamiliar to us of the Western Hemisphere, but also providing a darn-good story, complete with romance and suspense. It dispels the preconception that most Westerners might have that "geisha" is an Eastern term for "prostitute." A better synonym would be "entertainer" or "hostess," although one path to financial security for the geisha was to become the kept mistress of a wealthy patron. They were not otherwise available for sexual favors.

EAST OF THE MOUNTAINS by DAVID GUTERSON (1999)
Second reading

While being short on plot, this novel compensates by being beautifully written in its description of the landscape of Washington state. A retired doctor has been diagnosed with incurable colon cancer, and determines to stage his suicide to look like a shooting accident. He takes off with his two dogs on an ostensible hunting trip. However, several events conspire to upset his plans: he is involved in a car accident, one of his dogs is killed and the other injured by another hunter's wolfhounds, he rescues a gravely ill illegal migrant worker, he is called upon for an emergency baby delivery. Actually, that sounds like a lot of plot, but all the incidents are merely backdrops for the doctor's attempt to accept his coming death.

East of the Mountains is an exceptionally low-key book. It is the opposite of being a page-turner. The author also has the annoying habit of describing in detail the appearance and clothing of every single character, including even the random store clerks who make a two paragraph appearance. I would not recommend it, except that the descriptive writing is exceptional.


THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS by ARUNDHATI ROY (1997)
Third reading

This 21-year-old novel is still as fresh and unique as the year it was published. What makes it especially memorable is the narrative voice, which for most of the novel is third person through the perspective of seven-year-old twins in the late 1960s in India. The author has mastered the magical ability to portray the world through their innocent eyes in an entirely believable way, making the doom which looms for them doubly tragic. This is not a happily-ever-after book. In my reading experience, novels by Indian authors never are. A deep streak of fatalism seems to inform their world view, so that they portray a country where tragedy and loss become inevitable.

The twins, Raahel and Esthappen, live with their beautiful mother, their blind grandmother, their Rhodes-scholar uncle, and their enemy, grandaunt Baby Kochamma. When their English cousin, the uncle's daughter, arrives for a visit, events are set in motion that will affect their lives forever.

The negative effects of India's caste system loom large here. In a sense, this is a Romeo and Juliet story, but one wherein the children suffer along with the illicit lovers. The God of Small Things won England's Booker Award. I recommend it most highly.