Okay, DH, so I was sort of with you at the beginning. I was amused by or interested in watching you create a tale that seemed to be a love child of thOkay, DH, so I was sort of with you at the beginning. I was amused by or interested in watching you create a tale that seemed to be a love child of the Lost Gen and existentialist authors that instead turned out a rebelliously nostalgic Romantic, a perverted Wordsworth in a Bacchanalian temple. I rolled my eyes at, yet went along with, the endless repetition, of "everything is nothing," by your twit of a main character, Connie, or at poor Sir Clifford who builds endless castles of theories in the air to escape every basic feeling in his life, or even at first the brooding, fighting "hero," in Oliver Mellors. I excused it as Lost Gen disillusionment, a depiction of people afraid to feel after the masses' passion overflowed in the horror that was WWI. I was even sort of rooting for you against the cold, cold people who can't let go enough to feel something. The one thing I did like was the way you could conjure up ecstatic joy in earthiness. I'm on board with that.
But unfortunately, after the love scene/pagan naming ceremony of which we shall not speak, and the comments about how women with "too much will" are lesbians and/or invalid women somehow, you made the ecstatic love you celebrated absolutely ridiculous by the end. I can't even bring myself to discuss that last scene in the book, but if you've read it you know what our payoff was. Really? Really?
The obscenity trials are the best thing that ever happened to this book....more
So this first part is a little spoilery, but only if you’ve read other Christies and also know what I mean, so avert your eyes spoiler pearl clutchersSo this first part is a little spoilery, but only if you’ve read other Christies and also know what I mean, so avert your eyes spoiler pearl clutchers!
... This one is kind of like Roger Ackroyd, only instead of the trick of that one happening to the reader, it happens to Poirot AND the reader, and Poirot figures it out only just before we do at the end. It’s far less elegant than that one too- lots and lots of mess and distraction on top of the real thing for you to bite on. Three ring circus complete with gasps and cries up to the last few pages. It would make a great silent film with big reactions and music like they make fun of in Singin in the Rain. Or a Clue-like stage play.
I personally bit on one of the last partially true red herrings to be thrown out to the crowd, so at least I wasn’t totally off! Christie also made me feel sort of bad for judging one character so I’m glad she got the happy ending she deserved!
I did get sort of tired of it by the end though. I may need a break from Poirot. ...more
She got me. I went for the red herring set up person as the murderer in this one and thought I was soooooooo clever for guessing it. I was feeling a lShe got me. I went for the red herring set up person as the murderer in this one and thought I was soooooooo clever for guessing it. I was feeling a little superior, even! But no, in the end, Christie wins again. It's always simpler than we think it is- and probably nastier. And maybe it’s just me being a teacher but this novel is a great example of solving problems through close reading of documents- see! Your history and English teachers are giving you a skill that's good for something! When you too set up your own private eye practice, remember them!...more
Ignore the book’s jacket. Seriously, take it off until you’re done. Just start it, sight unseen. Because reading it kept me wary of this for months. EIgnore the book’s jacket. Seriously, take it off until you’re done. Just start it, sight unseen. Because reading it kept me wary of this for months. Even after glowing recs from trusted sources. Even after my hand picked it up in three different bookstores and I kept getting drawn back to it. Thank goodness I found this at the used bookstore and thought for the price what did it matter if it turned out to be what I thought.
Spoiler: It did not.
The more I read the harder I am to please and I hate it so much. My brain starts tallying up things that annoy me/feel off so fast that I have to just tell myself the exposition doesn’t count anymore, like the pilot ep of a tv show.
But this book. This book did not need that for long.
She’s got that IT that makes me turn off my brain and trust and sink in. She’s got a rhythm that makes me trust she knows what she’s doing. She pulls out showstoppers of sentences but at the right distance apart- never close enough to make it seem like she’s trying too hard.
She got the rawness of it all right. She was so honest about the main POV and let him be so too, unattractively so. The flow is just enough telling mixed in with the showing for me to get it without ever feeling like the canoe stopped dead in the Sepik.
The atmosphere is to die- and I really didn’t think it would be. Man is that hard to pull off in a colonial era book written from a white perspective being read in 2019. Yes, I will acknowledge, she could have had more holes poked in that perspective despite how much the end has to do with it. But man, I trust she gets enough of it to let go of my suspicions at least a little bit.
And of course Bankson, my heart.
The reason I held back one star though is that I do think she fell into one big trap that was like a sore thumb every time it stuck out. She worshipped her main female character way too much. It started to feel a bit like wish fulfillment (in as much as tragic tales can). Some of the lines about her were occasionally super chalkboard nails-y and that’s the only time I leapt out of my smooth ride down the river to get suspicious again. I also felt like one of the other main characters was overly villainized in contrast, especially towards the end as she rushed to a conclusion just to make things neat. A bit too neat. I wish she hadn’t. The message would have been even stronger.
But other than succumbing to that temptation honestly this was a fantastic book. I rarely read in gulps like that anymore. This made me forget a highly anxiety inducing world and let me start a tough week wrapped in the best kind of dreamy book fog.
I enjoyed this one! Straight to the top of the best Christies I’ve read. It’s a well designed parlor game in its set up and it plays by the rules thatI enjoyed this one! Straight to the top of the best Christies I’ve read. It’s a well designed parlor game in its set up and it plays by the rules that it sets up, which is more than some other Christies do. I was also genuinely kept guessing throughout and the multiple rug pulls at the end felt delightful and well set up rather than eyeroll-y. I liked Poirot in this one- his flourishes are minimal and useful for his inquiries, largely, and his methods were genuinely interesting. Perfect curled up in front of the fire before Christmas read, which is exactly what it was for me! ...more
Updated Review at End of Year: Definitely the best textbook for AP European History, if I've got any prospective Euro teachers looking at this review.Updated Review at End of Year: Definitely the best textbook for AP European History, if I've got any prospective Euro teachers looking at this review. It's universally voted as the favorite of most AP Euro teachers due to its readability, primary sources and the AP-aligned questions at the end of each chapter. There are strong advocates for a few other options, but this is the majority choice. And after teaching with it for a year, I do see why. It's not perfect (Spielvogel has himself some questionable OPINIONS), but I found I agreed with all the reasons listed above that people had given me for why to get it. Note: I have the 9th AP edition, and appears not worth it to upgrade to the 10th- not enough changes. Am waiting for 11th edition to see if there are substantial changes based on the College Board's realignment of the units/question types in 2019-2020. *** Original Notification-PS- This thing is the reason why my book count is so much lower this year. I'm teaching an AP class for the first time this year and I'm reading this whole thing along with the kids to make sure my lessons are targeted, in addition to finding/reading many primary source excerpts and scholarly articles to supplement it. Gonna just leave this here until June as my excuse for why there's often not another currently-reading book on here!...more
I am tired of reading books where authors try to mine the depths of pantomime and shadow. There’s never any truth there because they’ve bought into thI am tired of reading books where authors try to mine the depths of pantomime and shadow. There’s never any truth there because they’ve bought into the show, the role, and therefore whatever their catch brings in from trawling these waters, however hard they work or how smart they are, will inevitably only bring up shallow shows. I get that this is a fantasy, but I like for even my fantasies to have some truth in them. And Williams did have some of that here- just not, I’m guessing, where she was aiming to have it. It was in the description of floating, surreal drunkenness after a disastrous party, in the little moment of describing what people do when they try to settle into bed on pg 271, in the D plot fire that I didn’t see coming and was funnier and more true than almost anything else, in her sensitive and respectful picture of boring, well-meaning, dumb but not dumb enough to not get it Clay (well maybe that last she would have wanted). But I just could not buy the rest of it- embarrassingly overwritten in the passionate scenes, underwritten and underdelivered in the actually potentially interesting family scenes. She introduced too many threads like they were going to be important and then dropped nearly all of them. Characters get isolated scenes like they are going to be driving forces and then don’t matter. Don’t even get me started on what this lady thinks Catholic people are like inside their heads. I don’t care what decade it is. But there was a section here, perhaps she wrote it altogether, a run of about 40-50 pages that really had something. The rest I’ll forget as soon as I finish writing this. I’m not sure another crack at her stuff is worth it- but if you are a fan and think she’s written a better one, let me know. I could see something flowering from this....more
This was pretty much the definition of charming. It’s light and bright and frothy, with just the right amount of gravity holding it down to prevent itThis was pretty much the definition of charming. It’s light and bright and frothy, with just the right amount of gravity holding it down to prevent it from entirely floating off into the irrelevant air. It’s naive in the best way (not consciously naive, Cassandra) and means well with every fiber of its plucky being. I read it with hardly a hitch or roll of my eyes and I was so pleased that it stayed focused on the things that mattered to the heroine: her career and her best friend. It didn’t fall prey to distractions or to I Am A WWII Melodrama too much, but it didn’t disrespect it either. I really liked this and I have such a low tolerance for WWII stories these days. Highly recommend charming yourself into the new year with this one....more
This poor, deluded, tragic, ridiculous, tied up in knots, righteous, self-righteous, profound, profoundly scared, old, tired, poor, poor man. The mostThis poor, deluded, tragic, ridiculous, tied up in knots, righteous, self-righteous, profound, profoundly scared, old, tired, poor, poor man. The most fucked up, yet painfully real therapy session I’ve ever read. I don’t understand why people are frustrated in their reviews that the guest didn’t get to talk more- that was the whole point. That was never going to happen. He never wanted to know (he desperately did, but not really). He’s spent too much time, too many words, too many years, building his philosophy of the truth to actually want to know. It’s too much. You can’t let possible truth speak after that. This is no reckoning- it’s too late. I’ve been this guy when I wasn’t ready for my therapist to talk back yet- you talk and rant the whole hour to stop it because you don’t want to hear what might give you peace yet- or you do but can’t bear it yet- you’re too ashamed, too afraid, too in your feelings to let it go. This guy allows himself to hear one answer, one short answer he has prepared himself for no matter what, and that’s the only truth he can let in. There’s so much more to say here about the worlds that live on long past when events seem to state they should be extinct, about the author’s life and what he must have seen to write this (born in the Austria-Hungarian empire in 1900, died in 1989 in San Diego in a new world of so many kinds it’s mind blowing to think about), about prejudices and friendship- but all I can think about is this poor old man who left the therapist’s couch after the only time he allowed himself to sit on it, who will end his days with all he could handle. Which is, so heartbreakingly, not nearly enough....more
This was marvelous and by far the best thing I’ve read all summer, if not this year. I bought it on impulse on vacation in the highlands this week, beThis was marvelous and by far the best thing I’ve read all summer, if not this year. I bought it on impulse on vacation in the highlands this week, because I thought it would be a Mood, if nothing else, and it was that- but it was also far, far more. Its the first impulse buy that’s worked out this well since I discovered Elizabeth von Arnim. Its relevant without feeling like a Obligatory Must Read Bc It Is Relevant To Our Times, it’s gorgeously written without ever crossing into purple prose, it’s got a protagonist whose teenage experience I recognized and felt for fiercely (what happens to her is awful but is an awful very much found in the everyday course of things that is complicated and most certainly not an outlier and therefore is able to teach without screaming and we need more of these stories about boundaries and sex and trauma and hormones). Its language is ever so slightly alien, in a deliberate way- the painterly language of flower names and agricultural terms that has faded away- it’s almost like reading a book where characters speak partly in a foreign language. It forces you to orient yourself and sink into it, to feel it rather than understand every word. You have to leave behind where you are to really understand it. I love Robert McFarlane and it is no surprise to find he’s blurbed this- not only is the author a nature writer, this is a great job of someone showing in fiction what he’s been arguing for years- the impoverishment that the loss of nature words causes, the kind of writing and knowing and kinds of beauty we lose. I was on a terrifyingly old plane flying across the Atlantic reading this, with a whole list of inconveniences and annoyances that can happen piling up around my travel, but this book made seven hours disappear and warm sunshine envelope me until I was just completely transported. I kept back a star because I think there was no way to write the Connie stuff without it coming across as a little on the nose sometimes (which is the fault of 2019, not the author), and I wish more had been illuminated about the parents so that the mom made more sense to me (but since it is written from the perspective of a 14 year old girl, I know why not), and I wanted more follow through about some of the lines of thought about Alfie, and I for sure sure wanted more John. But most of these bar the first are the complaints of love, wanting more, so I’m not sure it even matters. A perfect book for summer, for autumn evenings, for a winter’s fire, even. I can not recommend it highly enough. Make it happen....more
A slight thing for a summer’s evening. Nowhere near the heft in terms of intellect, emotion, or insight, of the other, later James I’ve read. He had oA slight thing for a summer’s evening. Nowhere near the heft in terms of intellect, emotion, or insight, of the other, later James I’ve read. He had one or two points to make, at best, and made them quite straightforwardly. The best of it: His drawing of Felix was vivid, the frustration of Gertrude was palpably real and relatable. The father who can’t/won’t make an accurate judgment on a human to save his life was believably bewildered, and capricious Eugenia who has no interest in being made uncomfortable by a serious reckoning with herself had the most realistic end of all. Perhaps the most interesting cultural difference shown was the views on emotions-what ought to be done with them and what they were for-thoroughly divided the titular Europeans from most of the New Englanders. Let me know what my next James should be!...more
What a horror of a main character, and what a charming book! Lucia is a pretentious, posing, preening, self-aggrandizing petty tyrant, who cannot bearWhat a horror of a main character, and what a charming book! Lucia is a pretentious, posing, preening, self-aggrandizing petty tyrant, who cannot bear to let anyone else share an inch of spotlight that she does not arrange and grant to them with royal magnanimity. And following her determined rivalry with old sparring partners and a spectacular newcomer was a delight. I can see why this was such a cult favorite of authors at the time. The characterization is wonderful. We all know, or have been at least in some small part, a Lucia. Or at least her somewhat fearful lieutenant with a toupee he is sure no one notices, the born follower Georgie. (Whose awakening to his own petty but amazing powers over his vain queen is fantastic.) Or maybe we’ve just been in the audience to privately enjoy it when a Lucia, self-proclaimed arbiter of culture, gets something spectacularly wrong publicly she has dubiously claimed to be an expert in. Or perhaps been lucky enough to be Olga, the kindhearted rival who never intended to be anything of the sort- but is because she’s about five times a better/more fun human than her rival, and so she becomes one naturally as people gravitate to her. The plot is busy nothings. But the people! They’ll knock you out....more
Well I did it. I did it just under the wire, but I did it. I found my first five star read for 2019. This was not at all what I was expecting and I loWell I did it. I did it just under the wire, but I did it. I found my first five star read for 2019. This was not at all what I was expecting and I loved it for that. It hit that sweet spot of storytelling that’s both out of left field and so well drawn from the ingredients presented that you go along with every word. King is the best memoirist I’ve read next to Patrick Leigh Fermor and his Time Of Gifts. And although they are working with entirely different materials, in entirely different worlds and with diametrically opposed tones, I saw the same kind of artistry and the same mischievous, sharp minds behind each of their stories. King is by far the more honest of the two though. Fermor paints a fantasy made of allusion and half-memory and wishing, King is brutal and never spares using a word right in your face, even when you wish she would. But it’s all in the service of finding just a few truths she’s been trying all her life to say in just the right way. And also it is *hilarious* in just the dry, speak for itself way that I Iike on almost every page. She spent some time spinning these yarns to get them to roll out as smooth as this and man was it worth it. And in between all of that there are moments of shocking sadness and sweetness that arise seemingly out of nowhere, out of the most unlikely people, ones she’s deconstructed and made fun of and yet still manages to reach with human eyes in spite of that. She lived when she lived and of course *where* she lived and had to make the best of what she found- which often wasn’t much (just like Fermor also, come to think of it, except with racist Southerners instead of brutal schoolmasters and Nazis). The problem I have with so many memoirs is that I think they pull their punches and soften moments that should be the sharpest, they pull away the mirror when it needs to be there the most. Fermor did it so artfully I loved him anyway. Others, not so much. Even Jia Tolentino’s collection, which I adored some pieces of, did this in the personal stuff. And I get it. It’s hard. But King stared it down pretty unflinchingly, and never made me feel like she dodged the hardballs she flung at herself. And for that, I’ll never forget her....more
Everything I said about Someone at a Distance applies here as well. But what I also want to talk about here is how good Whipple is with the limits plaEverything I said about Someone at a Distance applies here as well. But what I also want to talk about here is how good Whipple is with the limits placed around women. Her stories are founded on, structured around and made possible by the realistic rhythms of daily life women are likely to experience, their typical education and the usual limits placed on their actions and experiences. She then has them make choices that are likely to result from those things if they are a certain kind of person. As with Someone at a Distance, she insists on her characters' unique personalities- but here she shows how despite the uniqueness they start with, many women get flattened into things are are more expected by experiencing the same responses to them trying to be people over and over. Or never even getting to try because the very idea of them getting to be a person was taken away before it ever truly began.
Whipple has this wonderful acceptance about her that I find more attractive as I've gotten older. An acceptance that one's childhood, personality, and experiences truly do shut down so many lives before they begin- and yet a refusal to mourn in a melodramatic way about that. In this book it takes a woman with a personality we don't particularly like to resist being influenced by what's around her- it implies there's something admirable, something magical about it, but also something not quite fully human about it. Her protagonists are fully connected to their lives and to those around them- there are no pieces of them turned off. They've made it to adulthood still wanting to connect with others and able to express that openly. It's a kind of bravery that I think should be celebrated more- the kind that makes it out of challenges whole and with faith in the world intact. I'm not personally religious these days, but it makes sense that Whipple's characters are, and I don't tune out the way that I usually do when God comes in to save a difficult moment. Because I can see Whipple is trying to get her characters out whole and alive, and can't see another way to do it. It's not that different from what I saw Tolstoy do when he'd thought it all through and arrived at a wall that he couldn't think his way out of. It frustrated me when I saw him do it- I wanted him and his male privilege to leap over the wall and get there and do what comes next after you do that. With Whipple.... I think her women facing that wall and admitting to themselves that it was there was devastating enough that I was just happy to see any of these women face it and turn and walk away intact.
I think Whipple must have agreed with me, even if only subconsciously. This book is about the main character trying to save whoever she can from the rubble of that experience, for as long as she can. She knows her limits- she has to do it in secret sometimes, she has to do it by subterfuge, by implication. Sometimes she can only give her input and watch as people don't listen to her. Sometimes she has to watch those she would save go through years more of pain before she can safely access them. But while she won't drown herself to save them, she won't walk away either. She'll stay and watch and wait for her opportunities to help until one of them finally works. She proves she cares by her persistence and her care, not by dramatic gestures and histronics. She gets what she wants- but only in the end, and only after years and years, only when its right and its too late for any sort of unscarred happy ending.
And only after many failures, only after waiting for the moment when they have enough power to do anything, only after they are forced to live with humiliation and smallness and fear for long enough for it to seep into the skin. People find peace, but only at last.
It's just such a genuine, realistic picture of my experience of how it actually works. Bring on all the quietly triumphant, adult moments of realizing only a kind of triumph in a small way. Moments of celebration never 100% untainted by doubt or regret or questioning about how you could have done it better. Accomplishments that come with a ton of responsibilities and potential regret.... and yet peace. In spite of all of that, peace. ...more
What I liked best about this one was the kindness and insight of Poirot, I think. You don't often see that emphasized in detective stories. It's what What I liked best about this one was the kindness and insight of Poirot, I think. You don't often see that emphasized in detective stories. It's what I've liked best about him in some of the other stories, too. I don't love interpretations of him that focus on only his foppishness and fastidiousness without balancing it out with the wisdom the character is capable of. When done right, it's a great study in how people have multiple dimensions, and multiple worthwhile dimensions, and dismissing the whole human in a 200 character joke is an insufficient way to engage with humanity....more
One of the more enjoyable Christies I’ve read. Miss Marple is a wonderful character who is sometimes weirdly used or shoved into plots that are reallyOne of the more enjoyable Christies I’ve read. Miss Marple is a wonderful character who is sometimes weirdly used or shoved into plots that are really too much. This one might have contrived her initial involvement, but it used her well and organically and that makes all the difference. It’s also aged rather well given that this is one of the few Christie mysteries I’ve read that isn’t shot through with at least some random moments of offhand racism. There’s also the fact that its haunted, evil suburban house theme with buried memories/a woman who has seen too much fits in pretty well with the current psychological domestic thriller/chick noir trend.
All done in a very mild, with the doilies and tea manners on sort of way, obviously.
The only thing I will say is that I guessed the murderer about halfway through just by the structure and content of the discussions. If you’ve ever read a mystery and know how they try to provide you with a surprise-not-surprise through the kind of info they give/withhold/choose to discuss/not discuss/have turn up at just the right moment, you might also. And you’ll obviously need to be up for a little “...but IS the house haunted...?!?!” sort of writing.
I clearly was and so finished it in a long, lazy afternoon. You’re likely to as well, I expect....more
This book was an absolute mess and used the n word to describe a piece of music for just no reason and I know it was written in the 30s, but you shoulThis book was an absolute mess and used the n word to describe a piece of music for just no reason and I know it was written in the 30s, but you should be warned, as it was awful and jarring. There’s also a subplot about French royalists- which is meant to be charming but in the 1930s probably meant allegiance to any number of fascist sympathizing groups. Yes, they are made to look foolish in the end, but it was yet another harsh note that took more of the charm out of this for me. What was left of the charm was finished by the fact that the romantic plot was a fiasco where the girl- who sucked in all romantic scenarios, sorry- could have reasonably ended up with either guy into the last ten pages and therefore I had little to no investment in it. Thirkell could clearly barely be bothered, so neither could I. And Lady Emily... while Thirkell is effective at rendering her a very recognizable type, I wanted to scream every time she walked into a room by the end.
And that’s a shame, because the first pages began with such a kind, empathetic rendering of Emily and why everyone lets her be the way she is, and it was so promising, but then that whole line of inquiry-which was going to be about post WWI loss and grief- got tossed aside for a whole bunch of flurry about nothing....more
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