The book took days (to read)

Book of Days

James L. Rubart

The most recent of the Early Reviewer books from Library Thing; the irony is that the previous book by this author, Rooms, is the first book i’ve not been able to finish in years, so how delicious that i have been asked to read and review this, his second work. I have to say that this is definitely an improvement on the other, at least i was able to finish it ~ though not, it must be added, without some procrastination and struggle. I’m not sure how to continue with this review, there’s quite a lot i want to write, and it seems to go in several different directions. Maybe first of all, reasons for my difficulty in reading it.

I was at least a hundred and twenty pages into the book before i had even a shred of interest in the characters or cared for them in the least; that in itself is a poor route for an author to travel down. If he doesn’t have the characters, though, maybe the author can offer a strong, believable, imaginative, seductive plot; maybe, but not this author. With neither plot nor characters just about all that’s left is the possibility of delightful, insightful, masterly writing style, near the quality of a Faulkner or a Sterne; sadly, Rubart does not have that ability, either. All that these lacks leave, as far as i can tell, for a piece of literature to have in order to be compelling, is its theme; here too, as i’ll detail below, the book fails.

Characters: The protagonist is a successful, on the cusp of being very successful, film-maker who is haunted by his father’s dementia-ridden death, with the belief that he is himself going down the same road of memory loss; secondary to him is his (also dead) wife’s foster-sister, who has her own issues revolving around her family’s identity and her past; together they are drawn to a small Oregon town, Three Peaks, where she seems to have come from, and his father had some experience involving the Book of Days, and once there they meet the other characters in the novel, each of whom seems to have a secret, though none has any reason for it to be secret and none keeps it in the end. The townspeople seem to revolve in several groups, each of which has its own take on the big secret of the town, that there is some spiritual or new age benefit there, perhaps involving the supposed Book of Days which Cameron and Ann are looking for.

The plot, then, revolves around this Book of Days, referring to Psalm 139:16, which Cameron is convinced is going to resolve his memory loss, Ann hopes will help her gain closure with her sister’s death, and Jason Judah, the chief prophet of the new age in town, imagines will confirm his leadership and empower and propel him to greater heights. Against them in their search is Taylor Stone, a man who appears to have some knowledge of the existence (or otherwise) of the Book, but is determined to extend the plot and keep his secret. Perhaps, at this moment i am being overly cynical, and Rubart does have a valid reason for Stone to keep his secret, other than prolonging the novel, but if he does it is never convincingly explained. Through assorted plots and counter-plots Cameron and Ann eventually discover that there is not a physical written book, but it is possible to have visions of the future, or a potential future, in a particular lake hidden in the valleys between the eponymous three peaks.

The problem with this plot, as i have indicated above, is that it is not compelling. There is no good reason to think that a book with everyone’s actions written in it is going to heal Cameron’s memory loss; the secrecy is purely a plot device; the ultimate solution, visions in a lake, is not shown to resolve any of the issues the imagined Book of Days is expected to. All in all, the plot, no more than the characters, gives no good reason to read the book.

Next reason, then, is style, writing ability. Here, too, i’m afraid that Rubart falls down. This book just isn’t likely to become a great classic, a book handed down from generation to generation for the sheer beauty and skill of the language. The language use is simple; not, however, the simplicity of Hemingway, but more along the lines of Dick and Jane ~ which is fantastic for beginning readers, but i don’t believe that group is the target audience.

Finally we could look to the book’s theme as its saving grace, the sole point that makes it worth while any and all trouble and time given to reading it, as it teaches a lesson never to be forgotten, it allows us to change our lives for the better, it carries a meaning beyond the simple characters, the unbelievable plot, the basic language. Except, it doesn’t. After i finished reading Book of Days i was talking with the other person in the household who has also read it, and i was challenged to come up with the message of the book, why Rubart wrote it. I was stumped for, literally, minutes; eventually i was able to say something along the lines of, “Be careful what you decide, because decisions have consequences” ~ surely a foolishly simplistic piece of advice to base a book on. Later, however, i read the note that Rubart put at the end of the book, explaining his purposes and reasons (hmm, maybe he also recognises that his writing needs clarification!); there i discovered that he wrote because, “my desire is you find hope in this story, that you will embrace the idea that not one of the treasured moments...is lost.” The problems with this are at least twofold. First, why should i “find hope” in a book of fiction, which clearly doesn’t offer hope? The hope that some people might (there’s no certainty in the visions) have some views of the future? That is no hope. Second, even within the confines of the story Rubart doesn’t offer hope, as Cameron’s memory loss is not addressed (how can it be, by a series of visions?), let alone cured.

In the end, it seems to me, the only hope that this book offers is that of the believer. If you already believe in a God who controls, or at least has seen, the future, you have hope, and that hope may be reinforced by this story (if you can force yourself through it). If not, it offers nothing.

A few years ago i bought a book called Cursory Rhymes by an early twentieth century writer called Humbert Wolfe. It is lovely, simple, and briefly inspired me.

 Humbert Wolfe

It does not do,
 it is not well,
To now compare
 this Wolfe to El-

iot:  Good Tom
 who wrote The Waste
Land in such an
 amazing haste

He did not find
 good translations,
But left the quotes
 of other nations’

Pithy sayings
 in their own tongue,
And makes me feel
 like so much dung ~

My simple lack
 of savoir faire
And basic nous
 when i am there.

But Wolfe, he’s not
 like that at all:
His easy rhymes
 don’t cause a fall.

He wrote for child-
 ren, i would guess:
His gentle rhymes ~
 a Mum’s caress.

And just because
 they’re light and fun,
Doesn’t mean that
 on the tongue

They have no
 value, use, or
Worth; no less
 is he a bore.

This good Wolfe,
 unlike Big Bad,
Has nice rhymes,
 and makes me glad

I read him ~
  not like old Tom
Whose poetry
 is like a bomb

Shell hitting
 in my brain,
To end it all
 once again.

A Birthday Gift

Thank you, Chenowyth.

The Story of the First Queen Elizabeth

by

L. du Garde Peach

A Ladybird book! Of all things! An old one, of the style dating back to my very young days, with a brown cardboard cover and a simple blue illustration on it. I’m certain i never owned this one, though i suspect i may have read it before (or had it read to me!), as some of the pages and pictures are familiar. Whether i owned it previously or not (and re-owning books isn’t as childish as it seems, is it?), am i delighted to have been given it for this recent birthday.

The story is, obviously, extremely simple, quick, and well known; it covers, though, all the major points of the Virgin Queen’s story (not including the reason for that nickname!) which are important for young English, or maybe British, children to know. There is a strong focus on the Armada, which covers about four of the fortysix pages of text; this is natural, as is the emphasis on Spenser and Shakespeare, among the greatest luminaries of the Golden Age. The only thing which is missing in any real detail, any explanation of the religious problems, is barely touched upon in passing, as the reason Elizabeth feared Mary, and Mary feared what Elizabeth would do after her death. I don’t think that one could write such a book today ~ this, and the other Ladybirds, is truly an artefact of its time ~ even with the same target audience in mind, and not give more explanation of the issues of religion, especially as they also impinge upon the Armada story.

The joy of this book, though, other than the simple joy for me of seeing something from my childhood, is the emphasis on story: The only way to interest children in history, in my opinion, is to make it memorable, to tell stories, to make the people interesting because of the stories they are part of; only then will they want to learn about the motivations and reasons and historical movements and interpretations. Too much taught history today, and yes, i’m looking at BBC History magazine, which i love receiving and reading, as well as schoolbooks and teachers, too much, i say, forgets the story in favour of sources, interpretation, explanation, and “understanding”. These latter parts of the subject are important, but they aren’t ~ shouldn’t be, cannot be ~ basic to a child’s grasp of and delight in history. Hoorah for Ladybird and their stories, i say!

"Early" Review

Shadowland

by

Rhiannon Lassiter

Once again i am clearly not a member of the target audience of a book i received from the Early Reviewer programme of Librarything ~ which makes it interesting that i have a couple of times been given books aimed at juveniles (what i think the trade calls Young Adults); i suppose that it must be linked to the large number of books of that kind which we, as book loving parents of several children who have been or are young adults, own. At least one previous book of this genre (Sugarcoated) i seem to recall having quite enjoyed, at least, without going back and rereading my review; i wish that i could say the same of this one, but i have to be honest, and say i really struggled reading Shadowland.

There are just about two hundred pages here, and i was clearly halfway through (literally, in the actual meaning of that much misused word, page 100) before i fully grasped what was happening, let alone beginning to care about the characters. Of course, it must be admitted that a good portion of the problem i was having was related to the second way in which i am not a member of Lassiter’s target audience: This is the third book in a (projected) quintology, and i have not read either of the first two, thus i had no idea, going in, what was happening, who was involved, whom i should be cheering for. That disconnect is particularly strong in this book, perhaps in the series, much more than many series (Lord of the Rings and the Narnia Chronicles spring to mind immediately) where each book is sufficiently self-contained to stand alone.

Lassiter makes it clear, as i understand it, that the books are not really intended to be read apart from each other; in an Author Note [sic] at the end of the book she says, “These are not the kind of events that can be neatly wrapped up at the end of a book” (an overly broad statement, in some ways, as almost any conceivable book has some loose ends), making it clear that she understands the way her characters and plots are flowing from volume to volume of the series. It isn’t clear, however, that she understands how very difficult her particular method makes it for the casual reader to find his way into the individual volumes; i hadn’t, as mentioned above, any notion of the books, and it was horribly difficult to learn. A further difficulty, i found, was that there were several (even now i’m not certain) different groups of characters, linked in some way, though not clear in the narrative, with separate (but linked) plots, and Lassiter jumps between them very frequently, perhaps too frequently, before the reader has time to grasp and start to follow the current group.

All this ought not be taken to mean that i am ungrateful for the book ~ i haven’t yet been ungrateful for an Early Reviewer book (even Rooms, which was so appalling i couldn’t finish it!) ~ simply that i believe Lassiter was not well served by her publishers; though the final two volumes of the quintology appear not to have been written yet (or, at least, are unpublished), she might have been better advised to hold them all back until the whole was finished, to be published as one book. Certainly, if the others are of a size with this, at a thousand pages (of quite large print, going by this one) it would not be beyond possibility. The advantage of keeping her readers would probably outweigh (at least for an author) the financial benefits of publishing five books over one.

Old Poetry can be Fun

A Preface to Eighteenth Century Poetry

James Sutherland

One of the most enjoyable books i’ve read in a long time, which is not what one would expect at all from the title. I think we got this book in Hay-on-Wye several years ago; as i recall it was one i bought simply because it was an Oxford University Press book, it had a bit of water damage, and i was sad seeing it outside, left to deteriorate further. Perhaps also the fact that i had to study Pope for A level English may have played into it, though certainly not any enjoyment of him, because i found his poetry very difficult to enjoy ~ indeed, i remember complaining about it to DCLS after we’d written the relevant exam, as presumably i figured it couldn’t matter any more what a teacher thought about what i thought! Reading Sutherland now, though, was a real pleasure, makes me want to get hold of some Pope, Dryden, Johnson, and others.

The primary message Sutherland is offering is one i certainly don’t remember from Loretto, though possibly it was and i failed to pick it up; he says that the poetry of each age is different, and current expectations are not necessarily met by a previous age’s literature. In particular, the Eighteenth Century was very different, and today we will struggle to read its writings if we do not take into account the differences in their expectations and demands, especially as our reading of literature is still affected by the Romantic movement, which is heavily to be understood as reaction to the Eighteenth Century: A double whammy. So, then, what are these differences, these demands? Boils down to an expectation of formalism, of appropriate style and content, of taking poetry seriously both in the writing and the reading which we seem to no longer have in the Twentyfirst Century. The writers of the Augustan Age generally wrote for classically educated men who could recognise and appreciate allusions and style and serious thoughts. This makes it all sound rather unappealing, yet as i mentioned above, Sutherland has made me want to read some again; he is clearly a skilful and challenging writer who loves his subject and is able to carry that love over to his readers. Enjoyable.

History by Novel

The Death of the Red King

by

Paul Doherty

A novel, or an historical study disguised as a novel, certainly a piece of imaginative research and interpretation into one of Mediæval Western Europe’s mysteries, the accidental death of William II of England in the New Forest. Every schoolboy (and girl, but i have to go with the phrase) knows about the death of William Rufus, that he was killed while hunting, perhaps by one of his retainers, that his brother Henry raced to Winchester to secure the treasury and, hence, the crown (you know, sadly, as i write this i’m starting to wonder, do today’s children know this? are they taught this in school? i have a strong suspicion that JAG might well not know about Rufus, about either of the Conqueror’s sons, at all. Oh dear) before anyone else could usurp it. Doherty has written his novel as told by Eadmer, Anselm’s biographer and follower, during the last few days of Anselm’s life, as he conducts a brief investigation into the death of the late, unlamented king.

Unlamented, except, for Doherty, by Anselm, who claims that they were members of the same tithing and, therefore, he was responsible for Rufus, even though in dispute with him for much of the time. Clearly Dohety takes his history very seriously, as he gives a list of sources at the end of each chapter(!), often with little comments onthem, perhaps identifying their usefulness or reliability. His conclusion, while not completely new, is different from the usual received wisdom, and therefore pleasing. The denouement is clever, as Anselm has drawn todether all his suspects and he plays with them in a nice echo of someone such as Poirot, several hundred years early.

Shelley, Shelley, is that you?

Poetic Lives: Shelley

by

Daniel Hahn

Another Early Reviewers book, this one from, i think, December. The fact that it has taken me six months to read its hundred and fifty pages would appear not to speak well for my reading speed; in fact, i completely lost the thing for about three months and had to start again when i found it magically back in a place i had previously looked the other day. Enough with the whining, what about the book?

Well, though i hate to, i’m afraid i’m going to have to whine a little here, too. I am a little confused about Hahn’s aims with this book (or the publisher’s aims, if he is writing to fit a series), as it could be viewed from a couple of perspectives, but without really resolving. At some points it seems as though Hahn is writing to about the Wikipedia level ~ general text, designed to be easily understood and in-depth solid information, at others, however, there appears to be a curious skimming over points, where the reader feels something is missing or lost; there are large quotations of Shelley’s poetry, which is very useful, but again a bit odd because any poetry readers who use the book will probably already have access to most or all of Shelley (since one would do the poetry before looking for the poet behind it), and any who come looking purely for biography of an important figure (i.e., non-poetry readers) will be stumped by the masses of poetry with no explanation or criticism.

Then there are his own individual quirks, those which form an author’s style; in Hahn’s case, one that i found especially annoying was his use of an ellipsis at various points, seeming to imply that there was much more he could say, but he was being stopped, or stopping himself, for some reason (this, on page 55, for example, speaking of Shelley and Mary and others in Geneva, “They took rooms at the Hotel de l’Angleterre as Sécheron, and before long Byron turned up at that very same hotel...” ~ the very next character is the first of a completely new paragraph; what inference is the reader supposed to draw from that?), which is never disclosed, but implies that information of some kind is being hidden from us.

In the end, this is not a bad book, don’t let my whining leave that impression; it isn’t, however, as good as it could have been, with a little judicious pruning and editing, and perhaps a firmer view of the goal.

Greater Joy

The Whole Wide Beauty

Emily Woof

Apparently, so the blurb tells me, Emily Woof is a British actress; i looked her up on Wikipedia, out of interest, when i first began this Early Reviewer book, and discovered that her father was director of the Wordsworth Trust, based in the Lake District, and a well known scholar; it is surely of interest that the (female) protagonist’s father is director of a poetry based foundation, is lives in or near the Lake District, and is well known for constantly raising funds. I am moved to wonder just how much else of the book is based on reality. Katherine, the protagonist, became a dancer against the wishes of her father; Woof became an actress, and i wonder how Robert Woof felt about that. Katherine has an affair with one of the protégés of her father. One just has to wonder how much is imagination and how much confession.

Enough speculation, and on to the book itself. Did i enjoy it? Well, yes, i rather think that i did. There is a lot in it, some of wisdom, plenty of observation, and sufficient of reality in character-building to make it worth the read. In turn: Wisdom, Katherine has found it necessary to find her own way in life, in that she has been untouched by poetry, her father’s muse, to the extent that when she hears it, it really has no meaning for her, so her own creativity has been focussed on something entirely different, physical creativity, rather than intellectual, but this is not portrayed as simply an act of rebellion, more of the necessity of finding one’s own way in the world. Observation, both of a character (especially Katherine and David) and their motives, and of the world, is all through the book; i wonder if the fact that Woof is an actress impacts on that, as she has had to observe in order to reproduce in her work. Reality, especially, as i say, in building the characters, is rife: I found all the actions and reactions of the characters rang true, and i was able to understand why they did the things they did, even without explanations, because they were real people; that is a huge point for me, in a book, because all too frequently characters do not behave as you might expect ~ not because people don’t, but because they are poorly drawn and motivated ~ not an issue here.

And yet, overall, the book surprised me with its plot developments and character interactions In the end, i have to say that this is a lovely experience, for me, of the Early Reviewers programme ~ unlike my previous!

Oh. My. Gosh.

Rooms

by

James L. Rubart

I have eaten tripe. When i was taking a course on Early Sixteenth Century Poetry while at university we had a banquet, of sorts, and tripe was one of the dishes served. I seem to remember that it was chewy, tasteless, rather a struggle to eat, and not really worth it. I was not defeated, however, and ate it.

This tripe has defeated me. It thus enters very limited company: Over the past ten years i have read well over a thousand books and, in that time, i can think of four that i have not finished ~ it’s almost a point of pride with me to finish a book i start.  Princess Casamassima defeated me so far, though i think i’ll probably go back to it again one day; Crichton’s Disclosure and Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man both dragged me down; and a book from Asimov’s Foundation series written by someone other than him just wasn’t worth it. And now this.

I’m some five chapters into Rooms and i don’t care if the protagonist lives or dies. Really. He has absolutely no interest for me. Oh, he’s an immensely successful software tycoon. So? Oh, someone’s given him a house. So? It’s perfect for him. So what: I don’t care. I don’t even know that it is perfect for him, because i don’t know anything about him. The author, James L. Rubart, i believe this is his first published work, has given me nothing to make me want to go on learning about Micah Taylor: He’s not an attractive character, he has some mystery in his past but what it is isn’t clear, he doesn’t know why he’s been given this house, doesn’t really seem to care, but is willing to put everything on hold while he explores it. Well, i’m not.

I have read ~ and finished! ~ books before where i have not cared for the protagonist, but in those cases the level of writing is enough to draw me it while i learn to care. Not here. This is written at just a hair above the “Dick and Jane” level of elementary school primer. The reader is told everything, shown nothing, which is precisely the reverse of the way it is taught in the most basic of writing classes.

I could go on, but why? I read The Shack, to which this is unwisely compared on the front cover, several times; it’s simple, unrealistic, but compelling. I’ve also read The Screwtape Letters, to which it is also compared, a number of times; it is funny, truthful (if not true), and immensly clever. Rooms is not.

Early Reviewer Book

Once in a Blue Moon

by

Leanna Ellis

     The latest in the series of books i have been able to get from publishers through the Librarything Early Reviewers. I’m not quite the target audience for this book, as i wasn’t for the first Early Review one i read; i think it’s rather more aimed at the young, female, Christian type, much as the books by Lori Wick and Robin Jones Gunn that Abigail likes so much. This is all right, as it happens, as Abby picked up the book while it was on the dining room table, and is now reading it; it will be interesting to see how she feels about it ~ if i can, i’ll get her to review it, too.

     So, preliminaries out of the way, how did i feel about the book? Actually, despite my being well outside the target audience, i really quite enjoyed it, overall. There are points i can pick on, and will, but by and large, they are outweighed by the pleasure of the character development, and the quirkiness of some of those characters. There are some caveats, to be sure, such as the very title itself, which links to that annoying and recent definition of a “blue moon” as two full moons in a single calendar month, and says how very rare that is when, clearly, it isn’t. Also, the actual ending of the book is a little annoying as it tries to imply coyly that perhaps there is something to all the conspiracy theories, after all.

     Mention of the conspiracy theories leads me to a point that i really liked about the book, and that is the lovely link it draws between the beliefs of the two main male characters: Howard used to work for NASA, and now lives convinced that a huge conspiracy of undetermined (or undefined, at any rate) form is the reason that they haven’t continued to go to the moon; his son, Sam, was (or is? it’s never quite resolved) a preacher, albeit a flawed one. This belief of the younger Walters is the key to the book, the reason why Ellis has written it, as it is the reason Wick, Gunn and others write: To promote their world-view as normal, whole, possible and, indeed, desirable.

     It is in this purpose of promoting Christianity’s view, i have to say, i found Ellis quite good and pleasing. She does not by any means beat her readers about the head; Sam is clearly flawed ~ he’s divorced, after all ~ but he is capable of resisting temptation; Bryn Seymour, the protagonist, is self-aware, but not necessarily capable of stopping herself from doing silly or destructive things; the religion is, in fact, done with a very nice light touch. Bryn doesn’t even, for example, have to say the Sinner’s Prayer before Sam baptises her (in a hotel fountain, no less!); this lack, alone, is enough to give me pleasure, as i have had a great many qualms about that process/structure of Sinner’s Prayer ~ faith confession ~ baptism, over the years. All in all, i would have to say that Ellis probably succeeds in her goal of writing an enjoyable Christian romance for young ladies.