“Fiddle-de-dee’s not English.”

The way things are going, this year could end up being The Great Year of Re-reading!

OK. I haven’t been posting much. Rather, I haven’t been posting anything here. I’m feeling rather vague and not very committed to doing anything at the moment, but not writing anything here leaves me feeling cranky. I want to join challenges and make lists, but I keep making excuses, so here I am rambling about nothing.

Uh.

The Great Year of Re-reading! There’s where I was. I’ll get back to that in a bit.

It’s the end of January, almost, and I still haven’t read much. Not as much as I want to, and I haven’t been paying attention much to the blog or the community lately. I am ashamed. Weekly Geeks have started again (we miss you, Dewey) and I still haven’t participated. I’ll try to cook up a post and visit after this!

Books in January

I finished a few books. Here we go with short recaps with very little chance of a longer, critical review coming forth. I’ve decided I’m bad at reviews! Links are to the respective editions at GoodReads.

1. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

I think this is the first Rushdie book I finished. I think I started The Moor’s Last Sigh but got nowhere with that one. The story is about one Salem Sinai (and his family, and more) and his overly large nose who was born at midnight on the day of India’s independence. Yes, there’s more to it than that.

I liked the book, but it took me so long to finish it. It was partly because I was busy and partly because it was a bit hard to parse.

2. Royal Escape by Georgette Heyer

This one I picked up on a whim. I saw Heyer’s books at a bookstore and thought, “Hey I know some people who love Georgette Heyer,” and their tastes were quite compatible with mine, so I stopped at the shelf. Then I noticed that Heyer was a very prolific writer and I was overwhelmed and my mind drew a blank — I couldn’t think of a single title that came recommended. I was about to walk away from the shelf when I steeled myself and looked through the books, and ended up with Royal Escape because it sounded like it had action and adventure.

And it had a lot of adventure, if not much action. The story is about the escape of Charles II from Oliver Cromwell (this is where my history fails me; I have no idea what caused what and why Charles was escaping from anyone and I’ll admit, to my shame, I didn’t really look things up even after I finished the book). It was an easy read — I finished it in two nights, reading it before I went to bed. I shall look up what actually comes recommended by Heyer and tackle that next.

3. The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynne Jones

On the preliminary pages there’s a list of other Tough Guides. Which I don’t think actually exist. I saw one title: The Tough Guide to Transport in the Multiverse (mostly by Telephone Box) which made me snort with laughter — and I hadn’t even started the book proper at that point!

Despite ending up literally laughing out loud while reading the book, this one took even longer to finish than Midnight’s Children. It was funny and really, really fun . . . in small doses. It gets a bit repetitive after a while since it’s formatted like an encyclopaedia and all, especially if you read every entry. Skipping about makes it more fun, I think. (Just look up Eternal Quest; you’ll end up groaning at the definition.)

If you’ve read a lot of fantasy novels (like I have) you’ll find yourself chuckling at the clichés. Probably a good guide to have if you’re writing a fantasy novel (or trilogy, or, heaven forbid, a twelve-book cycle and die just before you finish the last one) just to make sure you’re not repeating the same things everyone has said before. XD

4. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K Dick

I am glad I liked this! I end up so frustrated when I read these so called “cult classics” or “ground-breaking novels” and end up thinking, “Well, that was OK, but what’s the fuss about?” that I’m beginning to lose faith in lists and recommendations. I like lists with many, many books in them. I like it even more if I know I can trust those lists! (Yes, I know they don’t account personal tastes and all, but I don’t really have that many friends who read who can recommend me books.)

I’ve never watched Blade Runner. Should I?

5. Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

I love this book. I have no other excuse. I don’t remember how many times I’ve reread it, but I’ve blogged about it at least once. Howl is perfectly ridiculous. Sophie being a cantankerous old lady is great fun. Calcifer and his hints — goodness, he gave a lot, didn’t he, it was just that Sophie had no idea what she was supposed to look out for.

And I’m pretty slow on the uptake. Some pieces just clicked this time around — I’ve just realised how old Howl is (a little over 27) not that it’s important but it should’ve been obvious if I had paid attention; now I wonder if we were actually told who cleft the devil’s foot. (What devil?) I am rambling. Never mind. Perhaps I’ll post again about Howl’s Moving Castle, comparing the film and the book, since I watched it the nth time with my siblings and still couldn’t make much sense of it.

What d’ya mean, re-reads?

Back to my original point about it being a year of re-reads — I’ve already re-read one book: Howl’s Moving Castle. I’m currently re-reading both Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman and The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper. I’m tempted to add more but I already have too many new books on my plate.

But. BUT! Looking at the re-read for Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time series going on here is leaving me tempted to re-read the books. It will probably take forever, though the target is to finish the rereading before the last book, Memory of Light, is published this fall. (Also the snark in the discussion delights me. These people love RJ and the series, but they’re willing to make fun of it and of themselves while still being analytical, and not kill each other when they’re trying to determine whether Nyneave or Egwene is the more annoying of the girls. Also there will probably be a count on how many time someone crosses her arms beneath her breasts.)

I can’t find the tenth volume of the series, Light (that’s the right terminology, yes?) help me if I could get the titles of the fifth book onwards straight. We own all the books. It’s not with any of my siblings and no one in his or her right mind would be borrowing just the tenth book in the series without reading the previous nine, so we’re kinda stumped to where it went missing. I hope it turns up when (or if) I ever get to it in the process of rereading. Which, I am gloomily predicting, will probably end up being the process of skimming-through-the-chapters-very-fast-and-getting-really-annoyed-at-the-female-characters. Jordan seems to equate “strong female characters” to “female characters who bully the dudes” and it sets me off sometimes. A lot of times. Most times, I guess. But we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, if ever.

Too ambitious, this rereading project. That’s what I think. But hey, why not give it a go? XD;

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Gong Xi Fa Cai, by the way. Have a good year of the ox. :)

Possession: A Romance by AS Byatt
Random House 2002 (first published 1990)
500+ pages

Possession: A Romance is the story of two contemporary scholars, Roland Michell and Maud Bailey, who are researching the lives of two Victorian poets, Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel LaMotte. Roland finds a draft of a letter from Ash to a lady friend and soon learns that Ash might had had an affair with LaMotte, which leads Roland to Maud, a LaMotte scholar.

. . . Okay, it’s actually more exciting than that. Roland and Maud’s story unfolds along with Ash and LaMotte’s story as they go on a literary treasure hunt digging up old letters and we end up reading those letters, and journals, and epic poems, and a lot of other stuff besides. Uh. This description is not going well.

The book was made into a movie in 2002, staring Gwyneth Paltrow and Aaron Eckhart. My library seems fond of acquiring movie tie-in versions of books, hence the cover you see here. I haven’t watched the movie. Does anyone know whether it’s good?

Anyway. Let’s move on to the questions from this Weekly Geeks post.

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Here’s one from Suey:

» My main question for anyone that’s read Possession, and be honest here . . . did you skip the poems? (I did . . . and hopefully there was nothing big and revealing in them!)

Haha! The question made me laugh. I did read most of the poems, actually. Well, “read” might be too strong a word — “skimmed” was more like it. Especially Ash’s poems — I kept feeling like he just wanted to show off how clever he was! I did like some of Christabel LaMotte’s poems, though . . . I can’t remember what it was called, but it was about the woman and her lover and uh, the sea that was about to submerge their city? (It is obvious that I don’t really pay attention to these things!)

What usually happens is this: I am enjoying the story and the narrative and ka-blam! Here comes a six-page poem! A sample of an epic greater than anything ever written before! And yet I have no idea what Ash’s talking about! So I usually set the book down at this point and go off to read something else. I come back, I skim through the whole thing, and sigh in relief when I get back to Roland and Maud. If there were anything revealing in the poems, I wouldn’t know — I was marvelling too much at the language to actually try to understand what the poets were saying!

Julie says she didn’t read the poems either — so you are not alone! ;)

Some questions from Christine:

» How did you like Possession? Any favourite moments? Did you see the ending coming, or not so much? Would you recommend it?

I liked it quite well! I wish it was a bit shorter, though — or the poems were a bit shorter, at least! It was able to tide me through a weekend with distracted parents and noisy kids, which says quite a bit about capturing my attention. I was reading the book at a gathering with some university friends at a beach. They all gave me this amused look and told their kids not to bother me — I am glad I didn’t have to read any of Ash’s poetry to two-year-olds. I have nothing against kids; it was just awkward that I was the only one without one, something I only noticed when the boys were being all manly and setting up the barbecue pit and the girls were busy pacifying their children — goodness, when did we grow up? — and I was left with nothing to do.

I don’t have any particular favourite moment, I guess. It was a library book, and I keep wondering: the next time I find it again on the shelves, which pages would I flip back to?, and I couldn’t think of any. (I have odd ways of rephrasing questions, I guess.) The ending — I did not see it coming at all, if you meant the very last chapter/epilogue with Randolph Ash walking down that country lane. I felt terribly, terribly sorry for Christabel then.

As for recommending it: I would, but with some reservations — you really do need patience to get through the book!

And here are the questions from Joy Renee again (I skipped/combined some of the questions, sorry!):

» How was point-of-view handled? Was there a single POV character or did it alternate among two or more? Was it always clear whose eyes and mind were filtering?

It changed. A lot. It was still mostly third person limited, and it was pretty clear who’s thinking what, but that’s not all. There are pages and pages and pages of poetry, a whole section containing letters being sent back and forth between Randolph Ash and Christabel LaMotte, excerpts from journals, excerpts from books written by (fictional) leading researchers about the (fictional) poets.

To me, the best thing about the whole book is how I keep thinking “Oh, Ash thinks he’s so clever!” and “Is Christabel LaMotte ever happy?” and “Why would anyone want to read such a pretentious autobiography!” when I read the excerpts, like they were real people with distinct writing styles instead of all of them being a creation of AS Byatt. That’s one heck of an accomplishment.

» How was language used to set tone and mood?

The Victorian part was very Victorian. I am no Victorian scholar, but it sounded authentic. The different poets/letter writers/people who kept journals/people who wrote books all sounded distinct from each other. The parts set in the modern day England (around late 1980s, I believe) were lighter and easier to read.

» Was the prose dense or spare? Were sentences generally simple or complex?

It’s a mix of both, depending which part you are reading at the moment.

» What was the central or organizing theme? How does the title relate to the story? Was it fitting?

Possession, I’d say. Possessing someone, possessing stolen letters, possessing trinkets from long-dead authors, possessing the past. A lot of possession going on. That’s the title, after all.

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Possession won the Booker Prize in 1990. It’s also the first book by AS Byatt I’ve read, and I’ll probably read her other works if I come across them. This was also read for the Man Booker Challenge.

This isn’t a specific review of any of the Dunnett books listed here, since the questions were general. I’ll cover the whole series generally then, since starting with the first un-reviewed book, The Disorderly Knights which is the third book in the series, doesn’t really make sense.

Here’s an overview: The Lymond Chronicles is a series of six books, following the journey of one Francis Crawford of Lymond beginning with The Game of Kings in 1547 Scotland and ends in Checkmate in 1558.

I’m actually quite nervous to answer the questions on these books! I’m afraid I’ll do Dorothy Dunnett an injustice or scare people away with my adoring fangirling!

Okay. Here we go. Here’s a question from Marg:

» I am interested to see that you are reading the Dunnett books. I intend to read them at some point but I must also confess that I am somewhat intimidated by them. I have heard that the language takes a long time to get used to. Did you find that to be the case, and do you have any advice for any of us scaredy cats who haven’t read Dunnett yet.

Oh, please do read them. The language took a little time to get used to, but I think it’s more acclimating to Dunnett’s style than it being “difficult” language. And that wasn’t really my main hurdle. I had a problem of being unable to figure out what was happening in the first thirty or so pages, but that resolved itself in time. My real problem was the quotes scattered around — everyone seemed to be quoting someone else (when I first started the books it seemed like the whole of Scotland was inhabited by people blessed with a classical education and with photographic memories which they used to throw quotes at each other in five different languages) and I got frustrated because I couldn’t understand what they were saying or what they were referring to. I also wasn’t familiar with the time period, so references to events went over my head.

My advice: don’t let that scare you! You can just ignore the quotes and the text that aren’t in English — it’s not that they don’t matter, but the story doesn’t rely on you understanding everything. Besides, it makes for interesting discussion later! Not knowing the history of Scotland didn’t cause all that much trouble to me; you find yourself piecing together things after a bit. Also, if you find yourself bewildered by the many characters who appear in the first few chapters, don’t worry too much. I think that happens to everyone, and most people are able to reconcile who did what when the characters appear again. Also it’s okay to feel like you want to throttle Lymond every now and then — especially at the beginning when you have no idea what the heck he is up to — he could be very frustrating at times. ;)

And if you’re the type who avoids spoilers at all costs, I’d advice skipping reading the back covers. Especially if, say, you’re on book three, don’t read what’s on the back of the next volumes. Don’t even read any of the blurb on The Disorderly Knights, even when you’re reading that volume. Seriously.

And a question from Joy:

» Re Dorothy Dunnett: I’ve never read anything by her but I’ve heard things that make me lean towards trying one. You seem to favor her, what would you say to me to cause me to lean harder towards her? If your comments relate to storytelling technique no much the better.

I favour her very much. Very. I’ve never been much of a historical fiction reader (the historical fiction book everyone and her mother has read — The Other Boleyn Girl? I still haven’t read it), but after picking up her books, I’ve been searching for other books in the same genre. I think Dunnett sort of spoiled me — now I compare the books I’m reading (historical fiction or not) against her work, and a lot of them fall short. Seriously. She’s that good a storyteller!

So I am using the rest of Joy’s questions with hopes that I’ll be able to explain myself better:

» How was Point-of-View handled? Was there a single POV character or did it alternate among two or more. Was it always clear whose eyes and mind were filtering?

The books are all in the third person. POV changes quite often, sometimes within a few paragraphs. It’s still limited third person POV, though. And it’s not quite clear, sometimes, whose POV it is — some of the more interesting and entertaining discussions over at the related Yahoo!Group at Marzipan/Game of Kings are about trying to determine who’s thinking what! (I’m pretty sure Dunnett did that on purpose, with a twinkle in her eye. Just to leave us wondering.) Surprisingly, Lymond is the one we get the least time from his POV — very rarely we get to see what Lymond actually thinks about what is going on — most of the story is “filtered” through the eyes of the people around him.

» How was language used to set tone and mood?

The first book, The Game of Kings, opens in 1547 Scotland and the six books span across more than ten years, from Scotland to France to Malta to the Ottoman Empire to Russia and back to Scotland again. I felt like I actually went to those places with Lymond (yes, I know I sound like a cliché). Dunnett writes everything in painstaking detail, and her research about the period is meticulous. As for the mood, well. There are scenes I keep rereading in delight, savouring the details. The funny moments are still funny, even when I reread them. And then there are chapters I can’t bear to reread because I know it’ll send me this close to tears (and I don’t cry easily) and leave me sad and miserable the whole day.

Yes, she’s that good a writer.

» Was the prose dense or spare? Were sentences generally simple or complex?

(It’s hard to answer these questions when I’m not sure what I’m comparing the books against.) It’s not really that dense, honest. The language isn’t really that hard to get into, despite contrary things you might hear. Here, have a sample from the opening of The Disorderly Knights:

On the day that his grannie was killed by the English, Sir William Scott the Younger of Buccleuch was at Melrose Abbey marrying his aunt.

News of the English attack came towards the end of the ceremony when, by good fortune, young Scott and his aunt Grizel were by all accounts man and wife. There was no bother over priorities. As the congregation hustled out of the church, led by the bridegroom and father, and spurred off on the heels of the messenger, the new-made bride and her sister watched them go.

“I’m daft,” said Grizel Beaton to Janet Beaton, straightening her headdress where her bridegroom’s helmet had knocked it cockeyed. [. . .]

Who wouldn’t want to read a book with an opening like that?

» How was metaphor used? Were associations fresh or did they tend toward cliché? Did they add to your understanding of the theme?

Not often enough to make me notice, so I guess they were used sparingly. And I don’t know about clichés, I can’t remember any. And it adds to understanding, I’d say, especially after I read the discussion on the Yahoo!Group about leitmotifs and associations Dunnett used consistently throughout the series, though I can’t say I really noticed it when I first read the books.

» What was the central or organizing theme?

Redemption, I think. A lot of other things factor in, like love and loyalty but . . . well. It’s one man’s journey to redeem himself (to himself?) and to reconcile himself and, uh, a whole lot of things that would be spoiler-ish, with his country and his family and the ones he love and, well, himself.

. . . A lot of sense that made.

» How does the title relate to the story? Was it fitting?

Yep, they fit all right. The whole series has a chess motif to the titles, in order: The Game of Kings, Queens’ Play, The Disorderly Knights, Pawn in Frankincense, The Ringed Castle and Checkmate. Lymond is also a master chess player, and um, there’s a lot of strategising involved. Also, there’s a really important chess game somewhere in the books. Um.

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Okay. Now I think I have scared away half of my six-people readership. XD

Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
Sceptre 2008 (first published 2006)
288 pages

As a part of Weekly Geeks 12, I’ll be posting reviews as answers to questions posted at this earlier post here!

A question from bybee:

» I heard that Black Swan Green is a coming-of-age novel. Is that correct?

Indeed it is! It’s a lot of other things too, but mostly it’s the story of thirteen months of the life of thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor in a small village in the English countryside in 1982. Margaret Thatcher is prime minister, the Falklands War is going on, and Jason struggles with his life: growing up, tolerating an older sister, hiding the fact that he stammers, avoiding bullies, and trying to decipher those strange creatures known as girls.

It also touches other social themes like bullying and divorce and racial prejudice and finding acceptance among your peers and doing the right thing, but yes, it is a coming-of-age novel. (There have been comparisons to Catcher in the Rye. I have no comment on that, because I haven’t read it!)

And questions from Joy Renee:

» How was Point-of-View handled? Was there a single POV character or did it alternate among two or more. Was it always clear whose eyes and mind were filtering?

The book was in the first person, Jason’s point of view. No problems with alternating POVs in this one. I really liked him — he made me cringe and smile and remember how awkward things are when you’re thirteen, and how things that don’t seem to matter much to us now were a matter of life and death then.

» How was language used to set tone and mood?

Jason comes off as sometimes awkward but mostly likeable and he does sound like he’s thirteen. (Some of the observations he make might make you wonder if he really is thirteen, though, even when you know he’s a very smart boy.) The language he uses, the description of his everyday life — what music is playing, what cigarettes the older boys are smoking, what David — sorry, for some reason I keep associating the author’s name with the protagonist Jason is having for breakfast — evokes the time period well. (Well, I wasn’t a teenager in the 80s, but it seems real enough to me.) He stammers, and he does his best to hide it from the other kids, knowing that he’ll be the butt of their jokes if he’s ever found out. Despite that, Jason’s also wry and funny and sharp, and he makes you want to root for him to the end.

David Mitchell has a speech impediment himself. I found this article where he talks about language and register and choosing the right words very interesting!

» Was the prose dense or spare? Were sentences generally simple or complex?

Generally it wasn’t so dense. Sentences were quite simple and easy to follow.

» How was metaphor used? Were associations fresh or did they tend toward cliché? Did they add to your understanding of the theme?

I think David Mitchell is one of those rare authors who could get away with any metaphor he wanted to, cliché or not. Seriously, I’ve only read two books by him, this book and number9dream, and I think I have a crush on him. Eeeh, anyway. I’m no good at these things. Here are a few lines from Jason (who also is secretly a poet):

The sequence of doors we passed made me think of all the rooms of my past and my future. The hospital ward I was born in, classrooms, tents, churches, offices, hotels, museums, nursing homes, the room I’ll die in. (Has it been built yet?) Cars’re rooms. So are woods. Skies’re ceilings. Distance’re walls. Wombs’re rooms made of mothers. Graves’re rooms made of soil.

» What was the central or organizing theme?

Growing up, I guess. Finding out who you are. Pretty much your standard coming-of-age story. :)

» How does the title relate to the story? Was it fitting?

Black Swan Green is the name of the village Jason lives in. The joke is that there are no swans in the village, black or otherwise. The whole book is set in Black Swan Green.

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Black Swan Green was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2007. This is also my fourth book for the Man Booker Challenge!

The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly
Atria (2006)
352 pages

Twisted fairy tales: sure, just what I was looking for. World War II background: I seem to be stumbling across a lot of books about WWII lately. A book about books: of course I want to read it. So I did.

The writing is terribly bland. It’s . . . flat. The plot was interesting, the way the myth/fairy tales were twisted were awesome, but the writing! Oh man, the writing. I’m trying to come up with another adjective, and the only one I can up with is still “flat”. I felt no connection at all with any of the characters. David did this. David did that. David is angry with his father. I don’t know. I read on because I wanted to get to the end, and also because the book came so highly recommended by so many sources. Also, it was the book not chosen by the bookclub that doesn’t exist for the month of May. (Oh man, I still need to go along and apologise for the lateness of the not-June book discussion. Which will probably be the not-June and not-July book as well. Drat.)

Anyway. The Book of Lost Things. The book is about David, a twelve-year-old boy living in England during WWII. His mother falls ill and dies, and when his father remarries and his stepmother is having a baby, David’s anger and frustration over the whole thing kinda transports him to another world, where fairy tales are twisted and he needs to find the king and the book of lost things the king has to return home. (Or something like that. Go find some other more objective summary elsewhere.)

I liked how dark the fairytale land was, and how the fairy tales were turned on their heads. My copy of the book didn’t have the appendices with the original fairy tales and explanations by Connolly and whatnot, so I am probably missing a lot of things. I don’t particularly care — I’m just glad to escape Connolly’s prose. The ending made me wince. The author seems to be intent on making sure that we know that yes, David’s changed, and yes, he will find happiness but it will be taken away from him sooner or later. Yes, we do understand that. Please be more subtle next time.

This book gave me really odd dreams. It could simply be because I was back at my parents’ house when I was reading it and sleeping in a different bed in a different room, but still, they were really weird dreams about the book. (I was reading Ellen Raskin’s The Westing Game almost concurrently with this book and I didn’t dream about that book.) It wasn’t even scary — it just had the characters of the book traipsing through my dream (no David, though), all of them almost earnestly explaining why they were as they were. Unfortunately, I couldn’t recall the details of their explanations — you know how dreams are. Each dream I woke up from left me even more annoyed than I was before, and as you can see, it didn’t bode well for this commentary.

Considering that this is John Connolly’s most recommended book to date, I think I’ll have to skip the rest of his works. I traded my copy with my sister’s copy of An Abundance of Katherines when I was back at my hometown. I should ask her if she enjoyed it better than I did.