More Austen, & etc.

As I was sitting down to write this post, I was thinking it had been a very themed weekend - specifically, Georgian/Regency, with Intrigue! And Ratafia!(whatever the hell that is - I keep meaning to look it up - I feel like it's some kind of gross Orangina-type drink, for ladies?) And Muslin! And Rakes!

And then I saw that that was kind of my last post, too...

So - some time this past week I started the latest Stephanie Barron (or, at least, the latest in the series I like), Jane and the Canterbury Tale; Being a Jane Austen Mystery. I assume that the subtitle is not really part of the title, but I like to make it nice and period-appropriate. And, totally unplanned, I moved on this weekend to another early nineteenth century caper, this one with spying rather than murder, but still lots of muslin, Lauren Willig's latest Pink Carnation episode, The Garden Intrigue.

As to the first; I think I started it Monday or Tuesday (I remember climbing into bed a little tipsy and very tired, and since I seem to be living my life backwards these days, that would place us at the beginning of the week) but didn't finish it until this morning (Sunday), since I never read for that long. Mostly because I was tired, but also because it just wasn't the kind of book where I couldn't put it down, and was making the time to read it.

I fell in love with this series years and years ago; probably before the first one had been out in paperback for long, and I'm not even sure if the first one came out in hardcover, since back then they (the paperbacks) were mass market and much less slickly turned out. There was a character I was very fond of who died, sometime when I was in grad school, and after that I just haven't felt as much for the remaining characters or the books themselves. So that might be some of it.

But the bigger problem is that they're starting to just feel dull, like we're going through all the same events, with the same people, and the same "reveals," just altered in minor ways. Barron also seems to be struggling a bit, or at least her editors are. There were some small, but noticeable mistakes and I had some issues with the tone.

The thing that I used to really appreciate about the books was Barron's ability to mimic Austen's language - vocabulary, pacing, little, loving nods to lines from the latter's novels - without it feeling forced or gratuitous. Now it kind of does. Like, some period spellings - fine.  But make them count. Every time she used the word "romantickal" (to be fair, I think it was only twice), I felt like I was being hit over the head with "hey! It's ye olden days!" We get it. But, for what it's worth, I think Barron still does a better job than the plethora of other authors trying to ape Jane's style (AHEM, P.D. James, I'm not letting you off the hook for that travesty so easily). When has a character say "It will not fadge, and you know it" (44), I knew basically what he was saying (it won't work, more or less), but the contemporary language grounded the character. And I could tell from context that a "succession-house" (48) must be a greenhouse, but it sounded old and English.  I had no idea what the etymology of the phrase "grass widow" was, but I spent some pleasant minutes trying to figure it out.



Finished up Jane this afternoon, and then immediately started Garden Intrigue. Not because of the chronological similarities, but because it had just come last week in the mail (I ordered it from B&N the day it came out, using a coupon & a Valentine's Day gift card, so it was free, sweet!) and I had made myself wait to read it until the week was over and I had turned in some reports I really had to focus on. So I started it this afternoon - and finished it tonight. So, am I about to say that it's not as good as the earlier books in the series, and that I am getting disenchanted? Yes. Was I also enchanted enough to read the whole thing in the course of the afternoon? Also yes.

Honestly, I think the marathon reading was more about the fact I had kind of an awful week, and a lot of stuff going on in my life that I wanted to avoid, so escaping into a book - light enough I didn't have to really focus, not so fluffy I could still brood while I read - was a good option for a Sunday. Doing the work I brought home probably would have been a better idea, but it's not like it's anything with a "due date," and in any case, that's neither here nor there.

It's not that I didn't enjoy Garden Intrigue, because I did. It was funny in places, romantic (kind of) in others, and it suggested that the cranberry muffins at Broadway Market are good, so I will have to check those out (although I am annoyed with the place at the moment). But again, it's getting oooooold.  Couple whose early verbal sparring is an obvious prelude to them falling in love, after some misunderstandings, and then a scene where they haltingly admit their love? Check. Interspersed romantic and personal entanglements of a modern-day history Ph.D.? Check. Some issues with a threat to British national security and/or an attempt against the French (the former bad, the latter good)? Check. But suspense, or excitement? Not so much.

I want to be fair. Willig is, I think, great with pacing. She knows just how to build and hold a chapter, and when to cut it off; she spaces out the modern sections well, tying the action in twenty-first century England to what was going on in Napoleonic France (in this book) and also cutting off the reader when something big(ish) is about to happen in the main narrative, heightening what suspense there is. But in this book, there just wasn't that much suspense.

Obviously, in any book like this, you know basically what is going to happen because a) Napoleon never does take over the world, so you know the right side - that's the British, by the by, as much as my brother might not like it - win, and b) it's a romance novel, whatever other pretensions it might have, so there will be a happy ending. Now Willig might not concur with my thoughts on romance novels, and I am probably being overly judge-y, but this book, even more than the others in the series, just seemed to be so consumed with the romantic aspects of the plot that the spy part got lost. Or maybe it's just that there wasn't much spy part to begin with?

While the protagonist, Emma, was an appealing character, I prefer the books in the series where the female main characters actually know, at least to an extent, what they're involved with, and not just in the concluding chapters of the book. It gives them more to do. I don't know...I can't put my finger on it, this one just seemed extra formulaic, and when nothing is a surprise, or even a little unexpected, it takes away from the journey.

Like Jane and the Canterbury Tale, this one had some editing issues, too - at least, I think so. It was stupid stuff, like using the same name (of a poet) in adjacent paragraphs (and they were dialogue-paragraphs, so they were practically adjacent lines), and forgetting the accent over the e in the name the second time around (310). Or missing a word here and there, or using the wrong word (off by a couple letters). "If he loved and lovely hopelessly" (283) had me puzzled for a bit, until I decided that it should have been "if he loved and loved hopelessly" - unless it's a quote I don't know? There's nothing in Google about it, other than a GoogleBooks citation of Garden Intrigue.

The worst is when a character is described as wearing a waistcoat when throughout the whole d*** book they've made a big deal out of the fact that he never does (350). I mean, even just a few pages earlier. I actually kept re-reading the page, trying to figure out if I had missed something...like him putting on a waistcoat. I'd rather think that I missed something, because if it IS a mistake, than it's so egregious, it makes me feel differently about the book. Because if the author, and editors, people who should really care about the book, didn't even read the final draft closely enough to catch something like that, when why should they expect the readers to care?

 Is that mean? I mean, I'm waiting for the first draft of my boss' book to come back from the publishers for us to edit soon, and I know how hard it was just getting the ms off to them. I know that we've been going back and forth on the cover illustration (forget the overall design), because of everything from if the colors are appealing enough to if the image gave the wrong impression (that was my objection - the publishers for some reason decided to use an old engraving showing brutal, brutish Indians slaughtering poor, innocent whites. Because obviously that is both totally historically accurate and representative AND is the point of the book. Sure. I felt bad being like "HELL no" to my boss, genius that he is, and a big-wig at a big-deal press, but someone had to) but still. READ YOUR OWN BOOK. I'm not saying it's Willig's fault, but someone on her team should have caught something like that. Again, IF it's a mistake, and I do truly hope that it's not, and it's just me missing something.

Hmph. I dunno. I seem to just be b*tching about these, but when I was reading them, while I was disappointed, I also passed some pleasant time, if that makes any sense. And I'll definitely keep going with the two series (how do you pluralize "series" anyways?). If the authors return to their original form, fantastic, because there was a time when I really loved them. And even if they stay where they are, I will keep reading, because I've grown fond of the characters.

But I think I need a palate-cleanser of some contemporary fiction and some non-fiction right now!

More award winners and stuff

Sick today, so a little mentall foggy on what I've read recently...
Read another of the Booker books, C by Tom McCarthy; I really liked it, but hard to cartegorize for sure,
or even really to discuss.  I got a little lost with the radio stuff early on - maybe I just wasn't bright enough to understand it, but there was a decent section of book (maybe the second fifth?) that was prettty boggy going.  I got back into it once the scene shifted to the Bavaria, and enjoyed it from there on.  The C theme was a little over-worked, but okay.  Again, the early chapters were a little annoyingly verbose, but by the second half I was in love with the way McCarthy was writing, particularly the descriptions.






I read the latest Stephanie Barron mystery featuring Jane Austen, Jane and the Madness of Lord Byron, while I was on the way to and in D.C. for the Fall Meeting.  Of course, I enjoyed it - Barron has a great character in Jane Austen, Lady-Detective, and I remain impressed by how believeable the books are, but I was not as in love with this installment as I have been with others.  Barron seemed to be straining a bit to maintain the historical "voice" - I mean, seriously, how many times in one book can you use the word "goosecap"??  I get it, contemporary flavor.  But let it go, too...  I don't know.  I still liked it, definitely, but there was this nagging, tiny voice in the back of my head telling me that things could have been better, at least, even if they weren't bad.  Having Jane go head-to-head with her fellow author, Byron, was super fun, though, and it was interesting having this book be set after the anonymous author of Pride and Prejudice is getting famous.  Sad, though, that the Gentleman Rogue was a significant, albeit dead, presence in this story, and I miss him so much!!!

Currently plowing my way through The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson: another one of the Booker contestants, which I have to finish in 24 hours so I can get it back, because someone else requested it.
I started The Lamp of the Wicked, Phil Rickman, longer ago than I can remember, and started The Black Tower, P.D. James, when I was in D.C., but I was too drunk (that includes on the plane home) to really focus on it...which is funny, because it was one of the ones I picked up for less than a song at the Harvard Bookstore one day when I was too drunk/hungover to deal with life...

Two down, one up, three to go

Current book count: three.  I finished The White Garden and Portrait of an Unknown Woman over the week/end (respectively), but started Changeless last night.
Pretty not overwhelmed so far (I really have issues with the whole "underwhelmed" thing).  I remember really enjoying the first book in the series - "The Parasol Protectorate" - not loving it, but enjoying it.  It was funny, and entertaining, with some funny parts and something of a mystery...I think.  Actually, now that I am trying to remember what I liked about it, I can't come up with anything that specific.  I think I thought the main character was interesting, but looking back, she is maybe kinda totally pedictable and feels very familiar (even including the whole "no soul" thing).  And it's not like vampires and werewolves are exactly thin on the ground in popular literature these days...and it's very barely steamy, or punky, for that matter.  Seriously - do people just like using the word "dirigible" and figure if they put it in a book that makes it steam punk?  Not that it isn't a super fantastic word.  If I ever write a book I will definitely try to fit it in.  Not that I think that's ever going to happen, since I am writing about other people's books right now - and ones that aren't that great maybe - instead of working on my essay revision, which actually kinda matters.  Hmm.  And I am not sure I even know exactly what steam punk is, but it seems like it should be a little cooler, or at least a little less predictable.  But I DID really like Gail Carriger's story at the time...when I was on pain medication.  Hmm.  Well, we'll see.  I shouldn't go back to reading it, really, until I finish the revision (but I DID finish my taxes Friday - gah, seriously, I owe the feds $666?!  Number of the devil indeed - and last night was a total bust, so I needed something to do), but I'll keep an open mind.

Glad I did the same for Vanora Bennett's Portrait of an Unknown Woman; I ended up enjoying it quite a bit - and I now totally want to go learn more about Hans Holbein, so score on that account!  I was just about to write that it took me a while to get into Portrait, but that's not really accurate.  I never really "got into" it: I read the whole book (and it's a fairly fat book) a few pages at a time.  But I came back to it each time mildly eager to read more.  It was quietly compelling, if that makes sense.  And Bennett ended up moving past what I thought was supposed to be the big surprise (and wasn't) in another direction, which I liked.  Nothing big, nothing exciting, just small changes and events that are very significant in the lives of the people they happen to, mirroring the monumental events that surround them.  According to a note at the end of the book the story was initally inspired by the Holbein interpretations on the website of some guy named Jack Leslau (http://www.holbeinartworks.org/) which I definitely want to check out now, after reading Bennett's explanation of all the hidden meanings in a few of Holbein's works & how they were inspired by his dealings with the More family.  The inside cover of Portrait has a copy of a Holbein of the More family which I kept flipping to as I read the book, and I never even check maps in books (which is bad, since I bet I would get a lot more out of some stories if I actually understood what was going on in the way the author wants me to).  Would have been nice if I had known that the portrait the author is describing for most of the book is not the one that's printed - I was getting wicked confused.  I also want to try a biography of Thomas More again - Bennett has a bibliography in the back I might mine...including one by Peter Ackroyd, and I have enjoyed his novels, so I would give a nonfiction of his a shot.  Shoot.  Unless the Ackroyd is a novel??  Because she has Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time listed under "On Richard III and the Plantagenets" - great mystery story, but most definitely a novel.
As is Stephanie Barron's The White Garden - a wicked fun novel.  And another one that makes me want to
go learn more, so double win.  Barron (can't think of her real name) is just a lovely writer: everything rings true, even when she jumps back and forth in time, and she has a very relaxed & confident voice which I find appealing.  There are also these discrete passages of pretty, smooth prose that just make you go "aah" and relax a little more into your seat/bed/whatever; sentences that just seem so right - where they are, how they're put together - strong but delicate at the same time.  Pretty isn't a good word, but I'm thinking I use lovely too much ;)  All her books are mysteries, and they're strong enough, but the impact of her books lies in her writing, and her characters, not in the who-dunnit parts. 

procraaaaaaaaaaaastination

I should be revising my essay for class right now.  Or doing my taxes.  Or doing my dishes.
So, I will chat about the books I am reading right now.
Currently working on four books:
Started Portrait of an Unknown Woman earlier this week.  Moving through it slowly, in bits and pieces, maybe about ten to fifteen minutes a night.  It's enjoy it, and I think if I just took it and sat down to read I'd get drawn in, but it's not grabbing me all that much.  So far, it's a little predictable - smart chick, who trusts women's/folk medicine, but loves a man who is a formally trained doctor (ie, thinks Galen is a god and bleeding people is good medicine), conflicted feelings about her stepfather, More, as he's getting more and more crazy religious, etc.  Probably going to be some kind of crisis where she will need to stand up for herself, blah blah blah.  I don't know.  I thought I liked it, but the more I think about it, the less impressed I am.  Just seems, I don't know, really familiar somehow.  The silk merchant one was better.  But I am really not all that far in, so I will reserve judgement.  Not a great sign, though, that I can put it down so easily. 
What I did not want to put down, on the other hand, and was very sad to find I had left at the office Tuesday, and happy to get back today, however, was the Medical Detectives book.  Yay!  Really, the more I read of it, and the more I thought about it even when I wasn't reading the book, I was just so impressed with the quality of Roueche's writing.  It's erudite without being pedantic - an expansive vocabulary, that is mildly impressive, but not in a way that it forces itself on your attention - and he has this gift for telling a story succinctly, and moving the narrative along, but still weaving in little asides and not-super-critical moments that are great and don't disrupt the flow of the story.  Roueche is also really good at letting the "characters" in his stories tell their own with minimal authorial mucking around on his point.  Clearly he is writing and editing the pieces in a way that emphasizes the personalities and creates characters out of actual people, but it doesn't feel artificial or forced.  You read the stories and half the time you don't even think about the fact that someone wrote it - wrote, edited, re-wrote, cut and added bits - and that its not just a depiction of exactly what happened.  And then you realize the fact you didn't even really notice the author is a sign of just how impressive a writer the author is...Stephanie Barron (if that is her real name, not sure, I think maybe it's a pen name?) is kind of awesome.  I seem to recall having mixed feelings about A Flaw in the Blood (her last book about...um, something...about hemophilia and...murder?  scandal?  whatever), but I think I enjoyed it at the time, but I have loved the Jane Austen mysteries she has written since I read the first one years ago - have gobbled them up - and I started The White Garden today, and digging it.  Whoops.  Inadvertent and terrible pun.  But it's true, so I'm leaving it in.  I only took it with me this morning because the two books I was reading at the apartment were too heavy to lug around, and the Roueche was at Harvard, and I knew I might want something to read while I waited for the bus to Cambridge.  Really pleased, though - considering I only brought it because it is a slim-ish paperback, I was well-rewarded.  Took me a little while to get the rhythm of the writing and story, but once I did, I got caught right up in the story - the two stories, actually.  It's one of those tale-in-a-tales, with an unlikely duo (because when are they ever likely) who I assume are going to bone (shout out to L, even though she doesn't read this, but if she had actually come out tonight, I would be out drinking right now, not home putting off my homework) at some point, tracing a historically important manuscript...the story of which is also unfolding.  It's not high art or anything, but fun, and definitely coming from a smart person, even if it doesn't require much in the way of brainpower on the part of the reader.  But it actually makes me want to read more about the Bloosmbury crew, so if it leads to some smartening, that's a good thing. 
And smartening brings us to our fourth and final contestant for my attention of the evening,
Richard Archer's As If an Enemy's Country: The British Occupation of Boston and the Origins of Revolution.  I've been reading a little bit before bed at night, and I am liking it so far, but I have a few reservations.  I think Archer is a good writer, and the history here seems solid, but I don't know...I think maybe the editing is a bit spotty?  There's something about it just feels a little off, a little rough.  God.  Even I can't believe I am complaining about the quality of editing in a published book, when I should be doing a much-needed revision of my own work.  Or taxes.  Or dishes :)  Anyhow, I'd better head to bed, it's getting on towards midnight, so better I call this night a wash, and get up early (hey, there's always a first time) to do some writing...

Offensively Neutral

I can admit that I am living in Crazy-town right now, in the penthouse of Female Insanity Towers, but truly, I think I got a seriously disrespectful email today. ANY email that comes three weeks later is probably not very cool, and when you add in inane bullshit about the weather, which is, seriously, just offensively f***ing neutral, that puts it over the edge. And you don't lie to a New Englander about Dunkin Donuts. You just don't. It's not cool. And you will get punched in the face, and then set on fire.

I am incandescent with rage right now. Like, wrath on a f***ing Homeric f***ing scale.

I think I might pass on the light fiction altogether tonight, and go straight to the Iliad. Screw distraction, I want spears piercing through jawbones to bit into the bloodied ground as gobbets of flesh go flying. That, or getting wasted off drinks that random men are buying, but my single ladies are all out of town at the moment, so various media will have to do (but, if there is bloodshed on Lost, I will not be complaining).

Much like Mr. Annoying Bastard's email, however, I need to say that, while it doesn't elicit the same pyromaniacal yearnings in me, I find George Eliot's Middlemarch to be stupendously offensively neutral. I read it again this weekend, hoping at 28 I would see what I did not, could not, at 14 - why the hell it is so famous - but I just don't get it. It's boring. The narrator is annoying. The story is one of absolutely nothing happening, punctuated by moments where disbelief has to be hoisted with a crane to be suspended. And one of the things I love most about Pride and Prejudice (one of the books I love most) is that it is a story where "the most that happens is that a lady changes her mind, and a gentleman his manners" (apologies to whoever wrote the intro to the edition I have, because I am sure I mangled that). But there the characters are funny, and believable, and seem like they could be modern people, they just happen to be living in another century and country. These damn Middlemarchers, on the other hand, feel like if they even could be real people, everything about them - minds & manners - is completely, wholly tied to their place and time. And Dorothea and Ladislaw make me want to strangle them with their own guts.

Of course, I went online to do a little research, see if I could figure out why the hell this book is so famous, and lo and behold, who loved it? Virginia Woolf. Another person who sets my teeth on edge. She's also another one I keep meaning to take another stab at - but I think I might try and ease into it: I just picked up The White Garden: A Novel of Virginia Woolf by Stephanie Barron, who I obv. love, and I'm hoping if I can get invested in the woman as a character in a novel, it might give me more understanding when it comes to the woman as author...or more interest anyways. Let's just pray that there is a nice, horrid man who did not fall all over himself when she reached out, because he was all beige and short and should have been totally into her, who was just freaking RUDE in a letter. Because then Virginia will be my sister in spirit as she is in name. Or I will come to my senses and realize I am being nuts for no reason. Either way.

Upcoming Releases

So, a few new releases from preferred authors (authoresses, actually) are on the horizon...although some a bit far off. Can't wait for the latest in the Mistress of the Art of Death series, A Murderous Procession (Ariana Franklin, 4/1/10) - they're like a CSI, but in Ye Olde England, with a multi-culti female lead - ridiculous, but great.

Also ridiculous, albeit in a totally different way, Gail Carriger's Changeless, the second installment in a series called "The Parasol Protectorate." Following Soulless (on 3/30/10) it's about a soulless (yeah, okay, F for originality in titling) chick from Victorian England (hmm, theme to my books right now?) who runs around killing vampires who do unspeakable things like...ruin tea. Or her new dress. Yes! Number one was absolutely perfect for the first book I read after surgery, while I was still doped up, but I still think the next one should be fun...

Since even I, clearly, cannot escape the whole vampire thing - The Dead Travel Fast (Deanna Raybourn, coming soon, I think) looks similar, and...maybe a good plane read? We'll see - if the Harvard library system doesn't pick it up, I don't see myself buying it - at least not for full price!

Stephanie Barron is FINALLY coming out with a new Jane Austen mystery (Jane and the Madness of Lord Byron) - but not until 9/28/10 which blows. I just do adore those so much; more than any other contemp author, I think Barron (not sure if that is her real name?) knows Austen's works, world, and writing style better than anyone else - and then there's murders. SWEET. (ooh, off topic, but note to self, never again get cupcakes from Red Velvet in DC, even if you are trying to kick it to a bartender next door - neither one of you will want them. Even if you want eachother.  DO rock the jukebox though - that will go over much better).

Last but not least, there's a little bonus from Lauren Willig this October - she's releasing "The Mischief of the Mistletoe" which is hopefully not just a published version of the short story that was on her website (as much as I enjoyed it). Her last was not the awesomest, but still super fun, and let's face it, I kinda want to be Eloise Kelly.