stoutfellow

It feels a bit odd to be reviewing a book that was published a century and a half ago. On the other hand, Anthony Trollope is not that well known these days (although there was a brief flurry of interest in his Palliser novels a couple of decades ago), and The Warden is not one of his best-known works.

Wotthehell. I feel like talking about it, OK?

( The plot )

It's a short book and a relatively uneventful one, but the main characters are memorable, and I enjoyed it as much on this rereading as I did the first time through, some thirty years ago.

I mentioned that I'd finished Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, and enjoyed it quite a bit. It develops slowly, I'll admit. The beginning is rather arch, almost Austenian, although the characters seem a bit odd, more like Dickens than Austen. (Several of them develop in unexpected directions as the novel progresses; they aren't mere grotesques.) The main villain slips in unobtrusively, and very slowly the horror of his activities becomes clear, but he's such an original that I found myself still smiling at him even after it became clear what he was. The climax struck me as a bit deus ex, but it was appropriate, and the coda, though a bit sad, also had its humorous side, and it was certainly in keeping with the established personalities of the characters.

Other recent reads include Laura Joh Rowland's The Dragon King's Palace, Michael Ignatieff's The Lesser Evil, Richard Fortey's Earth, Georgette Heyer's April Lady, and George Weigel's Letters to a Young Catholic.

I'm not sure what to say about Rowland. I enjoy her Sano Ichiro mysteries, as much for the insight into early-Tokugawa Japan as for the stories themselves, and this one was no exception. However, I'm a bit bothered by her writing style - more specifically, by her use of viewpoint. There's usually one viewpoint character operating at a time, and for the most part we're confined to what that character can perceive. That's unobjectionable. But Rowland frequently fills us in, not only on the character's internal emotions, but on underlying psychological causes and the like - not showing us, through the character's thoughts, but outright telling us what forces are in play. That's... unsatisfying, somehow. Anyway, The Dragon King's Palace is a good entry in the series; Reiko, in particular, gets a chance to strut her stuff. She's developed into a character with a network of personal relationships of her own, not entirely contingent on her husband's relationships. (For some reason, Nick and Nora Charles come to mind. Granting the differences in genre, there are some resemblances between Sano and Nick, but I think Reiko is a much better developed character than Nora.)

The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror is an interesting and, in my opinion, sound analysis of the unusual demands of the current situation. Ignatieff takes a moderate position, recognizing that the struggle against terrorism does require extraordinary measures in some situations, but carefully examining the necessary limits on those measures. Some are absolute - he rejects torture as a tool of interrogation, for example - and some are formal, such as the necessity of "sunset" provisions. He also distinguishes usefully among several different sorts of terrorism, and comments on the different strategies necessary to deal with them.

Fortey's Earth: An Intimate History probably merits more careful study than I was able to give it. As an overview of the processes of plate tectonics, it's quite illuminating; he tended to lose me, though, in the intricacies of the classification of minerals. Still, I think I learned a fair bit; in particular, I have a better grasp of the different characters of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and of the mountain-building cycle as well.

April Lady is pretty run-of-the-mill as Heyer novels go; it's entertaining, but less intricate than her usual work, I think. Unfortunately, the Harlequin edition is riddled with misspellings; most of them can probably be attributed either to proofreaders not being familiar with rarer words (in particular, terms special to the Regency era) or - horrors - to indiscriminate spellchecking. E.g., one passage has "opposite" where "apposite" is clearly intended. I found this rather distracting from the story; I think I'm going to go back to buying the English editions of Heyer.

I won't say much about Weigel's Letters to a Young Catholic. Weigel is rather conservative theologically, and while I agree with him on many points we have a major disagreement as to the interface between religion and government. Still, I think it was good for me to read this. I'm seized with a desire to read Chesterton essays.

I've begun reading A Pirate of Exquisite Mind by Diana and Michael Preston; this is a biography of the pirate/naturalist William Dampier, who seems to have been a most remarkable person. Also, I've started in on Little Women, which I've never read. (I subscribe to the Library of America, and have dozens of volumes of their editions, but I just realized that I've scarcely looked at any of them. Something needs to be done about that. The range is enormous, covering usual suspects like Jefferson, Twain, and Irving, but also lesser-known figures including William Bartram and Paul Bowles, and reaching as far as James Thurber and H. P. Lovecraft!)

I recently finished Dorothy Dunnett's Scales of Gold, the fourth book in the House of Niccolo series. As with all of her works (at least, those I've read so far), it's an intricate and well-researched book. I'm not going to fully review the book; I don't think any book from one of her series can be properly evaluated without reading the entire series, which I obviously haven't done. But I do have a few minor quibbles.

1) At one point, Niccolo, arguing some point against his followers, notes that he approves of democracy (but he's still going to do what he thinks best). Would a fifteenth-century merchant express such an opinion? I really doubt it; to the best of my knowledge, the word didn't shed its negative connotations until the late eighteenth century. I may be wrong, and if I am I'd appreciate enlightenment.

2) During the trip across West Africa, the travellers are described as, at one point, subsisting on maize. This threw me, since the story is set in the 1460s. Checking the dictionary, though, I find that the word "maize" is also used to refer to milo, which is a common grain in Africa - and originated there, so the pre-Columbian issue doesn't come up. But the same dictionary derives the word "maize" ultimately from Taino, a Caribbean language. It's not indefensible, but it's a false step, I think.

3) This is more a matter of feel, but I don't see the final revelation concerning Gelis as being quite in character for her. I can see that she might want some sort of revenge against Simon, but taking this route seems odd. If she expected Niccolo to be pleased with it, she really doesn't understand him - and her whole development in the novel goes against that. If she didn't expect him to be pleased, well, her feelings are considerably more conflicted than I perceived. The last is not unusual for a Dunnett character, I will admit.

Meanwhile, I've begun reading Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke, and I also gave a quick reread to Margaret Ball's Lost in Translation. The former is a very thick book, and I began it with some trepidation, but the style is light and fluent, and I'm enjoying it quite a bit. (Haven't gotten more than about a dozen pages in yet, though.) The Ball, like most of hers that I've read, is not much more than mind candy. (The only works of hers with any substance that I've read are Flameweaver, Changeweaver, and - perhaps - No Earthly Sunne.)

I finished Sharra's Exile, and found it to be better than I remembered. Among other things, I remembered the depiction of Dyan Ardais as being rather inconsistent (and to the worse) with his depiction in The Heritage of Hastur, but I seem to have been wrong about this. I think that I must have read The Sword of Aldones (or perhaps The World Wreckers? What's that one about?), which was an early version of the same events, and conflated the two (or outright substituted TSoA for SE). Anyway, it's a pretty good book - not as good as THoH, but good. (I think I'd like Lew a bit better if he weren't such a drama queen. Hmm... it occurs to me that it's unclear how far after the fact his first-person narration occurs. It can't be too far, because I don't think the Lew of the end of SE would have spoken quite as bleakly as the narrator earlier in the book, to say nothing of THoH.)

Most of the rest of my Amazon order arrived yesterday: the two CDs I mentioned earlier, plus Spencer-Fleming's Out of the Deep I Cry (which I have begun reading), Robert Aronowitz' Making Sense of Illness: Science, Society, and Disease, and Christopher Booker's The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories. There's one more book coming, Heyer's April Lady.

I've finished reading John Barnes' The Merchants of Souls and Rosemary Kirstein's The Steerswoman in the last few days, and moved on to Shippey's J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century.

( Barnes )

The Steerswoman is (if I recall correctly) the first of a three book sequence by Ms. Kirstein. I won't do a full-scale review now because, judging from the ending of this book, it really is a single story spread over more than one volume. I found it entertaining, despite the fact that I was unfortunately spoiled concerning a major plot point. It was interesting, at least, to watch for the clues concerning that point, but it might have been more fun had I not known ahead of time. I will certainly pursue the next of the series, and after I've finished it I may have more to say.

I've been reading de Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium-Eater and a couple of sequels lately. It's rather an odd book. He appears to have been the first writer to clearly describe the pattern of addiction and, in particular, of withdrawal. It's interesting to learn of the role that opium played in early 19th century Britain, as a cheap over-the-counter analgesic, and how this changed; the professionalization of the apothecary's trade, the emergence of superior methods of purification, and the general trends of Victorianism all played a role. But much of the book is devoted, not to this, but to de Quincey's delicate sensibilities, and to various traumas, both emotional and physical, that led him to his addiction. Opium first eased, then intensified, the memories of these troubles, and de Quincey repeatedly tried to break the addiction. (At the time of the first publication of the Confessions, he thought that he had done so.)

It's hard not to imagine de Quincey as a character in a novel. In the hands of Jane Austen, he would have been amusing and somewhat pitiable; Dickens would have sentimentalized him into a miserable wretch; George Eliot would have presented him sternly, as one who fell short of his great promise through moral weakness. His own self-portrait is rather cloying and vain. He was undoubtedly intelligent, but he did very little with his gifts, diffusing his energies in grandiose projects that never really went anywhere. His repeated rewriting and revising of the Confessions is perhaps typical of this. His creation of the Ladies of Sorrow, in Suspiria de Profundis, is a fine piece of myth-making, and may be an indicator of what he could have done, had things been otherwise.

I'll admit that I haven't read a lot of Zahn's work. I have three of his novels in my library: Triplet, Warhorse, and Deadman's Switch. (I think Warhorse is the best of these, but I won't be reviewing it here, since it's been a while since I read it.) I also have several collections of short stories, and I think he's actually better in that format. (His "The Final Report of the Lifeline Project" impresses me a good deal, for the evenhandedness and honesty with which it approaches an ultrasensitive subject.) His novels - at least, those that I've read - tend to be puzzle stories, not strong on characterization and not much more than adequate in plotting, but they're good stories overall.

( Triplet )

Over break, I read another couple of Patricia McKillip's novels, In the Forests of Serre and Ombria in Shadow. In many respects, these are typical McKillip - intricate plots, delicate and subtle language, and a shell game of spot-the-real-villain. I found both to be satisfying reads, though I still wish she would be a bit more adventurous.

In the Forests of Serre is a retelling of the firebird legend, and this may have constrained McKillip a bit. The plot seemed somewhat more straightforward than usual, and the characterizations less complex. There was, of course, one eldritch character whose motives were opaque until near the end (and they did not become entirely clear then), but the others seemed a bit more, well, stock. Not all of them came off well, either; the scribe, through whose eyes we see much of the story, didn't seem well-developed to me.

I liked Ombria in Shadow rather more. The language in some scenes was a bit coarser than McKillip's usual, but in context it was appropriate. The plot concerns a city-state which has been falling more and more under the influence of a mysterious woman, Domina Pearl. When the city-state's prince dies (perhaps at the Domina's instigation), his son, still a child, succeeds him, but Domina Pearl becomes regent. This begins, at one level, a complex political dance involving the mistress and the bastard son of the late prince, various nobles whose power is being rapidly stripped away by the regent, and the Domina and her minions. On another level, there is the coming of age story of a young woman named Mag, raised by a witch who lives in the undercity and has had many dealings with the Domina - dealings about which Mag is beginning to have qualms. Again, we have one of McKillip's quasi-magical artists in the prince's bastard, and a scholar - the young prince's tutor - whose motives and actions are distinctly ambiguous. The resolution is a bit confusing (although less so than in some of her works), but things definitely get Sorted Out. For anyone who appreciates McKillip's current work, this is, I judge, another winner.

There are, in my collection, five albums which I bought, directly or indirectly, because of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In two cases, the link is obvious: the soundtrack of the musical episode "Once More, With Feeling", and "Music for Elevators", an album of songs by Anthony Stewart Head (aka "Rupert Giles"). They aren't what this post is about.

The other three are by singers whose music was used in memorable moments of the show; in each case, I bought the album containing the featured song. (This is a sometimes risky practice, as the album may be otherwise loaded with duds. Anyone want a scarcely-used Cranberries CD?) All three are female solo acts, but it would be hard for them to be more different.

During the (three-hanky) final minutes of the season-two finale "Becoming, Part 2", Sarah McLachlan sings "Full of Grace". On that basis, I bought her "Surfacing" album. She has a smooth and occasionally ethereal voice, and her songs tend to be obscure. Perhaps they are needlessly so; a quick google reveals a website which claims to offer "the meanings" of some of her songs, apparently based on a VH-1 appearance. The meanings presented are brief and not particularly interesting. Despite this, I enjoy listening to the songs. "Full of Grace" is a particular favorite, along with "Building a Mystery" and "Witness".

In the third-season episode "Consequences", after Xander lets slip his one-night stand with Faith, there is a scene showing a devastated Willow, sitting in the girls' bathroom and crying; a snippet from Kathleen Wilhoite's "Wish We'd Never Met" plays. (Ms. Wilhoite is also an actress; she has a recurring role on Gilmore Girls as Luke's sister Liz.) The song appears on her album, "Pitch Like a Girl". Her voice is a little rough, and many of her songs are acidic character studies. They're amusing, the way the bitterest of Saki's stories are. I'm not going to try to describe them any more clearly than that, but I'm thinking in particular of "Olivia Says" and "Yard Sale". (She doesn't spare herself - or, rather, her "implied narrator" - either; "Wish We'd Never Met" is a fairly harsh self-dissection.)

The sixth-season episode "Tabula Rasa" ends with a montage of emotional desolation, as Tara moves out and Giles leaves for England. Michelle Branch appears as a singer at the Bronze, singing (naturally enough) "Goodbye to You".  That prompted me to buy her album, "The Spirit Room". Now, Ms. Branch's voice is a little on the harsh side, and she does strange and terrible things to innocent vowels, but I rather enjoy several of her songs, as much for their energy as anything else. (Their content is on the banal side, full of adolescent angst.) I particularly like "Everywhere".

A spectacularly inactive weekend draws to a close...

I finished The Eyre Affair yesterday. I was a little concerned that my not having read Jane Eyre might hamper my appreciation, and for all I know it did, but I still enjoyed it. I haven't decided whether the names were meaningless filigree or had deeper significance. (The one that's making me suspicious is Braxton Hicks. Is it supposed to suggest that his labor is somehow false?) I've just started in on Sewer, Gas and Electric; four pages in, it already looks good.

The "Living Years" CD turned out to be cracked. I went over to Target to assuage my frustration. Yeah, yeah, I know, but it's close by, and they do have at least some selection of music and film. The pickings were slim, but I did buy a couple of CDs - Elton John and Dolly Parton - and DVDs of Master and Commander, Saving Private Ryan, and The Manchurian Candidate (1962, of course).

I've started watching the Gilmore Girls DVDs. It's always interesting to watch the first episodes of a series from a four-years-later vantage point. Emily looked positively dowdy in the first episode, unlike her later elegance. We actually got to see Luke clean-shaven and dressed in something other than flannels and a baseball cap; that didn't happen again until season four, if I recall correctly. And I have to say I'm glad they dropped Sookie's clumsiness schtick so quickly; it was funny, yes, but too slapsticky. (GG's humor tends to play on eccentricity, which is at least a small step up...) I haven't gotten to any of the good early episodes yet, but "The Deer Hunters" is next up.