To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
4 February, 2015
Because around a crisis point, even the tiniest action can assume importance all out of proportion to its size. Consequences multiply and cascade, and anything – a missed telephone call, a match struck during a blackout, a dropped piece of paper, a single moment – can have empire-tottering effects.
Following on from Doomsday Book which saw one of the Oxford historians sent back in time to a plague-ridden Middle Ages, Connie Willis returns with To Say Nothing of the Dog (or How We Found the Bishop’s Bird Stump at Last) set in 2057 in Oxford but this time with a different set of students to probe Victorian England.
History student Ned Henry has been sent on several trips to the 1940s and even further back by the formidable Lady Schrapnell, who has hijacked all time-traveling personnel in Oxford, to search for the legendary bishop’s bird stump, a hideous ornament lost in the bombing of Coventry Cathedral during the Blitz. Trying to escape the tedium of combing through Edwardian jumble sales looking for clues as to the whereabouts of the bishop’s bird stump, Ned jumps at the chance to travel to the Victorian period on a job for Mr. Dunworthy of Balliol College. Unfortunately, due to severe time-lag, he falls asleep just as Mr. Dunworthy is prepping him on his mission and consequently arrives in Victorian Oxford without a clue as to what he must actually accomplish carrying only a covered basket. This sets in motion a number of unforeseen events. All he knows is that his mission has to do with a place called Muching’s End and a boat.
Looking for his contact, he falls in with a student named Terence St Trewes with a dog named Cyril who hires a boat to Muching’s End to chase after Tossie Mering who turns out to be Lady Shrapnell’s ancestor. Tossie is looking for her cat Princess Arjumand who has gone missing and, it later transpires, has been rescued from drowning by Ned’s fellow student Verity Kindle, thereby possibly altering time.
Verity returns to Muching’s End to ensure she hasn’t changed anything and to ensure Tossie gets to Coventry where she will meet her destiny and to enlist Ned to make sure history happens as it’s written. As both Verity and Ned navigate the social etiquette of Victorian Britain, trying to make sure they evade suspicion while completing their mission, it becomes increasingly clear that Mr. Dunworthy has plans of his own. Can Verity manage to evade the problems caused by her actions? And can Ned prevent Tossie and Terence from getting together? And will they find the blasted bishop’s bird stump?
Throw a dodgy spiritual medium into the mix and Willis has created a comedy of errors whilst also addressing the paradoxical nature of time travel. Discussions about slippage and consequences of actions are well thought out and once again Willis’ fascinating portrayal of time travel is a winner. However, To Say Nothing of the Dog is very different in tone to its predecessor Doomsday Book. We are once again reunited with Mr. Dunworthy and his team, but this novel is much more light-hearted; a comedy of manners with lots of missed chances, misunderstanding and unexpected twists.
It took me a while to get used to this new style but in the end Willis managed to hook my interest with her intricate plotting, a nice mixture of Austen and Christie with a conscious homage to Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog!). As I haven’t read the novel, I doubtless missed any references which may have added to my pleasure however this didn’t in any way detract from my enjoyment. Winner of the Hugo and Locus Awards in 1999, To Say Nothing of the Dog is a difficult novel to summarise, so intricate is the plotting, but I urge you to try Willis’ work – it’ll be like nothing else you’ve read before.
Next stop: Blackout/All Clear.
The Monogram Murders by Sophie Hannah
15 December, 2014
Please let no one open their mouths and find the gold cufflinks with the initials PIJ.
Poirot returns with a bang in The Monogram Murders set in 1929 amongst the sumptuous art nouveau backdrop of the fictional Bloxham Hotel. Agatha Christie’s mantle is taken up by Sophie Hannah, a contemporary crime writer with a substantial following. Anyone taking over from the Queen of Crime is facing a daunting task. And any lover of Christie’s work will inevitably read the novel with a fine tooth comb.
However, Hannah does Christie proud. Her Poirot is faithful, perhaps more to David Suchet’s portrayal, but when you start reading The Monogram Murders you feel you are falling comfortably back into familiar territory. His sidekick is Edward Catchpool, a young and inexperienced Inspector of Scotland Yard who is alternately frustrated and in awe of Poirot.
The mystery begins at Pleasant’s Coffee House, where Poirot takes his daily evening coffee, when a terrified woman known only as Jennie rushes in seeking refuge. Before she vanishes into the night, she leaves Poirot with the mysterious
Once I am dead, justice will be done, finally.
which sets him off on his new quest.
Poirot is recently retired and is taking a staycation at Mrs. Unsworth’s lodging house where Catchpool also resides. When he returns that evening, he witnesses Catchpool coming to terms with three murders he is investigating at the posh Bloxham Hotel. All three victims died at around the same time in different rooms but laid out in the same way and with a monogrammed cufflink in their mouths.
Poirot feels there is a connection with the mysterious Jennie but Catchpool is doubtful. And so the pair embark on their first investigation together as they uncover a wrong that was done 16 years ago and what looks like revenge finally being enacted in the present day.
Although I began the book with some trepidation, once the mystery gets going, I began to feel Hannah’s rendition of Poirot and the mystery approaching Christie’s hallmark darkness and complexity. Re-reading Christie, whom I’ve been reading since I was nine, I am always astonished by the real darkness and deftness with which she layers her novels. And I am glad to say Hannah’s version does not disappoint.
Poirot is a national institution and staying faithful to who he is may risk stereotyping him but deviating would be disastrous. All the elements are here in The Monogram Murders, the young lovers, a free artistic spirit, the vicar, the doctor and the maid.
I really enjoyed getting back into Christie’s world and I do hope Hannah will continue in this vein.
Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
21 October, 2014
I am also calling it the Domesday Book because I would imagine that’s what you’d like to call it, you are so convinced something awful’s going to happen to me. I’m watching you in the observation area right now, telling poor Dr. Ahrens all the dreadful dangers of the 1300s. You needn’t bother. She’s already warned about time lag and every single mediaeval disease in gruesome detail, even though I’m supposed to be immune to all of them. And warned me about the prevalence of rape in the 1300s. And when I tell her I’ll be perfectly all right she doesn’t listen to me either. I will be perfectly all right, Mr. Dunworthy.
Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards, Connie Willis’ Doomsday Book is an incredible novel. Well-written, pacey, it’s relentless in driving the story forward while keeping the terror just in check. Almost from the start, Willis flings you into the world of academic experimental history at Oxford circa 2054.
It’s just before Christmas and Kivrin, a Medieval history student, is determined to time-travel back to the Middle Ages to experience life as it really was. The absence of the Department Head meant that she was able to convince the acting Head at Brasenose College, Gilchrist, to authorise her drop even though Dunworthy, her mentor at Balliol, warns her against the dangers of traveling so far back in time. For Gilchrist. trying to maximise his trajectory up the career ladder, is planning to send Kivrin back to 1320, before the plague crosses over to England. With so little real information about actual daily life in the Middle Ages, Kivrin spends every moment of her time preparing, learning all the relevant languages, medical information, daily customs so that she will blend in seamlessly. Dr. Mary Ahrens has also prepped her at the hospital, giving her all the necessary inoculations including against bubonic plague, and enhancing her immunity.
Amidst severe misgivings from both Dunworthy and Ahrens, Kivrin goes through and the others make preparations to pick her up 2 weeks later. But something goes wrong and Badri, the university’s best tech who supervised the drop, falls ill just as soon as he finds Dunworthy. And Oxford goes into lockdown as a mysterious pandemic brings down those involved in Kivrin’s drop, one after another. The net, which allows the time-travel, works in a paradox where nothing that will change the course of history can get through. But something unforeseen has happened and no one is sure where Kivrin is. So what exactly happened here, and will they be able to get Kivrin back?
Kivrin finds herself transported to the Middle Ages but nothing is as she expected. The net was supposed to drop her near the village of Skendgate, close to Oxford, and her aim is to record everything she finds there so that when she returns she can help Dr. Montoya with her archeological dig. But she isn’t sure whether the trail she has found is the Oxford-Bath Road and whether the smattering of dwellings she spies down the hill is actually Skendgate. But she is suddenly overcome with fatigue and before she knows it, she is ill and someone has come to rescue her, and she finds herself in a household filled with fourteenth century people, in all their unwashed, superstitious glory. And she can’t understand them, their pronunciation differing from the Middle English she was taught. While Kivrin fears she will spend Christmas ill in bed instead of completing her research, something worse comes along and people begin to drop like flies. She should have landed in 1320, 28 years before the plague arrives in Oxford. But something has gone wrong.
She has a fever, but no buboes, and she isn’t coughing or vomiting. Just the fever.
In Doomsday Book Willis has created a complex, chaotic and thrilling tale mixing futuristic technology with old-world academic squabbling and melds it to the horrors of medieval society faced with the onslaught of the bubonic plague. It is seamless and the terror relentless. There is just a wonderful mixture of drama, speculation and comedy from a futuristic but still identifiable Oxford to a more earthy fourteenth century guise. I love the bit where Dr. Ahrens asks Kivrin whether she would like her nose cauterised as
the smells of the fourteenth century could be completely incapacitating, that we’re simply not used to excrement and bad meat and decomposition in this day and age. I told her nausea would interfere significantly with her ability to function.
And as Oxford in 2054 quickly buckles into a chaotic epicentre of disease control, Dunworthy, hounded by his secretary and a group of stranded American bellringers, finds a helper in Colin, Dr. Ahrens’ grand nephew, who injects a festive cheer in the nightmare from which he may be unable to rescure Kivrin. Colin is such a great character with his interjections of ‘apocalyptic’ and ‘necrotic’ which makes it seem as though he’s crawled out of an E. Nesbit book. And Kivrin is a protagonist that Willis can be proud of, strong, intelligent, scared and yet fearless; a true seeker of knowledge, with Dunworthy and Dr. Ahrens making formidable allies. As both Kivrin and Dunworthy battle through their respective timelines, will they both survive? And can Dunworthy bring his student back alive?
Doomsday Book has seen many years on my shelf and so many of my book blogging friends have entreated me to read this book and I wish I had listened to them earlier. It’s a magnificent story, far superior to so many time-traveling books and films I’ve seen over the years. I wish they’d make a live action adaptation of this but I fear they would spoil it. And boy am I glad Willis has written more novels in her Oxford Time Travel series. Who amongst us hasn’t wondered whether what we read in history books or watch in documentaries even come close to how life was really like in the past? Imagine studying history, really studying history by actually traveling to the past.
I’m off to read To Say Nothing of the Dog and Blackout/All Clear next.
I read this as part of R.I.P. IX.
Theft of Life by Imogen Robertson
14 October, 2014
Imogen Robertson’s fifth volume in her historical mysteries featuring Mrs. Harriet Westerman and Gabriel Crowther is probably her darkest yet. Theft of Life begins with the transplanting of Harriet and her children to Berkeley Square where their friends, Owen Graves and his wards, the Earl of Sussex, Jonathan, his sister Susan and their half-brother Eustache, are currently residing due to the children’s education. Crowther is also in London to present his new work on anatomy and Harriet has followed him to avoid her sister’s attempts at finding a suitable second husband for her.
No sooner are they settled in when Harriet’s senior footman, William, is witness to a body found near St. Paul’s, tied, stretched out and wearing a metal mask only a former slave would recognise. Shaken, William is reluctant to admit to the authorities the identity of the dead man, a notorious slave owner from the West Indies. And so Harriet and Crowther are called to examine the corpse, identified by William as a Mr. Trimnell, and are drawn into the dark, violent world of slavery that has bolstered and financed British trade, especially that of sugar.
Stories of slavery run by the British are few and far between. We are more familiar with films and books built on testaments of American slaves and I admire Robertson for tackling such a difficult subject head on. She reserves no punches and does not wallow in sentimentality. It’s brutal, horrific and tragic and she has drawn on historical sources to craft a story that is a vivid reminder of the hypocrisy of respectability. Set before the abolition of slavery in Britain, Robertson uses the testaments and stories of the free slaves, who have managed to carve out an independent life in England but who still retain the fear and nightmares from their past, and those who endeavoured to help them.
As Crowther and Harriet begin their investigation into Trimnell’s death which at first points to a former slave intent on revenge, Eustache is caught stealing a book and is sent to work off his punishment at Hinckley’s Bookshop run by Francis Glass, a free black man. When Francis’ beloved, Eliza Smith, dies in a suspicious fire in her bookshop one night, he is convinced that there was foul play. He had seen a wound in her eye and her body was cold to the touch before he was dragged away by the local constable and the shop collapsed. The social world which the rich and powerful inhabit in London is a small one and those with connections to the slave trade will at one time or another all congregate at the Jamaica Coffee House. And soon the two disparate events collide as Crowther, Harriet and Francis Glass begin to realise that what they are up against is a group of powerful people who will do anything to keep the status quo and, more importantly, their past evils buried and forgotten.
In Theft of Life, Robertson has once again crafted a gripping historical thriller, dark, pacey and heartbreaking. One of the things I like about Crowther and Harriet’s partnership is that it is based on mutual understanding and respect which has, gradually over time, turned into a deep friendship. The lack of sentimentality and easy romance which can be prevalent in this genre, and one which I admit I sometimes hanker after, is refreshingly missing here. I cannot wait for the next one in the series.
Previous novels in the series:
Instruments of Darkness
Anatomy of Murder
Island of Bones
Circle of Shadows
I read this as part of R.I.P. IX.
Servant of the Underworld by Aliette de Bodard
26 September, 2014
Aliette de Bodard is a writer I’ve been aware of for a number of years but whom I’ve only started reading this year and I’m furious with myself that I’ve left it this long to find such an incredible writer. I’ve read a number of her short stories set in her Xuya universe, science fiction set in an alternate universe exploring her Vietnamese roots, and also some featuring her Aztec priest who investigates suspicious deaths. And so I couldn’t wait to read her debut novel, Servant of the Underworld, featuring Acatl, Head Priest of the Temple of Mictlantecuhtli and Mictecacihuatl, the God of Death and his consort, who rule over Mictlan, the Underworld. Like many, I know almost nothing about the Mexica Empire save for the tales of the Spanish conquistadors who brought down the once glorious empire with violence and disease and took away chocolate and gold. What de Bodard does here is not only entice us with ancient history but weaves together aspects of magic and religion which were so thoroughly integrated in Aztec society. And she does this with aplomb.
Set in the Aztec city state of Tenochtitlan in 1480 when the Revered Speaker Axayacatl, Emperor of the Mexica, lies dying, Acatl’s life is turned upside when his elder brother Neutemoc, a Jaguar Knight, is arrested for abducting the priestess Eleuia from her blood-soaked bedroom. Acatl has never been on easy terms with his successful brother, a warrior, husband and father and the pride of his parents, not since he chose to become a priest thus sealing his cowardice in his family’s eyes. But nevertheless, he feels compelled to help Neutemoc, not least because the status and honour of their family is in danger. Eleuia wasn’t well liked by the teachers or students in her House of Tears, where she was employed, because of her ambition and allure. What was Neutemoc, a respectable, married warrior doing in Eleuia’s room? And what magic lies at the root of her disappearance? As Acatl tries to save his brother, he must confront and finally stand up to his worst fears. In his quest, he is aided and impeded by Ceyaxochitl, Guardian of the Sacred Precinct and agent of the Duality, who has simultaneously championed and forced Acatl onto his career path as High Priest of Mictlantecuhtli, and her slave Yaotl. Acatl’s sister Mihmatini who has recently returned to live with Neutemoc and his family surprises him with her calm acumen and skill with spells and tries to keep her brothers’ bond secure. And then there is Huei, Neutemoc’s wife, heartbroken and furious.
As well as the mystery of Eleuia’s disappearance, someone or something with great magical powers is determined to see that Neutemoc is executed for a crime he may or may not have committed. For Acatl, who is unhappy in his position both at work and at home, this is a testing time. He must win the loyalty of the priests in his Temple as well as the ears of the Court. And the only person who is there to help him is Teomitl, a young warrior sent to him by the Guardian, still a student, strong-willed and wild. Acatl must swallow his complaints and start looking for the answers before something worse that the execution of his brother is set in motion as it soon becomes clear that Eleuia’s abduction is onｌy the tip of a war between gods.
Aliette de Bodard has managed to make a complicated mystery into an alluring journey into a past with wｈich most of us are probably unfamiliar. But she does it seamlessly, merging historical figures with her fictional creation, placing us firmly in a land in which magic and ritual are alive and part and parcel of daily life. There are spells, sacrifice and lots of blood. But the blood is necessary for protection and spells and we don’t question it. It’s a mark of an accomplished writer indeed when you don’t recoil in horror as the main character cuts himself frequently to obtain the blood necessary for his rituals.
One of the interesting aspects of this novel is Acatl’s inner transformation. A conflicted soul, trying his best to carry on in his chosen path, yet burdened with the disappointment of his family. He is solitary, unable to participate in court politics because of his disgust with humanity’s baser instincts, and is only redeemed through his fight with evil and in the process, discovering social bonds he had though he had lost and never possessed.
Servant of the Underworld , the first in a trilogy, brings to light Aztec society in it’s full and frightening glory. The strict hierarchical social structure of priests, warriors and slaves, the rituals and strong belief in deities with powers to end the world, the absolute power of the Revered Speaker to keep the darkness at bay and the sun in the sky. And also the beauty of Aztec culture. Imagine going to a school called the House of Tears where the children of the wealthy are educated. And the binary nature of the gods with the male and female forms with names such as the Southern Hummingbird (God of War and of the Sun), the Jade Skirt (Goddess of Lakes and Streams) and the Quetzal Flower (Goddess of Beauty and Love). In amongst the harshness of life in Mexica, there is a fragile and painful beauty.
I can only imagine the amount of research that has gone into producing such a detailed and complex tale and yet de Boddard wears her research lightly. And in doing so, she has created a wonderfully complex world pulsing with emotion and colour.
You can be sure I will follow Acatl’s adventures in the sequels, Harbinger of the Storm and Master of the House of Darts.
I read this as part of Diversiverse, R.I.P. IX and #ReadWomen2014.
Enemies at Home by Lindsey Davis
2 September, 2014
Welcome back Flavia Albia, just when I was really beginning to miss you. Falco’s determined adopted daughter, Flavia Albia is back with her second case in Enemies at Home. Although Falco doesn’t pop up in this novel, his presence is everywhere and we also do get a glimpse of his lovely wife, Helena Justina. Fans of Lindsey Davis’ 20 Roman mysteries featuring Marcus Didius Falco will miss him, but Albia is quickly beginning to fill his shoes, not only career-wise, but also with her street-smart, wise-cracking ways. But although the same age as Falco when he started his adventures, Albia’s personality is darker, more watchful as she’s experienced life at its worst in her childhood and as a young widow living in a Rome ruled by a paranoid tyrant.
After her adventures in The Ides of April, Albia is once again drawn into a seemingly simple dual murder by the Aedile, Manlius Faustus, with whom she has worked before and therefore has a complicated relationship. Newlywed Aviola and his second wife Lucilia are found murdered in their bed and a large cache of valuable silver is missing. What looks like an inside job becomes complicated as the household slaves seek sanctuary in the Temple of Ceres. If they are found guilty, then execution beckons. If not, there is a murderer on the loose and Manilius Faustus is given the task of finding who did it as the Temple lies in his jurisdiction. He commissions Albia for the job of finding clues and she in turn asks her uncles, the Camillus brothers, for legal advice. And so begins a dark and convoluted search for a killer and a horde of silver that seems to have disappeared into thin air. What really went on in the Aviola household? And what about the ex-wife and children hungry for their inheritance? And how complex were the domestic relationships especially when two households merge resulting in possible redundancies, in this case the selling of surplus slaves? As Albia uncovers secret after secret, she soon learns that more than one person is hiding something to safeguard their future. Will she find who murdered the couple before another gets killed? And what exactly does Faustus think of her?
Although darker in tone than most of the Falco novels, Enemies at Home is a little lighter than The Ides of April with little pockets of comedy wedged amongst the more hard hitting historical detail which makes Davis’ novels such superb and informative reads. One of things I love about Davis’ writing is that, like a good historian, she doesn’t judge what the Romans get up to. As Albia and Faustus are both Romans, their views, only rightly, will be that of a contemporary Roman. However disturbing and harsh we may view their cultural and social rules today, they accept and work within it. In Enemies at Home, Davis brings home the harsh realities of being a Roman slave. Just as one can strive for and attain manumission, setting themselves and their descendants free, another can lead a life of wretched misery from cradle to grave. Roman laws deem a slave must always protect their master and they can be executed simply for not doing their job. As is the case with Aviola’s slaves, even if they did not do the killings, Albia and Faustus must determine whether the slaves had done enough to protect their master and mistress. And if not, the consequences are dire.
Enemies at Home is an enjoyable and interesting novel with a nicely plotted mystery at its heart. I sort of guessed whodunnit but Davis provides the reader with enough suspects to keep you guessing until the end. Can’t wait to see what Rome has in store for Albia next!
Mohawk’s Brood by Amanda Prantera
13 August, 2014
I only heard of Amanda Prantera a few months into this year as I happened upon a few reviews of her new book Mohawk’s Brood, a historical novel covering a sprawling English family with roots in Shanghai, a premise I eagerly lapped up. And so I was really excited to be offered a review copy from the publisher. What with work and family commitments all happening in the last three months, I’ve only just got to Mohawk’s Brood and now I wish I had known about Prantera before. Because although Mohawk’s Brood is a historical novel, Prantera has also written novels in other genres, gothic, mystery, literary, werewolves. I like an author with unpinnable styles.
The novel alternates between the viewpoints of several members of Mohawk’s extended family (both related by blood and not) starting with Mohawk (Henry), the patriarch who built an extensive empire beginning with his newspaper in Shanghai and branching out into racing horses, property and other ventures. After he returns to England with his family, leaving behind his eldest son Harry to take over the helm of his broadsheet empire, he concentrates on educating his remaining children (a total of nine including Harry) and plotting his family’s rise through the ranks and into the aristocracy. This isn’t easy as nothing is valued highter than blood even though you may have rivers of money flowing out of your ears. And it doesn’t help if you are Catholic. There is Little Ida, his eldest daughter, who has a brush with romance that is cruelly thwarted and yearning for a life, any life, and battling jealousy of her beautiful sister-in-law. Her younger sister Noël, singled out by her mother, Big Ida, to look after her and therefore remain single (even crueler). And Harry’s brothers, Lester who is training to be an architect, Tom, a budding socialist, Edwin, not quite right in the head, Neville, the naughty one, and Jack, the baby of the family. And then there is Rebecca, Harry’s sad and lonely wife, whose only deliverance is her son Sasha, who may also be the answer to Mohawk’s prayers.
Through their eyes and thoughts, Prantera unveils the history of early 20th century Shanghai, with its jazzy politics, refugees, the social whirlwind of expat life and the oncoming menace of the Japanese, aided by the once bright star that was Chiang Kai Shek. The sweep of history is broad and yet the little details inserted by Prantera spring Harry and Rebecca’s Shanghai into life just as much as they dampen the cool and muted life Rebecca then comes back to in England. I wasn’t sure whether the first person point of view would work for everyone, but the short, sharp chapters reveal more than what they intend and works beautifully to provide a capacious picture of a cross-cultural dynasty undergoing great changes and dispersal in their family and fortune along with history. I loved the nuggets of cultural history with which Prantera dots her novel; little details that bring everything into sharp relief. Mohawk’s Brood is a beautifully realised novel of a world that no longer exists. And above all, even though he doesn’t say a word himself, it is Harry who is the locus of Mohawk’s Brood. Harry, who has so many secrets.
Prantera is the author of sixteen novels and I cannot wait to read more by her, especially Strange Loop and Wolfsong.
Thank you Quartet Books for kindly sending me a copy of Mohawk’s Brood to review.
Pereira Maintains by Antonio Tabucchi
30 July, 2014
One of the things that drew me to Pereira Maintains by Antonio Tabucchi is the name Pereira, which holds a certain allure if you are interested in Sri Lankan colonial history, and that the novella is set in Portugal. I took this book with me on holiday to Lisbon and Porto and it filled me with pleasure to read of Dr. Pereira traversing the same, now familiar, streets of Lisbon.
Set one scorching summer in 1938, Dr. Pereira is given the task of setting up the Culture section of a Catholic newspaper, Lisboa. His interests veers towards classical French literature, which he translates in his spare time, but he is in search of a writer who can produce short, contemporary obituaries of Portuguese writers which can be published when the time comes. And so he chances upon an essay on death by a young graduate named Monteiro Rossi and immediately contacts him. However, Monteiro Rossi, a fiery half-Italian, has an agenda. He professes that he isn’t actually interested in death but needs the money so will write for Pereira. But the pieces he sends in are unpublishable, too controversial and critical of the present Portuguese government. When Pereira meets Marta, a young Communist eager to support Spain against the Franco’s fascists, he grows concerned for the young and naïve Monteiro Rossi who has fallen under her spell and is on a dangerous path. And so Pereira, who has always lived a solid, stable life begins to question his beliefs as his beloved country slowly falls under the spell of the fascists.
Pereira Maintains certainly packs a much larger punch than its slim volume would suggest. It takes its time, mimicking the slow, sweltering heat of a Portuguese summer. We learn of Pereira’s student days at Coimbra, his courting of his beloved, deceased wife, the snoopy caretaker at his office whom he is convinced is working for the secret police. It’s a world that is changing, becoming much darker, more violent and you begin see the start of the paranoia that will characterise Portugal under an authoritarian leadership. Tabucchi portrays the clash of two different worlds separated by one thin, fragile leaf of history. Pereira symbolises the old, free, unchanging, slow-paced world that is slowly disappearing. And Monteiro Rossi, the new, frantic, uncertain and perpetually changing world towards which Portugal inevitably heads. But between these two very different people, so different in their upbringing, age and beliefs, flares a sudden and life-changing friendship.
What keeps Tabucchi’s novel alive is Pereira himself. This solid, overweight man with a heart condition is an affable sort. But Tabucchi doesn’t stop there. He focuses on the small resistances Pereira maintains in his work, against his boss, the caretaker, and slowly magnifies them as the issues in Pereira’s life and his country grow. It’s a manifesto for one man’s life and beliefs. That just because you think you have already lived the best part of your life doesn’t mean that you cannot contribute to society and world events.
Pereira Maintains is a beautifully crafted book that starts slowly and grows in pace as it reaches its devastating climax. The shocking bits are brief and the sense of urgency heightened. It’s the last stand of a good man and a glimpse into the dark history of modern Portugal. Beautiful.
The Quick by Lauren Owen on Shiny New Books!
10 July, 2014
The second issue of Shiny New Books! is now online where you will find my review of Lauren Owen’s sensational debut, The Quick. Do go and have a gander to see what’s on offer, what other bloggers have been reading and what they recommend. Hope you are all enjoying your summer and trying out new books!
The Dead Travel Fast by Deanna Raybourn
13 April, 2014
Deanna Raybourn’s Lady Julia Grey mysteries, beginning with Silent in the Grave, has been a quiet hit in these parts and with six volumes in the series, my friends and I are eager to read more. Raybourn’s writing is easy and polished and her love of words evident in the care she takes in crafting her sentences. I also have a penchant for gothic romances and vampires so I was eager to try her debut, The Dead Travel Fast, which features both.
Take one headstrong Scottish woman, unmarried and practical with a talent in crafting stories to frighten impressionable young ladies, a suffocating household and an invitation to visit a school friend who is about to get married in Transylvania. And so Theodora Lestrange travels to meet her friend Cosmina who is staying in bleak Castle Dragul in the high Carpathian mountains, cut off from civilisation by snow and superstition. Here she meets the brooding and handsome Count Andrei Dragulescu, Cosmina’s cousin and fiancé, who fascinates and frightens her and won’t leave her alone. Taking the opportunity to use this experience to start writing her novel, Theodora soon realises that not all is as it seems at Castle Dragul. Why do they warn her not to keep her windows open at night? And why is there a sprig of basil hanging over her windowsill? And what of the strange dreams and ashen features of Cosmina and her aunt? And when one of the maids is found dead and drained of blood, Theodora’s fear crystalises.
I really enjoyed The Dead Travel Fast, which is full of references to classic gothic and Victorian sensation novels, from Bram Stoker’s Dracula to Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White, which I am sure Raybourn loves. The ending wasn’t as dramatic as I expected but I liked the twist which distinguishes this novel from other classic vampire tales. There was a good mixture of surprise and familiar comfort. That is no mean feat as finding something new to say, in what is fast becoming a crowded genre, is pretty difficult. But I think what elevates this book is the care with which Raybourn crafts her writing. She writes beautifully and her novels really deserve a lot more attention than they get. And yes, maybe some may not think the subject matter may to be serious enough but, as Donna Tartt says, reading should be as much about enjoyment as well as the well crafted sentence. And you get both in The Dead Travel Fast.
chasing bawa 