Happy Birthday Lady Jane

You have to give Jane Austen credit for her staying power. The mother of chick lit has her 235th birthday today. That's something. I hope I - or my books:) - make it that long.

In celebration of her enduring spirit, Sourcebooks offers free downloadable e-books of Jane Austen "lit." This has become quite a sub-genre. Check it out.

The Truth about Bad Writing

As Margaret Atwood so poignantly says: "there's no rule that says you have to get better."

Bernard Schlink's The Weekend

A group of friends meet at a German country estate to reconnect after thirty years. They have come together to welcome Jorg, one of their luminaries who has just been released from jail, back to the family fold. At the height of their friendship, they fought, or at least sympathized, with the far left cause, the same inspiration behind the Baader-Meinhof terrorist group. Yet, as the years unfolded, many of them have become absorbed in the same bourgeois life they so shunned. What appears at first to be a congenial meeting of close buddies, soon changes into a tense meeting of people who, after so much life under the proverbial bridge, hardly know each other. Jorg's sister, Christianne, believes that the weekend will help Jorg to transition into a calm life, one that will be radically different from his former existence as a murderous terrorist, but it is clear that many of the people she gathered around him have other ideas. Marko wants him to reclaim his role as leader of the revolution, Ulrich asks pestering questions to understand what it felt like to kill someone, and Ulrich's daughter just wants to sleep him so that she can say she did. The weekend is not going as planned.

The novel is at first reminiscent of a tried-and-true fictional structure: bring a group of people together and have them tell stories. One thinks of The Canterbury Tales or Boccacio's Decameron, but The Weekend is anything but a group of friends reconnecting. Yet, it never quite evolves to anything else. It is clear that the novel is supposed to make a larger point, but Schlink never quite gets it there. The novel contemplates terrorism: who are the terrorists, what does it mean to be a terrorist, how does one become a terrorist,etc. Yet, there are no definitive conclusions and the novel waffles over its own raised questions. The Weekend also ponders how the past and the present elide, and how, if at all, one can escape the past to embrace the future, but here, too, there is little definitive answer.

Perhaps the novel is too disparate in its focus. If Schlink had focused on the evolution of one character, it would have surely had a more specific outcome, rendering the intended meaning more clear. As it is, one leaves the novel feeling unsure of the message.

The Weekend shines, though, in its characterization and in the subtle interplay between characters. Schlink balances the various personalities and desires in the country house with aplomb, and the novel, at the very least, is interesting from this perspective. If you are looking, though, for a revelatory, jaw-dropping narrative like the one presented in The Reader, this is not your book. The Weekend is a far more blurry a novel than The Reader and may disappoint on this score.

Ok, This Might Be It

When a dear friend, and fellow book-lover, bought an e-reader, I was surprised at my disinterest in her new device. I had suspected that my lack of desire for a Nook or Kindle was because I just wasn't around them. Sure getting books that quickly and that cheaply is cool, but what does it mean for the world of reading, my experience reading, and the future of books? As long as I kept myself away, I wouldn't be tempted. I was happy to find that when tested, I stuck to my guns. Even in the face of a bevy of reading riches in a slim hand-held device, I preferred the old print and paper.

Imagine my surprise this morning, when I actually found myself reaching for my debit card to purchase an e-book from Google E-Books. They just make it so easy. I'm reading a review of a book on my email, click to the article on GoodReads, and then click to Google E-books, where I can happily purchase the whole "volume" for $9.99. No shipment, no handling, no running to the bookstore or library, and no shelling out $100+ for a handheld device that I could either lose or break.

I can also continue to patronize my favorite Indie bookstores, as Google E-books has a way for Indie sellers to (finally) get in on the e-book revolution.

Ok, so I could buy a book now and start reading it on my computer. But what do I do if I want to put it on a shelf or loan it to someone? Perhaps though, I can just see what happens and stick my toe in with Lady's Slipper, a new historical fiction novel that caught my fancy and has gotten good feedback on Goodreads. It's only $9.99, and if I really like it I can always get it from the library or the bookstore...

Or I can wait for it from my library, save 10 bucks and enjoy it curled up on the couch with a cup of tea and the happy slip, crinkle of the pages as they turn under my fingers...

On second thought, I'm going to hold out a little longer. Now that I think about it, reading a novel on a screen just doesn't sound like that much fun, or that relaxing. Call me a luddite, but I'm going to spend a little longer on this side of the fence, happily turning pages rather than hitting buttons.

Monsters, Desks, and Netsuke

The Hooblers' The Monsters
Despite a few luke-warm reviews, I found this biography of Mary Shelley fascinating. The story surrounding the creation of Frankenstein is almost as intriguing as the novel itself, and the Hooblers do a commendable job of communicating this interest. Though I could have done without the literary criticism and the Hooblers' efforts to find significance in their subjects' literary work where none may have been, it was largely a thoroughly researched and enjoyable read.

In some ways, Mary Shelley could be seen as a tragic figure, as she strove to survive the pressures from her dictatorial, insensitive father and her playboy, insensitive husband. Her life was full of tumult and loss - the loss of her children was especially difficult - but she used her fiction and her powers of imagination to digest much of her hurt. It is fascinating to see the interplay of fiction and reality in her life, how the two sometimes crossed or were completely subsumed by the other, depending on the situation or the crisis that needed to be overcome.

This is a useful companion to Frankenstein or a smart introduction to the interwoven lives of the British Romantic poets.

Nicole Krauss' Great House
Why isn't everyone talking about this book? I haven't read Freedom yet, but I assure you I will not like it as much as I enjoyed Krauss' latest release. This novel was beautiful - beautifully moving, beautifully crafted, beautifully told. And it was a bit of a brain teaser, which I always enjoy.

The novel, from the book jacket at least, seems to be about a giant desk, a piece of Herculean-sized furniture that has been owned by various, disparate people and passed around. It is not the desk, though, that is of great interest, but what the desk respresents: love meant for a child, a reminder of a lost father, a connection to a lover. The novel contemplates what we have to give to others and how we give it them: the words that are passed on, the items, the things we share. Ultimately, though it asks the questions of what can you pass on, when you have nothing - tangible - to give and how can you reclaim connection with those important to you. It is a stunning novel, and Nicole Krauss, as she did with A History of Love, peels back the layers of human relation to suss out the essentials.

New York Times Book Review of Great House

Edmund de Waal's The Hare with the Amber Eyes
I had not intended to follow Great House with a thematically similar book, but that is what happened. Edmund de Waal traces the history of his family's collection of Japanese netsuke, a collection that was assembled by de Waal's ancestor Charles Ephrussi. Spurred on by the tendrils of family story and the recent inheritance of this amazing netsuke, de Waal begins to put the story of his family together, and it is quite a story. de Waal is descended from the Ephrussi, a powerful, banking family, similar to the Rothschilds, who made millions in the late 19th century. They lost much of that wealth during World War I and all of their property in World War II, but what they still had were the netsuke, the funny little figurines from Japan.

What could have been merely a singular, insulated family tale turns into a powerful reminisince on European and Jewish history and a rumination on the power of family stories. de Waal grows up hearing the tales of family lore, but knows little of context or how they all fit together. In the beginning he wants to know the story of the netsuke - how they came into the family, how they survived - but what he ends with is a powerful portrait of the people who came before him. His ancestors suffered tremendous loss but in telling their stories, and preserving the netsuke for the next generation, he creates a testimony of their lives, a testament that is far more intricate and important than mere stuff.

Michael Dirda's Review of The Hare with Amber Eyes