brookworms - reviews (7)
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Baltasar and Blimunda by José Saramago. This is a love story set in 18th century Lisbon where the one-handed Baltasar and the clairvoyant Blimunda lend their heretical support to a padre's flying machine!
Ten of us attended this meeding and somehow, given that so many of us had given up on this book in the first few chapters, ten seemed quite a lot. Several people said that they were there to make sure we didn't choose anything similar again! It does have to be said that José Saramago did win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998, and this was his major work, so it must be considered "a good book" by some worthy people. There is even an opera based on it. Those of us (4?) who finished the book did think it worth the struggle, though I think all of us had had moments when we wanted to give up. Things that stood out for us were the difference between the rich and poor, the hypocrisy, misuse of power, and there had to be some significance in all the journeys. We wanted to know what happened to the Passarola at the end, and to the wills trapped in the bottles - were they the same as souls? For those interested, the convent at Mafra was commissioned by D. João V (1698-1750) under the circumstances related by José Saramago. It covers 40,000 square metres, contains 1,200 rooms, 4,500 doors and windows, 110 bells (the largest weighing nearly 12 tons), 29 patios and courtyards, and used 94,250 kilos of gold and diamonds, altogether costing 120 million cruzados. It is only 40 miles from Lisbon, and I think it should definitely be included in our Brookworms European Tour when one of us wins the lottery! It looks like this:
We all agreed it was very easy to read and with some very memorable scenes and descriptions, but some found the plot slow and the characters lacked depth. By the end, though, we all agreed that we were hooked and wanted to know what was going to happen to them. There was a lot of discussion about whether the lack of a common language between the main characters helped or hindered their love affair and if this would have continued when they emerged from the artificial world of the hostage situation and had to cope with the demands of real life. Did the suspension of reality allow individuals time to discover what really mattered to them or was it an illusion? The book seemed to be an exploration of different sorts of love and the ending, which at first seemed shocking, began to make sense in that context. The most sympathetic characters were Mr Hosokawa, Gen and the vice-president. No one liked Roxane, despite all the male characters falling in love with her, and no one could understand why the accompianist didn’t tell anyone he was diabtic – his death seemed a meaningless sacrifice! We felt the political angle could have been strengthened even though the point was made that the ‘terrorists’ were just like the ‘hostages’ and had the same wishes, asperations and talents. We also wondered if there were any among the hostages who didn’t like opera as none of us fancied the idea of listening to several hours of rehearsal every day! These minor criticisms aside the group enjoyed this book and would read more of this author. read Amazon's review
The Dark Room by Rachel Seiffert. This
was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2001 and is about the repercussions of the Second
World War on ordinary Germans. We shared a frustration that there were no linking
characters between the three stories in this book - and we had all tried hard to find one!
However, we did come to the conclusion that photgraphs were the link.
Photographs were evidence, whether the characters chose to rig it, as in the
positioning of Helmut's arm in the first story, collect it (phots of the station), bury
it, in the second story, not believe it - the photographs from the concentration camps, or
search for it, as Micha did obsessively in the third tale "There are no pictures
of him holding a gun to someone's head, but I'm sure that he did that and pulled the
trigger too. The camera was pointing elsewhere, the shurtter opening and closing on
another murder, of another jew, done by another man, but my grandfather was no more than a
few paces away". We did find the book contained many memorable images -
rather like a photo album! We were left with these images, and several unanswered
questions, such as who Thomas was and what happend to him? We were fairly evenly
split over which of the three stories we preferred. read Amazon's review
K-Pax by Gene Brewer. This is about a new inmate
in a mental ward, who claims to be from the planet K-Pax, and his effect on the other
patients - and the staff. I really felt we wouldn't find much to discuss , and
considered it more as an overgrown short story, but I came away feeling there was more to
it than first appeared. Discussion initially centred on whether or not this was
science fiction. We decided that it probably was, because we would like Prot to be
an alien inhabiting Robert's body. We were reminded of the Robin Williams film,
"Awakenings" which was based on the work of Dr Oliver Sacks; unsurprisingly as
it seemed that Gene Brewer had been inspired by Oliver Sacks' book "The Man Who
Mistook his Wife for a Hat" (a possible future Brookworm book?). We felt there
was a significant biblical undercurrent to the book, and at the end we are left with the
other patients hoping for Prot's second coming. I since found references on another
website to similarities with the story of Abraham, whose wife and daughter were also
called Sarah and Rebecca. Also, Pax = peace. However, it may not be science
fiction, in which case it is a psychological tale about a traumatised man with a dual
personality. We thought it a deliberately naïve feel-good book with echoes of
"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", with mental patients being treated by Prot as
people, rather than as case studies, seemingly for the first time. I'm really
looking forward to K-Pax II! read Amazon's review
Prodigal Summer by
Barbara Kingsolver. This is the story of 3 women, a
wildlife biologist, a sidowed city girl obsessed with insects, and an organic apple
grower, set in a humid summer in the remote Southern Appalachians. Various
adjectives were used to describe this book in the review, some of which were
"intelligent, sexy, sensuous and compelling". This just beat Ms
Kingsolver's previous book "The Poisonwood Bible" in the voting, probably
because quite a few of us have already read that one! "Prodigal Summer"
didn't generate a very long discussion as we seemed generally in agreement about the book.
We had all enjoyed it (those of us who had finished it!) and it will certainly be
in the running for one of my favourites of the year. Several of us found the
beginning part of the book slightly irritating, in that we had been so involved in one
person's story, and then we had to haul ourselves out and start again on someone new.
That said, we found the way the family relationships were developed and explained
was very satisfying. The fact the intersection of the three women's lives wouldn't
happen until after the book had finished had a mixed reaction - it annoyed some, but gave
an air of reality to the book for others. A couple of points that were raised
involved the characters' names - Jewel, Crystal, Garnet - what was the significance of all
these precious stones? Also Deanna Wolf seemed very symbolic, with Diana being the
huntress, and Deanna being locked in opposition to hunting. Ecologically, coyotes
were taking the place of the wolf. Finally, I hadn't realised that the old companion
to Lusa's green velvet chair was on Deanna's porch!
read Amazon's review
Paperback Raita by
William Rhode is about Joshua King, who has to write a
bestselling novel in order to access a multi-million pound inheritance. There were
quite varied opinions about this book. Two of us had really enjoyed it, most found
it good light-hearted entertainment if totally unbelieveable, and a couple of us found it
rather a waste of good reading time! On the whole, we liked the flashbacks, though
we weren't quite sure what insights we were supposed to get from them, and a real sense of
India came through in the cross country motorbike ride. Sadly, the seedy parts of
the book came over as the most credible, the least so being the shoot-up at the end.
We weren't that sympathetic to Joshua - we felt he deserved whatever was coming to him,
and liked Sanjay the best of the sorry bunch of characters, with his rather confused
identity. We had a bit of a problem with making drugs a "fun" story, and
did wonder about Joshua's week on heroin having no discernable effect on him.
read Amazon's review
Carter Beats the Devil
by Glen David Gold
- a murder mystery set around the turn of the last century in the golden age of
magic. One of us really didn't enjoy this book but the rest of us liked it, finding
it a relatively quick and undemanding holiday read. We thought it was a well-planned
book, with all the story strands coming together in a satisfying, if slightly incredible,
way. We particularly liked the minor characters of the librarian and the Secret
Service man. We could empathise with the characters, and the events were easy to
visualise. It was cleverly put together by an author with a light touch! We
could even forgive the author for the set piece ending - possibly created with an eye to a
film, and the James Bond type escape from the sinking tea chest. We still think
there was some connection between the pirates and the wine bottle - but we're going to
have to read it again to find out exactly what it was! read Amazon's review
The
Necropolis Railway by Andrew Martin is a "classy potboiler" set in 1903 on the railway that brought the
coffins to Brookwood Cemetery, so a book close to our home! On the whole, we were
not that impressed with this book and we did wonder if the author had used his newspaper
connections as a reporter for the Daily Telegraph to increase the amount of coverage of
his book, as it had had at least two articles and several very flattering reviews written
about it in various papers. On the positive side, we thought the period detail about
the London Waterloo Station area was interesting and realistic, and we enjoyed hearing
about the landlady's day, but I'm afraid these positive points were outweighed by the
negative.
We felt no sympathy for young Jim Stringer (though he didn't seem quite so much of an anorak by the end of the book) and couldn't get really involved in the plot. Not one character seemed fleshed out. There were several very unlikely events, such as the lodgings floor collapsing at exactly the right moment and spotting Rowland Smith from the Great Wheel (below - two thirds the size of the London Eye at Earls Court from 1895 to 1906). And we would have liked to hear a bit more about Brookwood! read Amazon's review
The Future Homemakers
of America by Laurie Grahami is about 5 American Air Force wives stationed at a US airbase in the Norfolk Fens
in 1953 and their relationships with each other, their families and the "poor"
locals. Most of us enjoyed this book more than we expected to when we
started it - the characters were well described and developed and the style was easy-going
but not too simple. One of us found it all a bit formulaic and patronising, an
American author writing for Brits - with the English characters being rather stereotypical
eccentrics! I found it quite interesting to find England considered a third
world country! Unfortunately, as a group we came up with bits that didn't hang
together well, that we hadn't noticed individually. For example: the marriage
between Slick and Kathy was rather convenient and unexpected; a wife beater like Ed would
not be generally violent; Huntington's Chorea doesn't usually manifest itself until the
carrier is over 30; being a jet pilot requires quite a bit of training and education and
the type of jobs these pilots ended up with did not; and the bellringing bit was not very
accurate either! By listing these examples, it sounds as if the book was full of
them - which was not the case - and they did not detract from a generally good story, well
told. By the way, we did wonder what skivvies were as mentioned in the book.
I asked an on-line friend from a Minneapolis reading group who tells me that they are
underwear - generally men's underpants!
read Amazon's review
Peace
like a River by Lief Enger, a "contemporary book with an epic dimension" set in Minnesota.
We all enjoyed this book we all enjoyed despite one person finding the "accent"
annoying! Thanks to the author’s descriptive powers we were able to visualise
all the settings in the book – and have added Minnesota to our Brookworms World Tour
itinerary! We knew that the book was set in the 60s, but the atmosphere felt
earlier, possibly because of it being a "small town" book. One of us pointed out
parallels between this book and the biblical story of Jonah – with the Airstream
Trailer standing in for the whale, the ascetic Jeremiah for Jonah, and the Badlands of
North Dakota for Ninevah. Reuben acted as a witness for his father’s miracles
throughout the book, which opened and closed with his life being miraculously
restored. The investigator Andreeson seemed to be the family’s conscience, and
Jape Waltzer evil personified. I had found it difficult to understand how surviving
a tornado made Jeremiah want to give up being a doctor, but it was obviously a
life-changing event, changing his priorities and making him want to have more time for
people – he was valued as a friend and neighbour, although not by his wife – who
left him for another Doctor and the social circuit. Swede’s epic poem about
Sunny Sundown and the villainous Valdez echoed the moral questions and uncertainties
besetting them in real life. (Was "Swede" her real name?) Davy seemed the least
rounded character, and Roxanne the most fortuitous, or was she another miracle? It
was interesting how Reuben’s perception of Roxanne changed with the growing awareness
of her relationship with his father. read Amazon's review
A
Child's Book of True Crime by Chloe Hooper about a new primary
teacher in Tasmania who has an affair with the father of one of her pupils. She
becomes obsessed with a legend about the murder of a local woman, being researched by her
lover's wife. This book was shortlisted for the 2002 Orange Prize. The Orange
Prize website said that "Chloe Hooper is a thoughtful, lucid and witty writer"
whose "multi-layered narrative explores morality, philosophy, child psychology and
history". I’m not sure that the Brookworms would agree. Those of us
at the meeting were united in not having enjoyed the book. We found the style
annoying, especially the fairy-tale type bits in italics, and we could not find one
sympathetic character in the whole book, except possible the young guide at the
convicts’ museum. Even the children seemed unpleasant. We felt the
"heroine" was extremely immature, sex-obsessed and living in a dream
world. There were some powerful scenes, particularly the air of menace that hung
over the museum visit, where we weren’t sure whether Veronica knew of Kate’s
affair or not. It was a small town, so we thought that probably everyone knew.
We compared this small town to Karakarook in "The Idea of Perfection"
(winner of the 2001 Orange Prize), and thought the latter was more realistic!
Some of us thought that Veronica had engineered the whole affair to help her research her
own book – others weren’t sure. At the end of the tale, we weren’t
sure whether Kate jumped of the cliff or not, but decided we didn’t really care
anyway! read Amazon's review
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