Short Story Sunday

I read three short stories today: "The Gray Man" by Rebecca West, "The Cyprian Cat" by Dorothy Sayers, and "A Haunted House" by Virginia Woolf. I enjoyed them all, however they weren't really scary. Haunting, not scary.

"The Gray Man" by Rebecca West

This story could have been very scary, however the style of narration prevented this. The narrator tells about a vacation where she became very ill and was placed in a nursing home. While there, she becomes sleep deprived and experiences a very disturbing, prophetic dream. I wish that West had upped the creepiness factor, but it was still an interesting story.

I felt obliged to watch the trees outside my window and their behaviour in the sunshine and wind, to note the characteristics of every person who spoke to me, with a quite disagreeable intensity, and I was so fatigued by this constant effort of apprehension that there was no continuity in the working of my brain. Every moment of consciousness was distinct and unrelated to any other. Instead of being a stream my mental life was a string of disparate beads.

"The Cyprian Cat" by Dorothy Sayers

I love Sayers' Lord Whimsey series, but I'd never read any of her short stories. After reading this story, I definitely want to remedy that! In this story, the narrator meets an old friend and his new wife for a little vacation. However, the narrator finds the vacation town absolutely overrun by cats at night; since he detests cats, he decides to buy a pistol to scare them off. But it is odd how the cats only come out at night, and his friend's new wife goes to bed so early and is unresponsive until morning... This was definitely a fun story, but I wish there was a little more background. I think that the idea could have easily been expanded into a novella. Still, makes me look at cats differently!

I tried to distract my mind by looking at the girl. She was worth looking at, too-very slim, and ark with one of those dead-white skins that make you think of magnolia blossom. She had the most astonishing eyes, too-I've never seen eyes quite like them; a very pale brown, almost amber, set wide apart and a little slanting, and they seemed to have a kind of luminosity of their own.

"The Haunted House" by Virginia Woolf

This is a very short story, more of a sketch in fact. It's only two pages long, but it's quite heartwarming. Two ghosts wander around a house, remembering all of the places where they were in love, and wishing blessings on the current occupant. It definitely makes you smile, and since it's Woolf the language and style is beautiful. This was probably my favourite of the three. :)

"Here we slept," she says. And he adds, "Kisses without number." "Waking in the morning-" "Silver between the trees-" "Upstairs-" "In the garden-" "When summer came-" "In winter snowtime-" The doors go shutting far in the distance, gently knocking like the pulse of a heart.

Embers (thoughts)

I've been in a hardcore reading mood lately; I've read two books straight through (not even time to list them under 'Currently Reading') and I'm a third of the way through another. Thus, I have a plethora of books to discuss: seven, in fact. And all of them have been exceptionally good.

Nevertheless, Sandor Marai's Embers jumped to the front of the line. Why? Quite frankly, it contains some of the most stunning writing I've ever read. Marai is a Hungarian who, despite being exiled in America, only wrote in his native tongue. Considering that Hungarian happens to be one of the world's more obscure languages, this prevented his work from receiving much attention. Recently, his works have been 'rediscovered' and Knopf is bringing them out. Embers was the first to be translated into English (in 2001); however, it was translated from the German and French versions, not the original Hungarian. Knopf's subsequent releases (Conversations in Bolzano and The Rebels so far) are translated from the original.

While Ember's history makes the English feel a little choppy in the beginning, the translation soon straightens itself out, and by the first thirty pages I realised that I had come across something beautiful. In structure, it rather reminds me Ishiguro's Remains of the Day: a lot of first-person narrative, looking back over the past, all occassioned by a reunion with a long-lost companion. Both books had the same current of wasted life and regrts. While Ishiguro's book left the philosophy between the cracks up to the reader, however, Marai brings the philosophy out into the open.

The idea is simple: an old Austro-Hungarian General, living on his Hungarian estate, prepares to meet his closest friend after a gap of forty-one years. Actually, I'm going to just quote from the back of the book, "Over the ensuing hours host and guest will fight a duel of words and silences, accusations and evasions." This pretty much sums it up, except the word 'duel' is slightly misleading; the friend barely ever talks, so the last two-thirds of the book (it's only 200 pages long) are a monologue delivered by the General. And yes, as a septogenarian, the General indulges in quite a bit of philosophising.

But please don't let this scare you away! Along with the achingly-written philosophical passages, there's a plot that rather creeps up on the reader. Before I knew it, I couldn't put the book down, because I had to find out how it was going to end. I refuse to tell you anything about the plot, because Marai uncovers it slowly and masterfully; if you choose to read this book, I highly recommend avoiding any discussions of it until after you've finished it. Even the back cover, which I didn't read fortunately, contains a spoiler or two. The gradual climb in tension is exquisite. And if you aren't hooked by page fifty, I'd be shocked.

The ending of the book left me utterly satisfied; in fact, the entire book felt perfect. I came away with the same afterglow I felt after reading The Remains of the Day, slightly dazed by the author's skill.

I highly, highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys an author that appreciates his readers. That was a bit convoluted, but I think you get the gist. Marai has created a stunning piece of literature, and I want to read more by him very, very soon. A real treat, as well as a shorter read (it took me less than two hours). Check out the passages below to get a sense of his writing (I've put a spoiler alert before the very last one, which hints at part of the plot).

Favourite Passages:
...he thought only in decades, anything more upset him, as if he might be reminded of things he would rather forget... (6)

"For twenty-two years they have been living in this town which reeks like some squalid den where passing traders spend the night-a smell of cooking and cheap perfume and sour bedding. Here they live, and never utter a workd of complaint. For twenty-two years my father has not set foot in Vienna, where he was born and brought up. Twenty-two years and never a journye, never a new piece of clothing, never a summer outing, because I must be made into the masterpiece that they in their weakness failed to achieve in their own lives. Sometimes when I am about to do something, my hand stops in midair. This eternal responsibility. I have even wished them dead," he said very softly. (47)

"The truth is precisely what I don't know."
"But you know the facts," said the nurse sharply.
"Facts are not the truth," retorted the General. (73)

"The wind stirs, too, at this moment, gently, carefully, like the sigh of a sleeping man as he sense the return of the earthly reality into which he was born. The scent of wet leaves, of ferns, of crumbling tree trunks, of rotting pine cones, of the soft carpet of fallen leaves and pine needles slippery from the dew, rises up from the earth to assault you like the smell of two lovers locked in sweat-soaked embrace. A magical moment, which our heathen acnestors used to celebrate deep in the forest, worhsipfully, arms outstretched, facing East: earthbound man in the eternally recurring, spellbound expectation of light, insight, reason." (132)

"Ours was a friendship out of the ancient sagas. And while I walked in the sunshine of life, you chose to remain in the shadows." (139)

"I think that perhaps you have gone mad. I think perhaps it is the music. One cannot be a musician and a relative of Chopin and escape unpunished." (157)

"One always wants to repay the gods with some of one's good fortune. For it is well known that the gods are jealous, and that if they five a mortal a year of happiness, they immediately enter this debt on the ledger and demand repayment at the end of life with crippling interest." (162)

"Things do not simply happen to one...One can also shape what happens to one. One shapes it, summons it, takes hold of the inevitable. It's the human condition." (170)

"Since then I have never met a single person who responded so completely to everything: music, an early morning walk in the woods, the color and scent of a flower, the well-chosen words of an intelligent companion. Nobody could stroke a beautiful piece of cloth or an animal like Krisztina. Nobody took such pleasure in the world's simple gifts: people, animals, stars, books-everything interested her, not in any exaggerated way, not with apedantic outpouring of learning, but with the unprejudiced joy of a child reaching for everything there is to see and do. As if everything in the world was relevant to her, you know?" (176)

"I hate music....I hate this incomprehensible, melodious language which select people can understand and use to say uninhibited, irregular things that are also probably indecent and immoral. Watch their faces and see how strangely they change when they're listening to music." (178)

"Yes-revenge. That is why I neither killed myself nor allowed others to kill me, and that is why I have not killed anyone myself, thank heaven. The time for revenge as come, just as I have wished for so long. My revenge is that you have come here across the world, through the war, over mine-infested seas, to the scene of the crime, to answer to me and to uncover the truth together. That is my revenge." (183)

"What do you think? Do you also believe that what gives our lives their meaning is the passion that suddenly invades us heart, soul, and body, and burns in us forever, no matter what else happens in our lives? And that if we have experienced this much, then perhaps we haven't lived in vain? Is passion so deep and terrible and magnificent and inhuman? Is it indeed about desiring any one person, or is it about desiring desire itself? That is the question. Or, perhaps, is it indeed about desiring a particular person, a single, mysterious other, once and for always, no matter whether that person is good or bad, and the intensity of our feelings bears no relation to that individual's qualities or behavior?" (211)

**spoiler: don't read the following quote unless you've already read the book**

"She died because you went away and because I stayed but never once went to her, and because we-the two men to whom she belonged-were more despicable and proud and cowardly abd arrogant and silent than a women can bear; we ran away from her and betrayed her by our survival." (209)

Poppets!

My Saturday morning became considerably brighter when I found a package from SlaughterHouse Studios in my mail box. Yes, that's right, I've adopted two poppets.

As mentioned earlier, I ordered a Little Purple poppet and a Little Black poppet from Lisa Snellings Clark (the artist). This was quite an event for me: I had to sign up on eBay and everything! Right off, I wasn't sure how to take advantage of the cheaper shipping with multiple purchases; so, hesitantly, I sent an e-mail off to Lisa. She responded incredibly quickly and explained what I needed to do. Very nice of her! Then, I opened my beautiful package this morning (look at the little Poppet houses! and the super-cool ceramic hand! and there was a personalised thank you note from Lisa!), and imagine my surprise...
I found a Little Blue poppet had snuck in instead of a Little Black one! Once again, I was a little hesitant about e-mailing Lisa, but I've been coveting the black poppets for awhile now; so, I sent off a message offering to send the Little Blue one back in exchange for a Little Black (although it really hurt my heart to 'reject' the Little Blue one). She responded in a couple of hours, and with such a kind offer. Not only will she send out a little black poppet on Monday, but the little blue poppet is mine as well! From our brief e-mail exchange, she seems like a very cool person; I encourage everyone to run over and buy a poppet (they're very reasonably priced-$10 for the purples, blues and reds, $13 for the black).

Obviously, after the new poppets arrived, I had to figure out names for them. At first, I focused on the purple; I knew that she was a girl, but I had no idea how to name her. I went to a couple name sites, but nothing was really jumping at me. Then, inspiration struck. May I introduce you to...

Coraline Jane. Here she is with her namesakes: a spunky little girl created by Neil Gaiman and the amazing Jane Austen. Coraline came first; I realised that I could finally write my review of it, and then I realised that Coraline was the perfect name-elegant yet unusual-for my little poppet. Plus, I could honour one of my favourite authors! While looking at her, Jane popped into my head, and Coraline Jane just has an irrestible ring to it.

And here is the Little Blue Poppet, whose fate hung in the balance for a few hours...

While I immediately knew that Coraline Jane was a girl, I'm still not sure about Little Blue Poppet's gender. Therefore, its name is Wilkie Eliot. Wilkie for Wilkie Collins, who I thought was a girl until earlier this year. Eliot for George Eliot, a woman who write as a man. Both are also great authors, and Eliot especially captures a bit of the melancholy that the Little Blue seems to have, while Collins' gothic imaginings seems possible in Little Blue's life. After all, its very arrival here was a mistake! Wilkie Eliot is definitely a bit older than Coraline Jane and very indulgent of its little sister. :)

I certainly plan to post about Neil Gaiman later today, but for now, I think Coraline and Eliot say it best:

Mariette in Ecstasy (thoughts)

In keeping with the cloistered theme, I thought I'd spend today discussing Ron Hansen's Mariette in Ecstasy. I first read about this book on the Duke alumni reading club (no, I didn't go to Duke; I can't remember how I found out about the club). It sounded good, but also kind of obscure, so I didn't think anymore of it. Then, when I was looking for books for the Book to Movie challenge, this was on the list; I checked with my library, and I was able to ILL (for free!) a copy. Thus, I had high, but vague, expectations as I opened it up.

I knew that the book was set in a convent, in the early 1900s, in upstate New York. I also knew that a young girl would enter the convent, and apparently experience mystical religious acts. That was about it.

The best and most surprising feature of the book was the style; Hansen uses everything from lists to journal entries to interviews to simple third person narrative to tell the story. The book feels like a collage. In lesser hands, this could have been a disaster, however Hansen really pulls it off. The first things the reader sees are a "Directoire des religieuses du Couvent de Notre-Dame des Afflictions" (a list of all the convent members, with their age and job) and a schedule of "The Winter Life of the Sisters of the Crucifixion." In addition to instantly creating an atmosphere for the reader, these lists come in handy throughout the story as references; it was quite nice of Hansen to put them up front so I didn't have to search for them. Then, the reader is led into the story through a series of observations, rendered in simple, standalone sentences, that feels like a mediation.

Limestone pebbles on the path in the garth. Jasmine. Lilac. Narcissus

Mother Celine gracefully walking, head down.

Crickets.

Mooncreep and spire.

Ears are flattened to the head of a stone panther waterspout.

Slowly, the sentences become paragraphs and characters are introduced. The effect of this writing, for me at least, was to really slow me down. I began to concentrate on every word of the story, and I built up quite a detailed mental image of the convent.

The main plot arrives when Mariette Baptiste enters the convent as a postulant. She takes her devotion very personally, carrying on a personal relationship with Jesus, and wanting to suffer as he suffered. She's also beautiful, and at just seventeen, some of the older nuns feel quite wary of her. As the book wears on, Mariette's experiences become more and more extreme; the nuns divide into two camps: either Mariette is a saint or a shameless faker. Meanwhile, the resident priest is trying to discover if a miracle truly has occured.

Essentially, Mariette in Ecstasy is a study of group relationships. It's fascinating to watch the various nuns take sides, to hear what they say and why, and to see the convent's atmosphere become poisoned. Hansen does an incredible job of sweeping the reader into this, so that you feel the discomfort of the priest, the skepticism of the nuns, the pure belief of Mariette. The writing throughout the book is powerful, and the only reason it didn't get 5 stars was the ending. Hansen didn't really seem sure what to do about it, which was a little frustrating.

Nevertheless, I'd highly recommend this book to everyone. It's a short read (179 pages in hardcover) and definitely a page turner. The characters are sharply drawn, but Hansen is one of those authors who trusts the reader, and leaves gaps for her to fill in. My favourite kind of book-engaging, thoughtful, fascinating. It will echo in my mind for some time.

A Morbid Taste for Bones (thoughts)

I read A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters as part of the Unread Authors Challenge. I had mooched it awhile ago, based on several bloggers liking it, and then it languished on my shelves until this challenge brought it up!

Morbid Taste is the first in a series of medieval mysteries, centering around Brother Cadfael, a fifty-something monk who used to be a crusader. Now retired to a quiet life of praising God and gardening, Cadfael demonstrates a profoundly pragmatic outlook on life. In this book, the reader follows him to his native Wales, with a group of monks who are on a quest to recover the remains of Saint Winifred and bring the bones back to the monastery. When murder strikes in the small village, Cadfael must single-handedly find the killer, restore some people's reputations, and play match-maker. Fortunately, he's up the challenge!

When I began this book, I was very concerned. Quite frankly, it was rather dry; I prefer my mysteries to be on the entertaining side. I was all ready to be disappointed, but when I got to about page 50, the pace suddenly picked up. Several very likeable characters were introduced, subtexts began flying, and I couldn't turn the pages fast enough. This is a short book, at just under 200 pages, and I savoured the reading. Once Peters finds her groove, Cadfael is a really fun 'detective,' paternally supporting his friends and quietly laughing at his self-important fellow monks. I also loved that it was set in Wales. I mean, I never get to go to Wales in books!

I must confess, a large part of the appeal to me was the monks. When I was little, I was quite sad that girls couldn't become Jesuit priests, as that seemed the ideal career(yes, I was raised Catholic), and I always felt that if I'd lived in the Middle Ages, I would have been a monk. I don't know why I have such a fascination for them, but I certainly do. The Middle Ages is also my favourite age in European history, so I was quite excited to find a series set in that time period!

Ellis Peters, it turns out, is the pseudonym for Edith Parteger, a Brit who wrote extensively (more on her interesting life). There are a total of twenty Brother Cadfael books, and as the author has passed away, there are no more to look forward to. However, the nineteen should occupy me for some time.

As you might have noticed in my reviews for the Summer Mystery Challenge, I am quite picky about my mysteries. I love Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers; I need to read more Ngaio Marsh. Last Christmas, I discovered Laurie King's Mary Russell series (see bookeywookey's excellent thoughts on the first one), and that quickly became a favourite. This summer, I found myself really liking P.D. James. All of these authors have several things in common: tight plotting, somewhat 'cozy' (James is the closest to thriller), compelling characters, and damn good writing. I'm happy to say that Ellis Peters has now made it on to my short list of dependable mystery writers. If you enjoy well-written mysteries, or the Middle Ages, I'd highly recommend giving A Morbid Taste for Bones a try!

Fast Food Nation (introduction)

I finished Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser on Friday night, and I immediately began thinking about my review. I knew that I couldn't praise it high enough; the engaging writing style, the important information, the humane objectivity to be found in this book is, quite simply, amazing. This book shows why non-fiction is so important. It raises essential issues, deftly introduces the evidence, and allows the reader to evaluate everything in bright light. How, then, to review it? I suddenly realised that this book needs more than a review: it needs an audience. The topics discussed in this book are very important to me (and it was even more fun to read about Colorado Springs, as a newcomer to the town!), so I've decided to follow Dewey's model. She discusses a non-fiction book chapter-by-chapter, providing notes and her personal reaction (currently, she's working through Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters by Courtney Martin).

I've decided to make Tuesdays my Fast Food Nation day; the book has ten chapters, an introduction, an epilogue, and an afterword, so this feature will go into December. I'm hoping to make the posts a center for thoughtful discussion about the issue, but if that doesn't happen at least I know I'm getting the word out. :) And with that, I'll be discussing the Introduction this week.

Introduction: Notes

+The workers of the top-secret Air Force base Cheyenne Mountain have Domino's delivered.

+"In 1970, Americans spent about $6 billion on fast food; in 2001, they spent more than $110 billion. Americans now spend more on fast food than on higher education, personal computers, computer software, or new cars. They spend more on fast food than on movies, books, magazines, newspapers, videos, and recorded music-combined." (3)

+"On any given day in the United States about one-quarter of the adult population visits a fast-food restaurant." (3)

+"Adjusted for inflation, the hourly wage for the average U.S. worker peaked in 1973 and then steadily declined for the next twenty-five years." (4)

+"An estimated one out of every eight workers in the United States has at some point been employed by McDonald's. The company annually hires about one million people, more than any other American organization, public or private. McDonald's is the nation's largest purchaser of beef, pork, and potatoes-and the second largest purchaser of chicken. The McDonald's Corporation is the largest owner of retail property in the world." (4)

+"The typical American now consumes approximately three hamburgers and four orders of french fries every week." (6)

+"The current methods for preparing fast food are less likely to be found in cookbooks than in trade journals such as Food Technologist and Food Engineering. Aside from salad greens and tomatoes, most fast food is delivered to the restaurant already frozen, canned, dehydrated, or freeze-dried." (6-7)

+"I do not mean to suggest that fast food is solely responsible for every social problem now haunting the United States. In some cases (such as the malling and sprawling of the West), the fast food industry has been a catalyst and a symptom of larger economic trends. In other cases (such as the rise of franchising and the psread of obesity) fast food as played a more central role. By tracing the diverse influences of fast food I hope to shed light not only on the workings of an important industry, but also on a distinctively American way of viewing the world." (9)

+"Fast food is heavily marketed to children and prepared by people who are barely older than children. This is an industry that both feeds and feeds off the young." (9)

+"During the two years I spend researching this book, I ate an enormous amount of fast food. Most of it tasted pretty food. That is one of the main reasons people buy fast food; it has been carefully designed to taste food. It's also inexpensive and convenient. But the value meals, two-for-one deals, and free refills of soda hive a distorted sense of how much fast food actually costs. The real price never appears on the menu." (9)

+"Hundreds of millions of people buy fast food every day without giving it much thought, unaware of the subtle and not-so-subtle ramifications of their purchases. They rarely consider where the food came from, how it was made, what it is doing to the community around them. They just grab their tray off the counter, find a table, take a seat, unwrap the paper, and dig in. The whole experience is transitory and soon forgotten. I've written this book out of a belief that people should know what lies behind the shiny, happy surface of every fast food transaction." (10)

Introduction: Thoughts

I was surprised at the opening, a description of Cheyenne Mountain Air Force base. I'm actually going on a tour of that soon! But I quickly became more serious. For me, the most striking points Schlosser brought up were the sheer popularity of fast food and its appeal to children. The size of McDonald's was pretty staggering as well! When we were little, my sister and I played soccer. My dad coached my sister's team, and they needed funding. So, in return for money, her team was named the Mickey Dee's. At the time, it seemed pretty harmless. My favourite two passages are the last two quotes I listed. I like that Schlosser doesn't try to pretend; he freely admits that fast food tastes good. I personally don't like a lot of fast food, but I love Wendy's Spicy Chicken sandwiches. Oh-I should probably give a brief background of my own eating history, so that y'all know where I'm coming from. I became a vegetarian at 16, and at 19 I took an eight-month hiatus. Two of those months were spent in the States, getting my system readjusted to meat, and then I went to Russia (I stayed with families, in a very non-vegetarian friendly culture, hence why I started eating meat). On getting back in December (of 2005), I became a veggie again cold-turkey. Then, in April of this year I started eating meat again in preparation for the Peace Corps. I'm probably going to West Africa, and it would be culturally difficult for me to be a veggie there. So, I'm currently a reluctant meat-eater. My dad hunts once a year, so we always have elk in our freezer. In fact, he's getting back tomorrow with this year's meat. Thus, most of the red meat I eat tends to be game. In restaurants, I tend to default to the vegetarian stuff (I love tofu! and bean burgers!), but sometimes I'll eat chicken. We don't eat out all that often, but we tend to go to chains like Chili's and Olive Garden. As far as fast food, sometimes I'll go to Wendy's (and get a Spicy Chicken sandwich) and more frequently I'll go to La Casita (a four-restaurant Mexican chain in Colorado Springs), where I get two or three bean and cheese tacos. I probably go to La Casita once a week, Wendy's every two or three months, and out to eat at other restaurants twice a month. Whew-ok that wasn't so brief. But I thought it was important for y'all to know where I was coming from! That's probably enough for this week. :)

(Very) Short Story Sunday (Monday): Sinclair and Christie

I've read two more of the selections from Witches' Brew, both of which were rather short. The stories are definitely becomeing more creepy as I move along closer to present day. :) This week, I read "Where Their Fire is Not Quenched" by May Sinclair and "The Lamp" by Agatha Christie.

The former is a somewhat moralising story about a woman who finds herself in Hell. Essentially, she has to repeat the same act, where in life she destroyed love, over and over again. I was incredibly creeped out by the idea of having to relive a bad experience, that you've spent years trying to forget ever happened, for eternity. Ugh.

The latter is a traditional ghost story; you pretty much know what's going to happen, but it's creepy anyway. The ending was quite abrupt; I think that the story could have done with a few more pages to really flesh it out. Nevertheless, a fun, easy ghost read. Nothing particularly deep or psychological about it.

And that pretty much sums it up!

Randomness

+I'm so sad that I missed Short Story Sunday. :( So I might have to go read a couple stories, come back, and post about them. I ended up crashing at about 8.30 last night, after a very full day, so that explains that.

+When did this blog suddenly become an almost daily thing?! For a long time, I just posted a few times a week, but now I feel bereft if I miss a day. And I have less free time than I have had since June. Weird.

+The new Book Carnival is up: the Classics. Book Nut did an adorable organisational job. And just to remind everyone, I'll be hosting the December one with the very broad theme of "non-fiction." It's not for awhile, but keep it in the back of your heads. ;) Don't know what I'm talking about? Well, go check out Dewey's description already!

+It got really cold here. But I'm actually very excited about it, because it gives me the excuse to wear tights! And drink a ton of hot tea! Plus, the weather feels very R.I.P.-y.

+Speaking of which, I really need to go read those short stories already.

+Oh! And I'm really sorry if some of you read my blog via a blog feed; I've accidently published a post that's planned for tomorrow twice now. :( Both times it happened because I didn't notice the cursor disappeared and hit the enter button. Sorry again.

The Rest Falls Away (thoughts)

Before I get to the review, just wanted to let everyone know that Dewey has posted guidelines for the 24-hour-read-a-thon she's sponsoring! It'll take place October 20th (a Saturday), and there are a myriad of ways to participate. I definitely want to be a reader, although I'm not really looking forward to waking up at 7 am on a Saturday (mountain time). Everyone go check it out, and mention my name, because then I get to one of Dewey's Most Awesome People Ever (MAPE). :p

On to the review!

Notice the fast turn-around time on this review, the first of Colleen Gleason's vampire series, entitled The Rest Falls Away. ;) For those of you not participating in the R.I.P. II challenge, or who have managed to overlook all of the other reviews, the series is based on the author's curiousity about what life for Buffy (from TV) would have been like if she lived in the Victorian era. I am quite torn about this book, actually. Perhaps all of the glowing reviews I read beforehand built up my expectations a little too much.

Here's the thing. I found it a very enjoyable fluff read. It had a lot of humour, like

Victoria considered the stake for a brief, delicious moment, then regretfully rested it on the table. She had four new polished ash stakes, each to be painted a different color so that they could complement her various gowns. Verbena had suggested ivory, pink, pale green, and blue, and was advocating further decoration using flowers, feathers, and beads. (84)

Oh yes, because we all know how our vampire-killing weapons must coordinate with our outfits. ;) There are several comedic devices used throughout the book; one of the most fun was the chapter titles. I also thoroughly enjoyed the tea parties of the three matrons of society, particularly a certain one's progressively larger crusifixes! The characters were all fun to get to know; not what I'd call particularly deep, or *ahem* realistic, but fun. My favourite is Verbena, the ever-resourceful maid. She kind of reminds me of a nineteenth-century MacGyver, whose talents also include hairdressing. And I'm not gonna lie, there are some passages in the book that explain why it's kept under the 'Romance' section; two of the characters at least seem to qualify this series for the upcoming Swoonworthy Challenge. Take this introduction of a Marquess

Lady Gwendolyn had not exaggerated. Well-turned did not begin to describe the man who stood before her, raising her gloved hand to his lips. He stood as tall as any man in the room, his rich brown hair gleaming with strands of gold as he tipped his head to press a kiss to the back her hand. "If you have not yet greeted everyone, may I dare hope there might be a dance left on your card?" His voice matched his looks-clean, calm, smooth-but his eyes carried a different cadence. Something that made her feel very warm.

Yummy!

But then, Gleason goes and pulls the rug out from under me. It's like you're happily enjoying cotton candy, eating it too quickly because you just can't help yourself, and and suddenly you take a bite and the cotton candy tastes like dill pickle. I am Very Unhappy about the turn one of the characters took. All of you who've read the book know exactly what I'm talking about. I don't feel as if Awful Things should happen in a fluff book; isn't there some unspoken rule about that?

My more serious hesitation as to this book is the writing style. I was frustrated by the author telling me things, instead of showing me them. For example,

"Just what did you think you were doing, Victoria?" he snapped, stalking toward her.

So just in case I didn't pick up from the abruptness of the actual dialogue that this guy snapped, I'm told it. And just in case I didn't figure out that snapping means the guy's probably mad, I'm also told he's stalking. This is an especially easy trap for Gleason to fall into because she uses a rotating third-person point of view.

Despite these writing flaws, the book is a very enjoyable high-adventure romp, and for a first book, the heavy handedness is perhaps understandable. In summary: read this book if you're good with a heavy-adventure, somewhat-sexy piece of funny-for-all-the-right-reasons, plot driven fluff piece. Don't read this book if you only read Serious Literature, or expect extraordinary writing or deep character development.

Death at the Priory and Misc.

First of all, Stephanie is having a book giveaway! Aren't they just the best? (note to self: have a book giveaway on one-year anniversary) This one is for a copy of Veil of Roses by Laura Fitzgerald, who is signing the copy.

And speaking of book giveaways, my prize for SQT's book giveaway came in today.

Whoot! It's a short story collection based on vampires and birthdays. Yet another addition to the R.I.P. II book pool! Thanks so much SQT. If y'all haven't visited her site, it centers on sci-fi and fantasy, so it's given me a bunch of new reading ideas.

And speaking of vampires (gosh, this post is going quite smoothly), I finished The Rest Falls Away. I also have a review typed up. However, I'm kind of nervous about publishing it. I enjoyed the book, but I also had some issues with the writing style. And it seems like everyone else doesn't have a bad word to say about it, and I don't want to be a wet blanket!

And on that note, I'm going to clunkily transition into tonight's review: Death at the Priory by James Ruddick. I read this for my ongoing non-fic challenge (also known as: Eva decides to torture herself for the rest of 2007). It was a short read, ending at page 189. I chose this book mainly because of its subtitle: Sex, Love, and Murder in Victorian England. And let me tell you, there was quite a bit of the first and last of those but not so much love.

First of all, I thought that a priory was where a member of the clergy lived. Apparently not. The priory in question was owned Florence and Charles Bravo, a newly wed couple whose *cough* marital bliss was ended by the fatal poisoning of Charles. The author, Ruddick, spends the first half of the book on the background of Florence and the events surrounding Charles' death; the second is devoted to Ruddick attempting to solve the crime. As much as I wanted to enjoy this book, about a crime that Agatha Christie called "one of the most mysterious poisoning cases ever created," I just didn't.

I felt that Ruddick went in a little too much for the sensational bits of the story, and he made wild generalisations about Victorian women that weren't backed up by any footnotes. I'm beginning to realise that an easy way to tell if I'm going to enjoy a non-fiction work is the length of the bibliography and the presence of footnotes or endnotes; this one is only three pages long, and it doesn't include *any* general works about Victorian history. That absence is definitely felt throughout the book. I also felt he was rather lurid; in the middle of a discussion about the power struggle between Florence and Charles, he suddenly tells the reader that

Florence made 'grave charges' against her husband over their sexual relationship, claiming that he 'engaged in a persistant line of conduct'. The conduct, it was convincingly alleged, was an*l intercourse.

What?! I mean, I don't think of myself as a prude, but I feel that Ruddick could have found a more tactful way to introduce the topic. He also discussed it quite a bit; while I understand that he finds in it an important motive for murder, since he never tells the reader *how* the conclusion that it even took place was drawn, I found his dwelling on it pretty excessive.

The other problem I had with it centered on part two: when Ruddick decides to figure out who did it via a close examination of the evidence. From the selective way he presents the evidence and, even worse, interprets them, the reader instantly sees his bias. He often defends his assumptions by calling them 'self-evident,' when I found an equally plausible alternative that was never discussed. Let me show you what I mean. When discussing the possibility that Florence's former lover, a doctor who gave the housekeeper a mysterious bottle of poison a bit before the murder, could have done it, Ruddick examines the trial transcript of the lover's testimony.

"Did you put tartar emetic [the poison] into the bottle which you gave Mrs. Cox [the housekeeper]?"
"I had no tartar emetic to place in the bottle. And any suggestion that I did so, from whatever quarter it may come, is a wicked and infamous falsehood."
"Have you ever sed antimony, in your professional capacity?"
"Not for thirty years, not since I went to Malvern. I have not had a grain of it in my possession since 1842."
"Did you have anything to do with Mr. Bravo's death, either directly or indirectly?"
"Upon my solemn oath I declare I had nothing to do with Mr. Bravo's death, either directly or indirectly."
It was a convincing rebuke, firm and forensic.

That last sentence is Ruddick's. I didn't see anything particularly stunning in that testimony; I mean, how many guilty men on the stand are like, "Oh, now that you mention it, I did murder him!"? Ruddick then goes on to offer the definitive evidence of the doctor's innocence:

I discovered that Gully [the doctor] had founded Worcestershire's first Co-Operative Society. He also donated to the poor. He had set up medical charities. I also discovered that he had become chairman of the local council. Everywhere I looked, I found public memorials enshrining his philanthropic character. Cora Weaver, a local historian, told me that when Gully had recovered from a serious illness in 1863, the entire population of the town threw a party to celebrate, parading through the streets, and finishing with an address at his front door. Under these cirumcstances it seemed ridiculous to believe that he was behind Bravo's death.

Because someone who donates to charity is incapable of killing a man? Especially a man abusing a former lover? Really? To me, that seems quite plausible.

That kind of fallacious argumentation made reading this book quite painful; I was internally shouting at Ruddick much of the time. I can't really recommend this book, either as a portrait into Victorian life (since Ruddick didn't do his research) or as a good true crime story. However, it has inspired me to look into the case a little more, in the hopes that a better treatment of it exists.