The Girl in Hyacinth Blue

The best thing about book clubs is that you are introduced to books you wouldn't have otherwise found. The book club that I'm in now is showing me that I actually have rather narrow tastes. I tend to pick the books that I know I will like, and there are so many of those to choose from that I rarely branch out. The Girl in Hyacinth Blue is a book I would have never read, but I thought it was artfully written and thought provoking.

A Word About my Book Club

I was part of two book clubs in MN and when I got out here I missed them so when I found a notice on the bulletin board of my library asking for new members of a women's book club I called. Then I got dissed. I didn't hear a word and felt sort of pathetic that even a publicly advertised book club didn't want me. Finally though a woman named Kitty called and apologized, she'd been out of town and would love it if I would join. Yay! The first book was called Isaac's Storm and it's another perfect example of a book I'd never have picked out for myself. It was incredible. It is a true story about a hurricane that destroyed Galveston, TX in the early 1900's. It also tells the story about the early days of meteorology - amazing history and a lot more political and intriguing than you'd think.

I was a little nervous when I went to the first club meeting. But the women couldn't have been nicer. Kitty met me at the door proclaiming how happy she was I'd made it and giving me a big hug. I was by far the youngest member. Several of the women are 60+ and there are three in their 40s. One of the women is from London and another is from South Africa. Three of them are doctors. Basically it's a group of totally awesome, interesting ladies - many of them fitting the image of a grandma. And I LOVE grandmas.

Also they're all doing just fine financially.

I live in a nice neighborhood. When Jamie and I tell people where we live they tend to say, "WOW," sometimes enviously, and often with the unspoken question "how do you guys afford that?" And then we clear things up by telling them that we live in a rented garage. The ladies in my book club are legitimate homeowners in my neighborhood and each house I've visited has been more fabulous than the last. It was not long into my book club membership before I started to have twinges of anxiety over when it would be my turn to host. Sure enough, on the third month the gorgeous South African lady with the four story mansion said, "I think we should let Lori have a turn." FUCK!

The month before my turn I volunteered to give several of the ladies a lift since the hosting member Clarey lived in Puyallup - about a 20 minute drive from the neighborhood where the rest of us live. The hostess is the lady whose husband has a business fixing racecars and who has hung out with Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton. Her house was enormous and had a fireplace kind of like the one in Xanadu in Citizen Kane. We had a great time and as we were leaving the ladies in my car started to praise me for driving and expressing their gratitude that they had someone with "young eyes" to get them back and forth from Tacoma. In my defense, the lady's driveway was weird shaped and it was pitch black out. But still, literally as they were saying this I was driving about 200 yards into the middle of the lady's rain-soaked lawn. I was SO far off of the driveway that I practically needed my GPS to get back to it. The woman in the passenger seat started to warn me just as I realized that I was destroying the lady's lawn and she started laughing hysterically. It was...pretty embarrassing.

So the day finally came when I had to host the book club and I fixed up the garage house as best I could. It didn't take long since I basically only have the one room. I vacuumed and put away the cat toys and dusted. I prepared snacks. That night there was what people in Washington call a snowstorm and people in Minnesota call a dusting. All day long I sent emails and VMs back and forth as the ladies decided whether or not to come. Part of me wanted to cancel and part of me just wanted to get it over with. In the end, they came, trudging through the snow because I don't own a shovel. They were extremely gracious, complimenting me on my resourcefulness "How did you FIND this place?" and my excellent taste in location. They loved my snacks and the only really embarrassing part came when the lady whose lawn I destroyed sat in my craigslist piece of shit recliner and practically threw herself through the back wall it rocked backward so dramatically. Oh well. Long story short, the ladies are awesome.

Back to the Book

The Girl in Hyacinth Blue is written by Susan Vreeland. She writes mostly historical fiction about art and artists. This book is about a fictional painting by a real painter - Vermeer. The painting is of a girl wearing a blue dress looking out a window. The book is a collection of short stories that are all about the life of the painting. It starts with the present day owner, a man who inherited the painting from his father. It turns out his father stole the painting during World War II from the home of a Jewish that was being sent to Auschwitz. It traces the history all the way back to the day it was painted and tells the stories of all the lives that were touched by it. Each story is completely different and the number of distinct characters and voices that the author has created is impressive. My favorite story takes place in the mid 1800's in Amsterdam during an epic flood. The main character in the story is a woman whose family has had to retreat to the upper story of their house because the lower story is underwater. Her husband is a dedicated man who spends his days trying to save their farm. One day he and his children find a boat with a baby in it. Pinned to the baby's blanket is a note asking someone to care for the baby. The Vermeer painting is rolled up and also tucked in with the baby and the note instructs the finder to sell the painting in order to care for the baby.

The mother is a very sweet character. She loves the baby and she loves the painting. Neither she nor her husband have any idea the value of the painting and they have it tacked up on the wall. The husband, wracked with anxiety about how to survive the ravages of the flood is gloomy and quick-tempered. But when he's gone during the day, his wife and children and the new baby lead a happy, peaceful life. I don't quite know how to explain what is so compelling about this story other than it captures an innocence in this woman that seems very authentic. She is young and hopeful and full of love for her children, for her husband, and for life. She does not want to sell the painting because she believes it should stay with the baby but when times get tough she is forced to go into the city. She has good instincts and avoids getting swindled and finally learns that the true value of the painting can save her family...there's more to the story than this but I've already told too much.

What is interesting about the book is that each person seems to project so much of themselves into their interpretation of the painting - particularly their yearnings. The young wife believes the girl is the baby's mother, the lowly maid believes the girl is free and happy and loved, the old man sees in the girl the first woman he loved and lost. The last story is the story of the girl herself and we learn how none of the fantasies were true, how the girl's life ended up being as hard and ordinary as anyone else's. Although many of the stories have sadness in them, the book is not only sad - there is humor and joy in it as well.

The woman who picked this book reminds me SO much of my grandma. Her name is Darlene, even though I called her Shirley at one of the last book clubs because I'm ridiculously bad with names. When she was telling us that she'd selected this book for us to read she had the best expression on her face, like she couldn't wait for us to read it. Most of us liked the book, though some of the members didn't like the choppiness of the different stories, how they sort of started and stopped abruptly. I didn't mind though, I thought it was great.

I'm going to give it 3.5 Ampersands &&&.5

Clan of the Cave Bear - # 20

We like to laugh about rape in the garage house. We laugh at it because we live with it every day. My black cat Hopkins – neutered since about 3 months of age – attempts a sort of confused attempted mounting of my two pretty girl cats regularly. Barring any success doing that, he is in the midst of an obscene relationship with blankets these days. I wake up almost every night to the little man ever so gently lifting and lowering his back feet as he clutches a blanket in his mouth. This can go on for hours. Though I think the blanket is more or less consenting, the human foot or hand that is sometimes caught up in the blanket at the time is definitely not.

Rape, in a much less amusing sense, is around us geographically as well. Our review of the website neighborhoodscout.com unfortunately revealed that on a scale of 1 to 100 – with 100 being the safest and 1 being the least safe, any given street on Tacoma will rarely crack a 9. So my chances of being stolen from, assaulted, raped or murdered are roughly about the same as they would be if I lived in a Turkish prison. Just last week I read about a 66 year old man who brought a prostitute to his mobile home in Midland Tacoma, handcuffed her to his bed and spent the next several hours raping and electrocuting her.

When I started reading Clan of the Cave Bear Jamie remembered having seen the movie – starring Darryl Hannah. I’ve heard it’s not so great, but all that he could seem to remember is that Darryl Hannah is repeatedly raped in the movie. So it was with a sense of dread that I read the book and I’m happy to report that, while rape does occur, it is hardly the main point of the story.

PLOT SUMMARY

I thought COTCB was incredible. Having finished it several days ago, I’m all the more impressed with it for how vividly it’s remained in my mind and made me think about humans, gender, nature, instinct, and all sorts of things that should occupy our minds more but somehow seem not to.

This book is about a clan of Neanderthals who adopt the main character - a little homo sapien girl named Ayla. Ayla lost her own tribe in an earthquake. The book is an interesting comparison of Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens. The Neanderthals look different – they are hairier, have heavier, stronger bones, their heads are shaped differently – more like monkeys. Ayla looks like modern humans and is blonde. Another huge difference between them – in the book – is that Neanderthals can access their reptilian brain, so they share “racial memories.” Basically they can access all of the knowledge of their ancestors either by being reminded of the knowledge, or conjuring it up in ceremony. Ayla does not have this gift, but she can think abstractly and can make associations, which the clan people are incapable of doing.

Iza is the medicine woman of the tribe who finds and adopts Ayla. She is a the highest ranking female member of the clan and she totally rules. The culture of the clan is rigid and very resistant to change. It is an extremely patriarchal society. Male and female roles are so sharply delineated that if a female were to attempt performing a male duty she would be subject to a $10,000 fine and/or death (I made the fine part up.) Men have absolute power over women. Violence is used liberally in order to enforce obedience. For the most part the women do not mind or complain about their station because they accept that it is the way of things and they don’t have the mental capacity to consider rebellion. When a man is excessively violent, it is noted, but only in the most extreme cases would anyone interfere.

The clan’s religion is an important part of their culture. They believe that every person has a spiritual animal totem. It is assigned to them at birth by the spiritual leader of the clan. Totems can bring good fortune if they are happy and very bad luck if they are not. A woman’s totem must always be weaker than a man’s or she will not get pregnant. The clan’s knowledge of reproduction is not exactly impressive. They think that the way women get pregnant is that a man’s totem fights with her totem and if it loses she gets pregnant. They have not made any connection between sex and pregnancy and the concept of “father” has never occurred to them. They do have a similar relationship to father/child in that they take responsibility for their mate’s children. It doesn’t really matter who fathers the child (since they don’t know how that works) and it’s entirely possible that their mate’s children are not their own since men are allowed to have sex with whomever they please.

Ayla is special throughout the book because she is so different. Not only does she look and sound different, she thinks differently and she is compelled to act differently. For example when the spiritual leader of the group tries to explain numbers to Ayla he is “thunderstruck” when she not only easily understands it, but is effortlessly able to conceptualize numbers that he himself could not possibly understand. He says that it was only with great difficulty and diligent study that he was able to count to 20.

She is also not bred to subservience like the rest of her clan. What’s great about her is that she is not rebellious by nature, she is just herself and that is perceived as rebellious. She is actually very eager to conform. She wants to be good and obedient and she almost always is. But there’s one person in the clan who hates her to the point of obsession – Broud. Broud is the son of the clan chief’s mate and he’s a total, maniacal asshole. He is seethingly jealous of Ayla because she so often steals attention from him. It is her bad luck that the day Broud was named a man (makes his first kill hunting) she was given her animal totem – the cave lion. A woman getting a totem as strong as a cave lion is totally unheard of and it overshadows Broud’s big man ceremony. Grrrr.

But Broud is officially a man who can and does officially beat the hell out of Ayla. She’s still a little girl – less than 8 years old. However, I’ll stop and say that time is definitely relative for these people. One of the characters dies in the book. The description is something like this, “Her hair was white and limp, her face was lined with deep creases. She looked a thousand years old. She was not quite twenty-six.” My cat has a longer life expectancy. These people did some seriously hard living. So eight years old is practically an adult by their standards. Broud makes Ayla’s life as miserable as he possibly can. But Ayla – and I believe this is a very intentional theme in the book – is highly adaptable. The book is really about evolution itself. The clan are a dying race, they have no future because they are incapable of change. Ayla’s race will live and learn to dominate all other animals because they can adapt. Ayla does what she needs to do to not only survive, but flourish. When she realizes that no amount of pissyness or defiance is going to save her from Broud’s bullying, she learns to simply accept it and not let it bother her beyond the moment.

Ayla is driven by a need to learn and improve. Though she does not have the considerable gift of being able to remember all the memories of an ancient race, she is a very quick learner. She learns from Iza, the medicine woman, how to heal. She does not instinctively know the uses for all plants, but what she can do is make associations between one illness and another, and be innovative with how she uses healing remedies. Her body is not as strong as clan members’, but her limbs are longer and she is more agile. She can swim and she can wield a slingshot better than the clan members (though the latter is strictly forbidden to her.) She has a natural curiosity that cannot be quelled no matter how good her intentions. Over and over again she breaks the standards and traditions of the clan. Yet, possibly because her intentions are always innocent and good, they almost always yield some benefit for the tribe. It creates both gratitude and great uneasiness in the clan, and it stokes the hatred that Broud feels for Ayla.

Eventually, as must happen in every girl’s life, Ayla’s totem starts fighting other totems, on a monthly basis and the blood from her totem’s kill drains from her. It will soon be time for Ayla to take a mate. The problem is she is uglier than sin to the Neanderthals because of her unsightly flat forehead, fair coloring, and disturbing lack of shoulder hair. This is fine with Ayla because she has an independent spirit. She does want to be a mother, but is pretty much resigned to not having kids because really – what male totem could ever kill a cave lion totem? Right around this time Broud starts to realize that he can torture Ayla by raping her. The concept of rape is totally unknown to them. If a man wants to have sex with a woman he merely gives her the signal, she “assumes the position” and it’s business as usual. Sex is as ordinary to them as eating or collecting roots so they do it in front of each other and children imitate it. I will at this point interject that, if the behavior of my cats is any indication, there is nothing natural about female acquiescence to random male urges. When Hopkins gets within a foot of Mithril the windows shake from her screeching, and hissing and she has taken out entire filing cabinets in her attempt to flee from his “signal.”

Something in Ayla, however, does not want to assume the position for Broud, but he makes her and beats her savagely for disobeying him. This is a very fun new game to Broud and he rapes her several times a day for several months. Coincidentally, this is around the same time that a freakishly strong male totem defeats Ayla’s cave lion totem and she becomes pregnant. Ayla is thrilled by this turn of events and even forgets to mind that Broud continues to signal her that he wants to “relieve himself” with her. Now that she no longer cares, Broud is bored with it and stops.

So, Ayla dies in the book a few times. Don’t worry, none of them are permanent. The clan has a very strange way of dealing with those who break a serious clan rule. They will “kill” you. Let me explain. In a rational society this would mean that they would quite literally end your life. But in the clan world, they “spiritually” kill you – meaning they say a few words and you’re “dead.” No one can see you or hear you and you just disappear to them. Now, let me further clarify. They’re not saying that they shun you, or merely agree to ignore you. They really, really believe that you have died and, though you’re still standing there, they believe your body is just a spirit. They think you are dead. Most of the time when a person is cursed to death it is permanent and the cursee actually does end up dying because they also think they’re dead and that’s just too depressing to handle. Ayla – though not unmoved by the ceremony – also gets that she’s sort of…not dead. Ayla was only temporarily cursed for a month, and if she can somehow survive the month she’ll be able to rejoin the clan. Someone surviving temporary death has only happened once – in a legend. I’ll just go ahead and ruin the surprise and let you know that she does survive her death. The clan is convinced she was in the spirit world the whole time.

Overall, the story is about Ayla’s young adulthood – I think she’s only around 12 when the book ends but she’s behaved and been treated like a full grown woman for years. It’s about her struggles with nature, the clan and the asshole Broud who becomes leader of the clan at the end. I learned that this is only the first in a series of books and I am very interested to read the next to see what happens to her.

REVIEW

The story is very fast-paced. I sort of dreaded reading the book, both because of Jamie’s recollection of the movie and because Nikki read it and didn’t like it at all. However, I couldn’t put it down and I think it was remarkably well written. I love it when I get sucked into a book that I don’t expect to like. I know that Nikki was irritated by the sexism in the book and of course it can be difficult to stomach. But I read it as a feminist book because it shows the indomitable spirit of this bright girl who never seeks revenge, but is constantly vindicated. She is an uncommonly strong character and one who is totally, believably unaware of her own greatness. She has been criticized her whole life for what makes her great, so she is practically ashamed of her accomplishments. I would tell more of the plot, but I do not want to spoil it for anyone and I definitely encourage you to read it.

Something that struck me about Ayla’s character was how happy she usually was. She would run through the woods, practice hunting, gather herbs, and be absolutely joyful. Being free to be herself was all that she needed to find peace and happiness. And while it’s easy to make fun of the clan’s superstitions, ceremonies, and batshit beliefs, there is something enviable about a society that holds so much sacred. There is a very fine line between genuine reverence and hypocrisy – especially when religion is involved. However, in our world that has lost its freaking mind and maybe even its soul, the thought of there being something sacred is beautiful. I love to laugh at things. I was just making jokes about rape, which if you think about it, isn’t all that funny. The clan’s values were unshakable, and most of them were pretty decent. Be loyal, contribute something with your talents, take care of each other... what values do we have now? Look at what we’re doing to each other and to the rest of the world. For more COTCB deep thought by LoLo, stay tuned for Part II…

RATING
I’m going with &&&& - four Ampersands! Definitely list-worthy.

For your Reading PLEASURE

For a few years now I've been wishing there were a site where you could go to read news that is - if not happy - at least not likely to give you a churning feeling in your chest that resembles what I assume a heart attack feels like and makes you stare into space in despair. You may or not have noticed that practically every newspaper or news site is about 98% awful, awful news.

But occasionally there is a gem of happy news buried amid the muck. I usually skim several news sites a day and I think I'm going to use this blog as a place to post happy-ish news. Knowing me I'll probably only do this once, but in case I get consistent about it, thought you'd like to know why.

Here's today's finds:

This article is pretty bland, but it did give me a moment to think and it's message is positive:


I really dig this article about "wave energy" - Luke, check it out...


Kind of a cool article about a possible vaccine for malaria.


This one is just entertaining -- what the???

Ender's Game - #65

For some reason I don't consider myself a fan of sci-fi even though I've totally enjoyed the few sci-fi books I've read. This book intrigued me because for a sci-fi book to be on a list of favorite novels of librarians, I figured it must be awesome.

IT TOTALLY IS!

I'm just going to dive right in. Ender's Game takes place in a futuristic society that has done away with all religion and strictly controls the population by allowing only two children per family. The society is still dealing with the affects of an alien war that they narrowly won. They call the aliens "Buggers" and children play "Buggers" the way that kids in the pre-"Oh yeah, we totally fucked the Indians over" era played cowboys and Indians.

Because of this war, recruitment to their version of an army is a big part of society and they recruit children at a very young age. The recruitment process involves studying high-potential children by monitoring them visually. If you show enough potential you will be assigned a "monitor" which is basically a video camera that is attached to your neck. You wear it for years, while you are studied by army recruiters. Ender's family is of great interest to the army for some reason, and his older brother and sister were both monitored. Neither made the cut for reasons unknown, but came close enough that Ender's parents were given the rare privelige of having a third child. That's Ender.

I won't be ruining much of the surprise by telling you that Ender does make the cut. The rest of the story is about his experiences as he trains in the army. One of the things I liked about the novel is that it doesn't soften Ender's experience because he is so young -- only six years old when he first enters. His life is pretty much awful, but he's such a bloody genius that you can see why (sort of) the army pushes him so hard.

The author is incredible at describing his world. The children live in zero gravity and Orson Scott Card describes this experience so well that you can totally envision living in that environment. The war games that the children play in zero gravity are complex, but still easy to understand. Unlike stupid-ass Quidditch (Harry Potter) you actually get the point of what they're doing and the scenes are exciting. I got the sense that Card's imagination had brought Ender's world to life to such an extent that he wasn't creating the world in the book, but observing it.

There is an interesting parallel story about Ender's siblings -- whom he doesn't see -- and what they're doing while Ender is in the army. His brother is basically evil and his sister is practically angelic. You begin to see that Ender's strength was his more moderate character -- that is why he was chosen. However, his siblings are no less special or brilliant than Ender. It makes for good reading and sets context for what is going on in the world while Ender is in his highly sheltered environment of army training.

I don't want to give any more of the book away but I will say that there is a jaw-dropping twist at the end. I was so taken by surprise that it was almost embarrassing. AWESOME.

This is a book that stays with you. I really enjoyed it and highly recommend it.

&&&&& -- FIVE AMPERSANDS!!!

WHAT'S COMING UP:

The Clan of the Cave bear by Jean Auel

Number 33 - Cold Sassy Tree

Cold Sassy Tree was number 33 on The List. After reading it, I was surprised that it's on the list at all, let alone in the top 50. It's not that I didn't like it, I just wasn't blown away by it. At my book club meeting when I told people that I had just read it, there were gasps and exclamations about how truly wonderful the book is. I wonder if I am missing something?

PLOT SUMMARY

This book takes place in 1906 in a little town called Cold Sassy in Georgia. Cold Sassy is named after a Sassafrass tree that stands in the town. Hence the book's title. The author writes the accent of the characters in - ex: "What we go'n do, Will Tweedy, we go'n line yore grandma's grave with these here roses." This goes on throughout the book and you get used to it, though I know one of my readers didn't like this and quit reading it early on. It had the effect of making me feel an overwhelming urge to speak in a Southern twang the week that I was reading it, which I only surpressed when other people were around.

The story is told from the first-person perspective of Will Tweedy, a 14-year-old boy. He's a likeable character, which greatly enhances the story. There is a sharp contrast between the way he behaves and the way modern kids behave. No talking back at all, they worked their asses off pretty much non-stop and unquestioningly obeyed their elders.

The main event in the story revolves around Will's grandfather. His wife, Will's grandma has very recently died. She was a hugely important figure in the family, and her daughers and grandchildren miss her very much. It is a great scandal when Will's grandpa announces that he is getting married only three weeks after Grandma is buried.

I probably need to emphasize again how much of a scandal this is. It's 1906, and people still are expected to observe a full year of mourning when someone close to them dies. Mourning entails wearing nothing but black, and abstaining from pretty much every fun activity. It would be scandalous for Will to play football, so that might shed some light on how scandalous it is for Grandpa to actually marry someone else. Not only is it way, way, way too soon, the woman is very young, not even 30 years old - she is younger than Grandpa's oldest daughter.

Grandpa is an eccentric man who enjoys success as the owner of the town's only general good store. He gets away with a lot, including picking fist fights and drinking whiskey in the middle of the day. He's a complex character and I'm not sure whether I like him or not. He seems wise because he doesn't let the opinion of others, or social propriety influence him, but he also has the ability to be very mean to people. His son-in-law, a man who is chronically unsuccessful, slow and maybe even stupid, takes many harsh, public criticisms from Grandpa. Will is a favorite of his though and from his perspective, you also see Grandpa's many good qualities.

The woman he's planning on marrying - Miss Love -- is very pretty and the object of Will's desire, although he never acts upon it. Everyone wonders why in the world she would marry the old man, and assume it is because she is after his money. In truth, she marries him because he tells her he'll leave her his house if she will marry him. He says he wants her to be his wife in name only and to act more as a housekeeper than wife. She has had a very hard life, and to her this sounds like a good deal.

The town shuns the couple, despite the fact that Miss Love is very sweet. She brings many positive changes to Grandpa's life, including getting him to improve his appearance, make changes to the store and to the house. This only makes Grandpa's daughters angrier, as she is given things that Grandma never got - like a brand new car and indoor plumbling.

Eventually it comes out the Grandpa is very much in love with Miss Love, and they start a love story, all of which is witnessed and narrated by Will.

REVIEW

The book is charming, and captures the differences between life back then and life
today. There are things that seem like they were so much better - people knew each other, helped their neighbors, lived a simpler life. There are things that sound intolerable - you were judged for everything, life was harder and there was an endless amount of work and a very finite amount of freedom. It was fun to read about how an entire town would get wildly excited about one person buying a car. THere's a subplot that involves Will's love for a girl who is very much from the wrong side of the tracks and therefore completely forbidden. That was interesting and sweet. Interesting things happen in the book -- Will is run over by a train and you find out that Miss Love had a VERY sordid past. Still, I found the plot to be a little slow, and all in all, was just left with a feeling of being underwhelmed by the book.

RATING
I have to give this one && -- Two ampersands

I know this review is totally boring, but eh -- that's what happens when the book is kind of boring. Stay tuned. I'm currently reading #65 - Enders Game...and LOVING it..

41 down, 59 to go -- woohoo!

The Girl Who Played with Fire

Those of you who read my last blog will remember that I was nearly finished with the second of Stieg Larson's trilogy of books - The Girl Who Played with Fire. Well now I'm done. I have since learned that this trilogy is being referred to as the "Millenium" trilogy.

Let me back up a bit and talk about the background of these books. The first was published in 2004. They've been hugely succesful worldwide and have launched a thousand movies -- or at least 9. The author's story is dramatically tragic in that he died only a few months before the first book was published. So, basically he didn't get to enjoy even a second of the phenomenal success. I'm very pissed off at God on Stieg's behalf.

As I mentioned in my half-assed blog, the book is about Lisbeth Salander, a 4'11" 90-pound girl with a penchant for Billy's Pan Pizza and being badass. She's taken more than her share of beatdowns from life. One of her predators says that she just looked like a victim, so he felt he had to prey on her. There's something that I really don't like about the author putting that in there. Anyway, she's a bit nutty and her social skills make Rainman look outgoing and easy to talk to. But she's a bloody genius at almost everything and has a strong sense of right and wrong.

The first book is kind of self-contained. It introduces you to Lisbeth and her friend (as much as she's capable of having friends), Mikael Blomkvist. Blomkvist is an idealistic reporter who works for the magazine Millenium. In the first novel they meet and together work on solving a really interesting mystery about a young girl who disappeared 32 years earlier. I won't go into the plot of the first book too much, but it's important to note that during their investigation they discover a truly twisted family - like Texas Chainsaw Massacre family twisted - only in Sweden and with a lot more money.

The second book is all about Lisbeth. The first book left you with many questions about pieces of her past that were merely alluded to. The second book answers most, if not all, of those questions. She refers to a time in her life when she was 12 years old and "All the Evil" happened. You find out what "All The Evil" was in the second book. By the way, I think I need to start using that phrase more in my everyday life to vagulely refer to the unspeakable hardships I've had to endure. Example:

My wrist used to be straight. Then, "All The Evil" happened and now I'm hideously deformed.

Our government used to be semi-tolerable until "All The Evil" happened in the 2000 Election and He Who Must Not Be Named became President (slipped in some Harry Potter there too - bonus!)

My career seemed to be on track and then All The Evil happened with the economy and I haven't had a pay raise since.

Anyway, in GWPWF Lisbeth is enjoying new-found wealth that she acquired in the first book. She suddenly has like a quarter of a billion kronor. This is the equivalent of about $40 million US. It's a clumsy conversion rate -- something like .14 cents = 1 kronor so I never really know how much money she has. But even though a kronor isn't what it used to be, hundreds of a millions of them do add up and Lisbeth is living the good life. I also really like the word kronor and think we should start using it to refer to money in general. For example, "I'm working overtime, hoping to pick up some extra kronor this weekend." or "I made mad kronor bartending at the Vault last night" (shout out to Janell!)

The book starts out kind of fun with Lisbeth spending her kronor on a crazy fly apartment and furnishing it with a spending spree at IKEA. She has also spent the last year travelling around the world which would also be awesome. Little do we know that Lisbeth's carefree days are about to come to an end -- cue dramatic music.

Here's the problem with these books. They have a lot of improbable coincidences. I mean, I know Sweden isn't a huge country but the odds that Salandar and Blomkvist keep getting mixed up with the same people through independent means seem kind of long. Sweden has a pretty low number of violent crimes each year, and most of them seem to be perpetrated on Lisbeth. Blomkvist is the luckiest journalist alive, getting scoops of the century in his lap every couple of months. That kind of thing.

Nonetheless Stieg did his best to make the convenient associations seem believable and it didn't interfere with my enjoyment too much.

So in GWPWF Lisbeth is the subject of a nation-wide manhunt for committing a crime that you're reasonably certian she didn't commit. The worst part about this book is that there are about 150 pages where Lisbeth just disappears and you're forced to get to know a whole new group of characters who you aren't interested in and follow them as they try to piece together who Lisbeth is from the few clues they can find. One of the cops is the stereotyical sexist, aggressive pig who literally can't get one sentence out without first dunking it in hostile bigotry. That's one thing that I don't forgive -- the one-dimensional character. No Stieg, I can't forgive you that.

There's one character in this book who's really interesting. He's a "giant" - they call him that several times -- who can't feel pain. He has Homer Simpson disease. So you can beat the living hell out of him and he won't back down. His own punches are like Drago's in Rocky IV - enough to kill a person with one blow (R.I.P. Apollo.) His weapon of choice is a chainsaw. Anyway, they paint a pretty vivid picture of the guy and I don't mind telling you after reading about him for several pages a girl can sure get spooked by the motion sensor light in the alley outside her garage/house inexplicably coming on at 1:30 in the morning.

The main difference between this book and GWTDT is that the story doesn't really end and immediately carries into book 3. You could read Book 1 and be done, but Book 3 is definiely required reading if you're going to pick up Book 2.

Some Thoughts:

-- I liked GWTDT better than GWPWF. The story was tighter, more clever, and more realistic.

-- GWPWF finds Lisbeth discovering yet another horrible Texas Chainsaw Massacre-esque dysfunctional family. The little lady has zero luck.

-- I think Stieg started to fall in love with Lisbeth a bit in GWPWF. She's becoming a superhero instead of just a very interesting person. She's just too awesome -- wicked smart, an amazing fighter, always, always one step ahead of the dozens of people who are after her, uncompromisingly moral...it starts to feel like he's having an A Few Good Men moment with his main character.

-- Blomkvist is also a little too perfect. I think Stieg maybe wanted to be Blomkvist -- cool, smart, open-minded, brave, and good with the ladies

Lest you think I'm being a hater, I did like this book. I burned through it pretty quickly and have already taken a chunk out of the third one. I recommend the whole series, just felt it was my duty to pick on a dead man's greatest work...that's all...

The Books I've Been Reading, or A Very Half-Assed Post

The road to blog hell is paved with good intentions. Long story short: Books read - 5+, Books blogged - shamefully 0. I had intended to blog each of them, painting rich tapestries with my vivid observations. But that didn't happen, so you'll have to settle for this:

1. Lucky Girls

This was a collection of short stories that I feel like I read an eternity ago because I can barely remember any of them. Each story has to do with an American girl who is either living in another country (most often the Middle East) or in some way associated with another country. They all also have to do with a romance of some sort -- but respectable, literary romance, not smut romance (which we'll get to later on in the post.) The one I most remember was about a high school girl who was living in India and had an Indian tutor who was super smart. They talked about that one story where all Earthlings live on Venus or something and it only rains once every seven years and the girl is the only one who remembers rain because she came to Venus later or something...anyway the one day it rains the evil children lock her in a closet and she misses it. Now that I think about it it's pretty half-assed of the author to base her short story on another person's short story...but I can respect that.

2. The Spook's Apprentice: Revenge of the Witch
This is a series of YA books that Jamie and I read together before bed and they all rule. This was one of those super skinny books that are comprised of the little story nuggets the author didn't fit into the actual novels that they throw at readers as crumbs until the next real book comes out. It was delicious.

3. Quivers: A Life

I love Robin Quivers (Howard Stern's sidekick.) I read the book because in the basically bi-weekly "Howard's Life in Review" shows they put on the air when Howard is on vacation they talk about how crazy it was when this book came out - how shocking to everyone on the show. I found her to be much more of a lunatic than I would have guessed. She's a ball of fury through most of the book - she was really mean to Howard. I was shocked. But her life is definitely fascinating. She's intelligent and interesting. She's also unapologetically selfish which is refreshing because I am too and it's nice to have a wealthy, successful role model. If you're a fan of Howard Stern, I'd say it's a must-read, and if you're not you'll probably still be diverted by it.

4. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell

Ugh. In Citizen Kane, Kane says "If I hadn't been very rich, I might have been a really great man." I can't help but think of that line when I reflect on JSaMN. If it hadn't been 900 fucking pages, it might have been a really great book. It was one of those asshole books that has a truly compelling story, but self-indulgently goes off on 200 page tangents about side plots and ancillary characters that are bizoring. So you stick with it because you really want to know how the main plot is going to get resolved and you lose chunks of your life that you'll never get back wading through excruciatingly detailed descriptions of things that just don't matter. I suspect that's what my blog readers feel every time they get an update from me. At least I'm considerate enough to space them about 6 months apart.

Anyway, because I wouldn't subject anyone to the unabridged version of JSaMN I'm going to summarize the plot here.

The story takes place in England during the Napoleanic wars. The premise is that magic used to be very commonplace in England in the previous two centuries, but over the years it has fallen away until all that people do is study magic -- they don't practice it. The study of magical theory is a very gentlemanly passtime and typically only rich people with no jobs do it.

So this one character who is basically unimportant but about whom you learn quite a bit, is at a meeting of gentlemanly magic scholars and asks why there are no practical magicians left in England. This starts a debate and ends up in someone saying that there's a guy in York or something who is supposed to have the best magical library in the country and why don't they go see him. Well, the library guy is Mr. Norrell.

Mr. Norrell's character is really interesting. The author was amazing at character development. Norrell's an actual practical magician and he is utterly intent on hoarding all the magical knowledge in England. He quietly dupes all of the practical magicians into agreeing to give up magical study and buys up all the books in the whole country, refusing to grant access to anyone else. You totally dislike him, he's got an incredibly weak and petty character. Yet, he's a three-dimensional person and somehow, sometimes you see the good side of him, like you do with people in real life who suck.

He wants to bring magic back to England so he asks the English government if he can assist them in the war against Napoleon. They take no interest in him because they don't really believe in magic anymore until he brings back one of the Ministers' wife from the dead. However, in order to bring her back he has to invoke the help of a Faery (Faeries in the book are not tinkerbellish, more satanish. But really more like the Ned Flanders Satan in the Treehouse of Horror than the biblical Satan.) Because of the resurrection, Norrell becomes an overnight success and is very famous throughout the country for bringing magic back. He is commissoned to help the English Army and does cool things like make fake navy fleets out of rain to fool the French, etc.

So then along comes Jonathan Strange who has so much natural talent that he's become fairly adept at practicing magic himself even without instruction or books. He's a pretty charming guy and much more likeable than Norrell even though he's kind of self-involved and neglectful of his lovely wife. He is at first targeted by Mr. Norrell as a mortal enemy, but eventually Norrell meets Strange and is so intrigued by his magical ability that he ends up taking him in as his student. He still won't let Strange read most of his books and sometimes deliberately misleads him in his studies, but he's more or less cool to him.

Meanwhile the lady who Norrell brought back from the dead -- Lady Pole -- is living an absolute nightmare because the Faery owns half of her life. So in the evenings he brings her to some alternate universe and she attends balls with the same guests every single night and she is only half alive and very, very unhappy. He also sucked Lady Pole's black servant into the alternate universe. It's kind of funny because the Faery put a spell on Pole and the servant so that if they try to tell anyone about the Faery's curse, they can't do it. Instead, they start going off in detail about some strange subject, like Julius Caesar, or plants. The Faery - LOVES - the black servant and is trying to make him the King of England. It's kind of funny how much he adores the black servant, who really hates and is afraid of the Faery. The Faery has total magical ability and can pretty much do anything he wants in the human world. He's often pretty whimsical in his actions -- he's always giving the black servant priceless treasures, like ancient golden scepters and a crown (wants him to be King) but he can also be unspeakably cruel in the most casual way. The Ned Flanders as Satan comparison is apt.

So Strange ends up going to Spain to help fight Napoleon and he hones his magical ability by doing kind of cool things to help the army. For example, if the French Army is getting close, he'll just move the road that they're travelling on to America, or make it lead in a completely different direction. It talks about how angry Spain was getting because he was completely changing their geography.

After about 700 pages the plot finally progresses and Strange's wife is captured by the Faery. By this time Strange and Norrell have parted ways because Strange no longer needs Norrell and disagrees with him on a lot of magical philosophy. Another kind of funny thing that happens is that Strange writes a book refuting a lot of the things that Norrell has said. But Norrell puts a spell on all of the books so that whenever anyone tries to read them the pages go blank. He's such a dick.

In order to free his wife, Strange needs to join forces with Norrell, which he does. Though they are able to free Lady Pole, the servant and Strange's wife, the magic that they use to do it casts Strange into a kind of eternal nighttime, where wherever he goes it becomes very dark, and he is left to wander the world alone in search of a cure for the curse. Doesn't seem fair since Norrell's the one who caused all the problems, but such is life.

So, if the plot doesn't sound that compelling, I have to say it's really the intense character development that is what makes you care. You are really interested in Norrell and Strange, as well as some of the minor characters, like Lady Pole, Norrell's servant and Strange's wife.

VERY UN-FUN FACT: This book was written with a really odd quirk. It has footnotes -- hundreds of them...like it's a history book. So, at least once a page you'll be directed to a footnote with a completley unrelated tidbit about whatever it is you're reading. For example the story will talk about something Norrell says about a certain book. Then there'll be a paragraph or two in a footnote at the bottom of the page with all sorts of information about the spell, the author of the book that the spell was in, etc. Sometimes they were several pages long. It was totally distracting and annoying and I got to the point where I just ignored them.

That is all about JSaMN

5. Random Harlequin Presents novels

I don't have a lot to say about these. I was at a used book store and I got nostalgic over a cart of old Harlequin novels that cost only $2 for 5. I grabbed 5 and read a few of them. I think I read 3. They were so awful. They were all written in the early 80's -- and get this strange coincidence: Two of the novels' heroines were raising children that weren't their own. But everyone thought the kids were theirs and were super mean and jugemental about them having an illegitimate child. Two of the totally different books, out of 3 , had this plot line. w.t.f? Also, the books were terribly, laughably sexist. The guys were totally unappealing...especially the cover pics. The ideal image of a man has definitely changed since 1982. If I get some motivation, I'll scan some of the pics in.

6. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Yes, I'm jumping on the GWTDT bandwagon. For those who don't know, this series of books was written by a Swedish author and take place in Sweden. I love the bizarre little Swedish things that don't make sense to me. For example, they all seem to do their full-on grocery shopping at 7-11. The main character - Lisbeth - eats something called "Billy's Pan Pizzas" by the gross and I feel like I'm supposed to know what that is. They talk about "American gangster movies" a lot. They make a couple of references to a Swedish leader who was assassinated about 15 years ago in real life and they had to add a little asterisk for all of the globally ignorant American readers telling what the hell they're talking about. No one owns a car, they just rent one when they need it. Nearly every man is violent towards women. Cute little local things like that...

The story is interesting, moves along really quickly. You like Lisbeth and her buddy, Blomkvist. My one reservation is about the graphic violence towards women. I read a critical article about it in Entertainment Weekly about how the very feminist male author is clearly trying to condemn the violence, yet there is a gratuitousness to it that seems exploitative. That bothers me a little, but I do get a lot of satisfaction from watching the poor, wronged Lisbeth get her sick and decidedly adequate revenge on the evil Swedish predators...I especially like her tattoo and butt plug revenge (makes you want to read it, doesn't it?)

It's a long book, about 700 pages, and that's about the length of the other two books. I've got about 100 pages left of book two, so stay tuned.

You may have noticed that none of these books are on my librarian list - the reason for this blog. Sue me. I've got Alice in Wonderland coming up and then Cold Sassy Tree will be next. I will try to be more focused in my task!!!

LoLo Out