Category Archives: Literature in the Lymes

“Swannsong” by Ann Blair Kloman

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A serendipitous encounter placed this book in my lap.  It is, I believe, the first book in what I hope will be a series of murder mysteries set on the perfectly picturesque coast of Maine.  My fondness for this genre obviously precedes me and I am happy to say that, with a few tweaks, this will be a great series.

The protagonist is supposedly a young, blind horticulturist, who literally trips over a body, and then figures out “who-done-it.”My one caveat: do not believe this back-of-the-book synopsis.  While this may be something to aim for in future books and is perhaps a small editing hiccup, it oversimplifies this story.

In “Swannsong,” there are many protagonists and they are absolutely all worth hearing from.
Initially I was concerned that there were too many proverbial cooks in the kitchen.  Each character is individually diverting and I found it hard to keep them straight and to find a central opinion.  A more selective narration will be a plus.  It is a testament to Anne Blair Kloman that It did not take long to overcome this and really start to enjoy the setting and the plot.
The veneer of a lovely bastion of wealthy waspdom is cracked open when the difficult matriarch is found dead.
As the purveyor of the Swann family money, Bea has lorded over the family compound on the coast of Maine.  Her two sons( Ian, Colin), their partners (Graham, Grace), her errant daughter (Robin), her niece (Emily), the two greenhouse employees (Thea, Hannah), her lawyer (Stuart) and her grandchildren (Clay, Carrie), among others, all find her obstreperous for varying reasons.
Mrs Kloman paints a really lovely portrait of moneyed Maine.  Blooming hydrangea, weathered clapboard, terrace breakfasts, it is all entrancing … whacking and poisoning aside.  When Beatrice Swann turns up dead after an elaborately snazzy but morose family birthday dinner, things start to get interesting.  When her son Colin is murdered as well, it gets better still.  Well, worse for Colin, of course, but better for the reader.
Who is killing off the Swann family and why?  Money?  Power?  Lust?  All of the above of course.  The web of deceit and extrapolation involves everyone.
Hannah and Stuart go to Australia to trail the missing daughter Robin. Mac and his partner, Watty are handling the policework. Emily, Graham, Ian, and Grace all appear to go on as usual which strikes a mildly discordant note. Things in the Swann family are more unsettled than we thought …
Even the grandchildren are involved in sordid activities by association. There are many many roads down which to venture.  Questions lurk behind every Rosa Rugosa.  Anne Kloman certainly has the goods to keep us entranced, but we need to be careful navigating a veritable cornucopia of information.
The benefit of multiple first person narratives is a panoramic view.  The danger is lack of focus leading to a great disparity of relevant facts.  If Thea is to be touted as the protagonist, as she is on the book jacket, we should see it predominantly from her perspective.  She is one of many characters, luckily all extremely likable and/or interesting, but not the stand out.  In fact, Thea is really the only one from whom we don’t hear a lot.  I would happily have read loads more about her.  She, like the others, is very developable.
I would not dream of spilling the beans as I highly recommend “Swannsong” to anyone who loves a good mystery, but I hope to see Thea (or even Hannah, Mac or Stuart) as a slightly more focused, integral gumshoe in the future.  Every mystery needs a facilitator. This is a marvelous mix of horticulture, personality, setting and mystery.  With a few leadership modifications, it is the start of a considerably satisfying series.

“Wicked” and “Son of a Witch” by Gregory Maguire

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What is scary right now is how cold my coffee is, but, in honor of Halloween, I’ll tell you about something else interesting and scary.

Gregory Maguire’s books, “Wicked,” and its sequel, “Son of A Witch.”  (Isn’t that just the best name for a sequel?)  Luckily, the name is wonderful because the first book is by far the best.  However, anyone who remembers watching, “The Wizard of Oz” every single time it came on TV will enjoy these books.  In sooth. many of Gregory Maguire’s books are great.*

“Wicked” is the story of the wicked witch of the West, Elphaba Thropp.  Maguire gives us a truly magical and enigmatic look at her real life.  Beyond the story we all know.  She is born green.  Wonderfully, horrifyingly green with a visceral dislike of water.

She is from a good family gone awry.  She has siblings and powerful friends.  Nessarose becomes the Witch of the East.  Her roommate at boarding school, Galinda, is a narcissistic bottle blonde with a penchant for the Munchkins.  Who do you think she becomes?

Elphaba becomes many things.  A hurt child, a popular figure, a cult hero, a scapegoat, and finally, a bitter rebel.  She is good and she is evil.  She is delicious.  It is with amazement that we are presented with the story we already knew.  Dorothy, who is a pain, the monkeys, the lion and so many more.
I’ll leave the rest as surprises.
Beyond the wildly creative aspersions cast about, the book is a savy, political commentary and, concurrently, very amusing.  The lion wakes up with the,” distinct feeling [he’s] not in Oz anymore.”
The strife in Oz goes beyond the predictable.  Unrest and racism abounds.  Both animals and Animals (those who speak) are under fire.  Munchkins and Trolls, Ozmas and the wizard all are loaded with controversy.  The fact that the characters are familiar adds layer upon layer of entendre.
The landscape is reflective of all of this, as in, “A fern could unfurl with a snap that knocked you six steps toward a sanitorium.”
Maguire’s fairy tale grows prosaically calignostic, but we aren’t so afraid of this darkness as entranced by it.  “Halcyon is never so sweet as memory makes it,” … maybe we never really understood Oz.  The world of Oz is so real, so well- described as to be tangible.
 
“Son of a Witch” is the story of Elphaba’s son Liir.  It is less familiar and consequently, slightly less magical, but still good.  The political upheaval grows more sepulchral and the underground world we visit is brilliantly creepy.  Sadly, as the story grows, so does our discontentment.  We feel at odds with and separated from the story we knew.  Maguire gets bogged down in the world he has fashioned and we long for the magic of “Wicked.”
I am currently reading (and quoting here) the third book, “A Lion Among Men,” which appears, so far, not to have achieved the original captivating dexterity of the first.  Start with “Wicked.”  Gregory Maguire is absolutely a writer worth exploring.  Read “Wicked” whilst eating the candy you have pilfered from your child’s Halloween bag while they were sleeping.  You’ll feel better.
* “Mirror Mirror” and “Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister” are as good as “Wicked.”  “What-the-Dickens”, “Tales of a Rogue Tooth Fairy,” and “Lost” are not as good.  How’s that for diplomacy?  Look for me as, “Equal Opportunity Reviewer of the Year,” whilst VOTING on Tuesday.

“The Lady and the the Unicorn” by Tracy Chevalier

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Good easy read.  Lots of fun without lots of meat.  Blah blah blah.  I am being diplomatic. The book was good and I enjoyed reading it, but I suppose I was missing more seriousness.  Coming from me this sounds ludicrous, I know, but it can not be helped.

The famous tapestries of The Lady and The Unicorn are worthy of more.  Tracy Chevalier does a wonderful job giving us an outline of a story to fit the pictures, but it lacks the majesty of the tapestries themselves.*
In her book, we see how the tapestry is commissioned, executed and used by its imagined original creators and owners.

Jean le Viste, a social climber who spares no expense painting himself (almost literally), as the blue-blooded aristocrat he wishes to be.  He commissions a series of tapestries to be painted by Nicholas des Innocents and woven by a member of the renowned weavers guild in Belgium.

The story tells of passions won and lost; of loves scorned and discovered.  Loves that almost were and almost weren’t. Gag.  It is almost as predictable hokey as that sounds.  You can tell who will do what and go where with whom and probably what low cut number they’ll have on.  Danielle Steele in 1490.
The plot is certainly fluid and moves along nicely.  The best parts, the parts that I found most palatable are the artistic bents of those involved.  I would like to have heard more about the colors, the exact blues dyed by the rancid weaver Jacques Le Boeuf.  The millefleurs woven secretly by Christine du Sablon.  The florid gardens of Alienor de la Chapelle deserve more attentiveness and aroma.  Pun intended.
There are interesting characters, the witless sexpot Marie- Celeste and the nasty steward, shine undeveloped as two.
As I write, I realize that what really would have helped is length.  More detail about Claude’s imprisonment at the nunnery or why Nicholas turns to lust to unsuccessfully fill his emptiness.  Tracy Chevalier is certainly a good historical fictionalist – maybe an editor had her trim this.  An unfortunately scalping, as it would be very good with more.
* The Lady and The Unicorn is one of six tapestries made in Flanders in the late 15th century. They were commissioned by a nobleman of Charles VII named Le Viste. They do indeed bear his arms. They were rediscovered in poor condition in 1841 and their restoration was championed by the novelist George Sand. They are currently at the Cluny museum in Paris.

“The Professor and the Madman” by Simon Winchester

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If you like words (as we all now know, I do*) hold on to your horses.  More fun than the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) online; an entire book of bombastic pontification.

Well, the review is at least.

Simon Winchester takes a fabulous subject and tells a marvelous story.

The OED began its current incarnation, as the literary analog to the great masterpieces of literature, in 1857.  It took 70 years to reach its initial collection of 414,825 definitions.  Each one a marvel of almost unambiguous information.  The linguistic roots, the context of usage, the common and uncommon definitions, pronunciation, groups, sub-groups et al.It took tens of thousands of entries from many more people, the Professor (James Murray) and the madman (Dr. William Minor) being two of the most prodigious contributors.

Winchester wades through the technical to present the emotional story between these two men, who so aided the creation of one of the world’s most essential books.  We see these two men for more than their contributive import.

As Winchester depicts their individual lives and how they came together, he becomes a little mired in historical details, but we eventually find how one slip of paper, an appeal for volunteers, made its way to an institution for the criminally insane.
Dr. William Chester Minor was incarcerated for murder.  A wealthy, American-born, Yale-educated military surgeon, he had become delusional.  After intentionally shooting a stranger in 1871, whom he believed to be stalking him, he was committed for life to Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum.  As an increasingly privileged inmate, books became his life and the appeal by James Murray, to whom the enormous undertaking of compiling a new dictionary had been given, was a lifeline.
Professor James Murray, a meticulously self-educated academic whirlwind, had convinced the Oxford Delegates to allow him, “to edit, on behalf of the Philological Society of London, The New English Dictionary on Historical Principles.”
Millions of volunteers would be invited to present relevant information and, of them, Dr. Minor became the most exhaustive.
His clever adumbration of the words he presented was wildly appreciated.  Entries thus far had been uselessly vague and disorganized.  Contrarily, Minor submitted carefully collated definitions that were easily found when needed.  He became an invaluable commodity.  Ironically, the more voluminous he became, the madder he went … ”as came the madness, so came the words.”
By 1884, the first publishing of A-Ant in the OED – all 352 pages – was a success.  Murray had instilled the military-like work ethic in his new workplace. 1,029 pigeon holes were built and papers covered all imaginable surfaces by the ton.  At a goal of only 33 words a day, it was becoming an epic undertaking.
Murray, becoming increasingly beholden to the great Dr. Minor, invites him to visit Oxford.  Years of invitations are rebuffed.  He even declines the famous celebratory Chateau d’Yquem-soaked dictionary dinner (Oct. 12,1897.)  How could such an imposing personage remain so silent?  Surely the company of his peers and a great bottle of 1889 Pfungst champagne should entice him?But no.

Murray finally writes, “You and I have known each other through correspondence for 17 years and it is a sad fact that we have never met.”  He suggests making a visit to Dr. Minor, who Murray believes lives in a village 50 miles away, and amazingly Dr. Minor accepts.
With a sense of foreboding, Murray sets out to visit Minor, the gentle doctor he imagines sequestered on his fine estate, and finds a surprisingly discordant state of affairs.  Impressively, he is not deterred by his findings.
Also pleasingly surprising is the fact that they continued to maintain their friendship for another few decades.  Murray found Minor to be not only a physical mirror image of himself but, apart from the delusions, the clever mind he had anticipated.
The press made much of this meeting and of the pair, and, despite the adversity, they grew to respect one another.  The Connecticut Yankee and the Scotsman, in spite of all obstacles, were friends until the end.
Now that your interest is piqued, I will not tell all, but, by no means, is there a happy ending, other than the existence of the OED.  Make sure to read the Postscripts and Author’s Notes at the end.
The Professor and The Madman is a book that needed writing and certainly deserves reading.
 * Upon showing my parents an admissions essay I wrote at age 12, both sets of parental eyes were set a roll at my usage of wan, dour, lugubrious, consanguineous, and Lord knows what else.  Why use one word when six sesquipedalian ones can be had?  We all appreciate the existence of the OED and the sedulous drudgery that went into its creation.

“When You Are Engulfed In Flames” by David Sedaris

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Of David Sedaris, I am a big fan.

Well, I’m five foot four, but you know what I mean.

David Sedaris, also apparently somewhat diminutive, makes up for this with a Napoleonic attitude. His books all exude a measure of Woody Allen-ness;  they cry, “I am small and shy, but, boy, do I have some pent-up angst that I will backhandedly divulge!”

There are many kinds of humor, but mainly, it can be separated into two opposing camps.  You laugh with me or you laugh at me.  Superficially, Sedaris has us laughing with him at the multitude of riotous personal situations he has endured.  American tourists fighting under his Parisian window, jerks on airplanes, heinous babysitters and more.
It then gets complicated because, in actuality, his humor is self-cudgeling.  Like Woody Allen, Sedaris is offering up his sins and trials for our entertainment.  There is no denying that David Sedaris is shamelessly funny, but be careful to remember that laughing at him is a double-edged sword.
I sound like the school teacher I was, but with any humor it is dangerous to excuse the comic too easily.  The recent spate of movies (think “Borat”) encourage us to make fun of people without including ourselves in that definition. Exclusionary humor is a tough genre to embrace.  Laughing is a necessity, but laughing solely at others, especially for their misfortune, is cruel.
But I digress – “When You Are Engulfed In Flames” is, like the rest of Sedaris’ work, a series of essays.  He satirizes his own life and experiences.  Most are riotously funny (the nasty martyr with the cough drop in her lap), but others are sad.  His neighbor, Helen is a miserable specimen of humanity and brings out a side of Sedaris that he does not like any more than we do.  We see this side a great deal in this book.  This assemblage truly is more calignostic than previous works.
Having said this presumably before you have read it, I have introduced the proverbial elephant into the room.  Now that I have thought of Sedaris this way it seems difficult not to do so.  No more will I believe, “Oh, it’s pure hilarity – read it!.”
Sedaris is rightly touted as a humorous writer, but he straddles the line of social theorizer as well.  It should be argued that all great humorists do this and he is no exception, but it calls attention to his increasing dolefullness with regard to his own life.

The title is much more telling then you initially realize.  Sedaris may be trying to step through the flames and/or literally extinguish his fears, but it makes it less comedic and more introspective.
A bit of his old fun is gone.  He is older and afraid of aging.  Sedaris is having trouble letting go of certain self-actualized inadequacies in his quest for a healthier David.  They make his life hell and enough whining is enough.  Dear God, no Scientology, but a little positive attitude would make him a lot more readable.
The humor should be in recognition of similarities to ourselves and the familiarity of certain situations.  “When You Are Engulfed In Flames” teeters toward discomforting awkwardness.  Possibly I am just a bigger prude then previously assumed, but some essays are wildly unfunny in their despondent tenacity. The virulently virile cab driver left me shrugging off the willies (almost literally.)  Not laughing.
David Sedaris’ strength is in giving this to us with the biggest spoonful of sugar he can. The readers who expect “Reader’s Digest” humor are being misled through no fault of his.  The reviewers and editors who tout it as such are to blame.  He does tackle the darker jokes and, if you anticipate Sartre-esque humor instead, it will be easier to digest. This is a different category of humor and I want to make sure that the real potential in this book – the message behind the comedy – does not go unattended.