Book Review: Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden (2004)

 

Warning: This post contains spoilers, but probably none that would shock you.

Set in Japan in the years leading up to World War II, Memoirs of a Geisha is a “love story” about a girl who:

Is sold by her father into the sex trade. Watches her sister become a prostitute. Is beaten and starved when she tries to run away from the sex trade. Has her virginity auctioned off to the most perverted individual imaginable. Is later sold to a different man she doesn’t care about in exchange for favorable treatment for her adopted “family” during a war. Eventually becomes the mistress of a slightly less douchey man who she claims to love because he was nice to her once when she was twelve.

Yay?

Like I said, this debut novel by Arthur Golden presents itself as a love story. We the readers are expected to become involved in the star-crossed romance between Sayuri, our protagonist, and a man who is known only as the Chairman.

And can I say that not giving your male lead a real name (ala Mr. Big) is just not sexy.

Anyway, our two romantic leads encounter one another for the first time when Sayuri is crying in a park after being beaten for not wanting to be a high class hooker. Suddenly, a man stops to help her, and gives her money to buy a snow cone. The man is described as being at least fifty years old.

At that moment, Sayuri decides that she is going to become the best, most high class hooker in the industry. So that she, a twelve year old girl, may someday win the affections of said man in his fifties.

When you take the book out of context like that, it’s legit creepy. But the weird thing is, I’d read this book at least five times in the past, and I never noticed any of this. Part of that is because Golden’s prose is so wonderfully lyrical that it tricked my brain into believing in the romance. And I mean that as a compliment; I was so swept away by the unique historical perspective of this book combined with the author’s elegant prose that it took me sixteen years to release just how messed up the plot is.

Perhaps it’s also because this is the first time I’m reading the book in a post #MeToo world, where we’ve become encouraged to find and point out problematic depictions of female characters when we find them. But at the end of the day, the cringey subject matter was only part of what really annoyed me while I was reading Memoirs of a Geisha this time round.

Throughout the course of the novel, Sayuri has no self-agency whatsoever. She just kind of…allows life to happen to her. She succeeds at becoming a successful geisha, not because she is particularly talented, but because she is very, very pretty. There are multiple references to falling water in the book, and how water cannot choose its course, but must flow where it will. Which I guess is true, but I was waiting for Sayuri to realize that water can also be an incredibly powerful force. I wanted to scream at her to stop being a puddle and become a wave. But she never does.

That’s another thing that irked me. Sayuri never strives for the Chairman. She never takes action, in any way, to legitimately bring herself closer to him. And perhaps it was a statement on the historical period, where women had almost no say in their lives, but at the same time we’re talking about someone who becomes a member of elite and wealthy circles. Sayuri becomes a world-reknowned geisha, she captures the heart of the man she loves, she gains everything she ever wanted…but in the end it was all a combination of luck and accident. And along the way, she unintentionally destroys the lives of several people (poor Pumpkin).

Weirdly enough, I would probably still recommend this book, just because the writing style itself is so enjoyable, and the historical setting was wonderfully–if inaccurately–depicted. And while Sayuri is a bit of a wet blanket, it is always fascinating to see the mysterious world of the geisha unfold through her eyes. Otherwise, this wouldn’t have been my sixth time reading it.

My rating: 3.5/5

You can find Memoirs of a Geisha here on Amazon or here on BookDepository.

Happy reading everyone!

You might also enjoy:

Dragon Springs Road by Janie Chang

Journey Under the Midnight Sun by Keigo Higashino

Girls Burn Brighter by Shobha Rao

 

Brainworm of the Day: Everyone in the Middle Ages Was Always Shit-Faced.

 

I’m wrapping up this medieval romance story for work, and I can’t get one thought out of my head.

In Europe during the Middle Ages, actually up until the late 19th century, freshwater was unsafe to drink because the technology to purify it had yet to be developed.

Because of this, most people drank tea, coffee (after the 17th century), and what was known as “small beer”, a lightly fermented ale. And that was just for basic hydration, not to mention the wine, beer, and liquor they would have consumed recreationally.

So basically, everyone was mildly buzzed just..all the time.

At the same time, knowledge of medicine and anatomy were… let’s just say sketchy as best. So the understanding of the link between alcohol consumption and birth defects would have been completely unknown, as this connection wasn’t fully documented until friggin’ 1973.

Which begs the question, did any of the people that we picture from history suffer from some form of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome?

Note: I’m not trying to be insensitive on the subject, I’m just curious from a historical standpoint.

Book Review: The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel: A Story of Sleepy Hollow by Alyssa Palombo (2019)

Review. 2.21

Washington Irving’s short story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is deeply ingrained in the American psyche; two hundred years after it’s publication and I doubt there are many grade school children who are not at least passingly familiar with the story of Ichabod Crane and his ill-fated midnight ride. The tale has been told and retold in so many different iterations that it’s sometimes difficult to remember that nowhere in Irving’s original source material was the ghost of the Headless Horseman actually witnessed. The reason for the sudden disappearance of the luckless schoolmaster is left open to interpretation. Did he slink away in shame after his proposal for the hand of the beautiful Katrina van Tassel was denied by her father? Was he only after her wealth the entire time, venturing to the next village in search of a more hapless heiress? Or, as the townspeople whisper to themselves, was he taken to the depths of hell by the Headless Horseman, who is said to haunt the woods around Sleepy Hollow?

All of these questions and more are answered in this historical romance novel by Alyssa Palombo. Set in the very early days of the American republic, just a few years after the defeat of the British soldiers, Palombo does a wonderful job of setting her scene. She captures the revolutionary attitude of New England with her heroine, Katrina Van Tassel. No longer the mostly nonverbal plot device of Irving’s story, here Katrina holds the same optimistic attitude and hopeful fervor that would have defined the young nation under Washington’s presidency. Palombo paints a romantic but realistic view of New England life. The community of Sleepy Hollow represents a community that is extraordinarily close-knit, and for a good reason. Any group of people that did not come together during the long New England winters would not have lasted long.

The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel has the setting. And it has the characters, with its outspoken and forward-thinking heroine. Palombo also takes a bit of narrative license with Ichabod Crane, making him less of a painfully awkward but still capturing his shy, gentle spirit and nerdy appearance. When the current TV series Sleepy Hollow depicts him as dreamy beardy eye candy:

it’s a nice message to send that a man can be attractive due to a generosity of spirit, or a creative imagination rather than just a chiseled jawline.

Anyway, Palombo gets all of these really great characters together in this really great setting and then…

She doesn’t seem to know what to do with them.

For nearly two hundred of it’s three hundred and fifty page running length, we are treated to chapter after chapter of Katrina pining after Ichabod. She yearns. She craves. She longs from afar. Sometimes there are snatched moments of joy and pleasure with her beloved, but these moments are fleeting and then it’s quickly back to pining.

Another fifty or so pages is dedicated to Katrina attempting to use “witchcraft” as she seeks out answers to the mystery behind Ichabod’s disappearance. I put witchcraft in quotes because she mostly consults tarot cards, or stares into fires after drinking some herbal tea. The reveal of the eponymous “spellbook” was such a disappointment that I actually groaned aloud.

On an unrelated note, the tagline for this book is nonsense. Love is a thing even death won’t erase? What does that even mean? No shit Sherlock. We don’t just stop loving someone the moment they die. But that is an issue for the publishers of this novel, not the novel itself.

My rating: 3.5/5

You can find The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel here on Amazon or here on Book Depository.

Happy reading everyone!

Book Review: This House is Haunted by John Boyne (2013)

Review 2.20

 

After the death of her father, twenty-one year old Eliza Crane accepts a job as governess to the children of Gaudlin Hall. Upon her arrival at the train station, an invisible pair of hands seize her coat and attempt to push her onto the tracks; she is only saved by the unknowing interference of a local resident. This is only to be the first of many such assaults as Eliza enters Gaudlin Hall to find an oppressive and violent spirit, intent on preventing anyone besides the two children to remain within the walls of the manor.

John Boyne is probably best well known for his award winning novel The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, about two children on opposite sides of a concentration camp fence. Most of his work focuses on historical fiction, and Boyne sticks to his roots with This House is Haunted, adding a supernatural twist. This novel is an homage to the Gothic novels of the Bronte sisters or Rebecca du Maurier.

All of the elements at play for a classic haunted house tale are present in This House is Haunted. Our protagonist, Eliza, is a recently orphaned young woman who accepts a position as a governess to the children of a lonely manor home. Upon her arrival, she finds that the townsfolk speak of the manor, called Gaudlin Hall, in hushed whispers. The children seem to have been left all alone, and no one will tell Eliza the fate of their parents. The children themselves, particularly twelve year old Isabella, speak in riddles and ominous statements. And all of this is in the early few pages, before the supernatural forces that surround Gaudlin Hall make themselves known with a ferocity seldom seen in ghost stories.

Like I said, all of these elements needed for a wonderfully spooky tale are accounted for in This House is Haunted. And yet, it failed to illicit even the smallest shiver down my spine.

Perhaps it was Eliza herself that was somehow lackluster. Her primary characteristic seems to be that she is homely. She is very, very insistent on this fact, constantly lamenting her ugly features which have denied her the prospect of ever becoming married. Because as we all know, only the most beautiful women in history have ever been able to catch a man. Other than plain, Eliza isn’t much else. She is merely a prop that serves the dual purpose of delivering exposition and being attacked by spirits at regular intervals.

Or perhaps it was the lack of descriptive details regarding the manor house itself. Haunted house stories are only as creepy as their setting. There needs to be slow, creeping fog and corridors that seemingly go on forever. There needs to be crumbling walls and menacing portraits and all of the other deliciously atmospheric particulars that raise gooseflesh on the arms and make you reconsider a creak in the night. Some of those details honestly may have been present within the pages of This House is Haunted, but they got lost in the shuffle. I did enjoy one midpoint reveal that winked a tribute to Charlotte Bronte. But sadly, Eliza Crane is no Jane Eyre.

My rating: 2.5/5

You can find This House is Haunted here on Amazon or here on Book Depository.

Happy reading everyone!

 

 

Book Review: Homegoing by Ya’a Gyasi (2018)

Review 2.14

How far back can you trace your ancestry? I can go back four generations on my mother’s side, to my great-grandmother whom I was lucky enough to know for twenty-five years before she passed. On my father’s side, I can go back only three generations to my grandfather, who fought on the side of the Allies during World War II and passed away when I was in high school. I imagine this is more or less normal. People can trace their ancestry back somewhere between three to five generations before the trail becomes difficult to follow. Of course you always have outliers, like the haughty New Englanders who can prove their ancestors came over on the Mayflower, but they are by far the exception rather than the rule.

How interesting would it be to know the full story? How did your family come to be your family? What strokes of luck and trials of fate determined their lives and hopes and happiness? At least I can say that my family came to the United States deliberately, in hopes of creating a better life for themselves and their families. This is part of my privilege.

Homegoing seeks to tell just one story among millions of people whose ancestors had had no say in their own futures, and were instead torn from their home countries and thrust into a life of labor on faraway shores. It also tells the story of those who stayed.

This debut novel by Ghanaian author Ya’a Gyasi will draw inevitable comparison to Alex Haley’s groundbreaking Roots. Both tell a generational story, one that stretches over four hundred years and the span of an ocean. Both highlight the injustices of slavery, and the constant backsliding struggle for former slaves to succeed under Jim Crow and segregation. The one huge difference is that while Roots focused solely on the lives of the slaves taken across the Atlantic,  Homegoing keeps half of its plot on the shores of Africa; and also tells the story of the changing political landscape of the region as it is torn apart and knitted back together again and again by war and colonization.

Gyasi does something else very striking with her novel. She acknowledges that the tribes of Africa were actively complicit in the slave trade. Warring tribes often kept captured rivals as slaves in their own villages, and they began selling these prisoners for a profit to the white slavers who came to the shores of the Gold Coast. Homegoing sugarcoats none of these unpleasant details, and presents its characters as flawed and fallible, and they are all the more memorable for their flaws and fallacies.

Every chapter of Homegoing is set from a different perspective in a different time period and setting, generally following the story of the previous character’s offspring. Gyasi shifts her narrative from one side of the Atlantic to the other, and tells the story of concurrent generations as they face the problems dealt either by being African or by being African-American. These stories are sometimes filled with sorrow, sometimes joy. Sometimes I would need a few pages to remember the characters from the previous “generation”, so that I could place myself in history.

If I read this novel again, I will begin by writing the two names of the supreme matriarchs of this generational tale, and draw a family tree as I explore the different members of this one very, very extended family.

My rating: 4.5/5

You can find Homegoing here on Amazon or here on Book Depository.

Happy reading everyone!

 

Book Review: The Map of Salt and Stars by Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar (2018)

Review #107

The story of two girls living eight hundred years apart—a modern-day Syrian refugee seeking safety and a medieval adventurer apprenticed to a legendary mapmaker. 

Following the death of her husband to cancer, Nour’s mother wants to be closer to her home country and her family. In the summer of 2011, Nour and her family move from their apartment in New York City to Homs, Syria. But Syria is changing, and not for the better. Shells and bombs become a daily occurrence, and when their house is destroyed Nour and her family are forced to flee across the Middle East and North Africa as refugees.

Eight hundred years ago, a young girl named Rawiya disguises herself as a boy and becomes an apprentice to al-Idrisi, a world-famous cartographer who is embarking on a journey to make a map of the known world. Along the way, Rawiya ferocious mythical beasts, epic battles, and real historical figures.

The gorgeous cover art for Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar’s The Map of Salt and Stars is what initially attracted me to this book. I knew little to nothing about the plot, and therefore had no expectations. I was pleasantly surprised to find a novel that uses the Syrian Civil War as a backdrop for a story about family, bravery, and finding a place to belong.

A lot of attempts have been made recently to capture the refugee experience. The Map of Salt and Stars tells a deeply personal story. Nour doesn’t care why her neighborhood is suddenly being bombed. She doesn’t understand the political tensions between Libya and Algeria, or why refugee boats are shelled before they can reach shore. All Nour knows is that she has lost everything but her mother and two sisters. She knows that she wakes up every day in a different place, often cramped with groups of other people, all of whom are running away from the destruction and danger of war. By keeping laser-focused on Nour and her plight, Joukhadar ensures that the reader forms a close bond with her.

Also contained within the pages of The Map of Salt and Stars is the story of Rawiya, a young girl who disguises herself as a boy in order to become an apprentice to the esteemed cartographer al-Idrisi. Her 11th century journey with him along a route similar to the one taken by Nour as she flees from country to country. I enjoyed Rawiya’s story and the fresh perspective that it offered. Most of our ideas of the ancient world are from the Greco-Roman viewpoint, but The Map of Salt and Stars shows it through Muslim eyes instead. While Europe was buried in the Dark Ages, the scholars and scientists of the Muslim world made terrific advancements in mathematics, astronomy, and medicine. They also made some of the most detailed maps of the time period, and that is where Joukhadar sets her story.

The Muslim names for the ancient cities of the Mediterranean were unfamiliar to me, and I often found it difficult to know exactly where the ancient adventurers were at any given time. There is a map included along with the table of contents, but it is a bit inconvenient to switch back and forth to the map on an eReader. This may have been one of the reasons why Rawiya’s story fell short in comparison to Nour’s. Rawiya’s struggles against mythical beasts feel far removed from reality, where Nour must fight against an enemy that is far more real and more dangerous.

My rating: 4/5

You can find The Map of Salt and Stars here on Amazon or here on Book Depository.

Happy reading everyone!

Book Review: The Midnight Watch by David Dyer (2016)

Review #106

As the Titanic and her passengers sank slowly into the Atlantic Ocean after striking an iceberg late in the evening of April 14, 1912, a nearby ship looked on. Second Officer Herbert Stone, in charge of the midnight watch on the SS Californian sitting idly a few miles north, saw the distress rockets that the Titanic fired. He alerted the captain, Stanley Lord, who was sleeping in the chartroom below, but Lord did not come to the bridge. Eight rockets were fired during the dark hours of the midnight watch, and eight rockets were ignored. The next morning, the Titanic was at the bottom of the sea and more than 1,500 people were dead.

I was ten years old when James Cameron’s Titanic was released, and like millions of young girls in 1997, was completely obsessed with the film and the boyishly handsome, adorably baby-faced Leonardo DeCaprio. Twenty years later, my love for Leo has never faded, and neither has my interest in the story of Titanic and its place in history.

The Midnight Watch has the odd challenge of trying to sustain a narrative using characters that were only indirectly involved in the events of April 14, 1912. The story of the Californian, which was the nearest ship to the Titanic on the night of its sinking and could potentially have saved the lives of the 1500 people who died that night, is more of a footnote in the larger context of the Titanic story. The failure of the Californian to respond to the Titanic’s distress signals is one of the countless bits of misfortune that all came together to cause one of the most famous maritime disasters in history. Even James Cameron, whose insistence on historical accuracy during filming bordered on obsessive, did not include the Californian in his film. stating that switching perspectives to another ship took away from the feeling of isolation that the passengers on the Titanic must have experienced that night. In a way this book reminded me of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, another instance of “background” characters being given the full spotlight.

Author David Dyer needed to present a cast of characters strong enough to make us forget that our old favorites such as Captain Smith, Thomas Andrews, Bruce Ismay, and Molly Brown are conspicuously absent. He splits his narrative between Second Mate Herbert Stone, the watchman who first saw the white distress rockets sent up by the sinking ship, and Steadman, a bulldog journalist on the hunt for the truth about the Californian. Stone is plagued by guilt and indecision when he wakes up the morning after his midnight shift and learns the fate of the Titanic. His story is sympathetic, but pales in significance when viewed next to the deaths of over a thousand people on the Titanic. Steadman is the archetypal hard-jawed bourbon-soaked workaholic newspaperman from the turn of the century. His only defining characteristic is that he somehow manages to chase down leads and secure interviews with various higher-ups all while being soddenly drunk.

I did enjoy Dyer’s meticulous attention to detail, particularly when describing the Californian and its crew. Dyer worked for years as a ships officer, and he is clearly writing from a place of experience. I don’t know much about naval terminology besides port and starboard, so I enjoyed learning a little bit more about steamer ships. Also, it’s refreshing to read a completely different perspective on a well-known event. One of the things I love most about historical fiction is its ability to help me think of an issue from a variety of angles. The Midnight Watch offers a unique and creative approach to the enduring legend of the Titanic.

My rating: 3.5/5

You can find The Midnight Watch here on Amazon or here on Book Depository!

Happy reading everyone!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Book vs Film: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

                                     

 

Welcome back to Book vs Film, one of my favorite segments where I like to throw up bestselling novels against their film adaptations!

This week we’re looking at The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (GLPPS), the 2008 novel by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows versus its 2018 counterpart starring Jessica Findlay Brown and Lily James.

In no particular order, here are my thoughts on the film versus the novel. I will try to keep it as spoiler-free as possible but may give away certain plot points.

1. This film is a Downton Abbey reunion.  Part of the reason I was so excited to see this movie was that at least four of the main characters were involved with Downton Abbey, my favorite drama about rich British people chatting. Lily James, who plays bright-young-thing Rose on Downton appears here as Juliet Ashton, the writer and book lover who is first drawn to the story of the book club on Guernsey. Jessica Findlay Brown is Elizabeth McKenna, the popular but mysteriously absent creator of the club. Penelope Wilton (also from Doctor Who) is a grief-stricken widow and Matthew Goode is Juliet’s friend and publisher. The sight of all these comfortingly familiar faces helps to ground GLPPPS in its historical time period.

2. Lily James is strangely flat in her role. One of the most engaging parts of the novel is Juliet Ashton’s sincere love of books and literature. She is fully capable of defending her opinion on the relevant styles and thoughts of the day, but does so with such cheerfulness that she never comes across as schoolmarmish. Lily James, who was so bubbly and joyful in Downton Abbey and Disney’s Cinderella, never comes across as a great lover of reading. Juliet Ashton’s infectious curiosity is also missing, and her eventual spontaneous journey to Guernsey happens almost as a lark rather as a deliberate decision to learn more about the lives of the people there. James seems unable to commit to the more dramatic elements of the plot as well, almost as if she is afraid of looking less than pretty.

Lily James, GLPPPS, StudioCanal Films

3. Jessica Findlay Brown is tragically underused. I understand that Brown’s character doesn’t appear in person during the events of GLPPPS. She is a memory, a reference, a figure in a funny or sad story. Despite that, in the book she always felt so full of life, a bright spot in a dark world that everyone remembers with a mixture of joy and pain. This story belongs to Elizabeth McKenna as much as it does to Juliet Ashton. In the film, she is just demoted to just one of many quirky characters that inhabit flashbacks and whispered stories. Her daughter is supposed to be a turning point in the plot, but is instead relegated to a side note in the film. For an actress as beautiful and talented as Brown, I thought director Mike Newell would find a way to make her shine.

Jessica Brown Findlay, GLPPPS, StudioCanal Films

4. The film looks absolutely stunning. Though it was shot in parts of Devon, Bristol, and London instead of Guernsey, the harsh rocky landscape of coastal Britain is always breathtaking to look at. The time period is also accurately portrayed, and the attention to detail on the costumes and props is of the impeccable quality usually found in British historical dramas.

5. The beginning of the film attempts to pay homage to the letter-writing style of the book, but doesn’t quite pull it off. During the first twenty minutes or so of the movie, Lily James’ Juliet Ashton is exchanging letters with Dawsey Adams, a farmer on Guernsey played by Michael Huisman. The movie accomplishes this through use of narrative voice-over and long shots of James curled up in various armchairs, reading letters while drinking tea. Although I appreciated that Newell wanted to include a nod to the letter exchanges of the novel, but it came across as a bit too obvious. Especially when it ends abruptly during the first act and is never revisited.

Overall, I thought the film did a good job of capturing the main plot points and historical details of GLPPPS, but a little bit of the novel’s heart was lost in translation. Given it’s almost complete lack of publicity or marketing, I wonder if the studio didn’t see that as well.

My vote: Book > Film

Happy reading everyone!

Check out our other Book vs Film Reviews!

The Martian

The Shining

Interview With the Vampire

 

Book Review: The Clockmaker’s Daughter by Kate Morton (2018)

Review #100

In the summer of 1862, a group of young artists led by the passionate and talented Edward Radcliffe descends upon Birchwood Manor on the banks of the Upper Thames. Their plan: to spend a secluded summer month in a haze of inspiration and creativity. But by the time their stay is over, one woman has been shot dead while another has disappeared; a priceless heirloom is missing; and Edward Radcliffe’s life is in ruins.

Kate Morton has been on my shortlist of favorite authors since I first discovered The Forgotten Garden way back in 2011. All of her novels merge historical fiction with mystery, often spanning decades and generations. Morton stays true to form with her latest novel, The Clockmaker’s Daughter, and manages to throw in a few surprises along the way.

Morton loves writing about crumbling English manor homes and her settings often serve as characters unto themselves. The majority of The Clockmaker’s Daughter takes place in isolated and empty Birchwood Manor, but far from the gloomy, neglected halls that characterized Morton’s The Distant Hours, Birchwood is haunted by a ghost of a different sort. The presence which roams the halls of Birchwood Manor is filled with curiosity and kindness for the occasional visitors that come to her home, which has been turned into a museum and historical site. When a new visitor by the name of Elodie Winslow turns up looking for answers that lead back to a long ago summer when a group of artists descended upon the manor, the spirit of Birchwood Manor realizes that secrets are about to be uncovered that have been buried for centuries.

The wonderful thing about Kate Morton’s writing is that it flows so smoothly from time period to time period. The bulk of the narrative follows a group of young artists who venture into the country for a summer of nature and inspiration. The technological and social changes that embody Victorian England are present here; it was interesting to read about the introduction of photography, which would bring about major changes to the art world as the popularity of portraiture faded.

The rest of the novel is set in the present day. It is partly narrated by Elodie, a young archivist who stumbles upon a sketchbook that has been hidden away for decades. The spirit of Birchwood Manor has its own voice as well, detailing the events that have occurred in the house in the long years since its arrival. This is the first novel by Morton to contain a solid supernatural element. There were whispers of fairies and magic in some of her previous works, but the ghost in The Clockmaker’s Daughter is a defined presence with real wishes and desires.

If I had a critique of this novel, it would be the title. While one of the main characters is the daughter of a clockmaker, that fact has no real bearing on the overall storyline. Too many novels are “The _____’s Daughter” or “The _____’s Wife”. It is often is used in fiction to give a different perspective on historical events; however, it is unnecessary in this case. Instead it serves to undermine a strong female character by forcing her to be named only under the title of a male who is not even terribly relevant to the plot. It just felt lazy.

Overall, this was another highly enjoyable novel by a woman who remains at the top of my list for favorite authors. My only disappointment is that I have to settle in for a long wait until her next novel.

My Rating: 4.5/5

You can find The Clockmaker’s Daughter here on Amazon or here on Book Depository.

Happy reading everyone!

 

Book Review: The Terror by Dan Simmons (2007)

Review #98

In 1845, the HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror departed from England with one hundred and twenty-nine men on a three-year expedition to finally discover the illusive Northwest Passage. The leader, Captain John Franklin, had previously served on three Arctic expeditions, and was the commanding officer on two. Laden down with years worth of food, oil, and coal, the two ships were the pinnacle of British shipbuilding technology.

Both ships became trapped in the ice near King William Island in the winter of 1846. They never moved again. There were no survivors.

Dan Simmons blends historical fiction and horror to recreate the final years of the doomed Franklin expedition, and adds in a supernatural twist. The endless dark and freezing cold of the pack ice is home to a creature of terrifying size and intelligence that is stalking the men in the endless night of Arctic winter.

Simmons treats the environment surrounding Terror as a living thing, constantly growling and shifting to create sudden upthrusts and hidden crevices.  The polar region is one of the most unforgiving places on the Earth, and it is immediately apparent that Franklin and his crew are out of their depths. The ever-moving ice remains implacable in the face of their modern British inventions. After months pass trapped in ice, a summer passes without an escape route emerging. Food rations begin to run low, and mutterings of mutiny can be heard belowdecks. The beast on the ice quickly becomes the least of their worries.

My only negative issue with The Terror is its length. Nearly seven hundred pages is a long time to read about ice. Simmons occasionally becomes repetitive; there are only so many ways to detail a group of people with sinking morale and empty bellies. I enjoyed his use of multiple perspectives, but some of the voices didn’t serve a purpose in furthering the overall plot.

I find myself liking The Terror more in retrospect than I did while actually reading it. I found the length and some of the more meandering narratives a bit frustrating at the time, but I keep finding myself thinking about the fate of the HMS Terror and the horrible conditions that these sailors found themselves unable to escape. This will be a novel that I’ll remember on cold winter nights.

My rating: 3.5/5

You can find The Terror here on Amazon or here on Book Depository.