What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver

I bought What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver when a bunch of my fellow writing workshop participants gushed about Carver's short stories and how much they loved them, back in August. I've heard of Carver, of course, but I had not paid much attention to him because this was the first time I'd ever really encountered anyone who felt like Carver's a must-read. And, they all seemed to think he was a must-read. 

At any rate, I finally got around to reading What We Talk About When We Talk About Love and I have to tell you that it wasn't an immediate love story. At first, I was kind of perplexed. What was he trying to say? Why did his short stories leave so much to the imagination? Is this something I personally should strive for or is it just some rare skill that makes you want to talk to anyone you can find who's read the same stories? 

The further I got into the book, the more I began to love Raymond Carver. And, it's for exactly the same reasons that I was perplexed. He leaves so much to the reader's imagination that you get a bit of an enjoyable brain workout. For example, in the first story the contents of a man's house are outside on his lawn and driveway. The bedroom is set up as it was inside, with side tables and lamps in their proper places. The living room furniture is placed so that you can sit on the couch and look across to the TV. A young couple comes along and wonders aloud whether all these items are for sale. They could sure use some inexpensive furnishings to fill out their new home. Then, the owner comes outside, sits with them, and gives them his asking price for each item. The young woman has already planned to ask to pay less and he takes each of their offers with no argument. In fact, they sit around like they've known each other forever. And, that's it. That's the story.

So, you can see how much he leaves for the reader to think about. Why would someone empty the contents of his house and sell them cheaply? Has he lost his job? Is he about to lose his home? Has he gotten divorced and, knowing his ex is going to get the house and its contents, decided to sell everything cheaply for revenge? Is he dying, so no longer finds possessions important? So many questions and none of them are answered, of course, or you wouldn't have them in the first place. But, it's the missing information that makes Carver such an amazing read. That, and his minimalist writing style, which is punchy and clear and draws you in. 

Highly recommended - I'm going to be watching for more Carver when I give myself a break to buy books. I am utterly fascinated and besotted with his writing and the way it makes my mind churn. Someone at Goodreads put it much better, calling these "slice of life stories that go nowhere and end ambiguously." Jason Koivu is the name of that reviewer. Ah, he stated it perfectly and while he seems to agree that it makes no sense why such ambiguity is so compelling, you can't help but admire and enjoy them. Or, in Jason's words, "[. . . ] for some damn reason I loved them." Yeah, that. 

©2021 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami

I had mixed feelings about South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami. So mixed, in fact, that I couldn't talk myself into rating it at Goodreads. 

South of the Border, West of the Sun is told in first person from the viewpoint of Hajime, an only child who feels out of place until he meets Shimamoto, who is also an only child. They remain playmates and friends for years, till his family moves away and they lose touch. Over the years, Hajime meets (and sleeps with) many women but Shimamoto has a special place in his heart and he even follows a woman who looks like her and has her same limp, at one point. He marries, has two children and his jazz bar becomes a success. He's mostly content. 

Then, Shimamoto reappears in his life, having seen an article about his jazz bar. Hajime is every bit as drawn to her as he was when they were young. She is different, more beautiful, no longer limping, and mysterious. There are questions she won't answer, things he doesn't know about her. Will Hajime stay faithful to his wife? Or, will he leave her for Shimamoto? 

Meh - I still don't feel like I can rate this book. I found it compelling enough to finish and I think that's mostly down to Murakami's writing. He does know how to suck you in. But, Hajime is kind of a yucky person. He's selfish when it comes to women, taking what he wants from them but giving little in return. You can't really root for him. And, Shimamoto's mysteriousness made her feel more like a vague outline of a character than one with color and depth. She was so incomplete that I closed the book unsure whether she was real or a figment of the main character's imagination. 

After a week and the decision that I'm definitely not going to rate the book, what most stands out for me is the feeling I'll forget about it pretty quickly. The one thing I really loved about the book was the use of motifs. But, here I must confess that I didn't know the word "motif" as it relates to literature. I'm probably the last to find out about this but OK. Here's what google told me after I read about the book and the word "motif" came up.

What is a motif in literature? 

Motif is a literary technique that consists of a repeated element that has symbolic significance to a literary work. Sometimes a motif is a recurring image. Other times it's a repeated word, phrase, or topic expressed in language. 

In South of the Border, West of the Sun, there are a large number of words or motifs that are repeated: rain, the color blue, and looking out at a graveyard are a few I recall. I don't always know what various images stand for in literature (so I often end up looking them up — I looked up crows as a metaphor when they appeared in a particular scene, for example). 

This may be simplistic on my part but I'd rather an author show or tell me what he's on about. And, yet, I thought the use of motifs was effective. So, while I didn't love the book, primarily because of Hajime's selfishness, I don't regret having read it. And, good grief, you could spend loads of time reading everyone's analysis of this book.

Some bits of information I found helpful:

The ‘South of the Border’ of the title refers to the popular 1939 song recorded for a film of the same name. As children Hajime and Shimamoto used to listen to a Nat King Cole recording of it (although in reality, Cole never recorded the song). Not knowing it refers to a trip to Mexico, Shimamoto used to wonder about what magical place lay south of the border. “Something beautiful, big and soft”. The ‘West of the Sun’ refers to a form of hysteria Shimamoto says afflicts people living in Siberia, possibly similar to Piblokto, where for no reason they abandon their life in difficult conditions and wander westward, usually dying of exposure.

--from We Need to Talk About Books

And, from Google:

"South of the Border", meaning a life of convention, possibility, and ultimately, disappointment, and "West of the Sun", meaning taking a step beyond reason, and in doing so risking everything [...]

Clearly, I'm going to need to read more Murakami. I've mostly read his short stories and nonfiction. I'll try to tackle one of his longer novels when I can fit it in. 

©2021 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell is about the death of Shakespeare's only son, mostly told through the eyes of his wife Agnes (a form of Anne) and the child. But, it's not just about Hamnet. The story alternates between Hamnet's final day and how Agnes and William Shakespeare met, fell in love, and married and theorizes about how Hamnet's death may have influenced Shakespeare's writing of Hamlet. 

In Hamnet, Maggie O'Farrell has imagined an Agnes with a finely-tuned sixth sense and a skill for healing with herbs. Shakespeare himself has a lesser role. He is the love interest, the abused child, the unhappy young man, the absentee father. He has a desk where he writes feverishly when he can, but he's stuck working a job in which he's not suited, for a good portion of the book. When he finally is able to do what he chooses, he's mostly out of the picture. 

I love Maggie O'Farrell's writing. Hamnet is melancholy of tone and the child's death is heartbreaking but the story is skillfully crafted and ends, fortunately, on an uplifting note. 

I bought my copy of Hamnet because it was my F2F book group's June selection but it just happened to be the one book I most regretted not ordering before the end of the year and the beginning of my book-buying ban. So I was pleased to have an excuse to buy it! Unfortunately, the book group discussion was not great. Nobody seemed to understand what the author was trying to portray and I don't think anyone else had read O'Farrell before. There is an author's note, at least in the copy I have, so I was surprised that the other group members didn't understand that it's fiction based on the real-life characters but with some alterations from the commonly-known or assumed story, based on her research, along with the magical touch of her own imagination. 

Highly recommended - A story of family dynamics, unique personalities, finding love, discovering your passion, and how very difficult it is to break through grief. While Hamnet is a work of fiction, I suspect it is very well researched. O'Farrell makes you feel, smell, and hear the time in which the book takes place. Marvelously done. 

Hamnet was my third read by O'Farrell and I'm so impressed with her that I've started an O'Farrell section on my shelves, although I don't know what I did with the first book, Instructions for a Heatwave. I may have passed that one on. I enjoyed it but it didn't blow me away like the last two O'Farrells I've read, the other being I Am, I Am, I Am. Click on the titles if you're interested in reading the other reviews. 

©2021 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester

I had no idea what I was getting into when I picked up The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester and began reading. I only knew that I wanted to read something very different from my previous read, The Evening Chorus. Wow, nailed it. Set in the 24th century, The Demolished Man is the story of a wealthy business owner, Ben Reich, who decides he must kill his competition, literally, and the mind-reading detective who uses his fine-tuned ESP skills to prove the killer's guilt. 

The setting is a strange future world in which there are settlements on other planets and their satellites, there are rental cars called "jumpers" that can fly short distances, and many people can read minds but there are different levels of mind-reading ability and an exclusive group that only the mind readers can belong to. The detective in the story is at the highest skill level of so-called "espers" or "brain peepers". The murder is shown in first person so you know Reich is guilty and get to follow along as finds a surprising way to block the mind readers around him. 

You also get into the POV of the detective, from which you learn his thought process and see what other roadblocks Reich throws up to stop the detective from arresting him and how a computer is used to examine whether or not it will be possible to convict, once he's in their hands. 

Highly recommended - A unique and clever storyline, solid world building, and a fairly twisty, fast-paced plot make The Demolished Man a winner. In fact, it turns out The Demolished Man was the very first Hugo award winner. It starts out a little disorienting as you become accustomed to the futuristic world but once you're used to it, the discomfort fades. Even better, the farther you get into the book, the more exciting the action becomes so I particularly enjoyed the latter half. 

I liked how unusual the setting was and found the book fascinating for how a 1950s-era author visualized a future world. 70 years after its publication we can laugh at the fact that there were still phone booths, operators, and a computer that takes up a lot of space while only doing fairly basic analytical tasks in his imagined 24th century. But, I think a lot of us could not have conceived of the eventuality that we'd carry our phones everywhere and they would be more powerful than the computers of not that long ago. 

©2021 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Wow, No Thank You by Samantha Irby

Back when I had feelings, my self-esteem was a toilet. It caused me actual physical pain to know that someone didn't like me. I mean, it still does, but I'm better insulated by drugs these days. A handy trick is to think long and hard about what the person who hates you would realistically add to your life if they were actually to be a part of it. Most people really do have absolutely nothing to offer you. Pull out the abacus and make a pros and cons list if you have to—I'll wait. If you require a push to get started, here's an example from a recent entry in my diary about some asshole I don't miss anymore:

pro: once made me laugh at a dad joke
con: EVERYTHING FUCKING ELSE LOL BYE BITCH

~pp. 73-74

OK, so up front you can see that when I use the word "rude" in the following paragraph about Wow, No Thank You, swear words are among the things I'm referring to (um . . . crude fits in there, too, but it's what Samantha Irby is known for, so either you want to read the book or you don't).

First, in case you missed the word "essays", this is a book of essays about author Samantha Irby's life. Anything is game. She writes about her childhood, the friends who helped her survive after her parents died, the places she lived and the people she lived with, her many jobs, the people she dated (Irby is bisexual) and life with a woman who has two children of her own.

I know I've mentioned this before, but I love that cover. I love, love, love that cover. Apple green is my favorite color and it's just a tad darker than my favorite so the color alone grabbed me and then the image of the bunny looking awkward and adorable . . . well, I had to know what it was about. I'd never heard of Samantha Irby, a memoirist and comedian, but I enjoy humorous essays and the one thing everyone said about Wow, No Thank You was: "It's funny."

I love a book that makes me laugh but it's even more important to laugh when you're on lockdown in the middle of a plague, people are rioting, and it seems like nobody's actually doing anything concrete to stop the virus (and some are also against calling a halt to racism), then once they start letting people loose they don't bother to mandate the damn masks to try to stop coughs and sneezes at the source, instead letting people go right ahead and spread the virus at will so more people can die because a small percentage of whiners can't be bothered to put a piece of cloth over their nose and mouth to help stop people from dying. I mean, who doesn't need a laugh, right now?

I, for one, needed this book. It's crude, yes. There's talk of body parts and the author's sex life and her Crohn's disease. So, sometimes it can be a little gross or shocking, but even then it's entertaining. Samantha Irby is genuinely funny. I love her writing style. My absolute favorite essay is "Detachment Parenting" about what it's like to live in a house with two children and have to interact with them while not totally claiming them as your own.

Side note: I had no idea the author was black and/or bisexual when I bought the book. I bought it purely on the basis of the words, "It's funny." But what timing! It wasn't until 3 or 4 days after I finished the book that I realized, "Hey, black author! LGBTQ! Pride month!" What's funny about that is that, of course, I've been reading about this black woman who dated both men and women while people are passing around lists of books by People of Color and stacks of books for Pride month and even while I was reading it, I was looking around at my stacks, thinking I needed to find something to read for Pride month and needed to buy some books by POC. While I was reading something that fit the requirements for both. Sometimes I think my mother dropped me on my head as a baby.

Highly recommended - Whip-smart, hilarious, and quite rude. Just what I needed to read during a year like 2020. I love Samantha Irby's self-deprecating sense of humor. Also, I'm convinced that we could be the best of friends because of our mutual love of black licorice, cats, and books. She's a lot more interesting than I am, though, so maybe not.


©2020 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

After yesterday's rambling post, you deserve a nice, short one. And, that should be easy enough as We Should All Be Feminists is a very quick read - the first for my personal Feminist Reading Challenge in 2017.

Written originally as a speech, We Should All Be Feminists is a mix of Adichie's personal experiences and observation. I don't think I can beat the description at Goodreads, so I'm going to share a paragraph of that and then tell you my own thoughts:

With humor and levity, here Adichie offers readers a unique definition of feminism for the twenty-first century—one rooted in inclusion and awareness. She shines a light not only on blatant discrimination, but also the more insidious, institutional behaviors that marginalize women around the world, in order to help readers of all walks of life better understand the often masked realities of sexual politics. Throughout, she draws extensively on her own experiences—in the U.S., in her native Nigeria, and abroad—offering an artfully nuanced explanation of why the gender divide is harmful for women and men, alike.

I found We Should All Be Feminists incisive and revealing, particularly for her unique view as an African woman who has spent a lot of time in America. I especially enjoyed reading about the differences between life as a woman in Africa and in the United States. Having said that, a lot of what she had to say was familiar. Where I may have read similar thoughts, I can't say. I've only read a few books about feminism or by feminist authors. I didn't mind the repetition at all because her perspective is a unique one and who knows? It may be the only book about feminism some people read. If so, it's a good choice because of its brevity and clarity.

Highly recommended - Especially recommended if you're looking for a very quick read about feminism and why treatment of women as equals is healthier for all concerned.

Surprise! Because the book was short and I was in a hurry (January was well under way when I decided to challenge myself to read feminist works, whether fiction or nonfiction), I opted to buy and read the book in electronic form! I know, shocking. Well, it's shocking to those who know about my aversion to e-books.

I asked for suggestions of feminist titles at Facebook and when I went back to collect the titles, I couldn't find the post. I'm going to look again because sometimes things disappear from Facebook and then reappear, presumably due to those annoying algorithms. I know I didn't delete it. But, I figure it doesn't hurt to ask for more suggestions, so please let me know if there are any feminist titles you highly recommend. I broke my book-buying ban to order a couple that were recommended on Twitter. I figure that's legit, buying books for my personal reading challenge, right? Right.


©2017 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Cakes and Ale by W. Somerset Maugham

Hypocrisy is the most difficult and nerve-racking vice that any man can pursue; it needs an unceasing vigilance and a rare detachment of spirit. It cannot, like adultery or gluttony, be practised at spare moments; it is a whole-time job. 

~ p. 15

I stopped him. 'Edward,' I said. He looked startled. For a moment I could have sworn he did not know who I was. 'What avenging furies urge you with such hot haste through the rakish purlieus of Pimlico?' I asked.

~ p. 241

Cakes and Ale by W. Somerset Maugham is my third read by Maugham and my second classic read for 2016.

Told in first person, Cakes and Ale tells the story of how the narrator met now-famous and deceased author Ted Driffield when he was a boy and Driffield was married to a disreputable former barmaid, Rosie. Rosie was known for carrying on with just about anyone. The narrator, a writer himself, is asked by his friend Roy to share all he knows about Driffield to help fill some of the gaps in his knowledge about the author after the second Mrs. Driffield has asked Roy to write her husband's life story. But, neither Roy nor the second Mrs. Driffield want Roy to bother mentioning Rosie, the first Mrs. Driffield. So, the narrator recalls the truth of what he knows about Rosie.

Cakes and Ale jumps back and forth in time a bit, which can be a little confusing, and the ending is abrupt. But, I thought it was excellent. Rosie is a scandalous character but charming, as well. The narrator was entranced with her from his boyhood and, having spent a great deal of time with the Driffields over the years, understands her like no other living man. The book winks at the reality of how inaccurate a biography can be, based on the way an author chooses to portray his subject. By skipping past the years with Rosie, Roy has chosen to ignore the heart of how Driffield's characterization emerged. But, because the narrator of Cakes and Ale has secrets of his own, he doesn't go out of his way to correct Roy.

I noticed that the copyright page indicates that Cakes and Ale was originally entitled Skeletons in the Closet, a much more apt title because that's exactly what it's about -- the hidden events of both the author's and narrator's lives that are kept from view but which inform their lives.

In fact, I never could figure out quite where the title Cakes and Ale might have come from. Rosie is a former barmaid and Driffield liked to hang out at an unfashionable public house in his younger years, so I suppose that could be the origin of the "ale" in the title. But, the only time I recall reading anything about cakes was in the odd scene involving tea and cakes. There is one particular scene in which the narrator is persuaded to go to tea at the home of a woman whose influence can make or break an author. That scene took place after a crucial moment in the book (I don't want to give away the plot point) and the narrator had been working all day. He was extremely hungry but because he arrived late for tea, his hostess assumed aloud that he probably didn't want anything and the poor narrator sat there, hungry and thirsty, while she nibbled on the leftovers. That was a particularly irritating but telling scene, showing that many of the narrator's crowd thought it was perfectly fine using his friendship with Driffield for selfish purposes, so he was equally justified in sharing just enough to satisfy them.

Highly recommended - While I wouldn't call Cakes and Ale my favorite Maugham, it is nonetheless an excellent read that starts out slowly and gradually becomes more compelling. Rosie, in spite of her flaws, is a delightful character.

©2016 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

The Hollow Man by Oliver Harris (Nick Belsey #1)

I'm sure I've already told the story of how I came to acquire my copy of The Hollow Man. I've noticed I repeat myself a lot on this blog (not deliberately). The Hollow Man is the first book in the Nick Belsey series by Oliver Harris.

In The Hollow Man Nick, a London detective, has stolen a car from another police station (not the one in which he works) and crashed it, so he's in deep trouble and about to lose his job when he is sent to investigate an apparent suicide. The dead man, Alexei Devereaux, was incredibly wealthy and Nick decides he must figure out how to steal Devereaux's money so he can escape the country. But, something doesn't feel quite right about the suicide and the further he digs into Devereaux's life, the more tangled the web Nick finds.

I think one of the things I adore about the Nick Belsey series is that the stories are delightfully complex. I doubt I'll ever manage to guess what really happened before Nick has unravelled the mystery in one of these books. I also am quite fond of Nick. He's not just a little flawed; he's a mess -- clever and fascinating and horrid. Fortunately, he tends to get caught when he does something illegal, which doubles the fun. "How is Nick going to get out of this pickle?" is a question that keeps popping up. I particularly loved the ending of The Hollow Man.

If you like a London setting, the Nick Belsey series is loads of fun for the way Nick dashes around all over the city. I think when I reread them and read the third book (which the author told me he was close to finishing, a few weeks ago), I'll keep a London map or the A-Z handy.

Highly recommended, especially to people who enjoy a complex mystery, an unusual and complicated character and/or a London setting.

Related review:

Deep Shelter (Nick Belsey #2) by Oliver Harris

©2014 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Minis - The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories 2 by HitRecord, Aesop's Fables (illus. by Santore) & Underground by Murakami

These three mini reviews are the last book reviews I'll be doing for the year.  I may post once or twice more and then I'm going on holiday for a few weeks.  I'm already a little late walking away for Christmas season, as I usually do.  

I was extremely excited when I heard the second Tiny Book of Tiny Stories had been released, since the first version was so fun I read it repeatedly and foisted my favorite pages on the spouse.  

And, then I read the book and felt a little let-down. But, that was only my first impression.  There was so much wit and humor in the first Tiny Book of Tiny Stories that I expected the same.  The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories 2 is not quite as witty and a lot of the combined stories and illustrations are a little on the "bummer, this makes me a little sad" side.

However, on the second reading I started to discover my favorites and . . . you've got it . . . foisted them on the spouse.  I only share things I really love with Huzzybuns -- stories or illustrations that make me laugh, smile, or ponder.  And, there were plenty of stories and illustrations that made me smile, although they seemed fewer and farther between.

The difference between Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 of The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories?  Well, there are a couple differences.  In the first release, there was a great deal of work by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, aka "Regular Joe", and he's an extremely clever guy with a terrific sense of humor.  This time, he edited with "wirrow" but didn't contribute, otherwise.  I think wirrow simply has a different way of looking at things, a little more pensive and even sorrowful.  But, The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories 2 is about twice as thick as The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories (the original).  So . . . there's plenty for everyone and I think it's another stocking-worthy book.  I love the mix of art and thought-provoking stories in both books and can't wait for the third and final release.  In fact, I hope they go beyond three publications. Highly recommended (although at first I was hesitant).

Aesop's Fables is illustrated by Charles Santore. Let's just stop right there because the words "illustrated by Charles Santore" are enough to make this gal put on the proverbial brakes.  Have you heard of Charles Santore or picked up a book he's illustrated?  If not, you are missing out on one heck of an eyeball feast.  Santore's illustrations are rendered with enviable skill and beauty, in this case with delightful expressions on the faces of various animals.

There are no humans in Santore's version of Aesop's Fables. Instead, Santore chose a selection of stories, rewrote them in his own words and illustrated with only animals as subjects.

I've always loved Aesop's Fables and have particular favorites.  My personal favorites are still the same, although one is not in Charles Santore's Aesop's Fables and Santore may have either introduced me to a few fables I missed or merely reminded me of their existence.  At any rate, there's not much you can do to screw up Aesop, apart from poorly rewriting the stories and I think he did a decent job, although a "moral" or two was worded differently from the way I learned them.

It's the illustrations that make Charles Santore's books shine and Aesop's Fables is no exception.  Highly recommended, especially for mothers or children who love to stare at the details of gorgeous illustrations.

Underground by Haruki Murakami is the one book I wouldn't advise you to rush out and buy for last-minute Christmas gifting, although Underground is a fascinating read.  It's just that reading about people gasping for breath and going blind is not particularly cheerful reading material.

Underground is Murakami's attempt to understand the Tokyo sarin attack that took place in 1995 by interviewing both people who were poisoned or close to a victim and some of the Aum cult members, none of whom were directly involved in the poisoning.  He also spends a little time evaluating what went wrong and how to avoid such disastrous results if they were to recur.

I knew very little about the sarin attack -- or, coordinated attacks, I should say.  The puncturing of bags full of sarin took place in a number of different trains.  Death and injury in the subway trains and various stations were due to a combination of ignorance (no knowledge of sarin's effects, in spite of a previous attack), very poor communication, the lack of preparation for large-scale disaster and the Japanese tendency to stick to routine in spite of some pretty dramatic signs of danger or illness.

Underground started out a little slowly for me.  I'm not sure what I expected, but in many cases the personal accounts were rather bland.  Relatively few of the victims were even willing to speak to Murakami because they didn't want to think about their experience, much less discuss it.  However, there are a few accounts that are incredibly moving, particular those of the brother of a woman who was still barely able to move or communicate when the book went to press (but remained stunningly cheerful), the young widow of a man who died and the young man's parents.  The section with interviews of people who belonged to Aum is fascinating for the look into the personalities and why people join such a group, as much as the machinations of cult life and the attack.

I thought it was particularly interesting to hear the thoughts of one woman who had lived in the U.S. for a year  She said if the same thing happened in America, people would have reacted with urgency and noise, speaking up about feeling ill and insisting on immediate action.  I can't argue with that.  I spent a lot of time imagining what the response would be like elsewhere before I got to her comment.

Highly recommended - An interesting view inside both the lives of people who were affected by the sarin attack and those who were involved in Aum (which I think the government of Japan eventually gave religious status and which apparently still exists under a new name and leader, although it has all the hallmarks of a cult).

©2012 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham - Book, movie and radio program

On the steamer that took them up the Western River Walter read incessantly, but at meal-times he endeavored to make some kind of conversation. He talked to her as though she were a stranger with whom he happened to be making the journey, of indifferent things, from politeness, Kitty imagined, or because so he could render more marked the gulf that separated them.

~p. 87 of The Painted Veil

This is going to be an extremely casual set of thoughts. I watched The Painted Veil, the movie starring Edward Norton and Naomi Watts, one night when Huzzybuns was out of either town or country or both, and then tore through my house looking for the book. It took me two days to locate the book, which I immediately read then followed up with a second viewing of the movie and then the BBC Radio 4 "Woman's Hour" radio production in 5 parts. The general storyline for book, movie and radio series:

Kitty has spent her youthful years toying with a procession of suitors without finding a single one of them appealing enough to marry. Now, her younger sister is marrying well and her mother asks, "How long do you expect your father to support you?" Kitty realizes she is not only considered a burden but also about to become a laughingstock because her younger sister will be titled and she will be "the cast-off elder spinster sister." She wants to go far, far away. Conveniently, Walter asks her to marry him and accompany him to China, where he works as a bacteriologist.

They move to Hong Kong (Shanghai in the movie) and two years pass. Kitty thinks Walter is boring and rude. He has a tendency not to reply to her because he's focused on his work and is not prone to chatter -- he's a very nerd-centric, science guy. She becomes captivated by Charlie, who is also married, and they have a steamy affair. In the book and BBC Radio 4 series (as I recall -- the radio series was only available online temporarily), they go to a room above a shop; in the movie the location of their trysts is unspecified but in all cases, they end up in Kitty's room on a day that Walter arrives home early. He turns the doorknob but the door is locked.

Walter doesn't pretend he knows nothing. He's already aware that Kitty finds him appalling, but now he's Majorly Pissed. Within a short time, he's decided to take a job working in a remote village where there has been an outbreak of cholera. He tells Kitty he'll leave her behind if Charlie will divorce his wife and marry Kitty immediately. Walter is not as stupid as Kitty thinks; he knows how Charlie will react. Off they go to Mei-tan-fu, where all but one of the Englishmen in town have died or fled. Will Walter succeed in killing them both, thus eliminating the wife he now hates and his own humiliated self?

This is how the movie begins:

Walter and Kitty are sitting in the rain, nowhere near each other, waiting for their ride (which involves chairs carried by coolies). You can tell they hate each other, Kitty is angry, Walter doesn't care what she thinks; he's off in his own little world. It's perfectly portrayed in a stunningly beautiful setting. Flashbacks are utilized to tell the story up to this point, whereas the story is told in linear form in book and, I think, also in the radio series.

The three versions -- original novel, film and radio program -- are fascinating in their distinctions, but it may be a bit of a spoiler to say exactly how they differ, apart from noting that Kitty gains strength and character and learns to respect her husband in the movie and in the book she remains a simpering, frail, pitiful character to the end. Oh, and there are a lot of things added to the movie, obviously for cinematic effect. Most of those were good choices, in my opinion.

Want to know more about the differences? Keep reading, but be aware that this may be spoiler territory.

In the book, Kitty learns to respect her husband but continues to declare that she can never possibly love Walter. Kitty is a typical wimpy bitch heroine written by a popular writer of the time period (1920's - copyrighted in 1925) and disappointing in her lack of growth.

The movie and radio series were obviously written with modern sensibilities in mind. Women of today will not put up with a character who can't be bothered to learn from her mistakes and buck up. From respect for her husband's hard work and the love and care he shows to others, as well as her own hard work, Kitty loses her hard edge and learns to love. She develops a backbone where needed, softens in other ways. And, the love that develops between Kitty and Walter makes the story both romantic and tragic. But, honestly, I don't want to ever give everything away.

----End spoiler----

So, which version of The Painted Veil did I like best? Honestly? I enjoyed all three versions for different reasons but especially liked them in combination. I liked the beautiful scenery of the movie, Maugham's gorgeous writing in the book, the way the radio program brought the sound and sensations of the book to life with actors in roles (as opposed to the typical single-narrator/actor audio recordings, which I tend to detest), horses hooves clattering, bells chiming. But, I really do not like the ending of the book.

I thought Edward Norton, Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber hit it out of the ballpark. Their characterizations were spot on, at first, then fit the changes made to the script (which made the movie version romantic). The average viewer who rated The Painted Veil at Rotten Tomatoes tends to agree with me. The radio show was different in minor ways but, again, apart from updating the female role to fit modern demands, it wasn't that far off from the book. In fact, it was closer to the novel than the movie. My one complaint about the movie was that there were a couple senseless jabs at Catholicism. I'm not Catholic, but I was a bit appalled by them.

On the second viewing of the movie, I took notes. At one point, Mr. Waddington (the only other Englishman in the village) says of the nuns who run the local orphanage:

"They're not just here to run an orphanage. They're turning these children into little Catholics."

Hmm. Not in the book. In fact, the nuns have nothing but the interests of the children at heart in the novel. They are not all orphans but by paying their parents a modest fee, the nuns are able to take in children who would be otherwise neglected, starved, possibly abandoned. And, then there's a little speech by Mother Superior, who compares her love of Jesus to a marriage:

"Over the years, my feelings have changed. He disappointed me, ignored me."

No, she doesn't say anything of the sort in the novel. She is a deeply committed believer who cannot be persuaded to return to her extremely wealthy family in France. Having made her decision when young, she still feels she has made the right choice and that China is where she belongs, regardless of the risks.

Other than those annoying changes, I thought the movie was pretty well done. Some lines are recognizably pulled directly from the novel. In one case, Mr. Waddington of the movie version is given one of Mother Superior's lines -- or, maybe it's the other way around. The movie is faithful enough and the ending is an improvement. Look, Walter and Kitty actually touch each other, late in the movie!

I think I had trouble with the fact that Kitty found her husband so repulsive partly because I like skinny, nerdy, science dudes. Heck, I even married one (although we have both since expanded . . . he sort of married a skinny nerd, too -- just a different kind). Walter is really quite a bit like my husband, in many ways: focused, smart, driven, quiet. I mentally chewed out Kitty, a few times. Silly old cow, can't you see what a decent guy you've got?

Book, movie and radio program all recommended - I don't know what it is about this story that I love, but I found the idea fascinating, the characters interesting and well-developed and the portrayal very beautifully done in both movie and radio show. The acting is really marvelous in both. Movie-wise, Edward Norton always amazes me, to be honest. I didn't even know who was playing Kitty till the credits rolled, but I was impressed with Naomi Watts, too. I think The Painted Veil is the first movie in which I've seen her. Kitty is disappointing in the book, but I love Maugham's writing and I suppose I can forgive him for not letting Kitty grow a bit more. Yes, I do believe I will. Forgiven.

Cover thoughts:

The cover shown above is the design on my copy, which was published in 2004 by Vintage International (a division of Random House books). I like it. The mode of dress and hairstyle are right for the time period. I don't recall if there's any scene with a bird cage in the book, but there is in the movie. Actually, that part's kind of weird. They took Waddington's love life and gave Kitty a couple of "Gasp!" scenes. Oh, and Waddington -- I love the actor who played him and found that he fit the description in the book very nicely.

In other news:

There will be a cat photo, soon. My recent reviews have been way the heck too long, so I'll keep the next post brief. Sound good to you? Happy Valentine's Day!

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