Angelica by Arthur Phillips

Angelica: A Novel by Arthur Phillips
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



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What I like most about Arthur Phillips' books is his use of the unreliable narrator. In Angelica, this device works very well because it keeps the momentum going throughout the entire book. I also appreciate Phillips' style of writing. Since Angelica takes place during Victorian times, it is especially appropriate that the language Phillips uses matches the era. There is never any doubt what the subject of this novel is, yet Phillips manages to describe the behavior of his characters without ever resorting to graphic or needlessly titillating passages.

Angelica is described as a ghost story, and for the most part that's what it is. However, it's also a disturbing look at what it was like to be a woman during the Victorian era. In the interview at the end of the book, Phillips was asked if this is a feminist novel. He says that was not his intent when he wrote the book. I did not read Angelica with any particular political agenda in mind, but it is quite evident that Phillips knew his subject very well, and it is hard not to draw at least some reference to how women were treated and how they might have responded both mentally and physically during a time when women's voices were not heard.

The Three Muskateers by Alexandre Dumas

The Three Muskateers by Alexandre Dumas

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


I don't usually blast the classics, but I have to make an exception for this one. I had NO idea The Three Muskateers was a rendition of Disney characters meeting The Three Stooges, with a little Adam Sandler thrown in for heart. Forget all about basic writing procedures like character or basic logical plot development. Those things do not exist here. Dumas never uses one or two words when 347 will do instead, so there's heavy doses of nonsense interspersed with lots and lots of behavior that makes absolutely no sense. Even taking into consideration that times were different when this was published, and the novel takes place in another country, there's no accounting for the outright stupidity of the people and their behavior. Besides all this, why does no one ever point out that Dumas simply couldn't count to four? There were not Three Muskateers by the end of the book; there were four. Further, the book itself was more about that fourth guy than it was about the other threesome. (This is not a spoiler, by the way. It is revealed at the beginning of the novel that we're going to be dealing with four dimwitted men, not three.)

I thought maybe there was a benefit to reading this novel just for the historical significance. Wrong again. Absolutely nothing redeems this book. What's worse is that it's part of a trilogy, and guess who bought the whole set! Yep, that would be me. I can't wait to see what happens 20 years after the first one ends.... NOT!!! :)



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Crossing California by Adam Langer

Crossing California by Adam Langer


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The first review I read about this book gave me the impression that the Americans taken hostage from the Iranian embassy under the regime of the Ayatollah Khomeini played some part in the substance of this story. Only insofar as a time reference does the hostage crisis have any bearing on any part of the story that takes place in Crossing California. That misunderstanding coupled with the misleading title of this book made it somewhat disappointing for me from the beginning. Crossing California is very much like a Seinfeld television episode; it's really all about nothing.

Which is not to say that the book isn't entertaining, because for the most part it is. It's just that in spite of its humor and attempts at delving into the psyches of 3 different families, this is a story about the small episodes that make up the details of life as young people struggle and blunder on their trek through the terrible teens.

There's a lot of material about what it's like growing up Jewish during the early 80's in Chicago. There's also a lot of terms that most likely are very familiar to Jewish readers, but Gentiles like me never heard of the majority of it. The author, however, has provided plenty of context, so it's not really important to be familiar with principles of the Jewish religion and culture to understand the book. There are times these references are hilarious; there are also times when they're nothing but tedious.

It might be interesting to read another book by Adam Langer because I did appreciate the way he writes. I just wasn't very impressed with his story this time around.

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The End Of The Pier by Martha Grimes

The End of the Pier by Martha Grimes



My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I've never been able to "get" Martha Grimes. It's not that I outright don't like her books; it's more that I just don't know what she's trying to get her characters to convey. The End Of The Pier is the perfect example of this. I'm not sure if the characters in this book are deep (as in profound thinkers), crazy, or maybe just flat out stupid.

There's a serial killer loose in Elton County, a small town-America rustic area, only no one seems to have put together the clues indicating that the murders of women which have taken place over time are connected. What law enforcement exists in the area is lazy at best and clueless at worst. Except for the local sheriff, Sam DeGheyn, who believes the wrong man has been tried and convicted for the murders. However, Sam's got a screwed up personal life, so his full attention is not quite concentrated on the murders. Besides that, Sam isn't getting a lot of cooperation from his fellow county law enforcement officers.

One of the main characters through whom this story is revealed is Maud Chadwick. Maud's thought process is all over the place which, to me, made her annoying and ornery rather than helpful in figuring out what is going on around her. I wanted to like Maud, I really did, but just about the time I thought she'd offered some genuine insight, she'd go and spoil it all by uttering stream of consciousness drivel.

As for the mystery of who is killing the women of Elton County: by the time I reached the end of the book I really couldn't have cared less. I was just glad I'd reached the last page so I could pack this book up to donate to Good Will.

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Talking To Strange Men by Ruth Rendell

Talking to Strange Men by Ruth Rendell

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After stumbling upon and reading hidden messages from one group member to another, John Creevey believes he has uncovered an espionage ring or possibly an underground mafia group planning crimes and even murder. What he's really found is a harmless game played by school boys in which coded messages are hidden in what the boys believe is a "safe drop" away from the prying eyes of adults. Creevey's interference in the harmless pranks and plots of these boys forms the basis for Rendell's story.

What I like most about Ruth Rendellbooks is the psychology she includes with her characters. The reader comes to know what motivates the people in her stories; what makes them do what they do, and how they've arrived at the thought process with behavior that moves the story forward.

All of the men in Talking To Strange Men could be classified as "strange" in some way. Some will go to great lengths just to get attention. Others are lonely and because they have no lives to speak of, everything that happens to them becomes magnified beyond its real importance. Even the schoolboys involved in their competitive games with complicated codes and clever tricks each participate in this activity for their own specific reasons outside of the obvious inducement of having fun.

I'd recommend this book or any book by Ruth Rendell to anyone who enjoys reading about characters who have depth and will often surprise the reader by what they do next.

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The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje



My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Sometimes I think the people who judge the prestigious book awards and choose the winner, deliberately go out of their way to award some book that's nearly unreadable. Books that fall into this category generally have little to no plot that's discernible to the reader's naked eye, and at best the book is written as a half-baked stream of consciousness muddle. In my opinion, it is those who make it through reading these kinds of books who deserve the awards; NOT the authors who scribble them on the backs of envelopes or on matchbook covers.

That said, The English Patient does have some redeeming qualities about it. It is, after all, written from the perspective of a man who is badly injured, heavily sedated, and is working his way though amnesia to remember the details of his life. In my opinion the best written passages in this book involve those that take place in the wartime situations. Michael Ondaatje has written serveral riveting passages, one in particular involving dismantling a bomb, that kept me on the edge of my seat, not even realizing I was holding my breath until the outcome was revealed.

And then we get back to the real crux of the story, Ondaatje goes meandering all over the page while my mind wanders toward what I could be reading instead of this.

From a historical point of view, The English Patient was well done. Strictly from the point of view of the characters who fleshed out Ondaatje's story, most of them were not likable, sympathetic people no matter what situation landed them in the story. Worst of all was the English Patient himself who, for me at least, remained at the end of the book as he was in the beginning, just a sedated man who spent day after day in a bed being cared for by a dedicated, but hard to understand, nurse. I would only recommend this book to people who like their reading material to be dry and dull.

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The Last Brother by Joe McGinniss

The Last Brother by Joe McGinniss


My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Joseph P Kennedy, father of brothers Joseph, John, Robert, and Edward believed: "It's not what you are that counts, but only what people think you are."

That sums up what the myths surrounding the Kennedy family are all about. Created by the Kennedys and furthered by an adoring media, Americans came to elevate the Kennedys to the status of royalty for over 3 decades. It is from this point of view that Joe McGinniss has written The Last Brother: The Rise and Fall of Teddy Kennedy. McGinniss states in his Author's Note at the end of his book that he wanted to write an account that took into consideration what it felt like to be Edward Kennedy; or to have some understanding and empathy for what it was like to deal with the pressure of being the fat little brother who wasn't up to competing with his older, more accomplished siblings. For the most part, I think McGinniss did what he set out to do in that regard; but, there were times when McGinniss came dangerously close to suggesting we have sympathy for Edward Kennedy.

McGinniss begins his book with the assassination of President John F Kennedy. He illustrates from this grim example how little Teddy Kennedy knew of his family's plans for the future and what exactly those plans entailed. The father of the Kennedy clan, Joseph P Kennedy, was the mastermind behind a plan to bring the Kennedy name to power in the US as a dynasty unto themselves. Through his fortune he was able to manipulate or outright buy any outcome he wanted in any given situation. Joseph Jr, Jack, and Bobby each understood and were primed for their specific roles in the plan. Having come along almost as an afterthought to the family, Teddy was given no specific outline of his role, and from childhood on he more or less flew by the seat of his pants. When his brother Jack was assassinated, he had no idea what to do, where to be, nor any idea how to perform. He was unprepared to serve his family in any capacity at all much less become an example to his country of how royalty behaves under fire.

The material presented as fact in McGinniss' book is a matter of public reacord, and the bibliography McGinniss lists at the end of the book is extensive. He did his research. What gets somewhat murky is assuming McGinniss knows what Ted Kennedy thought which motivated him to behave as he did through the many crises in his life. And it is within some of those passages that it seemed to me there was occasionally too much of a plea for sympathy to Kennedy. Empathy I may be able to grasp, but sympathy? Not in any lifetime.

The picture that emerges of Teddy Kennedy as viewed through the facts, in my opinion, remains one of an irresponsible, cowardly, indecisive, dissipated, philandering boy/man who came far too close to becoming President of the United States based on the myth surrounding his family name rather than the facts of his life. For that reason, I'd recommend reading this book just to see the process by which something like this can happen. One would hope the lesson learned would be to never allow a man like Ted Kennedy or a family like his to so invade the national interests of our country again because there are no messiahs in the political spectrum or any other spectrum for that matter. Unfortunately, it appears that lesson was not learned and it continues to happen all over again.

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