Birthday Books!

Sunday was my birthday, and (as always) I got books! I've been using the library so much this year that I didn't ask for as many books as I used to ask for, but what I got was quality:

• Sigrid Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy in the Tiina Nunnally translation -- I can read the language of Charles Archer's older translation, but it tends to feel like Archer is trying too hard. His archaisms are grammatically correct, so I can stand to read them, but they still feel strained to me, as if he's trying just a little too hard. I've read that Nunnally's translation is also more faithful to the tone of Undset's own words, but I don't read Norwegian, so I can neither confirm nor deny.
  
• From my brother: Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian, The Other Boleyn Girl by Phillipa Gregory, and Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K. Hamilton. My brother just started working at Borders, so he was looking for books to buy me, and I picked a few from my old Amazon wishlist and a few from Diana Gabaldon's "Methadone List". Armed with the list, he actually walked into the store where he works and bought a Phillipa Gregory and a Laurell K. Hamilton! Coming from an almost-21-year-old, that's real brotherly love. (I mean, Master and Commander is love too, but without such potential for young-manly embarrassment.)
  

Adam may very well have gotten me books, too; we haven't had our celebration together yet.

Girl In a Cage -- Jane Yolen and Robert J. Harris, 2002 (read 27-30 June 2007)

I read this more than a month ago now, but it's stuck with me, as any good book does. Yolen and Harris do a marvelous job of pacing Marjorie Bruce's tale and of making it feel viscerally real. Marjorie's story is Scotland's story, and the story of Scotland's people; politics and daily life are woven together, and Marjorie learns that both require her considerable personal courage. Marjorie's narration moves back and forth between the long days of her captivity and the breakneck months leading up to it, allowing us to see not only her acts of valor and intelligence, but the ways she has learned to refine and govern these powers.

Girl in a Cage is apparently the second book in a planned quartet of Scottish history. Its story and characters stand alone, but I'd like to read the other books in the series; this one conveys so well the legendary victories and crushing defeats of Scottish wars against England. I'm reading other books now, about much later Scottish history, but my mental images are still very much affected by Yolen and Harris's images of rebellion, perilous flight, and noble pride.

Library visits, 2nd half of July

Can't post. Too busy reading Outlander books! Here are my book-hauls from the library in the past couple of weeks. (I've been checking out Upstairs Downstairs over and over again too, but I haven't been watching them as much as I might like -- I haven't had as much alone-doing-chores time this summer as I anticipated.)

• 17 July:
  
  
  
  • In Spite of the Gods: the strange rise of modern India (Edward Luce)
    
  • Dragonfly in Amber (Diana Gabaldon)
    
  • Voyager (Diana Gabaldon)
    
  • Lady Ilena: Way of the Warrior (Patricia Malone)
    
  
  
• 25 July:
  
  
  
  • The Fiery Cross (Diana Gabaldon)
    
  • Drums of Autumn (Diana Gabaldon)
    
  • The Penguin Book of Irish Fiction
    

    (I picked these up at a branch I'd never been to before. One librarian asked me if they were out of small books that day, and another raved companionably about Diana Gabaldon's speaking skills.)
    

  
  
• 26 July:
  
  
  
  • Lord John and the Private Matter (Diana Gabaldon) (to make the Outlander series last just a little longer!)
    
  • Charity Girl (Michael Lowenthal) (so I could have a copy out on my own card)
    
  • Hikaru no go. 1, Descent of the Go master (Yumi Hotta) (for Adam)
    
  
  

I, Coriander -- Sally Gardner, 2005 (read 20-26 June 2007)

I was going to stop with two new reviews tonight. I know I'm way behind on posting reviews of what I've read, but really, it's time for me to go shower -- or at least get off the computer.

I'm putting off the last few pages of Outlander for this! Which, come to think of it, might be why I'm doing it; I have to wait until tomorrow afternoon at least before I can get my grubby hands on the copy of Dragonfly in Amber I requested from the library.

But my proximal excuse is that I just re-encountered the perfect quotation to complement the next book I'm due to review.

I had trouble getting into I, Coriander. I made a few false starts at the first chapter, and only really started reading at the last minute before the book was due at the library.

I had to check out another copy the same night I returned it. Here's one of the reasons why:

Fairy tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.

-- G. K. Chesterton

Gardner's world of magic is weird and disturbing even when it's beautiful, and it's frequently ugly. The things that happen to Coriander outside the magical world are the same way. What I ended up loving about this book -- what had me, in my mind, standing up and cheering for Coriander -- was this: She begins as a little girl, shocked by a sudden swing in the course of her life, and terrified of very real threats to her safety. She grows, not just into herself, but into someone who confronts her life's demons face-to-face. (And she does it without breaking character!)

I can imagine this book working magic in the life of an abused child, not least because it's not syrupy medicine, but a story anyone can fall into.

The Legend of Lady Ilena -- Patricia Malone, 2002 (read 21-24 June 2007)

I have a lot of different favorite kinds of books. The Legend of Lady Ilena is several of them!

• Believable historical fiction: Well, Ilena is completely fictional; we have no evidence that anyone like her existed. It was a stroke of genius, in my opinion, to situate her lightly in Arthurian times, a setting where it's easy for modern readers to suspend disbelief. I'm easily annoyed by implausible details in historical fiction, so I really appreciate books that suck me into the past without making me stub my toes on what a normal person would consider minor errors. Of course, any writer of historical fiction has to make a lot of things up; what matters to me is that the fiction harmonize well with what we do know. Ilena is strong and smart and very much of her own time.
  
  
• Strong women who really fit into the stories being told about them: See the last sentence above. It helps, as I said, that we don't know too much about sixth-century Britain, and it probably helps me that so much of what I do know is colored by all the historical fiction I read growing up. I also have a decided weakness for lady knights -- not the easiest characters to write into real history! Whatever their story, it's always a great pleasure for me to read characters I both like and believe in.
  
  
• Traditional stories re-explained: Malone has managed (against the odds!) to contribute something really new to the masses of historical fiction set in Arthur's time. She's done it in part by avoiding Arthur himself, leaving him a vague, faraway presence, but she's done it well.
  
  
• Just plain good writing: This is one of my basic litmus tests, of course. To really love a book, I have to enjoy its prose and its characters and the world it creates. It certainly helps if there are lines that makes me grin both with humor and with revelation. I don't know if Malone is the first one to have this insight, but I loved her idea that the unearthly barking of Hearn's Hounds (the ghostly hunt at Halloween-time -- you might remember it from The Dark Is Rising) might be the same sound as the honking of migrating geese.
  

I just love literary craftsmanship of all kinds.

I'm looking forward to checking out Malone's second Lady Ilena book; the Amazon reviews suggest that it won't be disappointing.

The Tale of Despereaux -- Kate DiCamillo, 2003 (read 19-20 June 2007)

Another box checked on the "things I've been sort of meaning to read for a while now" list. I finally wrote this review last Friday -- Friday the 13th! -- while sitting in a strange library,* taking a break between endurance bouts of integration.

* Not strange anymore -- I technically have a card for this library now (and all other public libraries in Maryland).

The most striking feature of The Tale of Despereaux is its extreme cuteness. The story's prose is charming to the point of being laugh-out-loud funny (sometimes on purpose, sometimes not). The invocation to the reader annoyed me somehow, although Adam thought it was charming.

Surprisingly although the story is sometimes a bit too conscious of itself as a story -- too much "Reader, this happened" and "Reader, that happened" -- it never struck me as too very self-conscious about the cuteness. It's appealing in a very obvious way, yet not in an acutely embarrassing way. It's really just sweet.

The trials Despereaux faces weren't as tense for me, as a reader, as they were for Despereaux himself, but that might be different if I were younger. Overall, I was charmed by the plot. I particularly like the way the story's resolution depended on almost every character having a bit of good in them. I also liked that it came about in spite of almost everyone having bit of doubt about themselves or their actions.

Since finishing Despereaux, I've seen Ratatouille, which has some obvious superficial similarities. I liked Ratatouille better, I think. On the other hand, I would not have appreciated it in precisely the same way if I hadn't just read Despereaux, so there you are.

Library visit, 10 July 2007

Checked out:

• Upstairs Downstairs, discs VII and VIII (Season 2). This is my alone-time TV -- I watch it when I'm eating dinner, folding laundry, knitting, or just procrastinating. I watched through Season 4 already, but I was in the same place in the series as one of the librarians (and we kept competing for the DVDs), so I started over. It would have been too sad, anyway, to finish it so soon.
  
• Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl. This book caught my eye when I was browsing back issues (so to speak) of Reading Is My Superpower, and it caught my eye again on the New Items shelf at the library. I didn't pick it up at the time, because it was a large print edition. When it was still there on Tuesday, Adam convinced me it was fate.
  
• Fenzig's Fortune by Jean Rabe. I can't tell yet if I'll like this one, or even if I'll read it -- I've been checking out more of every genre than I can read, but especially of fantasy. But it was on the New shelf too, so why not?
  
• Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. This is all over the blogosphere, in a quietish way, and has been for lots of years. Romance-y historical fiction, entertaining and smart and well-written. So far, I really, really like it.
  
• Northanger Abbey and Mansfield Park by Jane Austen. I probably won't actually read these, now that I think about it. But I'm listening to audiobook versions of both of them in the car, and when I can't quite hear things on the recording, I wish I had a print copy to consult later.
  

Returned:

• Books I was enjoying, but won't finish before they're due:
  
  
  
  • Rumpole of the Bailey by John Mortimer
    
  • Empress Orchid by Anchee Min
    
  • War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
    
  • Jane Goodall: The Woman Who Redefined Man by Dale Peterson
    
  
  
• Books I meant to read and didn't:
  
  
  
  • Wild Ginger by Anchee Min
    
  • Secret Sacrament by Sherryl Jordan
    
  • Mairelon the Magician by Patricia Wrede
    
  • Valentine: A Love Story by Chet Raymo
    
  
  
• Books I'm done with:
  
  
  
  • Sew What! Skirts by Francesca Denhartog and Carole Ann Camp