Lovers in Paradise
Apr. 30th, 2013 10:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
todayiamadaisyA headline today: Woman's death a warning on the dangers of squats, which I initially thought boded ill for people trying to tone their thighs. It turned out to be about housing, though.
April's books:
* The Manticore - Robertson Davies
* World of Wonders - Robertson Davies
* Dido and Pa - Joan Aiken
* Miss Buncle's Book - DE Stevenson
* Twelve Days of Christmas - Trisha Ashley
* Is - Joan Aiken
* Cold Shoulder Road - Joan Aiken
* The Little Book of Talent - Daniel Coyle
This month I read two completely unrelated books featuring main characters called Eisengrim. So that was special.
The first Eisengrim was one of the main characters in Robertson Davies' Deptford Trilogy, which I started last month with Fifth Business and completed this month with The Manticore and World of Wonders. I don't think I praised Fifth Business last month as much as I should have, because it was excellent. It stands alone as a complete story, but I'm not sure the other two would make any sense to anyone who hadn't read it first.
The trilogy is the story of three boys born in the same small Canadian town in the early 1900s, and revolves around the question 'who killed Boy Staunton?'. The first book tells the life story of Dunstan Ramsay, World War I veteran and history teacher; the second fills in the gaps about Dunstan's lifelong sort-of friend, Boy Staunton, a jaunty industrialist and friend of Edward VIII; the third completes the story with the life of a third boy, Magnus Eisengrim, master illusionist. Eisengrim was the last person to see Boy, so his story is supposed to be the definitive version of what happened, but, fittingly for a master illusionist, he's the most unreliable of the narrators, so it remains ambiguous. I didn't enjoy Eisengrim's tale as much as the other two; while Dunstan and Boy are believable characters, Eisengrim's awful childhood and adult success are a little over the top - but that's kind of fitting, since in the first book, Dunstan ghostwrites a fictional autobiography for Eisengrim, and there's a sense that the third book is Eisengrim writing another fictional autobiography. It's all very clever and meaty.
Anyway, I highly recommend Fifth Business, and if you like that, you'll probably like the others too. I did.
The second Eisengrim of April was the bad guy in one of Joan Aiken's Wolves Chronicles. He was killed by a sea gull. One of the other bad guys was chased, beaten and left for dead by a gang of orphans, before being eaten alive by wolves. So that was delightful. (I'm surprised by how many of these Wolves Chronicles books there are, but I should get through the last few in May. Phew.)
Miss Buncle's Book is one of those middle-aged-ladies-change-their-lives-in-the-manner-implied-by-the-title books in the vein of Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day and Mrs Harris Goes to Paris. In this one, you won't be surprised to hear, Miss Buncle writes a book. In particular, she writes a book about the people in her village, using thinly-veiled pseudonyms, first introducing them then fixing up their lives. Once the book is published, some of the people in the village get upset about it, while others start behaving like their fictional counterparts. Miss Buncle then writes a sequel, in which her fictional counterpart from the first book writes a book about the village she lives in and how some of the people in the fictional village start acting like their fictional fictional counterparts while others get upset. So... not confusing at all. In one chapter, in Miss Buncle's real world, the village's busybody kidnaps the nice doctor's twins, which I thought was a bit much for a cosy little village; a chapter later, the fictional village's fictional busybody kidnaps the nice fictional doctor's twins, and the publisher tells Miss Buncle that it's a bit over the top and she says, no, it really happened. It was like that all the way through: people reading Miss Buncle's book couldn't agree whether the author was being sincere or satirical, while I found Miss Buncle herself to be something of a cipher. Miss Buncle's Book seemed to wrap up in a hurry, much like Miss Buncle's second book was described as doing. It's all very meta. All up, I enjoyed it, but not enough to seek out the sequels.
My mother gave me some library books to return for her, and one of them was The Twelve Days of Christmas. It was sitting on my kitchen bench, luring me in with its jolly cover, and I succumbed. It wasn't awful. It wasn't good either. It just was. It was about a woman who was called Holly because she was born on Christmas Day (yay, Christmas). Her mother died giving birth (boo, Christmas). She was raised by her grandmother, who was a member of a Baptist sect that didn't celebrate Christmas (boo, Christmas). She married a man who really loved Christmas (yay, Christmas). He died on Christmas Eve, after falling into icy water while trying to rescue a dog (boo, Christmas). So she had some complicated feelings about Christmas, and that was before she was snowed in one Christmas with a family whose house she was house-sitting. (If you're wondering, as I was, why the family needed a house-sitter for Christmas when there was enough of them there to be snowed in, this might not be the book for you.) Anyway (spoiler!), not only does she end up enjoying Christmas, she also turns out to be related to the family, but not so closely she can't marry the rich, hunky, widowed one. Yay, Christmas.
The Little Book of Talent was on a list recommended by the woman who ran my work's annual staff development days. I thought I should read one to show willing, and this was the shortest. Tip 4: Buy a notebook to write stuff down. Thanks, Dan. We'll manage.
April's books:
* The Manticore - Robertson Davies
* World of Wonders - Robertson Davies
* Dido and Pa - Joan Aiken
* Miss Buncle's Book - DE Stevenson
* Twelve Days of Christmas - Trisha Ashley
* Is - Joan Aiken
* Cold Shoulder Road - Joan Aiken
* The Little Book of Talent - Daniel Coyle
This month I read two completely unrelated books featuring main characters called Eisengrim. So that was special.
The first Eisengrim was one of the main characters in Robertson Davies' Deptford Trilogy, which I started last month with Fifth Business and completed this month with The Manticore and World of Wonders. I don't think I praised Fifth Business last month as much as I should have, because it was excellent. It stands alone as a complete story, but I'm not sure the other two would make any sense to anyone who hadn't read it first.
The trilogy is the story of three boys born in the same small Canadian town in the early 1900s, and revolves around the question 'who killed Boy Staunton?'. The first book tells the life story of Dunstan Ramsay, World War I veteran and history teacher; the second fills in the gaps about Dunstan's lifelong sort-of friend, Boy Staunton, a jaunty industrialist and friend of Edward VIII; the third completes the story with the life of a third boy, Magnus Eisengrim, master illusionist. Eisengrim was the last person to see Boy, so his story is supposed to be the definitive version of what happened, but, fittingly for a master illusionist, he's the most unreliable of the narrators, so it remains ambiguous. I didn't enjoy Eisengrim's tale as much as the other two; while Dunstan and Boy are believable characters, Eisengrim's awful childhood and adult success are a little over the top - but that's kind of fitting, since in the first book, Dunstan ghostwrites a fictional autobiography for Eisengrim, and there's a sense that the third book is Eisengrim writing another fictional autobiography. It's all very clever and meaty.
Anyway, I highly recommend Fifth Business, and if you like that, you'll probably like the others too. I did.
The second Eisengrim of April was the bad guy in one of Joan Aiken's Wolves Chronicles. He was killed by a sea gull. One of the other bad guys was chased, beaten and left for dead by a gang of orphans, before being eaten alive by wolves. So that was delightful. (I'm surprised by how many of these Wolves Chronicles books there are, but I should get through the last few in May. Phew.)
Miss Buncle's Book is one of those middle-aged-ladies-change-their-lives-in-the-manner-implied-by-the-title books in the vein of Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day and Mrs Harris Goes to Paris. In this one, you won't be surprised to hear, Miss Buncle writes a book. In particular, she writes a book about the people in her village, using thinly-veiled pseudonyms, first introducing them then fixing up their lives. Once the book is published, some of the people in the village get upset about it, while others start behaving like their fictional counterparts. Miss Buncle then writes a sequel, in which her fictional counterpart from the first book writes a book about the village she lives in and how some of the people in the fictional village start acting like their fictional fictional counterparts while others get upset. So... not confusing at all. In one chapter, in Miss Buncle's real world, the village's busybody kidnaps the nice doctor's twins, which I thought was a bit much for a cosy little village; a chapter later, the fictional village's fictional busybody kidnaps the nice fictional doctor's twins, and the publisher tells Miss Buncle that it's a bit over the top and she says, no, it really happened. It was like that all the way through: people reading Miss Buncle's book couldn't agree whether the author was being sincere or satirical, while I found Miss Buncle herself to be something of a cipher. Miss Buncle's Book seemed to wrap up in a hurry, much like Miss Buncle's second book was described as doing. It's all very meta. All up, I enjoyed it, but not enough to seek out the sequels.
My mother gave me some library books to return for her, and one of them was The Twelve Days of Christmas. It was sitting on my kitchen bench, luring me in with its jolly cover, and I succumbed. It wasn't awful. It wasn't good either. It just was. It was about a woman who was called Holly because she was born on Christmas Day (yay, Christmas). Her mother died giving birth (boo, Christmas). She was raised by her grandmother, who was a member of a Baptist sect that didn't celebrate Christmas (boo, Christmas). She married a man who really loved Christmas (yay, Christmas). He died on Christmas Eve, after falling into icy water while trying to rescue a dog (boo, Christmas). So she had some complicated feelings about Christmas, and that was before she was snowed in one Christmas with a family whose house she was house-sitting. (If you're wondering, as I was, why the family needed a house-sitter for Christmas when there was enough of them there to be snowed in, this might not be the book for you.) Anyway (spoiler!), not only does she end up enjoying Christmas, she also turns out to be related to the family, but not so closely she can't marry the rich, hunky, widowed one. Yay, Christmas.
The Little Book of Talent was on a list recommended by the woman who ran my work's annual staff development days. I thought I should read one to show willing, and this was the shortest. Tip 4: Buy a notebook to write stuff down. Thanks, Dan. We'll manage.