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Review – Northanger Abbey

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Northanger Abbey from The Complete Works of Jane Austen

By Jane Austen

Douglas Editions

BN ID: 2940000816981

4.5 stars

On a quest to finish reading all of Austen’s works this year, I bring you my Northanger Abbey thoughts.

Seventeen year-old Catherine Morland is excited to be on holiday with family friends, Mr. and Mrs. Allen.  Her first visit to the resort town of Bath, she befriends Isabella Thorpe, a young woman much like herself with many of the same interests and the two becomes quite close in a very short time, attending balls and gossiping about the town’s visitors.  While waiting for her love interest, Henry Tilney, to return, Isabella’s brother John Thorpe begins to pursue Catherine.  She manages to keep him at bay and at the same time make friends with Henry’s sister, Eleanor, who invites her back to their estate — Northanger Abbey — for an extended visit.  Catherine, a reader and enthusiast of gothic novels, lets her imagination run wild envisioning the Abbey to be more thrilling than the tranquility it exudes and she starts looking for exotic explanations for simple human reactions to tragedy.

Northanger Abbey is Jane Austen’s take on a gothic novel.  Each time I pick up one of her books I have a certain expectation —- there will be a heroine, a love interest, a blossoming love story, a love-laced blunder, and true love found at last.  All of that happened but there was a little more to this one; the gothic tale.  I’m not familiar with the novel The Mysteries of Udolpho by Anne Radcliff which the main character Catherine adores, however, since reading this book I have downloaded it to my Nook and plan to take a look soon.  It’s really a wicked little jab at these horror stories and Catherine’s love of these types of books and her insistence on how well-written there are goes against the proclamations of others and is obviously Austen’s opinion of this genre made very clear.

As for characters, she once again delivers.  Catherine — a naïve, very likable person unwilling to believe a friend could do her wrong or that a dark side of life can exist.  She’s really lovely if somewhat absorbed in a world of fantasy.  I also very much enjoyed John Thorpe.  He’s brash, annoying, disagreeable, unlikeable, and spot on.  In no way do you want Catherine to acknowledge him let alone fall in love with him.  Henry, for me, was slightly boring (he’s no Mr. Darcy but who is?) but I found him endearing and a good fit for Catherine.

I waited a long time for the story to move to Northanger Abbey and was slightly disappointed with it, much like Catherine herself, but I loved her enthusiasm in uncovering what she believes to be the truth about the old Abbey.  It did follow a regular arc I’ve come to expect and love from Austen and I found Northanger Abbey to be a worthwhile addition to her collection and one I think I might read again.

Mansfield Park is next in my Austen reading but I probably won’t slip into it until later this year but I’m looking forward to it.

Today’s Book – The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

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I’ve been reading a lot of fantasy lately, not unusual for me but since I downloaded a bunch of classics to my Nook over the past few weeks, I thought it might be time to take a look at one.  The Woman in White won out, mostly because 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea popped up as 1,098 pages on my Nook and I didn’t want a book that long right now.  I have George RR Martin’s A Storm of Swords waiting for me and though I love a good chunkster, I wanted something slightly more manageable.

Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to spend much time with this tome but I am enjoying what I have been able to read.  It’s got a dark, gothic feel to it which is good since I’m sure to come off the fantasy high someday soon.

Having skipped over Collins many times even though people have said good things about his books, and especially this one, I’m somewhat surprised to find myself liking it.  Collins’s association with Charles Dickens, an author I have yet to appreciate, kept me away in fear that I would be stuck in Dickensonia.  Thankfully, that’s not the case.

I searched for a video to share but didn’t come up with anything interesting but I did find this excerpt from an audiobook produced by the BBC.

Teaser Tuesdays – The Woman in White

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Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.  The idea is to give everyone a look inside the book you’re reading.

Play along: Grab your current read; Open to a random page; Share two teaser sentences from that page; Share the title and author so other participants know what you’re reading.

It’s been a while since I’ve done a Teaser so I thought I’d play this week.  I started The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins last night.  Interesting, and not at all what I expected.

“The very night before I arrived at this house, I met with an adventure; and the wonder and excitement of, I can assure you, Miss Halcombe, will last me for the whole term of my stay at Cumberland, if not for a much longer period.”

“You don’t say so, Mr. Hartright! May I hear it?” (page 70 of 590 on Nook)

Review – Heat Wave

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Heat Wave

By Richard Castle

Hyperion

EAN: 9781401394769

3.5 stars

Nikki Heat is one of New York’s finest with a new case on her hands — a millionaire real estate developer found dead on the sidewalk in front of his exclusive Manhattan apartment.  Saddled with Jameson Rook, a celebrity journalist who somehow managed to get himself on a ride along, she begins her investigation at the same time a heat wave hits the city.

Sometimes all I want is a good old fashioned crime novel full of clichés, bad dialogue, and a criminal that sticks out from the first time you meet him/her on the page.  I got what I wanted out of this one.  It was all the above and more.  Parts of it made me laugh, cringe, and not once did any of it make me want to stop reading.  I know these books are the basis for the TV show Castle (or the other way around, I don’t know) which I’ve never seen, but now I may watch an episode just to see what it’s like.  It probably would have been helpful to have seen the show before reading this book too but I looked past a few things and went with it when I came to something that a person who watches the show probably would have known.

At its heart, Heat Wave, is a cop book.  It moved fast and entertained and that was what I needed at the time.  I have a soft spot for Lee Child novels but I think I may add a few Castle books to my crime thriller list for when the need strikes.

Review – Un Lun Dun

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Un Lun Dun

By China Miéville

Del Rey Books

E-ISBN: 978-0-345-49723-9

4.5 stars

Cute — describing Un Lun Dun in one word.  Cute would fit but it probably wouldn’t suffice. While there were so many things in this book that I loved (Curdle the milk carton for instance) there was even so much more to sink into that I feel I’m almost at a loss to write this review because I want to share absolutely everything which would ruin it so I will try for some restraint but I won’t promise it completely.

Deeba is the best friend of Zanna and as it turns out Zanna is supposed to save UnLondon but she doesn’t know it yet.  You see, Zanna is the Schwazzy, the savior of UnLondon and when strange things begin to happen to her, she investigates and her curiosity leads her to, you guessed it, UnLondon with Deeba tagging along.  Deeba, well, all she wants to do is get home and when she and Zanna are finally returned to their London, all she can do is think of UnLondon and how she can get back there.  Determined to help now that Zanna “the Schwazzy” can’t, she finds a way to not only find UnLondon, but also to save it — or at least she hopes to.

Miéville has an acute refined ability to take something so simple, the world we live in for example, and turn it around so it becomes something almost unrecognizable.  I say almost because he lets us glimpse the unusual but then pulls it back just far enough so we start to wonder what he’s really after.  Is that another world I just saw, or I am dreaming, fallen into a mental state, or maybe, just maybe that world is out there, waiting…waiting for the right time and place to show itself.  In Un Lun Dun, he does that along with taking the everyday mundane (umbrellas and milk cartons) and making them the most spectacular of characters.  Yes, characters.  He takes a milk carton living in UnLondon and gives it the personality of a lap dog that only wants to be loved and trot around about your heels.  He elevates umbrellas from simple rain protection to ultimate smog repellant then transforms them into a rebrella that will help to defeat evil.  It’s this ability to take the everyday and take it to the unbelievable that keeps me reading and coming back for more.

The City and the City was my first Miéville book and I was hooked from page one.  Kraken was an absolute treat and I couldn’t wait to find out what treasure was hidden in Un Lun Dun.  I can say it was absolutely full of gems and I honestly can’t wait to get my hands on more of his writing.  For the curious, he has a new book out, Embassytown, which takes place on an alien planet.  Ask me if I’m buying that one.  Yes, the answer is yes.

If you haven’t read any Miéville, one, start, and two, start with Un Lun Dun.  It’s fun, cute if you’ll indulge me, but also a way to meet a writer that will take you places you never imagined possible within the confines of the page.  It may be considered young adult, and completely different than his other books but that’s something to love about his writing — incredible diversity.

 

 

Review – A Clash of Kings

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A Clash of Kings

By George RR Martin

Bantam Books

eISBN: 978-0-553-89785-2

5 stars

Spoilers abound so feel free to skip this review if you want to read the series yourself and experience it without my opinions.  No feelings will be hurt in the process.  And, honestly, I don’t know how else to write this review without spoilers considering so much is going on in this series.

If you’re interested, my thoughts on A Game of Thrones can be found here.

In reading about these books, one thing that always comes up is that Martin if not a writer afraid of killing off main characters.  I love this and hate it at the same time — I become attached and he takes away just like that.   A shame but it’s also wondrous.  He’s writing about a medieval world where people are constantly fighting and in most cases, one or more lose their heads.  The death of main characters in his books makes total sense when you look at on the whole.

Beginning A Clash of Kings exactly where A Game of Thrones left off, Eddard Stark has lost his head, taken off by the new boy king, Joffrey, who spends his days being cruel to Stark’s daughter, Sansa, who was promised to be his wife.  All of Westeros is at war with no less than four men proclaiming themselves king including Robb Stark who now calls himself King of the North.  The capital, King’s Landing, is in flux with Joffrey as king, her mother Cersei playing Queen’s Regent, and her dwarf brother, Tyrion, acting as the hand to the king.  Chances for peace low, fighting goes on with everyone dying at a rate one has trouble imagining.  Daenerys, a young widow but still refusing to accept the loss of her power now that she’s tasted it, is still contemplating how to return and Jon Snow, Stark’s bastard son, is finding life as a member of the Night’s Watch more dark and despairing than he ever thought possible.

Wow.  If I had to use one word that would be all I need to describe this book.  Martin tells this story from 7, 11, 13 (I didn’t count them all but there are many) points of view.  It feels overwhelming sometimes but there’s too much going to and you can’t put it down.  You keep reading and reading interested to know what’s going to happen to each and every character.  You have that much invested.

For as much as I want to keep going with this series, I’m taking it very slow.  I could simply devour every one of these books one after the other, but I won’t.  I’m forcing myself to take it slow; one book every few months.  I’m doing this for several reasons: 1.) it’s a planned seven book series, only five books are written with the fifth coming out this July; 2.) if I come to the end of book five with nothing to look forward to for years, I may go into some sort of withdrawal and I can’t have that.

If you have a chance to pick up this series, do it.  It’s intimidating, 800+ pages, but the story is so good, fantastic really, that you’ll be completely entranced.  I highly recommend this book and the whole series, even though I’m only on book two.

Teaser Tuesdays – Poison

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Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.  The idea is to give everyone a look inside the book you’re reading.

Play along: Grab your current read; Open to a random page; Share two teaser sentences from that page; Share the title and author so other participants know what you’re reading.

This week I’m reading Poison: A Novel of the Renaissance by Sara Poole.

Beyond the city, spies were at work in the markets, brothels, trading houses, the Vatican itself, ferreting out whatever morsels might be useful to Borgia.  All this in service to the one great goal: Tte preservation and advancement of La Famiglia. (page 85)

Review – The Mistress of Nothing

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The Mistress of Nothing

By Kate Pullinger

A Touchstone Book

Simon & Schuster

ISBN: 978-1-4391-9386-0

4 stars

I love historical fiction and the longer the better which is why I was surprised by this little book and how much I did like it even if I did feel as though there could have been more in terms of the historical.  In the end, it was about the characters more than the place and I came to terms with that over the course of 250+ pages.

When Lady Duff Gordon makes the decision to move to Egypt permanently for the sake of her health, her maid, Sally Naldrett, is excited, joyous even at the prospect of a new life.  Always a woman of low means, Sally is happy with the idea of being her Lady’s mistress but when they finally arrive at their destination in Luxor, the formalness of England begins to dissipate and she finds herself more a friend and confident than a servant.  Her relationship with Lady Duff Gordon is not the only thing in her life to dramatically change — she falls in love with Omar Abu Halaweh, the dragoman brought on to assist Lady Duff Gordon.  Unfortunately, he is already married with children.  Their relationship becomes too much for Lady Duff Gordon and Sally finds herself alone and abandoned in a country not her own but one she loves as if it were.

As I said, this is a very short book and oddly, when I finished, I found myself furious.  Lady Duff Gordon ruins Sally for what she considers a betrayal.  But the irony in that is she has helped servants in the past who have been in the same position as Sally so after being fascinated by this person and the way she defined her role as woman, mother, and wife, I found her intolerance towards Sally hateful.  I want to say she ruined the story for me but she didn’t (although I would have liked to have seen more about Egypt itself and what was happening at the time — it’s hinted at but not discussed).  These two women, how their lives changed and how they were in many ways forced to not only accept but manufacture their own endings is really what this story is.  My annoyance with Lady Duff Gordon quickly turned to a sort of understanding.  I say sort because her treatment of Sally was truly hateful and a way to transfer her pain to another without having to deal with it.

Lady Duff Gordon was a real person and while I know nothing of her, she was an interesting person to revolve this story around.  What it also gave me was an interest in more historical fiction about Egypt which I will be looking for in the near future.