Adult Fiction – Bookshelves & Babble

Someone Tell Me, When is it My Turn? THE OTHER BENNET SISTER Review

“In our house, no-one is obliged to sparkle. Which, I find, makes it far more likely that they might.”
Janice Hadlow, THE OTHER BENNET SISTER

Guess maybe I was right about that posting once or twice a month thing because OOF, grad school. Anyhoo…

I fell head over heels for this book, y’all. I really did. I’m a sucker for revisionist fiction, but I’ll admit I did come to this particular novel with some healthy skepticism – if you’re going to come for the well-known and well-beloved characters of Pride and Prejudice, you’d best not miss.

I enjoyed Longbourn a few years ago, but that book felt more like a Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead for Jane Austen fans: the novel’s plot happened tangentially to the main plot of P&P, only occasionally checking in on the famous story to give us the events we all know so well from the servants’ point of view. In The Other Bennet Sister, we’re seeing famous events through the viewpoint of a supporting character from the novel, poor middle child Mary. P&P traces the stories of Jane, Lydia and, of course, Lizzie. This book is Mary’s chance to shine.

THE STORY

I don’t want to spoil too much, so I won’t spend much time on plot summary, but I will mention that I was surprised by how little time The Other Bennet Sister spends on the familiar events of P&P. We open with glimpses of Mary’s childhood, her strained relationship with her appearance-obsessed mother, her increasing isolation from her other sisters, and her developing interest in philosophical study. We then experience the first third or so of the Pride and Prejudice plot through Mary’s yearning for acceptance and constant small humiliations (I will never watch any version of the excruciating scene in which she plays pianoforte and sings at the Netherfield ball the same way again). Shortly after Mr. Collins leaves town, having secured Charlotte Lucas as his wife, we finish retracing P&P and jump way ahead to after Lizzie and Jane have married and settled down with their respective partners.

That’s Part One. In Part Two, Mary has been left living alone with her parents (Kitty also married quickly once the family became rich again) and must figure out what her place will be within her family. With which relative will she settle? To whom will she be the least “burden”? The novel deals sensitively with the bleak realities facing unmarried women even in wealthy families, and deals particularly well with Mary’s sad awkwardness upon revisiting Longbourn, her childhood home, once the Collinses take residence there.

That visit back to Longbourn, and the threat of having to become a governess, inspires a trip to London and Mary’s slow blossoming into a more independent woman away from the stifling judgement of her family. Of course, she finds herself the attention of two suitors. Of course, she finds the happiness she deserves. But she also finds self-respect, which feels just as deserved if not more so.

THE BABBLE

First off, if you’re going to riff on Austen then you need to do justice to Austen’s writing style, and I feel that Hadlow excels here. Hadlow does not try to make a direct imitation, but the voice sounds similar enough that you feel as though you have slipped back into the familiar world of Longbourn, Netherfield, Pemberley, and beyond.

Secondly, I love this novel if for no other reason than it finally gives credence to those of us who have been screaming at Mrs. Bennet for years something along the lines of “WHY ARE YOU SHOVING LIZZIE AT MR. COLLINS WHEN THE ANSWER IS CLEARLY MARY, YOU RIDICULOUS WOMAN!” But it also gives credible motivation for Mrs. Bennet’s actions, so, many thanks to Hadlow for that nod without it feeling like simple fan service. In fact, Hadlow seems to be on a quest here to rebrand two of Austen’s two most-ridiculed characters from the novel, giving depth not only to Mary but to Mr. Collins as well. Mary’s visit back to Longbourn was ultimately one of my favorite sequences of the entire book, rich in meaning and character development, and not just because I’m fascinated by the idea of Longbourn ownership these days. One objection, though: I’ve always been a fan of Charlotte Lucas, and it feels as if Hadlow’s vision requires some reworking of Charlotte’s character in a way that isn’t entirely flattering. I love the idea of Charlotte seeing Mary early on as a kindred spirit and similar “at-risk” young woman, and taking her under wing with pragmatic advice. But later her pragmatism comes across as coldness, heartbreaking to both Mary and Mr. Collins, and also to me. Charlotte may not be romantic, but she’s also never struck me as blunt to the point of being cruel.

I do love that the Gardiners once again come to the rescue of a Bennet sister, and this time truly help her to blossom and grow into a woman. The Gardiners don’t just offer Mary a chance to escape her family, they offer her a chance to escape her old self. And the fact that Mary, not Lizzie, winds up taking that long-awaited trip to the Lake District with her Aunt and Uncle feels exactly right. She is finally learning to appreciate poetry, after all. Lizzie didn’t need the Lakes. Mary does.

Much as I enjoyed watching Mary come into her own once the Gardiners adopted her into their family unit, I found the London third of the book the least interesting, if I’m being honest. Perhaps because it felt like dropping back into romantic comedy conventions after a heartfelt exploration of 18th-century womanhood and marriage? Or perhaps because I could see where this part of the story was headed from a mile a way.

But who cares? I loved it all. I dub this new required reading for any diehard Austen fan. So go forth, and read!

RATING:

* * * 1/2

RANDOM BABBLE:

One ridiculed Austen character whom Hadlow doesn’t seem interested in revising: Lady Catherine de Bourgh. She’s as delightfully abominable as ever. Never change, Lady C.
Points for callbacks to Mr. Collins’ gardening.
Hill is still the best, forever and ever. What that woman has seen/put up with, I swear…
The parallels to P&P plot structure at the very end might have either annoyed me or charmed me. They charmed me, because they were just different enough to be callbacks rather than hitting me over the head. (So, like, clearly not written by J.J. Abrams. For example.)
Okay, one other quibble about Charlotte revisions then I’ll shut up about it: the book implies that Charlotte and Lizzie’s friendship never quite recovers from Charlotte’s announcement of her engagement to Mr. Collins. But wouldn’t that…significantly mess with the plot of P&P? Maybe I’m overthinking it.
I like the subtle work that Hadlow does on the relationship between Mary and Lizzie, and the ups and downs of sisterly affection.
I’m glad we got a brief glimpse of Spectacles Boy at the end. He was so nice! My heart broke for both of them at the beginning.

And for real, here’s how I want to see Charlotte and Lizzie forever:

A New, Beautifully Understated Holiday Fable: A WILD WINTER SWAN

Why does the most obvious thing, the only thing that doesn’t need to be said, hurt so much when it is actually said out loud?
Gregory Maguire, A WILD WINTER SWAN

Hey look, a blog! What is this strange, magical contraption for writing one’s thoughts about books and other topics in long form?

Happy New Year, everyone. After taking a few months away from Bookshelves & Babble to juggle Mom’s passing with finishing up fall semester of grad school, I’m hoping to start writing book reviews here again instead of just lazily posting a few sentences over on Instagram. (Aiming for only once or twice month, though. Because, you know, grad school.)

Before we get too far away from Christmas/New Year’s Eve/Solstice/Winter holidays, I definitely want to share this book with y’all, because I haven’t talked to too many people who’ve read it yet and that’s a shame.

Look, Gregory Maguire has written approximately 5,000 books. Some of them get loosely adapted into juggernaut musicals. He’s got a thing going. You may have read all of them, you may have read none of them, you may have read one and then decided Gregory Maguire’s not your thing. Before picking up A Wild Winter Swan I’d read…two, I think? His novel Wicked completely captivated me the first time I read it, and I’ve read it more than once. I borrowed the first sequel from the library, and wasn’t as big a fan of that one. (How have I never even read Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister? I’m just now realizing that I haven’t.)

Okay, yes, this song is great. But other than that I kinda hate the way the musical waters down, and happy-ends, the novel.

But I kept walking by this new novel in the store and it kept calling to me. For one thing, the book itself is gorgeous – the under-jacket case illustrations by Scott McKowen are spectacular. I finally caved and bought it on a whim, and I’m glad I did.

THE STORY

Loosely inspired by one small detail in Hans Christian Anderson’s tale The Wild Swans — in Anderson’s tale, one of the brothers-turned-swans is never completely turned back into a human, and is left with one arm as a swan wing — A Wild Winter Swan takes place in mid-twentieth century New York City. Cleverly, and perhaps because The Wild Swans might not be as universally known as some other Anderson tales, Maguire has his heroine, Laura, tell the tale to the children she babysits in an early chapter. Not only does this trick familiarize the reader with the source material, but it also keeps the story in Laura’s mind as well, an important fact later on.

Laura has come to live with her Italian immigrant grandparents after a series of family tragedies (i.e., first her father’s and now her brother’s untimely deaths) has led to her mother’s mental breakdown. She lives on the top floor of their crumbling three-story townhome in New York City. (Ah, the 1960s, when such a thing was still possible to acquire!) Due to a mishap at her private school, where she’s never felt particularly at home anyway, Laura has been expelled. Her grandmother Nonna has told Laura that she will not be welcomed back to school, or any other school in NYC, and the only other option is a boarding school in Canada. Nonna and grandfather Nonno are struggling to save Nonno’s floundering business in order to pay for Laura’s tuition – and to do that, they’ll need to secure and investment from Nonna’s sister’s new boyfriend, the wealthy Corm Kennedy. The whole deal, because of course, hinges on an important dinner at their home on Christmas Eve, which Corm Kennedy will attend.

Unfortunately for Nonna and Nonno, around this time a nearly-mute teenage boy with a swan wing where one arm should be crash lands into Laura’s upper-story window. She manages to get a name out of him — Hans — and gradually realizes that he must be a character from her favorite Hans Christian Anderson story, impossible or no. He doesn’t become a friend, but he does become company, while also chastely helping her to discover the first stirrings of her own sexuality.

As she sets about trying to return him to his own family and keep him from ruining her grandparent’s important dinner, she becomes reluctant allies and then possible friends with Maxine, the girl whose broken nose got her expelled. But when Hans’ animal instincts destroy her family’s big night, she realizes the only option is to set him free as quickly as possible.

THE BABBLE

[FROM HERE THERE BE BIG SPOILERS. YE HAVE BEEN WARNED.]

Maguire’s tone throughout feels somewhat distant — almost chilly, you might say, appropriate for a winter tale — and I liked that. It echoed the feel of reading Hans Christian Anderson or another older folk tale. The narration stays close to Laura’s thoughts, though, and that’s an important detail. Toward the end of the novel, I think (and this is just me, you may have a completely different reading) that the reader is suddenly supposed to question Laura’s sanity.

How reliable is Laura as a protagonist? No one else has seen Hans, and the damage he’s created could easily have be created by Laura herself. We know that her mother suffers from mental illness. Has Laura had a similar outburst of illness triggered by the knowledge that she will soon have to leave for Canada? Are we in a warped, fairy-tale Fight Club situation here? Laura’s heartbreaking conversation with Nonno on Christmas Eve punches holes in the entire story we’ve read up to that point, despite the gorgeously written Central Park escape scene between Hans and Laura that follows. And I do mean gorgeous…though I admit to being a sucker for any scene involving the Bethesda Fountain.

And Hans. He’s a cipher. Some might have an issue with that, but I loved it. Maguire never lets you forget that Hans is as much a foreign creature(bird) as a human teenager. He rages against his confinement, against huger, against basically everything. (You know, like a teenager. And an animal.) Anyone who finds a swan a strange fit for such behavior has obviously never met a swan in real life. But Hans also quiets into moments of temporary peace with Laura. The scene where she sleeps curled beside him is moving — two lost teenagers, both refusing to completely trust the only people left who want to take care of them.

I also loved the way that the setting of 1960s New York allowed Maguire to examine the class system in the US. While I fully acknowledge that I’m far from an expert on this topic, I thought that the relationship between cook Mary Bernice and her employers subtly illustrated just how fluid the notion of “whiteness” has always been in America, and how much the goalpost has shifted in even in the past 60 to 70 years. We, as a society, tend to forget how fluid it really is. Reading a book in which Italian immigrants like Nonna and Nonno are taking accent-reduction classes in order to pass for “white,” so they can impress upper-class characters like Corm Kennedy, in contrast to Irish immigrant Mary Bernice, who seems more comfortable in her own skin, serves as an effective and crucial reminder about such things.

More holiday-themed novels for every reading age begin popping up on shelves around November and December every year, most of them involving elves or prepubescent Santa or magic trains or romcom characters. And that’s lovely. But if you’re one of the many, many people for whom the holidays aren’t all merry and bright, or if you’re just looking for a different sort of winter tale with a few Christmas trappings but zero Christmas cheese, I highly recommend this quick and unusual read.

RATING

* * * *

RANDOM BABBLE

In the dedications and the leading quotes, Maguire strongly suggests that Mary Poppins author P.L. Travers not only gave him the idea for this novel, but specifically tasked him to write it. If that’s true then I love it so much.
I love all of the imagery Maguire uses to reflect Laura’s imperfect attempts at independence: the baby owl from the novel who’s not quite ready to fly away, the homemade wing, restless pacing at the top floor of the house…it’s all the obvious images one would use, but it all smacks of failure to launch as well.
I also appreciated the slow burn of Laura’s frenemy relationship with Maxine. Maxine comes over to apologize, Laura doesn’t accept her apology – fine. She doesn’t have to accept it. Then Maxine wants to bond because she got something she wanted out of the accident, and maybe that allows Laura to accept the olive branch? By the end of the novel it’s still a little unclear how Laura feels about finally having a real friend, and that might be okay. Girl’s got some serious trauma.
Speaking of trauma. Loved how delicately the scene with her searching through her brother’s old clothes to find Hans something to wear was handled.
Okay, so. I’m not Italian American, so I’m not the best judge. But Maguire walks a fine line with Nonna and Nonno, and I think he succeeds? Their struggles with language are comedic at times, but I think they always remain 100% sympathetic. These poor grandparents are doing the best they can to raise a difficult teenager. They clearly love her. They have real concerns. To my eyes, at least, they never fell into lazy stereotype, but I’d love to hear from another reader in a better position to judge.

Meditations on Longbourn in PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

My mother was sick. She was sick, and she fought. She was sick, and she fought…but she finally decided enough was enough. She passed away a few weeks ago.

Hi, everyone. It’s been a while. As you might guess, I haven’t had much bandwidth for writing book reviews over the past couple of months. I have done plenty of reading, but any spare time that hasn’t been spent caring for parents has gone to writing grad school assignments rather than snarky and/or enthusiastic blog posts filled with GIFs.

But Mom’s first week with in-home Hopsice care happened to be the same week I’d registered for an online reading/writing retreat centered on Pride and Prejudice. (It was run by Common Ground Pilgrimages, and seriously folks, if you love books as much as I do, I cannot recommend their programming highly enough.) I’ve always loved P&P — it’s tied with Northanger Abbey as my favorite Austen work — but the timing of this particular reading means that now I will always cherish it in a new way. Thanks to pop culture takes on Austen, it’s easy to read her works focused on marriage and romance. This time, rather than focusing on Mr. Darcy (about whom I have mixed feelings anyway), I paid far more attention to Longbourn. I focused on the Bennets’ home instead.

I love this film version and I have since it first came out. So there.

I have always looked at any talk of property in Austen’s novels through the class system lens, and rolled my eyes at it. “All these people care about is acquiring more money,” I might say, “or at least holding on to the wealth they already have. How shallow can you possibly be?” But now, facing the death of a beloved parent and knowing that death most likely will result in having to sell the house I grew up in, I’m looking at the Bennets’ need to hold on to Longbourn in a very different light.

[Obligatory Good Progressive preamble paragraph here in which I acknowledge the privilege that allows me to have grown up in a family who lived in the same house most of my life, and who eventually were able to buy the house they were renting, and allows me to take time off work to take care of my mother, blah blah blah. Privilege dutifully acknowledged, and privilege be damned –helplessly watching a parent wither and die of cancer in front of you sucks beyond all measure and that’s pretty much all I have emotional space for right now.]

But back to Longbourn. Even in Austen novels, a house means more than wealth (though it is also wealth and status, of course). A house is made of memories. Lizzie isn’t just throwing away her family’s security and future when she refuses Collins: she’s throwing away her family’s history as well. Every secret whispered to Jane. Every daughter’s birth. Every walk taken on the grounds. Every time she read a book in the library with her father. Every time a member of the family hid in a corner for a moment’s peace. Every quietly broken heart (or loudly broken heart). Every shared eyeroll. Every worrisome illness, and the rejoicing when that illness was overcome. Every Christmas, and every obsessive preparation for every dance. Good times and bad. Longbourn is more than a house and servants. Longbourn is the collective childhood of the Bennet sisters and the culmination of the family that Mr. and Mrs. Bennet have created. (Which makes it even more interesting to reflect on the many instances when Austen conflates descriptions of houses with descriptions of their owners. When she describes Darcy’s house as “handsome” and “lofty,” for instance.) Lizzie turns down a chance to hold on to that past happiness for an unknown future that may – or may not – contain unknown happiness of a different kind. The girls won’t just be destitute, they will be HOME-less.

Still the right call, though, Lizzie.

There’s this cliche that movies always use to establish a well-loved family home. Nothing snazzy, maybe just a closeup shot of a set of ascending marks on the wall, labelled with a child’s name — or multiple sets of marks with multiple children’s names, for added pathos. If the movie wants to be less subtle, it might feature a golden-tinged montage of the little tykes growing like weeds, running excitedly to the wall to have each increment of their growth documented. We don’t have any of those markings in my childhood home. (Possibly because I stopped getting taller around sixth grade, and resented that fact. But I digress.)

There are other marks on the walls, though. Marks from my guitar cases, age ten onward, when I ran too hurriedly to my room coming home from practice. Grimy handprints on the kitchen doorframes that Mom never got around to painting over. Countless pin holes in the wall of an adolescent’s room that was decorated and redecorated with posters and magazine cutouts of her favorite bands. And there are memory marks on the house, as well. This the is banister I tried to swing from then ended up breaking my wrist in middle school. This is the bed I grew up sleeping in, but instead of here it used to be over there, where I talked to the boy I loved on the phone until 4am one Christmas Eve. This is the living room hastily transformed into a makeshift bedroom that summer in college while I recovered from a terrible car accident, and had to sleep downstairs for months because I couldn’t climb stairs. The same room where Hospice carried my mother down the stairs into a loaned hospital bed, in what would be her last trip down those stairs. Now it will always be the room where my mother died.

Yep. This is also Lizzie Bennet.

I’m grateful that my mother was able to pass away at home, Regency era-style, surrounded by familiar objects and windows and curtains and lamps. I’m grateful that she spent her last breath in the home she poured so much of her soul into. It’s only “stuff”–until it’s not. Until it holds meaning. Until it holds history.

Looking around at the house that helped shape me, and knowing that I may have to finally say goodbye to it sometime soon, feels almost unbearable. And I’m grateful that I won’t have to say goodbye right away because I don’t know that I could take another loss that big at the moment.

So I may not approve of your methods for holding onto Longbourn, Mrs. Bennet, but…I get it now. I really do.

My mother loved trees, so in her honor let’s all sigh over one of the finest trees ever featured in cinema.

CHILDREN OF BLOOD AND BONE Review: Basically, Just Go Read this Novel. Right Now.

“You crushed us to build your monarchy on the backs of our blood and bone. Your mistake wasn’t keeping us alive. It was thinking we’d never fight back.”
CHILDREN OF BLOOD AND BONE, Tomi Adeyemi, 2018

Have you read CHILDREN OF BLOOD AND BONE yet? If not, why haven’t you read CHILDREN OF BLOOD AND BONE yet? It’s like a creative cocktail of STAR WARS and BLACK PANTHER and AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER, and also something magically unique unto itself. This novel is a glorious and powerful fantasy work.

Now, if you have the right sort of taste (as in you share my taste), then that description alone should have been all it took to send you scrambling to buy this novel and its sequel from your nearest indie bookstore, preferably a black-owned indie bookstore. But this wouldn’t be much of a blog post if I didn’t write more, so here we go.

THE STORY

Okay. There’s a lot of story here, and I don’t want to spoil too much of it. In the land of Orisha there used to be Maji, people who could wield magic given by the gods. Maji were divided into clans based on the type of magic they wielded (sorta like the nations in A:TLA, only there are lots more clans than nations). But the non-magic kosidán became afraid/jealous/greedy of the maji’s powers, beginning a long war that supposedly ended in a great slaughter of maji called The Raid, which coincided with the retreat of magic and the gods from Orisha. Those of maji blood still exist – and are irrevocably marked by their distinctive white hair – but they have no magic. Over the years the kosidán have become the ruling class and do a textbook job of keeping the maji oppressed to discourage rebellion: maji are referred to by the derogatory slur “maggot,” they are kept in low-wage positions, are punished with unfair taxes, and when they can’t pay those taxes they get forced down the prison pipeline into what is essentially slave labor.

Into this society appear magical artifacts that could restore the link between maji and the gods, thus restoring magic to the maji. A maji girl, Zélie, and her non-magical brother, Tzain, find themselves drawn into a plot to restore magic when Amari, daughter to the ruthless King of Orisha, steals one of the artifacts and runs away. Together the three of them race against time and geography to perform an important ritual needed to restore not just Zélie’s magic, but the magic of every oppressed maji in Orisha. All the while they’re pursued by Inan, Amari’s older brother, who turns out to have some magical abilities of his own. And oh, also Zélie becomes the literal embodiment of Black Girl Magic.

THE BABBLE

What can I say? If you’re looking to read an #OwnVoices book that touches on so many of the issues and emotions behind the Black Lives Matter movement – fear, police brutality, injustice, institutionalized oppression, colorism, proper allyship, economic inequality, and privilege – but also happens to be a damn good adventure fantasy story…this is the book for you. The characters fill archetypes, sure, but they’re also beautifully realized. You will love them by the end, and because Adeyemi writes in rotating first person narrative between three of the main characters, you will love all of them by the end.

Adeyemi walks this tightrope between achingly relevant social commentary and Star Wars-style adventure so expertly, too. At least to this reader’s eyes, YA novels that tackle big issues often tend to just have a character or narration boldly state a political viewpoint (or a straw man position) to save time and get all readers on the same page. Adeyemi never does that, but her point is just as clear. For example, the police brutality and corruption in this novel exist very much within the lived-in, detailed world of Orisha, and that detail makes the parallels to our world feel like a discovery rather than a lecture. Which makes that discovery even more of a punch in the gut. The same with the characters’ viewpoints: these are fully-fleshed characters, so trying on their views as they wrestle with the complex issues at play in a society built on prejudice doesn’t feel like reading a point-counterpoint summary. I know THE HATE U GIVE may always be considered the seminal YA work of the BLM movement, but I’ll be trying my hardest to get this fantasy novel into as many hands as possible as well. I think they both have the same goal, and there is definitely more than enough room for both and more (many more, can we please have more?), but Adeyemi has created the more complex work here.

Do I have any small quibbles? Of course, because I almost always do. Only quibble here is I felt like this novel may have been just as effective with one fewer back-stabbing betrayal, one fewer climax? It’s 544 pages long, after all, so I’d have been just as invested without as many fight scenes. But Adeyemi has written a blockbuster movie in novel form, and most blockbuster movies have a few too many fight scenes, and she knows how to write a fantastic and suspenseful fight scene, so this isn’t much of a complaint.

Read this novel. Just read it. Then give it to all your friends.

RATING

**** out of 4

RANDOM BABBLE

No POV chapters for poor Tzain, which is too bad because Tzain’s a wonderful guy.
The blackness of Orisha feels so celebratory, rather than feeling like exoticism. One of many reasons why we need to publish more POC authors. (In every genre, but especially in fantasy/sci fi.)
Almost too many betrayals go with the almost too many will-they-won’t-they moments, and that’s all I’ll say about that (I’m more than halfway through the second book, CHILDREN OF VIRTUE AND VENGEANCE, and I can confidently say this issue stretches beyond the first book in the series).
If Inan’s abilities don’t act as an argument for radical empathy being part of the solution to systematic racism, I don’t know what will. But I’m a theatre kid and book nerd, so of course I’d say that.
That moment when Zélie screams, “I am always afraid!” Fuuuuuck.
I don’t normally suggest audiobooks over physical books or vice versa, but if you have 17 hours to fill, I highly recommend the audiobook version of this one. Bahni Turpin’s reading is a phenomenal performance that gives new depth to the phrase Black Voices Matter.

Oh, and in case I didn’t make this clear in my review for The Parker Inheritance:

THE GLASS HOTEL Review: Or, My Undying Love for Emily St. John Mandel, Part 2

Olivia closed the door behind her and stood for a moment in silence. She set her keys on the kitchen table and sat for a while, trying to adjust to the world at hand.
The Glass Hotel, Emily St. John Mandel, 2020

Emily St. John Mandel excels at creating puzzles out of human stories. She likes to assemble a portrait of multiple human lives meshed perfectly together, break that portrait up into jagged but intersecting pieces, and then scatter those pieces across the table. In The Glass Hotel, as in Station Eleven, the puzzle pieces only reassemble into that portrait again in the novel’s final few pages.

I dove right into The Glass Hotel immediately after rereading Station Eleven for the fourth time. While Mandel’s newest work is a fantastic read and I promise to talk about it in its own right, the two make for a fascinating comparison.

THE STORY

The puzzle of The Glass Hotel follows two major story arcs: the troubled relationship between half-siblings Vincent and Paul, and the downfall of Jonathan Alkaitis, a wealthy man who runs a successful pyramid scheme. The two arcs intersect through Vincent, who eventually becomes Jonathan’s second wife (well, not technically his wife, but wife for all intents and purposes). Like Station Eleven, this book hops back and forth through time, examining the ever-widening circle of people whom Alkaitis and Vincent impact.

Paul and Vincent have never been close: Paul’s father left his family for Vincent’s mother, and Paul failed to act as a steadying hand for Vincent when her mother tragically drowned. Paul has struggled with heroin addiction since his mid-teens, and the novel traces the ups and downs of that lifelong struggle. Vincent, meanwhile, has felt self-reliant but also somewhat untethered since her mother’s death. Alkaitis meets her while she’s on shift as a bartender for the Hotel Caiette (which he owns), a shimmering hotel with large glass windows located in a remote part of Vancouver Island.

The novel traces the kaleidoscope of people impacted by the Hotel Caiette’s existence, by Paul’s existence, by Vincent’s existence, and above all by Alkaitis’ pyramid scheme and its eventual collapse.

THE BABBLE

Give me quiet, he thought, give me forests and ocean and no roads. Give me the walk to the village through the woods in summer, give me the sound of wind in cedar branches, give me mist rising over the water, give me the view of green branches from my bathtub in the mornings. Give me a place with no people in it, because I will never fully trust another person again.
The Glass Hotel, Emily St. John Mandel, 2020

What a difference six years can make.

While Station Eleven contains a thread of optimism about human culture and persistence (and that’s what I love about it), The Glass Hotel feels so much bleaker. (Which, I mean, I’m assuming Mandel wrote this one mostly during 2017 through 2019 and it was released in March 2020, so…understandable perspective shift, yeah?)

[FROM HERE THERE BE SPOILERS. YE HAVE BEEN WARNED.]

Much like the real world at large, you’ll find little sense of justice in this novel. Vincent dies, y’all. She dies on the first few pages, so that’s not much of a spoiler, but she also dies tragically and ultimately without fanfare. The investigation into her death is closed and covered up. Similarly, Alkaitis goes to prison without much of a fuss, once his pyramid scheme unravels, but that fact provides precious little relief for his victims. Mandel doesn’t shy away from showing us the impact that a successful 21st-century con artist can have on people from all walks of life, and all financial levels. In the end, Jonathan keeps most of the blame, but it’s clear that his numbers never added up, and to a certain extent his victims fell prey to his pitch because they wanted a way to make easy money.

The novel’s explorations of wealth provide one of many fascinating comparisons to Station Eleven. When you boil them down, both novels follow the individual lives that ripple out from an aging wealthy man: Arthur Leander in Station Eleven, Jonathan Alkaitis here. (Even more specifically, you could argue that both novels have two primary protagonists, an older wealthy man and a younger woman with whom his life intersects; Kirsten would be Vincent’s parallel in Station Eleven.) Yet while Arthur Leander certainly has his flaws, Alkaitis has him beat in the slimy human department by a long mile. In Station Eleven, flashbacks into the world of the rich and famous have a sheen of glamor to them, even when we’re meeting rich people who act obnoxious or insensitive. The world of New York finance painted in Glass Hotel, while just as rich and just as fancy, lacks that luster.

Mandel digs into the question of what makes people steal from fellow human beings: steal their money, steal their art, steal their hope. For Jonathan, it seems to be a fascination with his own ability to charm others. For those who work for him, who knowingly set up the ruin of thousands of lives, the answer is simple: it’s about taking home a healthy paycheck. So many of the bad decisions in this book stem from financial insecurity. Even poor Paul, who can often feel tangential to the larger story, steals Vincent’s video work as a way to build his artistic career. Vincent’s death is covered up because the investigator lost his entire life savings so that Alkaitis could get richer, and he needs more investigation contracts to help support both himself and his wife after a forced retirement. Because this is a contract economy, of course, those hoped-for contracts never appear. Like I said…bleak. This story left me sympathizing with Walter, the eventual caretaker of the eponymous glass hotel in the wilderness. The ultimate feeling is less, “Ah yes, thank goodness, humanity will preserve art and civilization and the best of itself even to the end of the world,” and more along the lines of:

All in all, Station Eleven is the novel that 2020 needs, but The Glass Hotel might be the novel 2020 deserves.

rating

***1/2 out of 4

random babble

Love love LOVE the easter eggs for Station Eleven readers, the way we gradually learn that this is an alternate universe version of the world from the previous novel. Miranda is alive, you guys! She gets to be so successful and takes over Neptune shipping company and I was so happy! Vincent also has that great moment where she idly wonders what might have happened if that Georgian Flu hadn’t been so effectively contained. (Keep in mind, the novel asking this question came out the first week of March, 2o20. Cue Twilight Zone music.)

My main complaint about this book is small, but I think it’s legit: I wish we could have had one or two more scenes with Vincent and Geoffrey to establish their relationship. Plotwise, I understand why Mandel didn’t give any to us, because she clearly wanted to set up suspense around Geoffrey as Vincent’s potential murderer. But by the end of the novel, I found I cared less about the mystery of Vincent’s death and more about this one true meaningful relationship that she finally found, so close to the end of her life. I would have traded some mystery to see more of that. I feel like Mandel had to rely on telling us it was meaningful at the end, rather than showing us.

I love the Office Chorus section. I can’t remember another time I’ve read something in a plural first person voice, weaving in and out with omniscient narration. It’s a delicate balancing act, but Mandel pulls it off and the effect is SO COOL.

As always, Mandel somehow manages to mix deeply human characterization with gorgeous, poetic prose, especially in the descriptions of Caiette. It doesn’t exist (I checked) but I still want to stay at that friggin’ hotel.

Honestly, Vancouver Island has never been at the top of my travel list. But after this recent Mandel dive, it now is. If travel ever becomes a thing we can do again.

Back to books for children and young adults next time! Stay safe, stay healthy, happy reading, and remember:

STATION ELEVEN Review: Or, My Undying Love for Emily St. John Mandel, Part 1

All three caravans of the Traveling Symphony are labeled as such, THE TRAVELING SYMPHONY lettered in white on both sides, but the lead caravan carries an additional line of text: “Because survival is insufficient.”
Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel, 2014

This novel is perfect. I won’t say that about books too often on this blog [hopefully, at least, because otherwise what’s the point?] but I will confidently say it about Station Eleven. This book has only been out for six years and it has already risen through the ranks to join my all-time reread favorites.

As news of the COVID-19 pandemic started growing to a fevered pitch, and especially once the Shelter in Place order came down for my city, I knew exactly which book I needed to read. Not wanted. Needed.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t drop everything and read it just then, because I had lots of books waiting in line to read for my job and for grad school homework. So there the novel remained, staring at me from the bookshelf, like a hug waiting to happen. When I finally sat down on my couch to begin reading about Arthur Leander’s fateful performance of King Lear, it felt like taking a deep breath for the first time in a while. Nothing about the real world pandemic had actually changed, but reading this book made me feel that, somehow, everything was at least a little bit okay.

the story

Aging Hollywood star Arthur Leander collapses onstage from a heart attack while performing the title role of King Lear at a Toronto theater. No one in the theater knows it yet, but that same night a deadly virus called the Georgian Flu is sweeping across North America (and the globe) and overwhelming the healthcare infrastructure in every country. Within weeks, much of the world’s population will be wiped out.

[FROM HERE THERE BE SPOILERS. YE HAVE BEEN WARNED.]

The rest of the novel jumps back and forth through time, following multiple characters whose lives intersect with Arthur’s. Many of these characters survive the virus and the collapse of civilization as we know it: Kirsten, a child actress from the production of King Lear; Jeevan, the paramedic-in-training who jumps on stage, trying to save Arthur’s life; Clark, his best friend; Elizabeth, his second wife, and her son, Tyler. Others aren’t so lucky — most notably Miranda, Arthur’s first wife and the artist behind the Station Eleven comics that give the novel its name. We jump decades before the collapse of civilization, tracing Arthur’s life and the creation of those Station Eleven comics, and twenty years after, when small settlements have begun to pop up across the landscape. Kirsten now spends her life as part of The Traveling Symphony, a troupe that spends year after year on the road cycling between settlements, performing both classical music and Shakespeare plays. Clark has begun a Museum of Human Civilization in the airport where he’s made his new home. Jeevan is a doctor in the Southern U.S. — or what passes for a doctor in the new world. And Kyle has become something more sinister. (I won’t say what. I don’t want to spoil everything for you.) Many of these characters will meet again by the novel’s end, after a story tracing the enduring impact of art on human life throughout the decades.

The babble

So why did I feel such an insistent need to read this novel when it became clear that COVID-19 wasn’t just another overblown news story? If you know me well, then the initial answer is pretty obvious. Not only am I an actress and a musician, but I’m also a Shakespearean actress and scholar, so the idea of The Travelling Symphony speaks to my soul. If I ever beat the statistical odds and find myself still alive in a post-apocalyptic world, you can bet I’ll try to be like Kirsten, travelling from town to town and speaking some Titania lines in return for food and shelter.

But there are plenty of other reasons to love this novel. Let me count the ways:

Mandel doesn’t spend time on the immediate aftermath of civilization’s collapse. I’ve read a few reviews that complained about this choice, but I think it’s a feature rather than a bug. I sell YA novels and I also like to read them, and we as a culture also like dystopian movies, so I’ve read and seen so many modern visions of dystopia that I’ve lost count. They all start to feel the same after a while: the surviving humans are nearly always varying degrees of violent and shitty according to age-appropriateness and intended audience, with the exception of Our Intrepid Hero/ine(s). That isn’t the story that Mandel wants to tell here. While various characters mention in passing the violence and survivalism that plagued the first decade or so following the Collapse, Mandel holds the same Star Trek-inspired motto as the Symphony: survival is insufficient. After we lose ourselves temporarily in the fight to survive, what can make us feel human again? Mandel’s answer: the arts. Poetry. Music. Comic Books. Even magazines and photographs. Our collected stories, and the memories of a lost world.
The character development. Oh, the character development. I love each of these characters so deeply, flaws and all. Mandel makes sure that you get to take your time with these people. While there are a few action-packed sequences in the book, this is mostly a character study (much like life, as it turns out).
How fully fleshed out the newly settled world feels–without the mechanics taking over the story. Repurposed buildings, like Clark’s airport, or the Walmart on the edge of town (because aren’t Walmarts always on the edge of town?) where the Prophet and his crew set up shop. The caravan wagons made from the truck beds of old pickups which, of course, no longer run. I love me some Mad Max movies, but these caravans sound like a much more plausible post-apocalyptic use of pickup trucks.
The depiction of Kirsten’s trauma processing. The fact that she can’t remember her parents’ faces, or much of the first few years following the Collapse, is desperately sad but it also rings true.
Luli. Let’s not forget Luli. My next pet will be named Luli, regardless of animal type.

And that’s just to name a few. I could go on and on about this book…and I have, to those unfortunate enough to show even the slightest interest. (They soon regret this decision, and begin backing away slowly in response to my emphatic hand gestures and belligerent excitement.) If I have one tiny complaint, it’s that Jeevan’s “after” story — his life following the collapse — feels a little underdeveloped compared to our other survivors. We do, however, get to spend the most time with him during the Collapse itself, so I guess it evens out.

And who am I kidding? I have no complaints. I love this book so much. I think you will, too. It’s the perfect novel to read while social distancing.

rating

**** out of 4

Random babble

Like I said, we don’t dwell on the violence of the collapse, but I love the detailed glimpses Mandel drops for us, such as the knife tattoo system.
Has anyone else read this since Shelter in Place orders came out? Damn, that Jeevan grocery shopping scene in the beginning hits close to home like never before, huh?
I’ve read this book four times now, and I’m still fascinated by the places where Mandel chooses to switch in and out of present vs. past tense.
Miranda’s death is so, so beautifully written. Makes me cry every time.
GEEK ALERT: Last time I was in grad school, some folks in my program were researching the perceived “cultural value” of Shakespeare: the history of his enduring legacy as a literary and theatre icon. I’m fascinated by the moment when Kirsten reflects on her fellow Symphony member who pushed the troupe to perform more contemporary work, only to find that audiences only ever requested Shakespeare. It’s an interesting point to ponder from the perspective of cultural value and the imperialist history that goes with any notion of cultural value (especially right at this moment. Ahem.) For my money, I suspect that the fictional audience wants to hear Shakespeare not because they want “high culture” — though that probably factors in unconsciously — but because Shakespeare’s plays are an auditory experience. His plays make a perfect pairing with music, because poetry is music written with words. And yes, yours truly does love a book that tells her that the things she values could potentially still have value on the other side of civilization’s end.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk on how much I love Emily St. John Mandel. Believe it or not, this was only Part 1 of 2. Tomorrow I’ll be back with her brand new novel, The Glass Hotel!

THE HOUSE IN THE CERULEAN SEA Review: The Perfect “Summer Read” for a Summer that Involves June 2020

Don’t you wish you were here?
The House in the Cerulean Sea, T.J. Klune, 2020

Yes. Yes, I do wish I was there, you lovely, sweet book.

But in some ways, I do feel like I’m there already. Because this book deals sensitively with systemic, government-sanctioned oppression and prejudice. It also deals with finding the courage to stand up to said oppression and prejudice, not as a hotheaded and hormone-driven teenager but rather as a kindhearted but unremarkable midlevel bureaucrat. How to turn the system against itself. That might, you know, possibly have more relevance to the current cultural moment than T.J. Klune ever dreamed when he wrote it not long ago.

This isn’t a dystopian novel or an Issue novel, though. Quite the opposite. It’s a romantic comedy and character study, a lovely piece of contemporary fantasy. If you’re like me and adore Good Omens, or grew up loving the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series (but in your old age find the latter a bit too much, if you’re being honest), then reading this book will feel like settling into a wonderfully comfy chair from your past that you’d forgotten you missed.

THE STORY

Linus Baker lives in a version of our world that looks very much like our own, except that magical beings and creatures exist. He’s a caseworker for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, just one agency in a giant government arm dedicated to registering, isolating, and keeping tabs on magical beings. Linus isn’t a bad person. He genuinely cares about the magical children in the “orphanages” (read: homes, as it’s pointed out that none of the children are actually up for adoption) that he inspects for work. He just happens to be a cog in a system so large that he can’t get a birds-eye view, and has to trust that the work he does truly helps these children in the long run. (Spoiler alert: it doesn’t.) He is a good-natured, Arthur Dentish-type fellow who lives a quiet, lonely life with a cat for company.

[FROM HERE THERE BE SPOILERS. YE HAVE BEEN WARNED.]

Without warning he receives a special assignment from Extremely Upper Management to investigate a mysterious, isolated home for magical youth. He will leave for a month, effective immediately. When he arrives at the foreboding house on a magic-drenched island, he meets the home’s child tenants: a young Antichrist, a female Gnome, a powerful forest sprite, a wyvern who speaks in a series of squeaks, and a werewolf who transforms into a Pomeranian. He also meets Arthur Parnassus, the master of the “orphanage,” with whom he slowly falls in love and begins a tentative relationship. Over a course of his monthlong stay, the island’s inhabitants welcome him into their home and prove to him that he knows exactly how to make a difference.

“I can have spiders in my head as long as I don’t let them consume me and destroy the world as we know it.”
The House in the Cerulean Sea, T.J. Klune

the babble

Folks, I loved this book. I loved it so much. I think it would be truly difficult to not love this book.

The humor remains light and never falters. The children are undeniably cutesy, but each has his or her own distinct personality. The whole thing has an air of myth or fable about it. It would make a great movie. (But I hope no one actually tries to make it into a movie, because this is one of those stories that would be so, so easy to ruin in the wrong filmmaker’s hands. It’s all about tone.) Linus’ gradual awakening of the soul is a delicate wonder to behold and to experience secondhand.

It is a perfect book? Not quite. Does the uplifting resolution in the last few chapters feel a bit pat? Yes. Did I catch myself thinking more than once about South Park‘s opinions regarding Nice Little Heartfelt Speeches? You betcha. (Linus gives a LOT of Nice Little Heartfelt Speeches toward the end. But in Klune’s defense, they’re pretty good speeches.) Do I care about these quibbles at all? Not really.

The experience of reading this novel feels a lot like Linus’ experience of finding himself on a lovely, magical island. I really, really needed this book right now. You might need it, too.

RATING

***1/2 out of 4

random babble

Apparently Klune is American. He must love all the same British authors that I love, then, because he has that distinctly British, dry-humor narrative voice thing down. It’s flawless. Feels like reading Adams, or Pratchett, or Gaiman.
The city where Linus lives and works is never identified as London, nor are any country names ever mentioned, but I think it’s safe to assume that this world is set up as an England parallel?
One of the best things about this book is that Linus is gay, but it’s not a big deal. It’s just another fact about him. When he and Arthur begin a relationship, the fact that Arthur is another man is a non-issue. Even Linus’ otherwise horrible and nosy neighbor is fine with his sexual orientation. It’s so lovely. We need more books like this.
Calliope is a great cat. Cats in British books (or American books masquerading in British style) are the best book cats.