ESCAPE TO THE PAST WITH: Trinity by Leon Uris

Where have I been? Why all the blog silence? I’ve had a couple of real-world distractions recently, but I have been reading. I’ve been steadily working my way through my historical fiction/history book club’s latest selection, Trinity by Leon Uris. This epic set in early twentieth century Ireland runs just under 900 pages. But length is no excuse for the slowness of my reading. I don’t think it’s ever taken me this long to read a novel of this length before.

Trinity is the story of the Irish Catholic struggle against English Protestant oppression in the years before WWI. It explains the condition of the dirt poor Catholic peasantry and how they were kept in dire poverty by a corrupt political system abetted by religious bigotry.

Uris allows for no shades of gray in his portrayal of the greedy British aristocracy, manipulating the working poor Irish Protestants against the Catholics. He covers an immense amount of historical, political, and cultural material to produce an informative if one-sided account. It’s a very readable way to learn the material and it is a novel, after all, so the bias can be overlooked in favor of the story.

Trinity is primarily the story of Conor Larkin, a heroic protagonist who did not seem so much a man as the embodiment of the Catholic cause. Conor springs from a long line of doomed Catholic rebels. Freedom fighting is his destiny. The book follows his lengthy path to martyrdom. It also follows the lives of his various nemeses, showing just how formidable they are so we know what Conor is up against. More than formidable, the obstacles are insurmountable. Perhaps even more depressingly, he recognizes his fight isn’t winnable but he is driven to fight nonetheless. The book also gives us capsule introductions to the women in his life because, of course, the great man attracts great loves.

Trinity was first published in 1976 and is recognized as a classic of historical fiction. I can understand its popularity. I learned a lot about a topic that has always intrigued and confused me. It does contain many compelling scenes, particularly the climax. And it has some memorable characters. However, I found it a plodding book overall. I think it’s because the characters never really engaged me. Even though the situations were suitably gripping–I could understand that monumental wrongs were being committed and I cared about the fact that this or things like it had happened to people in Ireland--I didn’t really ever care that it was happening to characters in the book. These particular fictional characters fell flat for me.

How can this be? Conor Larkin is supposed to be one of the greatest, manliest historical fiction superheroes. Uris certainly had the hero-worship thing going and did his best to insist that the reader get on board. Conor was so perfect that his only weakness was letting love-of-his-life number two see him grieving deeply the violent death of love-of-his-life number one. Conor bravely fights every fight despite his dislike of violence. He survives beatings that would kill mortal men. He performs the equivalent of walking on to a professional sports team when in his thirties without having so much as practiced in months and becomes the star player. He is a talented, essentially self-taught blacksmith who is a better artisan than men with world renown in the profession. And he is the man who comes up with all the brilliant military plans for the Brotherhood when everyone else is stumped about how to proceed. Oh, and he is the handsomest man in all of Ireland.

I might have been able to hop on the I-Can-Read-About-Conor-Larkin-for-900-Pages bandwagon with more enthusiasm if Uris had not given him one particular fatal flaw: he is utterly humorless. True, there wasn’t much to smile about in this story of the downtrodden Irish, but I like my superhuman heroes to be able to laugh at themselves. Conor is humble, naturally, but he is seriously humble. However, Conor is intended to be a brooding, melancholy, poetic hero, and humor would have been out of place in Trinity.

This is a very good book club book, sure to stimulate a lot of discussion. A few of our members are re-reading it, and already have said how much they love it, so my lukewarm reaction is a minority opinion. And, now I’m ready for book club and I’ve read something by Uris.

I’m adding this to my list of books read for the historical fiction challenge. Check out the challenge at Historical Tapestries.

ESCAPE TO THE PAST WITH: The Rebel Wife by Taylor M. Polites

The Rebel Wife by Taylor M. Polites is the story of a young Southern woman trying to get control of her life in the aftermath of her husband’s death from a mysterious blood fever. The tricky part is, she never had control of her life before his death either. Augusta (Gus) Branson is not a strong woman. She was brought up in the antebellum old money society that was destroyed by the war, and she was hardly more than a child when the war ended. Her family was shattered. Her destitute mother forced her into a marriage with Eli Branson, a wealthy and politically powerful scalawag. For ten years, Gus lived with material comfort but shunned by her old friends because of her husband’s activities. And suddenly, she finds herself widowed.

Widowhood frees her from a loveless marriage, but Judge, an old family friend, tells her that Eli’s investments have failed and he has left her with a mountain of debt. Judge promises to try to help her–he promised Eli that he would. She just needs to be patient and quiet and he’ll take care of everything. The strange thing is, Judge and Eli hated each other. Why is Judge the executor of the will?

Gus must now face life head on. Can she trust Judge? Eli’s servant/partner, an ex-slave named Simon, doesn’t think so. Simon is searching for a packet of money that he is certain Eli has left somewhere on the premises. Eli and Simon were involved with some shady dealings. So should she trust Simon? Racial prejudice and violence are rampant, and Gus puts herself and Simon at risk by throwing in her lot with him.

The story takes place in the heat of the summer. The plague that claimed Eli is spreading and people are panicking. Gus must protect herself, her son, and the few servants/ex-slaves who have remained with her, but she can do nothing without money. If the packet exists, she and Simon have to find it before Judge. The result is an atmospheric tale of a weak woman finding a reservoir of inner strength. Gus has to open her eyes to all the falseness around her and accept the lies and prejudices for what they are–and then move on.

I wanted to read this because of the post-Civil War deep south setting, but it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting. With its political intrigues and hunt for the money and who-can-be-trusted atmosphere and time-is-running-out threat of the plague, it was more of a thriller than I thought it would be, except it wasn’t actually thrilling. It has a slow build. The language is very careful and the imagery of the heat is worked in to really make you feel sluggish. Gus languishes a lot, particularly at the start, but in her defense, she had never had to make decisions before. The laudanum bottle beckoned. It must have been tempting too to simply let Judge take over and pretend. But Gus does wake up to bring the story around to a satisfying conclusion. It’s an interesting story after all and well worth the read.

I'm adding this to my historical fiction challenge. Come on over to Historical Tapestries to see what the challenge is all about!

Book Blogger Hop- May 5-11

The book blogger hop, hosted by Crazy for Books is back! Hurray!



Here's how it works:

First, answer the prompt question on your blog:

What are the next five books in your TBR (to-be-read) pile? And, don’t worry, you can change your mind and read something different.

2. Enter the link to your post in the linky list at Crazy for Books (enter your Blog Name, Genre you review, and direct link to your post answering this week’s question; failure to do so will result in removal of your link).
3. Visit other blogs in the list, spending quality time getting to know the people you are visiting. Don’t just visit the post with the question, but click around and read some of the blogger’s other content, too! This Hop isn’t about the number of people you can visit, but the quality of each visit.

And have fun!

So here are my next five books.

1.   The Rebel Wife by Taylor M. Polites

This one I'm sure I'll read next because it's a library book, so if I don't, I'll lose the chance.

2. Trinity by Leon Uris
This is the book my historical fiction book club chose for its next meeting, so I have to read this one soon.








After that, I need to get cracking on my Back-to-the-Classics challenge, so I think the next book will be my reread.
3. Madame Bovary by Flaubert.
Then:
4. Waiting for Sunrise by William Boyd
5. An Imaginary Life by David Malouf (for the Mount TBR challenge.)

Now I'm excited to get reading. And to see what other bloggers have on deck.

BOOK REVIEW: I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

I found the book I was looking for—the something light that would reverse my recent trend of reading books that, though wonderful, are heavy for one reason or another.

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith is even more than I hoped. It starts off lighthearted and charming, with undertones of fairly innocent-seeming family turmoil. But it is a coming-of-age story, and it becomes increasingly sophisticated, losing its innocence, as does its young protagonist (in a written-in-1948 way), so that by the end I realized I was caught up in an astonishingly complex book.

Cassandra Mortmain is seventeen years old and begins to keep a journal to practice her writing. Writing is in her genes. Her father is renowned as a literary genius, although he wrote only one book and that was far too many years ago. Since then (and after the death of her mother), Cassandra’s family has fallen into poverty. Extreme poverty. That’s the crux of their dilemma.

The family consists of Cassandra, her beautiful but embittered/resigned older sister Rose, her smart young schoolboy brother Thomas, her stepmother Topaz, who is an artist’s model with a strange pale beauty and a palette of unconventional behaviors, and an orphaned servant of sorts named Stephen, who is two years older than Cassandra. Stephen has the looks of a Greek god and is deeply in love with Cassandra. And finally, Cassandra’s father lives with them, but he spends his days in the gatehouse- not writing. They live in a rundown English castle, spared paying rent by the generosity and then death of the owner. At the opening of Cassandra’s journal, they are essentially out of options. All their saleable furniture has been sold. Rose, in desperation, offers to sell her soul to the devil, and although the others treat it as a joke, the family’s very real need dampens the humor.

And then, things change. The heir to the castle, Simon Cotton, arrives from America with his brother Neil. They are, to Cassandra’s delight, very nice men. To Rose’s excitement, Simon is now a wealthy man. To no one’s surprise, Rose sets her sights on marrying him. And so, the relationship shifting begins. Although this is Cassandra’s coming-of-age story, she records for us how everyone in her sphere is changed.

I love these kinds of books—books that are written as journals or letters—when the author is able to truly capture the protagonist’s voice. Cassandra comes alive in this novel. She is witty, poignant, and extraordinarily real. Wise beyond her years, too old to be precocious, and straddling that line between childhood and adulthood, Cassandra lets go of her "conscious naivete" (early on, she is accused by Simon of being consciously naive) bit by bit. Her observations about life are amusing one moment and heart-twistingly poignant the next.

Cassandra embraces every experience and every emotion. The pages are filled with the buoyant hopes and crushing disappointments familiar to anyone who has ever been young. She delights in learning new things—the differences between Americanisms and Englishisms jump off the pages seen through her eyes. Her simple joy in the food she gets to eat after a long period of famine, of the chance to explore London with her sister, of lying in the sun on a warm day, may not be high drama, but in Cassandra’s beautiful style, the events of the day are captivating nevertheless.

As you read, you begin to realize that there is a lot more going on in the book than seems present on the surface. This is not a straight-forward love story. In Cassandra’s frank, open voice, Dodie Smith touches on art, literature, music, class inequality, religion, and psychology (the father is quite a piece of work). However, Cassandra does fall in love.

Since 1948, readers have been falling in love with Cassandra (and falling in love along with Cassandra most likely. This book has three men who are easily more deserving of the title romantic hero than Heathcliff-bleh.) If you want to read something beautiful, find a copy of I Capture the Castle.

And if you're looking for more historical fiction, check out the historical fiction challenge hosted by Historical Tapestestries.

ESCAPE TO THE PAST WITH: The Sisters Brothers by Patrick de Witt

I didn’t manage to read a fluffier book. Instead, I chose the enjoyable The Sisters Brothers by Patrick De Witt. (The library let me know it was my turn. And I’m giving it a try on my ipad so I only have it for two weeks. I had to move it to the top of my TBR list.)

Shortlisted for the Man Booker prize, this historical novel is a darkly comic (IMO more dark than comic) highly stylized, wonderfully written western. Set during the California Gold Rush, it tells the story of Eli and Charlie Sisters, hired guns for a wealthy boss named The Commodore. The book is narrated by Eli, a simple man with a tender conscience and a quick temper, who longs for a more peaceful existence but knows nothing else but following after his older brother. They take care of each other. It seems that they love one another but don’t like each other very much. Charlie is a drunkard but is, presumably, the brains of the operation. Or maybe he’s just the more efficient killer. Eli needs to be goaded into doing the work.

Having completed one nasty bit of killing, the brothers are given their next assignment. They are to travel to San Francisco and murder a man named Hermann Kermit Warm, accused of stealing something from the Commodore. Whether the accusation is true or not is immaterial. The boys kill for a wage. They don’t ask questions.

They set off for San Francisco and have a series of adventures or misadventures along the way that mostly end badly for the people they encounter. The brothers are good at what they do even when they do it clumsily.

It is basically a story about nasty men doing horrible things and not feeling particularly remorseful about it. At first, despite the nice prose and being somewhat intrigued by the premise, I wasn’t sure I wanted to invest the time needed to venture along with these unlikeable men. As the story unfolds, they didn’t grow more likeable even as we see their odd vulnerabilities and their unwavering loyalty to one another that shows up in their actions if not their words. Backstory trickles in that explains, to some extent, but does not justify, their sociopathic behavior. I never did warm to any of the characters and that usually means I won’t like the book. But the plain fact of the matter is—before I was very far in to the book, I was hooked. I couldn’t stop reading it. It’s a curious adventure, peopled with unlikeable oddballs, but for some reason I was compelled to see how it ended. Kudos to Patrick De Witt.

This is my seventh historical novel for the Historical Fiction Challenge hosted by Historical Tapestries. If historical fiction is your thing, or if you think you might like to explore the genre, head on over to Historical Tapestries to check out all the reviews! (Or click on my challenge link for a few recommendations to start.)

BOOK REVIEW: The Emperor of All Maladies. A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee

I have to find a cheerier book to read next.

Over spring break I decided to tackle The Emperor of All Maladies. A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee. It’s a brilliant book. If you’re looking for a better understanding of the big picture of cancer, this is where to go.

I heard about this book awhile ago – it was, after all, the 2011 Pulitzer Prize winner for general nonfiction – but was not in a hurry to read it because, well, it is a fairly hefty-looking tome about cancer.

As a pathologist, I have a fair acquaintance with cancer – I know what it looks like. Pathologists look at resected organs and at specimens under the microscope, and one of the main questions we’re supposed to answer is: "Is it cancer?" So we have to know how to recognize it when we see it. I’m a pediatric pathologist, so we’re generally looking for a specific subset of tumors that occur in children. Over the years I’ve grown more accustomed to seeing the comparatively rare pediatric cancer variants rather than the much more common breast, colon, lung and prostate cancers that plague adults. However, as I’ve gotten older, those adult cancers have begun to swirl around me in a different way – they’ve begun to invade the circle of my friends.

So I decided I wanted to read this biography of the disease. I knew the book would be a history of cancer, but I was expecting something dry and more textbook-like. I wasn’t prepared for the scope of the book or for the clarity of the prose. Mukherjee is a physician/scientist but he is also a writer. He makes complex problems accessible without oversimplifying. He is able to take the reader backward and forward on a remarkable journey alongside the pioneers of cancer treatment, political advocacy, and research. He walks with patients, both survivors and those who succumb. Cancer treatment has not been a straightforward march from ignorance and poor outcomes to increasing knowledge and therapeutic success. There have been a lot of false starts and bumps in the road. Cancer is not one monolithic disease seeking one magic bullet, and the battle against it makes for a fascinating, heartbreaking tale.

In this extraordinarily readable book, Mukerherjee lays out the pathways that were explored, increasing incrementally the knowledge about specific malignancies. He explains how therapies added to understanding about cause and vice-versa. In the final chapters, we get to the unraveling of the genetic mechanisms of some cancers and the promise that molecular research holds for the eventual understanding of more and more types of cancer. Understanding the mechanism has led to some targeted therapies and will hopefully lead to more. The book is cautiously optimistic and I came away from it feeling like I had a better understanding of where cancer biology and treatment have been and where they are heading. Unfortunately, it’s also clear that there’s no escaping the suffering cancer has caused and will continue to cause.

If you’re curious about cancer, I highly recommend The Emperor of All Maladies - and the Pulitzer committee agrees.

Still, the next book I read has got to be fluffier.

Six Word Saturday

Happy Easter!  Let Spring Break begin!

 

It's time again for Six-Word-Saturday,  hosted by Show My Face.



Want to play along? All that's necessary to participate is to describe your life (or something) in a phrase using just six words. For more information, try clicking here. Feel free to explain or not explain. Add an image, a video, a song, nothing.


This year, my kids' spring break coincides with Easter. And, even though they are in different schools (high school and middle school) they have the same week off. So, I took the week off from work. I'm looking forward to some time off with family!