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The Hour Before Dawn by Penelope Wilcock

Feb16

Last night I took another trip to the abbey of St. Alcuin, and I encountered tragedy, sin, horror, and of course, grace.

This fifth book in the series about a community of monks in a fourteenth century abbey begins with atrocity. The new abbot of St. Alcuin Abbey, Father John, recieves word that his mother and sister have been the victims of assault, violence, and gang rape by villagers who think they might be witches. Father John can barely assimilate the news that his mother is dead, and his defenseless sister has taken refuge with the Poor Clares in their convent nearby.

The book is about healing: Father John’s sister Madeleine is a healer, before she becomes the wounded sister in need of healing herself. Father John himself has been the infirmarian at St. Alcuin’s before he became abbot. Now, he, too, needs healing. And the new character, Father William de Bulmer, former prior of an Augustinian monastery who entered this series in the previous book, The Hardest Thing To Do, comes into his own. It is Father William who is the sturdy prop that Father leans upon in his suffering and grief.

I like William de Bulmer so much. He is a hard man, without much concept of grace or mercy, except that which he has received from the monks at St. Alcuin’s Abbey. He doesn’t pretend to understand either or to change when change comes hard for him. What he does do is respond to the love and grace that he has been given with loyalty and stalwart support. William reminds me of a friend of mine. She’s a deeply committed, highly intelligent Christian homeschool mother of 10+ children, but all the fluffy emotional stuff that goes along with that role just isn’t there. Not that she doesn’t have or express emotions, but when you ask my friend a question, you get a straight answer—no evasions, no emotional baggage, not much tact. I like that, but it does rather jolt some people’s equilibrium.

I also like the idea presented in the book that William’s response to the anguish Father John is experiencing is silent listening, for the most part. And this listening response is the most helpful thing to bring healing to Father John’s heart. William doesn’t have any answers for the question of why bad things happen to good people, so he doesn’t give any. He speaks when necessary, but mostly he listens and tries to guide Father John to avoid despair. I try too hard to find answers for all the questions people have when they are mourning and dealing with pain.

I highly recommend the Hawk and the Dove trilogy and this new series, set after the events in the first three books of St. Alcuin’s Abbey. Ms. Wilcock, who is an ordained Methodist minister and the mother of five children. She blogs at Kindred of the Quiet Way.

Happy 200th Birthday to the Inimitable Boz

Feb7

Happy Birthday, Mr. Dickens!

Born on this date in 1812, Mr. Dickens has been delighting readers for over 150 years.

Dickens Novels I’ve Read: David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, A Tale of Two Cities, A Christmas Carol, Pickwick Papers, Great Expectations, Our Mutual Friend

DIckens Novels I Have Yet to Enjoy: Hard Times, Dombey and Son, Bleak House, The Old Curiosity Shop, Barnaby Rudge, Martin Chuzzlewit, Little Dorrit, The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

Favorite Dickens Hero: Pip, Great Expectations

Favorite Dickens Villain(ess): Madame Defarge, Tale of Two Cities

Favorite Tragic Scene: Mr. Peggotty searching for Littel Em’ly (Is that a scene or an episode?)

Favorite Comic Character: Mr. Micawber, David Copperfield

Favorite Comic Scene: Miss Betsy Trotter chasing the donkeys out of her yard, David Copperfield

Strangest Dickens Christmas Story We’ve Read: “The Poor Relation’s Story”

Best Dickens Novel I’ve Read: A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield is a close second.

Dickens-related posts at Semicolon:

LOST Reading Project: Our Mutual Friend by Charles DIckens.

Scrooge Goes to Church

Dickens Pro and Con on his Birthday.

Quotes and Links

Born February 7th

Charles Dickens by Jane Smiley

A Little More Dickens

Other DIckens-related links:
Mere Comments on Dickens’ Christianity.

A DIckens Filmography at Internet Film Database.

George Orwell: Essay on Charles DIckens.

Edgar Allan Poe Meets Charles Dickens.

An entire blog devoted to Mr. Dickens and his work: DIckensblog by Gina Dalfonzo.

And finally, here’s a re-post of my own Dickens Quiz. Can you match the quotation with the Dickens novel that it comes from?

1. “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”

2. “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.”

3. “I would rather, I declare, have been a pig-faced lady, than be exposed to such a life as this!”

4. “It’s over and can’t be helped, and that’s one consolation as they always says in Turkey, ven they cuts the wrong man’s head off.”

5. “If the law supposes that,’ said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, “the law is a ass–a idiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is, that his eye may be opened by experience–by experience.”

6. “I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a school-boy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to every-body! A happy New Year to all the world! Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!”

7. “We spent as much money as we could, and got as little for it as people could make up their minds to give us. We were always more or less miserable, and most of our acquaintance were in the same condition. There was a gay fiction among us that we were constantly enjoying ourselves, and a skeleton truth that we never did. To the best of my belief, our case was in the last aspect a rather common one.”

8. “It is a sensation not experienced by many mortals,” said he, “to be looking into a churchyard on a wild windy night, and to feel that I no more hold a place among the living than these dead do, and even to know that I lie buried somewhere else, as they lie buried here. Nothing uses me to it. A spirit that was once a man could hardly feel stranger or lonelier, going unrecognized among mankind, than I feel.”

(HINT: these come from the eight Dickens novels that I have read. Which is from which?)

Alexander McCall Smith: The Wodehouse of the Twenty-first Century

Jan24

O.K., it’s not quite the same; I realize that. Wodehouse is more wordplay and wit and laugh out loud. But McCall Smith’s books, especially the 44 Scotland Street stories, have the same sort of quirky characters going about their daily business and getting themselves into and out of scrapes that Wodehouse portrayed so well. P.G. Wodehouse and Alexander McCall Smith both have a well-developed sense of human absurdity, but they are gentle with their characters, even when those characters act in ridiculous ways or make very poor decisions.

At any rate, I had such a good, thoughtful, gentle time reading the two latest books in Mr. McCall Smith’s 44 Scotland Street series this week: The Importance of Being Seven and Bertie Plays the Blues. Bertie is a wise and innocent little boy with a very foolish and over-bearing mother. Angus is a middle-aged artist who hopes that a vacation in Italy will help him to recapture the optimism and sense of possibility of his youth. Domenica is an opinionated and somewhat bossy woman who generally knows what she wants but is wise enough to compromise when necessary. Matthew and Elspeth are an ordinary young couple who are about to be presented with an extraordinary parenting challenge. And Antonia, well, Antonia is a “man-eater.” These and other lovely (and not-so-lovely) people are thrown together in and out of 44 Scotland Street in Edinburgh, “a city with two identities: one respectable, the other quite the opposite.”

“It is a good general rule to allow everybody to go through the dooor before you. People who do this are usually much appreciated for their manners, but may not get very far in life, owing, perhaps, to the number of doors through which they do not ever pass.” The Importance of Being Seven, p. 34.

“Talking to Domenica sometimes required one to think really hard—rather harder than he was accustomed to thinking. She was like sudoku, in a way—not that he should make that comparison openly.” The Importance of Being Seven, p.146.

“Angus, and indeed many others, assumed a particular facial expression when reciting Burns. It was a very curious expression: one of reverence mixed with a look of satisfaction that comes from finding that one can remember the lines. Perhaps it had its equivalent elsewhere, she thought; perhaps there was a universal face that people put on when they quoted their national poets—if they had them. Some nations had no national poet, of course; they had an airline, perhaps, but not a poet.” Bertie Plays the Blues, p. 11.

“And signs telling one to go slowly in the dark or in fog irritated Angus almost as much as the signs that warned people not to approach cliff edges. In his view, it was up to the individual whether or not to approach a cliff edge; it was not the Government’s business.” Bertie Plays the Blues, p.120.

“Irene was typical of the excessively pushy mother, but for all the complications that brought, it was infinitely preferable to the mother who did not love her children at all. Love sometimes needs to be redirected; love sometimes needs to be told that it is swamping or overwhelming its object, but it should never be locked out entirely, never be told to go away.” Bertie Plays the Blues, p.190.

Christian Fiction: Average to Middle of the Road

Jan18

I read the following because they were on the long list of nominations for the INSPY awards, but I must say that they were just so-so, fair to middling.

An Unlikely Suitor by Nancy Moser. I’ve read other books by Ms. Moser, and enjoyed them, but after I waited for over 180 pages for the unlikely suitor to show up, I was tired and a bit cranky. Then, I thought the aforementioned suitor was a cad and and a liar, and I found it difficult to suspend disbelief for the multiple fairy tale romances that took place in the last half of the book. If you’ve got a better disbelief suspension mechanism than I do, and if you don’t mind a male romantic lead who leads two young women to believe he’s in love with them at the same time, you might like this one better than I did.

On Hummingbird Wings by Lauraine Snelling. Gillian, the protagonist, is a self-centered corporate b— who hasn’t visited her mother in California in five years. Or is it more? Gillian can’t remember exactly. Gillian’s only sister, Allie, has a husband and two teenage children, but she takes care of mom who lives in the next town over. Allie, however, is a whiner, and according to Gillian that’s the cardinal sin. Mom is domineering and set in her ways, and now she’s decided to die despite the fact that her doctor says she has no life-threatening ailments. Mom seems to have passive-aggressive down to an art form. If all three of them sound like unpleasant people who deserve each other, they are. Or else I was in a bad mood when I read this story of two daughters trying NOT to take responsibility for caring for their aging mother. I just wanted to tell all three of them to grow up and get over themselves. At least the love interest in this one is a good guy. But Gillian doesn’t deserve him.

Believing the Lie by Elizabeth George

Jan17

I have read and appreciated most of Elizabeth George’s Scotland Yard detective novels featuring the aristocratic Inspector Thomas Lynley, his slovenly yet astute assistant Barbara Havers, his long-time associates, forensic specialist Simon St. James and Simon’s wife, photographer Deborah St. James, and other recurring characters from New Scotland Yard and from Lynley’s personal set of friends and acquaintances. The series began in 1988 with the novel A Great Deliverance, and Believing the Lie is the seventeenth book to feature these same characters as they investigate murder while dealing with the intense drama and psychological trauma that such work involves.

When I reviewed Steig Larsson’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo a few weeks ago at The Point, I said that novel crossed the invisible line that I have for my own use between acceptable, thought-provoking, and informative literature and that which travels into the realm of the prurient, salacious, and gratuitously violent. For me, Elizabeth George’s novels have always danced around that line, but they have fallen on the side of memorable depictions of the subtleties of evil and of crime and the ways in which our hearts and minds can be so complicated and so difficult to manage. Inspector Lynley is a complicated guy, a man whose aristocratic background would enable him do without a mundane job as a police detective, but who sees himself as needing the job as much as or more than it needs him. His assistant, Havers, is in her own eyes as uncomplicated a person as could be imagined. Nevertheless, as the series develops we see more and more about her and her web of relationships and life-decisions, and even the simple straight-talking Barbara Havers becomes an intricate puzzle of a person with depths of character and perception that can only begin to be fathomed.

And that’s why I like the books. George’s characters are wonderfully complex and yet true-to-life and identifiable. And they’re also so very British, which is loads of fun for an Anglophile like me. The situations they find themselves in, however, are nasty and sometimes obscene. Illicit sex and violence abound. Dilemmas and issues concerning random cruelty, the nature of marriage, the ethics of reproduction, malice and revenge, sexual morality, and the nature of justice are the recurring themes of Ms. George’s detective novels, and although I like the way she explores these themes, I admit to some discomfort with the (not gratuitous but definitely vivid) descriptions of violence and sexual perversion and immorality.

So, am I fer’em er agin’em? Well, I wouldn’t recommend the novels to everyone. However, if you like the psychological depths of P.D. James’s novels and you can tolerate the horrific nature of the crimes in the Steig novels or in the TV series Bones, you would be a candidate for enjoying Elizabeth George’s Inspector Lynley novels. The characters do stay with me and make me care, even when I want to give some of them a good talking to and a dose of gospel truth.

As for this specific installment in the series, Believing the Lie is an absorbing story with repeating instances of deception within dysfunctional families leading to tragic outcomes. And all of the families and individuals in the story are dysfunctional, emotionally broken, and capable of acting on the basis of really poor decisions. In fact, one of my favorite recurring characters in the series, Deborah St. James, does something in this novel that is so wrong that even though she is repentant at the end, I’m finding it difficult to see her repentance as commensurate with the “crime.”

Elizabeth George’s website where you can read more about her and her books.

Thanks to Penguin for making the ARC available for my review. Publication is scheduled for sometime this month.

One Amazing Thing by Chitra Divakaruni

Jan13

In addition to The Canterbury Tales (which appears in my novel) and Wuthering Heights, I was drawing on works such as The Decameron, The Arabian Nights, and the Indian Wise-Animal tales, The Panchatantra. Just before beginning my book, I reread Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto because I really liked the feel of that novel. ~Chitra Divakaruni

A group of diverse people are trapped by an earthquake inside a visa office, and to survive emotionally they begin, one by one, to tell their stories.

“Unless we’re careful, things will get a lot worse. We can take out our stress on one another–like what happened–and maybe get buried alive. Or we can focus our minds on something compelling— . . . We can each tell an important story from our lives. . . Everyone has a story,” said Uma, relieved that one of them was considering the idea. “I don’t believe anyone can go through life without encountering at least one amazing thing.”

So each of the nine people trapped in the unstable building tells his or her story. I thought the premise was genius, and the execution was good, too. I don’t care much for short stories, but these were knit together by the over-arching plot of nine people imprisoned in an office with possible death staring them in the face. The themes of the characters’ stories were inter-woven, too. The stories were all about thwarted desires and about what happens when we get what we think we want, but not what we really need or want.

What story would you tell if you were to tell about One Amazing Thing that had happened in your life?

I’m thinking about using this book in a high school World Literature class that I’m planning for next year. If you’ve read it, what do you think? Could high schoolers relate to the characters in the book? Wouldn’t it be a good introduction or exposure to colliding cultures and grace under pressure?

Do you have other reading suggestions for an 11-12th grade World Literature class?

The Bone House by Stephen Lawhead

Jan10

I read The Skin Map, the first book in Stephen Lawhead’s Bright Empires series, in 2010 when it first came out because Mr. Lawhead is one of my favorite authors. I found it confusing and somewhat unsatisfying because it’s one of those “first of a series” books that doesn’t stand alone and ends in an abrupt cliffhanger way.

Still, I was interested enough to request a review copy of the second book in the series, The Bone House. I found it confusing and somewhat unsatisfying because it’s one of those “second of a series” books that doesn’t stand alone and ends in an abrupt cliffhanger way.

THe books remind me of Connie Willis’s Blackout and All Clear, my favorite two-volume book from last year. However, I kept the time travel and the multiple story lines straight (mostly) in the Willis books, and I couldn’t remember who was whom in these books. Nor could I remember what happened to one character in the last chapter about him when his story was separated by several chapters about other characters in other times and places. Yeah, confusing. It didn’t help that I read The Bone House on my Kindle. There are many things I like about my Kindle, but being able to go back and remind myself of something that happened in the earlier part of the book isn’t easy or intuitive for me on the Kindle. In fact, I can’t do it.

So, I think I should read confusing books with multiple stories that change times and places and characters from one chapter to the next . . . in print. And I think I should wait to read series books until the entire series has been published. Of course, that means that I will be the last one to read some really good series of books. But at least I’ll enjoy them. And I can always go back and read classics and all of the book I missed in past years and all of the books on my TBR list while I’m waiting for those series to be completed.

So, maybe I’ll re-read Stephen Lawhead’s Bright Empires series, in print editions if those are still around by then, in a few years when all of the books in the series are available. And if you enjoy and recommend them now, just don’t tell me.

There’s nothing quite like a Real Book:

12 Adult Fiction Titles I’m Looking Forward to Reading in 2012

Jan6

Believing the Lie: An Inspector Lynley Novel by Elizabeth George. January 10, 2012.

The Hour Before Dawn, The Hawk and the Dove series by Penelope Wilcock. January 24, 2012.

The Baker’s Daughter by Sarah McCoy. “A multi-period novel about wartime choices and the redemptive power of love.” January 24, 2012.

Lost and Found by Ginny L. Yttrup. “Jenna Bouvier and Andee Bell are at a crossroads. Jenna is in danger of losing her family and her wealth when her mother-in-law accuses her of having an affair. Andee has what she wants—fame, fortune, and Jenna’s brother—but she’s haunted by a dark secret.” February 29, 2012.

The New Republic by Lionel Shriver. I’ve, well, appreciated the other two novels I’ve read by Ms. Shriver, We Need To Talk About Kevin and So Much for That. This one, about terrorism and journalism on a fictional Portuguese peninsula sounds intriguing. March 27, 2012.

The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection: No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency (13) by Alexander McCall Smith. April 3, 2012.

Mr. Churchill’s Secretary by Susan Macneal. “Ensnared in a web of spies, murder, and intrigue, Maggie Hope must work quickly to balance her duty to King and Country with her chances for survival.” April 3, 2012.

The Life Boat by Charlotte Rogan. “In the summer of 1914, the elegant ocean liner carrying her and her husband Henry across the Atlantic suffers a mysterious explosion. Setting aside his own safety, Henry secures Grace a place in a lifeboat, which the survivors quickly realize is over capacity. For any to live, some must die.” April 3, 2012.

Waiting for Sunrise by William Boyd. “In 1913 an Englishman in Vienna for psychiatric treatment falls in love with a young woman in a story spanning London, Geneva and the battlefields of France.” April 17, 2012.

Dorchester Terrace by Anne Perry. “Charlotte & Thomas Pitt Victorian mystery in which they race to find a traitor within Special Branch.” April 17, 2012.

Nothing to Hide, Roland March mystery series by J. Mark Bertrand. July 1, 2012.

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Semicolon’s Twelve Best Adult Novels Read in 2011

Dec20

Gifts of War by Mackenzie Ford. I didn’t review this book right after I read it, and so now it’s hard to go back and write about it in detail. However, it has gotten stuck in my mind. Here’s a review at Shelf Love, and another at Pudgy Penguin Perusals.

The Belfry by May Sinclair. Reviewed at A library is a hospital for the mind. I didn’t get around to reviewing this novel, first published in 1916 and available free in a Kindle edition, but I did enjoy it.

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson. Semicolon review here.

Anna’s Book by Barbara Vine. Semicolon review here.

The Hardest Thing To Do by Penelope Wilock. Semicolon review here.

Amy Inspired by Bethany Pierce.

City of Tranquil Light by Bo Caldwell. Semicolon review here

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett. Semicolon review here.

The Story of Beautiful Girl by Rachel Simon. Semicolon review here.

Blackout by Connie Willis. Semicolon review and recommendation here.

All Clear by Connie Willis.

The Unbearable Lightness of Scones by Alexander McCall Smith. Semicolon review here.

The first two novels on my list would be excellent choices for the War Through the Generations challenge this year which focuses on the World War I years. My favorites for the year were Connie Willis’s two parter Blackout and All Clear, set during World War II.

Book Reviews at Breakpoint

Dec20

I have two book reviews up at BreakPoint, Chuck Colson’s Christian worldview ministry website:

False Gospel: A Review of Hilary Jordan’s When She Woke.

The Problem With The Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson.

You can read the reviews there, but the bottom line is that I found significant issues with both books.

Gina Dalfonzo also has a more positive review of Alice Ozma’s The Reading Promise, a book I read but never finished reviewing for this blog. My nascent thoughts on The Reading Promise:

The book isn’t so much about reading and books as it is a tribute to a single father who found a way to connect with his daughter and give her a childhood full of treasured memories. The Reading Promise, or the Streak, as Alice and her called it, is just the framework for those memories and a discipline that brings the dedication of Alice’s dad, Jim Brozina, into focus for Alice and for her readers as she recalls her childhood and adolescence.

“When Alice was in fourth grade, she and her father–a beloved elementary school librarian–made a promise to read aloud together for 100 consecutive nights.” When they reached that goal, they didn’t want to stop, and so they began what was affectionately called The Streak, a reading promise and regimen that lasted until Alice went away to college about eight years later.

The book has an introduction by Jim Brozina with advice about how to start your own reading streak:

“If you want to start your own reading streak, you should begin by taking your child to your local public library, where the two of you can look through the stacks for books that would fit your reading desires. When either of you find something, show it to the other. Let your child overrule your choices if he or she chooses, but be hesitant about rejecting those your child is excited about. . . When you have accumulated as many books as will serve your purposes for now, check them out and take them home. Your child will be hopping with excitement as he or she anticipates the many good nights of reading ahead.”

Each of the chapters of the book itself is an essay covering various aspects of the reading experience and of the father/daughter relationship. Miss Ozma, a self-confessed “nerdy kid”, writes about reading together after father and daughter have had an argument, helping her father go on his first post-divorce date, buying a prom dress with your dad, living really frugally on a librarian’s income, and dealing with the death of a Franklin the Fish —all illuminated and accompanied by literature.