What have you read lately?

[ergative]

Which Salem, in the UK, or one of the other ones?

M.

UK, definitely. Oliphaunt doesn't leave the island.

[mamselle]

Ah, makes more sense.

St. Peter's, Salem, in the US, does have an interesting history, but it isn't that.

(The prototype for the female in "Seven Gables" was buried in the original cemetery out back: her stone is now in the chapel wall.)

M.

[apl68]

I've never read one of "Mrs. Oliphaunt's" novels, just one or two stories.  Guess I'll have to do that sometime as part of my occasional series of Victorian novelists.  I like Victorian prose well enough, but their novels have a strong tendency to give the reader...rather too much of it.  If I can choke down something by George Meredith, I suppose a good work by Margaret Oliphant shouldn't be too much of a challenge.

Ooh, if you haven't read a full Oliphaunt novel, let me recommend Salem Chapel. It's about a minister who takes a position at a dissenting church (i.e., one that is not part of the church of England infrastructure and rather than getting vicars appointed by a bishop or local magistrate or landowner, instead hires independent clergy), and discovers a huge disconnect between expectations and realities surrounding the job. Think, like, an Ivy League grad who wants to revolutionize the English department at a very small community college. And, simultaneously, it is a novel about mothers and the steps they'll take to protect their children--but not in a sentimental Victorian way (although there's that, too), but in other ways, too. For example, the minister's mother starts taking over the book around the 2/3 mark or so.

Anyway, I loved loved loved this book. I have often thought that all those Trollope and Oliphaunt noels about the clergyman's job search, and the misery of being a curate and the breath of relief when you finally get a vicarage, which is a living for life, has a lot in common with the search for an academic job, the misery of adjuncthood, and the glories of tenure. (Oliphaunt even has a book called The Perpetual Curate, although it's not as good as Salem Chapel, I think.) But most of those books presume you're staying within the Church of England. This is the only one I know of that looks at those same issues outside of mainstream academic clerical jobs.

That sound's interesting!  I've read Trollope's The Warden and Barchester Towers, so I know something about how the CoE did things in those days.  And my father has spent over 60 years and counting as what Trollope and Oliphant would have called a "dissenting" minister.  He's pastored half a dozen churches over the years, while at various times laying bricks (mostly that), driving a school bus, and working in an auto body shop to actually support the family.  And building a house for us to live in.

[hmaria1609]

From the library: Your Guide to Not to Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village by Maureen Johnson and Jay Cooper (NF)
An illustrated humor book for fans of British mysteries!

[mamselle]

Especially if it has 'Midsomer' in the name...

M.

[ab_grp]

I just finished listening to Red Rising (Pierce Brown; Tim Gerard Reynolds).  We've had a little discussion here before about the book series and main character and his insufferableness.  That is not really diminished in the audio book, but I thought the narrator did a great job, and there are parts of the story I really like.  I'll probably pick up the others in the series at some point, and I still have to actually read the final book.  Next up looks to be The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives (Leonard Mlodinow; Sean Pratt).  A friendly colleague recommended it years ago, but I haven't had a chance to read it yet, so might as well listen.

[Parasaurolophus]

August:


W.J.T. Mitchell - The Last Dinosaur Book: The Life and Times of a Cultural Icon: Somewhat frustrating. I thought it would (1) survey popular representations of dinosaurs since the Dinosaur Renaissance and up to the mid-'90s, and (2) argue that dinosaurs are socially-constructed. With respect to (1), it just sort of talks about stuff now and then and entirely unsystematically, without much regard for historical context; Rieppel's Assembling the Dinosaur does a far better job of it, even though it's focused on turn-of-the-century efforts to mount skeletons. With respect to (2), it's asserted a couple of times, but nothing more. The book is largely inoffensive, and sometimes interesting, but mostly it's just a load of pseudo-profound faux philosophical pontificating. It opens with an uncritical discussion of the dinosauroid, so: reader beware.

Jay Ingram - The Science of Everyday Life: Pretty much just a Quirks and Quarks digest from the late 1980s. I found it in a little free library a while ago, and it was fun enough, although I rather suspect most of work in psychology has not survived intact to the present day.

Adrian Tchaikovsky - Bear Head: This is the sequel to Dogs of War, but it takes place a few decades later and on Mars. Plotwise, it's a more coherent novel, and I think it's overall better than the first (I also think it works as a standalone read), although it doesn't have the same nuanced and insightful overcurrent about abusive relationships. A strong piece of colonial scifi!

J.R.R. Tolkein - The Hobbit: I hadn't read this (or LOTR) since grade four or five. I'm writing a popular-facing thing on a fantasy series, however, and I wanted to reacquaint myself with LOTR's influence (plus, I've been meaning to revisit it for a while). I enjoyed The Hobbit as a child, but reading it as an adult was pure joy. It's really quite well written, and even though it's from 1937, it compares favourably to the best contemporary fantasy. It's really quite something. It was pretty neat to notice the influence of the Sagas, too; the whole thing owes a lot of its structure and style to them. I still have the very strong sense, however--as I did as a child--that Bilbo seriously wronged Gollum (despite everything). I mean, imagine being stuck in a dark cave system for 500ish years, all alone except for goblins which want to kill you, and you've invested all of your everything into this one survival tool which you then lose? The poor guy.

[hmaria1609]

Especially if it has 'Midsomer' in the name...
M.

I haven't seen this long time running show; it was shown in syndication on our local PBS station for awhile. Not surprisingly there's a TV filming locations tour for "Midsomer Murders" for fans.

[mamselle]

I've heard of that, but....I don't know....

I'd worry I might not come back alive....

;--}

M.

[apl68]

The Devil's Advocate, by Morris West.  Italy, 1959.  Peasants in impoverished rural Calabria have begun venerating a man killed fifteen years earlier during the War as a local saint.  Monsignor Meredith, a Vatican bureaucrat, is dispatched to the scene to serve as "promoter of the faith" in the case.  His job is to gather evidence, with a particular eye toward ferreting out anything that might disqualify the candidate.  Hence the popular term "Devil's advocate"--one who argues against a cause he might be assumed to sympathize with.

The case is a potential political football.  Since the candidate for sainthood was put to death by Communist guerrillas, not by the Germans, the Vatican hopes that a new saint would make a good tool for rallying the faithful against the Left in Italian elections.  The local bishop would prefer that the case fail, since success would mean spending a fortune on fancy new shrines and such that could be better spent on relieving poverty.  Msgr. Meredith is meanwhile struggling with a personal crisis brought on by a diagnosis of terminal cancer.  And in Calabria he meets a cast of characters who have things to hide about their relationships with the putative saint, and with each other.

The plot unfolds in a melodramatic fashion characteristic of much popular fiction of the day.  It's easy to see this being made into a sensationalist Hollywood movie in the early sixties.  This does not keep the author from seriously examining matters of faith and the direction of the Church.  A Protestant could hardly deliver a stronger indictment of the pre-Vatican II Church in Italy, where its dominance for so many centuries did nothing to lift so much of the population from the most abject poverty and pagan superstition (Carlo Levi makes this point in his classic Christ Stopped at Eboli).  Then there are the bigger questions regarding such matters as what is truly worth believing in.  For some readers it also brings out much about why many Christians don't go with the whole idea of venerating designated "saints" in the first place, since this institutionalizes the universal failing among Christian faith traditions to divide believers between a spiritual elite and a lukewarm majority in a manner that doesn't really hold with the teachings of the New Testament.

For all the muck it rakes up, this is obviously the work of a sympathizer who cares a great deal about trying to make the Church better.  Which is why the edition I've just read is part of the "Loyola Classics" series.  It boasts an introduction by Kenneth Woodward, author of a book called Making Saints that gives a good look at how the long, drawn-out canonization process works (It has changed a lot since 1959--the so-called "Devil's advocate" isn't a thing anymore), and the perennial issues surrounding it.  I found The Devil's Advocate well worth reading, although I didn't personally enjoy reading it as much as a fellow Loyola Classic--Rumer Godden's In This House of Brede.

[ab_grp]

We finally finished the sixth Expanse book, Babylon's Ashes after almost 6 months! What a slog.  We just could not get into this one.  It picked up at the end, but 400 or 500 pages in is not where you really want to start being drawn in.  We will continue with the series at some point, but not for a while.

After that, we started Emily St. John Mandel's The Glass Hotel.  Parasaurolophus reviewed it favorably here two years ago, so I put it on our list.  So far, it is definitely much more compelling than the above.  Of course, it's a totally different book.  As Parasaurolophus noted, it is unclear early on what exactly the story is or where it is going.  I'm looking forward to finding out!

[Parasaurolophus]

Oh hey! I hope you guys enjoy it!

[Morden]

Just finished book 9 of The Expanse--I thought it was well done, and now would like to reread the first one again. But I agree--some of the middle volumes were difficult to get into.

[FishProf]

BTW - thanks for suggestions for Smolt, we finished  Henry Huggins by Beverly Cleary and The Black Stallion, Tuck Everlasting and Bridge to Terabithia are in the que.

Four really different books, and some pretty heavy content  by the end.  Smolt totally handled it, but MFP was more rattled.

Now we are reading Holes.

I tried reading Tom Wolfe's Kingdom of Speech but I gave it up early.  When someone is so wrong and biased about an area I know well, it makes trusting them on the rest of the book impossible for me.

[ab_grp]

Oh hey! I hope you guys enjoy it!

Thanks so much for the recommendation! We are enjoying it very much so far.

Just finished book 9 of The Expanse--I thought it was well done, and now would like to reread the first one again. But I agree--some of the middle volumes were difficult to get into.

Thanks for this update on your progress in the series.  It's helpful to hear that it wraps up well and that you would even like to start over again.  I think everyone who has finished the series has said it was worth it.  There's another one (book 8) that someone mentioned elsewhere as being difficult to get through, so now I am dreading that one.  Do you want to go back to the beginning because you enjoyed the overall story so much or because you kind of zoned out during the dull ones and missed some aspects that ended up being important or interesting in the long run (which has happened to me too many times)?