The Night Circus

I finally jumped on the circus wagon and joined the rest of the world in reading The Night Circus. Picking it up when I did, right on the heels of the announcement that J.K. Rowling is working on a new novel for adults, I couldn't help but think that this is exactly the kind of departure novel many people would imagine she'd write (though for my money, I'm betting that she does something drastically different from the Harry Potter franchise). Erin Morgenstern's debut is set within a traveling circus, Les Cirque Des Reves, that moves from place to place, appears without warning, and only opens between dusk and dawn. It's a world that's as magical and as richly imagined as Hogwarts was. The descriptions of the elegant, luminous sights that fill the circus, set off against its simple black, white, and red color scheme, set a very distinctive mood that seems destined to be adapted into a film version. And yet, any film adaptation, relying on sight and sound alone, would miss out on some of the most magical details of all-- the delectable scents that fill the air, the delicious tastes of the treats at the refreshment stands, and the mysterious feelings that engulf visitors as they wander the circus.

Where my Harry Potter comparison falls apart, however, is with the plot itself. The Night Circus follows two storylines, that of Celia and Marco, two opposing magicians who are engaged in a secret battle of skill that results in increasingly fanciful and amazing feats within the circus, and that of Poppet, Widget, and Baily, a group of younger characters who represent the next generation of the circus. Although I was intrigued to see how their stories intersected at the end, I ultimately wasn't as interested in any of them as I was in the vivid descriptions of the circus. While Rowling used her wizarding world as a vehicle for an epic story that's sustained over seven books, this novel felt like it had the opposite construction, with the story dragged out and chopped up to serve as a vehicle for furthering the meticulously detailed setting.  

A plot that doesn't live up to its setting may sound like a huge flaw, but in this case I really don't think it is. The circus that Morgenstern has imagined is unlike anything else I've read. It's a fun world to escape into and makes this a novel well worth reading.

The Sense of an Ending

I had never read anything by Julian Barnes until my book club chose his short novel The Sense of an Ending as our current selection. The thing that struck me most about his writing was its ease. The narration, which seems to combine the autobiographic quality of Philip Roth with a certain British refinement that reminded me of Ian McEwan's work, hit just the right note for the story and had a natural feel and flow to it from the very first page. That's not necessarily an easy feat, either, when the plot involves memories, and discrepancies of memory, from a character's past.

The novel's narrator, Tony Webster, is completely upfront with the reader about the possible unreliable nature of his memories. The first part of the book is a series of scenes that paint a picture of the close knit group of friends of his youth. Drawn to different universities and girlfriends, they drift apart and are ultimately hit with the tragic death of one of their own. Years later, a chain of events forces Tony, now a sixty-something divorced grandfather, to revisit these memories. Through a series of twists and turns, he learns that he may have misinterpreted the facts of his past.

I found the twists that Tony uncovers to be truly surprising. I shared his bewilderment at certain points in the story and thought I'd just about figured things out when I suddenly realized that things weren't exactly what I (or he) had been expecting. Looking back now, I can't decide if I really think the ultimate plot twist was truly believable or not. That's almost irrelevant, though, since I think the most interesting takeaway from the book is its portrayal of a narrator who is very self-aware, even about his own lack of awareness in certain areas, yet who is forced to completely reappraise himself and revise his view of his own past.

Cutting for Stone

Before reading Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese, I had heard so many raves about it, sometimes from unexpected quarters. It would come up in, say, a random conversation at work and a colleague who had read it would just start gushing about how amazing it was. After reading it, I can safely say that it did live up to all of the hype. It's epic, engrossing, and vivid, and left me with a lot of ideas to talk about the next time my book club meets. Problem is, I've let a bit of time pass since I finished it, so now I'm left with a bunch of random, possibly disjointed thoughts that I can't seem to wrangle into a concise post. I've decided to embrace the disjointedness and just mention two of the things that struck me the most about the book.

1- Every single character is so well drawn, from the main characters all the way down to the most minor patient who passes through the clinic. Each seems to warrant his or her own separate novel.

2- You often hear about nonfiction that reads as fiction. I can't help but thinking that this is fiction that reads like the best kind of nonfiction. It includes meticulous details about Ethiopian culture and history, as well as intricately depicted, play by play scenes of various surgeries and medical procedures. So vivid, they were sometimes painful to read, though always fascinating.

I'm sure something will come to me later that I'll be sorry for not mentioning. It's one of those books that sticks with you, prompting new thoughts here and there well after the last page.

Swamplandia!

I went into Swamplandia!, my book club's latest pick, prepared to completely love it. Somehow, it just didn't live up to the expectations I had built up in my head. Not that there was anything wrong with the writing. In fact, there were many moments that were quite lovely. I think my main problem was that I started the book under a misapprehension of what it was about, largely due to all of the hype and glowing reviews I had read about the book. For some reason, blurbs like "wonderfully imaginative" and "a lushly written treat" made me think that it would be a quirky, somewhat magical tale of a young girl's unique family and her adventures through the Florida swamplands. Turns out, it's much, much darker than that.

I don't want to give too much away, but in case anyone else has read it, I just have to say:

The Bird Man!?! Oh my goodness. My stomach was tangled up in sour knots of dread for the whole second half of the book, just waiting for the inevitable.

If you've read it, let me know what you think. I can't wait until my book club's meeting to see if anyone else felt the same way.

Goonies

I'm having a streak of good reading luck. A Visit From the Good Squad- the recent Pulitzer Prize winner by Jennifer Egan and my book club's latest pick- is the third book great book I've read in just about as many weeks.

I won't even try to summarize what the book is about. I think any attempt to would be as misleading as the official jacket copy is. I will say that the chapters tell the stories of different characters, or of different time periods in the lives of characters. As I came to the end of each one, I was so wrapped up in their stories that I wanted to read more, and felt a bit cheated when a new chapter began and a new character or time was introduced. Each one seemed to hold the potential to be spun out into a novel of its own.

I flew through this over the weekend and have been thinking about it ever since. And even though I'm extremely glad I read it, I'm not without criticisms of it. I have a feeling that this is going to make for an interesting book club discussion.

Water for Elephants

I'm giving my book club's latest pick, Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, the rating of a "hearty OK". I can't in good conscience give it any less since I may or may not have been the one who threw it out as a suggestion after seeing the trailer for the upcoming movie adaptation.

This was an easy read with an entertaining story. The setting of a 1930's travelling circus was vividly depicted and seems like it will translate well on screen. I also enjoyed the descriptions of the animals in the circus- sometimes more than the descriptions of the humans! My main criticism of the characters is that they all felt a little bit one-note. It seemed like the author got so wrapped up in trying to write descriptively that she ended up going over the top in detailing their actions. The characters constantly had their mouths forming an "O" in surprise, or were clapping their hands over their mouths to contain laughter. Does anyone actually do those actions in real life?

In the end, I can see why this book was a really popular bestseller, but didn't necessarily win any critical awards. I"m glad I read it and still have high hopes for the movie.

Henrietta Lacks

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks has gotten a lot of buzz in the last year. I first saw the story featured on CBS Sunday Morning, and it's been chosen for some "best books of the year" lists. Despite all that, it's one of those books that I probably wouldn't have read if it hadn't been chosen by my book club. It tells the interesting story of the woman who unknowingly provided the first cells that were successfully grown in a lab culture. They became known as HeLa cells, which played, and continue to play, a key role in scientific and medical research.


This book weaves in one part biography of Henrietta and her descendants, one part information about the science behind the use of the cells, and one part the tale of how the author got the family to let her tell Henrietta's story. Living in poverty, Henrietta's descendants were largely misinformed about the cells and distrusted anything and anyone that had to do with them. The author had to slowly bring them around to cooperating with her. Some of the interactions between the author and Henrietta's family were pretty dramatic and, for me, were the most engrossing parts of the book. It did leave me wondering if the family's goal of telling Henrietta's story was truly achieved. I feel like I came away from this book with a better picture of Henrietta's descendants then of Henrietta herself.

Little Bee

Did anyone guess my book club's latest book based on the hint I dropped about a month ago? It was Little Bee by Chris Cleave.

I'm glad we chose this book. It was really well written and yielded an interesting book club discussion. That being said, the most interesting thing about it might actually be it's marketing angle. The back copy of the book takes the line of "we're not going to tell you anything about the story because it's so special that you need to experience how it unfolds for yourself". Kind of a genius marketing ploy. Even though I really liked the book, I'm not sure it quite lived up to all of that hype. There is a pivotal scene that's probably best not revealed ahead of time, but I kept waiting for even more, like some huge twist that would totally change the way I thought about the story, and that just never came.

I can't complain too much, though. It's definitely a book worth reading. All I say about it is it follows the intersection of the lives of a Nigerian girl and a British woman. I can't reveal anything else. You'll have to experience it for yourself.

The Help

My week-plus dearth of posts can be blamed on the fact that I was spending every waking minute trying to finish The Help in time for my book club meeting. Okay, not actually every waking minute, which is probably why I still came up 100 pages short by the time of our meeting. This had nothing to do with the book, though, just poor planning on my part.

The book itself was quite good, and it sparked one of the longer, more interesting conversations that my book club as had yet. The consensus was that everyone liked the book, but the more we discussed it, the more criticisms emerged- things like characters who should have been fleshed out more, voices that didn't ring true, and a few plot devices that seem like they were just randomly thrown in with no final payoff. And since I finally finished them, I can say that those last hundred pages seemed a little inconsequential, like the author just tried for a neat and tidy throwaway ending.

Despite those complaints, I still liked the book as a whole. It's vividly written and well paced, making it easy to get wrapped up in the story. It seems perfectly suited for the movie that it's being turned into. I'd recommend it, at least to the five or so people left who haven't read it already.

(And thanks again to Lara for lending me the book!)

Olive Kitteridge

Olive Kitteridge falls into a category of books that's critically acclaimed, but also really popular and bestselling. I'm not sure why, but these are books that I tend to pass up. I probably wouldn't have read this one either, except for the fact that it's my book club's latest pick.

This is a series of connected short stories, all set in a small Maine town and all featuring the character of Olive Kitteridge. Sometimes the stories are told from her point of view, and other times she's merely mentioned as a peripheral figure in another character's story. At first I was a little skeptical about this setup, thinking that in some cases, the author just threw some reference to Olive into an otherwise unrelated story to make it fit into this collection. The stories grew on me, though, as I read further into the book. Each one deals with a seemingly ordinary aspect of life, yet is really complex and illuminating about the character of Olive. She's a blunt, no-nonsense woman, and it's interesting to see how her personality evolves, both as she progresses through life in stories that revolve around her, and as we see her perceived by others in the stories that feature other characters.

Despite not being that excited to read this, I think it may be one of my favorite book club picks so far.

A Wizard of Earthsea

I was pretty excited when my book club picked A Wizard of Earthsea as the latest book we're reading. In the back of my mind, I had always wanted to read something by Ursula Le Guin, solely for the fact that her books are mentioned in the movie The Jane Austen Book Club. They're the favorite books of the character Grigg, the only male member of that book club. All of this being said, I was predisposed to really like this book, but was disappointed to find out that I didn't like it that much at all.

A Wizard of Earthsea is set in a totally fictional fantasy world and follows a young wizard named Ged, first through his schooling as a wizard and then, after he inadvertently unleashes an evil shadow, on his quest to first run from, and then ultimately confront, this shadow. And, yes, it's literally a shadow. The best word I can use to describe this book is "blah". I never really warmed up to Ged and all of his adventures were kind of boring. I found myself reading just so I could get through the book and move on to something else. In the end, Ged defeats the shadow by realizing that it's a part of himself. The one positive thing I can say about the book is that I did like the overall allegory of the story- how he was his own worst enemy, and had to come to a state of self-knowledge and self-acceptance. It seems like it would have been ripe for analysis in the Young Adult Lit. class I took in college, and I can see how this would be a good message for the young readers, but, on the whole, a disappointing reading experience for me.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Finally finished my book club's latest pick, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver.

It's the story of how Kingsolver's family spent a year eating only locally grown, organic foods. They ate only fruits and vegetables that were in season in their region and grew most of what they needed in their own garden. It's simultaneously inspiring and daunting. In theory, their plan, and the reasons behind it, makes good sense. However, considering the fact that they live on a small farm and even raised their own poultry, their commitment to eating locally is likely more than most people can pull off, especially when first contemplating a change in eating habits. I can't help but think that baby steps are the way to go here. I probably won't totally change my culinary lifestyle, but I can try to do things like try to buy less processed foods, think about recipes that call for vegetables that are in season, and make the effort to look for more organic, free range eggs and hormone-free milk.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle includes recipes sprinkled throughout the book that sound really good and put me in the cooking mood. (I'm most anxious to try making the sweet potato quesadillas.) In the spirit of this, I created and tried a recipe of my own for Butternut Squash Pizza.

Inspired by the flavor combinations of a pasta dish in the Martha Stewart Everyday Foods cookbook, I used whole wheat pizza dough (store-bought, but still somewhat local as it came from a bakery in NY state), spread pureed butternut squash on in place of the sauce (frozen, yes, but still seasonally appropriate), and topped with Parmesan cheese, caramelized onions, rosemary, and a sprinkle of shredded mozzarella. The end result was quite tasty.

Savages

My book club's latest pick is the quick, light, and very funny Life Among the Savages.


The author Shirley Jackson is best known for writing in the horror genre, including the creepy short story The Lottery. This book, however, is an autobiographical memoir of her life raising children in a small town in Vermont during the 1940s-1950s. Her voice- a cross between June Cleaver and the slightly ironic narrator from A Christmas Story- turns the daily life of an ordinary family into a collection of truly hilarious stories. I enjoyed this much more than I expected.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog

And the answer to my clue about the book I read that somehow relates to the adorable baby hedgehog picture I included in my last post? It's.....

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery.

I was really excited to read this, my book club's latest pick. The story is narrated in turn by Renee, a concierge in a Parisian apartment building and Paloma, the young daughter of one of the wealthy families in the building. Both are extremely intelligent and cultured, but both hide this fact from the world. They're brought together by Mr. Ozu, a Japanese gentleman who moves into the building and is able to see each of them for who she really is. I initially thought that this book would be more fanciful and Amelie- esque than it is. Hedgehog is actually a bit darker and more philosophical- but it does share some of Amelie's themes of finding pleasure and beauty in everyday life, and the interior lives of the people around us that we don't always get to see. I really liked the ending (which might shock anyone who knows the ending), because it was truly surprising and unexpected. It was the kind of ending that I wouldn't have seen coming even if I went into the book knowing that there was a surprising and unexpected ending, and it nicely offsets all of the preceding story.

In a nice coincidence, the night I finished the book I got to eat gyoza, an Asian dumpling that Mr. Ozu and Renee eat in the story.

They were so good- a bit more delicate in taste than other Chinese dumplings I've had. I ordered these at Wagamama, a fun, London-import Asian noodle chain- perhaps not as elegant as the Parisian setting in the book, but still very enjoyable.

Finally....

After three long weeks of plodding through it, I've finally finished my book club's latest pick, The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood. It just took me forever to get through this book, and I'm not entirely sure why as it's not an extremely long or difficult read. At first I thought it might have to do with the author's pacing, but I think it came down to more of me lacking the motivation to read more than a handful of pages at a time. And it's not because the story was uninteresting- it was...or should have been, in theory. It deals with three middle aged women, former college classmates, and their mutual "frenemy" Zenia who has had a negative impact on each of their lives. After attending her funeral, they encounter her again, alive, and each have to revisit their pasts with her before a final confrontation. I think there's a lot of potentially interesting book club discussion material here, like issues of multiple names and identities, and the flawed relationships in the novel. But in the end, something about this book felt tired to me. Possibly the setting and time period (1950s-1990s Toronto) had something to do with it, but I suspect it had more to do with the fact that the characters and themes seemed like things I've seen before, although I can't put my finger on where or when. I'll be interested in hearing what the rest of the club thinks.

And in the meantime, onto my next book...Hurray!