When in Doubt, Read Something Fun

I can't help but think that one of the best things to do when faced with unexpected events or an interruption to your routine is to pick up a light book that offers an entertaining and comforting read. When In Doubt, Add Butter by Beth Harbison is a perfect candidate for just such a book.

To get the obvious out of the way up front: Yes, the cupcakes on the cover were a major factor for me deciding to read this. But once I got beyond that, I found a very cute story that's centered around thirty-something private chef Gemma, whose trials and tribulations unfold against the backdrop of the lives of her various clients. All of the typical chick lit elements, like the "good guy" Gemma will end up with and the "bad guy" who will distract her, are there and easy to identify. Then an unexpected plot twist turns everything on its head and you realize that nothing is what you thought it was. Clever and fun, this is one of the better quick, feel-good novels I've come across in a while.

We Interrupt This Broadcast

As some of you know or may have guessed, my unplanned blogging silence over the past week was a result of Hurricane Sandy hitting the East Coast. My personal storm saga began on Sunday, as I was on a train heading back from a weekend in Boston. The train was packed due to Amtrak canceling service later in the day. During the course of the trip, I found out that my company was closing for two days in anticipation of the storm and that some parts of my town were being evacuated. As a result, I got off the train in New York and headed directly to my family's house to ride out the storm. (The irony that I was leaving Hoboken and heading closer to the eye of the storm at the Jersey Shore was not lost on anybody.)

I think the general mood leading up to the storm was that people were concerned and taking serious precautions, but that deep down everyone thought it would leave most areas unscathed the way that  Hurricane Irene did last year. The early part of Monday seemed to support this way of thinking. It was the kind of stormy day that made you glad to be able to stay inside and catch up on blogs or watch a movie. Then the power went out. And the wind whipped up. We spent the next two days in the dark with a battery radio as our main source of news about the damage that many local areas were facing.

Hoboken was hit very hard with flooding and power outages, and my office ended up closing for the entire week. I'm finally venturing back to my apartment this weekend, but am not sure if I'll be able to stay there immediately without power and hot water. The subway lines that run between New Jersey and Manhattan were flooded out and are still closed, resulting in enforced carpooling and gas rationing around the region. 

Back here at the shore, my family has a second house a few towns south, where we lived until I was in kindergarten. It's located on a lagoon, on the mainland directly across from Long Beach Island, one of the barrier island communities that was hit very hard by the storm. When we went to check on that house the other day, we found that about 2-3 feet of water had seeped in. Although it receded on its own, water had to be mopped up of the floors, some furniture and a carpet had to be trashed, and some of the sheet rock on the walls is going to have to be ripped out and replaced. One of the most dramatic sights in that neighborhood, though, was the boats that floated off in the storm surge and are now strewn around the yards of some of the other homes.

Finally, I'll just end by saying that this post and these pictures are meant to be a little glimpse of what I've seen of Sandy. I don't want to over-dramatize my personal experience and I'm certainly not trying to solicit sympathetic comments. It's been an unusual week filled with some uncertainty and inconvenience, but the clean up and repairs that my family is facing are very, very minor in comparison to the devastation in some of the hardest hit areas.

Now, fingers crossed that I'll be back to regularly scheduled blogging next week.

The Hireling

The definition of a hireling is "a person employed to undertake menial work, especially on a casual basis". To my mind, it also evokes an impression of someone who is meek and servile, which couldn't be farther from the persona of Steve Leadbitter, the hireling at the center of L.P. Hartley's novel The Hireling.

In The Hireling, Leadbitter is a chauffeur who is hired on an as-needed basis by wealthy clients. He's an ex-military officer whose business is his life. Unlike the menial servant that the term "hireling" might suggest, Leadbitter conducts himself according to a strict code of strength and discipline. He looks down upon most of his clients, yet prides himself on his ability to cater to their needs and personalities. The handsome face and proper manners he presents at work hide an interior life that's bleak and belligerent. On the rare occasions when he's not driving his car, waiting for the ring of his telephone to herald more jobs, or sleeping, he frequently finds himself picking quarrels at pubs just for the sake of confrontation itself. He also harbors a misogynistic view of women that stems from a poor relationship with his flighty mother. Without realizing it himself, that view begins to slowly erode when he is hired to drive a new client, the beautiful young widow Lady Franklin.

Although Lady Franklin outwardly appears to be a damsel in distress, she has an ulterior motive of her own. Racked with guilt after the death of an older husband whom she never fully loved, Lady Franklin has slid into a deep, depressive grief. Acting on the advice that she needs to open up and unburden herself, she hires Leadbitter with the intent of using him as a sounding board for her problems. Thinking that she will be pleased by some frank conversation in return, Leadbitter begins spinning tales about the trials and tribulations of his nonexistent wife and children. The stories he tells serve as a positive distraction that help pull Lady Franklin out of her gloom. She is so grateful to him, and has become so invested in the story of his family, that she is easily duped into giving him a large monetary gift when he alludes to some fictional financial hardships.

Leadbitter sounds like an obvious villain here, but his actions are tempered by feelings of growing affection for Lady Franklin. She frequently occupies his thoughts and he centers more and more of his decisions and actions around her. Yet after living so long in an emotional freeze, he's unable to recognize his growing feelings for what they are. Instead, he thinks that his deep interest in Lady Franklin is simply a new form of trying to give his clients what they want. It's only after he takes a step that forever changes their relationship that he realizes he loves Lady Franklin. 

I've been wanting to read this novel ever since reading an interesting review of it on another blog (which, of course, I can't remember now. If anyone recalls seeing it elsewhere, do tell as I'd love to see it again) and found it to be a really interesting read. On the surface it has the makings of a romance that crosses class divides in the vein of Downton Abbey. This is far from the case, however, as The Hireling takes a much darker and more ambiguous turn. It's cast of characters is flawed and hard to like, but I found myself reading through the novel, eager to find out what their fates.

Friday Fancies

When I write up my Friday post each week, I usually take a quick browse around Pinterest to find an image that catches my fancy. But starting this week, I'm going to try to cut back on that, if not stop completely. From now on, I'm going to try my hardest to use a photo I've taken myself each Friday. I'm hoping this will prompt me to start pulling out my camera on a more regular basis, even during  mundane weeks when I don't do anything that's obviously photo worthy. Help hold me to this, friends!

Actually, next week I shouldn't have a problem posting interesting photos of my own because I have some literary themed adventures planned for this weekend that I hope to share...

With that hint, I'll leave you with these:

I seem to always be posting or pinning recipes for different variations of meringues. These look so good I can't pass up adding them to the growing list.

I need to add this movie to my Netflix queue.

A striking series of finished unfinished portraits.

And 50 experiences every dog should have in its lifetime (Millie, I'm looking at you).

Cloud Atlas

Cloud Atlas. What to say about Cloud Atlas? This is the question that has been running through my mind since I finished my highly anticipated reading of it last week. I’m hesitant to talk in too much detail about the nuances of the book so as not to ruin the reading experience for anyone who might be on the verge of picking it up. The way in which this book unfolds, and then refolds, is unlike anything else and I’m glad that I went into it without knowing too much in advance. So, if you haven’t read the book and want absolutely no spoilers, stop here. If you’ve already read it, or if you haven’t and don’t might just a few revealing details, read on.

The novel is composed of six separate stories. To say that they are connected or interrelated would be to oversimplify things. The most accurate description I've come across so far is to say that the book is set up as a kind of stacking Matryoshka doll that opens and closes, with the six stories presented in the order of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. The stories progress from the past into the future and back again, with number 1 being the most historic and number 6 taking place in a far-off, post-apocalyptic future. My one word of caution about the book is that the first storyline, set on a ship sailing the South Pacific seas in the 1800s, is actually the weakest of the group, and may require a bit of soldiering through. Getting to the subsequent storylines is worth the effort, though. They cover a range of different genres and offer something for every reader’s taste, from a noir thriller in the 1970s to a modern day British comedy to a futuristic dystopian tale. With each genre comes a vastly different writing style that, to be honest, can be a little jarring when you’re first introduced to each new story. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the transitions were confusing, but they did make me feel as though I had to be on high alert while reading, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It made me realize how, as a pretty fast reader, I tend to quickly adapt to the flow of the writing in a particular book and just fly through the pages. Of course, an easy flow isn’t a bad quality for a piece of writing to have, but with Cloud Atlas I gave extra attention to every word so as not to miss any clues about the connections between stories.

And speaking of those connections, I thought they were just about perfectly executed. With each revelation in the book, Mitchell successfully balances enough surprise to stop you in your reading tracks for a moment with enough subtlety to still leave room for interpretation. One of the themes he explores is that of storytelling, and the idea of a story within a story. Moving through the six vignettes you soon see a pattern in which the preceding story turns up as some kind of narrative form in the current story. For instance, the characters and plot of the third story in the series turn up in the fourth story in the form of an unsolicited manuscript sent to a publisher. The publisher's adventures, which unfold in the fourth story, turn out to be a movie that the characters in the fifth story watch. Yet even though this story within a story pattern exists, its actual meaning is never definitively established. The interplay of reality and fiction is one obvious theme. The idea of history repeating itself is another, as is the idea of reincarnation, hinted at through the symbol of a uniquely shaped birthmark that's shared by several characters. Just as the six stories exist in layers in the novel, the ideas that Mitchell explores are layered together in a similar coexistence, leaving it to the reader to decide how much or how little to buy into each one.

If you've stuck with me this far, has any of this made sense? Cloud Atlas is definitely one of those books that's best discussed with other people who have read it. So, hurry up and go read it! I need someone to talk to about it!