Tidelands, Leonardo, and a Dud

May got off to a shaky start, reading-wise, but I feel back on track with several great books underway.

To recap my May so far:

When We Were Orphans, by Kazuo Ishiguro - my sister lent me this book with a "here, read this, it's fabulous," instruction, so I did. I read about 250 pages (i.e., more than 3/4 of the book) before finally conceding that I hated reading it and didn't want to waste another minute on this book. I loved the author's The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go, but despite the rave reviews on Goodreads as well as the endorsement by my sister, this novel was tedious, implausible, and simply not interesting. I cared nothing about the first-person narrator, Christopher Banks, and felt like I was cheated out of a great story by the way in which Ishiguro chose to tell it. It is allegedly about how memory is unreliable, which is an interesting concept, but I felt like I was in a fog most of the time, had a hard time caring enough to follow the weak plot, and there was zero character development.

Tidelands, by Philippa Gregory - book #1 in the author's Fairmile series, this was a great historical fiction about a midwife/healer living in a tiny fishing village in the tidelands along the southern shore of England. Set in 1848 and 1849, the characters and country are caught up in the rise of Oliver Cromwell and the fall of Charles I. As I said in my Goodreads review,  I was anticipating the final major scene throughout most of the book but was pleased and surprised by the ultimate turn of events. While I have had many issues with Gregory's Tudor novels, I don't know the history of this time period well enough to spot and gnash my teeth over historical inconsistences, so I could simply sit back and revel in the story and setting. I loved the details Gregory provided about life in the 17th century for both rich and poor, urban and rural. I absolutely loved the main character Alinor and her children, Alice and Rob. It ticked the boxes on so many interests: herbs, folk medicine, witchcraft and the whole mania about rooting out alleged witches and the accompanying misogny, as well as English history and geography. I am planning on reading book 2 in the series, Dark Tides, later this summer.

Leonardo da Vinci, by Walter Isaacson - fabulous bio of one of the world's greatest artists, philosophers, and dreamers. I loved every minute of this book, from the details of Leonardo's life and travels, the discussion and back stories of his art and artistic legacy, the history of the time period (Renaissance Italy) and info about the principal political players (e.g., Ludovico Sforza, the Medicis, Niccolò Machiavelli, Cesare Borgia, Francis I of France). What I loved most of all was the enthusiasm with which Isaacson talked about the genius of Leonardo--how he saw the world, his keen, almost supernatural powers of observation, his relentless, unquenchable curiousity about literally everything. And, like most enthusiasms, it was infectious. 

Striking Out

I usually have pretty good luck with books, especially since I started blogging and reading other's blogs and scanning GoodReads for books I would like, but just this past week I had two disappointments.  Maybe I wasn't in the mood, but I read the obligatory 50 pages, and found I was completely uninterested in continuing.  And what were these duds?

At the Edge of the Orchard, by Tracy Chevalier - I've just loved all her other books I've read: Girl with the Pearl Earring, Remarkable Creatures, The Lady and the Unicorn, The Last Runaway.  But this one just fell flat--I found the couple distasteful and uninteresting and the tone just seemed grim.  I was so looking forward to this book, but the magic just wasn't there.

The Buried Giant, by Kazuo Ishiguro - I liked this one slightly better, probably because it seemed like reading a Grimm's fairy tale or Germanic folk story, but again it just didn't seem to be the way I wanted to spend my time right now.  As with the other book, I've really enjoyed Ishiguro's other novels that I've read, The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go, but this one just didn't work for me.

I might revisit both at some time in the future.  Maybe I'm suffering from a surfeit of books underway (see Juggling) and just wasn't hungry for a new story.

Happy Mother's Day to all of us--those with children, those who don't, those with mothers still living, and those whose mothers have passed on.  We're all in this together!

Never Let Me Go

Kazuo Ishiguro certainly writes interesting novels.  I really enjoyed his classic The Remains of the Day, which I finally read last year, and I just finished and was so impressed by his distopian novel, Never Let Me Go.

I am not a big fan of distopian novels, but I did love Ishiguro's writing, so I added it to my TBR Pile Challenge for 2014 and am so glad I did.  Never Let Me Go is one of those novels that makes you think about it long after you've read the last word.

Published in 2005, the novel takes place in England roughly ten years earlier and is a first-person narrative by Kathy H., who recounts her childhood and youth as a student at a boarding school and then working as a health care provider, or "carer."  Ishiguro is masterful in slowly and carefully peeling away the story that Kathy tells, until the full horror of the world in which Kathy and her friends live can be fully realized.

In writing in the voice of Kathy, Ishiguro perfectly captures not only the cadence and speech patterns of a young woman remembering her life, trying to be accurate, trying to be fair, but also assuming the listener (or reader!) understands how her world works and so doesn't need to explain everything at once.  In the course of the narrative, Kathy recounts how she and her friends, Tommy and Ruth, come to understand who they are and what is expected of them, and the reader learns about the world in real time along with Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth.

I found the book absolutely chilling and bit part of why I found it so chilling was that the world is so recognizable in so many ways.  Apart from not having parents and siblings, Kathy and friends seem not terribly unlike most modern teens who live in a school environment.  I kept on thinking early on that Never Let Me Go seemed like a cross between Harry Potter and The Stepford Wives.

Even after Kathy discloses her fate and that of the other students, she is so accepting, so clinical, so detached.  I was actually a bit surprised that no one ever attempted to escape the system...but perhaps that's another story.

It's tough to write a review of a book like this without spoilers, but I found it absolutely riveting, horribly sad, and a fair warning regarding not letting the magic of science outstrip dignity and humanity.  If Frankenstein was Mary Shelley's and the Romantic movement's riff on the dangers of science unchecked, then Never Let Me Go is Ishiguro's and ours.

I am so looking forward to the movie, which I've heard is excellent, with Cary Mulligan as Kathy, and Keira Knightley as Ruth.

The Remains of the Day

Kazuo Ishiguro's 1989 Booker prize-winning novel, The Remains of the Day, is a book I've wanted to read for a long time, but I knew it's mood was somber and so felt I had to wait for the right time to read it.  Thankfully that time was this summer--it did help that it made it onto my TBR Pile Challenge list, so I was committed to reading it this year.

The Remains of the Day was an extremely interesting book structurally.  While it's pretty obvious that it is a eulogy to the British Empire--the land of stiff upper lips and knowing one's place--I thought it significant that the narrator, Mr. Stevens, an old school butler who could've taught Mr Carson of Downton Abbey a thing or two about protocol, remembers his life and comes to terms with his past choices, current situation, and probable future whilst on a journey.  

In a way, Mr Stevens is literally driving down memory lane, and I loved the way the story of his life and times at Darlington Hall, serving Lord Darlington in the years between WWI and WWII unfolded sporadically.  At times it felt like Stevens was withholding key details, but I think rather it was a realistic portrayal of the way most people remember events and emotions and finally admit things about them to themselves--in fragments, at times defiant, at times defensive, at times apologetic, at times brutal.

I have to admit that my heart just about broke for Miss Kenton, the housekeeper who left Darlington Hall many years ago and to whom Mr Stevens is going to visit.  It is truly horrible to be in the situation where you feel you cannot follow your conscience (in this case, protesting the firing of two Jewish maids simply because they were Jewish) because you have absolutely no resources with which to live without your job.  I was appalled by the callousness of Mr Stevens joking with her about her lack of conviction in following through with her threat to leave Darlington Hall over the firing.  

Until the very end, I thought this one of the saddest books I had ever read...and then the author explained the title.  The end of day is really the time of day most people look forward to all day long.  Most people work all day, but at the end of the day, they can relax, spend time with the people they care for, pursue interests and hobbies, or simply enjoy the fading light and cooling air or the warm glow of home and hearth.  So too with a life--we work our entire lives, and near the end can retire to enjoy the remains of one's life.  The remains of the day, the remains of one's life, can be a time of contentment, a time to look forward to, a time to put away cares, regrets, false promises and simply enjoy one's time left on earth.

I found in this idea an expression of great hope and joy--simple joy.  The joy of a beautiful sunset, a soft breeze, a kind word, a helping hand.  Mr Stevens had to journey into his past in order to face the remains of his day without regret but with joy. 

Perhaps, then... I should cease looking back so much, that I should adopt a more positive outlook and try to make the best of the remains of my day. After all, what can we ever gain in forever looking back and blaming ourselves if our lives had not turned out quite as we might have wished?

I never expected to get such a profound idea from this book--what a gift.

And now, I can finally watch the movie with Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson.