Under the Greenwood Tree by Thomas Hardy

I know, I know, I know! I keep swearing I won’t read anymore Hardy, except for Jude the Obscure, and then I keep doing it anyway. What can I say, the mini-series was good and it was on sale, so I thought I’d give it a whirl in the hopes that Hardy took a happy pill like when he wrote Return of the Native.

Someone should have given the man a larger supply of happy pills. Seriously, Hardy can make a jovial party sound like a dirge.

Fancy Day returns to her native village to become the new school mistress. Dick Dewy falls in love with her at first sight and tries his best to make a good impression on her. Fancy likes Dick, but is hesitant to return his affections as she knows her father wants better for her. She is educated to a much higher standard than Dick and as such, her father meant her to rise in the world instead of remain where she was born. Nonetheless, she is attached to Dick. When she receives proposals from both Dick and the new vicar, she is at a loss as to what to do. Meanwhile, the village is undergoing a struggle between the musicians, who have always provided music for the church services, and the new vicar, who would like to replace them with an organ, played by Fancy Day.

There’s not really a whole lot to this story, and frankly, the mini-series was better. They fleshed the story out a bit and made Fanny less wishy-washy and better able to stand on her own. They also left out the melancholic note that Hardy manages to let seep into all of his works. It gives the story a happier air, even though not everyone in it is a winner. All in all, it was so-so. If you’re looking for a quick introduction to Hardy, this is probably a good place to start. Still, it’s definitely not the best of his work. 3 out of 5.

Raven’s Gate by Anthony Horowitz

Matt Freeman lost his parents when he was 8 years old. Ever since, his life has gone downhill. He aunt allows him to live with her, but doesn’t like him, he hooks up with the low life little brother of career thief and his school work starts to suffer. Then, one evening, he is caught stealing DVDs with his new best friend, who then stabs the security guard and then blames it on Matt. Matt is given one more chance to get his life back on track, the New Leaf Program. He is taken off to live with an elderly lady in the depths of Scotland, out of the tempting reach of criminal life in the big city. Only this old lady is not what she seems to be, and neither is Matt.

I had purchased Necromancer in an Audible sale without realizing that it was the 4th book in The Power of Five series, so I decided to go back and read the others first. Raven’s Gate is the first and sets up the story line for the rest of the books. There’s a little magic, a lot of stealthy mystery and sinister happenings but little proof of anything. Anyone trying to help Matt simply dies in a convenient accident before they can really do anything for him. Matt is alone and must learn to help himself.

I was a little disappointed in this one. I like a lot Anthony Horowitz’s work and assumed that this would be his usual high quality writing, but it just lacked something. You never really connect with the characters, possibly because you just keep expecting something more of them that’s constantly foreshadowed, but never comes. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good story, just not a great one. I will however, continue to read the series because, not only do I already own book 4, but I want to see where he takes it and if it gets better as it goes along. I know they usually don’t, but I’ll give it a chance all the same.

3 out of 5, readable, but not brilliant.

Midwinter of the Spirit by Phil Rickman

After her first brush with the otherworldly, Merrily is asked by the new, aggressive/progressive bishop to become the official Diocesan Exorcist, or Head of the Deliverance Department. Reluctantly she takes up the challenge, only to find herself thwarted at every turn. Her tutor actively seeks to turn her away from the challenge with the reasoning that women should become more comfortable with their new role within the church before moving on to tackle such grey areas. The newly retired diocesan exorcist is openly against women in the church and blatantly tries to sabotage Merrily’s first efforts before she can get a toehold in. His old secretary, on the other hand, is thrilled to have Merrily fill his shoes as she is convinced that there are things going on in the cathedral which shouldn’t be.

Whilst struggling to find her place within the church, Merrily must also help her daughter find her place in the world. Jane is also interested in the paranormal, but rejects the church and sets off on her own to discover for herself what she really believes and really doesn’t. As most teenagers do, she rejects her mother’s help and advice and winds up in trouble of her own.

I think I mentioned in my review of the first Merrily book, The Wine of Angels, that this isn’t really a genre I would normally be attracted to. I’m not overly enamoured with anything New Age or as Old Age as exorcism. However, Phil Rickman really does manage to make the best out of all the directions this book takes. It’s a combination of clerical mystery, crime, thriller and ghost story, all of which he pulls together nicely. He has good, strong characters who are easy to care about, a great setting and just enough action to keep the reader interested without going overboard. I also like that he’s outlining the struggles women still encounter today because even if they are set within the church, it’s still a reflection of the way society functions as a whole.

This book could have gone either way, but Rickman pulls it off well. 4 out of 5.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie tells the tale of an innovative and very different teacher at a girl’s school in 1930’s Edinburgh. Miss Jean Brodie chooses to dismiss the standard classroom exercises, along with the classroom itself, in favour of real knowledge garnered from a life lived with the intention of ever improving the mind. She takes her classes outdoors and tells them of her life, her loves, her passion for art and of her extensive travel in Europe, occasionally asking them to repeat certain parts of the lesson so as to relate them to the standard curriculum. She invites the class to teas and takes them on unconventional excursions, leading them through part of Edinburgh they would not otherwise see, i.e. the impoverished sectors. As she does so, the students learn not only of art, but of life and its many facets. Miss Mackay, the headmistress of the school, doesn’t care for Miss Brodie or her methods and repeatedly tries to catch her out so she can dismiss her, but Miss Brodie’s success with the girls prevents her from being able to do so.

After a while, the girls begin to stand out in the school and become known as the Brodie set, a mark which they never loose. The story also begins to drift more and more into the personal life of Miss Brodie as she makes the girls into her friends and not just pupils. This, as is repeatedly is mention in the flash forwards, turns out to be her downfall as one of her pupils betrays her. Even when the girls go on to other classes and forms and Miss Brodie herself teaches new students, this particular set of girls continues to play a pivotal role in Miss Brodie’s life.

Superficially, this book is a quick and good read, but it offers a lot of food for thought if you care to think about it. Miss Jean Brodie, who constantly professes to be in her prime, is a passionate, somewhat unorthodox woman with deep undercurrents of malcontent and disappointment. She loves where she cannot and cannot return love where she should. She wants to keep her pupils from becoming boxed in as society would have it and free them to widen their horizons. In some ways, it’s quite reminiscent of the Bloomsbury School, even though it’s being written decades later. Unfortunately for Miss Brodie, she also possesses a naïveté which she uses as a buffer against the real world. It’s almost as if she knows, but ignores, that the world is a much harder place than she feels it should be. If she consequently disregards the inconvenient truths of life, in part by romanticising everything she sees and hears, they will not affect her. It’s as though she believes that her convictions will materialize if she simply believes in them long enough and hard enough. She is trying to shape the world through will instead of pragmatism. It is this forced ignorance of reality, or romanticism, that finally leads to her betrayal as she is finally incapable of seeing things how they are instead of how she would like them to be.

My first impression of the book was to chalk it up onto my “have read” list and relegate it to the back shelf. It turned out to be a bit more difficult than that. Somehow it’s worked itself into my subconscious and keeps popping up at the most unexpected times with an analogy or a sudden flash of understanding about what Spark intended. It’s almost like it’s haunting me and challenging me to think, as Miss Brodie was trying to do for her pupils. In my opinion, that’s one of the things that makes a book great and I can now understand what all the fuss is about with this one. 5 out of 5. A must read.

A Wind in the Door Part Two

Yesterday, I got to thinking about this book whilst driving home from work. I can't remember what sparked it, but it had something to do with the universe and being very small, etc. etc. Just then, I realized that the first time I was confronted with thoughts of relativity and the universe was when I read A Wind in the Door. When Meg, Calvin, Mr. Jenkins and Progos are with the teacher learning about the farandolea, their role in the body and what is causing Charles Wallace's illness, L'Engle broaches the subjects of relatively and interpretation. She challenges the children to think outside the box when she presents the Farandolae to them as a macroscopic being with roughly the same physical size (or a little smaller than a human child). They have difficulty grasping that the being before them is usually not visible at all, let alone to the naked eye. They must extend their minds and think not of where they are in relation to what they know, but to where they are, i.e. when they enter Charles Wallace's cells, their universe become Charles Wallace and time slows to where a heart beat lasts a decade. They must also learn to move and think without actually moving, which they have a great deal of difficulty. It's their first brush with the idea that their world is not the norm for the whole of the universe and that they must learn to adapt as their situation changes. i.e., they must learn to think outside of the box.

Along with Meg and Calvin, my first reading of this book lead me into new worlds which started me off into thinking for myself and helped me not to assume that things are always as they seem on the surface. It's an invaluable life lesson and can be applied to many situations in any ordinary day. In retrospect, it was also my first brush with both science as an applicable field and philosophy, both of which I found terribly interesting.

Basically, I just wanted to add these thoughts on the book because they made me realize how important this book, and many others as well, were to my education even though they were read for fun. I also realize there are kids out there who miss out on such opportunities and that makes me infinitely sad. Everyone should be able to experience books this good as a child. If they did, we'd have more readers and most certainly a better educated society.

A Wind in the Door by Madeleine L’Engle

Meg Murry’s little brother Calvin isn’t well. Meg’s mother, an important biologist, believes his mitochondria might be ill, but doesn’t know how to fix it. Charles is also being bullied at school because he doesn’t fit in. Meg is frustrated with her lack of ability to help Charles on either front, even thought Charles knows himself that he must learn to adapt. Then Charles begins to see things. He tells Meg he’s seen a dragon in the garden, which she at first does not believe, but when they find one of it’s feathers, Meg begins to see that another fight between good and evil is inevitable. Once again, Meg must find the will to grow and become wiser while committing herself to fighting the darkness which is beginning to surround and overtake the earth.

This was another of my favourites as a child. I loved all of the Wrinkle in Time books back then, which is why I’ve got back to them in my old age I suppose. I have to admit that I was a little disappointed with the character growth in this one. As with A Wrinkle in Time, the focus is on Meg’s shortcomings and although she should have learned quite a bit in the first book, she seems to be right back where she started in this one. I would have expected more of her. However, that’s my opinion when reading it as an adult. As a child I remember having much more understanding for Meg and thinking she was thoroughly justified in her self-doubts and obstinacy.

The references to Christianity were less noticeable in this second book, but the fight between good and evil was still there in full force. The children must face, and fight, things they don’t understand and resist the urge to remain stagnate while the world goes on without them. It’s a good metaphor for life, either Christian or non- Christian. There will always be things we must choose to do or not to do even if we don’t fully understand them. The most difficult thing is to learn to chose the right thing despite that lack of understanding and the desire to do what’s easy. L’Engle does a good job at presenting this to children in a way they can understand.

A Wind in the Door is an excellent book I can recommend to anyone with children. 5 out of 5.

House of Night

After having finished Crime and Punishment, I felt as if I’d earned a break and decided it was time to wallow in what I like to call reading junk food. Boy did I wallow. Audible was having a sale, so I purchased the House of Night series by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast and started reading.

Frankly, I’m not going to bother writing a review of each book in itself. I’m up to book four and decided that, although entertaining, they simply aren’t worth a review a piece. They do not live up to the hype of Forget Harry Potter nor do they even measure up to the Twilight series – let me just add here that I still cringe at the whole idea of the Twilight series and if you look at the individual elements such as plot and writing style the word shameful comes to mind, but somehow Meyer manages to get you hooked all the same. Hat’s off to her for doing so. There aren’t many who could have pulled that off.

Back to the House of Night: The books are set in normal, modern society with the twist of everyone not only believing in vampires, but knowing that they exist. Vampirism is genetic in origin and those who experience the change, i.e. are marked, have no choice in the matter. Not all of those who are marked survive the metamorphosis into Vampirism either. Some people’s bodies reject the Change. Since they are no longer human, those who are marked must attend the local House of Night school. In Zoey’s case, this means the one in Tulsa. She must leave behind her human friends, boyfriend and zealous Christian family to attend.

From here the books go on to the usual, predictable plots of rejection by friends and family, making new friends, and facing the evil that is to come. Zoey is, of course, special and has special talents that will help her and her new friends to defeat the coming evil. All in all, they’re entertaining enough, but they fail to really grab one in the way Harry Potter or even Edward Cullen did. The characters are likeable and engaging enough, although occasionally a little flat. The constant obsession with sex becomes more than a little annoying as well. If this is an accurate reflection of today’s youth, no wonder the world’s in trouble. I mean honestly, I was once a teenager too, but no one in our school of 1000+ students was that constantly focused on sex. The Casts would have done well to focus more on some of the unusual lessons or lore included in the school. After all, it is important to the plot, but it’s usually added as an after thought instead of making it central character’s lives and discussion topics. It's almost as if they couldn't be bothered to do the research.

Also, it just has to be said that the main character Zoey is just a ho. I don’t say this lightly, but the girl is a ho by anyone’s standards. I can understand the confusion and not wanting to decide, or waiting until marriage etc. etc., but someone who is apparently supposed to be so special that the fate of the world will eventually rest in her hands ought to possess a little more common sense in regards to mere boys and sex. Honestly, if she can’t focus on something else for longer than a few minutes at a time and be honest with the people involved, I want another super-hero please.

I’ll also probably get branded a homophobe for this – let me just say I frankly just don’t care if people are gay or not. What counts for me is how they interact with me, not the person they go to bed with. - but the constant Issue of homosexuality gets annoying after a while. It’s not enough to say that Damian and Jack are boyfriends; they have to make an issue about it every time it comes up. It seems to me they would be doing more to advance the cause if they just write the whole thing in as if it were the accepted norm and no one ever questioned it. After all, no one introduces the heterosexual characters as, this is Erik, e.g., he’s hetero, so why do it with anyone else? Making it an issue, well, that makes it an Issue instead of the non-issue it should be. They’re gay. We get it. Can we move on please?

I read somewhere that Kristin is a co-writer because they wanted to keep the teenage bits authentic, but personally, I would have preferred a little less realism. I’m certainly old-fashioned on this front, but I can’t help but feel that instead of writing down to people, we should be giving them something to aim at. Characters who are likeable, but follow a good moral code, e.g. Harry Potter. A good editor wouldn’t have hurt this book either. Some of it is so poorly written that even I notice how bad it is. N.B. My blog may be poorly written, but no one is paying to read it.

As scathing as that all sounds, the books are still entertaining, if annoying from time to time. I may (or may not) finish the series, if only to see where they go with it, but I wouldn’t be in a rush to read any more of their work. The whole series gets a 2 out of 5 from me.

Not in the Flesh by Ruth Rendell

Once again, Inspector Wexford finds himself confronted with a body. This time it’s several years old and is found in a ditch by a truffle hunter. The gruesome find turns into a hunt for someone who must have disappeared years ago. In his search to discover the identities of both the victim and the perpetrator, Wexford runs into a second body and more problems. As if he didn’t have enough problems to deal with, he becomes involved with the Somali community and the fight against Female Genital Mutilation as he realizes that there are things out there which are often more disturbing even than murder.

OK, this one isn’t going to win any prizes and it isn’t Rendell at her best. The murder mystery isn’t particularly memorable in any way other than being a very intricate puzzle that Wexford must piece together; luck being served up in healthy portions to help him complete this task. What one does remember is the FGM. Although I knew it existed, it’s not a subject I’ve personally been confronted with and some of the details Rendell gives in the novel are quite disturbing. Especially distressing is that it becomes obvious that it is, like so many other crimes, almost impossible to prevent and difficult to prosecute for. Few people follow laws they know they won’t be punished for, but prosecution and punishment can only occur if the crime can be established after the fact. That means waiting until the crime has been committed, putting the investigators in charge in the difficult position of allowing a crime to go ahead and one child to suffer so that others can be saved in the long run. What an awful decision to have to make.

Often times, using entertainment media to underline the importance of political or social issues winds up putting people off. Who wants to be preached to while they’re relaxing on their couch at the end of a day’s work? Most of us get enough of reality during the day, so please don’t shove it in our face at night. I have to applaud Rendell for addressing issues like FGM, racism and familial violence without making the reader feel as if it’s social lesson time. She weaves it into her story, making it clear what she thinks without beating the audience over the head with it.

She’s also been much criticised for her lack of modern policing and that Wexford doesn’t seem to have grown with the times. Personally, I think we’re lost in modernism today. After all, Just because the police Can Do all of the tests they show on any of the 100+ CSIs, doesn’t mean they have the budget or the time to do them. It also doesn’t mean that the men and women who are leading investigations get to turn their brains off and rely solely on the latest technology. They still have to be astute and observant. I’m also sure that some of them still prefer to rely on old fashioned methods, at least for the bulk of the investigation. Hard work is still the crux of most things, modern or not. So I’m prepared to forgive the old-fashioned Wexford with his lack of forensics and up-to-date technology. Besides, I’m still a fan of the good old English mystery and that’s what I expect from Rendell. Frankly, I’d be disappointed if she did change it all to fit the critics taste.

This isn’t Rendell’s finest, but if you’re a fan, it’s still worth a cosy Sunday afternoon.

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Once again, big thanks to Trish who hosts the Classics Challenge every year. I like reading classics, but because of the challenge, I read more than I might otherwise and I can challenge myself to read some I probably would never read without a bit of a push. Crime and Punishment definitely belongs to this last category. I have tried repeatedly read it but could never get past the horrible murder scene. I even once tried to watch the BBC adaptation, but, again, couldn’t get past the murder scene. I’ve always found the story disturbing and uncomfortable to read. The only thing that could make it any more disturbing is if I enjoyed reading it, because that would truly worry me.

Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov is a young student in St. Petersburg who has dropped out of his courses and finds life difficult in all respects. At the beginning, he seems a little odd and slightly unstable. This quickly progresses to serious flirtation with insanity. He feels pressured from society, his family and himself in regards to finances and in the end talks himself into murdering an old pawnbroker and her sister, ostensibly to enable him to steal their fortune from them. He works himself up into quite a state in order to go through with it, so much so that he bungles the robbery, takes only a small amount of what was available and then uses none of it for his own benefit. Indeed his financial situation goes from bad to worse as the creditors move in and start to demand money from him. The stress of the robbery, his sister’s impending marriage to a man he feels is unworthy of her and the continual hounding by a policeman who suspects him of the murders but has no evidence weighs heavily on Raskolnikov in the following days. He becomes trapped in his own, no longer quite sane, mind and cannot judge how to act or react to the life which goes on around him. It’s as though he is living in a continual, delirious fever which makes him see life in a distorting mirror, completely preventing him from rational behaviour. He could pay his debts with the money he stole, but somehow doesn’t seem rational enough to do so. Even the money his mother borrowed to give to him goes on the funeral of a friend instead of towards his own comfort. Raskolnikov seems to be torn between his own social conscience, i.e. the need and goodness of helping other less fortunate people and his own need to survive. His initial intention was to steal to help himself, yet his conscience forces him to help others to the point of his own destitution.

Raskolnikov finally finds himself in a very difficult position. He knows they will never be able to prove he murdered and robbed the women, but neither can he stand the pressure. What to do? Dostoevsky compels the reader to ask himself what he would do himself in that situation. Knowing that the police would never be able to prove the slightest guilt seems to make the decision a given, but seeing Raskolnikov’s rapid decline forces the consideration of conscience and guilt. Would it really be so easy to ignore your own conscience or would it force you to yearn for penitence? After learning Raskolikov’s fate, it’s evident that Dostoevsky believes punishment is unavoidable. Either Raskolnikov will punish himself through his own conscience, or he will have to confess and receive formal punishment. It is also clear that Dostoevsky considers that (self) forgiveness and redemption can only be obtained through official punishment. The confession is necessary for true redemption of soul.

As I said, I found the whole book rather disturbing and uncomfortable. I suppose you could say that Dostoevsky achieved his goal by simply making the whole ordeal a worthless waste of life and sanity. That aside, I can see why this book is considered a classic and is still read today. Dostoevsky provides lots of material for discussion and food for thought with this work as despite the early 19th century setting, it still reflects modern social conflicts such as materialism vs. social conscience and the purposes or effectiveness of punishment. Did I like it? A resounding No to that. Did I find it a worthwhile read? Definitely, although I’m glad I won’t ever have to read it again. 5 out of 5 for being a great classic book.

The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf

Rachel Vinrace journeys out to South America on one of her father’s ships. It is her first foray into the world at large and she is overwhelmed by the impressions others leave upon her. As she meets more people with different views, she begins to see that there is more than just one way to look at life and that she mustn’t necessarily stick to the path others would choose for her. Her observations of other people open her eyes to the differences in the way people behave towards both strangers and their family and cause her to reflect on the rights and wrongs of social behaviour and the necessity of being open minded towards the attitudes of others. In short, it’s the journey of a young mind which is awakening to the world as a whole as opposed to a thing outside of one’s own small realm.

The Voyage Out is a psychological work as opposed to a classic novel. There’s less focus on the plot and more on description and thoughts of the characters. Woolf also uses the work to criticize the conventional lifestyle of the time and praise the choice of free thinking. The characters are often tedious and absurd, which Woolf uses to make her point. Offsetting the tedium is Woolf’s excellent writing style which flows along nicely, even through the tedium.

As a teenager or possibly into my early 20s, I would have adored this book. After all, it is about discovery of life and self and new ideas. Not having read it until I was well out of the age where much of life outside my own world was new, it served as a reminder of that time of my life rather than to expand my views. Much of it seemed a repeat of my own experiences and thus the work lost a lot of its shine for me. I found it quite difficult to concentrate on it, although I will admit that it may just not have been the time for me to read this novel. Perhaps I’ll pick it up again at a later date and see if I can’t get more out of it than I did this time. It is possible that I was just in the wrong mood for reading it, which is why I’m not going to rate the book. I’ll just say that if you’re not feeling like a good dose of introspection, you might want to leave it be until you are.