Snack Thief? Do They Arrest People for That in Sicily?
Tina and Tom had recommended the mysteries by Andrea Camilleri. The first two in the series were checked out, so I started with The Snack Thief. My first reaction to the main series character, Inspector Montalbano, had to do with the fact that he doesn´t take notes. Whenever a detective on TV takes notes during an investigation, Montalbano changes the channel.
Isn’t that silly? Shouldn’t police detectives take notes? But (a) that was a librarian sort of reaction and (b) the story takes place in Sicily, where things are done differently. Once I had abandoned my midwestern hang-ups and agreed to spend time with this irascible, food-loving cop, the book moved like an Italian speedster zooming along a seaside highway. The case grows ever more complicated, with lots of details, but Camilleri keeps his foot on the pedal; and there are as many laughs as there are turns in the road.
Here’s a taste of Montalbano. He’s interviewing the adult son of a murder victim, who has just shown the inspector a letter that the deceased dad had sent to the son, who’s a doctor. The letter was a plea for help which the son had ignored.
”Stop right there. So you were convinced that the help your father was asking for was actually some sort of loan?”
“To be perfectly frank, yes.”
“And you refused to get involved, despite the desperate, disturbing tone of the letter.”
“Well, you see–”
“Do you make a good living, Doctor?”
“I can’t complain.”
“Tell me something: why did you want me to see the letter?”
“Because the murder put everything in a whole new light. I thought it might be useful to the investigation.”
“Well, it’s not,” Montalbano said calmly. “Take it back and treasure it always. Do you have any children, Doctor?”
“A son, Calogerino. Four years old.”
“I hope you never need him for anything.”
“Why?” asked Dr. Antonino Lapècora, bewildered.”
“Because, if he’s his father’s son, you’re screwed, sir.”
“How dare you!”
“If you’re not out of my sight in ten seconds, I’ll have you arrested for the first thing I can think of.”
The doctor fled so quickly he knocked over the chair he’d been sitting on.
The library has DVD’s of the BBC series featuring Montalbano, but for now I’ll stick with the books.
He´s Back
He being Thomas Cromwell, blacksmith´s son and trusted advisor to Henry VIII of England. Last year, I raved about Hilary Mantel´s 2009 novel Wolf Hall, in which Cromwell helped Henry divorce his first wife, Katherine of Aragon, and marry Anne Boleyn.
In Bring Up the Bodies, Mantel’s new novel, Cromwell helps Henry undo that earlier marriage and seek the hand of wife number three, Jane Seymour. Once again, Cromwell is a master schemer but a surprisingly sympathic figure, and the reader is forever having her expectations tweaked.
One moment, Cromwell is trying to create a law to employ the poor on public works. But readers who warm to this are led, one page later, into a description of how Cromwell is making money with the dissolution of monasteries. Will they warm to this as well?
Whatever you think of think of him, prepare to be fascinated with Cromwell’s vision of Tudor England, and with the novel’s three royal love interests–the ailing Katherine, who thinks she’s still the rightful queen; the momentarily triumphant Anne, who, despite her relentless plotting, often manages to say and do the wrong things; and the seemingly baffled Jane, whose parents and brothers are glad that King Henry has his eye on her, because they didn’t know what else they were going to do with the woman.
I see by the number of requests on Wolf Hall that I don’t have to tell you to read that one first. I’m a hundred pages from the end of Bring Up the Bodies, and despite his machinations regarding Anne Boleyn’s fate (at the moment he’s hoping she’ll go to a convent), I still enjoy Cromwell’s company.
Hawthorne Was a Househusband!
From Sherry Utterback, Central Library: Much of what we know–or think we know–about authors, songwriters and performers is based upon their work. Even though our heads tell us that we don’t know them at all, it can be difficult to locate anything to convince our hearts otherwise. Using Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author of the book being reviewed here, as an example, you would think that he was the most dour, Puritanical man in the world.
Based upon my remembrance of American Literature class, his books, namely The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables, were filled with judgmental, narrow-minded people who enjoyed inflicting pain on others, and themselves committed sins every bit as bad as those whom they so willingly condemned.
In my imagination, Nathaniel Hawthorne was a crabby old man a la Ebenezer Scrooge, who lived and worked in a creepy attic (most probably in the house of the seven gables), who reviewed his work at the end of the day crying out to no one “No, no! It is still too cheerful! It has to be more depressing! These people are still too nice to each other! The house isn’t forbidding enough! No!”
So it was that when going through the 813s, I found Twenty Days With Julian and Little Bunny by Papa, and got the image of Hawthorne as Ebenezer firmly thrust out of my mind.
Today, we use the term “househusband” casually to describe a man who runs the house while his wife works outside the home. During the summer of 1851, Nathaniel Hawthorne was a househusband of sorts when his wife went to the Boston area with their two daughters to visit her relatives. Hawthorne began the diary on the first night to record the household events during her absence, and along the way creates a record of his love for his little boy and his delight in discovering new bits of the “little man” on a daily basis. He has a responsibility unique to his time, a man caring for his son’s every need and desire as well as the running of the family home.
He dutifully records his struggles “frizzing” Julian’s hair with a stick, what he ate every day, any illness or discomfort that the boy experienced and what steps he took to relieve it. Interspersed with these reports, Hawthorne records the games and activities that the two enjoyed together, everything from Herman Melville’s dropping by for an evening to battles with the local dragons, which were really thistles, to caring for Julian’s pet rabbit who is named at different times Springs, Hindlegs, and simply Bunny. Hawthorne’s devotion to his wife Phoebe is also in the diary, and several times he states how he misses her and their two daughters.
Twenty Days With Julian and Little Bunny by Papa, is a delightful read on many levels, not least of which is the chance to get your own misconceptions of Nathaniel Hawthorne washed away and replaced with something (or is it someone) far more appealing.
On The Nathaniel Hawthorne Audio Collection Twenty Days With Julian and Little Bunny by Papa is read by author Paul Auster.
Your Last Chance to Name the Pulitzer Prize Winner!
As I was whining a few blogposts ago, nothing was awarded the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. The New York Times is trying to make up for this by implementing a Great Pulitzer Do-Over. You have the opportunity to tell them what novel or book of stories should have won that unawarded prize.
I may abstain, because two of my picks have already been named. Swamplandia, about which I did my whining, was one of the three nominees that failed to make the big Pulitzer cut, and Maureen Corrigan, one of the three judges who had nominated those books, wrote a ticked-off article in which she argued that any of the three was deserving.
And when I wrote about Mat Johnson’s Pym, back in February, I said that I hoped it would be at least nominated for the Pulitzer; but that novel has already been vouched for, as well. As part of their Pulitzer Do-Over, the NYT asked some critics for their opinions as to what books should have won, and Maud Newton wrote about Pym. I had never heard of Maud Newton, but I’m nevertheless thrilled to be so in sync with her.
The bad news: You only have until the end of today, Wednesday, May 9th, to tell the Times which book deserved the prize. Sorry to be so late with this, but I just found out about it. Get going now on your brief nomination–100 words is the suggested word length–and turn that nomination in, pronto.
Maybe I should nominate Clyde Edgerton’s The Night Train?
Observe Zombie Awareness Month. Read This Book.
A colleague sent out a notice that it was Zombie Awareness Month, and it occurred to me that I’ve never written a post on this theme, despite the fact that zombie novels are a vital (wrong word) part of our fiction collection.
Stephen Blackmoore’s City of the Lost is set in Los Angeles. (Get it? City of the Lost instead of City of the Angels?) Our story-teller is Joe Sunday, a thug for hire who becomes undead. He had already murdered people, in his professional capacity, but now he’s likely to eat their hearts.
I liked the idea that the mean streets of L.A. would be walked by a zombie, rather than by a detective like Philip Marlowe or Lew Archer. I didn’t like the way the author offhandedly drew the Holocaust into his story.
The talk of Auschwitz doesn’t go on for long, and genre writers often use historical events to ground their stories, so I shouldn’t be too hard on Blackmoore. But I had just finished reading Roberto Bolaño´s novel 2666, a visionary tour of the twentieth century, and Blackmoore’s evocation of our past seemed cheap. I set the book aside for the night, halfway finished, figuring I was done with it.
The next morning, to my surprise, I felt some curiosity about how Joe Sunday’s mayhem would sort itself out; and I read the second half. The story moves really quickly, when you consider how many of the characters are dead. An ambiguous ending may indicate that a sequel is in the works.
The Kirkus reviewer, who obviously has more zombie cred than I, calls this A remarkable debut, L.A. noir with eye-bulging refinements . . . A head-shakingly perfect blend of zombie schlock, deadpan wit, startling profanity, desperate improvisation and inventive brilliance.
