The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult

The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Storyteller is a wonderful book, one of the most powerful novels I've read in a long time. It is a story within a story within a story. The way the three plots affect each other, while remaining strong enough to stand on their own, is amazing.

The first plot is about Sage Singer, a woman in her twenties, who has lost her mother in an auto accident. Sage was driving the car and has to deal with the guilt that comes with surviving. (Something that becomes more important as the rest of the story unfurls.) Sage was left with a facial scar that she dwells on because it symbolizes what she's been through. She feels as if everyone thinks she is ugly, but the people around her don't act as if they do. She also feels that the people who loved her mother, her grandmother and her sisters in particular, hate her for what has happened. But they also don't act as if they do.

Sage Singer meets an elderly man, a German, at her grief group. He asks her for two favors, powerful favors, that propel Sage forward in a way she never imagined would be her fate in life. His requests lead her to a conversation with her grandmother. Sage's grandmother, whom she calls Nana, is a survivor of Auschwitz. Nana has spent her life in America trying to forget her life in Poland. There is a parallel to Sage's survivor's guilt that isn't emphasized but is an important part of the book.

In a unique and beautiful way, Jodi Picoult has tied all three stories together with the work of baking bread. The acts of breaking bread together or of preparing a special baked treat for someone you love are used over and over throughout the story. Sage is not the first baker in her family. Her grandmother's father also made his living as a baker. Sage's sisters are named Pepper and Saffron, indicating how important spice was to her mother.

Late in the book Sage is sitting in a temple, taken there by Leo, a man she is working with. Sage is an atheist, but with a Jewish heritage. Although she hasn't spent much time in synagogs, she is affected by the place and the people there. Here are some of her thoughts:

I don't believe in God, but sitting there, in a room full of those who feel otherwise, I realize that I do believe in people, in their strength to help each other and to thrive in spite of the odds....I believe that having something to hope for, even if it is just a better tomorrow, is the most powerful drug on this planet.

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The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K Le Guin

The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Lathe of Heaven was published more than forty years ago, but the ideas do not seem dated. That's good for the book, but not so good for the world in general. I found it interesting that the book covers environmental concerns, such as overpopulation and global warming, that are still being debated today.

The basic idea of the plot is simple. When George Orr dreams, he wakes up in a new world where aspects of his dreams have become real. When Dr. Haber discovers Orr's power, he manipulates it to make a better universe. The forced changes all have side effects or come about due to problems that are worse than the original ones. At first glance the theme is that we shouldn't play God. But the world Orr started with was brought back from the edge of destruction by his dreams. Le Guin seems to be saying that our influence on the world is better left to our subconscious minds and to our desire for self preservation than it is to our conscious efforts. I don't agree with that idea, but I do find it interesting.

George Orr's relationship with Heather LeLache is intriguing. She starts the book as a lawyer he contacts to help him break away from the influence of Dr. Haber. She's hard and bitter. As the story continues Heather becomes different and the most important person in Orr's life. In most books I would have attributed the changes to the way their relationship develops. In The Lathe of Heaven she seems to be manipulated by Orr's dreams. That's fascinating and creepy.

The fact that Le Guin could carry off this idea is amazing, yet she does it extremely well. With an idea that forces everything about the book to change at various points along the way, how can their be any consistency? But it works and I found it to be a hard book to put down.

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The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I expect the books I read to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. The Knife of Never Letting Go has the first two, but not the third. I understand that a series can benefit from a cliffhanger, but each book should be able to stand on its own. Think of The Hunger Games. It pulls its readers into its fictional world and leaves us wanting more, yet it is a complete story. The Knife of Never Letting Go comes close to doing that. If it had ended a little sooner it would have at least appeared to have a resolution, but it didn't.

That said, I loved most of the other aspects of this book.

The most fascinating idea in the novel is the introduction of something in this new world that gives women a great advantage over men in the battle of the sexes. How people react to this new gender difference ranges from the extreme reaction in Prentisstown to the no secrets relationship between Hildy and Tam in Farbranch. Every response seemed believable.

The relationship between Todd and Viola grew beautifully. They started out uncertain of each other. Viola wouldn't even speak with Todd when they first met. And Todd believed the fact that he was near Viola could possibly kill her. He felt guilty, but didn't act as if he would miss her. Their attachment grew stronger as they got to know each other and to depend on each other.

I also loved Todd's relationship with his dog, Manchee. In the world of this novel, animals can speak. They don't speak with the subtleties of a human mind, because they still think like animals. They're concern is focused primarily on the moment at hand, on eating and avoiding being eaten. But in his own beautiful, dog way Manchee speaks of love and loyalty. Manchee was my favorite character in the story.

I had trouble with the character of Aaron, who was so resilient he reminded me of Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street. After awhile he became silly, but I felt the two Mr. Prentisses, both jr. and sr., made very interesting villains. I enjoyed the convoluted rational they had for their need to go after Todd.

I haven't read the other books in the series, but if they are like this one, they are worth reading. I would recommend this book to someone looking to read another YA series.

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Delirium by Lauren Oliver

Delirium by Lauren Oliver
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've heard a number of writers say that the primary responsibility an author has is to keep readers turning pages. Lauren Oliver has certainly done that with her YA novel, Delirium. Oliver gets into the head of her main character, Lena, thoroughly and writes in a way that allows her readers to feel the world around this young woman. That world is a scary portrait of an out of control government.

The story is set in Portland, Maine, in a future time when the government forces people to have an operation at age eighteen, leaving them passive and compliant. The first sentence of Delirium reads:

It has been sixty-four years since the president and the Consortium identified love as a disease, and forty-three since the scientists perfected a cure.

There are subversives, known as invalids, hidden among the population and more of them existing beyond the borders of the US in an area called The Wilds. When the novel begins Lena doesn't know much about the invalids, but she does know that her mother had some issues twelve years earlier. Those issues caused her mother to kill herself and left Lena to be raised by her Aunt Carol, a woman whose life revolves primarily around cooking and washing dishes.

There are scenes in the story that kept me on the edge of my seat with fear for what was happening to Lena. However, I had an issue with the believability of some of those scenes, because Lena seemed to bounce up from situations that should have hurt her seriously. I also had an issue with an escape that occurred later on in the work, when someone writes so hard on a cell wall that her marks go through the stone, without, of course, any of the guards noticing. Yet I could suspend disbelief enough in those scenes to stay involved with the story.

Lena changes and grows through the course of the novel and I loved sharing that experience with her. This is the first book of a trilogy, so even at the end she's still a bit whiny and very self centered. But there are hints she's growing out of those flaws and at one moment in the story she puts herself at risk in an attempt to help her friend Hana. She did it without a second thought. That was a wonderful scene.


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The Man of Property by John Galsworthy

The Man of Property: The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy


My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The Man of Property is the first book in The Forsyte Saga, a trilogy by John Galsworthy. Galsworthy won the Nobel prize in literature for his body of work with this trilogy sited as the best example of his “distinguished art of narration.” His author page states that in addition to his work as an author, Galsworthy was also a “social activist. He was an outspoken advocate for the women's suffrage movement, prison reform and animal rights.”

There is an agenda in Galsworthy's writing, which I admire, but which often felt as if I was being hit over the head with nineteenth century political correctness. He is constantly defining what a Forsyte is rather than allowing his readers to make up their own minds. For example:

Old Jolyon was too much of a Forsyte to praise anything freely; especially anything for which he had a genuine admiration.

The blurb for The Man of Property starts out as follows:

The most prized item in Soames Forsyte's collection of beautiful things is his wife, the enigmatic Irene. But when she falls in love with Bosinney, a penniless architect who utterly rejects the Forsyte values, their affair touches off a series of events which can only end in disgrace and disaster.

In most of the discussions I read about this novel, there is a concentration on Soames' love of possessions. But I found the second sentence in this blurb to be more interesting. Irene, Soames' wife was bored. I can't say I blame her. A life spent accumulating possessions is about as boring a life as anyone can choose. It is her boredom that leads to the affair.

Irene falls in love with Bosinney, apparently because his values are so different from Soames' values. But it is hard to sympathize with her choice. Bosinney is designing a house for Irene and Soames and during that process he is constantly shaking his head at Soames and acting as if the man has no sense of style whatsoever. There's a difference between confidence and arrogance and Bosinney has more of the latter. And then there's June. June's another member of the Forsyte family. She's engaged to Bosinney and she's Irene's best friend. She's treated horribly, betrayed on two sides and without even the courtesy of talking to her about the situation. And this is after June has worked hard to help Bosinney succeed in his chosen profession. It seems as if Galsworthy sees June's desire for Bosinney to achieve success as a act of self interest somehow.

The Man of Property isn't my favorite of the nineteenth century literature I've read, but it is worth reading. It's complex enough to be interesting and it's fun to read what others thing of the work.


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Doc by Mary Doria Russell

Doc by Mary Doria Russell


My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Mary Doria Russell's novel Doc takes its readers back to Dodge City, Kansas in the mid nineteenth century. It's a period I've heard about, of course, but mostly through poorly researched films and old television shows. This book has a hard feel to it that makes it different. It feels as if this is closer to the way life really was in that time and place.

John Henry “Doc” Holliday is the main character. He was raised in a wealthy Georgian family prior to the civil war (or antebellum as he likes to say.) His mother died from tuberculosis and he has the same disease. After he finishes his studies to become a dentist, Doc leaves Georgia for Texas where he's been told the climate will be easier on his lungs.

In Texas, Doc starts a long relationship with a prostitute named Mary Katherine. Kate, as she is most often called, has a similar background to Holliday's. When she was young she seemed destined to have an aristocratic life, but circumstances changed and now she takes pride in simply making her own way through life. Doc and Kate like to talk about music and poetry and especially love to speak to each other in Latin. It seems to remind them of their heritage.

The book also covers the lives of the Earp brothers, Morgan, James, Virgil, and Wyatt, with the most concentration on Wyatt. The brothers become close friends with Doc Holliday and consider him to be family.

A great deal of the story is about the prostitutes (generally referred to as whores) living in Dodge City. It seems that most of the women there were either working girls or former working girls. Dodge City was a place that cattle drovers came to for fun, so it was filled with brothels and saloons where the men could gamble away their earnings. In one section Wyatt, who is living with a former prostitute, contemplates Doc's defense of the women. (note: I transposed this selection from the audio version, so the punctuation may be wrong.)

Personally Wyatt didn't think it took all that much nerve to lie back and let a man do what he wanted for a minute or two. The whores at his brother's place seemed to him hard and mercenary. Or loose and indifferent. Or silly and stupid. But he had to admit he didn't know much about any of them.

Doc Holliday was an educated and thoughtful man, so Wyatt made an effort to match up what he'd seen with what Doc said.

There might be something to it, he guessed. Later on he asked Mattie Blaylock about her life before and what her story was. At first she just looked at him like she couldn't decide if he was dumb or trying to trick her. “Honest,” he said. “I wanna know.”

“Well – they was doing it to me anyway,” she told him, “might as well get paid.”

It wasn't much to go on, but he did his best to treat her like she was a lady. The way Doc treated Kate.

And another section describes the way Kate teases General Eli Grier, a man with whom Doc has a personal issue that dates back to his life in Georgia. Kate is setting Grier up. This is from Grier's point of view.

Maybe, so for she wasn't that pretty, and she sure as hell didn't flatter a man. Whatever the reason, Eli Grier wanted her, but the bitch just toyed with him. Once, back in July, when he thought the deal was made, she fixed him with that flat-eyed stare of hers. Breasts half-exposed by negligent lace, she leaned toward him with a feral grin, letting him breathe in her perfume and her musk, daring him to touch her. He reached out and his fingers grazed that creamy flesh, he felt the barrel of a derringer .36 press against the ribs above his heart.

Her voice was husky, foreign, amused. “Let's see your cash,” she whispered. “For you? I cost a grand.”

Then, laughing, she swirled away, silk rustling, making him watch, infuriated, as she picked another man. “For you?” she cried breezily. “Five bucks!” And off she went, not even glancing over her soft, white shoulder as she led the dazzled Texan up quiet, carpeted stairs.

Along with the prostitution, Russell's novel is filled with gambling, fighting (with both guns and fists), and dealing with a disease as serious as tuberculosis was at that time. But there is a sense of optimism throughout the book. This is the story of people who live hard lives, but who make the most of what they have and care about each other along the way.


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Naked in Death by J.D. Robb

Naked in Death by J.D. Robb


My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I read this book for personal reasons. I'd read, and enjoyed, a few Nora Roberts novels, so a friend recommended that I try some of the books Roberts wrote as J. D. Robb. Cancer took that friend a few years back. Now I'm finally getting around to following her suggestion and it felt nice to do so, as if Nancy was communicating with me again.

Roberts didn't exactly move to a different genre with Naked in Death. She kept one foot in romance. For example: the sex scenes come in two different categories: descriptions of degrading videos and pictures of the prostitutes who were the victims as well as long, romantic descriptions of the heroine's relationship with one of the suspects, including one when he rips her shirt off. So in that area there was some of what a reader would expect from both genres.

I listened to the audio version of the book in my car. Towards the end I was so caught up in it, I drove passed my destination and circled around until I reached a point where I could turn off the player. The novel was written in 1995 and is set in the year 2058. (This is the second book in a row I've read that was written years ago and placed in the future.) Guns are antique weapons, so the murders Eve Dallas is investigating are unusual to that period. Robert's picture of the future is interesting with some things, such as real coffee, scarce, while other things, such as technology, abundant.

I had a couple of issues. The first is the title. There's an implication with Naked in Death that nakedness was an unusual circumstance for the victims. These victims were also naked in life, since they were “licensed companions.”

The second issue is the one covered in this selection:

Eve accepted – was forced to accept – that her privacy was no longer an issue. “I spent the night with Roarke. It was a personal decision, on my personal time. In my professional opinion, as primary investigator, he has been eliminated as a suspect. It doesn't negate the fact that my behavior was inadvisable.”

“Inadvisable,” Whitney exploded. “Try asinine. Try career suicide, Goddamn it, Dallas, can't you hold your glands in check? I don't expect this from you.”

She didn't expect it from herself.

Eve was supposed to be a professional, excellent police investigator, yet she jumped to conclusions about a suspect because he was attractive and rich. She rationalized her decision, but her rationalization was weak. This could have been a character flaw she needed to overcome, yet her actions worked to her advantage rather than against her, so I saw it as a flaw in the plot. But a minor one.

Naked in Death is a page turner and good choice for fans of detective stories and romances.





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