Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Ethan Frome is a book I should have read years ago. Since I didn't, I had an opportunity to look at a classic with fresh eyes and I enjoyed it. The Age of Innocence is the only other Edith Wharton book I've read. Both are extremely well written. Ethan Frome was published in 1911.

Ethan Frome is structured as a tale told by a man who has been sent into Starkfield, Massachusetts to supervise work on a “power-house,” but he has been stuck in town longer than he expected due to a carpenters' strike. There's a powerful winter storm in the area and Ethan Frome is recommended as someone who has a horse drawn sleigh and can take the narrator to the home where he's been staying for a small price. When the storm becomes too much for travel, Ethan invites the man to stay overnight at his farm. This is where the narrator learns enough about him to tell his story.

Years earlier, Ethan lived with two women, his wife, Zeena and her younger cousin, Mattie. Mattie had fallen on hard times. Her father had died leaving almost no money for his family. Mattie's mother was not capable of supporting herself and her daughter. She died from the stress, leaving Mattie alone. Zeena took her cousin in because Mattie had nowhere else to go and because Mattie was cheap labor. She cooked and cleaned for room and board. She also took an interest in Ethan.

The novel concentrates on the relationship between Ethan and Mattie, but his relationship with his wife is more important. He's attracted to Mattie because she's young, pretty, and vivacious, but also because Zeena is the opposite. Zeena seems to feel she's been let down by her husband's inability to make more than a substance living and responds to her situation by constantly complaining about her health. While she seems to be reaching for attention from Ethan, her hypochondria and controlling personality push Ethan toward Mattie.

Good novels get into the heads of the characters. Edith Wharton is excellent at letting her readers feel by concentrating on the little things.

He had always been more sensitive than the people about him to the appeal of natural beauty. His unfinished studies had given form to this sensibility and even in his unhappiest moments field and sky spoke to him with a deep and powerful persuasion. But hitherto the emotion had remained in him as a silent ache, veiling with sadness the beauty that evoked it. He did not even know whether any one else in the world felt as he did, or whether he was the sole victim of this mournful privilege. Then he learned that one other spirit had trembled with the same touch of wonder: that at his side, living under his roof and eating his bread, was a creature to whom he could say: “That's Orion down yonder the big fellow to the right is Aldebaran, and the bunch of little ones – like bees swarming – they're the Pleiades...”

Anyone who hasn't read this novel, should give it a try. It's a beautifully written experience.

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The Snowman by Jo Nesbø

The Snowman by Jo Nesbø
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Snowman is intense and gripping. Although parts of the story are unbelievable, Jo Nesbø's writing keeps the suspense alive. At times it is a difficult book to put down, which is the best compliment I can give to a crime novel. However, just as in action films such as Die Hard or The Eraser, plausibility takes a backseat to tension.

The Snowman is the first Harry Hole mystery I've read. It's neither the first in the series nor the last, but it stands on its own. It tells enough background to allow a new reader to understand the character relationships without slowing the book down. Harry holds back on his emotions. He's drawn to Rakel, his ex, but understands how his need to solve crimes will always get in the way of his relationship with her. He's more open with her son, Oleg, who responds well to him. But that isn't enough. Another person in his life is Katrine Bratt, a young police woman who also works on the snowman case. I expected the relationship between those two to be different from how it turned out.

The plot seemed to come to an end a couple of times during the book, but there were still many pages to go through and so the story turned out different than what was expected. That's good, although a little overdone. Yet the psychological reasons that point to each of the suspects are rationalized well, so the reader doesn't feel cheated at the end.

Another aspect of Nesbø's writing I like is his attention to small details that don't appear to advance the plot, but establish what life is like in Norway. For example there's a shop owner in the story who sells African art. The shop exists because government grants are available for this type of store, so the fact that there are few customers doesn't make any difference. The setting is also interesting. The cold of Norway suits the cold relationships between the characters.


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Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver

Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Pandemonium is a YA book, the second release in the popular Delirium series. Its target audience seems to be teenage girls and judging by the other reviews I'd say it impressed that group of readers. This series, by Lauren Oliver, is the story of a young woman, Lena, who lives sometime in the future after a ruthless, dictatorial government has taken over the United States and has banned love. At age eighteen anyone living in one of the government controlled areas must undergo a cure, which is a brain operation that limits their emotions. There are, however, areas outside the major population centers called the Wilds. In these places the people still have their emotions and their freedom, but they have to struggle to find food and shelter and they have to put up with constant attacks from the cities.

I liked both of the books I've read in this series because Lauren Oliver has done an excellent job of getting into the mind of Lena. In Pandemonium Lena has matured somewhat. When this book begins she needs help to recover from what she experienced in the first book, but once she works her way through that she becomes a much stronger person. She has a relationship with a young man, Julian, who needs her help to deal with both emotional and practical problems. I liked that because in Delirium she was the one who needed to get her strength from someone else.

The book bounces back and forth between sections entitled Then which are set in the time when Lena was first in the Wilds and sections entitled Now which are set after she has regained her strength and is part of the resistance. Yet Pandemonium is consistently written in the present tense, keeping an intensity throughout the novel.

The rat-man stops. He doesn't look at us, but I see his shoulders rise and fall: an inaudible sigh. “They'd already taken her from me once,” he says quietly. “I didn't want to lose her again.”

I have the urge to lay my hand on his shoulder and say, I understand. But the words seem stupid. We can never understand. We can only try, fumbling our way through the tunneled places, reaching for light.

I had a few problems with the book that had to do with too many coincidences and situations that required suspension of disbelief, but the character of Lena is strong enough to keep the pages turning. I'm looking forward to reading the next book in the series.

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The Woman Next Door by Barbara Delinsky

The Woman Next Door by Barbara Delinsky
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Woman Next Door is a woman's book. I glanced through pages of reviews on Goodreads and found only one other man who had reviewed it. The book covers a number of problems in suburbia that surround a threesome of friends, Amanda, Karen, and Georgia, who try to help each other but also spend a great deal of time gossiping. The group of friends include the women's husbands and used to include another couple, Ben and June.  June died, Ben remarried a younger woman, Gretchen, and then also died. So this suburban circle has been left to deal with a young, attractive widow who doesn't make an obvious effort to reach out to them, but does call on their husbands for help around her house. The situation is complicated when the widow becomes pregnant and the women realize too much time has passed for the baby to be Ben's.

The plot of this book revolves around family issues from problems conceiving to problems dealing with teenage angst, with trust and jealousy issues along the way. Amanda is a school counselor and also the woman who is trying to have a baby. Her husband, Graham, comes from a close knit family and that family isn't very supportive of Amanda. So there are problems there as well.

The major characters are well developed, especially the women. They have their flaws, but also qualities such as strength and loyalty. I think more men should read books such as this. The issues belong to both genders, but the perspective is different. I think it's important to understand that. I plan to read other books by Barbara Delinsky.

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Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Memoirs of a Geisha is the story of Chiyo Sakamoto, a young girl in Japan who is both blessed and cursed with beautiful blue-gray eyes. When her mother dies, her father, who is very old, sells her and her older sister, Satsu, to an okiya (a house where geisha live). Satsu isn't as pretty as Chiyo, so she is resold to a house of prostitution, while Chiyo stays on in the okiya. Chiyo's natural beauty makes her the focus for the jealousy of Hatsumomo, the one successful geisha living in the okiya. As the plot moves along Chiyo, who is renamed Sayuri, deals with jealousy and betrayal, but also finds friendship and kindness. The research that went into writing this novel has produced a fascinating and educational portrayal of the lives of geisha during the mid twentieth century, but Arthur Golden has also produced a work with strong characters who captivate his readers.

At one point in the book, prostitutes and geisha are called something to the effect of “distant cousins.” I suppose that description is accurate, because they both make money by entertaining men. But the geisha portrayed in Memoirs of a Geisha are careful about their reputations and instead of offering sexual favors to a number of men, look for wealthy patrons to become their “dannas.” In this way they are more like mistresses than prostitutes. Yet they seem to be so much more. They study their art in special schools where they learn dance, singing, storytelling and how to play a musical instrument called the shamisen. They are artists and celebrities.

One of the aspects of this novel I found fascinating was the fact that it was set in Japan before and after World War II. The impact of the war on the life of the geisha was primarily economic. There was very little discussion about the war other than how it affected other geisha. And after the war was over the geisha began to entertain the Americans. They seemed amazingly apolitical.

Memoirs of a Geisha does what good novels do best, it takes its readers to a different place and time and lets us into the lives of the people living there. I would recommend it to most anyone who enjoys good fiction and if you read it years ago, it would be worth picking up again.

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Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've read a few books recently that show the problems faced by women who lived in different times and locations. The Blood of Flowers takes place in 17th century Persia and Memoirs of a Geisha takes place in mid 20th century Japan. In both those books women were placed in difficult situations just because they were women. But I believe the wealthy women of 19th century China as portrayed in Lisa See's novel Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, had the hardest lives. The poor Chinese women of that period also had hard lives, but their troubles were based more on their economic situations than on their gender. They spent most of their lives working their small farms. The wealthy women were taught from birth that their only value would come from giving birth to sons, hopefully the sons of a rich man.

To have a chance at a good marriage to a man in a wealthy family, women had to be attractive. They achieved this level of beauty by having their feet bound at a young age, generally six or seven. This process killed one in ten girls and left the survivors crippled to various degrees. The women who had the most successful binding experience still could not run or even walk fast. The less fortunate women were sometimes unable to walk without using canes.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan spends a great deal of time on the subject of foot binding, but that isn't the only problem those women suffered. When they were young girls they were allowed to play outside, but after they reached the foot binding age they spent most of their lives in an “upstairs women's rooms” with the other women in their family. They spent their days weaving, sewing, and telling stories to each other. They were constantly reminded by their mothers that they were worthless. And, of course, the mothers were the ones who bound their feet, complicating that important relationship in ways that are unimaginable.

The women of that period were not allowed to learn men's writing, so they developed their own written language called nu shu. Men knew about this language but considered it too insignificant to acknowledge. The two main characters of this book, Snow Flower and Lilly used nu shu to write to each other on the folds of a fan.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan felt like two books to me. The first part was interesting because of what it taught me about Chinese society, but I didn't get into the characters until the second part. After that the relationship between Snow Flower and Lilly was fascinating. Their friendship had problems that could apply to people in any place and time. There was lying, jealousy, competing and misunderstanding, but there was also hope, loyalty and love. It seems that the relationships between women in that society was made stronger by the difficulties and isolation they had to bear. Although the women went to their husbands for “bed business,” they slept with other women and sometimes their relationships were sexual.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is a great book for people interested in learning about living in different places and times.

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The Red Garden by Alice Hoffman

The Red Garden by Alice Hoffman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Red Garden is a collection of loosely connected short stories. The connections come primarily through the setting, Blackwell, which is a small town in rural Massachusetts once known as Bearsville. A few characters show up in multiple stories, but for the most part each story moves years forward so the characters from one are now either dead, missing, or old enough to be living through their memories. I love Alice Hoffman's writing style. This book, like the others I've read (The Third Angel and The River King) is best described as magic realism. That's a term that has been used in many ways, but in Hoffman's case I intend it to mean a set of circumstances that begin with a realistic feel but sometimes branch off in interesting ways. The Red Garden has a garden where everything planted in it turns red. It also has a number of bears who have unusual relationships with some of the humans. It has a young, female spirit known as the Apparition. And of course it has characters who know things others don't. These are just some of the examples where Hoffman steps away from the world's definition of reality and into her own.

I prefer Hoffman's books, such as The River King, where characters remain in the story longer. With this collect I felt as if I was starting over again with each new tale. I didn't realize that would be the case when I began reading the book. I enjoyed the latter stories more than the earlier ones because by that time I understood where Hoffman was going.

The Monster of Blackwell was one of my favorites in the collection. It's Hoffman's version of the Beauty and the Beast story. In this case an ugly, misfit young man comes to the woods outside Blackwell. Children in the town catch glimpses of this man and label him a monster. But when Kate Partridge, a teenaged camp counselor, has a group of children in the woods this monster saves one of them from a bear. (Bears are constantly appearing in all the stories.) Kate falls in love with this man despite their different backgrounds.

The stories are a mix of heartbreak and happiness. This is my third Alice Hoffman book and I intend to read more.


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