Weycombe

Let me take a moment to review a book that I loved. 

Weycombe by G.M. Malliet
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Nothing is as perfect as it seems.

It never is. Jillian White finds this out when the facade of her fantasy life is shattered by the murder of a woman named Anna, the local estate agent. Little by little the reader is pulled into Jill's world and her thoughts. (view spoiler)[It is written in first person, so we have the advantage of knowing what the narrator is thinking. However, she has the advantage of only telling us what she wants us to know.

Weycombe is like a cousin to Girl on the Train. Though Girl is more intense, Weycombe is more sinister. If Girl on a Train is on one side of Weycombe's family, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is on the other, and here is where I let the bomb drop. I don't plan on having a review without spoilers.

The thing is, being so deep inside the mind of Jill is a little unnerving. There is a transformation throughout the book, and it doesn't get any more comfortable. At first Jill is in a rut, a huge rut that she can't get out of and that threatens to get tiresome. While Rachel from Girl is lost in alcoholism, Jillian is simply lost. She has lost her job; she has given up on trying to find another one. She spends her days wondering around the wealthy village of Weycombe, wasting away her life while her marriage falls apart. Not unlike with Rachel, I tended to want to throttle Jillian for her decisions.

But, she becomes energized with the idea of the murder of Anna, a woman who used to be her friend. She takes copious notes and eventually she states what we have been suspecting for a while – that she is planning to write a novel based on the murder. (The job she lost was with the BBC, so she's right in her niche.) That the murder of someone she knew could inspire her paints Jill in a less favorable light, even as it is she telling the story. As she becomes more interested in the investigation she becomes obsessed. She uses her feminine guile and American-ness to get information from the detective, and she talks with people around town, making small talk and then rushing to write everything down.

This invigorated Jillian is more pleasant, though. She is sure of herself and her talents. She has a purpose. She wastes no time on the illusion that she can save her marriage; in fact she hides her industry from her husband – willing him to stay out all night so she can get work done. All the while, small clues keep popping up, things that would have been more natural had they been told in a more chronological way. Some things seem to be important, and yet mean nothing... until later. She talks with a former colleague and the energy of her profession continues to return. She even talks to her Member of Parliament (MP) and is not intimidated when he calls her local police to put her in her place complain about her.

In the quaint village of Weycombe with its scenic backdrop, we see this woman, Jillian, slowly raise her head to look at us, then she keeps turning her head to look toward the sky, and she continues turning. Then we are looking at the back of her head, but there is another face there, and it is only beginning to lift itself to look at us. It is another Jillian with another version of the story we just heard. And we learn that this more well-adjusted woman is more sinister than we had been led to believe. (hide spoiler)]

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Close Encounters of the Furred Kind by Tom Cox

I stumbled across Tom Cox the way many people discover new authors - I have been stalking following another author (G.M. Malliet, writer of cozy mysteries) and she retweeted something from him and I read it. I have cats and I feel that many people don't understand my relationship with them, so Tom's Twitter posts and his blog entries rather struck a chord with me. Ms. Malliet lived in England (according to her bio info) and her mysteries are set in Great Britain, so I kind of assumed that's how she would have heard of him. When I was a bookseller, I do remember selling his book on golf, but I'm not a golfer so I never looked at it closely and I didn't remember his name.

Tom seems to be doing something different with his writing. He's taking his career into his own hands a little bit - the promotion part of it, anyway. He created Twitter accounts for his cats, foremost among them being My Sad Cat. (I think it was @MySadCat that I came across originally, now that I think about it.) He has tweets indicating, 'My cat is sad because _". Usually it relates to the cat's deep, soul-searching eyes and the crass world's failure to live up to his expectations. @MySadCat has thousands of followers.

In his writing, Tom anthropomorphises his cats a little bit, for the sake of humor and to express the way they make him feel. But, for the most part I think that he is simply trying to understand them on their own level - their distinct personalities and the way they interact with each other. Through them we meet Tom's father who writes and talks in all caps, his mother and a few friends. But, mostly it's poignant memoir about a man who loves the outdoors and loves his cats and loves a genre of music that I can't quite put my finger on... 70's psychodelic rock? Obscure bands from just before he was born who were experimental and edgy?

If you enjoy animals, if you enjoy the outdoors, if you feel that cats were given a bad representation in The Secret Life of Pets, then I suggest you read this book, and follow @MySadCat on Twitter and read Tom's blog. He has several other books related to his cats as well.

Enjoy.

Book Pre-Review

I have a book to review, but I'm going to take my time on that. In the meantime, I thought I'd mention that I have begun reading another book – one that is fairly well known. The narrator (one of them) is described as 'unreliable', a term I have only recently come into contact with, though the concept has been around for a while. (Think Fight Club, though it's much, much older than that.) It seems that by telling me that the narrator is unreliable, they have taken away most of the element of surprise, but I don't imagine that the people who publish books would really do that on the back cover. So, I have to think there's still more to come.

I will say, though, that as far as unreliability goes, this narrator fits the bill so far. She's a mess, spiralling out of control and I have no idea why her roommate puts up with her, or how much longer she's going to. I'm only a couple of chapters in, after all. She has spent the last two years sinking into a level of alcoholism that would generally take somebody many more years, or decades, to accomplish.

The author describes this perfectly. I don't even know the author's name; that's what a good job she's done. I am convinced that I'm reading the notes of a real person. (Clearly, they were dictated as she could not possibly put pen to paper or work a word processor.) As I read about poor life choices and struggling to remember what happened earlier this afternoon to cause the bump on her head and the bruises across her body I begin to think about my own life. I mean, I am truly wondering when I'm going to get my act together. I long, just a little, to call a local AA branch to talk to somebody about my problem. A problem which I do not have, by the way. I hardly drink. When filling out paperwork at a new doctor's office I struggle with the question of how often I drink. There is nothing between 'one drink a week' and 'never'. I fall into that gap, somewhere.

People this easily impressionable are perfect readers, as far as I can tell. I become a part of the story to a depth that is probably not entirely healthy. Also, it means that I have to read something apologetically happy every once in a while. The last time I had a true bout of depression (a few years ago) I had been reading a book of short stories by David Foster Wallace. That man can get to you. (He got to himself, it would seem.) After going through that, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society was called for, or, something along those lines. When I don't have one of those firmly in my grasp I reach for Calvin & Hobbs. I'm writing a novel right now, and the story is not always pleasant. I doubt that I come out of that experience unscathed.

But, it's been a while. So, I am happily (or enjoying myself, anyway) reading a book that has had rave reviews and a few people whose negative opinion about it has only strengthened my desire to read it. I'll try to write about this novel as well, once I'm finished. In the meantime, I'm going to continue reading, I'll begin the other review I mentioned and I'm going to have a lie down to try to get my life together.

-- Earnie

Pagan Spring, by G.M. Malliet

Pagan Spring by G.M. Malliet
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have begun reading the two series by G.M. Malliet: St. Just and Max Tudor, both set in England. It's a little strange that I should pick this book to write a review of, the third book in the second series of hers that I've read. But, the spirit catches you and you fall down. (Wait, that's a different book.)

I love mystery novels. I've read all of the Agatha Christie books I could get my hands on. I have thought about it and I believe that there are three aspects that I love: Characters, plot and the puzzle. In that order. I know a lot of mystery readers try to figure out whodunit before the end. I won't say that I don't do this, but it has never been the main attraction for me.

So, Pagan Spring, the third book in the Max Tudor series. We have an ex-spy (Max Tudor) who has decided to become an Anglican priest and ends up in a delightful village called Nether Monkslip. (I am always a sucker for delightful villages.) The first book in the series, Wicked Autumn, did a wonderful job of introducing the main characters in the village. So, when in Pagan Spring I read a tiny snippet about Lily Iverson, I was already familiar with her as a person from having read Wicked Autumn. This made me happy, made me feel a bit like an insider. With Max you don't get a James Bond sort of feeling. He's not brooding or arrogant. Along the same lines, he's not a cocky Poirot. Max is real, has very real feelings of self-doubt, regrets and love. It's convenient for him (usually) that he is a beautiful man who draws record attendance to his small St. Edwold's Parish church.

Not many of the people who live in the village are from the village, but they all seem to come together to make it whole. Gabby Crew is a relative newcomer and an intriguing character who adds an epistolary touch to the story with the emails she sends to a recipient – known only to her for most of the book. Even Suzanna Winship, who seems to be chomping at the bit for a bigger and better social life, has a place here, because what village doesn't have somebody who longs for just that? After three books in this series, I long to taste Elka Garth's pastries; I dream about them when I should be working. And, what village would be complete without a witch? Except that Awena Owens isn't a witch, she just has a new-age/quasi-pagan approach to life, love and spirituality. I feel that the "Writers' Square" adds to this feeling of family; it is a sort of embodiment of the sentiment. How else to describe people who come together to get on each others' nerves and defend each other to their dying breath?

I found myself trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together in my head, to figure it all out before the ending chapter revealed all. I had this desire much more in Pagan Spring than in any other of the Malliet books that I've read. It started with the opening - the Prologue. I had to go back and read it several times, trying to tease from it a clue and/or its place in the overall book. I had to reread several parts of the book, trying to pick up on the stray sentence that I had overlooked, the phrase in the dinner scene that could tip me off.

Rereading these parts was not a burden. The prose is beautiful here. Some of it I have been tempted to transcribe onto a canvas and embellish with other images and found pieces to make a literary collage. Malliet has placed me off the beaten path, in a tucked away village in South West England. I feel that I know these people. When I finally did finish reading it, I had to sit for a couple of days and ponder the story before reading anything else. Some books are that way; you have to savour them for a little bit before moving on.

eArnie


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Babayaga

The idea of Baba Yaga is intriguing. When I looked up the word – or name – it seems that it has the same meaning in many of the Slavic languages. She is what we would know as a witch, an old ugly hag of a witch with nothing but wickedness in her heart. This is what I read as a kind of preliminary study for reading this novel. My previous experience with the name is from a children's book called Babushka Baba Yaga, a title that caused a Bulgarian woman I know to giggle when I asked her what it meant. She told me that it was a grandmother witch. And in every source I could find, be it Russian, Bulgarian or anywhere else, the original Baba Yaga is known for being very old, very ugly and eating children.

This book takes it in a new direction. There are two Baba Yagas. (In the folklore I read about, there were sometimes three, all with the same name. In this book they each have a different name, and the name Babayaga seems to become a noun.) One of Barlow's Baba Yagas is the typical hideous old woman that would naturally come to mind. The other, though, is a young (looking), sexy woman who can't keep herself from misbehaving. (Killing lovers = misbehaving) He eventually tells each of their stories, in a Vampire Lestat historical style. (Coincidentally, we had a cold snap while I was reading this book and reading about the horrible winters in Russia was particularly effective sitting on my sofa with a throw over myself.)

The two fellows that happen upon them are as delightful as the witches are mysterious. Both are from the U.S. (the book takes place in and around Paris, France in the 50's) and both from the Midwest. One is happy-go-lucky with a cocktail in his hand and the other is more of a brooding, romantic type. Not a Louis the Vampire kind of brooding. Just a confused and accidentally in love kind.

The characters are fun and I very much enjoyed reading the book. I looked forward to it while I was working, even. I suppose that the one thing I could say critical about it is that it's slightly predictable. Just a little bit, not terribly so. I was reading until my eyes wouldn't stay open, so it had to have something unexpected to keep me hooked. It's just not the dark, sinister book that I thought it was going to be.

All in all, though, I'd very much recommend this book.