So where have I been these past few weeks? Not moderating comments, not remembering to return the mountain of library books I decided I didn't want to read after all, but finding success with George RR Martin's Game of Thrones and the rest of the Song of Ice and Fire series.
I'd been hearing about these books for a while. Several of the folks I play World of Warcraft with enjoy reading fantasy books, and I remember them chatting about this series as long ago as last summer. I, however, do not usually enjoy reading fantasy books. I don't really know why I never venture into that section at the bookstores, because when I do pick up something with unicorns or magicians in it, I often enjoy it. I liked the Harry Potter books. I liked the Lord of the Rings books well enough. At one point in my life, I had The Once and Future King virtually memorized. So I don't really know why I shied away.
But a recent New Yorker article about George RR Martin spurred me to try Game of Thrones. The article mostly focused on the extreme internet backlash Martin has faced for not being terribly forthcoming with the latest installment in his series. The prior one came out in 2005, and ended on a cliffhanger. He had a ton of loyal fans, who formed fan clubs, talked on internet forums and chat rooms, and occasionally even found out that they had more in common than just the books and wound up marrying each other.
Plenty stayed loyal, but now there are hate sites too, and he gets bushels of angry letters warning him that he'd better not die before he finishes the book. (Incidentally, the article was also an eye-opener for me in a different way. The week after the article appeared, the New Yorker ran a four-folded ad for the HBO show based on Game of Thrones. I guess the publication I work for is not the only publication that does stuff for its advertisers).
Anyway, several things jumped out at me from that article. George RR Martin was consciously trying to take the genre in a different direction, away from the quest-based archetype that Tolkien set up. The article says that the books were based very loosely on the events of the War of the Roses (the real one, not the Kathleen Turner movie). It also said that the books were minimalist in their fantasy trappings. Those are two reasons that I guess I'd shied away from the genre: the fantasy books that I looked at often struck me as either the same basic book over and over again, or just an excuse to write vivid descriptions of unicorns. So I gave Game of Thrones a shot, and liked it so much I bought A Clash of Kings last weekend.
These are perfect books to get lost in, they're nice and long and action-packed. The characters are fully fleshed out but there's a lot there for "plot" people too (oh, is there ever). The NYer article was right about the minimalist nature of the fantasy elements. They are there, but they don't hit you over the head with it, focusing more on the relationships between the characters, and how events change them.
The story is basically a conflict between several noble families. About 12 years prior to the start of the books, Ned Stark and Robert Barthaeon massed an army to overthrow the mad dragon king Targaryen (he wasn't literally a dragon, but the family had an affinity with them, even though dragons are extinct). The last of the Targaryens fled across the seas. Stark returned to his family's lands in the north, and Barthaeon wed Cersei Lannister and ruled as king. But Cersei Lannister has higher ambitions than just being a pretty ornament, and the Targaryen children are now of an age where they can start plotting to win back their throne. Stark has no desire to be anything but the lord in his own region, but he's not given much of a choice.
One slightly disorienting thing about the books is that they're told in a round-robin fashion through the eyes of a variety of characters. I counted about ten third-person-limited perspectives in Game of Thrones alone, and more are added in the second. It's good in a way: if you find someone boring, all you have to do is wait out their chapter, and the story will go with someone else, and you will have seen the back of them for a while. Sometimes, though, they're too long away and it's hard to remember where you left off.
The books are also pretty brutal. There's rape. There are violent murders, including one of the most imaginative, gory and fitting death scenes since the film Seven. There's more treachery than you can shake several sticks at. There is a lot of sexism, but one thing I like is that as the story unfolds, you get a hint of what might be coming to sexist asshole kings who discount the capabilities of women.
The books are very absorbing, though. George RR Martin tempers the brutality with humor and tender touches where you least expect it. For example, the young Targaryen girl, Danerys, is essentially sold into marriage by her older brother to the leader of this fearsome, savage tribe. She's only 13. Her wedding festivites are terrifying, with members of the tribe getting drunk, grabbing random women right out in the open and having sex with them, killing each other over who gets to have sex with who, and by the end of the scene as the wedding night approaches, you are terrified for Danerys. But her new husband turns out to be tender and gentle, and their wedding night is one of the sweetest scenes in Game of Thrones.
So far, I highly reccommend the series, and can't wait to see what comes next.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Fail
I don't know why, but I've had a rather high fail rate among my library picks recently. I went to the library a few weeks ago, full of ideas. Of course, they were all checked out or unavailable. I got some alternatives.
The first to fail was Last Night in Twisted River by John Irving. I'd liked Cider House, of course, and wanted to try something else. This was set in a logging camp and opened with a gripping account of the death of a young boy. But after that, I just couldn't get into it. Also, not to sound shallow, but the book was falling apart, and I kept having to hold the pages and the binding together.
So I turned to The Invisible Circus by Jennifer Egan. I was savvy enough to know that the title couldn't possibly be literal, but naive enough to get drawn in enough to pick the book up anyway. It sounded like it might be good. It's about a girl whose older sister was a hippie in the 1960s and died under mysterious circumstances in Italy several years earlier. Adrift after high school, she goes to retrace her sister's footsteps.
The first half of it was slow-moving and emotionally devoid. Phoebe (the main character) has had a lot of sad things happen to her, and from her lifestyle, it's obviously affected her deeply, but we don't feel it. She seems flat. It's hard to conjure up much empathy for her, and by the time she's obtaining her passport and plane tickets, I wanted her to just quit fucking whining already.
But when she made it to Europe, I just wanted to smack her. I went when I was slightly older than her, and it was so terrific and incredible that I've wanted to return ever since. I remember vividly the sense of possibility around every corner, the feeling of your mind and senses being blown wide open, the way that everything seemed extraordinary. Phoebe doesn't see any of this. She's a one-note singer, looking for hippies everywhere and asking if they remembered some random girl who had passed that way years earlier, as if it's even remotely likely.
So I gave up on that book. I looked in my book bin, and only two still appealed to me. Riches Among the Ruins by international financier Robert Smith is the one I'm reading right now. I saved Pelican Road (can't remember the author) as well, and a few others I'd picked up at a library visit earlier this week: a book by Carolyn Chute, and a book about the Vikings. The rest are going back today. Better luck next time, right?
The first to fail was Last Night in Twisted River by John Irving. I'd liked Cider House, of course, and wanted to try something else. This was set in a logging camp and opened with a gripping account of the death of a young boy. But after that, I just couldn't get into it. Also, not to sound shallow, but the book was falling apart, and I kept having to hold the pages and the binding together.
So I turned to The Invisible Circus by Jennifer Egan. I was savvy enough to know that the title couldn't possibly be literal, but naive enough to get drawn in enough to pick the book up anyway. It sounded like it might be good. It's about a girl whose older sister was a hippie in the 1960s and died under mysterious circumstances in Italy several years earlier. Adrift after high school, she goes to retrace her sister's footsteps.
The first half of it was slow-moving and emotionally devoid. Phoebe (the main character) has had a lot of sad things happen to her, and from her lifestyle, it's obviously affected her deeply, but we don't feel it. She seems flat. It's hard to conjure up much empathy for her, and by the time she's obtaining her passport and plane tickets, I wanted her to just quit fucking whining already.
But when she made it to Europe, I just wanted to smack her. I went when I was slightly older than her, and it was so terrific and incredible that I've wanted to return ever since. I remember vividly the sense of possibility around every corner, the feeling of your mind and senses being blown wide open, the way that everything seemed extraordinary. Phoebe doesn't see any of this. She's a one-note singer, looking for hippies everywhere and asking if they remembered some random girl who had passed that way years earlier, as if it's even remotely likely.
So I gave up on that book. I looked in my book bin, and only two still appealed to me. Riches Among the Ruins by international financier Robert Smith is the one I'm reading right now. I saved Pelican Road (can't remember the author) as well, and a few others I'd picked up at a library visit earlier this week: a book by Carolyn Chute, and a book about the Vikings. The rest are going back today. Better luck next time, right?
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
The amazing childhood of Catherine Gildiner
At the paper, I interview local authors a lot. In the year and a half I've been there, I've done stories on maybe ten different people who had written books. It's always pretty interesting, but one of my absolute favorites has been Catherine Gildiner.
My co-worker had actually read her first memoir, Too Close to the Falls. Her sequel, After the Falls, came out in November, and that was when I talked to her. I knew I'd like her from the opening description of their move to a suburban subdivision (when I first became aware of subdivisions, I promised myself that if anyone tried to make me move to one, I wouldn't even take the time to argue, I would just run, as from any dangerous situation. I actually still feel the same way. Gildiner did, too.) She was excellent to interview, she recalled reading the paper I work for when she was growing up, and I met her at a signing and she signed the advance copy she'd given me. Fortunately or unfortunately, her new book made interest in her first book spike to the point where it was unavailable at any of the libraries. I finally went out and bought it, and you know what, I'm glad I did.
I would like to arrange a virtual introduction somehow between her and another writer I admire, Lenore Skenazy, of the wonderful Free Range Kids blog. Gildiner was the ultimate free-range child in Lewiston in the 1950s. She was born to older parents, a welcome but unexpected surprise. When she was four, the doctor said she was hyper and needed a job, so she went to work at her father's pharmacy, keeping the place neat and helping to deliver medications.
Through her job at McClure's Pharmacy, she was exposed to many other worlds. She was the delivery man Roy's right hand man. He was the one with the driver's license, and she was the one with the ability to read, and together, they were unstoppable. They got to know Lewiston's former prostitute and abortion doctor, Marie Sweeney (and Cathy ruined her mother's bridge party by suggesting that one of her mother's friends should take her sick daughter to Sweeney). They went out to the Indian reservation regularly, and got to know the scary, violent Mad Bear, and the consequences of delivering his sedative too late.
The pharmacy wasn't her only world. She attended Catholic school, and battled the nuns constantly. She was a member of a neighborhood gang, the Bloods, where your membership renewed seasonally and if you could do scary stunts like swing out over the gorge, you were out. She writes a lot about her mom, who was a key member of the Lewiston Historical Society and knew the background of every building in town, who was a master bridge player and a participant in a women's study group where she wrote weekly research papers, but who had a maid and who never, ever cooked (Cathy was about 10 before she realized it was possible to make food at home).
Both of her books are wonderful. There's a lot of humor in them. Cathy was what one might term a trouble-maker, who stabbed a bully in the hand, who caused a wimpy kid to lose part of his fingers, and who also drink Shirley Temples in bars. There's a lot of sadness" I cried during the chapter on Warty, who ran the town dump and suffered from both Elephant Man disease and from ostracization, and at the part where Roy disappeared, never to be found or heard from again (I asked).
The books feel very real: Gildiner remembers well what it's like to be a kid and the sense of unfairness that often surrounds you, how well-meaning adults insult your intelligence and capabilities, how you're constantly smacking into the gaps in your own knowledge of the way the world works, the revelation that your parents and even your teachers don't have all the answers.
She'd hinted to me that she might write a third, and I genuinely hope she does. The first two are absolutely worth a read.
My co-worker had actually read her first memoir, Too Close to the Falls. Her sequel, After the Falls, came out in November, and that was when I talked to her. I knew I'd like her from the opening description of their move to a suburban subdivision (when I first became aware of subdivisions, I promised myself that if anyone tried to make me move to one, I wouldn't even take the time to argue, I would just run, as from any dangerous situation. I actually still feel the same way. Gildiner did, too.) She was excellent to interview, she recalled reading the paper I work for when she was growing up, and I met her at a signing and she signed the advance copy she'd given me. Fortunately or unfortunately, her new book made interest in her first book spike to the point where it was unavailable at any of the libraries. I finally went out and bought it, and you know what, I'm glad I did.
I would like to arrange a virtual introduction somehow between her and another writer I admire, Lenore Skenazy, of the wonderful Free Range Kids blog. Gildiner was the ultimate free-range child in Lewiston in the 1950s. She was born to older parents, a welcome but unexpected surprise. When she was four, the doctor said she was hyper and needed a job, so she went to work at her father's pharmacy, keeping the place neat and helping to deliver medications.
Through her job at McClure's Pharmacy, she was exposed to many other worlds. She was the delivery man Roy's right hand man. He was the one with the driver's license, and she was the one with the ability to read, and together, they were unstoppable. They got to know Lewiston's former prostitute and abortion doctor, Marie Sweeney (and Cathy ruined her mother's bridge party by suggesting that one of her mother's friends should take her sick daughter to Sweeney). They went out to the Indian reservation regularly, and got to know the scary, violent Mad Bear, and the consequences of delivering his sedative too late.
The pharmacy wasn't her only world. She attended Catholic school, and battled the nuns constantly. She was a member of a neighborhood gang, the Bloods, where your membership renewed seasonally and if you could do scary stunts like swing out over the gorge, you were out. She writes a lot about her mom, who was a key member of the Lewiston Historical Society and knew the background of every building in town, who was a master bridge player and a participant in a women's study group where she wrote weekly research papers, but who had a maid and who never, ever cooked (Cathy was about 10 before she realized it was possible to make food at home).
Both of her books are wonderful. There's a lot of humor in them. Cathy was what one might term a trouble-maker, who stabbed a bully in the hand, who caused a wimpy kid to lose part of his fingers, and who also drink Shirley Temples in bars. There's a lot of sadness" I cried during the chapter on Warty, who ran the town dump and suffered from both Elephant Man disease and from ostracization, and at the part where Roy disappeared, never to be found or heard from again (I asked).
The books feel very real: Gildiner remembers well what it's like to be a kid and the sense of unfairness that often surrounds you, how well-meaning adults insult your intelligence and capabilities, how you're constantly smacking into the gaps in your own knowledge of the way the world works, the revelation that your parents and even your teachers don't have all the answers.
She'd hinted to me that she might write a third, and I genuinely hope she does. The first two are absolutely worth a read.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
My hero, f*cked over
So, I read a terrific biography of one of my personal heroes, Molly Ivins. I wish I could be cheesy and say she's the reason I'm in journalism, but that's truthfully more down to a weak economy, so I'll just say that anyone could do worse than attempt to be like her. I first heard of her when my mom got her first book, Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She? for Christmas. I checked it out, of course, and her subsequent books were under the tree in my pile. My local paper started carrying her column, and that was awesome because I didn't have to wait.
She died shortly after I started this blog. I wrote a goodbye post to her here, but never really knew more of her life than she shared in her columns.
Molly Ivins: A rebel Life by Bill Minutaglio and W. Michael Smith taught me a great deal, then. They interviewed friends, co-workers, family members, and people who knew her in a professional capacity to paint a surprising portrait of a contradictory woman. Her image was that of a frank-talking Texas liberal, but she also spoke fluent French and attended several Ivy League schools. Her father was a wealthy Texas oilman, president of a large oil concern. She struggled with alcoholism. She struggled with authority, getting fired from the New York Times for her use of the phrase "gang pluck" in a story about a chicken-killing contest.
She, famously, never married. I'd always believed that the love of her life was killed in Vietnam, based on a column she wrote. According to this book, though, the love of her life was killed in a motorcycle accident, while they were both in college. I wish the book had explained that column, though. Instead of a husband and children, she had a large family of friends that spent her last Thanksgiving with her, and she remained close to her siblings, even though her relationship with her father was always strained.
The biography is good, neither a love letter nor a posthumous savaging. There was one particular quote that came from her late suitor's sister that I thought was just inflammatory conjecture and should have been excluded ("I think they talked about a master race." Really? Were you there? Did anything come of it? No, huh? So why bring it up?).
But there was one aspect of it that pissed me off, that was glossed over near the end. When Molly Ivins became ill with breast cancer, she was working for The Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Her wikipedia bio will tell you that she left there to become an independent journalist. According to the book, however, she did not leave voluntarily. She was let go, or her contract was not renewed, or however you want to put it. You see, no one has to cover the health insurance of an independent journalist who has cancer. It's a scary thought. If it happened to a New York Times best-selling author, who can't it happen to?
She died shortly after I started this blog. I wrote a goodbye post to her here, but never really knew more of her life than she shared in her columns.
Molly Ivins: A rebel Life by Bill Minutaglio and W. Michael Smith taught me a great deal, then. They interviewed friends, co-workers, family members, and people who knew her in a professional capacity to paint a surprising portrait of a contradictory woman. Her image was that of a frank-talking Texas liberal, but she also spoke fluent French and attended several Ivy League schools. Her father was a wealthy Texas oilman, president of a large oil concern. She struggled with alcoholism. She struggled with authority, getting fired from the New York Times for her use of the phrase "gang pluck" in a story about a chicken-killing contest.
She, famously, never married. I'd always believed that the love of her life was killed in Vietnam, based on a column she wrote. According to this book, though, the love of her life was killed in a motorcycle accident, while they were both in college. I wish the book had explained that column, though. Instead of a husband and children, she had a large family of friends that spent her last Thanksgiving with her, and she remained close to her siblings, even though her relationship with her father was always strained.
The biography is good, neither a love letter nor a posthumous savaging. There was one particular quote that came from her late suitor's sister that I thought was just inflammatory conjecture and should have been excluded ("I think they talked about a master race." Really? Were you there? Did anything come of it? No, huh? So why bring it up?).
But there was one aspect of it that pissed me off, that was glossed over near the end. When Molly Ivins became ill with breast cancer, she was working for The Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Her wikipedia bio will tell you that she left there to become an independent journalist. According to the book, however, she did not leave voluntarily. She was let go, or her contract was not renewed, or however you want to put it. You see, no one has to cover the health insurance of an independent journalist who has cancer. It's a scary thought. If it happened to a New York Times best-selling author, who can't it happen to?
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Eagerly anticipated meta-Thursday
So, Jasper Fforde has a new Thursday Next book out! It made my month to see this, especially since it was miraculously available at the library when I went!
One of our Thursdays is Missing is so meta that it will make your head spin. It's set mostly in the Bookworld, and the main character is the written Thursday Next. If you read First Among Sequels, you've met the two competing written Thursdays that got whittled down to one by the end of the book. Well, the book is about her. The characters are somewhat familiar, but different. Pickwick the dodo is played by a total diva who bullies everyone in the written Next household. Thursday's dad is also somewhat of a diva who is always blaming their low read rates on her performance. Acheron Hades, arch-villain of the series, is actually a really nice guy who often does not have a coffee with the written Thursday (the coffee shops are so expensive that no one actually drinks in them, they just go to be seen).
There are others, too. Mrs. Malaprop, trying to manage her unfortunate illness, serves as sort of a housekeeper. Early on, Thursday meets a robot about to be stoned and rescues it, procuring his services as a butler in the process. In order to enable the written Thursday to enjoy the occasional non-coffee and rescue robots, she has an understudy, a talented but panicky woman who likes to get 'hypenated' off her brain and hook up with goblins in her off-hours.
The plot of this one? Honestly, I'm not sure. As the title implies, the real-life Thursday Next has gone missing, and the written Thursday spends some time looking for her, to be sure, but there are all sorts of other complications and convolutions that were sort of tough to follow. If I'm to be completely honest, I didn't enjoy this one as much as the others. I sort of felt the humor wasn't there, and that's what always saved the others from becoming total confusion. But if someone had told me that last week, I would have picked this up anyway, so I won't discourage anyone else.
One of our Thursdays is Missing is so meta that it will make your head spin. It's set mostly in the Bookworld, and the main character is the written Thursday Next. If you read First Among Sequels, you've met the two competing written Thursdays that got whittled down to one by the end of the book. Well, the book is about her. The characters are somewhat familiar, but different. Pickwick the dodo is played by a total diva who bullies everyone in the written Next household. Thursday's dad is also somewhat of a diva who is always blaming their low read rates on her performance. Acheron Hades, arch-villain of the series, is actually a really nice guy who often does not have a coffee with the written Thursday (the coffee shops are so expensive that no one actually drinks in them, they just go to be seen).
There are others, too. Mrs. Malaprop, trying to manage her unfortunate illness, serves as sort of a housekeeper. Early on, Thursday meets a robot about to be stoned and rescues it, procuring his services as a butler in the process. In order to enable the written Thursday to enjoy the occasional non-coffee and rescue robots, she has an understudy, a talented but panicky woman who likes to get 'hypenated' off her brain and hook up with goblins in her off-hours.
The plot of this one? Honestly, I'm not sure. As the title implies, the real-life Thursday Next has gone missing, and the written Thursday spends some time looking for her, to be sure, but there are all sorts of other complications and convolutions that were sort of tough to follow. If I'm to be completely honest, I didn't enjoy this one as much as the others. I sort of felt the humor wasn't there, and that's what always saved the others from becoming total confusion. But if someone had told me that last week, I would have picked this up anyway, so I won't discourage anyone else.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Cider House Rules!
OK, I admit, I'd always sort of read the title that way. After reading the book, I can say that, in fact, it does.
If you're looking to get lost in something, this sprawling tale by John Irving is a good choice. It's the tale of two men. Dr. Wilbur Larch is truly an unforgettable character. He was forged by his first sexual experience: with a prostitute his father bought him as a going-away-to-college gift, whose daughter came in at the end and sat in a chair by the bed, smoking a cigar. He contracted gonhorrea from the prostitute, then years later, he would treat both mother and daughter in a Boston ER. Both would die, the daughter from a back-alley abortion that Dr. Larch had refused to perform. After that, Dr. Larch began performing them. He also became the head of an orphanage in rural Maine. For decades, he provided a safe choice to women: they could come to him to have either an orphan or an abortion.
Homer Wells was a 'failed orphan'. He was adopted four times. None of them took, for various reasons. He remained at the orphanage as the heir apparent to Dr. Larch, and as the only son Larch would ever know.
The book chronicles Dr. Larch's entire life, and most of Homer Wells'. It's set in the first half of the twentieth century throughout rural Maine and has a huge cast of memorable characters. Melony, Homer Wells' first girlfriend, also a failed orphan and a large, rough woman who finds her place as an electrician. The two nurses, Dr. Larch's platonic wives, who worship him. Candy, the woman Homer leaves with and has a doomed, decades-long affair with. Fuzzy Stone, an orphan who succumbs to poor lungs but is reborn in Dr. Larch's mind. Many, many more, including the migrant apple-picker denizens of the Cider House, for whom the rules of the title are written. I enjoyed this one a lot, and plan to try more Irving in the future.
If you're looking to get lost in something, this sprawling tale by John Irving is a good choice. It's the tale of two men. Dr. Wilbur Larch is truly an unforgettable character. He was forged by his first sexual experience: with a prostitute his father bought him as a going-away-to-college gift, whose daughter came in at the end and sat in a chair by the bed, smoking a cigar. He contracted gonhorrea from the prostitute, then years later, he would treat both mother and daughter in a Boston ER. Both would die, the daughter from a back-alley abortion that Dr. Larch had refused to perform. After that, Dr. Larch began performing them. He also became the head of an orphanage in rural Maine. For decades, he provided a safe choice to women: they could come to him to have either an orphan or an abortion.
Homer Wells was a 'failed orphan'. He was adopted four times. None of them took, for various reasons. He remained at the orphanage as the heir apparent to Dr. Larch, and as the only son Larch would ever know.
The book chronicles Dr. Larch's entire life, and most of Homer Wells'. It's set in the first half of the twentieth century throughout rural Maine and has a huge cast of memorable characters. Melony, Homer Wells' first girlfriend, also a failed orphan and a large, rough woman who finds her place as an electrician. The two nurses, Dr. Larch's platonic wives, who worship him. Candy, the woman Homer leaves with and has a doomed, decades-long affair with. Fuzzy Stone, an orphan who succumbs to poor lungs but is reborn in Dr. Larch's mind. Many, many more, including the migrant apple-picker denizens of the Cider House, for whom the rules of the title are written. I enjoyed this one a lot, and plan to try more Irving in the future.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Another Ishiguro, with an unlikeable narrator
I'm not sure how I felt about When We Were Oprhans by Kazuo Ishiguro. Wait, yes I am, I just don't want to admit it to myself. I enjoyed the other two books I'd read by him so much that it sort of hurts to admit that I didn't think much of this one.
This book is a detective novel, in the sense that the main character is a detective. He grew up in Shanghai between the wars. First his father, then his mother were kidnapped, and he was sent to live in England with his aunt, where he grew up, became a detective, and ultimately returned to Shanghai to try to learn what happened to his parents.
Except, he's kind of a lame character. And not in any particular way. He's self-aggrandizing, believes himself to have always been a popular child, despite evidence to the contrary, and is a social climber, despite his insistent denials of those aspirations to the reader. He adopts an orphan himself, and seemingly loses interest in her almost immediately. There's a quasi-romantic subplot, but he doesn't seem to like her much, and disparages her as a climber (he ought to know).
The payoff should have been in the plot, but that also sort of fell flat. The truth about what happened to his parents is much, much less interesting than what his shadowy recollections might have assisted the reader in conjuring up. So I have to say this book was a disappointment, but not enough to put me off Ishiguro permanently. In fact, I liked the others that I read so much that I will probably read all of his books, even if I dislike them as well.
This book is a detective novel, in the sense that the main character is a detective. He grew up in Shanghai between the wars. First his father, then his mother were kidnapped, and he was sent to live in England with his aunt, where he grew up, became a detective, and ultimately returned to Shanghai to try to learn what happened to his parents.
Except, he's kind of a lame character. And not in any particular way. He's self-aggrandizing, believes himself to have always been a popular child, despite evidence to the contrary, and is a social climber, despite his insistent denials of those aspirations to the reader. He adopts an orphan himself, and seemingly loses interest in her almost immediately. There's a quasi-romantic subplot, but he doesn't seem to like her much, and disparages her as a climber (he ought to know).
The payoff should have been in the plot, but that also sort of fell flat. The truth about what happened to his parents is much, much less interesting than what his shadowy recollections might have assisted the reader in conjuring up. So I have to say this book was a disappointment, but not enough to put me off Ishiguro permanently. In fact, I liked the others that I read so much that I will probably read all of his books, even if I dislike them as well.
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