Ellis Peters’ A Rare Benedictine was published after the eighteenth Brother Cadfael novel, meaning I really should not have read it for a long time if I was sticking to strict publication order. However, it’s a collection set at various times before the first novel, so I figured it was okay to read it now. Plus, it’s short, which is a Good Thing during paper hell week. It includes the story of how Brother Cadfael joined the monastery, “A Light on the Road to Woodstock,” and two others, all fairly low-key and enjoyable.
Crusie, Jennifer: Trust Me on This
“Everything I needed to know I learned from fiction,” part 561 in a series:
- The phrase “kicked off the slam” should never appear in a sex scene.
Today’s installment was brought to you by the letter P, the number 5, and Trust Me on This by Jennifer Crusie.
Bishop, Anne: Pillars of the World, The
On the train yesterday, I couldn’t do most of the work I brought with me because it required precise and steady handwriting, which one cannot have on a train, really. So I read Anne Bishop’s The Pillars of the World instead. This is a shrug book: I finished it and shrugged. Bishop’s first books, the Black Jewels trilogy, were pure guilty pleasures; deeply unsubtle and rather icky in places, but enjoyable all the way through. Pillars has the same flaws, but lacks the distinctive characters that overcame these problems in the Black Jewels books. (It also starts a series, which is not indicated anywhere on the book that I can see; it’s possible that it won’t be a tightly-linked series, however.)
Peters, Ellis: (02) One Corpse Too Many
Finished the second Brother Cadfael novel, One Corpse Too Many, yesterday over lunch. This shifts focus from the monastery’s politics and concerns to the siege of Shrewsbury in the 12th-century civil war between Stephen and Maud. Most of the book focuses on the plight of characters associated with the murder victim; the murder itself is not terribly mysterious, but that’s okay because I really like the characters. Maybe I’m reacting more to these books than I usually would because I’m particularly stressed out, but so far they give me an overall impression of sheer benevolence, which is as good as a hot bath for relaxing me.
Peters, Ellis: (01) A Morbid Taste for Bones
I solved the what-to-read problem by deciding that I didn’t feel like reading anything sf, not anything at all, and starting a mystery novel that I’d bought a while ago. A Morbid Taste for Bones, Ellis Peters’ first “Brother Cadfael” novel, was purchased because I vaguely thought I’d heard good things about the series, it was two dollars, and it was the first of the series, my preferred starting point.
I’m very pleased; I’ve discovered what bids fair to be another comfort series with lots of books (twenty-odd, I think) to look forward to. I quite like Cadfael (even if I’m not sure how to say his name), and those around him are painted clearly but compassionately in a way I find very soothing. The 12th-century setting feels familiar, from lots of medievaloid fantasies, yet has enough interesting details about life in a monastery, Welsh culture, and so forth to stay interesting. The mystery works out pretty well, too, not excessively convoluted or cutesy, though I’m slightly dubious about an underlying detail of the solution. Overall, I’m quite looking forward to spending more time with Brother Cadfael—and having just brought a stack of books home from the library, I shall probably be doing so soon.
Brother Cadfael himself found nothing strange in his wide-ranging career, and had forgotten nothing and regretted nothing. He saw no contradiction in the delight he had taken in battle and adventure, and the keen pleasure he now found in quietude. Spiced, to be truthful, with more than a little mischief when he could get it, as he liked his victuals well-flavoured, but quietude all the same, a ship becalmed and enjoying it. . . .
When you have done everything else, perfecting a convent herb-garden is a fine and satisfying thing to do.
Pratchett, Terry: Carpet People, The; The Bromeliad
Having finished with The Fiery Cross, for the first time in a month I didn’t know what I was reading next—and what’s worse, couldn’t decide what I felt like reading. (This is about level on my annoyance scale with, oh, being hungry but not wanting to eat anything that you can reasonably get your hands on.) Fortuitously, the day after my last post, I got a package from a friend abroad with Terry Pratchett’s The Carpet People (plus a couple of other books, including the aptly-named It Came From Schenectady). Perfect.
The Carpet People is Pratchett’s first novel, sort of. That is, it was originally published when he was seventeen (seventeen! I didn’t even have my one and only letter to the editor published by the time I was seventeen), and then re-written and republished when he was forty-three, after Discworld hit it big in the U.K. (It’s never been released in the U.S.) As Pratchett puts it in his Author’s Note,
This book had two authors, and they were both the same person. . . . It’s not exactly the book I wrote then. It’s not exactly the book I’d write now. It’s a joint effort, but, heh heh, I don’t have to give him half the royalties. He’d only waste them.
The Carpet People is the story of two brothers who lead their tribe away from the devastation caused by Fray and find that the Empire itself is threatened. It’s recognizably Pratchett in the themes and some of the characters, but was an odd read all the same. I enjoyed it, but I couldn’t help but feel that I was paying more attention to the patches (or what I imagine are the patches) than the actual story. (It may also have been even less subtle than usual about its Messages for Pratchett, but I can’t be sure.) I wouldn’t recommend that any but the most die-hard Pratchett fans import it, certainly.
One of my distractions was actually caused by having read a later Pratchett, The Bromeliad (Truckers, Diggers, Wings), which I picked up for the relevant bit [1] and got sucked into re-reading. This turned out to be a good thing, because I like the Bromeliad very much, probably the best of Pratchett’s non-Discworld books.
The Bromeliad is also about very small people, though not as small—about four inches high. For generations, nomes have lived in the Store, thinking the Outside was just a myth; then some strange nomes arrive with a mysterious Thing that claims the Store will be demolished soon. The Thing turns out to be a computer, the nomes turn out to be aliens, and one of the most wonderful things in the world turns out to be frogs living their whole lives in epiphytic bromeliads.
I really like these; the serious bits are well-balanced by the humor of the nomes’ reaction to the larger world, and I just love turning the pretentious names of some fantasy series on their heads by calling the trilogy after a flower. But what am I going to read now?
[1] Does anyone really care what bit it was? Okay, here it is—we’re told early in the Bromeliad that nomes live faster because they’re smaller, so ten years is a lifetime to nomes. Well, if I hadn’t read that before, I wouldn’t have said to myself, “Okay, if a Carpet People city is that big >.<, then they must live really fast, and that would explain why the matches, penny, etc., haven’t been picked up yet. Except they seem to have day and night, and then the scale’s all wrong—” and then we’re off to the races trying to justify things that are a) just magic b) nothing that would have bothered me if I hadn’t thought of the Bromeliad . . .
Gabaldon, Diana: (105) The Fiery Cross (re-read)
Completed the re-read of The Fiery Cross that was interrupted by Thanksgiving break. This book’s structure clearly places it as the second-to-last book in the series, as do the themes it emphasizes.
Past books had structures that reflected their nature as natural divisions of a larger story. Outlander starts the story, covering the earliest part of Claire & Jamie’s marriage, and ending with their arrival in France. Dragonfly in Amber covers their time in France and elsewhere, trying—unsuccessfully—to prevent Culloden. It ends with their failure and separation. Voyager is what happened to them while they were separated, how they were reunited, and how they ended up in the New World. In Drums of Autumn, Claire and Jamie establish their life in America; the book ends with the resolution of part of Brianna and Roger’s story.
The Fiery Cross takes place from late 1770 to late 1772. It picks up, as the first section is titled, in medias res, the day after the end of Drums. However, one can’t really describe the story covered by this volume as a neat chunk, like prior books; instead, it’s clearly a prelude to the sixth and last book, which will cover the American Revolution.
The book also structured somewhat unusually for the series, which had previously employed both flashbacks and interweaving of timelines, but in a fairly even-paced way. Some points in time are still going to have more happen during them than others, but this book takes that toward one extreme. The first 160-odd pages all take place during the last day of the Gathering of area Scots, of which weddings are a particular focus. Then there’s a domestic interlude as the characters prepare to muster the militia to deal with the Regulators, North Carolinans disaffected with corrupt British officials, and then adventures during the muster. Another domestic interlude, and then another 150-odd pages on another wedding-focused gathering (note the recurring bench and glasses, and some dialogue parallels) and then back to the Regulators again. The structure loosens up a bit after that; more domestic interludes on the aftermath of the Regulators, and then another crisis, and then after that, bits and pieces from the prior gatherings jump back up and get (partly) dealt with. The book then ends with some new time-travel information and the characters looking ahead to the coming Revolution.
Whew. You see why it’s almost a thousand pages.
This structure makes sense; after all, Claire and Jamie are living on a remote mountain, and there is just naturally more scope for plot when there are more people around, as during the gatherings. And it also displays the general themes the series is exploring: marriage, and the changes in society during the 18th century. It just felt a bit odd on the first time through.
At first, I thought the book ended too abruptly. Upon reflection, I think it doesn’t, but on a theme level rather than a plot one. Without getting into spoilers, Claire and Jamie are certainly having to face their own mortality these days (Jamie turns fifty in this book, and Claire is several years older). Time and change and the (im)mutability of history—those are all themes that, as played out in events towards the end of the book, are likely to sharpen that realization. And since Gabaldon has said that she thinks the story is going to end around 1800, when Jamie would be approaching 80 . . . well, I rather suspect that we’re going to see all of Claire and Jamie’s lives from the point they met.
Some thoughts on the rest of the book: I think the other viewpoint characters continue to be developed in ways that I find very interesting and realistic. The story is also still very engrossing; there’s one sequence that pulled me in far enough that I could just feel my skin crawling. (There’s also bits that had me snickering, like Claire’s first use of her microscope.) However, there’s another sequence late in the book that bothers me, because I can’t believe Jamie would be quite that stupid in that manner. This might reflect what I suspect was a fairly hasty editing process. And one last minor annoyance: I had “Clementine,” which is a terrible song (here’s one set of lyrics, though the book doesn’t use the “dreadful sorry” line, thankfully), stuck in my head for days.
Overall verdict: worth both the lengthy wait and the loss of sleep. If I’m still doing this book log in four years or so, y’all can see me get twitchy all over again waiting for book six . . .
Sayers, Dorothy L.: (13) Busman’s Honeymoon [2001 read]
I feel like there ought to be more to say about Busman’s Honeymoon than 1) it’s very well done and 2) see Gaudy Night for the ways in which it’s well done, except that this time the focus is on marriage, but I’m very tired and don’t seem to be able to think of much else.
Oh, except that there’s some fine poetry quoted in it that I would not otherwise have found.
Love? Do I love? I walk
Within the brilliance of another’s thought,
As in a glory. I was dark before,
As in Venus’ chapel in the black of night:
But there was something holy in the darkness,
Softer and not so thick as other where;
And as rich moonlight may be to the blind,
Unconsciously consoling. Then love came,
Like the out-bursting of a trodden star.
—Thomas Lovell Beddoes, The Second Brother
I have no idea who Beddoes is, but I like that. “Within the brilliance of another’s thought.”
Bryson, Bill: Notes from a Small Island
Bought a copy of Bill Bryson’s Notes from a Small Island as a birthday present for a friend now studying in London (who I doubt reads this, but if I’m wrong, ummm, hi, Laura). Though I have scruples about reading books that are gifts to other people, these don’t extend to books I’ve read before; thus, I flipped through it at lunch yesterday looking for the good bits (besides, this way it will be fresh in my mind so I can have a conversation with Laura about it).
I like the extremes about this book best: the details like This is Cinerama, the fifth Duke of Portland, and the dead-on description of what it’s like to visit Stonehenge (though Bryson apparently missed out on juggling, in the bitter cold, an umbrella, a camera, and an oversized cell phone-thing that squawks a tinny audio tour), and the overall sense of “yeah, that is what it’s like to live there.” A lot of the places mentioned I never went to in the three months I was there and don’t particularly want to go to, but I did enjoy living there and would like to visit again someday. For now, though, this will do as a nostalgia fix.
Sayers, Dorothy L.: (06) Strong Poison [2001 read]
Though the past couple of days have been quite busy, Strong Poison is quite short. This is the first Wimsey-Vane book; Harriet Vane is a mystery novelist on trial for poisoning her former lover—doubly scandalous in 1930. Peter Wimsey has fallen in love at first sight, and, when the jury deadlocks, determines to solve the case and prove her innocent.
Of course Harriet, being in prison, doesn’t get much screen time, though some of her personality comes through. But the real surprise in re-reading this is Peter, who is barely recognizable as the same person from Gaudy Night. Consider this passage, when Peter goes to propose both marriage and assistance to Harriet (in their first conversation):
“Oh, by the way—I don’t positively repel you or anything like that, do I? Because, if I do, I’ll take my name off the waiting-list at once.”
“No,” said Harriet Vane, kindly and a little sadly. “No, you don’t repel me.”
“I don’t remind you of white slugs or make you go gooseflesh all over?”
“Certainly not.”
“I’m glad of that. Any minor alterations, like parting the old mane, or growing a tooth-brush, or cashiering the eye-glass, you know, I should be happy to undertake, if it suited your ideas.”
“Don’t,” said Miss Vane, “please don’t alter yourself in any particular.”
“You really mean that?” Wimsey flushed a little. “I hope it doesn’t mean that nothing I could do would make me even passable. . . . You—er—you’ll think it over, won’t you, if you have a minute to spare. There’s no hurry. Only don’t hesitate to say if you think you couldn’t stick it at any price. I’m not trying to blackmail you into matrimony, you know. I mean, I should investigate this for the fun of the thing, whatever happened, you see. . . . Well, cheer-frightfully-ho and all that. And I’ll call again, if I may.”
“I will give the footman orders to admit you,” said the prisoner, gravely; “you will always find me at home.”
I mean, it’s almost Miles Vorkosigian in full sexual panic mode, but with an English accent. (You might miss the full effect because I cut out some of the babbling, but the quote was feeling too long. [We take a very scientific approach to posting here at Outside of a Dog.])
Compare that to this passage from Gaudy Night, where Peter and Harriet meet on the street and decide to go for a drive to discuss the latest happenings in the Poison-Pen mystery:
“We’ll dawdle along the lanes and have tea somewhere,” he added, conventionally, as he handed her in.
“How original of you, Peter!”
“Isn’t it?” They moved decorously down the crowded High Street. “There’s something hypnotic about the word tea. I am asking you to enjoy the beauties of the English countryside, to tell me your adventures and hear mine, to plan a campaign involving the comfort and reputation of two hundred people, to honour me with your sole presence and bestow upon me the illusion of Paradise—and I speak as though the pre-eminent object of all desire were a pot of boiled water and a plateful of synthetic pastries in Ye Olde Worlde Tudor Tea-Shoppe.”
Obviously someone easily intoxicated by words, but still capable of coherence—and I didn’t even pick one of the more emotionally charged conversations, feeling obscurely that it would be unfair, the difference being so great.
I like the Peter of Gaudy Night far better.