The Maze Runner

This book reads like the script for a reality TV programme. Or a riff on Golding’s Lord of the Flies. Teenaged Boys lacking any knowledge of their past lives save a first name arrive disoriented in the glade which is surrounded by a maze with 50-ft rock walls not unlike a lab rat’s maze. We learn of this organized society through the eye’s of its latest arrival Thomas. Takes a while to warm to this book but it grows on one as the read progresses. As usual best to read the book before seeing the related flick.

The maze has its own jargon but the substitutes for profanity such as klunk for ‘shit’ in a book aimed at young adults tends to get tiresome quickly. This  book is volume one of a series. Book one is enough for me.

American Sniper

The Author Chris Kyle died in his 39th year proving once more the strains of returning from the field of battle can be more stressful than the fight itself if not for this individual then for the fellow soldier he tried to help. Here we have a lover of guns who literally wrote the manual on Navy Seal Sniper Fire plus a History of the US in 10 guns for good measure. A good old boy from Dallas Texas who shoots best with a wad of chewing tobacco in his cheek; his friends were military and law enforcement. Lets be up front, this reviewer is a pacifist whom the NRA would term an ardent enemy. There are those who would not feel safe without a handgun in their night stand, having one in my home would make me feel uneasy.

The author has the ego and arrogance of the true believer but he can also laugh at himself and invites the reader to laugh with him. He is good about translating the military jargon into plain English or his editors and advisers have prompted him to.

An Army at Dawn

“An army at dawn” appears on page 64 as the expeditionary force leaves Hampton Roads. “Young men,... ....would remember this hour, when an army at dawn made for open sea....” What stands out as in every military history I’ve ever read is the utter incompetence and chaos that surrounded this action. Attention to detail in loading the ships is totally lacking helped little by the need for secrecy. Makes it appear that the winning side did so because their planners made fewer errors than the enemy. The other salient point involves leaders more interested in promoting their own careers than in advancing the cause, who would do nothing to correct a situation if it could be used to make their competition look bad. Or, as a friend puts it, “Wars are lost not won.” The French in North Africa regarded the British with equal antipathy as the Germans, the British looked down their noses at their American Cousins.

Wars may be lost rather than won but as a props person in theatre I would say they are lost on supply lines and logistics. Without food, water, proper clothing, fuel, ammunition, and weapons soldiers cannot fight. Why should reality interfere with policy. High Command demanded that Rommel hold onto the African Front but failure to supply replacement troops and materiel told another story. The ineptitude and lack of communication on the Allied Side threw away thousands of soldier’s lives to no good purpose. Hindsight may be 20-20 but these military planners ignored good tactical advice when they were given it. Obviously they’d never played chess. At 830 densely packed pages this is a major undertaking. The last 230 pages contain footnotes and captioned photos. For War Buffs a good read.

The Horse Boy

Science understands little of how our minds work. Autism is a malfunction of the mental system about which there is no clear knowledge of cause, treatment, or outcome. There are no experts in the field and most evidence is anecdotal. Among those who have studied the syndrome there are conflicting opinions on all counts leaving the parents of children so affected to fend for themselves leading to a pragmatic, if it works lets keep doing it, approach. Dealing with a growing energetic six-year-old who refuses to be toilet trained, throws screaming, flailing tantrums for hours, and cannot communicate his/her needs, fears, desires is beyond exhausting. It obviously takes over one’s life. Little wonder 80% of parents’ marriages end in divorce.

One facet of the syndrome is an affinity for animals which is mutual in this case a bond being forged between boy and a particular horse. We’ve read of horse whisperers but here we have a boy who communicates with animals on a non-verbal level. His parents travel to the ends of the Earth to ride horses and find Shaman whose own people have largely ignored whose prayers and rituals work an uncanny healing. There is no cure for this condition but anything that can ameliorate the stress and help parents and child cope is welcome. Reading the book will take you along for the ride.

The Giver

Jonas’ is a controlled and regimented society. Birth mothers produce children raised by Nurturers. The babies turn One in December and are assigned to a couple--one boy and one girl each--50 per year. At Eight a child’s comfort toy is taken from them. At Nine they are assigned a bicycle and at Twelve their life’s assignment. Anyone not conforming to societal norms is released. Although I realize this is a fictitious world the children seem severely genetically altered to mature in a rather accelerated manner--walking and talking in their first year of life, being selected for careers at 12. The horror of a world devoid of choice, of love and emotion where positive eugenics is the norm and euthanasia is given euphemistic innocuous terminology. As the receiver of memories Jonas becomes the vehicle by which we learn the menace that underlies this ordered society.

Dancing at the Rascal Fair

The title refers to the farmer’s market in the narrator Angus McCaskill’s home town in Scotland. This is book 2 of Doig’s Two Medicine Trilogy. We have jumped back several generations to the first McCaskill to immigrate from Scotland to Montana with a friend. The story begins in the hold of an steamship amid single males in the forward steerage compartment of the ship where they are packed in little better than cattle. We follow the pair across America by train, stage coach, and freighter wagon. What follows is the story of how two 19-year-olds who emigrated from Scotland homesteaded in Northern Montana and helped found a nation. Had I known this book should have come first. It will take longer to read than the book’s 373 pages would first suggest as a lot happens in these pages as they tell the decades of a community’s life. Ivan Doig’s turns of phrase will give you pause to stop and think, “What did he just say?”.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

This book 2 in the series is narrated and tells the story of Jick’s, of books 1 & 3, grandfather. It explains how the man Angus, fell in love with a woman who became the mother of Jick’s father’s wife by another man. Why that grandmother returned to Scotland when her husband died. Marrying your best friend’s sister leads to complications when that relationship and business partnership sours. All three books examine the often inharmonious relationships between fathers and sons.

A dissertation on farming.

My reading brings to mind the precarious nature of farm life. There is Davie, the young lad who gets thrown from his horse and dragged by a boot caught in the stirrups under the animal’s heels and survives to be maimed for life. Or Barclay who drowns with Angus’ old horse for similar reasons. The National Forest that gets imposed on the region restricting the sheep-herder’s grazing rights. [Think Brokeback Mountain and Annie Proulx.] The plus side being employment for Varick and a stop to the herds of cattle the local conglomerate was sneaking onto those grasslands. The hundreds of thousands of (home)steaders who settled on marginal land and were starved out when the drought years came. Read Steinbeck. The hot dry summers when grazing land was sparse and the following long cold deep winter when feed was scarce for sheep and cattle alike that died of starvation and exposure. The crash of prices when the War ended and the later depression years.

The Raven Boys

Made it fifty pages into this book before I bogged down. The writing style is reminiscent of a newspaper report and the author seems to lack any sense of tense for the verbs she uses making for reading discomfort. The subject matter is fantasy and ESP but the writing style serves to destroy the reader’s suspension of disbelief and therefore fails to draw one in .

Ride with me Mariah Montana

In book 3 of the Two Medicine Trilogy fifty years have passed. Jick has been married, divorced and Marcella, his second wife has died of cancer. Their farm is being run by a younger couple and Jick in his Winnebago is setting out on travels with his middle-aged newspaper photographer daughter and the reporter husband she divorced. We learn the details by means of Jick’s memory flashbacks. This is a good read but not as engaging as book one in the series.

Stranger at Sunset

This is a requested review of a freebie described as  a psychological mystery/thriller, not my normal genre. The book is well-edited often the bane of e-books that were OCR-scanned and/or self-published. From the elaborate descriptions of both men’s and women’s bodies and the mentions of sex the author’s usual concentration on writing erotica is apparent. The prologue has a voyeur see what appears to be a body drop from  a balcony into the sea but the voyeur with his binos is more interested in the fact that the woman on the balcony is naked. As the story unfolds the mystery seems to be who gets killed and who is walking around sans attire thinking her suite is private. Later the question becomes will she get away with it. There are a few awkward turns of phrase in this book but it is better written than most I’ve read lately. If you like the genre you should enjoy this read.

The Moon is Down

We’ve crossed the Atlantic and the action of this piece takes place in Europe in an unnamed country invaded by a superior opposing force. The novella is totally out of touch with the other short novels set among paisanos in Southern California. What it shows is the means a conquered people use to resist their captors. The culminating scene in which sticks of dynamite dropped bundled with bars of chocolate blow up rail lines and other key points while the town leaders are lined up to be shot figures in a famous movie.

The Red Pony

Steinbeck’s is no fairy tale world. His stories report the harsh realities of life where happily ever after rarely exists in the lives of his characters. Farm boys see hogs slaughtered, animals give birth, get sick and die. Discipline is harsh and obedience expected without question. There’s an episodic feel to this novel, the common theme of the vignettes being 10-year-old Jody’s discovery that adults are not perfect infallible beings. One is left wishing Steinbeck had written more.

The Pearl

A Steinbeck novella set among simple Mexican divers who seek for pearls while diving for oysters. A pearl is the oyster’s reaction to the discomfort caused by a grain of sand inside their shell. The peasant fishers react in similar fashion to the vicissitudes of their lives. When the young pearl fisher discovers a magnificent pearl all the powers that be seem poised to cheat and rob him of the rewards of his discovery. His greatest success becomes his greatest tragedy, one of Shakespearian proportions.

Tortilla Flat

The title seems a play on words a tortilla being Spanish flat bread the flats in question being the two houses Danny inherits from his grandfather. Danny is a paisano, a mongrel Spanish peasant of dubious parentage. There are no good guys here, ever it is a matter of the level of larceny. Money, should any of these characters acquire it burns a hole until it can be spent on alcohol, wine being the poison of choice. Anything not nailed down is fair game. Only the rich can afford a conscience. Steinbeck seems to have a unique sympathy for the mentality of the people about whom he writes. I would not call these people downtrodden for aside from their addictions they have chosen the lifestyle they lead and wouldn’t be happy living any other way.

English Creek by Ivan Doig

Ivan Doig writes in a homespun style that solidly places this work in time and space. Jick McCaskill lives in Montana of the Great Depression that there began in 1919 when the end of the war dropped the bottom out of farm and cattle markets. His father’s Forest Services job remains un-Hoovered but its wages cut. Jick marks the progress of time by the cinches he lets out a notch at a time on the stirrups as he grows tall in the saddle at 14. Or his his brother Alec affecting a neck hanky to mark himself as a cowboy--is your Adams apple cold his father asks. It’s turns of phrase such as these that endear one to this story telling.

Life is no fairy tale and the people we love best are often the most difficult to fathom. One of the most prickly being the relationship between fathers and sons. The story is narrated by and told from the point of view of young Jick who turned 15 in September of 1939. From my point of view the best book I’ve read this year.

Sweet Thursday

This book is truly a continuation of Cannery Row beginning twenty years after its predecessor which should be read first. Things have changed of course. Characters have died, matured, moved on but the essential institutions remain the same. The biggest impact on the neighbourhood is the store’s new owner. If you liked Cannery Row you’ll enjoy its sequel. The making of these books is Steinbeck’s cast of characters. From the storekeeper Joseph and Mary to whom a game in which it is impossible to cheat is an inconceivable idea, to Doc who is honest in all things, to the town constable who knows all and whose very presence helps keep the peace.

Sweet Thursday of the title refers to a particular Thursday in the storyline when matters come to a positive convergence. However actions planned with incomplete knowledge of the facts can and do lead to unpredictable results.

Tripwire Lee Child

A detective thriller. The bad guys a confidence man preying on the relatives of men Missing in Action and a loan shark who disappeared in a helicopter crash in Vietnam and was determine to stay disappeared. Periods of tedium interspersed with extreme violence. Supplies a great deal of  military and security detail. Reads well.

The Prince and the Pilgrim

Alexander is the orphaned nephew of the King of Cornwall who murdered his father. Alice’s Mother died in childbirth and her warrior father goes on pilgrimages for the sake of a severe war wound. Hence the prince and the pilgrim. So how do the two meet up and how does the son avenge his father. This is a side-plot to the story of Arthur and Merlin but a decent read for all that.

Cannery Row

Don’t know how I’ve missed reading this book all these years. It appears to be a series of vignettes of the characters in this coastal fishing and canning village. So far it has covered the local general store, a flop house, a brothel, and a biological station. The protection racket that has a group of homeless men ‘renting’ space from the Chinese Store owner speaks to the nature of the neighbourhood. For a lad who grew up in the farming country of the Salinas Valley the author seems to know a great deal about aquatic life. And so the book is not about fishing or fish processing but a collection of characters who live and work around a particular street corner on Cannery Row. The spiritual home of the area is of course the Palace Flophouse where the only important matter before most of the group is where the next drink is coming from. Work is only the means of attaining it and to be shunned otherwise.

Helmet for My Pillow

Just as David Kenyon Webster’s unpublished work formed the basis for his father’s Band of Brothers this memoir is the backbone of Hugh Ambrose’s The Pacific. Both became the mini-series produced by Spielberg and Hanks. Both writers were newspapermen in civilian life. Without any prologue the book begins with a description of the dehumanizing process of basic training which seems common to all such memoirs. Leckie’s style is so engaging it almost makes basic sound like fun, it contains little of the rancour that often populates such tomes. His background as a reporter shows in a spare fact-based approach devoid of excessive editorial comment that still manages to get his point across. He writes about doing time in the brig as if it were a point of honour. His descriptions of jungle surveillance are terrifying in their simplicity. All in all a great read.

The Son

Meyer’s style is off-hand, sarcastic, even dismissive. The scene is set in Texas where early settlers risked Indian Raids and Mexican Armies because the land was free and the soil rich. That the aborigines resisted the immigrant incursion into their lands should be no mystery, the way in which White Settlers treated their Mexican Neighbours sadly reflects the fact that little has changed over the centuries. As always there seems to be one law for the rich and powerful, but little justice for ordinary men. In a land where it takes many acres to support a single critter ranches are the size of small European Countries and cattle graze range that took centuries to grow. Oil is king and cattle are a losing proposition. The cowboy is a dying breed as horses on the range are replaced by gasoline engines on city streets. The open range is patrolled by aircraft. Horses become showpieces and entertainment rather than working animals. When Middle East Wells start producing up to 100,000 barrels of oil/day to 500 from a Texas well even oil falls into eclipse.

The passing of the Indian led inevitably to the passing of the cowboy way and the open range as the land became safe for a veritable flood of settlers who populated the land and civilized it forever. A land where a buckaroo slept under the stars by his fire with the howls of wolves in his ears was replaced by citified dandies who slept in subdivisions. Reading this book takes some attention to detail as it jumps from generation to generation in at least 5 time periods and family story arcs but it provides an excellent background history to modern day Texas.

The Wicked Day

As the book begins we have jumped back at least 10 years to the Orkney Islands and the small-holding where Mordred, Arthur’s illegitimate incestuous son is being raised in secret. As reward for their care the couple have the 10-year-old ripped from their home and they murdered that same night. The witch Queen Morgause had repaired to this remote Orkney stronghold after the death of her husband Lot--interesting symbolism there--with her three sons with number four still in her womb. Life in this palace is languid and unstructured but the restraints are definitely there. For Mordred integrating himself into this filial hierarchy is no mean feat. This tale is narrated by a third party.

Book 3 of the trilogy is the better of the lot but book 4 is by far the easiest read. About a quarter of the way through Book 4 the summons to Camelot which comes near the end of Book 3 catches up with the storyline here. Morgause’ sons remain intemperate and undisciplined to their doom. Mordred’s fate haunts both he and Arthur. If the results were not so deadly one could term these plot twists a comedy of errors.

The Last Enchantment Merlin "Trilogy"

As billed this continues to be the Merlin Trilogy told from the point of view of Merlin and most often in the first person. Arthurian Legend this may be but this series is about Merlin. Whether or not one believes in magic these books take its existence for granted. This is more fantasy than historical fiction or legend.

The Hollow Hills

Book two of the original trilogy follows directly upon the action in book one making it truly part 2 of a continuing storyline. Save that the setting is Wales and involves a character named Merlin Emrys and a King named Uther this historical romance bears little resemblance to any other Arthurian Legend I’ve ever read. The broad strokes are there but this series seems a prehistory as regards Arthur and attempts to elaborate on the particulars concerning Arthur’s conception and birth, a topic in the past shrouded in mystery in any book or movie I’ve encountered. It also attempts to explain the details of Merlin’s birth and childhood to a greater degree than I’ve seen before even in the recent 5-season TV Series Merlin.

As The Hollow Hills begins Merlin is wounded, exhausted, servantless, and ostracized. At least he gets to keep his head and the cave he has retired to in the past. The book ends with Arthur triumphantly declared king but even on the night of his triumph the seeds of his demise are planted by deceit.

The Crystal Cave

Historical Fiction can play loose with the facts even when the record is reasonably clear but in dealing with the stuff of myth such as Arthurian Legend, the scope for interpretation seems to be limitless. Many including the present writer prefer to treat on Merlin and his Druidic background. Merlin and even Uther seem to considered better fodder for fiction than the self-righteous Arthur and his idealistic utopian but ultimately flawed and failing Camelot.  Whether or not he possessed magical abilities the man was better educated than the majority of men of his age including his noble lords and mystical character is often assigned to that which is not understood. This author seems to see his prophesy as an epileptic aura.

The Alchemist

The shepherd boy at the centre of this tale is impossibly naive but possesses the flexibility of youth. The book is an easy read filled with liberal doses of New Age Philosophy.

Saints of the Shadow Bible

Book nineteen of the Rebus series of mysteries sees John back at work full time though now junior in rank to his former apprentice. Personally I retired permanently the first day I was entitled even though it was the middle of a pay period and caused the bean counters grief--I cried crocodile tears for them. In Canada the Bill of Rights makes it a crime to discriminate due to age so compulsory retirement is a no no unless incompetence can be shown. Rebus retired at the mandatory age of 60 but hired back on when that age was raised. Not much has changed in his life though in this book ancient skeletons long hidden in closets seem to be rattling their bones. Internal affairs are investigating a 30-year-old case. The storyline weaves the usual tangled web, the difference being that retired ex-cops are in the radar. Rebus obviously has no life outside work save for booze and his records. At home he plays vinyl. The Scottish vote for Devolution figures in the plot so the book is quite current.

Standing in Another Man's Grave

Ian Rankin, as popular crime fiction writers before him, failed to make Rebus’ retirement stick so he’s come out of retirement to work cold cases. As Rebus novels go this one is rather long. Rebus remains a chain-smoking alcoholic who prefers to work alone and keep his own counsel. In other words he doesn’t play well with others. The book is very readable being up to Rankin’s usual high standards. It is unrepentantly set in Scotland and uses Scottish place names, dialect, and customs along with the usual police jargon. This being Great Britain the head of police is the Chief Constable for example. Bacon and eggs is a fry-up. Many colloquialisms will leave readers on our side of the pond scratching our heads.

The Grass is Singing

I suppose it’s my own fault for not starting one book and sticking with it. This books starts with a rambling report of a murder on the veld then jumps to the story of a young lady and her rise to independence as an office worker. Until it dawned on me I was reading about the murder victim I was wondering, was I reading the same book. So, the book begins at the end and then backtracks to show us how we got there. Many of the books I’ve read lately jump from the present to the recent past, and then to the distant past passing back and forth in a stream of consciousness that often leaves the casual reader guessing where he is and when. Forgive me for wishing for a book that finds a starting point and works its way to a conclusion in consecutive order.

A successful office manager who enjoys social life and culture marries a failed farmer who is the butt of his neighbour’s jokes. Never having had to manage black workers she fails to grasp the relationship between she as employer and her native houseboys. Her parsimonious nature makes her a mean-spirited employer and her houseboys sullen stand-offish employees. She cannot keep a houseboy more than a month at a time. Her two-room home with attached kitchen has corrugated steel roof, white-washed walls, and animal-skin-covered hand-poured brick floors and lacks a ceiling. Located in a natural bowl it bakes hot and dusty in the dry veld. The husband whom she married after only meeting him twice cannot provide her with the luxuries to which she’s been accustomed and she proves to be a frigid sexual partner. The scene is set for dissatisfaction and unhappiness.

This is a couple headed for tragedy. The husband is wedded to his land and will do whatever is necessary to protect his farm. A successful year would give him the opportunity to make improvements to his home and the land. The wife dreams only of making good so they can get off the land she has come to despise. The fact that she is a better manager than her husband is no consolation but her relations with their black workers in the field and at home go only from bad to worse. The adjoining landowner is cynically awaiting his neighbour’s inevitable failure so he can use his land to pasture his cattle. Since the entire plot is given away in the initial chapter these can hardly be termed spoilers. The book is about the tragic descent of this couple into madness. It also documents a dark time in British Colonial History in the land then called Rhodesia.

Black laborers work only when their white boss is present to direct them and see that they are on the job. Otherwise they remain in their compound and get drunk on local brew. When the husband gets ill the farm is neglected. His wife has become so detached she allowed her chickens to die of lack of food and water. Mary’s failure to properly handle her black workers constitutes a threat to the order of things. It was considered dangerous to give ‘the Blacks’ ideas, that Blacks were in any sense equal to whites.

Farmer Boy

Being Wilder’s story of the childhood of her husband. Two things strike me in reading the opening chapters. The idea of the husky older farmboys beating up on the city-soft schoolmaster. And a renewed appreciation for the time-saving modern conveniences we take for granted today. For example, to have clothing one first raised the sheep and sheared them in spring after washing the wool on their backs. The wool was dyed  with locally obtained mordants after being carded into skeins which were then spun into yarn. The yarn was woven on a loom into cloth. A pattern of the appropriate style and size was laid on the cloth and it was cut and finally sewn into the appropriate clothing. Imagine a mother’s consternation at the speed at which a growing boy outgrew her hard work. Mittens, socks, scarves, sweaters, and such were hand knitted by lamplight in front of winter fires. Even hard-hewn lumbermen knit and darned their own socks. This was done by lamplight with no radio or TV to act as diversion. My grandmothers would have so laboured. This family is obviously extremely successful with resources probably not the norm, for example, in Laura Ingalls’ household.

No qualms here about child labour. If there is important work to be done on the farm there is no question about a child of nine staying home from school to work in the fields. So it was in my own Father’s day. Children were expected to earn their keep by doing chores morning and evening. Sunday might be a day of rest but the animals still had to be fed, cleaned out, and the cows milked twice a day every day without fail. And twenty-first century children accustomed to today’s permissive norms take note, a child was expected to be seen and not heard at all times including the dinner table, even fidgeting was forbidden. And discipline was iron.

The book is written from the point of view of the youngest child in a family of six. He chafes at being told he’s too young as do most babies of the family but he also idealizes his older brother and father and his boasts that theirs is the best anywhere get rather tiresome. This is not a Hardy Boys Adventure but as an artifact of its time it is priceless. In Canadian Literature Susannah Moodie and Catherine Parr Traill covered much the same territory but as spoiled upper class immigrants they did so in a most disparaging manner.

The Yellow Birds

“We hardly noticed a change when September came. But I know now that everything that will ever matter in my life began then.”

The military establishment has little care for the kind of men it puts through its meat grinder. Some are men of action who learn to do by doing and seek results with little thought for the implications of their deeds; others need to conceive of an activity before they can put it in motion and examine the motivations and the consequences of their actions. This is not a judgment call involving rights and wrongs, just a statement of fact. The present author is obviously one of the latter. The extremis of war has moved sensitive, thinking individuals to write poetry and prose about their war experiences for centuries. The elegiac prose this writer uses is in obscene contrast to the experiences he describes. America may have the largest, mightiest military machine the world has ever seen but its young men are paying a terrible price for that ascendancy.

Every person has to find his/her own means of dealing with Post Dramatic Stress. Some become addicted to the hyper-sensitivity of the environment and re-up finding themselves dead inside and unfeeling without it. Some go into denial and their demons manifest in often violent unpredictable ways. And some find release by writing about it as a means of working through their nightmarish inner tensions as a growing mountain of books will attest. That a war experience should provide the defining moment of a person’s life....?

A yellow bird
witha yellow bill
sat up upon
my windowsill
i lured him in
with a piece of bread
and then i smashed
his yellow head

I believe this version has been cleaned up for public consumption.

The sensation of combat is described as that feeling you get when you know you’re about to be in a car accident but you haven’t hit yet, only it lasts for hours and days at a time. Returning home is quite another matter. Dreaming of lost buddies. Waking and reaching for your weapon that isn’t there. Hyper vigilance, always scoping your surroundings looking for ambush and assessing where to find cover. Startling at every little noise.

The lassitude and depression settles in. How do you define insanity in a world insane? This is not a book for the squeamish and will not leave you feeling better for having read it as the author retires to his isolated cabin in the Blue Ridge at age 34.

The Smoke Jumper

Of interest because I’ve read at least two other books about smoke jumpers and in the wake of the deaths of the  elite squad of 19 in Arizona in 2013. Nicholas Evans is a British writer famous for The Horse Whisperer. Not as husky as the American Nicholas Sparks who churns out similar tomes. It’s a relief to read a romance novel that doesn’t have the picture of a scantily clad male model splattered across its cover and to have to read about how narrow his hips and waist or how broad his shoulders. These typical idealized male images are about as realistic as the proportions of a Barbie Doll. Male authors tend to have a more realistic approach to the male physique and tend on average to spend less time writing detailed descriptions. Not that anyone is going to mistake this for great literature, just a decent mindless summer’s read.

It takes 560 pages for the star-crossed lovers at the centre of this tale to attain sexual congress even though his donated seed had previously fathered her only child. If you possess a similar fortitude then this should be a worthwhile read. The story is about the journey, not the happily ever after and for once it’s a relief not to read page upon page of bedroom gymnastics. Fire-fighting is only a small segment of the entire tale.

The Bridges of Madison County

Never a good idea to read the book after you’ve seen the movie, they’re too different media and script writers alter books to bring the story to the big screen. This is a work of fiction, no photographer named Robert Kincaid ever worked for National Geographic. Why did the author feel the story’s fundamental conceit need be predicated on a falsehood? The bridges and the countryside are very real, I’ve seen them personally. The home used in the movie was deliberately burned as was the bridge where the two met. Movies show, books tell so here we follow Kincaid on his drive from Bellingham, Washington and learn about the man who shows up at an Iowa farmhouse.

The problem with having seen the movie version means it’s almost impossible to think of these characters without picturing Eastwood/Streep. Due to product placement we don’t get to see a Levis label tightly clinging to a male butt on screen. The book contains extras that didn’t make it to screen including the text of Kincaid’s letter to Francesca. As I’ve said it’s hard to think of the characters without picturing the movie version. Interesting that the author gave him his name Robert. This was an eternal love affair that couldn’t be.

Not a great read but one for the romantic in most of us.

The Clearing, Dan Newman

I may sound like a broken record but I wish writers edited their texts or had someone who knows what they’re doing do so. This story jumps from the narrator’s past as a child on the Caribbean Island of St Lucia to his adult self’s recent past in the US to the present in which he has returned to his ghosts on the Island. The story begins with 3 boys looking at the body of a fourth lying by a body of water. It jumps to the death of the narrator’s own son and then has him return to the island to rehash ghosts of the past. The story jumps in nightmare fashion from the past to the present seeming to grudgingly give up its details. The story draws on the influence of rich island families, local voodoo, and superstition. The author keeps the reader in the dark as to the exact details of the murder at the centre of this story until the very end.

Life of Pi

I bought a copy of Yann Martel's Life of Pi when it came out in 2001 and Self 1996 but will confess I got around to reading neither. Suppose I like to support Canadian writers. It took, it seems the production of this movie to garner the author enough attention to gain him a Booker Prize in 2012. Funny, I just finished reading about Lachlan MacQuarry, Viceroy to Australia who earlier served in Pondicherry, India. As the movie says, an Indian from the French part of India living in an Indian section of Montreal, Quebec.

Before I watch this DVD a second time I should read the book. There’s a lot happening here and since only one of the principal characters has the power of speech a great deal of the dialogue is stream of consciousness in Pi’s mind. The overall effect is somewhat overwhelming however the book is excellent reading.

The book begins with two joint themes: the origin of Pi’s name and the philosophy of zoo keeping. Children can be cruel and parents do their children a disservice when they saddle them with odd-sounding names. Pi was named for his Uncle's favourite public pool in Paris a word that phonetically sounds like "Pissing". There are countries that now refuse to register controversial or unusual children's names, but our subject had no such luck. We tend to anthropomorphize animals and romanticize their desire to be free. Animals can be treated cruelly but arguments over whether captivity in a well-run zoo is inhumane continue to this day. Would the animal, given its ability to choose, rather live in the wild or in captivity and is their return to their cages a conditioned response? Certainly most animals live much longer in captivity than they would in the wild due to the care of zoo vets, lack of parasites, and regular proper nutrition.

The book moves on to describe his inquiries into religion. Pi sees no conflict in being actively involved in at least 4 distinct religious observances simultaneously. As his brother says, (Hindu) Temple on Thursday, Mosque on Friday, Synagogue on Saturday, Church on Sunday; three more and you could be on vacation the rest of your life. He requests baptism and a prayer rug. Whereas Hinduism has millions of God’s, the others believe in One God so Pi reasons in going to different holy places he is worshipping the same God. The altercation that occurs when three of his mentors meet Pi and his family in Chapter 24 is hilarious.

As an aside billions of people give no second thought to the fact that they keep a former wolf in their home, the domesticated dog. The dog retains its canine habits adopting its human family as its pack and their home as its territory. We do object to its flagging its indoor territory with scent markers but every dog walker can testify to the fact that they mark it out of doors. I would argue that keeping a large dog in a small city apartment, with little opportunity to run free, is inhumane and many dogs suffer stress because of it. On the other hand the animals in a zoo may become sensitized to the presence of humans in close proximity but remain savage, undomesticated creatures of the wild. Whether a cat is ever truly domesticated is open for debate.

Part 2 jumps over the sinking of Pi’s ship to his life drifting in a lifeboat on the Pacific Ocean. From the Malay Peninsula to Mexico the Pacific is 11,000 miles wide. A drifting lifeboat should make it in just over 2 years, we know that Bligh and his men did make it after the Bounty Mutiny near Figi.

The second half of the book became tedious for me so I put it down for months. Read the last 100 pages in two sittings. Pi’s conversations with the two Japanese investigators make a sick and recovering boy sound acutely intelligent and just a little flippant. One can believe they had trouble buying his story. Interesting interpretation of his second story. And there the book ends.

February

Lisa More’s February follows the life of one of the families who lost husbands, fathers, and sons in the sinking of the Ocean Ranger on February 15, 1982 on Hibernia Oil Fields of the Grand Banks amid winds of 120 mph in nearly 500 ft of water. At the time the largest semi-submersible Oil Drilling Platform afloat it went down due to weather, design deficiencies, and lack of crew training. Rescue drills are boring and companies prefer to train employees on the job rather than send them to class so they can get productive work out of them while they learn. When the loss of an unbreakable window resulted in the flooding of a ballast control room its control panel was shorted and the fact that no one knew how to operate the system manually resulted in a list that caused the vessel’s rapid sinking. With 65-ft waves rescue vessels lacked equipment to pick up survivors in the water or in life rafts. In Mid-February the men rapidly succumbed to hypothermia and drowning. For the record Valentines Day was a Sunday that year. To this day helicopter service to these platforms remains an issue and a recent story reported that rafts designed to hold 60 men defined a man as 160 pounds. What six foot two inch man is that kind of bone rack? So why do men work on these rigs? The pay.

Work on these rigs was and is a young man’s game. Twenty-five-year-olds still feel themselves immortal. They work their shifts, they come ashore, they carouse, they plant their seed, and they return to the rig. Disasters resulting in loss of many lives are nothing new in Newfoundland. On Canada Day, July 1st Flags hang at half mast marking the destruction of the Newfoundland Regiment at Beaumont Hammel in 1916. Numerous sealing disasters on the ice and ships sunk in the stormy shallow waters of the Grand Banks without a trace have resulted in multiple losses of life. Arrow Air Flight 1285 that claimed the lives of 285 American Soldiers at Gander in December 1985 after a refueling stop-over.

But can you imagine getting your husband’s Valentines Card the day you go to claim his body. Or giving birth to his child after his death. Waiting the indeterminable time without financial support for a settlement from his employer and then dealing with that lump sum payment. The nightmares and juvenile delinquency his fatherless children suffer. Waking daily to the growing awareness that this time he will never return. Dealing with all the quotidian minutia of life without a husband’s support. Getting on with your life despite your grief.

If you missed all the hoopla surrounding the book’s Canada Reads 2013 win it explores the events as they affected a single family at the time; in memory the courtship, marriage, and life together of husband and wife; and the lives of his parents, the wife, and their children in the decades following. Once you start reading this book it is almost impossible to put down. As a non-smoker I had a laugh when a water sprinkler comes on when Lillian tries to sneak a smoke in the washroom on the bus.

Paper Moon

The title is derived from a WW#2 Song that crops up frequently in the story. Similar in theme to the Boy I Loved but not specifically a sequel introducing new characters. Bobby is impossibly handsome and knows it, guys and girls mooning over him, a photographer paying him to play model and fans snapping up his photos. What happens when he is hideously disfigured in a plane crash and can’t bear to look at his own reflection in a mirror or bear the stares of those around him. With the best of intentions we hurt the people we love most. Once more I wish someone had done some closer editing but it’s an okay read.

The Fall of the Year

Howard Frank Mosher’s The Fall of the Year is more a series of vignettes than a conventional novel but it captures a snapshot of tiny Kingdom Common amid the Green Mountains of Northern Vermont near the Quebec Border of Canada. The narrator Frank has come home to spend the summer with his uncle and adopted Father, George the parish priest who coaches the local baseball team, hunts and fishes. Little Quebec and Irishtown in cruder hands would seem caricatures. Filled with the odd characters that inhabit any backwoods community, they are lovingly portrayed as accepted members of society. There’s even room for a riff on Romeo and Juliette. The book even gave me opportunity for a rip roaring belly laugh. I’ve owned this book for 15 years, how is it I’ve waited so long to read it!

Bring Up the Bodies

As the blacksmith's son rises to power he is constantly reminded that though he may presently enjoy the King's favour he is not noble borne and those that are though they may submit to his judgments while that favour lasts, petty jealousies have them sharpening their knives for the day it ceases. Those who fall out of the King's favour do not usually live to write their memoirs and foreshadowings of that end show up in this volume. As book 2 draws to its close wife number 2 heads to The Tower and number 3 comes to prominence.

In this second novel of the series Mantel is more precise in indicating who is talking. Court as depicted feels like a snake-pit of conflicting interests, petty jealousies, and gossip. One is left to wonder, is this any way to run a country? Given the constant crowd of hangers-on surrounding Henry the lack of privacy and a desire to get away from it all would drive an ordinary mortal to distraction. Does a courtier literally wipe his ass? Through it all Cromwell is a constant of efficiency and order. However Harry may have valued his abilities lesser men envied his position and felt slighted that a man of such low birth enjoyed such power.

The King is depicted as willful, self-indulgent, prideful, and moody. One is left with the nagging suspicion that the man who went through 6 wives in search of a male heir may have been impotent. Did his wives commit adultery as a means of conceiving? No spoilers here as the historical facts are not in question. The book comes off as a work of fiction because the detail it provides is conjecture, Samuel Pepys was not around to record the minutia of these people's lives. There are times this reads like a Russian Novel characters referred to severally by their given names, their noble titles, their nick names, their offices, their church positions, their landed seats.

The final hundred pages read like an inquisition and as the author has Cromwell relate to a minion the process is not about finding truth, justice, or guilt; but finding appropriate guilty parties and settling old scores.

Take Me With You

Once in a blue moon one encounters a book that just demands to be read and for me this was such a book. The storyline involves Alcoholism, coming of age, grieving the death of a child, and camping in an RV. The description of scenes from Joshua Tree, Zion, Arches, Canyonlands brought back memories and the other parks a desire to see new lands. With all the grammar and spell-checking software available today I’m mystified as to why so many errors still evade publishers and authors but this volume is better than most. Highly recommended. Kudos to Goodreads for directing me to this book.

Jet (I)

Maya was an orphan neglected and serially abused. Possessed of a great mind and gifted with stunning genetic beauty and athleticism she was recruited by Mossad during her 2-year compulsory service in the Israeli military. In a secret service she is recruited to an elite force so secret it has no name. These agents have no identity, no family outside the service, no moral compass, no life. This begs the question, what distinguishes them from the terrorists they supposedly fight. You fight your way into this service through hard work, no one leaves it alive. Hyper-vigilance, trusting no one, and the need to constantly hone one’s skills and be on one’s guard will follow one for the rest of one’s life, or it will be a short life.

The book begins with a bang as Maya is attacked by three men one with a garrot, another with a custom-made silencer, and a third who failed to make it through the door. She doesn’t wait around to find if there are more but there are. The story is filled with brutal violence involving a woman. Think Ziva on NCIS. It reads like one of those ultra-violent video games. A hard-luck case from early childhood her fortunes do not improve, terminating with extreme prejudice seems to be the only thing she’s really good at.

Well edited and readable with a storyline with enough action to carry you along if you don’t mind the violence a decent read.

Jet: Ops Files

A black ops action adventure, this being the prequel to an entire series of novels. Since it is obvious that there is no series without the chief protagonist much of the tension is relieved leaving only the question of how she manages to pull herself out of each successive scrape. Well edited and matter of fact in its approach like its heroine the action proceeds apace. We are left in no doubt as to who the bad guys are, matters are rather black and white. Not great literature but an acceptable means of passing a bit of time.

Paper Towns

Read this book to see what else the writer of The Fault in Our Stars had written. The book starts out well but somehow begins to drag in the middle. The last section becomes an extended road trip. I’m afraid I finished it just so I could say I did so. The over-arching theme is our perception of ourselves and others. There’s the way we see another, the persona they attempt to project, the way they see themselves, and the true persona that even the individual himself may fail to recognize. The way we see ourselves often differs from the way others see us.

Shane

by Jack Schaefer

A book written in the year of my birth it epitomizes the ethos of the legendary wild west gunfighter, who having once established his reputation found it impossible to escape it. And so a man named only Shane rides into the life of a pioneering farm family in cattle country, a land where fences and barbed wire were fighting words and open range reigned supreme. Shane is lean and rock hard, ever vigilant with a haunted, hunted look in his eyes. We get the sense of a coiled spring ready to jump into action instantly at need. There is deep irony in seeing such a man wield an ax, till the soil, or mend fence but he does it with grace and absolute economy of motion, no effort wasted. When the inevitable confrontation comes our hero reluctantly proves himself equally adept with his fists as he is fast with the draw. But when he can barely keep his feet after beating down a gang of tough cowhands he is described as being carried out of the bar like a child. He rides off into the sunset gut-shot with what was probably a fatal wound but legends can never die. Several movie versions of the book have been made but you owe it to yourself to read the original.

Dangerous

By Suzannah Daniels

Dangerous has two principal characters: Stone, the hard-bodied motorcycle riding loner who just happens to work with Tom at a bookstore and Dara, the pretty socialite who lives with her Grandma, drives her granny’s old clunker and comes to work at the same store to earn money to buy a car of her own. The sexual tension between the two is palpable. The book is written in the first person alternately from each character’s point of view. Will opposites attract and will the bad boy who exudes sexual charisma get the good girl with the good looks and grades, does he even want to.

Stone had a twin named Luke who died in an accident he doesn’t want to talk about. We get the impression that he was somehow responsible. Can he work through his anger and grief to learn to love and commit to someone else? Although the storyline is generally predictable it still manages to throw us a few curves. This is definitely a teenage romance novel but somehow it manages to be more than that.

The Fault in Our Stars

John Green it seems is a wildly popular young adult writer also famous for a video blog shared with his brother and the world on you-Tube. The book in question is written from the point of view of a girl dying of cancer who meets a tall handsome young cancer survivor at a support group with whom it is mutual love at first sight. Both are wildly articulate as were Judd Apatow’s characters or Kevin Williamson’s on Dawson’s Creek. Call them old souls or old beyond their years. What sets this book and the movies apart is the fact that the teens in question frankly share the emotions and urges common to people their age. Boys see a pretty girl, their bodies react, and they describe their urges--that does not mean they intend to immediately jump her bones. Is it sinful to think they’d like to? I’m no teenager with raging hormones, in fact the fewer the better for my prostate, but the book is well-written and edited, and eminently readable.

Interesting that the producers found a young pair who epitomized the characters described in the book who additionally shared what is called chemistry and the movie version is topping the charts over the usual crop of action-adventure summer blockbusters--eat your heart out Tom Cruise. What sets both book and movie apart from the usual disease of the week flick is the fact that it’s about living not dying. Not every young male would feel secure enough in his masculinity to allow a girl drive his car when he takes her home because his prosthetic leg makes his driving erratic. It will be interesting to see if this made it to the movie. Given that I began writing this on Father’s Day I would also give a plug to the parents who raised these two.

Cancer victims aren’t given a choice in the matter of hanging tough. It’s either succumb to negativity and expire quickly or fight. It isn’t as if one can get conscientious objector status or be a coward and desert the fight. The title comes from a Shakesperean Sonnet. A lot of the philosophy comes from a ficticious book from a nonexistent authour. Will the trip to Holland make the movie? Since this is a young adult novel we are spared detailed descriptions of the pair’s love-making. What we can’t be spared is the inevitable ending. All people die, young people with cancer die young.

Boys For Sale

If I use the proper terms to describe the activities that go on in this book Amazon may not want to publish my review but I got the book from Amazon. The ‘action’ takes place in an unnamed city which would appear to be in South-East Asia which seems to be a destination of choice for Sexual Tourism. Boys are bought or kidnapped and sold as sex slaves for pedophiles who indulge in voyeurism, fondling, fellatio, and sodomy. The boys are imprisoned, drugged, abused, beaten, injured, and even murdered. I’m of two minds about the ethics of writing a book such as this one. Yes we should be made aware that two million children are bought and sold daily by sexual predators but I’d also be concerned that those same individuals would get off on reading the descriptions supplied here. Not for the faint of heart or those with delicate sensibilities. One wonders where the author got his information. For once a book that is well edited. 

Ganges Boy

After reading tales such as this one all I can say is that my soul revolts against the kind of abuse meted out against military recruits of all kinds, in this case teen-aged naval recruits. The idea of having to climb a 142-ft mast is something I don’t even want to think of. The randomness that matched a slender boy with a burly heavily-muscled brute as a boxing partner, fairness never enters the equation. Mess call was the only truly positive part of this recruit’s day. Once more I repeat that military discipline and me are polar opposites. The book could use some editing but it does follow its own logic, Naval Logic it seems.

Superbia

by Bernard Schaffer

Some men see psychiatrists, some take up martial arts, some lift weights or punch bags, and some write. Everyone finds a means of venting their demons or they’ll explode. This author apparently works in law enforcement. The book has an abrupt ending and the storyline is unfinished because there are indeed volumes 2 and 3 in the series. The writing style is straight forward and refreshingly well-edited for a change. This police procedural will carry you along but be warned the details can be graphic and squalid. The writer does not paint police in a particularly positive light. It will leave the reader wondering just where the dividing line between the good guys and the bad guys lies.

Allen Ginsberg: Selected Poems

If you’ve heard Howl, the long-form poem that made him famous you get the idea. Kaddish assigned to Naomi Ginsberg, his mad Mother, seems only appropriate in its convoluted wanderings to the madcap woman to whom it is dedicated. ECT, Insulin Shock Treatment, and Lobotomies were all performed in her day. Passing an electric current via electrodes through the brain to cause an epileptic like seizure seems barbaric but is still done in modified form today because as a last ditch solution for extreme depression it works. Decreasing the brain’s higher functions via lobotomy is no longer practised nor is inducing insulin coma, a procedure also used on Mrs Ginsberg. The fact that his mother was severely paranoid would seem to have had a lasting effect on Allen. I can’t imagine what it was like to have a person you loved react in this way.  More than a few of these poems give one the impression that the writer was high on one mind-altering drug or another. Attempting to make sense or dissect many of these wandering lines would tend to render the reader more than a little mad as well.

To say that Ginsberg is a dirty old man begs the question. Many of these poems are homoerotic in the extreme. A couple decades ago I decided I wanted to learn about the beat poets. Having read most of them I’m no closer to a definition of what that is. Most seem to have been gay and were active in the Vietnam War era inveighing against that involvement. There’s an environmental component but most seem to be more consumers than protectionist. In the second half of this collection the poems start having a rhyme scheme and are set to music which is supplied. No I haven’t tried to sing them.

Bad Apple 1:Sweet Cider

What can I say? Like so many e-Books I've read lately this one could use
more careful editing. A girl named Neal lives in an extremely
dysfunctional family. The book begins with the murder of the most
significant person in her young life. All these negative vibes are
relieved somewhat when she comes into the embrace of a caring loving
family but the lass has been raised to expect negation at every turn.
This freebee is a teaser for the books to follow in this series. The
book is highly readable if predictable but leaves the reader feeling
rather unsettled. The title comes from Aunt Mabel's cider press.

Girls Love Travis Walker

Nineteen-year-old Travis has that charm that women find irresistible but
sexy isn't everything; his father's a jailed felon, his mother a
deadbeat, and they're about to be evicted from their crummy apartment.
Work is messing with his schooling. Travis is an amoral love 'em and
leave 'em kind of guy who suddenly becomes rather confused when he meets
a gal who can resist his charms. But the past has a habit of catching up
with one. How does he persuade this gal he wants more than a roll in the
hay with her? In the meantime he needs to finish school and find a
permanent job before he faces life on the street.

I keep reminding myself that this book was written by a woman. There is
a great deal more here than a high school romance. My only complaint is
that the storyline wraps up in a supposed happy ending all too quickly
and easily. Life isn't that simple and generally doesn't come with
fairytale endings.

The Boy I love

Set among working-class people in the English Midlands in the wake of
WW#1 there is only one woman in this love quadrangle. Paul, blinded in
one eye left medical school to go to war. After returning he marries his
dead brother Robbie's betrothed pregnant with his brother's child and
daughter of the local Anglican Priest. Child of the town doctor whose
wife died giving him birth Paul has had a life-long closeted
relationship with Adam and is being stalked by the local butcher Phil
who returned from war to take over the family business after his parents
died in a car accident. Phil has an identical twin brother Mick
invalided to a wheel chair by the war whom he cares for and a
counter-girl Hetty who has designs on him. Who knew so much intrigue lay
under the surface of sleepy little town?

Call the above spoilers or necessary background it is the execution that
makes this book worth reading. If good writers could bottle the formula
that makes for good writing and dialogue they'd make a fortune. Not only
does the book engage the reader from the opening pages but the editing
is excellent as well. The free preview is far more generous than most so
try it and you'll be hooked as well especially at the price. Alas, the
story drags somewhat in the middle. This is book one of a trilogy. The
Boy I Love is a song one of the men in the trenches sang.

The Graveyard Book

A book only Neil Gaiman could have written. Think Harry Potter, a boy
who survived the annihilation of the rest of his family is given into
the care of the ghosts in a graveyard. Not as ghoulish in the execution
as it first sounds. Still it is a tale that could only have come from
the pen of Gaiman who remains one of the most original fantasy writers
of our age.

Never Say Die

Nick Thrasher is the product of his Mother's dalliance with a white
Southerner but he identifies with his inuvialuit Grandfather Jonah. The
main action of the book occurs when Nick goes rafting down the Firth
River in Northern Canada with his older half-brother Ryan Powers, a
Nature Photographer for National Geographic. This is a short easy
action-packed read aimed at young-adult readers that packs an
environmental message.

In Too Deep

By Kathryn Shay

In Too Deep is an extremely popular book title. The Romance Genre is a major employer of hunky models though most wear far fewer clothes. No word on whether this one actually fights fires or just lights them.

A pair of fire-fighters trapped in an enclosed space and running out of oxygen do the deed. He’s her captain. After all that hot action the rest of the novella is about what happens after their rescue.

A very different type of fire story from Larry Brown’s On Fire and not just because this one is written by a woman who is not a fireman.

Fearless

Coming of Age, Coming Out, Gay Romance has become a genre so littered with poorly written semi-biographical prose it has become a mine-field of angst and tortured emotion. Finding an entry into this genre that is original and well-done is refreshing. Yes the storyline is totally predictable and telegraphs every plot twist but the characters come alive on the page--well tablet screen--so vividly one doesn't mind; this is not a murder mystery. The authour evokes the high school experience with such realism I felt like a teenager again. The way the book ends it seems to be setting one up to buy a sequel.

On Fire

 

 

Larry Brown’s novels are salt of the earth tales of the common man written with great sympathy and care for his subjects and remarkable realism. In writing about himself he is no less candid revealing a red-necked good ole boy who smokes, drinks and drives, and keeps his wife waiting while he goes out with the boys. He enjoys hunting and fishing and appears to have a careless accident prone streak. As a fireman he is equally dismissive of the dumb things people do and laughs at the discomfort of a facilities manager who sees him smash $1500 windows to ventilate a fire. Fireman in their gung ho desire to knock down a fire have been known to cause more damage than the fire itself.

This is a memoir for Larry Brown aficionados. It is by no means great literature. Episodic and disjointed in nature it jumps from personal details and opinions to biographical vignettes to fire tales in no organized order.