Book Review – I Am Rome by Santiago Posteguillo

The recent English translation of Santiago Posteguilllo’s novel I Am Rome is another instance where the description caught my attention and had me imagining the novel would be one thing but then it turned out to be something a bit different – still enjoyable but a very different shape to what I’d been expecting. While the heart of the novel is very much the trial that helped jump-start the career of Julius Caesar, the structure that is used to lay that story out delved so much deeper and further back in not just Caesar’s personal history but the history of Rome and its empire and politics. The jumping back and forth took some getting used to and made it difficult at times to keep details of the trial straight (especially through the first half of the novel), but in the end it was those extended flashbacks that I enjoyed more than the drama of the trial which succeeded in being infuriating and frustrating (perhaps even more than intended) given that corruption is one of the key charges.

Rome has long been ruled primarily by a powerful and corrupt group called the optimates, though they’ve often faced significant opposition by another party, the populares. But as Julius Caesar came of age, the pendulum had swung heavily in favor of the optimates and the populares were nearly wiped out after the death of Caesar’s uncle – the military hero Gaius Marius. The balance of power has swung so far towards the optimates that one of the late dictator Sulla’s most loyal supporters, Dolabella is sure to be completely cleared of the heinous he committed while acting as governor of Macedonia (crimes that include rape, desecration of the local temple to Aphrodite, and levying taxes that went solely to lining his own pockets). Julius Caesar pushes to become the prosecutor at Dolabella’s trial, even if it means making enemies of those in power. After all, it isn’t the first time he’s stood by his principles in the face of their tyranny and it won’t be the last. He doesn’t just want to make his name with this case – he hopes to uphold the legacy of his uncle who taught him so much about who, when, and how to fight.

Book Preview – The Wind Knows My Name by Isabel Allende

In the last few years, I’ve been working on catching myself up on Isabel Allende’s existing catalogue in between releases of the English translations of her newer titles. The translation of her novel, The Wind Knows My Name will be released soon and as with so many of her novels, it explores the long-lasting effects of trauma and how it shapes the people we become – in this case, drawing parallels between the humanitarian crisis of Jewish refugees in the early days of the Holocaust and the migrant crisis at the US/Mexico border in recent years (compounded by the Covid-19 pandemic). Of her other novels that I’ve read so far, I’d have to say it put me most in mind of In the Midst of Winter and the more I reflect on the two books, the more parallels I see but in that way that I used to love teasing out in my college lit courses – examining how a writer returns to the same/similar themes and explores them in different ways over time.

As a five-year-old, Samuel Adler’s mother sent him to the UK as part of the Kindertransport to get him safely away from Austria after Kristallnacht. About 80 years later, Anita’s mother brought her to the US/Mexico border to help them escape from a man who tried to kill her only for US immigration agents to separate them as they sought asylum leaving the young girl at the mercy of an over-worked, underfunded and too often unsympathetic system. Ultimately, a series of women who have persevered in the face of trauma and adversity bring the two together, refusing to let broken and corrupt systems prevent them from helping those most in need of care and understanding.

Book Review – Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel

Since I first read One Hundred Years of Solitude back in high school, magical realism has been one of my favorite genres. There’s something about the dream-like sense to it all that my imagination latches on to. When I grabbed a copy of Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate at the annual library book sale, I didn’t really know anything about it except that it had been on my long “read at some point” list and I’ve been trying to read more books by Hispanic and Latinx authors. As soon as I realized it fell into the magical realism genre, I dove in. An exploration of family, obligation, desire, and food, Like Water for Chocolate was captivating.

Tita De la Garza is the youngest daughter in her family and, as such, her fate is to never marry so she can take care of her mother, Mama Elena into her old age. Except when Tita is sixteen, she falls in love with Pedro. Already a frequent target for her mother’s ire, Tita’s desire to marry Pedro is brushed aside and Mama Elena instead suggests the young man marry Tita’s older sister, Rosaura. Knowing that Tita will never be allowed to marry, Pedro agrees to marry Rosaura, understanding that doing so will at least mean living under the same roof as Tita… but that also means they’ll be under Mama Elena’s watchful and vindictive eye. Raised in the kitchen and having learned all of the family’s traditional recipes, Tita puts her emotions into the dishes she cooks and, for better or worse, those emotions sometimes spill over into those who consume them.

Book Review – In the Midst of Winter by Isabel Allende

Over the past year, Isabel Allende has become a favorite writer and I’m in the happy position of still having barely scratched the surface of her existing body of work. Completely unintentionally, I have started with the three most recent novels she’s published. I grabbed In the Midst of Winter off my TBR bookcase to start on the lengthy car ride for vacation a few weeks back. I’m not gonna lie – I mostly grabbed it because the present timeline of the novel takes place during a blizzard and I just wanted to read about the cold to help get me through the heat of summer (think cooling thoughts and all that). I wasn’t sure what to expect from the innocuous description on the back but it certainly wasn’t what had me sitting up straighter in the back of the car about a third of the way through the book. In just a few pages, the story as I understood it was flipped on its head and I was enthralled as the narratives of the characters’ backstories continued to weave together and shape their reactions and decisions in the face of the unexpected.

Richard’s day is off to a bad start when one of his cats needs medical attention in the midst of a massive snow storm. It gets worse when he accidentally rear-ends a young woman who doesn’t speak English. He gives her his card so she can get his insurance information later and he thinks that’s the end of it. Except the young woman shows up on his doorstep later that night, beside herself and he doesn’t know what to do. Calling on his colleague and tenant, Lucia, the two learn that the young woman, Evelyn is undocumented and she’s terrified the accident will lead to her being returned to Guatemala. Refugee status happens to be something Lucia knows about personally, having escaped Chile in the 1970s. The three begin sharing their tragedies with one another, bonding and building an understanding as they work through the predicament unexpectedly threatening Evelyn’s safety.

Book Preview – The Last Crown by Elżbieta Cherezińska

After finishing The Widow Queen last year, I was anxiously waiting for an announcement of the release date for the English translation of the second novel in Elżbieta Cherezińska’s duology, The Last Crown. Every few weeks I checked NetGalley to see if a preview copy had shown up so I could be one of the first to request it. Since reading The Widow Queen, I had looked at the histories of a few of the historic figures to get a sense of the general timeline of events and to note where the gaps were, where Cherezińska was using more or less artistic license. And finally, about a month or so ago, it showed up with a release date in the fall and I was able to secure a preview copy. As with The Widow Queen, I found myself quickly swept up in the characters, their relationships, and the ways they fought (often with each other) to shape their world.

Betrayal abounds as The Last Crown picks up right where The Widow Queen left off. Olav, jealous over Świętosława having married Sven of Denmark instead of him, gets a degree of revenge by marrying Sven’s sister, Tyra, incurring the wrath of both. But Olav had help from Świętosława’s own family in making the arrangements. Sven bides his time, plotting a war against Olav while Świętosława’s wrath cools and she remembers her feelings for Olav. When Sven declares his intentions for defeating Olav once and for all, Świętosława is ready with plans of her own. The overlapping betrayals set in motion rifts that will last for decades as a new generation grows up and learns the machinations of conquering and ruling ever-growing empires.

Book Preview – Violeta by Isabel Allende

Since I finished reading A Long Petal of the Sea a few months back, I’ve added a number of Isabel Allende’s books to my reading list. Then I started seeing ads and giveaways for her newest novel, Violeta, all over the place and managed to get myself a preview copy. It’s only the second of her novels that I’ve read but everything I’ve read so far only makes me want to read more. In Violeta as with A Long Petal of the Sea, she captures the upheavals of life in 20th century South America in a thoroughly personal and accessible way, looking at families built from circumstance and necessity as well as the ties of blood and tradition.

Born during one pandemic and dying in another a century later, Violeta Del Valle has decided to write down her life’s story so that her beloved Camilo will once and for all have the whole story – including the messier parts that she had hidden or glossed over in various tellings over the years. And so, Violeta unfolds the story of her life and the ways that it intersects with and mirrors the highs and lows of her unnamed South American homeland across the 20th century in the wake of World War II and as the nations of the continent became pawns to the major players in the Cold War. From financial ruin in her early childhood to a lucky prosperity throughout her adulthood, from a busy life in various cities to the peace of the rural countryside, Violeta spends a lifetime learning what to appreciate and how best to do so making many mistakes along the way and trying to atone for her regrets in her later years. With the wisdom of years and lessened pain of distance, she is better able to acknowledge where and how she hurt others and where she did a disservice to herself (as well as which “sins” she’ll never regret).

Book Review – A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende

For a while now, I’ve been meaning to read more books by Hispanic and Latinx authors and Isabel Allende is one of the writers that seemed like a solid place to start. The description for A Long Petal of the Sea, starting with the Spanish Civil War and then moving to Chile also felt like a comfortable place to start since I have a basic familiarity with the Spanish Civil War. Of course, there’s always a risk when reading something that’s been translated. With a writer as prominent as Allende, I figured the quality of the translation would be good and that was thankfully the case here. Even in translation, there is a poetic quality to the writing that clearly has its roots in the original text (though translators Nick Caistor and Amanda Hopkinson certainly deserve a lot of credit for their work).

It’s during the Spanish Civil War that Victor Dalmau really finds his calling – medicine, specifically, cardiology and surgery. Working with a medical unit for the Republican army, he gains a lot of firsthand experience that he hopes to use if he manages to survive the war. But plans and war don’t mix. The Republicans are beaten again and again, pushed back by Franco’s troops and Victor hears news of his brother’s death at the front. Victor must fulfill their late father’s wishes to get their mother and his brother’s pregnant fiancée, Roser, to safety – even if it means leaving Spain. On the other side of the world, Chile has agreed to welcome a limited number of refugees. During the interview process, Victor learns that their chances of securing places and staying together are better if they get married, so that’s what he and Roser decide to do. While both believe the marriage of convenience will only be temporary and that neither should feel the need to remain faithful, their lives in Chile as it undergoes its own political upheaval bring them together in ways they ever expected.

Book Preview – The Widow Queen by Elżbieta Cherezińska

It isn’t too many generations back on my father’s side that my family migrated from Poland and the last few years I’ve found myself drawn to learn more about that part of my heritage. Since fiction has always helped drive my interest in history (and vice versa), when I saw a novel about a Polish princess who became a commanding queen, I jumped at the chance to read it. Elżbieta Cherezińska’s The Widow Queen is the first of her two novels about Świętosława to be translated into English (with the second hopefully being released in 2022). Inspired by figures from 10^th century history (a period where the historical record has quite a few gaps), The Widow Queen has done what my favorite historical novels always do: it’s inspired me to search out and learn more.

Świętosława, her brother, and their half-sisters are all expected to play their part in their father Duke Mieszko’s plans to expand his rule and influence in what will become Poland. But Świętosława has never been one to simply do what she’s told. Earning herself a nickname meaning “bold,” Świętosława proves adept at navigating the treacherous waves of warring kingdoms and shifting alliances in the North and Baltic Seas, though she learns quickly that the price of her power and safety is almost always paid in personal sacrifice and that choice can be a powerful illusion.

Book Review – The Empress by Laura Martínez-Belli

There are periods of history and figures in history that I return to time and again and, as a result, I’ve become familiar with them. Then there are those whose stories capture my attention and I am compelled to learn more. Charlotte of Belgium who became Carlota, Empress of Mexico for a few brief years, falls into the latter category. Her story and that of her husband, Maximilian, have crossed my path a few times (most frequently in the feeds of various history podcasts I enjoy). So, when I saw that there was a novel about Charlotte/Carlota being released, I jumped at the chance to read it. Having now finished Simon Bruni’s translation of Laura Martínez-Belli’s The Empress, I find my interest has shifted from the story being told to the process of translation itself. My proficiency in Spanish has improved as I’ve worked at it during the pandemic, but I’m nowhere near a point where I could compare the translation against the original Spanish novel. With such incredible material to work with, I found the novel to be a bit of a mess and as I worked through it, I was couldn’t help but wonder (and speculate) where that might be due to the translation, where it might carry over from the original novel and how much it might be intentional.

Ambitious and seeking more for herself and her marriage, Charlotte of Belgium throws herself into becoming Carlota, Empress of Mexico when Napoleon III presents the opportunity to her and her husband. But Carlota’s devotion to her new country and people is quickly tested when less than two years after their coronation she must flee to France to beg for further aid in order to sustain their Empire. Fears of poisoning and conspiracy drive Carlota to meander along the border between sanity and insanity, but her fears may well have been warranted. As the narration jumps back and forth in time as well as between Carlota, one of her ladies in waiting, Constanza, a soldier from her protective detail, Philippe, and a few others, the defining tragedies of Carlota’s life unfold for the reader.

Book Review – House on Endless Waters by Emuna Elon

I’ve been reading a lot of novels lately where the line gets blurred between the reader and the story (The Ten Thousand Doors of January, The Starless Sea…). In Emuna Elon’s House on Endless Waters (recently released in English), it’s the writing process where the line blurs, in part, because the main character is attempting to tell an autobiographical story. Confronting the secrets of his early years as a Jew in Amsterdam during World War II and the occupation, the reader watches as research and being in the city help him to develop and shape the novel he is going to write.

Despite traveling the world for his book tours, Israeli writer Yoel Blum has always honored his late mother’s wishes that he never visits Amsterdam — despite the fact that he was born there. But when a publisher pushes and he yields, a visit to the Jewish Museum begins to reveal the secrets behind his mother’s request. Turning to his older sister for what she knows, Yoel ultimately decides to write his next book about his mother, her experiences in Amsterdam during the occupation, and how those tied back to who he became.

Book Preview – The Dream of the City by Andrés Vidal

I read through the description for The Dream of the City by Andrés Vidal and immediately wanted to preview this book. Originally published in Spanish in 2012, next week it will be released in English. The description paints a picture of contrasts—the beginning of World War I in Europe with the destruction that entailed juxtaposed against the construction of Gaudí’s Temple of the Sagrada Familia, the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie as workers pushed for better conditions, the seven virtues against the seven deadly sins. While elements of these are all present in the resulting novel, the fabric they weave is loose and porous.

Following an accident at work that leaves his father disabled, Dimas Navarro’s outlook is cynical and he is determined to make a way for himself that will provide for both his father and adopted younger brother—while he understands his fellow workers’ plight, he thinks their hopes for accomplishing any meaningful changes are unrealistic and when an opportunity to demonstrate his own ingenuity and problem-solving presents itself, he grabs it to pull himself out of a life of bare existence. He works his way up to become the right-hand man of the oldest son and heir for a local jeweler. Still resentful of the bourgeoisie, he can’t help but covet what they actually have and strives to prove himself equal to them—but his employer’s younger sister, Laura Jufresa, forces Dimas to confront these aspirations in unusual and unexpected ways. Though she grew up in bourgeois society, Laura developed an artist’s understanding of the world from her father and studied in Rome to develop her talents. Working as a designer in the family’s business, her idealism and respect for artistic form above profitability clashes with her brother—and Dimas’ employer—Ferran. In addition to her work in the family business, Laura spends time volunteering with the construction of her idol, Antoni Gaudí’s la Sagrada Familia temple.

Book Preview – The Girl from the Train by Irma Joubert

Irma Joubert’s upcoming The Girl from the Train was actually published nearly a decade ago but this November will be the first time an English translation of the novel has been published. I’m not sure why it took so long for and English edition to make it to bookstores but Elsa Silke’s translation is superb and well worth the wait. I hope it will be talked about as much as The Girl on the Train and not simply in the context of their both having similar names (though if people read The Girl from the Train in the confusion, I don’t think it would be a bad thing).

Gretl Schmidt has her doubts about her mother and grandmother’s insistence that she jump from the train when it nears the hill but Gretl does as she’s told. Jacób Kowalski acts on the intelligence Poland’s Home Army receives and sets charges that will destroy a bridge when a train carrying German soldiers goes to cross it. But there’s an unexpected train coming from the other direction – a train carrying thousands of Jews headed toward Auschwitz. Gretl hears the explosion and believes it’s from planes dropping bombs. A few days later, Jacób is called to a house in the woods where a woman gives him custody of foundling Gretl. Jacób and Gretl’s lives are intertwined from then on; through the war and their later separation, while Jacób watches his beloved country fall under the growing influence of Soviet Russia and while Gretl crosses continents to find a new family in South Africa, their thoughts frequently turn to one another.

Book Preview – The Truth and Other Lies by Sascha Arango

Sascha Arango’s upcoming The Truth and Other Lies is one of those books where the description did exactly what it was supposed to do: it made me want to read the book. A meandering examination of an unenthusiastic criminal mind, The Truth and Other Lies was ultimately a disappointment. There were so many elements that had tremendous potential but fell steamroller-flat for me.

Henry Hayden is an international best-selling author with more than just a closet full of secrets, the first of which is that he didn’t write a word of the novels he’s published as his own – those were entirely the work of his wife, Martha. Her support of their arrangement is put in danger when Henry’s mistress (“his” editor), Betty, turns up pregnant and pushes him to come clean with Martha and leave her once and for all. But when Henry attempts to solve his Betty problem one his own, a series of events begins unfolding that forces him to follow the self-preservation instincts that grew out of his dark past.

Book Review – The Siege by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

I really enjoyed Arturo Pérez-Reverte’s The Club Dumas when I read it several years ago, so I jumped at the chance to preview the English translation of The Siege. Unfortunately, time was not on my side so what was supposed to be a preview is now a review. The Siege weaves together several narratives, all centered in and around Cádiz during the French siege of the city from 1810 to 1812. Espionage, murder, war, loyalty, and business all come together as Pérez-Reverte paints several detailed portraits of a city and its citizens under siege.

Soldiers, corsairs, policemen, and everyday citizens who at first glance appear to be connected only by the city they inhabit (or propose to occupy) turn out to have a far more sinister connection, as a murderer strikes with a precision and violence as devastating as the French bombs that slowly gain in accuracy and range. Comisario Tizón tests the limits of his own sanity in his protracted battle to catch a man butchering young women. Lolita Palma, a single woman who took over the family’s shipping and lending business after the deaths of both her father and brother, overcomes her initial objections to invest in a corsair ship and finds an odd kindred spirit in the ship’s captain, Pépé Lobo. French artillery officer, Simon Desfosseux, must reconcile his superiors’ demands that he shell further into Cádiz with their refusal to give him the equipment he deems necessary for such a feat.

Book Review – The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson

The most unfortunate thing about Stieg Larsson’s The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest is that, due to Larsson’s death, it is the last book featuring the mysteriously endearing, anti-social Lisbeth Salander, the relentless digger Mikael Blomkvist, and his colleagues at Millennium magazine. Largely an extension of The Girl Who Played with Fire, the final novel in this unintended trilogy provided just enough of a conclusion to leave the reader satisfied but mourning the loss of Larsson and what might have been.

Picking up within a few hours’ time from where The Girl Who Played with Fire left off, the reader dives right back into Salander’s dire situation and Mikael’s mission to clear her name. But there are members of the Secret Police just as determined to control the situation and clean up after themselves. It’s reasonable to assume that most readers will have read the first two books and would know immediately that there’s no controlling Lisbeth Salander and that she has an unusual gift for inspiring those around her to similarly fight back.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was a wonderful introduction to these characters and presented a complex stand-alone story. The Girl Who Played with Fire raised the bar with the addition of so many characters and simultaneous points of focus. While The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest is very dependent on the backstory provided by the previous novel, it felt cleaner and clearer than the others. Dragon Tattoo was more removed from the trilogy’s core characters and Played with Fire occasionally lagged from some stylistic choices regarding narrative (namely the long absence of Salander’s engaging perspective).

Once again, Larsson’s instinct for pacing creates a novel that is inherently readable. Spending just enough time with the different subsets of characters and plot to keep the reader informed but withholding just enough for a dramatic and clean ending, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest showed that Larsson’s style and method were only getting better. It’s extremely difficult to distinguish so many different storylines and characters when reading, to develop and write them can be almost incomprehensible, and yet, Larsson’s relaxed presentation of the vast quantities of information appears effortless and is addictive to the reader.

Aside from being hit afresh with Larsson’s tragic passing, I was a little puzzled by how much of an after-thought the murders from Played with Fire seemed to be in Hornet’s Nest. It was the only piece that failed to have a satisfying conclusion. It isn’t even the drop in that investigation or the switch to focusing on Salander’s evolving legal problems. What bothered me was that after all the work Millennium put into the special issue and Dag’s book during Played with Fire, they appeared to abandon it altogether.

There was little mention of whether or not that issue even came out (or what the ramifications were) and aside from a couple of sentences about Dag’s book toward the end, it was as though most of that piece of the previous book hadn’t happened (except for the fact that Salander had been suspected of those murders). I felt there should have been a little more considering the importance placed on it previously. Of course, there is a good chance it would have come up again in the next book and been given the time it deserved if Larsson had lived to continue the story of these quirky characters who strive for accountability and women’s rights.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Girl Who Played with Fire

Book Review – The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

Popular culture has absorbed much of the mythology surrounding Dumas’ Three Musketeers as characters, most notably their signature idiom, “All for one and one for all.” It is funny to realize that that famous line is only used a handful of times in the hundreds of pages Dumas’ first novel in his D’Artagnan trilogy. More surprising is just how well Dumas’ novel stands the test of time.

Not a very popular period of history in today’s historic fiction market, The Three Musketeers enthusiastically presents a romanticized version of life as a member of the swashbuckling King’s Musketeers during the reign of Louis XIII when they were competing with Cardinal Richelieu and his men for the king’s attention and support. The young and intelligent D’Artagnan embarks on a personal mission to become one of his Majesty’s Musketeers and after getting himself into a difficult situation, he proves his abilities and befriends three of the more renowned Musketeers (which only helps his case as he moves through the ranks of the guards to become a Musketeer in his own right).

Outsmarting and outmaneuvering Richelieu’s men at every turn and taking on Milady, the religious figure’s most competent and cunning agent, D’Artagnan and his friends engage the reader’s attention and sympathies. In many ways, they are just as ruthless towards their enemies as the cardinalists they bring down, but Dumas’ romantic style keeps the reader firmly encamped on the side of the Musketeers. Dumas even has both sides in the unspoken battle acknowledge their respect for the shrewd planning of the other (Richelieu’s disappointment that he cannot convince D’Artagnan or his friends to ally themselves to his intentions creeps up on a number of occasions).

With plenty of intrigue, plotting, and racing against time, the pacing and scale of the novel still work for a modern audience. There are a few instances where the narrative digresses into trivialities. This happens most often when the main characters are forced to split up and the circumstances of each are recounted through the time they finally meet up again (perhaps the most tedious digressions involve their always tenuous financial situations).

What struck me most about the difference between the popular images of the book and actually reading the novel is how much the four friends’ lackeys are left out (and how much of a role they play in the course of the novel’s events). Treated as extensions of the Musketeers they serve, Planchet, Grimaud, Mousqueton, and Bazin can be intriguing characters in their own right. I can’t help but wonder if someone has already tackled a Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead approach to the four companions. As appealing as the novel already is, I can’t help but think that the lackey’s opinions, untainted by the Musketeers’ perceptions of them, would dial down the fanciful adventure aspects and create more of a comedic tone.

Similarly, my mind wandered to what might have been if Dumas had tackled the equally dubious English court during the reign of Henry VIII (if he could generate such an intricate plot during the reign of Louis XIII, imagine what could he have accomplished with the rich material provided by Tudor England). I look forward to the next installment, Twenty Years Later, often passed over in favor of the conclusion to the trilogy, The Man in the Iron Mask.

Book Review – The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson

The second novel of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy manages to combine the wonderful pacing that made The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo such a compelling read with the back story of the trilogy’s most mysterious and intriguing character, Lisbeth Salander. The Girl Who Played with Fire, while almost a hundred pages longer than Stieg’s first novel, could go on for another hundred pages and it still wouldn’t lose the reader’s interest.

Picking up almost two years after The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo leaves off, Lisbeth Salander has cut ties with most of the people in her life but none more definitively than Mikael Blomkvist (with no explanation or good-bye, of course). Though Blomkvist is puzzled by her insistence on cutting contact, he and the Millennium staff have been busy in the wake of the Wennerström Affair.

A young journalist, Dag Svensson, has a book and several articles about sex trafficking in Sweden and he wants Millennium to publish them. The staff design a whole issue around the subject and intend to release the book simultaneously, following the same plan that mad the Wennerström Affair a tactical success. Their plans come to an unexpected halt when Svensson and his longtime girlfriend are murdered weeks before the intended release and only days before the deadlines for going to print. The Millennium staff are devastated by the loss but Blomkvist is shocked when the police begin searching for Lisbeth Salander as a suspect in the murders.

The novel can be broken pretty well into three sections. The first third of the book builds up to the murders, the second deals with the immediate investigation and the explosion the search for Salander causes in the media, and the third dealing with the pieces of the puzzle falling together and what little resolution the novel allows (unlike The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, this novel ends quite abruptly and with the clear intention of there being another book to come). Each section has its own pacing.

The second section can drag a little but it’s clearly designed to be that way. The absence of Lisbeth Salander and her unique way of viewing the world screams at the reader. Almost all of the section is about her but she only makes a handful of sort-of appearances. It’s amazing to me how well the book works with Blomkvist and Salander spending so much of the novel not only apart, but not even speaking to one another. To keep the plot that coherent and cohesive takes great skill.

The most satisfying aspect of The Girl Who Played with Fire is the answers to some of the bigger holes in Lisbeth Salander’s background. Flashbacks in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo are fleshed out. Characters from her past return with a vengeance (however short-lived it may be) and others that we only got a small glimpse of in the first novel become characters in their own right.

Once again, Reg Keeland has done a fantastic job with the translation from the original Swedish. I’m both looking forward to and dreading reading the final novel in the trilogy because it is the last with no hope of more. I can only do my best to savor it when I get there. And the next time, I’m definitely going to print off a map of Sweden so I can get a better grasp of the geography. There was a lot more traveling in The Girl Who Played with Fire and based on how it ended, I’m guessing the final installment will have at least as much.

 

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest

Book Review – Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Gustave Flaubert’s novel Madame Bovary shocked and offended many audiences with its portrayal of a bored wife who turns to adulterous affairs to satisfy her fantasies of a more exciting life like those of the heroines in her novels. But Flaubert’s novel, famously put on trial for what some considered preaching immorality, examines more than just one woman’s adultery. It examines life in the nineteenth century as lines were being drawn between science and religion, as agrarian societies shifted to industrial societies and populations moved from the countryside to the cities. Madame Bovary is more a novel about the changes of the nineteenth century and what happens when people cannot adapt than it is about one woman’s lack of faithfulness.

Charles Bovary became a mediocre doctor, who married a slightly wealthier widow, who soon died and left him a little wealthier mediocre doctor. After setting the broken leg of a local landowner, Charles Bovary found himself drawn to the man’s attractive daughter. Making more house-calls than necessary for a broken leg, Charles Bovary earned the approval of Emma and her father and the two soon married. For the first few months, Emma rearranges the house and entertains and believes that she is happy with her marriage. But she gradually succumbs to fantasies inspired by the novels she reads and memories from her education in a convent in the city.

Most of the novel’s plot is set in the country village of Yonville, just outside of the city of Rouen. The village’s townspeople are wonderful caricatures of the different sentimentalities competing for prominence and renown during the nineteenth century, from the priest pushing for everyone’s redemption to the pharmacist with his belief that modern sciences will help him to heal others and prosper financially to the local merchant lending money and providing goods to those with the desire but not the means (primarily Madame Bovary).

I found the pacing of the novel inconsistent. The way some scenes were written read like watching a movie. One scene in particular (the scene where Emma and Rodolphe are flirting at a country fair during a few political speeches and awards) moved back and forth to the point where, as a reader, I could see exactly how it would be cut together frame by frame. Most of the time though, the novel is repetitive and drawn out. I know that there are people who waver back and forth indecisively the way that Emma does and maybe they  will find it engaging, but I found it annoying, and Emma annoying as a result. But, there was enough to most of the other characters and their relationships with one another and with their changing society for me to work through those sections where the pacing dragged a little and the commentary on the interactions that carry through the novel made working through the difficult passages worthwhile.

Madame Bovary is one a classic novel whose controversial past is remembered but can only truly be appreciated with the proper context (by today’s standards, it is incredibly tame; books marketed to teens are racier these days). What it had to say was largely lost in that controversy but can be read today as an aide to understanding the forces at work at that time.

Book Review – The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte

What do the works of Alexandre Dumas and a rare, ancient text with instructions to summon the devil have in common? That is what Lucas Corso strives to discover in Arturo Perez-Reverte’s The Club Dumas (translated by Sonia Soto).

Corso, a middle-man of the rare book world, decides to kill two birds with one stone and verify the authenticity of a chapter from the manuscript for The Three Musketeers while comparing another client’s copy of The Nine Doors with two other copies, each credited with being the one true original in existence. In his travels, however, real people quickly become corpses while archetypal characters come to life. Corso struggles to find the connection before someone stops him for good.

I had a hard time focusing in the beginning of the novel. It was mostly just me with my mind sending me weird places (a number of early references to Sabatini’s Scaramouche had “Bohemian Rhapsody” stuck in my head for a while). Also, the writing style felt a little choppy, something I thought might be the translation of the text from its original Spanish.

After the first few chapters though, the characters became clearer and the choppiness of the writing ceased to be a distraction from the story. Though the inclusion of some of the illustrations from The Three Musketeers was a little unnecessary, I’m glad that the woodcut images from The Nine Doors were available. When Corso discovers the differences between the ones from his client’s copy and the others, I think it would have been helpful to have at least some of them included to compare with the ones shown to the reader earlier, but it wasn’t essential to the telling of that part of the story.

While some may find the character of Lucas Corso annoying in his pessimism, I found him enjoyable. I loved the way that Perez-Reverte, through Corso, was able to play with the line between reality and fiction, acknowledging Corso’s character-hood as a sort of inside joke with the reader. It managed to creep up several times without pushing the point too far.

What The Club Dumas boils down to is a book about books for book lovers. There are so many references to other works, the main one being Dumas’ The Three Musketeers, it will be enjoyed most by those familiar with all of them (though Corso admits, there are some characters that transcend into common familiarity, that there are characters recognizable even to those who have never read a word of the works in which they star).

My favorite scene has very little to do with the main action of the novel. Corso references Moby Dick several times, especially in relation to his friendship with a book dealer, LaPonte. Having discussed Melville’s novel many times, Corso a one point recounts their re-imagining of the novel from Queequeg’s point of view. It was an idea I found so intriguing that as much as I loathe Moby Dick, I would seriously consider revisiting it for that side of the tale.

The dual story lines of The Dumas Club spin closer and closer together as the novel progresses, creating a whirlpool of action and excitement that draws you in and holds your attention through the conclusion. Perez-Reverte doesn’t answer all of the questions that pop up in the course of the novel, but he still manages to end it on a satisfying note. I may look into some of his other novels, though I will do so keeping an eye out for how the translator(s) affect the writing style.

 

Book Review – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

The hardest part of reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the first of Stieg Larsson’s Millenium Trilogy is knowing that there won’t be more than just those three books. Larsson, who died before the three novels featuring Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander were fully released in his native Sweden, created an unusual pair of characters that it is impossible not to find captivating.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has two layers to the main plot, which makes for a dynamically engaging story. The focus of much of the novel is disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist’s investigation into an unsolved mystery surrounding the 1966 disappearance of a member of the prominent Vanger family. The reason he has the time to devote a year to reviewing a thirty-year-old cold case is his recent conviction for libel against a prominent but shady figure in Sweden’s financial sector, Hans-Erik Wennerström. Blomkvist accepts that what he wrote does legally constitute libel, but he will be more careful and calculating when the time comes to take on the magnate a second time.

I have to admit, there are moments of predictability but they are presented and moved on from without the plot turning into a cliché. Additionally, those elements that cannot be predicted are far more surprising, shocking, and unexpected that they more than make up for any lulls of foresight. The novel was anything but boring.

The main mystery regarding Harriet Vanger’s disappearance progresses quite slowly and logically, but the pacing of the novel is very comfortable and rarely drags. This is due largely to the scene stealing Lisbeth Salander. The tiny, tattooed, troubled young woman has problems playing nicely with others and yet she does what everyone wishes they had the guts and/or knowledge to do. Though only a portion of her character’s disturbing history is laid out in this first novel, I look forward to reading more about her in the subsequent pieces of the trilogy. There’s nothing wrong with Mikael Blomkvist, but for me, he’s just there because he complements Salander.

A great deal of credit must go to Reg Keeland, the translator. Though there were times when I felt a little out of the loop and wished I knew more about Swedish history and the current pop culture of Sweden, Keeland did a wonderful job adapting Larsson’s novel for an English reading/speaking audience far removed from Sweden. I may go out and find some books about Swedish history and culture before diving into The Girl Who Played with Fire (which, I admit, is already taking up space on my To Read bookcase).

A fair warning must be given to those who have a hard time dealing with graphic violence and explicit subject matter. There are several scenes of a graphic nature with gruesome, gory details. However, if you can stomach shows like Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Criminal Minds, then go ahead and give in to the appeal of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. The psychology presented by the characters and their interactions is absolutely fascinating.

Now, I’m off to learn everything I can about Sweden.

 

The Girl Who Played with Fire

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest