storytelling

Byatt is a former academic, and she dissects academia with laser-like precision in this novel. It's everything in one: a well-plotted mystery, an intriguing love story (times two), an academic satire, a wonderfully done historical, a clear and striking picture of the lot of women (and especially women artists and writers) in Victorian England, and an ode to the poetry of that period. How this book didn't get onto the lists of the century's best is beyond me. Stunning prose, and first class storytelling. Possession is a demanding novel, one that has to be read closely and re-read many times to get all the complexities, but it's so worth it. (I have also listened to it on tape, which was another wonderful experience).

Posted by at 4:40 PM | Permalink

Detachment, isolation, despair, poetry, sadistic murder, erotica. The prose is evocative, the narrative disturbing. I would have been able to buy into this more easily if Moore had not outreached herself in terms of the main character's academic research, the details and context of which do not ring true.

Posted by at 4:40 PM | Permalink

The final line of this novel moved me greatly. This really could have been a great love story. Certanly the main characters are engaging and I wanted a happy ending for them, something that didn't quite happen in the way I expected it to -- another plus point. But the novel is terribly bloated and needed a sharper editorial eye. Also, the author indulges in the kind of sex scenes that go on too long, so that the erotic gives way to the merely sensational.

Posted by at 4:40 PM | Permalink

There are three novels in this series of ultra-hardboiled thriller? detective? tough guy? (the genre is in flux, and at present there isn't really a term for it that I like) novels. The hero is Joe Kurtz, and he's is the hardest fictional case I've run into who still comes across as three dimensional and interesting in a variety of ways. In hardboiled fiction, the main character(s), no matter how tough, have to have limits to what they will do. Often they have partners who are happy being larcenous. Patrick and Angie in Dennis Lehane's series have Bubba Rugowski.

Joe Kurtz is Bubba and Patrick rolled into one, and Bubba has got the upper hand.

Posted by at 9:49 AM | Permalink

One of my favorite websites is dedicated to Samuel Pepys' diary. Pepys was born in 1633 and was a prolific diarist in a period of great political and social upheaval:

In September 1658, Oliver Cromwell died, passing the title of Protector (king in all but name) to his son Richard. Pepys’ employer, Edward Mountagu was closely associated with the Cromwells’ reign and the 1656-7 attempt to make Oliver king (Oliver refused because he feared the army’s republicanism). Following Richard’s overthrow in April 1659 Mountagu found himself increasingly at odds with the government’s growing republican elements.

I find the Pepys diary website addictive because it is so well annotated -- by the readers themselves, for the most part, who contribute to the text and discussion of the text. There are links to provide background on just about anything you don't know about living in England circa 1660: the currency system, the difference between ale and beer, pancake day customs, the history of Bartholomew fair, 17th century coffee houses, and so on. I often consult the diary when I'm trying to sort out some sticky historical detail.

Posted by at 6:37 AM | Permalink