Set in 1785, just four years before the French Revolution, Miller’s main character, Jean-Baptiste Baratte, a young engineer from rural Belleme in Normandy, arrives in Paris, hoping for a job which will allow him to put his skills to use in ways not possible at home. Interviewed at Versailles and hired by a minister there, he learns that his job will be to empty the Cemetery of the Innocents in the heart of the city of its entire underground contents, and with over twenty burial pits located within a small, enclosed area, the work will be “both delicate and gross.” Despite the unusual and unsavory subject matter, Miller is careful to recreate the human side of the story – to make the reader empathize with Baratte, to see how important the job is to him, to show how he longs for acceptance, to appreciate his desire for love, and to understand how good he is at heart – and even a job as putrid this one quickly involves the reader in the story and its historical setting. As Miller’s develops the story, his clever symbolism reveals simultaneously the state of mind of Baratte and the conditions in the country itself, as the reader observes the foreshadowing of the coming revolution through the eyes of Baratte. An unusual and beautifully written novel which shines new light on some of the elements which empower the oppressed and lead to revolution.
Read Full Post »
Flemish author Patrick Conrad, who is also a poet, screenwriter, director, and painter, combines his varied talents in this lively and unusual novel of the silver screen, and fans of classic film, including Hollywood’s early black-and-white films, will be kept thoroughly entertained and engaged throughout. Several Antwerp deaths modeled after murders in classic films, or associated with the scandalous lives of Hollywood stars and directors, keep Chief Superintendent Fons Luyckx, known as The Sponge, and his assistant, Detective Inspector Lannoy, involved with all the gory details as they search for real clues to real murders while also searching for the cinema connections which might provide them with suggestions about the possible motivation of the killer or killers. At the heart of the mystery is Professor Victor Cox, who teaches the History of Cinema at the Institute of Film and Theatre Studies and whose wife Shelley vanishes one night, later found dead. The author keeps the tension high as the police (and the reader) try to figure out which famous films provide clues to the various deaths, only one of which is obvious. Original, filled with dark humor, and great fun to read (even for novices to classic film).
Read Full Post »
Although he has often dealt with the themes of identity, reality, and what it means to be human, Australian author Peter Carey creates a whole new approach to these ideas in this complex and sometimes strange novel with two overlapping narratives set one hundred fifty years apart. Catherine Gehrig, a Curator of Horology (clockwork) at the Swinburne Museum in London, has led a secret life for thirteen years, enjoying an affair with Matthew Tindall, the married Head Curator of Metals. On April 21, 2010, she arrives at work to discover that Matthew is dead, and that she is apparently the last to know. Frantic with grief which she dare not show at the office, she cannot even imagine how to go on with her life without Matthew. Catherine is so distraught that Head Curator of Horology, Eric Croft, whose specialty is restoring mechanical “singsongs,” takes dramatic action. He arranges for her to take sick leave and then to move to the privacy of the museum’s Annexe in Olympia, where she will have a special job – to go through eight boxes the size of tea chests, filled with assorted gears, screws, and machine parts, along with assorted papers associated with an automaton of a duck from the mid-1850s and restore it. Great dialogue, fascinating subject matter, important themes treated in unique ways, and characters who engage our interest make this a story to celebrate, despite the fact that the many motifs sometimes seem to strain the narrative.
Read Full Post »
This mind-boggling “quest novel” from Sri Lanka operates under its own rules, defies expectations, twists and turns on its own momentum, and ultimately resolves itself in ways the reader never predicts. Wijedasa Gamini Karunasena, known as Wije, the main character here, is a sportswriter who has covered cricket for years. Winner of Ceylon Sportswriter of the Year, 1969 and 1976, he has always believed Pradeep Mathew, a Tamil who was a star in only four games over his career, to be the best cricket player who ever lived, someone whose feats have been wiped out, somehow, in the records. Though hobbled by drink, and in poor health, Wije buddies up with his friend, Ariyatne Cletus Byrd, to produce a documentary about the best cricket players in Sri Lanka, with one whole episode devoted to Pradeep Mathew. As Wije does his research on Pradeep, however, every lead seems to end, every clue seems to disappear, and Pradeep seems to be on the receiving end of a plan to wipe him off the face of Sri Lankan cricket history. No one even knows if Pradeep is alive or dead. All this time, Sri Lanka is fighting for its political life, with the Tamil Tigers fighting for total control of the north and east and the military trying to maintain control of the rest of the country. Bombings, assassinations, and terrorism accompany the daily news about the latest Sri Lanka cricket team losses and occasional victories, with the characters here more concerned with the cricket results. “Sport can unite worlds, tear down walls and transcend race, the past and all probability,” Wije observes. “Unlike life, sport matters.” The novel, filled with wonderful dialogue and humor, portrays life in Sri Lanka in ways not seen before in literature.
Read Full Post »
In this novel about a woman who works in Britain’s Special Operations Executive (SOE), author Simon Mawer focuses on Marian Sutro, a composite character representing the fifty-four women who served in France between May, 1941, and September, 1944. Of those real women, thirteen were murdered by the Germans following their capture. Recruited to perform extremely dangerous duties, all these women were fluent in French and often bilingual, and all of them were willing to perform under extraordinarily dangerous conditions. Marian’s work takes her throughout much of France, from the drop areas in the southwest to Paris. Everyone she meets is a potential enemy and a potential traitor, and she must operate on her own most of the time. “The danger of Paris is a cancer within you, invisible, imponderable, and probably incurable,” she notes. Many different factions with many different goals operate among the allies in France, and additional dangers from the police, French collaborators, and the Germans, make every moment a trial, especially in Paris. Like his more serious literary fiction, such as The Glass Room, The Fall, The Gospel of Judas, and Mendel’s Dwarf, Trapeze is full of excitement, but unlike those novels, this one is an entertainment, with a “Maisie Dobbs” quality – historically focused and fun to read but less serious stylistically and thematically than literary fiction.
Read Full Post »
