As I write this on St.Valentine’s Day, I am hoping that you are not expecting a review of a book about a passionate love affair. Oh, yes, both these books revolve around love, but love in its more diverse patterns.
The Lady in Blue by Javier Sierra
This is another of those fascinating books where the author takes a piece of history, does a lot of research and comes up with an enthralling story of historical fiction. Make sure you read the notes at the end of this book which give the background, including an amazing interview which Sierra had with a monk shortly before he died, to this extraordinary story.
This is a novel based on the well known legend of a young girl dressed in blue who appeared to the native people of South West America in the 1600’s and told them of the coming of the priests who would be spreading the Gospel amongst them, and how they should prepare themselves for baptism. The Lady in Blue who appeared in New Mexico in the 1600’s, had never, during her life time, left either the village in which she was born, nor the monastery that she founded in Spain.
Moving from a young girl in California, to a journalist in Spain, to a monk and several priests in Venice, all in the 1990’s, and back to the legend itself in the 1600’s, Javier Sierra weaves a mystical thread of evidence as to why and how this legend could have possibly been created. The historical characters believe that uncovering the secret behind The Lady in Blue’s bilocations (the ability to be in two places at the same time) will get them closer to their goal, but when one of the priests suddenly dies and a rare manuscript containing the nun’s secrets is stolen, the plot thickens! The conclusion might surprise you.
Javier Sierra is a well known Spanish historian and author who wrote, among other books, The Secret Supper which has been translated into thirty-five languages.
Kenneth Grahame – An Innocent in the Wild Wood
By Alison Prince
In reviewing this book, I have to admit to a bias; my first, and without doubt my favourite children’s book was and still is Wind in the Willows.
This biography by Alison Prince is a remarkably perceptive biography in which she uses previously unpublished materials to uncover the many layers of Kenneth Grahame’s character, ultimately that of Toad of Toad Hall. In writing Wind in the Willows, which is the most famous of his stories, Grahame seems to transfer his very muddled desires into the characters of his novel. He always had this longing to live freely, romping around the English countryside with out a worry in the wonderful world of nature that he so loved. But here we see him as Alison Prince carefully exposes layer upon layer of his character and we can see how his various traits are transformed into the characters of Mole (his son Alistair), Ratty, Toad (himself), Badger and the Weasels who try to take over Toad Hall. It is one of the great ironic twists in the tale of this story that Alistair, his son known as the Mouse, should commit suicide under a train, considering that Grahame had always described trains as the scourge of the countryside.
An incredible love/hate relationship between Grahame and his son Mouse, is exceptionally well portrayed in this biography from the first time that Grahame tells his son a bed time story, through the continuation of those stories all the time that the boy was away from home to the point in time when it is suggested to Grahame that these stories should be published as a book. Adding to the feeling of the unreality of their marriage is the impression that I got that Grahame’s wife, Elspeth Thomson, is simply around because he reluctantly agreed to marry her, against many of his friends recommendations; but, having said that, she is the one who is always there for Alistair and enjoys an intriguing correspondence with him from his boarding school and University. But, as I have mentioned, Alistair was unable to withstand the unreality of his upbringing by these two fantasists.
This is a fine biography well described by the Times Literary Supplement as… “a thoroughly sensible new account of this much-loved, but curiously un-lovable author.”
Here are a couple of books that I thoroughly enjoyed reading and hopefully you will enjoy them too, as we cruise into the fall.
The Island by Victoria Hislop
This is a debut novel about a girl, Alexis, who is madly in love but at the same time wants to find out about her mysterious family history which mainly took place on the Greek island of Crete. Hislop has obviously done a great deal of research on the island of Crete and its much smaller offshore neighbour, Spinalonga, the once Greek leper colony.
This is a saga of ruined relationships, resurrected love affairs and a wonderful insight into the all too complex feelings of various family members over two generations. Hislop writes with true feelings for her characters, both from their points of view as well as her view through the sharp lens of history. There are absorbing comparisons made between the Cretan characters and those who have been cast out to the leper colony. It never fails to amaze me how history can still cause dramatic effects on later generations.
The British newspaper, the Observer, said of this book: “At last – a beach book with a heart.” Believe me, it reads just as well in front of a roaring fire with or without a glass of Domestica.
There is another very good book by her based on the Spanish civil war which I have just finished reading and I will be writing about in a later blog posting.
And now for a little non-fiction:
White Gold by Giles Milton
I have to confess that this is written by one of my favourite historians. This is the story of the more than one million slaves of Islam in the 18th century, and it centres around the history of a cabin boy named Thomas Pellow who was captured by the Barbary pirates in 1716. Milton used the published versions of Pellows diaries and notebooks and those of others, on which to base this factual history.
This book is an incredible account of a little known piece of history about white slaves under the Islamic regime of the sultans in Morocco in Africa. The sultan of the Imperial Moroccan court is a man who had 2000 horses in stables alongside his palace, where the horses could enjoy stained glass windows in their stables and crystal fountains in the stable yard. He had an army of some 10,000 men in the same palace that was surrounded by a wall which he attempted to build, measuring 300 miles long.
This is a fun and fanciful story, but at the same time a disturbing account of what it was like to be a white slave in Africa, where the characters of the minor players are as colourful as the events in which they take part. They even managed to keep the flag of Islam flying for six months on the island of Lundy off the North coast of Cornwall – so much for to-day’s concerns about Islam.
For those of you who might not know the marvelous work of this intriguing historian, he is also the author of Nathaniel Nutmeg and Big Chief Elizabeth, amongst other good non-fiction reads.
Good chewing till next time,
"The Booklouse" - A published children’s author and former James Bay resident who now works at Russell Books on Fort Street in Victoria, BC
The reason why this column is not called "Bookworms" is as follows:
No single species may properly be called the bookworm because a large number of insects feed upon dry, starchy material or paper amd may damage books.
(The above was extracted from the Encyclopedia.)
Each month I shall be reviewing a couple of books that I think will be of interest to you; if they are not , please do not chew on them in your fury as they will probably taste revolting. Also, a number of the books that I recommend, some of you may well have read, as I shall not necessarily be reviewing NEW books all the time.
If you would like to ask for suggestions in a given genre, please feel free to contact me via the contact form on this website.
Here’s a couple for you to enjoy in the meantime:
The Meaning of Night: A Confession (by Michael Cox)
I love the opening of this book:
‘After killing the red haired man, I took myself off to Quinns for an oyster supper.’
You guessed it, this is a Victorian thriller written in Victorian English. This book is an absolute delight to read and has an excellent plot line as told by a male protagonist (stay with me). This is one of those books where you think you have nailed the plot early on, but there might just be a few twists and turns before you realise that you weren’t quite right. The writing is old fashined enough to be wonderfully descriptive, but not so old fashioned as to be difficult to read or in any way affect your enjoyment of the story. Watch out for the fun historical notes at the bottom of some of the pages, which all end with the letters: Ed (see my final paragraph).
Sadly, Michael Cox died of a rare form of cancer about three months ago, but not before he heard from his publisher that they were going to publish the sequel, The Glass of Time. Let me tell you, there had to be a sequel, you will know what I mean when you finish The Meaning of Night.
The Glass of Time: A Novel (by Michael Cox)
Here is another excellent read, but this time with a female protagonist. It is 22 years later, and again the plot is one of those that seems so simple at the beginning; but just you wait. Whatever you do, be sure to read these in order.
If you are wondering about the late Mr. Cox’s credentials for this type of writing, he was the Editor at Oxford University Press for many years, specializing in Victorian matters, including crime.
Happy chewing till next time,
"The Booklouse" - A published children’s author and former James Bay resident who now works at Russell Books on Fort Street in Victoria, BC
