Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Death Comes to Pemberley by PD James

This well publicised novel is a follow on thriller from Pride and Prejudice featuring Mr and Mrs Darcy, the dreadful Wickham and all their cohort. Captain Denny is murdered in the shrubbery near Pemberley and Wickham is charged with the murder. The distress and scandal this causes threatens to undermine the entire family. Rubbish really, mildly entertaining, but a bit of a cheek to parody Jane Austen in such a way I think.

Sunday, December 25, 2011

The Careful Use of Compliments by Alexander McCall Smith

More of the Isabel Dalhousie series, in which Isabel gets on the trail of an art forger and continues in her relationship with Jamie. The philosophical musings have really grown on me and I am a victim of the charm of this woman and of Edinburgh, wonderful since we’re going there next year.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

The Right Attitude to Rain by Alexander McCall Smith

Next in line of the Isabel Dalhousie series, which I listened to as I did embroidery. Very appropriate. In this one Isabel and Jamie become closer and closer. In the meantime they become involved with Isabel's cousins, Mimi and Joe, and attend a houseparty with some wealthy Americans. There is more about the philosophy surrounding small things and about the love affair than any mystery in this novel. I liked it a lot.

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

Time for me at this late age to mount and assault on the American writers. In this novel, Pride and Prejudice meets Anna Karenina. Wharton’s novel looks at the strictures of aristocratic New York in the late nineteenth century, particularly as played out by Newland Archer, a young man of that time and place, and his fiancĂ©e May and the woman who comes into his life, Countess Olenska. The novel explores the way a young man with some imagination and perhaps hope for ‘escape’ is defeated by the machinations of his society, of doing the ‘right thing’. The novel is beautifully observed.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides

Jeffrey Eugenides is one of those writers for whose books I wait impatiently. And unlike lesser writers, of course, he can’t churn them out every year. I gulped down this book, which is about college graduates and their coming of age and their love lives in the 1980s. Eugenides reminds me a little of Jonathan Franzen in the way he can manipulate language and in the intricacy of his character portrayal. In this story Madeleine is in love with Leonard, who has manic depression, and Mitchell, who has divinity leanings, is in love with her. She’s a literary major, a princess of course, and the book charts their relationships with great skill. It’s not a Pulitzer Prize winner like Middlesex, but closer to a longer (though probably not as wonderful) version of The Virgin Suicides.

Monday, December 5, 2011

Friends, Lovers, Chocolate by Alexander McCall Smith

The second in the Isobel Dalhousie series, this time where a man who has had a heart transplant sees the face of a stranger and wonders what the mystery is. In some ways it reminded me of John Irving’s wonderful book The Fourth Hand – not that that particular book had such a great reception but I like everything Irving writes and am pretty uncritical. It’s a pretty wild sort of goose chase Isobel must go on and it’s hard to see how she can resolve anything sensible. In between it all are philosophical musings which are entertaining.

The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith

I decided I would give Isobel Dalhousie another go. I find the Detective Agency books a bit silly, the homespun philosophy unsatisfying, but on re-reading this book, I found I liked the protagonist. She is so human. In this one she tries to find out what really caused the death of a young man who falls from the gods at the theatre. She bumbles along in her own way, treading on people’s toes and making great leaps of imagination, but the solution is as always in real life, a simple thing.

The Bird in the Tree by Elizabeth Goudge

Elizabeth Goudge was an Edwardian romantic and I grew up in love with her children's book The Little White Horse. Something in the magic of it carried me through my days. This book, The Bird in the Tree, has a similar magical animal, a bluebird, as a sort of emblem. It's an unabashed, moralistic, religious centred love story but I love it as a period piece. It's about the Eliot family who live in Damroseay on the English coast, and has something of the Delderfield about it. The story is silly really, a grandson who wants to marry his aunt, the evils of divorce, the value of duty. But what the hell, I liked it because Elizabeth Goudge wrote it.