Book Review: Eggshells

Eggshells, by Caitriona Lally

    Vivian is a bit of an oddball, living in her deceased aunt's delapidating older house. She wanders through the streets of Dublin, searching a a fairy door to the Other World, where she is sure she belongs.

    Her empathetic portrayal in this well-done novel allows you to see the world through her eyes, helping you understand her emotions and motivations. Somehow, it all makes sense.

    See, Vivian has a bit of a past, with a vague history of trauma and depression. She's an orphan and unemployed. She's a lost soul who seeks her own way in the world -- a way that is lonely yet longing to be engaged, and is observant and concerned with the world around her.

   Her travels through Dublin are Joycean. She names the streets and places, bridges and roads, back alleys and buildings. that she passed in her travels. She traces her walking route out on paper and gives it an illustrative name. 

    She has an assortments of quirks. She is enamored by street names -- she walks up LEESON STREET to see the "cheery double EE's." She enjoys the work of the people who paint over some of the white letters on the blue-background streets signs, turning, for instance PENBROKE STREET ino -E-BROKE STREET.

  

    She advertises for a friend named Penelope so she can ask why it doesn't rhyme with antelope. She keeps lists of words that amuse or tantalize her. She wonders why we have capital letters, but not capital numbers. She expresses concern about how the number four can stand on just one leg, and why the number two always seems to be looking backwards.

    But mostly, she is just looking for her place in life. The writing here is sympathetic and understanding. You sometimes fear the author may cross the line over to mockery, but she never comes close. This is where Lally is at her best in giving Vivian a voice.

    It's a witty, fun tribute to those of use who might be deemed a bit peculiar, but who nonetheless bring enjoyable and outlandish views to our sometimes homogenous life.

Book Review: If it Bleeds

 If It Bleeds, by Stephen King

    OK. This is a Stephen King book. So you know it's going to have good writting, lively characters with distinct personalities, and a story that moves along in time and space.

    This collection of four novellas is all of that. Except for the stories. They are predictable, well-worn tales. Ideas that King dusted off and liked, possibly thinking they were good enough the first time around, so why not use them again. 

    I couldn't find a single plot device in this grouping that isn't a King trope.

    He's explored a tender relationship between a teenager and an older person. He's examined a writer who is haunted by his characters and his work. He's done apocalyptic events, using them for many purposes, including making it a simple tale about the end of the world. Almost all of his tales about children and teenagers show their being bullied or the bullies. In King's work, children's memories always come back to haunt them. And to top it off, he has to bring back a popular character to relive her torment.

    Really, Constant Writer, what should we Constant Readers have expected to happen when you put a cell phone in someone's coffin? Isn't that a bit mundane? Something that, perhaps, a lesser writer and storyteller would have come up with? When putting that one down on paper, and editing your work, did you really sit back, reflect on the idea, and think, "Awesome! Wow!"?

    Clearly, this is not King's best, most original work. 

    But despite all that, I enjoyed the collection. It was a quick read. If it isn't King's best work, it certainly isn't his worst. The characters are memorable, and for the most part, they are good, honest, salt-of-the-earth Yankees. The writing is compelling. It moves along.

    But Constant Writer has done a lot better.

Book Review: The Ninth Child

The Ninth Child, by Sally Magnusson

     This book about a Scottish faery tale is so readable because it is based on a true story.

     There really was a Scots minister by the name of Robert Kirke. He really did die under mysterious circumstances in 1692. He really was the first person to translate the Bible into Scots Gaelic, and he really did hand-cut the epitaph for his wife's gravestone, which still stands in the cemetery in Aberfoyle, Scotland.

 

     More importantly for this story, though, is that Kirke was a folklorist, who collected and wrote down the tales of the Good People. It was this work that got Kirke into trouble with the faeries. The tale is that when Kirke died, the faeries stole away his body, replacing it with one of their own. They kept him from his heaven until he performed a task in repentance.

      It is this legend -- which the great Scots author Walter Scott had a hand in spreading -- that Magnusson imagines is true, and she writes the conclusion. 

       Fast forward to 1856. Isabel Aird is a doctor's wife, a lady of leisure and fashion, a city woman. Her husband, bored and looking to expand his medical knowledge, takes a position out in the country, as the Scots attempt to blast through the rocky highlands to bring fresh water to Glasgow.

    She is frustrated as she tries to adjust to life as a country wife. She misses the luxuries of an urbane society, but she comes to enjoy the trails and fields around her home. She manages to accept the country people, and some of them enjoy her, but they can never quite put aside their suspicions of her. 

   Of course, at some point, Mrs. Aird and Rev. Kirke meet and develop a relationship. It's an uneasy one, full of missteps and mistrusts. Each is unsure of the future and the social acceptance of their friendship.

    The tale is mostly theirs, but it brings in various subplots that tie into the story. There is Mrs. Aird's inability to give birth, as she has had eight miscarriages -- and during the book, she again becomes pregnant. Her desire to have a child is strong, and her society's judgment troubles her. She attempts to branch out, and expresses a wish to learn medicine and help her husband, who too often responds with a patriarchal flippancy.

    Yet, she is surrounded by strong women: There's Kirsty McEchern, a co-narrator who provides the voice of the Highlanders whose culture Mrs. Aird moves in with. Florence Nightingale is making her own waves in the world of medicine, and Mrs. Aird sees her as a living example of what women are capable of. Victoria is the queen, a mother and a sovereign, and her strength and equal personal relationship with  her husband, Prince Albert, is a strong contrast to the lifestyles of  Mrs. Aird and most of the women of their time. 

    It's a multi-faceted book, one that will leave you thinking about it long after you've read the last page.

Book Review: The Goldfinch

The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt

    The six-word summation of this book is: "Rich man makes bad life decisions."

    I mostly enjoyed this book, although it is perhaps the whitest book I have ever read. Imagine, if you will, this synopsis: The father of a young teenage child deserts his family. Later, the boy and his mother are the victims of a terrorist bombing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The mother dies; the child grabs a famous painting and escapes.

   

It's a lot of book

      Picture that happening to a black child. Now, as in this book, imagine the child is white. Yep. Two different stories, never meeting nor crossing paths. 

    This story is the white one.

    Simply put, it's about a child with an obsession about the stolen painting. Or more accurately, it's about a child cum man with an obsession about his obsession about his stolen painting.

    It did win a Pulitzer Prize, and it's not hard to see why: It's a grand, overarching book about family, love, desire, hope, and hopelessness. It's a sprawling book that moves from New York to Las Vegas, back to New York, and then to Europe. It's about the lifestyles of the wealthy, and the privileged way they walk through life.

    But it's also overwritten, meandering on for 771 pages. Just about every experience is overdone, every scene over-described. For someone who prefers tight writing, as I do, it's a slog to get through. At the end, Tartt grows increasingly philosophical, and you wonder if she is furiously adding on pages as you read. You fear the book might never end.

    That all said, however, it is a good story, with a handful of interesting characters; albeit none very likeable. It's no doubt a good book for the times we are in -- something that will remain with you through the long, shut-in days of quarantine.