Strip for Murder features Shell Scott, private detective. I like the Shell Scott books. They tend to be a lot of fun, pretty campy and over the top and a bit of a send-up of the hardboiled detective novel.
Richard S. Prather imagines a world where the criminal underclass is identifiable by their nicknames and their Dick Tracy-like villainous physical identifiers. They speak in hood-speak, a linguistic code known to few outside of criminals, tipsters and our hero, Shell Scott.
I mentioned earlier that Donald Lam's weakness seems to be a good book
Read While Walking: Why Donald Lam is my favourite detective. Shell Scott has a weakness for women. It's done in a humourous, bordering on ridiculous manner, but it usually draws a laugh, since he can't seem to think straight or keep his mind on his objective when there's an attractive woman in close proximity.
Strip for Murder involves Shell Scott investigating a nudist colony. A surprising number of Shell Scott novels involve the detective being obligated to be around women with clothing deficits, and it usually means our detective is unable to make his brain fully function. He gathers clues through his criminal underground telegraph, and blunders around until he solves the mystery and saves the day.
A couple of elements from Strip for Murder seem a bit recycled, and the mystery isn't much of a trick for those who can decipher hood-speak, but it's still fun. Richard S. Prather tries to include a little more characterization than usual for the love interest, having her demonstrate a few emotions from time to time, but quickly breezes past that to get on with the plot. The big set pieces, involving a knight in armor, and the finale with the balloons had me chuckling out loud, and that's why I like to pick up the Shell Scott books.
Friday, June 26, 2015
Friday, June 19, 2015
Why Donald Lam is my favourite detective
I've been re-reading a few of the A.A. Fair novels of late. Once I started Turn on the Heat
Read While Walking: Turn on the Heat by A.A. Fair I just started to run through all of them.
I like the humour. I love the titles (Some Slips Don't Show is probably one of my all time favourite titles). I like the attempt to write in a hard boiled style, without making it all about the style. I like the cleverness of the tricks used to uncover clues. But most of all, I like Donald Lam. He's smart, he's loyal, he puts women on a pedestal, he's tricky, but from the standpoint of a reader who likes to identify with a protagonist, I love how much Donald likes to read.
In Double or Quits a client needs to step out for a couple of minutes, tells Donald to make himself comfortable and enjoy a paperback, but that he'll be back in twenty minutes. Two and a half hours later, Donald looks up from his book and realizes the client hasn't come back. (Unfortunately for our detective, his client is dead).
In Kept Women Can't Quit, Donald picks up a magazine in an apartment to flip through, and then naturally hangs onto it. When left with nothing else to do, he reads and re-reads and re-reads it almost obsessively, and in the end finds a clue.
In Some Women Won't Wait, Donald is on a cruise to Hawaii, and is supposed to make contact with a woman seated at his table for dinner. Donald has been told she'll make the approach. Donald doesn't talk to her much at dinner, and following dinner he heads back into his stateroom to settle down with a book. Bertha asks Donald why he isn't with her, and Donald says he was waiting for her to make the contact. Bertha points out she isn't likely to come down to his stateroom, tear the door off its hinges and pull his nose out of his book.
But my favourite instance of Donald compulsively reading is in Bedrooms Have Windows. Donald skulks around the back of a house searching for a woman who had tried to frame him earlier. He sees the woman in her bedroom in the process of getting dressed. She invites him in, then she suggests he wait in her sister's bedroom while she finishes getting dressed. Donald sees a book and settles down to read. An hour later, the sister comes in to see him sitting there reading, thinks he's an intruder and starts to scream. Of course, the woman has been murdered in her own bedroom, and Donald didn't hear a thing because he was absorbed in the book.
It's not overdone in the series, but since hardboiled private detectives rarely have hobbies or much of a social life, I really like that Donald's off-duty entertainment seems to center around reading mystery novels. Lots of mystery fans can probably relate to that.
Read While Walking: Turn on the Heat by A.A. Fair I just started to run through all of them.
I like the humour. I love the titles (Some Slips Don't Show is probably one of my all time favourite titles). I like the attempt to write in a hard boiled style, without making it all about the style. I like the cleverness of the tricks used to uncover clues. But most of all, I like Donald Lam. He's smart, he's loyal, he puts women on a pedestal, he's tricky, but from the standpoint of a reader who likes to identify with a protagonist, I love how much Donald likes to read.
In Double or Quits a client needs to step out for a couple of minutes, tells Donald to make himself comfortable and enjoy a paperback, but that he'll be back in twenty minutes. Two and a half hours later, Donald looks up from his book and realizes the client hasn't come back. (Unfortunately for our detective, his client is dead).
In Kept Women Can't Quit, Donald picks up a magazine in an apartment to flip through, and then naturally hangs onto it. When left with nothing else to do, he reads and re-reads and re-reads it almost obsessively, and in the end finds a clue.
In Some Women Won't Wait, Donald is on a cruise to Hawaii, and is supposed to make contact with a woman seated at his table for dinner. Donald has been told she'll make the approach. Donald doesn't talk to her much at dinner, and following dinner he heads back into his stateroom to settle down with a book. Bertha asks Donald why he isn't with her, and Donald says he was waiting for her to make the contact. Bertha points out she isn't likely to come down to his stateroom, tear the door off its hinges and pull his nose out of his book.
But my favourite instance of Donald compulsively reading is in Bedrooms Have Windows. Donald skulks around the back of a house searching for a woman who had tried to frame him earlier. He sees the woman in her bedroom in the process of getting dressed. She invites him in, then she suggests he wait in her sister's bedroom while she finishes getting dressed. Donald sees a book and settles down to read. An hour later, the sister comes in to see him sitting there reading, thinks he's an intruder and starts to scream. Of course, the woman has been murdered in her own bedroom, and Donald didn't hear a thing because he was absorbed in the book.
It's not overdone in the series, but since hardboiled private detectives rarely have hobbies or much of a social life, I really like that Donald's off-duty entertainment seems to center around reading mystery novels. Lots of mystery fans can probably relate to that.
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
Shut Your Eyes Tight by John Verdon
Shut Your Eyes Tight is the second novel I've read by John Verdon, after Think of a Number. Both novels featured retired police detective Dave Gurney.
I didn't enjoy Shut Your Eyes Tight as much as the first novel. In Think of a Number, I found Dave Gurney an interesting character, relatively young to be in retirement, adjusting to both that and his attempts to deal with grief from the death of his four year old son a number of years ago, which he has been able to suppress to this point by immersing himself in his work.
So when Gurney was self absorbed, and not paying attention to his wife and able to enjoy his retirement, I felt like he had a built in excuse that was being resolved over the course of the novel.
In Shut Your Eyes Tight, I found the character much less likable. He barely referred to his four year old son at all. Instead he dealt with issues with his semi-estranged adult son from his first marriage (I hadn't recalled the earlier novel indicating this was a second marriage for him, or anything about a grown son, though it could be I've forgotten). To me, this seemed much more like immature angst, and his willingness to completely ignore his wife's happiness, concerns and requests didn't frame the character as a driven man, obsessed with his work, but instead as a selfish jerk looking to escape from his marriage. His inability to acknowledge that he was in any way in the wrong is not the character I remember from the first book.
Stripped of its elements, the mystery was fairly standard locked room stuff, and I didn't find the solution surprising. That being said, it was well written, and very readable. If I was describing a comparative author, I'd probably say it's like Karin Slaughter. The plots are intense, gory and grim. The characters are not entirely likable, there's no humour or lightness, and you know it won't be an entirely happy ending, but it is compelling reading.
My concern with Mr. Verdon (based on this novel) is that he views his characters not as real people, but as constructs to move his plots forward. As such, consistency in motivation and action, particularly across novels, may not be his priority. I think I'll need to read another to determine if this assessment is fair. So I'd try another by John Verdon, but I'm a bit wary, and if I like Detective Gurney any less on the next try, I may not continue with his series.
I didn't enjoy Shut Your Eyes Tight as much as the first novel. In Think of a Number, I found Dave Gurney an interesting character, relatively young to be in retirement, adjusting to both that and his attempts to deal with grief from the death of his four year old son a number of years ago, which he has been able to suppress to this point by immersing himself in his work.
So when Gurney was self absorbed, and not paying attention to his wife and able to enjoy his retirement, I felt like he had a built in excuse that was being resolved over the course of the novel.
In Shut Your Eyes Tight, I found the character much less likable. He barely referred to his four year old son at all. Instead he dealt with issues with his semi-estranged adult son from his first marriage (I hadn't recalled the earlier novel indicating this was a second marriage for him, or anything about a grown son, though it could be I've forgotten). To me, this seemed much more like immature angst, and his willingness to completely ignore his wife's happiness, concerns and requests didn't frame the character as a driven man, obsessed with his work, but instead as a selfish jerk looking to escape from his marriage. His inability to acknowledge that he was in any way in the wrong is not the character I remember from the first book.
Stripped of its elements, the mystery was fairly standard locked room stuff, and I didn't find the solution surprising. That being said, it was well written, and very readable. If I was describing a comparative author, I'd probably say it's like Karin Slaughter. The plots are intense, gory and grim. The characters are not entirely likable, there's no humour or lightness, and you know it won't be an entirely happy ending, but it is compelling reading.
My concern with Mr. Verdon (based on this novel) is that he views his characters not as real people, but as constructs to move his plots forward. As such, consistency in motivation and action, particularly across novels, may not be his priority. I think I'll need to read another to determine if this assessment is fair. So I'd try another by John Verdon, but I'm a bit wary, and if I like Detective Gurney any less on the next try, I may not continue with his series.
Monday, June 15, 2015
Turn on the Heat by A.A. Fair
Since I recently read The Stranger by Harlen Coben
Read While Walking: The Stranger by Harlen Coben, I thought I would re-read one of the A.A. Fair books that addressed the more classic Harlen Coben scenario where someone disappears then makes a reappearance many years later.
I love the A.A. Fair novels. They feature Erle Stanley Gardner's protagonists Bertha Cool and Donald Lam, private detectives. Turn on the Heat is one of the earlier novels, with Donald not yet a partner in the agency and getting beat up all the time. The book also makes oblique reference to how little Bertha or anyone knows about Donald (in The Bigger they Come Bertha divined that "Lam" was not Donald's real name).
Turn on the Heat has Donald pull a couple of clever tricks, turning the tables on someone who is trying to frame him, and keeps Donald's character closer to the early books, where he holds a grudge and will find a way to get back at those who wrong him. I'm not convinced the end solution resolves the problem for his client beyond election day (he's still a politician who has been in a bigamous marriage for years), but perhaps Donald's frame up of some of the corrupt elements is sufficient to carry things through for him.
The central question of why a person disappeared, and why they chose to reappear now is resolved nicely, and in a manner I think Harlen Coben would endorse.
Turn on the Heat is a fairly quick read, fun (as I find all the A.A. Fair novels fun), and works in some hard boiled sounding prose here and there. There's no need to have read other Cool & Lam novels to follow along, but for someone just starting out, I find the later novels a bit lighter and would perhaps make a better starting point (for example, Up for Grabs is a lot of fun, and shows off some of Donald's better tricks).
Read While Walking: The Stranger by Harlen Coben, I thought I would re-read one of the A.A. Fair books that addressed the more classic Harlen Coben scenario where someone disappears then makes a reappearance many years later.
I love the A.A. Fair novels. They feature Erle Stanley Gardner's protagonists Bertha Cool and Donald Lam, private detectives. Turn on the Heat is one of the earlier novels, with Donald not yet a partner in the agency and getting beat up all the time. The book also makes oblique reference to how little Bertha or anyone knows about Donald (in The Bigger they Come Bertha divined that "Lam" was not Donald's real name).
Turn on the Heat has Donald pull a couple of clever tricks, turning the tables on someone who is trying to frame him, and keeps Donald's character closer to the early books, where he holds a grudge and will find a way to get back at those who wrong him. I'm not convinced the end solution resolves the problem for his client beyond election day (he's still a politician who has been in a bigamous marriage for years), but perhaps Donald's frame up of some of the corrupt elements is sufficient to carry things through for him.
The central question of why a person disappeared, and why they chose to reappear now is resolved nicely, and in a manner I think Harlen Coben would endorse.
Turn on the Heat is a fairly quick read, fun (as I find all the A.A. Fair novels fun), and works in some hard boiled sounding prose here and there. There's no need to have read other Cool & Lam novels to follow along, but for someone just starting out, I find the later novels a bit lighter and would perhaps make a better starting point (for example, Up for Grabs is a lot of fun, and shows off some of Donald's better tricks).
Tuesday, June 9, 2015
Identical by Scott Turow
I always try books by Scott Turow, since I tend to enjoy legal mysteries. I liked Presumed Innocent, both the novel and the film (I think I saw the film first, though I can't recall for certain) and so pick up his books when I see them.
I didn't think I would enjoy Identical. Based on the back of the book, it looked like one of those highly improbable identical twin mysteries that would have me rolling my eyes. Ultimately, that's not fair to the book. The resolution doesn't depend on identical DNA, and (it appears to me) explains and explores that issue in some detail, as well as discussing the reason for identical twins having different fingerprints.
I kept thinking I had solved the mystery (and tended to be correct), but to my surprise, the various mysteries kept being resolved by the protagonists, and leading to more to discover (though the ultimate conceit is fairly well telegraphed).
A couple of legal issues to be addressed had me thinking I would be upset with an unrealistic and improbable outcome, but (as is consistent in Mr. Turow's novels) the legal arguments seem valid and the legal conclusions seem consistent with the law.
Like most of Mr. Turow's novels, the pacing of Identical can seem slow, based in large part on his use of language to slow things down, and explore diversions. Often there are little pieces of sentences or commentary here or there that are worth pausing to think about.
I can recall being somewhat fascinated when Mr. Turow dealt with Sandy Stern's relationship with his wife, and how he adjusted to her death in Burden of Proof. Identical doesn't place the same degree of focus on that, but one of the characters is still dealing with the death of a spouse, and the other is dealing with the end of a relationship. Both aspects are dealt with in a way that seems important to the characters, and they work at solving the mystery to escape from their personal lives, but also as a way for them to learn more about themselves. I really like the way Scott Turow is able to bring that element into his novels, and it's what keeps me reading him.
The mystery in Identical is okay, though not difficult to solve, and the ending is a bit pat. But the examination of relationships and how to re-evaluate a relationship after a death or break-up is the aspect that will stick with me and will be the reason I remember the novel.
I didn't think I would enjoy Identical. Based on the back of the book, it looked like one of those highly improbable identical twin mysteries that would have me rolling my eyes. Ultimately, that's not fair to the book. The resolution doesn't depend on identical DNA, and (it appears to me) explains and explores that issue in some detail, as well as discussing the reason for identical twins having different fingerprints.
I kept thinking I had solved the mystery (and tended to be correct), but to my surprise, the various mysteries kept being resolved by the protagonists, and leading to more to discover (though the ultimate conceit is fairly well telegraphed).
A couple of legal issues to be addressed had me thinking I would be upset with an unrealistic and improbable outcome, but (as is consistent in Mr. Turow's novels) the legal arguments seem valid and the legal conclusions seem consistent with the law.
Like most of Mr. Turow's novels, the pacing of Identical can seem slow, based in large part on his use of language to slow things down, and explore diversions. Often there are little pieces of sentences or commentary here or there that are worth pausing to think about.
I can recall being somewhat fascinated when Mr. Turow dealt with Sandy Stern's relationship with his wife, and how he adjusted to her death in Burden of Proof. Identical doesn't place the same degree of focus on that, but one of the characters is still dealing with the death of a spouse, and the other is dealing with the end of a relationship. Both aspects are dealt with in a way that seems important to the characters, and they work at solving the mystery to escape from their personal lives, but also as a way for them to learn more about themselves. I really like the way Scott Turow is able to bring that element into his novels, and it's what keeps me reading him.
The mystery in Identical is okay, though not difficult to solve, and the ending is a bit pat. But the examination of relationships and how to re-evaluate a relationship after a death or break-up is the aspect that will stick with me and will be the reason I remember the novel.
Friday, June 5, 2015
Linda Fairstein and too much realism in fiction
I recently posted on Notorious by Allison Brennan
Read While Walking: Notorious by Allison Brennan, and was wanting to draw a parallel to Linda Fairstein's Alex Cooper character (whose name I was having trouble placing.
In looking it up, I learned that Linda Fairstein was actually a real lawyer (which I never would have guessed from her novels alone) and appears to have been partially responsible for a wrongful conviction. (I have to think not all of that appeared on the book jacket under the author picture... but note to self, read book jackets.)
The Alex Cooper involve prosecuting attorneys mixing themselves into the investigations, finding and manipulating the facts rather than sitting back and bringing to trial the cases as brought to them by the police. Not very realistic as I understand court processes, but I sort of liked the throwback to Perry Mason, how he wouldn't sit in his office and wait for clients to come to him, but had to be on the firing line, personally solving the mystery before the case was even brought to trial.
I recognize that's a romanticized view of the practice of criminal law, but sometimes that's what makes fiction fun.
So I'm a little shocked, and a bit disturbed to read that Ms. Fairstein was actually a prosecutor in New York, who (according to the Wikipedia entries) appears to have participated quite actively in the building of cases against potential defendants. I'm going to need to give some thought to how comfortable I am continuing to read books by Ms. Fairstein. What is fun in fiction can sometimes be troubling in reality.
The idea that a prosecutor might picture herself in the role of a romantic, fictional heroine who has to take it upon herself to solve cases because she's the only one smart enough, capable enough and willing enough to do so is not fun and exciting to me, but scary and troubling. It kind of takes the fun out of the fiction for me I think.
I had kind of been off Ms. Fairstein for a while, finding the characters just a little too unrealistic. It's ironic that I'm now off Ms. Fairstein because some of the characters may have been a little too realistic.
Read While Walking: Notorious by Allison Brennan, and was wanting to draw a parallel to Linda Fairstein's Alex Cooper character (whose name I was having trouble placing.
In looking it up, I learned that Linda Fairstein was actually a real lawyer (which I never would have guessed from her novels alone) and appears to have been partially responsible for a wrongful conviction. (I have to think not all of that appeared on the book jacket under the author picture... but note to self, read book jackets.)
The Alex Cooper involve prosecuting attorneys mixing themselves into the investigations, finding and manipulating the facts rather than sitting back and bringing to trial the cases as brought to them by the police. Not very realistic as I understand court processes, but I sort of liked the throwback to Perry Mason, how he wouldn't sit in his office and wait for clients to come to him, but had to be on the firing line, personally solving the mystery before the case was even brought to trial.
I recognize that's a romanticized view of the practice of criminal law, but sometimes that's what makes fiction fun.
So I'm a little shocked, and a bit disturbed to read that Ms. Fairstein was actually a prosecutor in New York, who (according to the Wikipedia entries) appears to have participated quite actively in the building of cases against potential defendants. I'm going to need to give some thought to how comfortable I am continuing to read books by Ms. Fairstein. What is fun in fiction can sometimes be troubling in reality.
The idea that a prosecutor might picture herself in the role of a romantic, fictional heroine who has to take it upon herself to solve cases because she's the only one smart enough, capable enough and willing enough to do so is not fun and exciting to me, but scary and troubling. It kind of takes the fun out of the fiction for me I think.
I had kind of been off Ms. Fairstein for a while, finding the characters just a little too unrealistic. It's ironic that I'm now off Ms. Fairstein because some of the characters may have been a little too realistic.
Notorious by Allison Brennan
Allison Brennan is a new author for me. Notorious is apparently the first novel featuring Max Revere.
Max Revere is an investigative journalist, with a trust fund and her own television show. At the behest of the sister of an old friend, she returns to her high school town for a funeral and to investigate an alleged suicide.
The suicide question is solved and resolved very rapidly, thanks in part to a suicide note the police failed to find. However, it re-opens the question of a murder that took place many years before.
Overall, the novel reminded me quite a bit of Linda Fairstein, and the Alexandra Cooper novels. However, one of the things I really like about the Linda Fairstein novels is that they each showcase an interesting and historical aspect of New York, frequently one that I wasn't aware of before. As such, I can put up with the protagonist being impossibly gorgeous, rich, brilliant and talented because I'm not reading it for the realism of the characters, but for the interest generated in relation to the city and the history.
Hmmmm. That sounded a bit catty. Well. I like to read mystery novels for the characters and character interactions. Purely plot driven mystery holds less interest for me. When characters are so blatantly matters of cardboard wish fulfillment, I get less out of them (says the reader who loves James Bond, Perry Mason and other hardboiled detective novels).
Notorious has as its setting a wealthy town or suburb, which seems fictional in all its respects, and doesn't act as its own character in the novel.
In any event, the plot was okay, and I tend to enjoy mysteries that seek to solve long buried murders. I guessed the villain relatively early on, but overall it was competently written. I'd probably give Allison Brennan another chance, since sometimes first a new character takes some time to establish, but I'm not sure I'd seek out the series in order, and may be more inclined to try a stand-alone novel.
Max Revere is an investigative journalist, with a trust fund and her own television show. At the behest of the sister of an old friend, she returns to her high school town for a funeral and to investigate an alleged suicide.
The suicide question is solved and resolved very rapidly, thanks in part to a suicide note the police failed to find. However, it re-opens the question of a murder that took place many years before.
Overall, the novel reminded me quite a bit of Linda Fairstein, and the Alexandra Cooper novels. However, one of the things I really like about the Linda Fairstein novels is that they each showcase an interesting and historical aspect of New York, frequently one that I wasn't aware of before. As such, I can put up with the protagonist being impossibly gorgeous, rich, brilliant and talented because I'm not reading it for the realism of the characters, but for the interest generated in relation to the city and the history.
Hmmmm. That sounded a bit catty. Well. I like to read mystery novels for the characters and character interactions. Purely plot driven mystery holds less interest for me. When characters are so blatantly matters of cardboard wish fulfillment, I get less out of them (says the reader who loves James Bond, Perry Mason and other hardboiled detective novels).
Notorious has as its setting a wealthy town or suburb, which seems fictional in all its respects, and doesn't act as its own character in the novel.
In any event, the plot was okay, and I tend to enjoy mysteries that seek to solve long buried murders. I guessed the villain relatively early on, but overall it was competently written. I'd probably give Allison Brennan another chance, since sometimes first a new character takes some time to establish, but I'm not sure I'd seek out the series in order, and may be more inclined to try a stand-alone novel.
Wednesday, June 3, 2015
The Stranger by Harlen Coben
The Stranger is unusual among the Harlen Coben books. (See, I can avoid saying it's one of the stranger novels because I'm not Myron Bolitar). It's a standalone novel, but doesn't feature Lauren Muse, Cindy Shaker and the others from the New Jersey DA's office. There is actually one rather subtle reference to Myron Bolitar when one of the characters playing basketball is having a great game, and is even able to outplay the former Duke star who wears a knee brace.
Many of Harlen Coben's novels involve a disappearance or a missing person, and some years after the fact there is an indication that the missing person may still be alive. Generally the novel involves solving the mystery of how someone can still be alive, and why there was the period of non-contact.
The Stranger is a missing person story told in a much more conventionally chronological manner. A stranger whispers a secret. The subject of the secret is confronted. The secret seems to go deeper than initially indicated, and then the subject of the secret disappears. All of this usually comes out in the backstory of a Harlen Coben novel, so it's a lot of fun to see him build suspense in a more traditional story telling fashion.
I'm not sure if I would have had as much fun with The Stranger if I wasn't familiar with Mr. Coben's plot patterns. Somehow it made the more conventional tale seem fresh and exciting because it was unexpected from him.
As with many of Mr. Coben's recent novels, The Stranger shifts perspective, at its convenience, into a second-person style of narration, just to bring home that you, the reader, are no different than these specimens of suburbia on display. He goes back to his tagline question of how far you would go to protect your family, and whether we are all Raskalnikov at heart, particularly when it comes to our own children's welfare.
I found that aspect a bit heavy handed, but I liked the analogies about how easy it is to fall into stealing, or cheating a bit here and there. I also liked the slightly more subtle aspects of how sometimes the dream of living in the perfect suburb is suffocating and crushing. More than one character in this book was prepared to seek relief in life insurance proceeds. The concept that providing for your family, and the need to keep up appearances and participate in the community and maintain your children in the school is of such importance that even if it's not achievable financially, it must be done at any cost.
The offhanded, casual way that idea was introduced; that your life insurance policies can maintain the suburban dream for your family, and if all you have to do is die, then it's well worth it, I found to be the most chilling aspect of The Stranger. As a side note, the main character, Adam Price is a lawyer who deals with eminent domain (how to hold onto your house when the government is trying to kick you out). While I think that ties into his character, and the overarching themes of the book about holding on past all reason, I couldn't help but think that it might have been more fitting if the protagonist was an insurance broker.
Many of Harlen Coben's novels involve a disappearance or a missing person, and some years after the fact there is an indication that the missing person may still be alive. Generally the novel involves solving the mystery of how someone can still be alive, and why there was the period of non-contact.
The Stranger is a missing person story told in a much more conventionally chronological manner. A stranger whispers a secret. The subject of the secret is confronted. The secret seems to go deeper than initially indicated, and then the subject of the secret disappears. All of this usually comes out in the backstory of a Harlen Coben novel, so it's a lot of fun to see him build suspense in a more traditional story telling fashion.
I'm not sure if I would have had as much fun with The Stranger if I wasn't familiar with Mr. Coben's plot patterns. Somehow it made the more conventional tale seem fresh and exciting because it was unexpected from him.
As with many of Mr. Coben's recent novels, The Stranger shifts perspective, at its convenience, into a second-person style of narration, just to bring home that you, the reader, are no different than these specimens of suburbia on display. He goes back to his tagline question of how far you would go to protect your family, and whether we are all Raskalnikov at heart, particularly when it comes to our own children's welfare.
I found that aspect a bit heavy handed, but I liked the analogies about how easy it is to fall into stealing, or cheating a bit here and there. I also liked the slightly more subtle aspects of how sometimes the dream of living in the perfect suburb is suffocating and crushing. More than one character in this book was prepared to seek relief in life insurance proceeds. The concept that providing for your family, and the need to keep up appearances and participate in the community and maintain your children in the school is of such importance that even if it's not achievable financially, it must be done at any cost.
The offhanded, casual way that idea was introduced; that your life insurance policies can maintain the suburban dream for your family, and if all you have to do is die, then it's well worth it, I found to be the most chilling aspect of The Stranger. As a side note, the main character, Adam Price is a lawyer who deals with eminent domain (how to hold onto your house when the government is trying to kick you out). While I think that ties into his character, and the overarching themes of the book about holding on past all reason, I couldn't help but think that it might have been more fitting if the protagonist was an insurance broker.
Friday, May 29, 2015
Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett
A while ago, in remembrance of Terry Pratchett's passing, I said I wanted to read a Terry Pratchett novel. Read While Walking: Terry Pratchett.
I read Feet of Clay, one of the Discworld novels featuring the City Guard. I think I read Guards, Guards some time ago, but enough time has passed that I didn't recognize any of the characters in Feet of Clay. I didn't feel I had any need to have any particular prior knowledge of any of the characters or the world. Perhaps there would have been a touch more depth to the experience, but I don't think I suffered for it.
The novel finds a very nice balance. The plot is engaging enough that it's probably worth reading for itself. The humour reminded me very much of the city watch in Shakespeare's comedies, and the farcical elements were fun. I wouldn't say I found much of it laugh out loud funny, but it was certainly enjoyable to read, often bringing a smile and I wanted to see how the plot resolved.
I probably would have preferred a little more plot and characterization, or alternatively more elements just for laughs, but overall I think Feet of Clay walked the line very neatly. Too much silliness and it would be a denser read, more like Douglas Adams' novels.
There are a few big picture thoughts about free will, religion, the use of labour in production, but none are explored in any great depth. One of the elements I thought was neatly incorporated was the idea that most groups of people, however egalitarian their viewpoint, need someone they can feel superior to or someone they can order around. Commander Vimes tries hard to treat everyone as part of his job, and perhaps has some element of growth in his view towards the undead (albeit not vampires). But there's a neat reminiscence he has about playing hopscotch where he fondly thinks of how he bullied one of the children on his street, without internally recognizing it as such.
I thought that was neatly done by Mr. Pratchett, because while Vimes longs at times for the good old days, there's sometimes an insidious subtlety to people's habits that is hard to change, can be damaging, but is sometimes forgotten in the glow of nostalgia or resistance to further change.
I think a teenage or preteen audience would particularly enjoy Mr. Pratchett's novels. For myself, I found Feet of Clay diverting and fun, but do not feel any compulsion to read the next or previous in the series. If sometime I want something lighter, or need a smile though, I'd find a Discworld novel easy to pick up and I'd be happy to do so.
I read Feet of Clay, one of the Discworld novels featuring the City Guard. I think I read Guards, Guards some time ago, but enough time has passed that I didn't recognize any of the characters in Feet of Clay. I didn't feel I had any need to have any particular prior knowledge of any of the characters or the world. Perhaps there would have been a touch more depth to the experience, but I don't think I suffered for it.
The novel finds a very nice balance. The plot is engaging enough that it's probably worth reading for itself. The humour reminded me very much of the city watch in Shakespeare's comedies, and the farcical elements were fun. I wouldn't say I found much of it laugh out loud funny, but it was certainly enjoyable to read, often bringing a smile and I wanted to see how the plot resolved.
I probably would have preferred a little more plot and characterization, or alternatively more elements just for laughs, but overall I think Feet of Clay walked the line very neatly. Too much silliness and it would be a denser read, more like Douglas Adams' novels.
There are a few big picture thoughts about free will, religion, the use of labour in production, but none are explored in any great depth. One of the elements I thought was neatly incorporated was the idea that most groups of people, however egalitarian their viewpoint, need someone they can feel superior to or someone they can order around. Commander Vimes tries hard to treat everyone as part of his job, and perhaps has some element of growth in his view towards the undead (albeit not vampires). But there's a neat reminiscence he has about playing hopscotch where he fondly thinks of how he bullied one of the children on his street, without internally recognizing it as such.
I thought that was neatly done by Mr. Pratchett, because while Vimes longs at times for the good old days, there's sometimes an insidious subtlety to people's habits that is hard to change, can be damaging, but is sometimes forgotten in the glow of nostalgia or resistance to further change.
I think a teenage or preteen audience would particularly enjoy Mr. Pratchett's novels. For myself, I found Feet of Clay diverting and fun, but do not feel any compulsion to read the next or previous in the series. If sometime I want something lighter, or need a smile though, I'd find a Discworld novel easy to pick up and I'd be happy to do so.
Tuesday, May 26, 2015
Rehabilitation and the nature of imprisonment
The last few novels I've written about,
Read While Walking: The Reader by Bernard Schlink,
Read While Walking: Dry Ice by Stephen White, and
Read While Walking: The Two Minute Rule, by Robert Crais, deal with the question of rehabilitation.
I'm reminded of Red, Morgan Freeman's character from The Shawshank Redemption answering for the parole board at each hearing the question of whether he is rehabilitated. Ultimately, he says he doesn't know what that word means.
In The Reader, Hannah goes to prison, but only towards the end of her incarceration does she seem to conclude that she must personally make reparations to earn forgiveness.
In Dry Ice, Alan Gregory concludes that there are some people who can't be rehabilitated and perhaps the death penalty is warranted. He has reversed an earlier position that most evil has either external or internal causes which can be treated or addressed and rehabilitation achieved.
In The Two Minute Rule, Max is an ex-con who wants to be a good person, but his only answers to problems involve returning to his pattern of criminal activity and the people with whom he shared a criminal past.
Erle Stanley Gardner is one of my favourite authors, and I really enjoy the novels he wrote under the pseudonym A.A. Fair (the Bertha Cool and Donald Lam detective novels). In the later novels (I think once his pseudonym was common knowledge) he included forewords addressing some of the figures in penal studies, and asking questions about rehabilitation, although the novels themselves don't engage with those problems or questions.
I find I'm enjoying novels considering those aspects of late (I've got a couple of A.A. Fair novels in my stack currently, as well as The Vendetta Defense by Lisa Scottolini, and I recently finished Identical by Scott Turow).
Incarceration presumably is intended to (1) prevent further crime/protect society from the offender during the term of incarceration; (2) make a statement to the individual that their action was wrong and has consequences; (3) make a statement to society that these types of actions have consequences (and presumably influence behavior of other persons thinking of undertaking such acts); and (4) make the individual unlikely to commit that crime or others again (rehabilitation). I'm not sure that remorse for the crime, confession or reparations to victims are goals of incarceration in and of itself, though those may be elements which demonstrate rehabilitation.
There may be other aspects as well, but those are the ones that presently come to mind. My sense is that rehabilitation tends to be the main focus for people considering the role of incarceration as a penalty for a crime
So, if an offender is completely rehabilitated, should that be the sole determinative criteria for the release of an offender from incarceration (or does it mean there is no need for incarceration in the first place if an offender will not offend again)? If the offender is not at all rehabilitated at the end of their sentence, is there any justification to release or not release the offender?
Part of the reason the question arises in my mind are some news stories describing a practice (it seems) of charging persons with additional crimes (which pre-date their incarceration) just as their term of incarceration is about to end.
While it would be difficult to argue that past crimes are not deserving of punishment, does that undermine the rehabilitation process? It accomplishes goals 1 and 3 (protecting society during the term of incarceration and making a statement that the past behavior is wrong), but in so doing, does it undermine goals 2 and 4? The individual will likely not feel that it seems like justice to have crimes prosecuted piecemeal for the purpose of obtaining consecutive sentences and removing from the judge the ability to determine an appropriate sentence for the entirety of the criminal activity. It also renders any rehabilitation achieved meaningless, as it deprives the offender of the chance to demonstrate his or her rehabilitation, and makes the balance of the sentence or the new sentence exist for the sake of punishment alone. Even goal 1 may not be achieved, because if the offender is truly rehabilitated, then there would then be no further risk to society.
Perhaps (if rehabilitation is the sole determinative criteria) an ideal answer would be a flexible sentencing system that incarcerated people until they were rehabilitated, almost irrespective of anything else, but in such case there would need to be means both to achieve rehabilitation and to evaluate whether it had in fact been achieved. It's a challenging political problem though, because (as A.A. Fair points out) there is little political capital to be made in recommending studies and spending on criminals already incarcerated particularly if there is a suggestion that rehabilitation could be better achieved absent incarceration.
As I said, I'm enjoying novels that consider the problem. Any suggestions for fiction addressing the rehabilitation question would be appreciated.
Read While Walking: The Reader by Bernard Schlink,
Read While Walking: Dry Ice by Stephen White, and
Read While Walking: The Two Minute Rule, by Robert Crais, deal with the question of rehabilitation.
I'm reminded of Red, Morgan Freeman's character from The Shawshank Redemption answering for the parole board at each hearing the question of whether he is rehabilitated. Ultimately, he says he doesn't know what that word means.
In The Reader, Hannah goes to prison, but only towards the end of her incarceration does she seem to conclude that she must personally make reparations to earn forgiveness.
In Dry Ice, Alan Gregory concludes that there are some people who can't be rehabilitated and perhaps the death penalty is warranted. He has reversed an earlier position that most evil has either external or internal causes which can be treated or addressed and rehabilitation achieved.
In The Two Minute Rule, Max is an ex-con who wants to be a good person, but his only answers to problems involve returning to his pattern of criminal activity and the people with whom he shared a criminal past.
Erle Stanley Gardner is one of my favourite authors, and I really enjoy the novels he wrote under the pseudonym A.A. Fair (the Bertha Cool and Donald Lam detective novels). In the later novels (I think once his pseudonym was common knowledge) he included forewords addressing some of the figures in penal studies, and asking questions about rehabilitation, although the novels themselves don't engage with those problems or questions.
I find I'm enjoying novels considering those aspects of late (I've got a couple of A.A. Fair novels in my stack currently, as well as The Vendetta Defense by Lisa Scottolini, and I recently finished Identical by Scott Turow).
Incarceration presumably is intended to (1) prevent further crime/protect society from the offender during the term of incarceration; (2) make a statement to the individual that their action was wrong and has consequences; (3) make a statement to society that these types of actions have consequences (and presumably influence behavior of other persons thinking of undertaking such acts); and (4) make the individual unlikely to commit that crime or others again (rehabilitation). I'm not sure that remorse for the crime, confession or reparations to victims are goals of incarceration in and of itself, though those may be elements which demonstrate rehabilitation.
There may be other aspects as well, but those are the ones that presently come to mind. My sense is that rehabilitation tends to be the main focus for people considering the role of incarceration as a penalty for a crime
So, if an offender is completely rehabilitated, should that be the sole determinative criteria for the release of an offender from incarceration (or does it mean there is no need for incarceration in the first place if an offender will not offend again)? If the offender is not at all rehabilitated at the end of their sentence, is there any justification to release or not release the offender?
Part of the reason the question arises in my mind are some news stories describing a practice (it seems) of charging persons with additional crimes (which pre-date their incarceration) just as their term of incarceration is about to end.
While it would be difficult to argue that past crimes are not deserving of punishment, does that undermine the rehabilitation process? It accomplishes goals 1 and 3 (protecting society during the term of incarceration and making a statement that the past behavior is wrong), but in so doing, does it undermine goals 2 and 4? The individual will likely not feel that it seems like justice to have crimes prosecuted piecemeal for the purpose of obtaining consecutive sentences and removing from the judge the ability to determine an appropriate sentence for the entirety of the criminal activity. It also renders any rehabilitation achieved meaningless, as it deprives the offender of the chance to demonstrate his or her rehabilitation, and makes the balance of the sentence or the new sentence exist for the sake of punishment alone. Even goal 1 may not be achieved, because if the offender is truly rehabilitated, then there would then be no further risk to society.
Perhaps (if rehabilitation is the sole determinative criteria) an ideal answer would be a flexible sentencing system that incarcerated people until they were rehabilitated, almost irrespective of anything else, but in such case there would need to be means both to achieve rehabilitation and to evaluate whether it had in fact been achieved. It's a challenging political problem though, because (as A.A. Fair points out) there is little political capital to be made in recommending studies and spending on criminals already incarcerated particularly if there is a suggestion that rehabilitation could be better achieved absent incarceration.
As I said, I'm enjoying novels that consider the problem. Any suggestions for fiction addressing the rehabilitation question would be appreciated.
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
The Two Minute Rule, by Robert Crais
The Two Minute Rule by Robert Crais is a standalone novel, that does not feature Elvis Cole or Joe Pike or any of his recurring characters.
The Two Minute Rule refers to the time a prospective bank robber has from when he announces a hold-up to the time he must exit the bank so that police won't have time to respond. The protagonist, Max Holman, is a convicted bank robber, recently released from prison.
Robert Crais does a nice job of making a sympathetic protagonist who is wholly rehabilitated, while showing some of the struggles ex-convicts face on re-integration. He also shows a number of the supports available to ex-convicts, and the people and social services who genuinely want to see them succeed. I wouldn't say that Max is a fully developed character in the way that Elvis Cole however. Like Joe Pike, Max seems to wait in limbo until the next action moment arrives.
The other major character is Katherine Pollard, a former FBI agent. There were aspects of her characterization that I really liked, though at times I wasn't sure all of her personality traits fully meshed into the character.
What I really liked though was the relationship between Max and Katherine. I thought Mr. Crais did a very good job of showing their relationship and justifying how there could be a relationship between an ex-con and a law enforcement agent. It was believable and moving, and I haven't really seen that in the Cole and Pike books. Although I really like Carol Starkey, and always hope that Cole will see it too, I haven't seen either Cole or Pike make a connection in a way that feels like a relationship with depth and chemistry.
As a result, I need to reevaluate the Elvis Cole and Joe Pike books a bit. I find Elvis' partner, Lucy Chenier, to be lacking depth, and never really saw why Elvis felt so strongly about her. Seeing Max and Katherine, it's clear that Mr. Crais can write strong male-female dynamic relationships, so if he's choosing not to, it must be to put the emphasis on the Cole-Pike friendship. Thinking about it, some of the clearest moments to me from the various Cole and Pike books are things like where Elvis, just rescued, gets a bucket to wash Pike's car.
I was never in doubt about the strength of their friendship, but it does make me wonder if the construction of the novels is intended to show that the depth of their friendship leaves no room for anyone else... because that wouldn't seem like a rewarding friendship but more of a dependent relationship. I had always liked how Elvis tended not to let cases consume him, but still made time to eat, sleep and exercise. He values a well rounded approach to work and life. Pike has always been more of an action-only cipher and harder to picture in a romantic relationship. I like that they complement each other, understand each other, admire each other and work well together, but could it also be to such an extent that neither is capable of forming bonds with anyone else? Or that anyone else just can't measure up?
As I say, I need to think on that some more, though I think I'd go back to someone like Carol Starkey, where Elvis and Joe could both have a level of understanding and admiration for someone who operates in their own line of work. It's just too bad Elvis doesn't see Carol as a romantic possibility.
The Two Minute Rule refers to the time a prospective bank robber has from when he announces a hold-up to the time he must exit the bank so that police won't have time to respond. The protagonist, Max Holman, is a convicted bank robber, recently released from prison.
Robert Crais does a nice job of making a sympathetic protagonist who is wholly rehabilitated, while showing some of the struggles ex-convicts face on re-integration. He also shows a number of the supports available to ex-convicts, and the people and social services who genuinely want to see them succeed. I wouldn't say that Max is a fully developed character in the way that Elvis Cole however. Like Joe Pike, Max seems to wait in limbo until the next action moment arrives.
The other major character is Katherine Pollard, a former FBI agent. There were aspects of her characterization that I really liked, though at times I wasn't sure all of her personality traits fully meshed into the character.
What I really liked though was the relationship between Max and Katherine. I thought Mr. Crais did a very good job of showing their relationship and justifying how there could be a relationship between an ex-con and a law enforcement agent. It was believable and moving, and I haven't really seen that in the Cole and Pike books. Although I really like Carol Starkey, and always hope that Cole will see it too, I haven't seen either Cole or Pike make a connection in a way that feels like a relationship with depth and chemistry.
As a result, I need to reevaluate the Elvis Cole and Joe Pike books a bit. I find Elvis' partner, Lucy Chenier, to be lacking depth, and never really saw why Elvis felt so strongly about her. Seeing Max and Katherine, it's clear that Mr. Crais can write strong male-female dynamic relationships, so if he's choosing not to, it must be to put the emphasis on the Cole-Pike friendship. Thinking about it, some of the clearest moments to me from the various Cole and Pike books are things like where Elvis, just rescued, gets a bucket to wash Pike's car.
I was never in doubt about the strength of their friendship, but it does make me wonder if the construction of the novels is intended to show that the depth of their friendship leaves no room for anyone else... because that wouldn't seem like a rewarding friendship but more of a dependent relationship. I had always liked how Elvis tended not to let cases consume him, but still made time to eat, sleep and exercise. He values a well rounded approach to work and life. Pike has always been more of an action-only cipher and harder to picture in a romantic relationship. I like that they complement each other, understand each other, admire each other and work well together, but could it also be to such an extent that neither is capable of forming bonds with anyone else? Or that anyone else just can't measure up?
As I say, I need to think on that some more, though I think I'd go back to someone like Carol Starkey, where Elvis and Joe could both have a level of understanding and admiration for someone who operates in their own line of work. It's just too bad Elvis doesn't see Carol as a romantic possibility.
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
Dry Ice by Stephen White
Dry Ice by Stephen White, features his protagonist, Alan Gregory. I think I've read an Alan Gregory novel once before, though it was several years ago.
Alan Gregory is a psychologist, and in the novels he uses his psychological expertise to unravel mysteries. It sounds from this that perhaps he uses psychology tricks to catch criminals, but it's fascinating in that it's much more the passive, therapeutic approach he takes that permits him to listen, encourage confidences and piece together the things he has learned.
Dry Ice deals with an escaped prisoner and a potential frame-up centered on Dr. Gregory. The prisoner escaped from an institution for offenders suffering from mental health issues, and he had been confined there after a previous attack on Dr. Gregory's wife. I suspect it is a sequel of sorts to an earlier novel, though I didn't feel as though I missed any key aspects of the novel from being unfamiliar with the earlier adventure.
What is interesting to me, is the shift, almost within the novel itself, of Dr. Gregory's views on appropriate treatment for violent offenders. He indicates in the novel that he previously held the view that violent offenders can't be held solely responsible for the matters occurring within their own minds that are beyond their control. He later comes to the view that everyone is responsible for the choices they make, and becomes more willing to embrace the concept of punishment (up to and including a death sentence) for people with mental health issues.
It's curious coming from a protagonist like Dr. Gregory, since he is very mild mannered and almost passive, while holding very, very firmly to his concept of his professional obligations.
It's an interesting and tricky question I think, and I would have enjoyed even more discussion on the topic. I'm a little unclear, in the context of the novel, whether it is a true shifting of Dr. Gregory's beliefs, or if it is further evidence of his decomposing state of mind after the death of a patient. In Dry Ice Dr. Gregory is clearly having trouble coping. He is alcohol dependent to the point of having a problem, and later he blackmails a fellow psychologist into breaching patient confidentiality. Given the extremely high value I have seen this character place on confidentiality, to the point of maintaining it at risk to his own health and personal relationships, I have to think this was used as a way of showing just badly Alan Gregory's judgment has been impaired.
So is his shift of view part of impaired judgment, or part of an insight he has gathered over time? I think it's part of his stress and willingness to abandon principles at this stage of his life. I don't think he has a principled reason for abandoning his prior conviction that offenders deserve treatment, rather than punishment for actions which are a result of mental conditions beyond their control. I think that seeing the consequence of the offender tracking him down and endangering his family, his abstract principle collided with his reality and he couldn't support it any more.
I look forward to later novels to discover whether Mr. White can create a situation where sympathy is created for an antagonist, to see whether it shifts Alan back to his original view, or if Alan takes the vigilante approach to dispense "justice" to a dangerous offender, whether or not suffering from a disease Alan devotes his life to helping to treat.
Alan Gregory is a psychologist, and in the novels he uses his psychological expertise to unravel mysteries. It sounds from this that perhaps he uses psychology tricks to catch criminals, but it's fascinating in that it's much more the passive, therapeutic approach he takes that permits him to listen, encourage confidences and piece together the things he has learned.
Dry Ice deals with an escaped prisoner and a potential frame-up centered on Dr. Gregory. The prisoner escaped from an institution for offenders suffering from mental health issues, and he had been confined there after a previous attack on Dr. Gregory's wife. I suspect it is a sequel of sorts to an earlier novel, though I didn't feel as though I missed any key aspects of the novel from being unfamiliar with the earlier adventure.
What is interesting to me, is the shift, almost within the novel itself, of Dr. Gregory's views on appropriate treatment for violent offenders. He indicates in the novel that he previously held the view that violent offenders can't be held solely responsible for the matters occurring within their own minds that are beyond their control. He later comes to the view that everyone is responsible for the choices they make, and becomes more willing to embrace the concept of punishment (up to and including a death sentence) for people with mental health issues.
It's curious coming from a protagonist like Dr. Gregory, since he is very mild mannered and almost passive, while holding very, very firmly to his concept of his professional obligations.
It's an interesting and tricky question I think, and I would have enjoyed even more discussion on the topic. I'm a little unclear, in the context of the novel, whether it is a true shifting of Dr. Gregory's beliefs, or if it is further evidence of his decomposing state of mind after the death of a patient. In Dry Ice Dr. Gregory is clearly having trouble coping. He is alcohol dependent to the point of having a problem, and later he blackmails a fellow psychologist into breaching patient confidentiality. Given the extremely high value I have seen this character place on confidentiality, to the point of maintaining it at risk to his own health and personal relationships, I have to think this was used as a way of showing just badly Alan Gregory's judgment has been impaired.
So is his shift of view part of impaired judgment, or part of an insight he has gathered over time? I think it's part of his stress and willingness to abandon principles at this stage of his life. I don't think he has a principled reason for abandoning his prior conviction that offenders deserve treatment, rather than punishment for actions which are a result of mental conditions beyond their control. I think that seeing the consequence of the offender tracking him down and endangering his family, his abstract principle collided with his reality and he couldn't support it any more.
I look forward to later novels to discover whether Mr. White can create a situation where sympathy is created for an antagonist, to see whether it shifts Alan back to his original view, or if Alan takes the vigilante approach to dispense "justice" to a dangerous offender, whether or not suffering from a disease Alan devotes his life to helping to treat.
Monday, May 11, 2015
The Reader, Exploitation and Victimization
I mentioned in earlier posts on The Reader by Bernard Schlink, that it is a very well crafted novel, but a word of appreciation is also due the translator, Carol Brown Janeway. Although the story is always unmistakably taking place in Germany and addressing German issues, it's easy to forget it wasn't written in English.
I know three posts on one book is a lot, but as indicated earlier (Read While Walking: The Reader by Bernard Schlink), I'm treating you as my book club.
So why does the narrator act as he does? He refuses to forgive Hannah, he seems to have deep anger with her, while also caring for her. A central issue facing him seems to be him attempting to resolve why, or if, he loves her and how to work past that.
The descriptions of Hannah are fascinating, in that they don't depict her as beautiful, nor do they indicate what he likes so much about her, but they betray a fascination with her that he can't leave alone. The descriptions encompass both the attraction and the repulsion he feels. When he describes her scent in detail, he describes it in very tactile, but mostly negative terms as though trying to repulse himself, though when describing more positive times in their relationship, he simply says her scent was always clean. Similarly, his physical descriptions of her are bland, unless he dwells on that which simultaneously repulses and attracts him.
Why does he visit the judge to tell him about Hannah's illiteracy, leave without saying anything about it, and feel a sense of relief?
I think Michael feels sexually exploited. I don't know enough about German law to know whether his relationship with Hannah would be rape, or sexual interference or some other legally inappropriate conduct, but Michael seems to struggle between the idea that he initiated the contact, and encouraged the development of the relationship, but feels exploited nonetheless, as though without his consent Hannah forced him to fall in love with her.
There's no indication that Hannah knew he was underage, and much of the narrator's sense of malaise, aimlessness and willingness to dive into a relationship with an older woman feel more like The Graduate than an exploration of underage exploitation.
And yet, the level of intimacy that developed between Hannah and Michael indelibly marked him. He measures all future relationships against the one with her, he only feels right sleeping next to her, his fantasies relate to moments with her, and yet he feels, when she abandons him, that she didn't place the same fundamental significance on her relationship with him. He questions that somewhat when he discovers her clipping of his graduation, but doesn't seem to want to explore that question further.
When he discovers her history with the war, he wants to lash out and blame her for it. He notes that most of his classmates blame their parents for Germany's role in the war, which he does not appear to do, transferring that blame instead to Hannah. When Hannah asks the judge what she could have done differently, not only does the judge fail to answer, but Michael recognizes it as an impossible question. He doesn't know what he would have wanted her to do differently.
And yet Michael has been studying, perhaps wallowing in the history of Germany's actions in World War II, and identifying with the concentration camp victims. By identifying with the victims, he can remove himself from the heritage of guilt associated with his nationality. And when he finds that Hannah had reading relationships with some of the prisoners, he finds it easy to lump himself in with the victims, as one more victim of Hannah and therefore not one of the perpetrators of crimes in war, but one of its victims, with Hannah as the wrongdoer that he can blame.
Yet through all of this, Michael loves her, and I think is angry that she made him love her. To me, that's the principal crime that Michael cannot forgive, that she made him love her, as his first love, and he can't let her go. So my explanation for why he reads and sends the tapes is partly one-sided self indulgence, partly to make himself feel good about himself, but partly to make her fall in love with him as her only love, and be unable to understand why he abandons her like she abandoned him without explanation.
I know three posts on one book is a lot, but as indicated earlier (Read While Walking: The Reader by Bernard Schlink), I'm treating you as my book club.
So why does the narrator act as he does? He refuses to forgive Hannah, he seems to have deep anger with her, while also caring for her. A central issue facing him seems to be him attempting to resolve why, or if, he loves her and how to work past that.
The descriptions of Hannah are fascinating, in that they don't depict her as beautiful, nor do they indicate what he likes so much about her, but they betray a fascination with her that he can't leave alone. The descriptions encompass both the attraction and the repulsion he feels. When he describes her scent in detail, he describes it in very tactile, but mostly negative terms as though trying to repulse himself, though when describing more positive times in their relationship, he simply says her scent was always clean. Similarly, his physical descriptions of her are bland, unless he dwells on that which simultaneously repulses and attracts him.
Why does he visit the judge to tell him about Hannah's illiteracy, leave without saying anything about it, and feel a sense of relief?
I think Michael feels sexually exploited. I don't know enough about German law to know whether his relationship with Hannah would be rape, or sexual interference or some other legally inappropriate conduct, but Michael seems to struggle between the idea that he initiated the contact, and encouraged the development of the relationship, but feels exploited nonetheless, as though without his consent Hannah forced him to fall in love with her.
There's no indication that Hannah knew he was underage, and much of the narrator's sense of malaise, aimlessness and willingness to dive into a relationship with an older woman feel more like The Graduate than an exploration of underage exploitation.
And yet, the level of intimacy that developed between Hannah and Michael indelibly marked him. He measures all future relationships against the one with her, he only feels right sleeping next to her, his fantasies relate to moments with her, and yet he feels, when she abandons him, that she didn't place the same fundamental significance on her relationship with him. He questions that somewhat when he discovers her clipping of his graduation, but doesn't seem to want to explore that question further.
When he discovers her history with the war, he wants to lash out and blame her for it. He notes that most of his classmates blame their parents for Germany's role in the war, which he does not appear to do, transferring that blame instead to Hannah. When Hannah asks the judge what she could have done differently, not only does the judge fail to answer, but Michael recognizes it as an impossible question. He doesn't know what he would have wanted her to do differently.
And yet Michael has been studying, perhaps wallowing in the history of Germany's actions in World War II, and identifying with the concentration camp victims. By identifying with the victims, he can remove himself from the heritage of guilt associated with his nationality. And when he finds that Hannah had reading relationships with some of the prisoners, he finds it easy to lump himself in with the victims, as one more victim of Hannah and therefore not one of the perpetrators of crimes in war, but one of its victims, with Hannah as the wrongdoer that he can blame.
Yet through all of this, Michael loves her, and I think is angry that she made him love her. To me, that's the principal crime that Michael cannot forgive, that she made him love her, as his first love, and he can't let her go. So my explanation for why he reads and sends the tapes is partly one-sided self indulgence, partly to make himself feel good about himself, but partly to make her fall in love with him as her only love, and be unable to understand why he abandons her like she abandoned him without explanation.
Thursday, May 7, 2015
The Reader: Forgiveness for whom?
The Reader, by Bernard Schlink, ends with its narrator (Michael Berg) musing about the writing of the story he's just finished telling. He says he's started writing a number of times, and has taken different approaches, but this is the story that wanted to be told. He then tries to make sense of why he had to tell the story.
It's kind of a fascinating ending because the narrator is inviting us to look at the motivations underlying his decision to tell us the story in this way. Throughout the novel, he has hidden most of his motivations from us. The epilogue (if I can call it that) makes explicit that Michael himself may not understand his motivations and may tell himself one thing while having a different underlying reason.
It also invites the reader to ask why do we think the narrator recorded this? Why do we think he recorded it in this way, with these things included and other aspects excluded? It's a neat construction that would start a discussion without need of a book club checklist at the end. And once you start to ask those questions about why the story was told this way, and what motivates the narrator, it prompts the deeper questions about the narrator's actions and motivations throughout the novel.
The narrator indicates he wrote it initially to try to be free of the hold these memories had upon him, an exorcism of sorts. He said that didn't work. Then he tried to write it to hold onto and rediscover his memories relating to the story, but that didn't work. Then when he put it aside for a while, it came back to him as a story that needed telling, perhaps in the same way that he needed to create the tapes he read (arguably a matter of self-indulgence). Then he reevaluates to consider that perhaps it was what he needed to be free... though I wouldn't say the ending leaves me feeling as though the narrator has any greater sense of freedom than he had before.
So why did he write it the way he did? It's a curiously distant yet internalized novel. He does not engage in much speculation on the motivations of Hannah, and other than a brief attempt to understand his father, spends virtually no time considering any other people. He doesn't talk about his ex-wife in any detail, nor about their meeting, how he fell in love with her or any other matters. I'm fairly certain more text is given to unnamed lovers than to the woman he married and with whom he had a child. He spares a sentence or two for his daughter as a token nod to the obligatory affection he understands he's supposed to feel, but she takes up no space in the story. Siblings, friends, the nature of his work, his mother, none of these get any time in the story, and yet the story is all about the narrator, all from his perspective. Yet it has distance to it. Whenever he feels he may be getting too close to his own feelings and thoughts he backs away. When he visits the concentration camp, the perspective jumps such that he's not remembering his visit as a young man, but his subsequent visit many years later, to further remove himself from the feelings he had at the time.
So why does the story have this construction focused on himself while avoiding examination of his relationships with people and the world around him? Is it because he's extremely self involved, and has no room in his thoughts for anyone except himself and the impact that Hannah made on him? Or that he's treating this story as pure self-indulgence or exorcism and is excising every part of his thoughts except for that involving his relationship with Hannah?
For myself, I think it's a combination of both. I think Michael feels that his relationship with Hannah cast a shadow over his entire life, and some part of his mind is always analyzing it, turning it over, and looking at it, to the point that it overwhelms the rest of his life and interactions with other people. His mind can't let it go, and he hopes by writing that it lets him leave some of it behind.
So what story is he telling then? I have to think it's more than a bare recitation of his perception of historical fact, though I think it's very intentional that he leaves his own thoughts and feelings out of the story where he can. Partly that's because the narrator doesn't share feelings with people, and partly it's that he wants to present an objective account. That's what makes it feel like a confession to me. That he has a need to expiate his guilt or Hannah's guilt, and thinks that this story is the best way to do it. I think he's told the story in a way that was intended to show him, or Hannah, in the best possible light, but somehow the story took over and didn't do that the way he intended. Whenever the facts start to show him in a poor light, or seem to beg for an examination of his own conscience or motives, he backs away, as though he doesn't dare look too closely at what he has done or why he did it.
So is it an apologia for himself, or for Hannah? I haven't decided, but I think it's Michael's story. I think he's trying to explain and justify himself, and perhaps have a story, if not of forgiveness, of understanding. I wonder if perhaps he can't reach an understanding of his own motivations, so is looking to us as readers to do so.
Trying to avoid explicit spoilers, at the very end of the novel I think it's significant that he says he only visited Hannah once, and explicitly withholds the information about whether he gave her the letter addressed to her and thanking her for the donation. Somehow I don't think he did. I think he withheld that absolution for her. Which leaves me with the question, is he leaving it for us (the readers) to absolve Hannah? Is that the understanding and forgiveness the story seeks to achieve? I don't think so. I think he intentionally withholds absolution for her, and doesn't think we are in a position to grant it in his place.
The story has been internal and has been crafted to show a pattern of self indulgence on the part of Michael. As he depicts himself, he doesn't consider anyone else's feelings, and doesn't seem to live for anything but his memories. In working through those memories, he came to an understanding of Hannah (though always well after the time the understanding could have made any impact). And he withheld from Hannah the knowledge that he had that understanding, since understanding would lead to empathy, and from empathy to forgiveness. He ends the novel (like the author in New York), still unprepared to offer Hannah that forgiveness.
And yet he wants understanding from us readers for his actions. He's not quite prepared to ask absolution for himself, but tries, throughout the story, to present himself in an objective, distant way, without delving into all his internal justifications, to see if we can understand him, like he ultimately understood Hannah. The question for the readers, I think, is whether we are prepared to offer him forgiveness or whether we would withhold that from him. And if we withhold it, then perhaps we've arrived at a perfect understanding of his actions. Which is perhaps why he told the story.
It's kind of a fascinating ending because the narrator is inviting us to look at the motivations underlying his decision to tell us the story in this way. Throughout the novel, he has hidden most of his motivations from us. The epilogue (if I can call it that) makes explicit that Michael himself may not understand his motivations and may tell himself one thing while having a different underlying reason.
It also invites the reader to ask why do we think the narrator recorded this? Why do we think he recorded it in this way, with these things included and other aspects excluded? It's a neat construction that would start a discussion without need of a book club checklist at the end. And once you start to ask those questions about why the story was told this way, and what motivates the narrator, it prompts the deeper questions about the narrator's actions and motivations throughout the novel.
The narrator indicates he wrote it initially to try to be free of the hold these memories had upon him, an exorcism of sorts. He said that didn't work. Then he tried to write it to hold onto and rediscover his memories relating to the story, but that didn't work. Then when he put it aside for a while, it came back to him as a story that needed telling, perhaps in the same way that he needed to create the tapes he read (arguably a matter of self-indulgence). Then he reevaluates to consider that perhaps it was what he needed to be free... though I wouldn't say the ending leaves me feeling as though the narrator has any greater sense of freedom than he had before.
So why did he write it the way he did? It's a curiously distant yet internalized novel. He does not engage in much speculation on the motivations of Hannah, and other than a brief attempt to understand his father, spends virtually no time considering any other people. He doesn't talk about his ex-wife in any detail, nor about their meeting, how he fell in love with her or any other matters. I'm fairly certain more text is given to unnamed lovers than to the woman he married and with whom he had a child. He spares a sentence or two for his daughter as a token nod to the obligatory affection he understands he's supposed to feel, but she takes up no space in the story. Siblings, friends, the nature of his work, his mother, none of these get any time in the story, and yet the story is all about the narrator, all from his perspective. Yet it has distance to it. Whenever he feels he may be getting too close to his own feelings and thoughts he backs away. When he visits the concentration camp, the perspective jumps such that he's not remembering his visit as a young man, but his subsequent visit many years later, to further remove himself from the feelings he had at the time.
So why does the story have this construction focused on himself while avoiding examination of his relationships with people and the world around him? Is it because he's extremely self involved, and has no room in his thoughts for anyone except himself and the impact that Hannah made on him? Or that he's treating this story as pure self-indulgence or exorcism and is excising every part of his thoughts except for that involving his relationship with Hannah?
For myself, I think it's a combination of both. I think Michael feels that his relationship with Hannah cast a shadow over his entire life, and some part of his mind is always analyzing it, turning it over, and looking at it, to the point that it overwhelms the rest of his life and interactions with other people. His mind can't let it go, and he hopes by writing that it lets him leave some of it behind.
So what story is he telling then? I have to think it's more than a bare recitation of his perception of historical fact, though I think it's very intentional that he leaves his own thoughts and feelings out of the story where he can. Partly that's because the narrator doesn't share feelings with people, and partly it's that he wants to present an objective account. That's what makes it feel like a confession to me. That he has a need to expiate his guilt or Hannah's guilt, and thinks that this story is the best way to do it. I think he's told the story in a way that was intended to show him, or Hannah, in the best possible light, but somehow the story took over and didn't do that the way he intended. Whenever the facts start to show him in a poor light, or seem to beg for an examination of his own conscience or motives, he backs away, as though he doesn't dare look too closely at what he has done or why he did it.
So is it an apologia for himself, or for Hannah? I haven't decided, but I think it's Michael's story. I think he's trying to explain and justify himself, and perhaps have a story, if not of forgiveness, of understanding. I wonder if perhaps he can't reach an understanding of his own motivations, so is looking to us as readers to do so.
Trying to avoid explicit spoilers, at the very end of the novel I think it's significant that he says he only visited Hannah once, and explicitly withholds the information about whether he gave her the letter addressed to her and thanking her for the donation. Somehow I don't think he did. I think he withheld that absolution for her. Which leaves me with the question, is he leaving it for us (the readers) to absolve Hannah? Is that the understanding and forgiveness the story seeks to achieve? I don't think so. I think he intentionally withholds absolution for her, and doesn't think we are in a position to grant it in his place.
The story has been internal and has been crafted to show a pattern of self indulgence on the part of Michael. As he depicts himself, he doesn't consider anyone else's feelings, and doesn't seem to live for anything but his memories. In working through those memories, he came to an understanding of Hannah (though always well after the time the understanding could have made any impact). And he withheld from Hannah the knowledge that he had that understanding, since understanding would lead to empathy, and from empathy to forgiveness. He ends the novel (like the author in New York), still unprepared to offer Hannah that forgiveness.
And yet he wants understanding from us readers for his actions. He's not quite prepared to ask absolution for himself, but tries, throughout the story, to present himself in an objective, distant way, without delving into all his internal justifications, to see if we can understand him, like he ultimately understood Hannah. The question for the readers, I think, is whether we are prepared to offer him forgiveness or whether we would withhold that from him. And if we withhold it, then perhaps we've arrived at a perfect understanding of his actions. Which is perhaps why he told the story.
Wednesday, May 6, 2015
The Reader by Bernard Schlink
I have been wanting to read The Reader for some time. It was probably on my "to read" list since I saw that the movie based on the book had been nominated for an Academy Award, which I now realize was in 2009. I saw The Reader at a book market and remembered I had wanted to read it. For reference, I haven't seen the film, so don't know how closely it follows the book or the extent to which it makes clear some of the matters left more obscured in the novel.
I note from the cover it is an Oprah Book Club Book. I think this may be the first book I've read that I identified as an Oprah Book Club book. In that regard, the book works very, very well.
The chapters are short (almost James Patterson style), so it's easy to feel like you're making progress. The Reader deals with heavy subject matter, but to some extent feels distanced, so you appreciate the depth on reflection without it feeling too weighty while you're in the process of reading. And it leaves open a number of questions to interpretation and assessment in a manner that would be very susceptible to discussion.
I've never been part of a book club. Despite hinting and outright asking people I have known who are members, I tend to get deferred with the comment that they're not really about reading or discussion, but more about drinking wine. But if I did have a book club (or if I can consider you my book club) I think The Reader would be excellent in that it combines the qualities of being easy to read while having lots of depth for discussion. I don't know if this combination is a feature of Oprah's Book Club books, but if it is, I'll try to seek out more of them.
I've noticed at the end of some of the Lisa Scottoline books (I'm thinking of Look Again) that they have questions for book club discussion. I'm not sure if that's helpful or not. One of the things I really liked about The Reader is that the nature of the story and the writing prompted the questions and discussions in my own mind. I didn't need a questionnaire to frame the questions for myself.
One of the reasons for that is that the narrator and the principal character are both very opaque in their thought processes. Their actions are described, and occasionally the narrator reports on his motivations, but those stated motivations remain suspect and often involve leaps that are not necessarily intuitive or logical. It begs for the reader to impute motivations and read things into the characters that may or may not be supportable by the text alone.
I'm still not sure how I feel about The Reader. I didn't finish with the excitement or eagerness to read about the protagonist again, or the satisfaction of a mystery solved. It had an ending sequence somewhat like Lord of the Rings which at first read seemed anticlimactic and not integral to the story, then later felt heavy handed in its allegory (though I'm still thinking about that). So I left saying "huh". Then started to think about it some more. And some more. I think I liked it, and it certainly gave me a lot to mull over. I liked that I needed to think about it, I liked that I'm still thinking about it, and I know I want to discuss it in further detail.
I note from the cover it is an Oprah Book Club Book. I think this may be the first book I've read that I identified as an Oprah Book Club book. In that regard, the book works very, very well.
The chapters are short (almost James Patterson style), so it's easy to feel like you're making progress. The Reader deals with heavy subject matter, but to some extent feels distanced, so you appreciate the depth on reflection without it feeling too weighty while you're in the process of reading. And it leaves open a number of questions to interpretation and assessment in a manner that would be very susceptible to discussion.
I've never been part of a book club. Despite hinting and outright asking people I have known who are members, I tend to get deferred with the comment that they're not really about reading or discussion, but more about drinking wine. But if I did have a book club (or if I can consider you my book club) I think The Reader would be excellent in that it combines the qualities of being easy to read while having lots of depth for discussion. I don't know if this combination is a feature of Oprah's Book Club books, but if it is, I'll try to seek out more of them.
I've noticed at the end of some of the Lisa Scottoline books (I'm thinking of Look Again) that they have questions for book club discussion. I'm not sure if that's helpful or not. One of the things I really liked about The Reader is that the nature of the story and the writing prompted the questions and discussions in my own mind. I didn't need a questionnaire to frame the questions for myself.
One of the reasons for that is that the narrator and the principal character are both very opaque in their thought processes. Their actions are described, and occasionally the narrator reports on his motivations, but those stated motivations remain suspect and often involve leaps that are not necessarily intuitive or logical. It begs for the reader to impute motivations and read things into the characters that may or may not be supportable by the text alone.
I'm still not sure how I feel about The Reader. I didn't finish with the excitement or eagerness to read about the protagonist again, or the satisfaction of a mystery solved. It had an ending sequence somewhat like Lord of the Rings which at first read seemed anticlimactic and not integral to the story, then later felt heavy handed in its allegory (though I'm still thinking about that). So I left saying "huh". Then started to think about it some more. And some more. I think I liked it, and it certainly gave me a lot to mull over. I liked that I needed to think about it, I liked that I'm still thinking about it, and I know I want to discuss it in further detail.
Monday, April 27, 2015
The Good Wife "The Deconstruction"
I like The Good Wife. I've followed it since the first season, and have long had my own idea about how it would end.
I watched Alicia gradually fall into the world of the big law firm, and in so doing lose sight of her original goals and some of her moral convictions and certainties. I was convinced that the end would involve Alicia, having drifted so far over her own moral line that she had forgotten where she started, suddenly finding herself at the centre of a scandal indicting her own moral turpitude, without even realizing how she ended up there, and her husband standing beside her and convincing her that she could turn things around and rehabilitate herself as well.
Since in some ways that happened last night, I suppose I should feel a sense of satisfaction, and I think the episode itself indicated it was deconstructing everything to push the reset button.
It didn't happen quite how I pictured though. I thought Alicia and Peter would reconcile after his prison stint, and she would be the breadwinner for the family, at the same time realizing how difficult it is to maintain the moral high ground given the nature of her practice.
Instead, most of this season has abandoned the case of the week style that I so enjoyed, and focused exclusively on the character interactions and the politics, turning each week into political issue of the week. Where once I accepted most of the law presented on The Good Wife as unusual but potentially valid, I've lost most of my ability to accept as real the types of legal decisions being made. Leaving aside the re-count issue, that her lawyer would turn on her like that would be a gross violation of privilege. The idea that Geneva Pine would see some benefit in getting a lawyer or law firm employee to turn state's evidence against a client completely ignores the concept of privilege, and the show didn't even bother to try to justify it. The idea that a lawyer could be guilty or disbarred for presenting erroneous evidence when the lawyer had no knowledge, nor any reason to believe it was fabricated also seems highly suspect.
Kalinda ends the episode having been prepared to leave a child fatherless, renege on her word to Bishop, and set up an innocent man to be killed, just to get out from under a questionable legal charge against Diane, as well as abandoning Cary without a word of goodbye.
Diane has been almost entirely co-opted by this conservative group of her husband's, and while she feels she's making change from within, she's happily helping support a legal position which is inimical to her beliefs. Arguably it's what lawyers should be able to do, but it's an area where Diane has consistently held her own moral line in this series, and now her professionalism is being impugned over the fabricated evidence at the same time she's abandoning the values that got her to the position of named partner of her own law firm.
Cary seems mostly okay. Maybe he'll be broken up over Kalinda's departure, but he's the named partner in the law firm, which was his dream from the time he was a first year associate. I would have liked him to have been so enamoured of his role at the State Attorney's office (particularly being deputy to Peter) that he decided to stay there, and that private practice wasn't really all it was cracked up to be, since being on the side of justice and doing the right thing meant more than billable hours and Brioni suits in private practice. Unfortunately that character arc wasn't really pursued once Diane decided she needed Cary back at the firm.
I had hoped Peter would be rehabilitated in prison, and it would be like a teeter-totter (or scales of justice!) with his moral certainty rising as Alicia's fell. But he largely abandoned his interest in religion and dove right back into politics, taking pleasure in using the moral suasion and undue influence that got him where he started in the series.
In the opening scene, we had the scene I had expected would be the conclusion from early on in the series. Alicia acknowledging the vote rigging scandal, making a weak non-denial, exiting the State Attorney's office in disgrace while her husband stood beside her to offer moral support.
So, whether my predictions for character arcs were correct or not, it seems all of the major characters have gone through their respective arcs in full. And at the end of the arcs, I'm left without a moral centre for the show, and without much hope of a redemptive arc for any character on the show, but a feeling that a complete story has been told.
So while I've really enjoyed the series up to this season, I've found myself liking the characters a lot less over the course of the season, and I'm not sure I need to see where any of the character arcs are going to go from this point forward. It seems like a logical stopping point for me, and I think I'd like to leave it there and enjoy what I see as the full story the show was aiming to tell from the beginning.
I watched Alicia gradually fall into the world of the big law firm, and in so doing lose sight of her original goals and some of her moral convictions and certainties. I was convinced that the end would involve Alicia, having drifted so far over her own moral line that she had forgotten where she started, suddenly finding herself at the centre of a scandal indicting her own moral turpitude, without even realizing how she ended up there, and her husband standing beside her and convincing her that she could turn things around and rehabilitate herself as well.
Since in some ways that happened last night, I suppose I should feel a sense of satisfaction, and I think the episode itself indicated it was deconstructing everything to push the reset button.
It didn't happen quite how I pictured though. I thought Alicia and Peter would reconcile after his prison stint, and she would be the breadwinner for the family, at the same time realizing how difficult it is to maintain the moral high ground given the nature of her practice.
Instead, most of this season has abandoned the case of the week style that I so enjoyed, and focused exclusively on the character interactions and the politics, turning each week into political issue of the week. Where once I accepted most of the law presented on The Good Wife as unusual but potentially valid, I've lost most of my ability to accept as real the types of legal decisions being made. Leaving aside the re-count issue, that her lawyer would turn on her like that would be a gross violation of privilege. The idea that Geneva Pine would see some benefit in getting a lawyer or law firm employee to turn state's evidence against a client completely ignores the concept of privilege, and the show didn't even bother to try to justify it. The idea that a lawyer could be guilty or disbarred for presenting erroneous evidence when the lawyer had no knowledge, nor any reason to believe it was fabricated also seems highly suspect.
Kalinda ends the episode having been prepared to leave a child fatherless, renege on her word to Bishop, and set up an innocent man to be killed, just to get out from under a questionable legal charge against Diane, as well as abandoning Cary without a word of goodbye.
Diane has been almost entirely co-opted by this conservative group of her husband's, and while she feels she's making change from within, she's happily helping support a legal position which is inimical to her beliefs. Arguably it's what lawyers should be able to do, but it's an area where Diane has consistently held her own moral line in this series, and now her professionalism is being impugned over the fabricated evidence at the same time she's abandoning the values that got her to the position of named partner of her own law firm.
Cary seems mostly okay. Maybe he'll be broken up over Kalinda's departure, but he's the named partner in the law firm, which was his dream from the time he was a first year associate. I would have liked him to have been so enamoured of his role at the State Attorney's office (particularly being deputy to Peter) that he decided to stay there, and that private practice wasn't really all it was cracked up to be, since being on the side of justice and doing the right thing meant more than billable hours and Brioni suits in private practice. Unfortunately that character arc wasn't really pursued once Diane decided she needed Cary back at the firm.
I had hoped Peter would be rehabilitated in prison, and it would be like a teeter-totter (or scales of justice!) with his moral certainty rising as Alicia's fell. But he largely abandoned his interest in religion and dove right back into politics, taking pleasure in using the moral suasion and undue influence that got him where he started in the series.
In the opening scene, we had the scene I had expected would be the conclusion from early on in the series. Alicia acknowledging the vote rigging scandal, making a weak non-denial, exiting the State Attorney's office in disgrace while her husband stood beside her to offer moral support.
So, whether my predictions for character arcs were correct or not, it seems all of the major characters have gone through their respective arcs in full. And at the end of the arcs, I'm left without a moral centre for the show, and without much hope of a redemptive arc for any character on the show, but a feeling that a complete story has been told.
So while I've really enjoyed the series up to this season, I've found myself liking the characters a lot less over the course of the season, and I'm not sure I need to see where any of the character arcs are going to go from this point forward. It seems like a logical stopping point for me, and I think I'd like to leave it there and enjoy what I see as the full story the show was aiming to tell from the beginning.
Thursday, April 23, 2015
Night Prey by John Sandford and the transition from womanizer to married man
I find John Sandford novels a reasonably quick read, and I quite like the Virgil Flowers novels. I find him an interesting protagonist, and I like his investigative style. The Lucas Davenport novels I don't tend to pick up as often.
Night Prey is one of Mr. Sandford's novels featuring Lucas Davenport. Most of (and I think perhaps all of) the novels featuring Davenport have the word "Prey" in the title, and apart from that (in my experience) little to indicate what the novel is about. The backs of the editions I get are taken up mostly with Mr. Sandford's picture, so the description is usually a little sparse, and the cover consists almost exclusively of the author's name and "whatever Prey". As a result, I treat the acquisition of a "Prey" novel a bit like a game of chance, and I never know before I'm a couple of chapters in whether it's one I've read before or not. So that's the reason I don't tend to pick up the Davenport novels as frequently, though I also enjoy them.
Night Prey, as it happens, I have not previously read. Night Prey appears to be set while Davenport is still with the Minneapolis police, before he joined the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (which is where Virgil Flowers works). But, based on my read, I suspect Lucas will soon be moving to the state agency, and in Night Prey works with an investigator from the BCA who is on the track of a serial killer.
The serial killer is quite well drawn, not a criminal mastermind, but a deconstructing mess who doesn't quite realize he's not the invincible mastermind he is in his own head. The ending I thought was a bit of a cop out on the question Mr. Sandford posed in his author's note about how (or if) you prevent a killing by prosecuting a less serious charge, but the tension was built up nicely and resolved to my satisfaction.
The fascinating part about Night Prey to me, and the part that was subtly, but I think very well done, was the transformation of Lucas Davenport. In the early novels, Davenport is most frequently described with a seven letter expletive. He's macho, almost superpowered, independently wealthy, a clothes horse and a guy who attracts women like flies to honey for reasons that are not particularly obvious when reading his dialogue (a one-line pick-up involving an expletive about brains being too tight sticks in my recollection for some reason). The women are somewhat typical of the old private investigator novels, appear for one novel (or more often with Davenport, a couple of chapters) then disappear.
It's not uncommon in detective novels to have a lone detective, in the nature of a chivalrous knight (or perhaps not so chivalrous) wed to his mission and unable to place commitment to a person or family above the mission. Frequently, these detectives have the one-book stands with the woman in peril or the femme fatale, then move on to the next.
In the later Prey novels, Davenport is either wed to or living with Dr. Weather Karkinen, a dark, Finnish, slightly built hand surgeon. Davenport is no longer a womanizer, but a one-woman man, whose cases often seem to involve Weather or their daughter being in danger. I've been less interested in those novels, partly because I don't like personal danger/vendettas driving the mystery, and partly because I have had a hard time understanding (and thereby accepting as valid in book) the relationship between Lucas and Weather.
It's also not uncommon in detective novels to have the detective with a family, whose family seems to be placed in danger due to the rigors of the job.
But how does an author transition the lone wolf detective to the family man detective? I think Night Prey shows that transformation. I missed (I think, or don't recall) the novel in which Weather saves Lucas' life, and presumably there's an attraction that develops from that feeling of being in the trenches together. But for me that's not enough to fully justify the type of relationship they seem to have later, with a family and a deep devotion. Mr. Sandford does about as good a job as it's possible to do with that I think. He shows some of what Weather sees in Lucas, some of what he sees in her, and why Lucas places such value on Weather's skills as a surgeon. I've always felt about the later novels that it doesn't really ring true that this cop who deals with life and death in each novel should place such a high value on cosmetic surgery to hands. But Night Prey has Lucas observe Weather performing surgery, and I think we can see why and how he internalizes the importance of Weather's profession.
It's also subtle, but as Lucas meets with (and still flirts with) other women in Night Prey, he thinks of them in terms that remind him of, or are similar to, the terms in which he thinks of Weather. So it seems quite natural that he's falling in love with Weather in a way that will lead to his committed relationship, when he starts to see in other women images of beauty that remind him of Weather. He also (in this book as in later books) doesn't seem to spend much waking time with her, given their respective lifestyles (she's early to bed, early to rise; he's the reverse and they're both workaholics) but begins to feel that with her, he's home, where before he was just wherever he parked his stuff.
I really like it because it's not overdone, it fits very nicely with the one-book, one-killer approach to the series, but explains the character of Davenport and the overarching story arc in a way that I haven't previously appreciated in the Davenport novels. It's enough to make me want to read more of (or perhaps re-read) the post-Weather Prey books... if only I can create some sort of system to track which of them I've read so I don't keep picking up the same ones again and again.
Night Prey is one of Mr. Sandford's novels featuring Lucas Davenport. Most of (and I think perhaps all of) the novels featuring Davenport have the word "Prey" in the title, and apart from that (in my experience) little to indicate what the novel is about. The backs of the editions I get are taken up mostly with Mr. Sandford's picture, so the description is usually a little sparse, and the cover consists almost exclusively of the author's name and "whatever Prey". As a result, I treat the acquisition of a "Prey" novel a bit like a game of chance, and I never know before I'm a couple of chapters in whether it's one I've read before or not. So that's the reason I don't tend to pick up the Davenport novels as frequently, though I also enjoy them.
Night Prey, as it happens, I have not previously read. Night Prey appears to be set while Davenport is still with the Minneapolis police, before he joined the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (which is where Virgil Flowers works). But, based on my read, I suspect Lucas will soon be moving to the state agency, and in Night Prey works with an investigator from the BCA who is on the track of a serial killer.
The serial killer is quite well drawn, not a criminal mastermind, but a deconstructing mess who doesn't quite realize he's not the invincible mastermind he is in his own head. The ending I thought was a bit of a cop out on the question Mr. Sandford posed in his author's note about how (or if) you prevent a killing by prosecuting a less serious charge, but the tension was built up nicely and resolved to my satisfaction.
The fascinating part about Night Prey to me, and the part that was subtly, but I think very well done, was the transformation of Lucas Davenport. In the early novels, Davenport is most frequently described with a seven letter expletive. He's macho, almost superpowered, independently wealthy, a clothes horse and a guy who attracts women like flies to honey for reasons that are not particularly obvious when reading his dialogue (a one-line pick-up involving an expletive about brains being too tight sticks in my recollection for some reason). The women are somewhat typical of the old private investigator novels, appear for one novel (or more often with Davenport, a couple of chapters) then disappear.
It's not uncommon in detective novels to have a lone detective, in the nature of a chivalrous knight (or perhaps not so chivalrous) wed to his mission and unable to place commitment to a person or family above the mission. Frequently, these detectives have the one-book stands with the woman in peril or the femme fatale, then move on to the next.
In the later Prey novels, Davenport is either wed to or living with Dr. Weather Karkinen, a dark, Finnish, slightly built hand surgeon. Davenport is no longer a womanizer, but a one-woman man, whose cases often seem to involve Weather or their daughter being in danger. I've been less interested in those novels, partly because I don't like personal danger/vendettas driving the mystery, and partly because I have had a hard time understanding (and thereby accepting as valid in book) the relationship between Lucas and Weather.
It's also not uncommon in detective novels to have the detective with a family, whose family seems to be placed in danger due to the rigors of the job.
But how does an author transition the lone wolf detective to the family man detective? I think Night Prey shows that transformation. I missed (I think, or don't recall) the novel in which Weather saves Lucas' life, and presumably there's an attraction that develops from that feeling of being in the trenches together. But for me that's not enough to fully justify the type of relationship they seem to have later, with a family and a deep devotion. Mr. Sandford does about as good a job as it's possible to do with that I think. He shows some of what Weather sees in Lucas, some of what he sees in her, and why Lucas places such value on Weather's skills as a surgeon. I've always felt about the later novels that it doesn't really ring true that this cop who deals with life and death in each novel should place such a high value on cosmetic surgery to hands. But Night Prey has Lucas observe Weather performing surgery, and I think we can see why and how he internalizes the importance of Weather's profession.
It's also subtle, but as Lucas meets with (and still flirts with) other women in Night Prey, he thinks of them in terms that remind him of, or are similar to, the terms in which he thinks of Weather. So it seems quite natural that he's falling in love with Weather in a way that will lead to his committed relationship, when he starts to see in other women images of beauty that remind him of Weather. He also (in this book as in later books) doesn't seem to spend much waking time with her, given their respective lifestyles (she's early to bed, early to rise; he's the reverse and they're both workaholics) but begins to feel that with her, he's home, where before he was just wherever he parked his stuff.
I really like it because it's not overdone, it fits very nicely with the one-book, one-killer approach to the series, but explains the character of Davenport and the overarching story arc in a way that I haven't previously appreciated in the Davenport novels. It's enough to make me want to read more of (or perhaps re-read) the post-Weather Prey books... if only I can create some sort of system to track which of them I've read so I don't keep picking up the same ones again and again.
Wednesday, April 22, 2015
Bloodline TV series S. 1 Ep. 1-6
I had read some really good reviews about Bloodline, and I really liked Kyle Chandler when he was Coach Taylor on Friday Night Lights. So I thought I would try Bloodline.
I like watching the actors involved in the show. There's Kyle Chandler, Linda Cardellini, Sissy Spacek and Ben Mendelsohn, in addition to Steven Pasquale (John from the Good Wife). All of them feel recognizable, but also like real people. They feel charismatic and fascinating to watch.
But the plot. Ohhh. My eyes keep rolling almost of their own accord. There's some ominous voiceover narration, and images of a storm and bodies, but it feels very much like a brief clip for a movie trailer, with little attachment to the show itself. The tension in the first episode is over Danny bringing his new girlfriend to a family celebration and he wants her to sit at the family table. Lots of heightened feelings about that. I suppose it's supposed to feel "real", but it also feels like regular family gatherings where I thought we'd be watching some sort of thriller/suspense with a mystery at the front of it.
Kyle Chandler (John Rayburn) is a sheriff, and there's a burned body that turns up. I keep watching every week hoping for some horrific serial killer or sex slavery conspiracy, but it's not that kind of show it seems. Instead we have one brother trying to buy a boat slip while dealing with a looming divorce. Aging parents that need care. How to deal with a formerly irresponsible son who now wants to help those parents. How to deal with who will run the family business. A lawyer taking on a new client but hasn't practiced criminal law, so worries whether she's capable while feeling energized about a new challenge. The lawyer also has a file she hasn't followed up on for years and now worries it will come back to bite her. dum dum dum (ominous sounds).
I guess it's real to life, but it feels very like the premise of Seinfeld, and I find myself asking why I'm watching. And yet I am still watching. I keep thinking there must be something more (it almost forces me to create elaborate conspiracy and plot theories just because I think there must be something!). Roger Ebert used to quote his partner Gene Siskel in evaluating whether the show was better than watching the same actors sitting around having lunch. Bloodline is probably not. But I guess the state of my TV viewing is such that I'd enjoy watching them having lunch, so I'm still watching.
For the sake of justifying my time viewing it, my conspiracy theory is below (spoilers through Ep. 6):
Meg has serious mental health issues. She's always been jealous of sister Sara, doesn't want pictures of her around or anything. She's involved in a self destructive affair, and flips on and off, from one mood to another, often with memory breaks. She doesn't have any clients at all to speak of, and mostly plays at being a lawyer. Her Dad set her up in a law office, and is basically her only source of work, trying to keep her stable. When she was young, she murdered Sara in a fit of jealousy, and her father covered it up... feeling in part responsible. I suspect her father was sexually abusing Sara, and Meg (in a messed up way) was jealous of that.
Danny suspected his father abused Sara. While Dad was covering up the murder (probably by staging a drowning and failed rescue) Danny wandered along and tried to save Sara, not knowing she was already dead. Dad made Danny feel that he was responsible for being unable to save Sara, and tried to manipulate his memory into thinking it was all his fault. He drove that home with physical abuse.
John was old enough to understand some of what was going on, but bought the story that Danny was responsible for Sara's death, and sided with his father. Danny has finally remembered enough about the events to realize that he didn't fail Sara, but believes his Dad killed her. He trusts Meg, and (I predict) he'll disclose his suspicions to her, she'll murder him, and John will be involved in covering it up, making it look like a drowning, and as though Danny was responsible for the illegal immigrants burned in the boat, and died himself in a similar boating explosion. John will feel he has to do this to protect the name of his family and his Dad's memory, but will need to resign as sheriff. Kevin will drink his life away at the boat slip.
More likely actual outcome:
Sara died by accident. Dad hit Danny when he was mad and broke his arm. Danny is still upset about how the family treated him, but wants to forgive, though he expects apologies in return. Danny is involved with the illegal immigrants and/or drugs and dies in a way that implicates him. John feels he needs to cover up for his family by hiding the body, covering up the evidence and letting everyone believe Danny just wandered away again, and must lie to his mother so she won't know.
Huh. Both scenarios sound more exciting than actors eating lunch, but somehow the experience of viewing doesn't feel like that.
I like watching the actors involved in the show. There's Kyle Chandler, Linda Cardellini, Sissy Spacek and Ben Mendelsohn, in addition to Steven Pasquale (John from the Good Wife). All of them feel recognizable, but also like real people. They feel charismatic and fascinating to watch.
But the plot. Ohhh. My eyes keep rolling almost of their own accord. There's some ominous voiceover narration, and images of a storm and bodies, but it feels very much like a brief clip for a movie trailer, with little attachment to the show itself. The tension in the first episode is over Danny bringing his new girlfriend to a family celebration and he wants her to sit at the family table. Lots of heightened feelings about that. I suppose it's supposed to feel "real", but it also feels like regular family gatherings where I thought we'd be watching some sort of thriller/suspense with a mystery at the front of it.
Kyle Chandler (John Rayburn) is a sheriff, and there's a burned body that turns up. I keep watching every week hoping for some horrific serial killer or sex slavery conspiracy, but it's not that kind of show it seems. Instead we have one brother trying to buy a boat slip while dealing with a looming divorce. Aging parents that need care. How to deal with a formerly irresponsible son who now wants to help those parents. How to deal with who will run the family business. A lawyer taking on a new client but hasn't practiced criminal law, so worries whether she's capable while feeling energized about a new challenge. The lawyer also has a file she hasn't followed up on for years and now worries it will come back to bite her. dum dum dum (ominous sounds).
I guess it's real to life, but it feels very like the premise of Seinfeld, and I find myself asking why I'm watching. And yet I am still watching. I keep thinking there must be something more (it almost forces me to create elaborate conspiracy and plot theories just because I think there must be something!). Roger Ebert used to quote his partner Gene Siskel in evaluating whether the show was better than watching the same actors sitting around having lunch. Bloodline is probably not. But I guess the state of my TV viewing is such that I'd enjoy watching them having lunch, so I'm still watching.
For the sake of justifying my time viewing it, my conspiracy theory is below (spoilers through Ep. 6):
Meg has serious mental health issues. She's always been jealous of sister Sara, doesn't want pictures of her around or anything. She's involved in a self destructive affair, and flips on and off, from one mood to another, often with memory breaks. She doesn't have any clients at all to speak of, and mostly plays at being a lawyer. Her Dad set her up in a law office, and is basically her only source of work, trying to keep her stable. When she was young, she murdered Sara in a fit of jealousy, and her father covered it up... feeling in part responsible. I suspect her father was sexually abusing Sara, and Meg (in a messed up way) was jealous of that.
Danny suspected his father abused Sara. While Dad was covering up the murder (probably by staging a drowning and failed rescue) Danny wandered along and tried to save Sara, not knowing she was already dead. Dad made Danny feel that he was responsible for being unable to save Sara, and tried to manipulate his memory into thinking it was all his fault. He drove that home with physical abuse.
John was old enough to understand some of what was going on, but bought the story that Danny was responsible for Sara's death, and sided with his father. Danny has finally remembered enough about the events to realize that he didn't fail Sara, but believes his Dad killed her. He trusts Meg, and (I predict) he'll disclose his suspicions to her, she'll murder him, and John will be involved in covering it up, making it look like a drowning, and as though Danny was responsible for the illegal immigrants burned in the boat, and died himself in a similar boating explosion. John will feel he has to do this to protect the name of his family and his Dad's memory, but will need to resign as sheriff. Kevin will drink his life away at the boat slip.
More likely actual outcome:
Sara died by accident. Dad hit Danny when he was mad and broke his arm. Danny is still upset about how the family treated him, but wants to forgive, though he expects apologies in return. Danny is involved with the illegal immigrants and/or drugs and dies in a way that implicates him. John feels he needs to cover up for his family by hiding the body, covering up the evidence and letting everyone believe Danny just wandered away again, and must lie to his mother so she won't know.
Huh. Both scenarios sound more exciting than actors eating lunch, but somehow the experience of viewing doesn't feel like that.
Friday, April 17, 2015
The Case of the Love Commandos by Tarquin Hall
A couple of years ago I got onto a few authors from India writing about India, and was really enjoying reading about the culture and the country, while enjoying some very well written novels.
In my own mind, I guess I grouped them in a hierarchy of things I learned about India. The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga was a good novel, but passionately angry about the disparity of wealth. It focused its anger to such an extent that I recall little of the country described, and more the sense of outrage at how people treat each other. It was a hard novel to read in some ways, but one that could stir the emotions and force the question of why this disparity is permitted.
Q & A by Vikas Swarup I really enjoyed. It's the novel on which Slumdog Millionaire was based, and I thought it was excellent. It did show the poverty, but also shared the beauty and the range of experiences available throughout the country, and had a positive thread of hope running through it. It made me want to visit India, but braced me for some of the heartbreaking poverty I might see there.
The Case of the Missing Servant by Tarquin Hall was much more light, a bit quirky, a bit funny, but didn't seem overly interested in dwelling on the poverty aspects, having more fun with its lead character Vish Puri. It showed a bit of India, though a more modern flavor, and a sense of the people and the culture viewed through a fairly humourous lens.
The Case of the Love Commandos is the second Tarquin Hall novel I've read. It starts out with a "vigilante" style group that helps young lovers escape the caste system to wed across castes. I liked the novel, I had fun with the mystery, and I liked that it was prepared to engage a little more in the examination of some of the poverty issues than I saw in The Case of the Missing Servant (or perhaps it was too subtle for me to pick up on after The White Tiger). The Case of the Love Commandos takes a bit of a look at the caste system in a way that helps explain both its supporters and detractors to an outsider.
That being said, I have a difficult time adjusting to the tone of the novel. I'm not entirely sure whether I should be laughing or feeling horrified. Whether these are things that people from India would laugh at and enjoy or if I'm finding humour in broad stereotypes that are purely offensive. I guess that's part of the fun, but it creates a level of discomfort too. When Vish Puri eats scotch bonnets for breakfast, is that an exaggeration? Is that part of the culture? Is it ridiculous that I don't know the answer to that question? I guess it's the third question that highlights what I like about these novels. I don't know the answer, but it makes me want to find out (and makes me feel a little foolish for not knowing).
Another example is how Vish Puri can't be bothered to learn the names of all of his employees/servants, so just re-assigns them names based on the functions they perform (Tubelight, Handbrake, Chai e.g.). It helps the Western reader keep them straight, and perhaps more easily than would be the case with using their given names... but is Mr. Hall highlighting Vish Puri's ridiculous sense of importance and unwillingness to take an interest in these castes or is he highlighting a Western attitude towards people in India?
The overall tone is light enough that it's not a scathing indictment or fury like I felt in The White Tiger. Instead it's a gentle reminder that we can have fun, but it's worth investing some time learning about this culture and these people. I like learning about other countries and cultures through light fiction, but I guess it also highlights to me that maybe I need to look up some of these things through a more authoritative source. Mr. Hall clearly has a love for India, even as he's laughing at it (and his pompous protagonist), and wants to share that love and that fun with the reader.
And although I haven't tried any of them out yet, Mr. Hall inserts recipes for Indian cuisine at the back of his books, and they look wonderful. Speaking of which, I think that's going to prompt me to pick up The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken.
In my own mind, I guess I grouped them in a hierarchy of things I learned about India. The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga was a good novel, but passionately angry about the disparity of wealth. It focused its anger to such an extent that I recall little of the country described, and more the sense of outrage at how people treat each other. It was a hard novel to read in some ways, but one that could stir the emotions and force the question of why this disparity is permitted.
Q & A by Vikas Swarup I really enjoyed. It's the novel on which Slumdog Millionaire was based, and I thought it was excellent. It did show the poverty, but also shared the beauty and the range of experiences available throughout the country, and had a positive thread of hope running through it. It made me want to visit India, but braced me for some of the heartbreaking poverty I might see there.
The Case of the Missing Servant by Tarquin Hall was much more light, a bit quirky, a bit funny, but didn't seem overly interested in dwelling on the poverty aspects, having more fun with its lead character Vish Puri. It showed a bit of India, though a more modern flavor, and a sense of the people and the culture viewed through a fairly humourous lens.
The Case of the Love Commandos is the second Tarquin Hall novel I've read. It starts out with a "vigilante" style group that helps young lovers escape the caste system to wed across castes. I liked the novel, I had fun with the mystery, and I liked that it was prepared to engage a little more in the examination of some of the poverty issues than I saw in The Case of the Missing Servant (or perhaps it was too subtle for me to pick up on after The White Tiger). The Case of the Love Commandos takes a bit of a look at the caste system in a way that helps explain both its supporters and detractors to an outsider.
That being said, I have a difficult time adjusting to the tone of the novel. I'm not entirely sure whether I should be laughing or feeling horrified. Whether these are things that people from India would laugh at and enjoy or if I'm finding humour in broad stereotypes that are purely offensive. I guess that's part of the fun, but it creates a level of discomfort too. When Vish Puri eats scotch bonnets for breakfast, is that an exaggeration? Is that part of the culture? Is it ridiculous that I don't know the answer to that question? I guess it's the third question that highlights what I like about these novels. I don't know the answer, but it makes me want to find out (and makes me feel a little foolish for not knowing).
Another example is how Vish Puri can't be bothered to learn the names of all of his employees/servants, so just re-assigns them names based on the functions they perform (Tubelight, Handbrake, Chai e.g.). It helps the Western reader keep them straight, and perhaps more easily than would be the case with using their given names... but is Mr. Hall highlighting Vish Puri's ridiculous sense of importance and unwillingness to take an interest in these castes or is he highlighting a Western attitude towards people in India?
The overall tone is light enough that it's not a scathing indictment or fury like I felt in The White Tiger. Instead it's a gentle reminder that we can have fun, but it's worth investing some time learning about this culture and these people. I like learning about other countries and cultures through light fiction, but I guess it also highlights to me that maybe I need to look up some of these things through a more authoritative source. Mr. Hall clearly has a love for India, even as he's laughing at it (and his pompous protagonist), and wants to share that love and that fun with the reader.
And although I haven't tried any of them out yet, Mr. Hall inserts recipes for Indian cuisine at the back of his books, and they look wonderful. Speaking of which, I think that's going to prompt me to pick up The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken.
Tuesday, April 14, 2015
Phantom Instinct by Meg Gardiner
I've read a few Meg Gardiner books before, and I think I found her because she had a good quote from Stephen King on her book jacket. (If I'm not mistaken, I think she may have dedicated one of her books to Stephen King).
In any event, I enjoy the Jo Beckett novels, but have never been able to get into the Evan Delaney novels. I've enjoyed each of Ms. Gardiner's stand alone novels, and I'm a little unsure whether Phantom Instinct is a stand alone novel or the beginning of a new series featuring Harper Flynn and Aiden Garrison.
The reason I like the Jo Beckett novels is that I like the profession of the protagonist, she has a hobby (rock climbing), a sense of décor and style, and comes across to me as a complete and fully formed character. The Evan Delaney novels seem very plot driven to me, lots of action and just aren't as much to my taste.
Phantom Instinct gives us a character I enjoyed reading about, in Aiden Garrison, but who has a traumatic brain injury (I know I said I'd stop reading books about that, but this was on my pile before... it confirms my resolve
Read While Walking: Unreliable Narrator vs Subjective Narration vs Selective Narration).
In any event, the traumatic brain injury is treated mostly fairly here. Despite how rare it is, the Fregoli syndrome is telegraphed early, and used to create the twist and character growth at the end. Whether protagonists and antagonists would all be familiar with the nuances of an extremely rare delusion symptom is perhaps a more difficult question to answer, but as I said, I liked Aiden Garrison, thought his symptom played fair by narrative standards, and didn't object to the resolution and character growth (whether or not it's possible to overcome such a mental health issue by willpower alone).
The antagonists were very thinly drawn, and I had a great deal of difficulty accepting some of the motivations. I think the novel is supposed to be fast paced enough to gloss over much of that, (another theme of traumatic brain injury books perhaps) and for the most part it succeeds with the timeline driven plot elements.
My biggest challenge was in accepting Harper Flynn as a protagonist and a character. Fluent in Russian, a cryptographer, naval officer, stunt driver and full time student (not making any of that up), she's got lots of character elements, but somehow still seems to be the girl in distress for most of the book. Her personality at the end remained a bit of a cipher for me, and Ms. Gardiner seemed to focus on making her character growth and development related to her romantic interests. I didn't see her making any deductive breakthroughs, instead mostly filling the role of providing the love of a good woman for a damaged man. It's not what I expect of Ms Gardiner's female protagonists, so perhaps I'm doing Harper a disservice. That's why I thought this is potentially the start of a new series. I'm not sure what the purpose of all those character elements are if they're not going to be used to any great effect. That said, I'm not sure if I'd be inclined to read another of the series, though I'd still return to read another Jo Beckett novel.
In any event, I enjoy the Jo Beckett novels, but have never been able to get into the Evan Delaney novels. I've enjoyed each of Ms. Gardiner's stand alone novels, and I'm a little unsure whether Phantom Instinct is a stand alone novel or the beginning of a new series featuring Harper Flynn and Aiden Garrison.
The reason I like the Jo Beckett novels is that I like the profession of the protagonist, she has a hobby (rock climbing), a sense of décor and style, and comes across to me as a complete and fully formed character. The Evan Delaney novels seem very plot driven to me, lots of action and just aren't as much to my taste.
Phantom Instinct gives us a character I enjoyed reading about, in Aiden Garrison, but who has a traumatic brain injury (I know I said I'd stop reading books about that, but this was on my pile before... it confirms my resolve
Read While Walking: Unreliable Narrator vs Subjective Narration vs Selective Narration).
In any event, the traumatic brain injury is treated mostly fairly here. Despite how rare it is, the Fregoli syndrome is telegraphed early, and used to create the twist and character growth at the end. Whether protagonists and antagonists would all be familiar with the nuances of an extremely rare delusion symptom is perhaps a more difficult question to answer, but as I said, I liked Aiden Garrison, thought his symptom played fair by narrative standards, and didn't object to the resolution and character growth (whether or not it's possible to overcome such a mental health issue by willpower alone).
The antagonists were very thinly drawn, and I had a great deal of difficulty accepting some of the motivations. I think the novel is supposed to be fast paced enough to gloss over much of that, (another theme of traumatic brain injury books perhaps) and for the most part it succeeds with the timeline driven plot elements.
My biggest challenge was in accepting Harper Flynn as a protagonist and a character. Fluent in Russian, a cryptographer, naval officer, stunt driver and full time student (not making any of that up), she's got lots of character elements, but somehow still seems to be the girl in distress for most of the book. Her personality at the end remained a bit of a cipher for me, and Ms. Gardiner seemed to focus on making her character growth and development related to her romantic interests. I didn't see her making any deductive breakthroughs, instead mostly filling the role of providing the love of a good woman for a damaged man. It's not what I expect of Ms Gardiner's female protagonists, so perhaps I'm doing Harper a disservice. That's why I thought this is potentially the start of a new series. I'm not sure what the purpose of all those character elements are if they're not going to be used to any great effect. That said, I'm not sure if I'd be inclined to read another of the series, though I'd still return to read another Jo Beckett novel.
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