Remarkable Creatures

I have enjoyed so many of Tracy Chevalier's books, including her first wonderful and popular novel, The Girl With The Pearl Earring.  This book, Remarkable Creatures, just reconfirms for me what a fabulous author she is.  She has a talent for taking a historically little known person and bringing their story to life.

In the novel, Chevalier has taken the facts of Mary Anning's life and discoveries and brought them out of obscurity.  This novel is both a delightful story of friendship, love and jealousy, and of history, biography and scientific discovery.  Until now, Mary Anning' name would only be known in the scientific circles of dinosaur hunters.  Also portrayed in the this novel is another real life character,
Elizabeth Philpot, who helped bring Mary the recognition she deserved.  It is always even more fascinating to read a novel that teaches you something new.

In the 1800 in England, women did not have the same rights or privileges as men.  Women were still thought of as property.  Marriage was what a woman should aspire to and spinsters were shuttled off to live quietly in obscurity.  Such is the fate of the three Philpot sisters.  Margaret, Louise and Elizabeth are set up by their brother to live their life out in the seaside town of Lyme Regis.  Elizabeth discovers there are many fossils of fish vertebrae and starts to collect them.  Her sister Louise is happy gardening and Margaret is the family socialite.  Though they are living in reduced means after leaving London, as three spinsters, they are happy in the seaside village.
Elizabeth becomes friends with a young girl who collects fossils curios to sell to tourists and collectors.  When she starts to uncover unusual fossilized skeletons which attract attention from the scientific community, the friendship between Mary and Elizabeth becomes strained.

This is a story of how the two women find their way through the pressures of class distinction and social prejudice to find that friendship can withstand jealousy and anger.  Mutual appreciation, shared passion and loyalty can overcome envy and jealousy.  The strength of friendship during an era in history when women were not seen and definitely not heard.  This is story that shows how when you let go of the feelings of conventionality, and caring what others will think you reach a feeling of freedom and empowerment that lets you experience amazing new situations and make incredible accomplishments.

New updated review: second read:
Written by Tracy Chevalier, Remarkable Creatures turned out to be an incredible book.  I admit I started this book just because I was supposed to read it for a book discussion group.  Not wanting to show up for another month not having read the book, I started in.  At first I thought the book was boring.  The premise was interesting but I did not see where it was going and it seemed dull.  But as you realize that the story line is not the most important thing about this book, this plot line becomes more and more incredible.

Remarkable Creatures is a book about the relationship between Mary Anning, who along with her brother hunt along the cliffs on the south coast of England and find fossils and the remaining bones of animals that have been extinct for hundreds of years.  They are uneducated and this being the 1800s are not even sure of what they are finding.  They sell them as curios to tourists to keep themselves and their mother fed.

This is also the story of Elizabeth Philpot, a cranky, cantankerous, spinster who along with her sisters has moved to the Lyme Regis after the death of her parents.  She and her sisters live together, traveling to London in the summer, so as not to be a burden on their married brother and his family.  Elizabeth is interested in science and fossils and meets Mary out on the cliffs.  They form a fast friendship despite a difference in age.  They are more knowledgable about the fossils than most of the men who come to the area looking to purchase their fossils.

Most remarkable about this novel to me was how these women are collecting fossils and fragments of animals they have not even heard of.  This is a time in history when we have not yet realized how the world was created.  This a a very religious area, where the church and the theory of G-d creating the world with what is listed in the Bible and no other animals is the standard belief system.  This is all happening before Charles Darwin brings out his ideas of evolution and origins of species.  The information that Mary is discovering is controvercial at this time.  How could there be an animal that is now extinct?  Why would G-d create an animal only to let it die out?  G-d did not make mistakes.

It is remarkable the fossils they collected.  It is remarkable that especially Mary did not really get the credit she deserved .  At age 12 she discovered the first complete specimen of an ichthyosaur, a marine reptile about 200 million years old.  Without fancy tools, she was able to pull out these animals almost intact.  She was able to clean them and put them together correctly.

In the end remarkably, Mary and Elizabeth, stay close through landslides, arguments and jealousy and help each other grow stronger and more educated about fossils and life.

Retirement Can Be Murder

Labeled as a "baby-boomer" mystery this is a fun new series written by Susan  Santangelo.  Written from the point of view of a woman who has just launched her two children and thinks she has gotten her days and the house to herself , she about to confront not only a boomerang child, but a husband contemplating retirement.

Carol Andrews has the group of girl friends I a have always dreamed of.  I guess the advantage of writing the story is that's you can create the perfect situation with long time friendships and a strong girlfriend support group.  Married couples that are also long time friends.  When her husband, Jim is in the wrong pla at the wrong time and finds a dead body, Carol and her friends are able to start investigating the crime.

This is novel where I enjoyed the writing style even reading carefully the quotes used at the heading of each chapter. Each chapter had a quote about marriage, retirement or men...for example:
"Q: What’s the biggest advantage of going back to school as a retiree? A: If you cut classes, no one calls your parents." And , Q: How do you keep your husband from reading your e-mail? A: Rename your mail folder “Living With Menopause.”. Each one more clever than the last. These quotes had me laughing. Ia also found myself really relating to some of the dialog and feelings of Carol, our new sleuth and her family.  She was fairly realistic in her feelings about her husband and marriage, loving her husband but also being frustrated sometimes.   She also was happy to have her daughter living with her again, but also wanted her to find a place of her own for the long term.  That reflects a real view of life.

Author Satangelo, also tries to not get to cute with the detective side of this novel.  Trying to make it a bit more realistic she points out that Carol is a mystery reader, and real life does not always fit into a neat package, though this is actually hard to do in a cozy mystery novel.  Carol's dialog reflects that idea at pint when Carol says, "I was beginning to realize how little a real life murder investigation resembled those books I’d read over the years. One would think that all that reading would have given me tips on investigating a crime, but sadly, it hadn’t. Where were my little gray cells when I needed them? They probably self-destructed due to hot flash overload."

So another fun, light mystery series begins...with an entertaining book for a lazy afternoon corked up reading with a good cup of coffee.  Since I am a baby boomer of a certain age I can relate to Carol and I will keep an eye out for more adventures about her and her husband Jim Andrews.

A Scone To Die For

A fun new mystery series created by H.Y. Hanna.  This looks like it will be a fun new light hearted series.  The best part is the recipes.  In the first book of course it is a scone recipe. Even though the murder weapon appears to be a scone that is no reason not to eat them.

The story unfolds in the tea shop that Gemma Rose comes home to open.  The quaint English village of Meadowbrook seems to be the perfect place for the little restaurant until an American tourist is found dead the courtyard behind the cafe.  Gemma has given up a prestigious career to follow her dream.  She explains , “So I made probably the first impulsive decision in my life: I sold my swanky penthouse apartment in Sydney, bought the Little Stables Tearoom, packed my things, and came home”

As she and her best friend, Cassie, start to build the business the murder threatens to close down the cafe for good. So Gemma decides it is in her best interest to solve the murder herself.  When Inspector Devlin O'Connor comes back to town to join the Police department, he is assigned to solve this case.  The old romantic feelings that Gemma thought she had buried for good start to reemerge. As this series continues it seems the love interest will develop.   As Gemma leads the police to the killer, it is a race against time so that the Little Stables Tearoom can be reopened before it loses so much business it will have to close forever.

I do hope there will more and more recipes in each book as the series progresses.

Zig Zag Girl

With elements of a mystery novel, suspense, missing persons, murder and  danger Elly Griffiths takes the reader on a wonderful ride through the world of vaudeville and variety entertainment.

The Zig Zag Girl is a new mystery novel written by Griffiths based on Jasper Maskelyne, a
British stage magician who specialized in ruse and deception and then found himself during World War II Working for the military intelligence working with large scale deception and camouflage.

Set in Brighton, this mystery features Inspector Edgar Stephans and his sidekick who will help find the girl and solve the crime is a fellow Magic Man, Max Mephisto.  Interspersing magic, mystery and history this is a gripping novel that uncovers north the who done it mystery while revealing the secrets of the vaudeville stage history of the Magic Gang of the British intelligence.

Using the elements of a good magician, Griffiths slowly pulls back the curtain as the reader gets to know her new detective Stephans.  He is a quiet intelligent, caring man, who chose police work after the war instead of returning to school.  When a group of suitcases are delivered to the station addressed to him, he understand the connection and where to turn for answers.  He teams up with the flamboyant, Max Mephisto, who was his buddy in The Magic Men unit, in North Africa during the war.  Together they set out to solve the crime and reconnect with the other members of the unit.

Wonderfully entertwined is the mystery, the magician's act and the men's shared history.  Using the magicians terminology to build suspense; build up, raising the stakes and the great reveal, the novel reaches a satisfying conclusion.

So sit back and enjoy the show, because even though there is a great pull together at the end, the magicians secrets are never revealed.  Elly Griffiths leaves her audience wanting more.

The Japanese Lover

Isabel Allende has written a beautiful love story in her newest novel, The Japanese Lover.
Wonderful crafted with well developed main characters and a story line that spans current day and historic San Francisco and 1939 Poland.  This story spans oceans and prejudice to bring us love, trust and the beauty of happy relationships.

Alma Belasco has lived a full and all encompassing life.  Coming to the United States as a child to escape the Holocaust she grows up with her aunt and uncle in San Fransisco, CA.  The family gardeners' son, Ichimei Fukuda is her best childhood friend.  Now she is coming to end her days at Lark House, a charming eccentric nursing home.  Though she still is very independent, she resides at the nursing home and her nephew, Seth, comes to visit while he gathers information to write her memoirs.

Irina Bazili has had a troubled childhood.  To escape her past she has come to work at Lark House with the senior citizens.  She feels comfortable there, taking care of the elderly who remind her of her grandparents.  Allende uses the voice of Irina to express the feelings of one that has reached the end of life, "She tried to understand what it meant to carry winter on your back, to hesitate over every step, to confuse words you don't hear properly, to have the impression that the rest of the world is going about in a great rush: the emptiness, frailty, fatigue and indifference toward everything not directly not directly related to you...She imagined how she herself would be as an elderly and then ancient woman."

Irina and Seth forge a friendship as they gather the mementos of Alma's past and discover the history
of the Belasco family.  Through their exploration the reader learns about the Holocaust and the Japanese internment camps.  Allende writes about the horrible conditions and treatment of the Japanese as part of United States history, a topic seldom discussed, along with the prejudices of befriending or marrying people of Japanese descent at that time.  She also brings in more modern day topics such as AIDS, and sexual trafficking.

Her writing style flows with a pace that keeps the plot moving between the love stories of the past and the present.  Intermingling the history and present day controversies, Allende shows that time can heal old wounds and bring peace as we near the end of life.  She wraps up the novel with a happily ever after that is magical but the reader is so captivated that by that point will want to believe the romantic ending she writes.

Good on Paper

Good on Paper, by Rachel Cantor is about love, trust and and second chances.  Though I am not a Dante scholar for the most part I did enjoy the story and the relationships explored in this novel.

Shira Greene had a complicated childhood and her attempts to keep her adult life on a straight course are not working out so well.  She is a single mom raising her daughter, Andi, along with her gay friend Ahmad.  Ahmad was there to rescue her when she left her husband with baby Andi and needed a place to live.  She is working for a temporary employment agency though she has a PhD and wanted a career as a translator.  Ahmad, a college professor shares his benefits, both health care and his large apartment with them while his wife and four children have abandoned him moving to Pakistan.  Shira's life seems to take a turn for success when a Nobel Prize winning Italian poet calls insisting she is the only one who can translate his new book.

Throughout the book are interesting passages about translating the written work of novels and poems to other languages.  Author, Cantor examines information about how nuances are lost in trying to explain some words or phrases in another language.  Shira sat in the local coffee shop working on
the translation of Romei's pages, sent by fax for translation, "Weighing poetic elements, deciding which to highlight, which to sacrifice - because not everything can survive translation. ...What's a translator to do? Preserve the length of the original line by padding the translation? Sacrifice meter for concision, semantic accuracy, the original line breaks?...Hence the age-old notion that she who translates is both translator and traitor; traduttore e traditore."

This is a story that uses the classic Vita Nueova and its main characters Dante and his lover Beatrice to set the scene for Shira and her romantic involvements and to also give her a background for her translation work for Romei and his characters.  As the story progresses the story goes from abstract to personal, as the characters on the page start to become more real to Shira.  The fragile life she has created, to protect her from her feelings about her past, begins to unravel and it is up to Shira to correctly interpret the pages she is translating to save herself, her daughter and the wonderful life she has established.

ALLY

As we listen to the news and watch the debates preparing for the upcoming Presidential election

one of the important issues to Jewish people in New Hampshire and around the country is how will the new President relate to the Israeli leaders.  What is their position on the situation in the Middle East?  Are they in favor of a two state solution or not?  Also, what do the Israeli leaders think about what is happening in America and will they be happy with the next President of the United States?  “History has this humbling habit of diminishing the events we see as monumental and of reducing our roles in them to footnotes….” writes Michael Oren in his book, Ally, “ our responsibility is to strive for the objectives we see as faithful for our time.”  

Ally, written by Michael Oren, former Israeli Ambassador to the United States represents so incredibly the relationship between the United States and Israel in modern times.  He gives history leading up to our relationship today and he gives perspective on how the relationship between our two countries affects and is impacted by the rest of the world.  Oren says he convinced, “that the US, Israel relationship is essential to both countries interests.  It assures a modicum of Mid East stability and sends a message of American dependability to the world.”

The main message of this book is that Israel has an insuppressible desire for peace.

Yet, there are many reasons throughout history that continue today that keep that dream

so far from reality.  Oren gives examples and reports his efforts to try and negotiate between

Israel’s leaders and the American leaders.  He is constantly trying to make sure the true message is being portrayed in the US media.  He spends his time attending meetings and social functions to make sure that a positive view of Israel and its relationship with United States is maintained.  

In 1973 Life Magazine featured an article about the Jewish state for its 25th anniversary.

Back then the Jewish state was far more militaristic.  It was less democratic and tolerant and yet it was praised as a paragon of righteousness and creativity.  Something has changed over the intervening years.   Today, Jews are associated with the worst traits in today’s world namely, militarism, racism and colonialism  Ratings are the reason for the bad press about Israel, is the viewpoint of Oren and others.

“Israel sells, Arabs massacring Arabs, say in Syria is a footnote, while a  Palestinian child shot by an Israeli soldier is a scoop. The racist undertones are clear but the reality irrefutable, and nobody understands it better than the terrorists, Hamas and Hezbollah. If they fire at Israeli civilians Israel will retaliate and unintentionally kill the Lebanese and Palestinian civilians behind whom the terrorists hide.  The pictures will be gruesome and if not sufficiently so the terrorists will manufacture them exhuming bodies from morgues and graveyards.”

This is a book that I can really relate to.  Michael Oren is about my age and grew up as I did in New Jersey at a time when the United States was feeling very connected to Israel.  Jews in America were feeling secure in their Judaism and not afraid to say out loud that the Holocaust had been horrific and “Never Again” was a chant that was shouted as we marched in New York City with Jewish youth groups for the Israel Independence Day parade.  It was a time when Nazi hunters were bringing Nazi leaders to trial and Israel was winning miraculous battles including the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War.  Michael Oren early in life decides his dream is to be an Ambassador to Israel.  

Oren feels that it is finally time for us all to face the reality of life in Israel, “It’s time that American Jews see Israel not as a Hollywood or Hebrew school fantasy but what it was and still is: a real country made of bona fide humans, faults and all, albeit humans caught in inhuman circumstances. It’s time they stop judging Israelis by the standards of the American Jewish experience and start trying to understand the Israeli experience. Tired after two wars in which the vast majority didn’t fight? Try dealing with eight or so, one every few years, together with thousands of rockets raining on you cities, countless bombs blowing up buses and malls and intersections, and an absolutely relentless total threat.”

After finishing his term as Ambassador and being elected to the Knesset, “he commits to uphold the laws of the State”.  Michael Oren reflects back on his journey: “Beginning with the day I descended from the bus to Kibbutz Gan Shmuel, how could I have seen squinting through the dust, that someday I would be elected to the first sovereign Jewish  parliament in 2000 years.  Who could have imagined the tortuous route ahead and the divides American and Israeli yet to be crossed.”

Ally, is a book of wonderful quotes and an incredible amount of information about the political world that shapes the outcome of Israel’s future.  Oren who achieves his lifelong dream,

serving as the emissary was a rewarding experience.   He leaves the position with a positive attitude and hope for the future.  In high school Oren played Don Quixote in the Man of La Mancha, who dreamed the “Impossible Dream”.  He grew up to fulfill his own impossible dream.