The Rat Began to Gnaw the Rope - Book Review

 

The Rat Began to Gnaw the Rope                            Oct. 20, 2022

by C.W. Grafton 

 

I enjoyed the 1940’s language better than I did the story and/or writing. Not that the writing was bad, but the lawyer/investigator/tough guy (Gilmore Henry) was a hard act to swallow. His inner thoughts/dialogue either you like or wish it would just stop. Based on his character description and behavior, it would be hard to convince readers like me that a cultured, high society woman like Janet Harper would even consider him to be marriage material.

The story bogged down a bit almost immediately, probably due to all the financial talk, legal talk and who’s who along the way. Confusion with the Harper and McClure families had me constantly going back and checking previous chapters early on.

But again, the language and 1940’s culture (smoking in hospital beds, drive-it yourself rentals, Bronx Cheer, Primo Carnera, etc…) gave the story an authentic noirish feel with added wiseguy humor in the character of Gilmore Henry. So much of the plot and mystery depended on how Mr. Henry delivered the pieces to the puzzle.

In the end he wrapped up everything pretty good, but throughout the story some pieces seemed to detract instead of adding to the story. I felt the author was trying too hard to create a mystery puzzle instead of just writing a great story. And yes, the corny humor did get old and at times wore thin.

But I also must remember the era it was written and its targeted audience. In a time of film noir and newspaper serials featuring dark deeds and hardboiled crime, this book might have been just what paying customers were looking to sink their teeth into. With a world war in full swing (1943), the cold and brutal killings of individuals in a book were likely received with less sympathy and shock than during peace time. War must have hardened society to acts of violence, real or fictional.

In this mystery novel there were no less than five killings, three attempted killings, threatening phone calls and multiple bruising, clobbering, bleeding, restraining incidents.

The fact that I took this book with me on a cross-country train trip, and tired of it early, says much about its entertainment value. It bored, it confused, it left me wanting to quit it many times. And yet I found myself returning to its pages, wanting to not solve the mystery as much as figure out what part all the moving pieces played.

Was I satisfied with the end result? Well, let’s just say the wrap up was much better than the buildup. Putting it another way, the arrival was much better than the journey. And I am a man that cherishes the journey, hence the cross-country train travel.

So, on a scale of 1 to 5, I give this book a 3. Maybe 3.5 because I love history and nostalgia. To know something about stock market puts and calls, as well as inheritance law, gives readers a jump on the plot. Fans of the author’s mystery writer daughter, Sue Grafton, might want this book in their mystery writer’s collection.

 

Triangle Books Edition – Published October 1944

The Blakiston Company – Philadelphia

Copyright 1943, by C.W. Grafton

The Rat Began to Gnaw the Rope characters Listed With Descriptions (bookcompanion.com)

Imperium by Robert Harris

This is my second novel by Robert Harris. Unlike the first, it has caught my inner ear with clean, clear writing and the much-appreciated voice of Cicero's male secretary, Marcus Tiro. Tiro, as he is called, reminds me of other well-liked seconds to main characters in books. He's smart, funny, knows his place, and seems all-knowing. He makes for a great traveling companion for readers of this book.

Tiro delivers the story in a style that stacks connecting layer upon connecting layer, so you are well informed of the background story to events being presented. And though you are made aware of Tiro's character (strengths, weaknesses), the focus always swings back to our main character of the story, the brilliant young lawyer and senator, Cicero.

Early in the novel I found a most interesting oratory Cicero presented to the tribunal court of Rome. The speech cleverly criticizes and calls out corrupt practices of governing officials in the senate. Cicero's purpose for the oration is two-fold; to defend his Sicilian client against false accusations made by a thieving and corrupt governor, and to show public support for restoring the tribunes to power under Pompey. The tribunes represent the people, but power now lays in the hands of the rich aristocrats. 

Pompey has planned a return to Rome from Spain with his conquering army. Upon his return he will be given consulship of Rome. Lollius Pelicanus, a conspiring tribunate candidate, has offered Cicero a part in their plan to restore the tribunes to power under Pompey's consulship. Cicero has accepted and gives a powerful speech to the consulate in defense of his client and support for a political cleansing of the tribunate.

Many reviewers who enjoyed the book point out how its political intrigues mirror today's American political theatre. Perhaps Democrats should take a page from this historical fiction novel and put an end to Republicans' shameless abuse of power and obstruction of justice. 

Imperium

By Robert Harris

 

After finishing this saga of power and politics, I assign it a 4.25 out of 5 points. As with all sagas, it dragged just a bit midway through after a seemingly first climax (Pompey). But I must say, the author didn’t waste much time in picking up the pace and introducing new characters and conspiracies to follow.

Yes, I enjoyed the real historical characters along with the not so historical. Mr. Harris has a way with creating interesting dialogue between two or more characters. As I said about the book earlier, hearing a story told by a second to the main character is always enjoyable. The second gives us an inside look at all that surrounds the main character, while keeping his own narrating self just on the cusp of the story, enough so that he can alternately take over and sit back as the story dictates. So, you know Tiro is there walking you through, but you are never left to rely solely on his guidance, direction or explanation. 

The story gives you a talking, breathing, living Cicero, and yet Tiro as his second (secretary), would be greatly missed if he were not its navigator.

I would welcome reading the other books in this trilogy. The writing and plot setups, along with descriptions of what power is and what it does, were extraordinary. Felt like I was reading classic literature at times, maybe because of the true history of Rome included. Where fact and fiction meet in Imperium are very hard to decipher for readers like myself, who are not scholars in Roman political history. Though a bit dry on action in the second half of the book, the political intrigue remained constant and provided much to ponder and compare with today’s political environment.

 

Bravo Mr. Harris. Imperium passes the test. I enjoyed time spent with the characters and political intrigues of this book.

 

Wp (June 27, 2022)

Balzac - by Stefan Zweig (Book Review)

 

Balzac

By Stefan Zweig

Translated by William and Dorothy Rose

Published in November 1946

Acknowledgement goes out to editor Richard Friedenthal for rescuing and piecing together this manuscript.

I enjoyed reading and spending time with Balzac. Author Stefan Zweig did a splendid job recreating the rollercoaster ride that was Balzac’s life. I got the sense early on, that Balzac might’ve been on the autistic spectrum had he lived today. I suppose most Genuis’s are on that spectrum, which is really just a place for unexplainable intelligence.

I felt for Balzac because he, like so many misunderstood geniuses, was a dreamer of things unknown and unseen. Although the author gives solid ventures and failures, I felt the truly deeper character of Balzac revealed between the lines. I would have liked to have met Balzac, in all his excitement of explaining an idea or story plot.

What may have struck me most, early in the book, was how Balzac resembled a young relative who I recognize similar traits in. Like Balzac he’s a realist. He is also above intelligent with superior memory skills. I fear he might be like Balzac in financial issues, wasteful and unrealistic.

Reading about Balzac, I never really felt all that sorry for his failures as an adult. I almost felt as if, and the author touches on this, Balzac’s best writing was inspired by his many failures and mistreatments endured. Through it all it seems Balzac was one who, when left with lemons, made lemonade.

Nothing deterred his ambitious goal of becoming successful and wealthy, nor kept him from chasing love. Yes, Balzac appears to have been amorous. How else could he have written such romantic novels to quench the newspaper’s serial reading female public.

Many parts I found so interesting, like his childhood spent in a boarding school/abbey for boys. His cold, loveless mother who would have a huge impact on his life and his need for an older, knowledgeable woman to love.

Also, his first correspondence with Madame de Hanska, where she and women of her home write to Balzac as a female game of secret mystery and teasing flirtation.  It was this part I read when perfusing the book at the SF Library Wednesday steps sale, before deciding to spend more than I wanted on a used book, $5. But in hindsight, I’m so glad I bought it. I plan to keep Balzac on my shelf for future visits. And I might just send a copy to that relative of mine he reminds me of.

Anytime someone reacted to Balzac, it revealed more about Balzac’s character than the one reacting to him. Balzac was almost childish in his manner and perceptions. It doesn’t seem he knew how to “read the room” when in the company of others; nor does it seem he cared what the temperature of the room was or who was in it. Balzac was Balzac; big, bold, braggadocios, uncompromising, with a faith in people that a little boy might have in santa claus.

I really can’t say exactly what I liked about this book, but I know when I have enjoyed reading a book, and this book “Balzac” I must say I enjoyed reading.

Even the many French words without translation became a non-factor over time. I began to decipher some of the French words, treating it as a sort of game.

So, which did I enjoy more? the story or the writing? This is where I believe the genius of the book captured me. When you cannot separate one from the other, then the author has done his job. And with this book I simply cannot say which I enjoyed more, story or writing. The scales seem evenly weighted when comparing the two. If either had been lacking, I don’t think I’d have enjoyed reading the book at all. It is because the author kept me interested in Balzac’s story, and because he wrote it so engagingly, I fell in love with reading this book all the way through.

I also like how the author ended the book with Balzac-like descriptions of his demise, and then an authentic copy of writer Victor Hugo’s eulogy-like letter describing the last time he saw Balzac, as he lay dying. Sensational!

And to also discover in the end that Madame de Hanska, the woman Balzac loved to death, was a superficial, selfish, uncaring nothing, who only needed Balzac for the fame and possible fortune he might bring her later. And yet she inspired Balzac’s writing. We should be thankful for the Polish born, Ukrainian b!@tch.

 

I copied many paragraphs, photo’d many pages and will likely put together a summary of my notes and pics in a file for future reviewal. Download notebook and pics from cell phone.

 

Wp 5/02/2022

Honoré de Balzac Writes About “The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee,” and His Epic Coffee Addiction | Open Culture

Paul Giamatti Plays Honoré de Balzac, Hopped Up on 50 Coffees Per Day | Open Culture

Title: Honoré de Balzac (gutenberg.org)

Dread Nation Review

 

Kudos to Dread Nation author Justina Ireland for creating an engaging alternate American history. Set during an interruption in the American civil war, rich white folks are training and employing former servants and slaves to defend them from zombies.

That's right, the country is under attack by zombies and their bites turn victims into zombies within hours. During the crisis there are still political leaders and clannish folks wanting to return the country back to an antebellum southern state, where white supremacy reigns as master throughout the land. 

Dread Nation has all the ingredients of southern plantation society trying desperately to hold onto bygone times, even at the risk of white lives and an apocalyptic country. Those in power making poor decisions, that endanger their communities, do so in the so-called "name of Jesus Christ." 

It took me at least a quarter of the book before I could buy in to the story and begin enjoying the ride. Once I did, everything about the story had an adventurous mystery feel with horrific zombies and bad men always threatening. And for perhaps the first time in a YA novel, I was sold on a female heroine who could outsmart and out maneuver enemies in all forms of combat.

I have to place Dread Nation in the Young-Adult genre, though its slivers of history are a welcome flavor for American history buffs. As for depicting a society of white masters and black servants, the author gives us much to reflect on, as well as a magnifying lens to help us understand what drives today's divide in American politics and culture.

Dread Nation was a good mix of ingredients producing a unique, flavorful dessert. You can choose to pick at what's missing, overdone or not enough added. But I found just sitting back anticipating tasting every teasing spoonful of vanilla, chocolate, raspberry, and apricot swirl, deliciously quenched my reader's appetite. 

Well Done, Justina. Well Done!

I will be picking up the sequel, "Deathless Divide" for a second helping.

:Dread Nation Fancast

Persian Girls - Book Review/notes

"See, when all the doors are shut on you, God opens a window" pg.21

Author Nahid Rachlin has written a very engaging memoir of her family and homeland, Iran. As so many who have read it found, the book "Persian Girls" reads like a novel. Nahid covers the place, politics and peoples of Iran throughout different political eras and leadership. She places you right there with her in a family and country full of social restrictions, western distrust and revolt. The Iranian historical relationship with the west shows good reason why the people distrust western influence. (oil)

I like how the author transparently incorporated the history and traditions of Iran into her memoir. What I wouldn't give to be a guest at an Iranian wedding ceremony with all its rituals and traditions. I found the ceremony of a veil held over the kneeling bride and groom while sugar cone is being ground above to add sweetness to the union, an act full of love and wisdom.

What pulled me in from the beginning was the loving act of a birth mother promising her widowed, childless sister her next born as a gift. She does this against the wishes of her husband, Nahid's father.

Then, to have that precious gift "snatched away" by the father and returned to her birth mother after nine years of bonding love between adoptive mother and child is heart-wrenching. This is where Nahid's story begins, snatched up and tossed like a pebble thrown into a calm lake (family) and causing wave-like, rippling effects on everyone and everything in it, especially the pebble. The rippling waters continue throughout the memoir to push and pull on the inhabitants of the lake, its high and low waves lifting some up while also tumbling down upon others. It makes for a page-turning drama.

"Persian Girls" blends the story of daughter and mother relations with fathers, brothers, husbands and male acquaintances. In the book, Iranian politics and religious fundamentalism, along with all their restrictions on female actions, activities and overall lives, gives readers a feeling of imprisonment/ownership of women by men. 

Arranged marriages are contracts drawn up and negotiated by family fathers. In selecting a groom, more care is given to financial and community status of the groom's family than the bride's love for and compatibility with the groom. Should the bride after marriage decide to file for and be granted a divorce, she forfeits the family dowry given to the groom in marriage. I think somewhere in the book I read the groom retains half the dowry if divorce is mutual. Wives also forfeit custody of any children to fathers when divorcing.

Much of the history about the Shah of Iran, as well as Ayatollah Khomeini is included. Memories of the 1979-81 Iran Hostage Crisis (444 days) reignited in me memories of that era. Iran, an oil rich country whose money hungry leader (Shah) basically sold the country's natural resource rights to British, then American interests, at the expense of Iranian citizens. 

With the Shah's marriage to the west for Iranian oil came implementation, at least in name, of untraditional (non-religious) westernized modernization in the country. Old laws were loosened, and some new ones written to give women more freedom, but they were not enforced, leaving male heads of families the power to continue restricting female family members' actions and activities.

What came across towards the end of "Persian Girls" is the love and forgiveness of those scarred and changed by life's stormy, rippling circumstances. It can take a lifetime to give an apology and a lifetime to humble oneself enough to receive one. 

Also, the story shows how love of home can become stronger as the years away from it mount up. First, we leave home to escape, then we miss home when disillusioned by the place we escaped to, eventually we return home and find love of culture and understandings about childhood questions. Finally, we accept our adopted home as a place of growth, self-discovery and destiny.

After writing all this, I still have not identified all of what made reading this book so enjoyable for me. It read so easily and talked to me without preaching or instructing. It's a story shared in a welcoming format. The book combines so many genres, and it all works well together; history, travelogue, politics, feminism, nationalism, motherhood, American immigrant, Iranian culture/lifestyle, education.

I felt I was traveling with Nahid on her journey through life in two different worlds (first Iran then America) learning as she learned, loving as she loved and understanding as she understood the many life-lessons revealed to her. I enjoyed her loving relationships with sister Pari and mother Maryam just as much as her unloving relationships with sister Manijeh and birth mother Mohtaram. 

I especially found interesting the part where Nahid talks about her inner strength possibly inherited from the love, attention and freedom given her at such a young age by mother Maryam. I thought the author hinted that her sisters' lacking inner strength might have been partly due to mother Mohtaram's mix of adopted western lifestyle while attempting to adhere to Iranian cultural traditions enforced by their father.

Or perhaps it was just Mohtaram's mothering ways, fawning over one "beautiful" daughter while the other two were left with table scraps of love. As for Nahid, Mohtaram could give her nothing she hadn't already received and treasured from mother Maryam.

note: While with mother Maryam a young Nahid overhead gossip told to her mother about a blind one-year-old baby girl left in the doorway of a house in an alley. Years later it would inspire her to write a short story. At the time though, the gossip had Nahid seeing parallels in her and the blind baby girl, causing her to question why her mother gave her away. 

Nahid: "Mother, is something wrong with me that Mohtaram gave me away?"

Maryam: "You're a perfect creation of God, my dear girl. It was your destiny to be my child. As soon as a baby comes into the world an angel writes its destiny on the baby's forehead.

NPR - Trapped in Tehran, living in St. Louis

Trump Guantanamo Bay Executive Order

January 6, 2021, a date that will live in Infamy!

The United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked.

In January 2018, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order to keep the detention camp open indefinitely. 

In January 2021, U.S. President Donald Trump incited an angry mob to terrorize the United States Capitol, indefinitely.

When I add up these two actions of the President, and factor in precedence for how the United States has dealt with terrorists, I conclude that perpetrators of terror and insurrection should be rounded up and detained at a detention center the President himself ordered be kept open for such crimes against our nation. 

Proposal to arrest, interrogate and detain indefinitely, United States Capitol Insurrectionists for January 6, 2021, attack on democracy. Location of detention Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Since the attack, many Americans are suffering PTSD after watching LIVE FOOTAGE of their Capitol under siege by weaponized Trump supporters looking to stop certification of Electoral College votes. The attack was brutal and deadly, leaving many citizens now pondering what is to come in the days leading up to Inauguration day and beyond.   

Terrorists who threaten to overthrow the United States government should be housed off American soil until proven no longer a threat to American democracy. Guantanamo has been and continues to be a facility for such detainment. Even President Donald Trump strongly felt so.

Unfortunately, this might be the only solution to averting future actions of terror by these groups and others, and keep America safe for both citizens and lawmakers alike. 

How Guantanamo Bay Became the Place the U.S. Keeps Detainees - The Atlantic

Capitol riots: Did Trump's words at rally incite violence? - BBC News

The Tea Rose - Book Review

 

The Tea Rose                                                        By Jennifer Donnelly

 

Fiona Finnegan, a girl infused with the caring soul of her mother and fighting spirit of her father, is the star performer in this big book. Author Jennifer Donnelly did a splendid job weaving two parental traits together to form the strong and likeable character of Fiona.

I liked the writing of the story with a pacing strung out well from beginning to middle to end. It is a story of happenstance where one event triggers another and another. Readers get to travel along and see the repercussions of choices and circumstances as they twist around and collide into one another.

Fiona did not try to be a strong, loving woman, she was just born that way; caring, strong and determined. Revealing Fiona in her weakest moments made her and her circumstances believable.

On the next to last page is where Fiona tells a determined little girl what her father told her when she was young, “The day you let someone take your dreams from you, you may as well head straight to the undertaker’s. You’re just as good as dead.”

In repeating this same saying from earlier in the story, the author wraps up the overall message she wants Fiona’s story to convey; never stop fighting for what you want or compromise your dreams for someone else’s. Fiona represents a dreamer who must go through the trials and tragedies of life while trying desperately to hold on to her dreams.  And it is the one dream that she holds so dearly to that makes all life’s challenges worth fighting for; to reunite with her love Joe.

As I try hard to remember something unlikeable about the novel, I am hard pressed to dredge up anything. I do remember a few times feeling as if resolutions to some problems were too convenient or coincidental; (Fiona getting passenger tickets, Fiona getting the bank loan, Fiona getting the tea house). The resolutions did not interfere with the smooth flow of the story and I accepted them without further critique.

I also would like to have seen Will’s son get exposed and punished for setting up the arrest and scandal against Nick Soames, as well as the crooked judge who carried out the legal favor.

The Tea Rose was 544 pages of cheering for love and goodness to overcome hate and evil. Often in a novel the ruthless, hating characters seem to say and do the most courageously memorable things. The Tea Rose gives those moments of incredible courage and risk to our heroine and her supporters.

And, of course, the love story is one that pulled me in from the start. Following the love story, or more of a yearning story, is like watching a vessel travel across dead lakes, stormy seas and raging rivers before unexpectedly crashing and sinking deep down into the depths of a foreign harbor.

The main item that kept me coming back was the suspense of waiting to see if and/or when this vessel of love would rise above water once again to rightfully take its place at the heart of the story. I think this a better love story than Francine River’s “Redeeming Love.” In Rivers novel the relationship was more a higher spiritual love of God, whereas in this novel the love between man and woman was so imperfectly relatable and familiar; common.

It was joyous to return to the big book of Fiona’s story again and again, picking up wherever the tale last left me. It is also why I love paperbacks and hardcovers over e-books; the weight of a book in my hands, along with the look and smell of its pages and cover, somehow gives me ownership of the story while traveling through its pages. You can say I feel closer to the characters and towns. Like carrying around a neighborhood.

I hope to write to this author letting her know just how entertained I was reading her novel. I will likely read one or both books that continue The Rose Trilogy; The Winter Rose, The Wild Rose.

I need more time to digest what I read and review my notes. But this I know without needing more time; The Tea Rose was a superb read and I am more than happy to recommend it to other readers.

Jan 3, 2021

Memed My Hawk - Book Review

Author Yashar Kemal keeps the reader wanting more and more of the story. His descriptions of people and place are immaculate.

A book that reads very well with a style that gives a bit of every genre; love, suspense, action, espionage, mystery, political, thriller, western, revolutionary. It's a novel that grows from the despair of a single life into hope for an entire community. The book is a blend of many ingredients, leaving you with the taste for many flavors.

The author pulls out the pride and hate of a reader. You'll want revenge for a character as if he or she were your mother, sister or brother. You'll feel the pride of a mother or elder who see's their courageous young warrior as a guiding flame leading them out of the dark times. You'll know the sadness that comes with loss of a loved one at the orders of a tyrant. And you'll understand what it means to love a place of birth and its peoples so much that they're worth dying for.

Memed My Hawk is a wonderful Turkish epic that could represent just about any place, people and time in history; even ours. 

*****


1961 First American Edition by Pantheon Books
Translated by Edouard Roditi

Warriors Golden State of Mind

And that is how the Golden State Warriors swept through the Spurs on their way to a third straight NBA Finals.