Books in Janruary ’13

Hello, friends!

Gods, has January felt long! School has been rather exhausting, especially towards the end of the month, but I’ve managed some books, and certainly more than I thought I did! I’m kind of hoping I could maintain this reading speed, but that seems unlikely, considering that the time to apply for exchange starts tomorrow and the candidate’s essay due date looms.

It’s not much in evidence on this blog, but I’m a big Tarantino fan. Django Unchained premiered in Finland just a couple of weeks ago, and yes, I have seen it. I didn’t write a review, but if someone’s interested I could do it.

I’m still fuming about Anna Karenina. I’ve taken to reading newspaper reviews on it and disagreeing with them – mostly because it looks like no one has read the book. Sigh.

Anyway, now to the main event – the books!

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: The Return of Sherlock Holmes

‘… once again Mr Sherlock Holmes is free to devote his life to examining those interesting little problems which the complex life of London so plentifully presents.’

Evil masterminds beware! Sherlock Holmes is back! Ten years after his supposed death in the swirling torrent of the Reichenbach Falls locked in the arms of his arch enemy Professor Moriarty, Arthur Conan Doyle agreed to pen further adventures featuring his brilliant detective. In the first story, ‘The Empty House’, Holmes returns to Baker Street and his good friend Watson, explaining how he escaped from his watery grave. In creating this collection of tales, Doyle had lost none of his cunning or panache, providing Holmes with a sparkling set of mysteries to solve and a challenging set of adversaries to defeat. The potent mixture includes murder, abduction, baffling cryptograms and robbery. We are also introduced to the one of the cruellest villains in the Holmes canon, the despicable Charles Augustus Milverton. As before, Watson is the superb narrator and the magic remains unchanged and undimmed.

(Back cover of Wordswoth Classics 2008 edition)

After Gardner’s Moriarty failed to hold my interest, I decided to finally get on with the ACD canon. My obsession with the character of Colonel Moran was kept back by the fact that I had never read the story he appears in – “The Empty House” – and so this was my main incentive.

As a whole, I liked this collection of stories better than the previous ones. Doyle has clearly advanced as a writer, and the mysteries are more complicated: the previous ones are, for those familiar with detective stories, easy to deduce and the clues are put forward with virtually no red herrings. In Return, there were a couple of cases I managed to piece together (sans motives, though) even with my limited knowledge of detective fiction, but some simply sucked me in because I couldn’t focus on the right details.

A thoroughly enjoyable experience. Returning to both the Baker Street boys and Victorian London was a great relief, and a good start to the year.

First published: 1905

Pages: 303 (Wordsworth Classics 2008)

Stephen Fry: Moab Is My Washpot

Moab is my Washpot is in turns funny, shocking, tender, delicious, said, lyrical, bruisingly frank and addictively readable.

Stephen Fry’s bestselling memoir tells how, sent to a boarding school 200 miles away from home at the age of seven, he survived beatings, misery, love, ecstasy, carnal violation, expulsion, imprisonment, criminal conviction, probation and catastrophe to emerge, at eighteen, ready to try and face the world in which he had always felt a stranger.

When he was fifteen, he wrote the following in a letter to himself, not to be read until he was twenty-five: ‘Well I tell you now that everything I feel now, everything I am now is truer and better than anything I shall ever be. Ever. This is me now, the real me. Every day that I grow away from the me that is writing this now is a betrayal and a defeat.’

Whether the real Stephen Fry is the man now living, or the extraordinary adolescent now dead, only you will be able to decide.

(Back cover of Arrow Books 2011 reissue)

Fry’s style is rather rambly, which took some getting used to after Doyle’s precise way of carrying a plot, but he never strays too far and always returns to where he took a by-path. I enjoyed myself, and although it was slightly disconcerting to read about the growing up of a person I hold in high esteem – and Fry’s life has been more chequered than I expected, even with a little background knowledge – it was also very interesting. I could relate to some of the feelings he expressed and explained, which of course made me read with more gusto than I perhaps otherwise would have.

I’d recommend the book to fans of Stephen Fry. If you can take the style, you’ll enjoy it. You get used to it fairly quickly, I promise.

Published: 1997

Pages: 436

Mary Balogh: The Dark Angel/Lord Carew’s Bride

Dark Angel

Jennifer Winwood has been engaged for five years to a man she hardly knows but believes to be honorable and good: Lord Lionel Kersey. Suddenly, she becomes the quarry of London’s most notorious womanizer, Gabriel Fisher, the Earl of Thornhill. Jennifer has no idea that she is just a pawn in the long-simmering feud between these two headstrong, irresistible men – or that she will become a prize more valuable than revenge.

Lord Carew’s Bride

Love has not been kind to Samantha Newman, but friendship has. When her emotions are rubbed raw by the reappearance in her life of a villain who had broken her heart some years before, she turns with gratitude to the kindly Hartley Wade, with whom she had developed a warm friendship when she mistook him for a gardener during a visit to the country. She accepts his proposal, expecting a quiet, safe, undemanding marriage. She does not know that Hartley is the Marquess of Carew and that he loves her passionately–and believes she returns his feelings.

(Back cover of Dell omnibus edition 2010/marybalogh.com)

I haven’t read romance in a while, and devoured these two in one day. This was my second time reading them, and yes, Hartley Wade, Marquess of Carew is still my favourite romance novel hero.

Published: Signer Regency 1995

Pages: 308/285

J. R. R. Tolkien: Silmarillion

The Silmarillion is an account of the Elder Days, or the First Age of Tolkien’s World. It is the ancient drama to which the characters in Lord of the Rings look back, and in whose events some of them, such as Elrond and Galadriel, took part. The tales of The Silmarillion are set in an age when Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, dwelt in Middle-earth, and the High Elves made war upon him for the recovery of the Silmarils.

The three Silmarils were jewels created by Fëanor, most gifted of the Elves. Within them were imprisoned the Light of the Two Trees of Valinor before the Trees themselves were destroyed by Morgoth. Thereafter the unsullied Light of Valinor lived only in the Silmarils; but they were seized by Morgoth and set in his crown, guarded in the fortress of Angband in the north of Middle-earth.

The Silmarillion is the history of the rebellion of Fëanor and his kindred against the gods, their exile from Valinor and return to Middle-earth and their war, hopeless despite their heroism, against the great Enemy. Included in the book are several shorter works. The Ainulindalë is a myth of the Creation and in the Valaquenta the nature and powers of each of the gods is described. The Akallabêth recounts the downfall of the great island kingdom of Númenor at the end of the Second Age and Of the Rings of Power tells of the great events at the end of the Third Age, which are narrated in Lord of the Rings.

(First leaf of the Unwin paperback 1979 edition)

I managed to shock a friend of mine by telling her this was my first time reading Silmarillion. I tried it about ten years ago, when I’d just gotten into Tolkien, but put it down after about fifty pages. Reading it now, it was still slow going, particularly because I like dialogue better than description and I can’t stand extensive family trees or geography, but it wasn’t nearly as daunting as I remembered. What I did enjoy was making a stylistic comparison between this book, The Lord of the Rings, and The Hobbit. Tolkien is the master of style, and I would love to write my stylistics essay for Academic Writing on him would not the teacher be the one choosing the material. But maybe someday I will write something on the subject in my own time.

The experience was a lot like reading a religious work. I’m not saying it’s a good or a bad thing; it was merely different to what I usually like to read.

And, of course, the languages were a source of delight. Particularly the mountain pass of Calacirya amused me. (I here assume that /y/ is pronounced as [j], which would make the pronunciation sound like the Finnish word ‘kalakirja’, which means ‘fish book’, ‘book on fish’. Add to this the fact that in this pass was raised the hill of Túna, and I’m sure you see why I’m amused.)

Published: George Allen & Unwin 1977

Pages: 367 (plus genealogies, notes on pronunciation, index of names, appendix) (Unwin paperback 1979 edition)

Scott Lynch: The Lies of Locke Lamora

The Thorn of Camorr is said to be an unbeatable swordsman, a master thief, a friend to the poor, a ghost that walks through walls.

Slightly built and barely competent with a sword, Locke Lamora is, much to his annoyance, the fabled Thorn. And while Locke does indeed steal from the rich (who else would be worth stealing from?), the poor never see a penny. All of Locke’s gains are strictly for himself and his tight-knit band of thieves: The Gentlemen Bastards.

The capricious, colourful underworld of the ancient city of Camorr is the only home they’ve ever known. But now a clandestine war is threatening to tear it apart. Caught up in a murderous game, Locke and his friends are suddenly struggling just to stay alive…

(Back cover of Gollancz 50 edition)

I know, I know. Locke Lamora again. I couldn’t help myself! It is by far the most comfortable book I can pick up from my shelf, and after Silmarillion I needed something more explosive and fast-paced.

I’ve discussed this book so many times on this blog I’ll forgo that for now, but you’re more than welcome to read the Favourites post I wrote on it, or to go through the Read-Along posts, the first one of which is here.

Published: Gollancz 2006

Pages: 530

There it is. I think this year will include a lot of re-reading.

No books bought all month, despite the sales: I take some pride in this self-control! But the fact is, I just don’t have time to read, and so amassing new books feels a little foolish.

Currently reading:

Pistols for Two by Georgette Heyer (collection of Regency short stories, I love them so much!)

Goodbye! I hope you had a nice January; let us now proceed with the year!