Catching Up a Bit

The ARC gods at LibraryThing have been extraordinarily good to me recently, but before I get to those books, it turns out I have a few from earlier I need to acknowledge.

• Dreamers of the Day, Mary Doria Russell. The first two-thirds of this book, describing Agnes's early life and travel to Cairo, are well-written and entertaining, and Russell's portraits of the real-life figures of Churchill, Lawrence, and others are fascinating. However, the whole tone of the book is a little too "fly on the wall of history" -- Agnes has no real effect on the unfolding of events, and they in turn don't really do anything to alter the arc of her life. The quasi-mystical/fantasy/religious final segment is completely tacked on and unnecessary.
• Tokyo Year Zero, David Peace. I made several valiant tries, but I could not progress more than a couple of chapters into this book. The incoherent style and unpleasant subject matter made it unreadable to me.
• Pushing Up Daisies, Rosemary Harris. It's hard to find much to say about this debut mystery, which is sort of like rice pudding: OK if you like that sort of thing, but not the most original or tastiest dessert in the bunch. The mystery is fairly well plotted (although the murderer is obvious from the get-go), and some of the secondary characters are well drawn (unfortunately, not the heroine). One annoying point: I found it impossible to tell what the heroine's background in television was supposed to be. Was she a filmmaker? A scheduling executive? Or what?

Back. In the Saddle Again?

Excuse me. . . hello . . . is this thing on? Whoa, wicked feedback.

There, that's better.

I just wanted to pop in for a moment to say that the medical issues that have sidelined me for most of the last year seem to be pretty much fixed (crossing my digits and knocking wood repeatedly). I'm going to have some minor unrelated surgery in a couple of weeks. When I recover from that, I fully hope and intend to start blogging again regularly. I miss it and have lots to discuss, including several ARCs I so generously received via LibraryThing.

Also, you may have noticed I've started Twittering -- it's kind of like blogging lite. Follow me at @MuseofIre.

Gladiatrix, by Russell Whitfield

Mindful of my obligation to review this book for LibraryThing, I struggled valiantly to finish it, but despite my best efforts, I could only get halfway through. It would take a doughtier warrior than myself to conquer Whitfield's leaden prose, abysmal dialog, complete absence of characterization, and predictable plotting.

Except for the heroine Lysandra, there's not a single character with a spark of life, but in her case that's not a recommendation. The arrogant know-it-all who doesn't realize how others perceive her can work well when used sparingly or for comic effect -- see Elizabeth Peters' ever-adorable Amelia Peabody, for example -- but Lysandra is utterly without humor or charm. She is simply an unlikeable brat who needs a big dose of get-over-yourself.

Whitfield's endnotes (I always read the endnotes) acknowledges someone who helped him get rid of his contemporary point of view, but I'm afraid that person had too much to contend with to take care of it all. The author seems concerned, for example, that readers will find Lysandra's temple implausible and justifies it at some length. To me it seems perfectly plausible, except when we come to Lysandra's function as a "mission priestess." I am by no means an expert on ancient Greek religion, but it seems clear that proselytization was not one of its features; it spread haphazardly through conquest and syncretization with existing local deities.

The more serious historical lapse involves the so-called Tribe comprising the women from Gaul and Britain. We modern readers can accept that they all fall into an overarching definition of "Celtic," but I sincerely doubt that an Iceni and a Dacian are going to automatically recognize each other as blood-sisters.

On a shallow note, Whitfield's sex scenes are embarrassing and far from erotic, not only as though he knows nothing about lesbians, but as though he knows nothing about sex between any two people anywhere.

Murder on the Eiffel Tower

Murder on the Eiffel Tower, by Claude Izner

I received this as an ARC from the LibraryThing Early Reviewers group, and if I hadn't been obligated to review it, I would never have finished it. This book is a very weak historical thriller set in the heady atmosphere of the Paris Exposition of 1889. It has the stiff prose I associate with bad translation, but translation alone can't account for its clunky exposition, unrealistic dialog, shallow characterization, haphazard plotting, and pointless name-checking. The hero suspects his lover and business partner on less than no evidence, and never does come around to guessing the identity of the real killer until he reveals himself. In a way, that's not surprising, since the killer's motive is laughable, and the authors provide no substantive clues whatever.

Know How I Said I Was Back? Not So Much

Remember how I mentioned last time I'd been having some health problems? Well, they're ongoing. Nothing too serious, but debilitating enough that basically all I've got the energy for is working, reading, and sleeping. Lots of sleeping. Blogging? Not really on the agenda right now. So while I may pop in now and again, you can consider me on the dreaded hiatus until I get my innards seen to.

As long as I'm here, though, let me just say this about that. Did you ever have an old friend you hadn't seen in a while, and then you got together, and suddenly you realized that all his little jokes were really racist, or all she could talk about was dieting? That's kind of how I'm feeling in rereading the Smith and Wetzon mysteries by Annette Meyers. I really liked these books back in the day, and I kept them when sorting through Mom's collection, but on reflection, I have to wonder what it was I saw in them. The heroine, Leslie Wetzon, a former Broadway dancer turned Wall Street headhunter, is a terrible investigator; especially in the first book (The Big Killing), she consistently withholds information, tampers with evidence, lies for no reason, and fails to ask the crucial and obvious questions.

I can't blame her entirely for her dysfunctional relationships with her partner and cop boyfriend, though, because however prickly and defensive she is, neither one of them is any prize. Smith is materialistic, greedy, narcissistic, and manipulative (cue obligatory "and those are her good points"), while Silvestri is the sort of emotionally closed off guy who compartmentalizes so thoroughly he doesn't introduce Wetzon to his mother until they've been practically living together for 5 years.

The one thing I am digging is the way these books are a positive time capsule of a certain Manhattan yuppie milieu of the 1980s, complete with designer labels, hip restaurants, and a time before cell phones. But somehow I don't think that was what I found cool at the time when I too was running around looking for a phone booth.

I'm Back (Didja Miss Me?)

I didn't intend to take off the whole month of July. But first I went on vacation and then I went on vacation again and then I had some health problems. So before I knew it, boom! it was August.

So anyway, I have lots of cool things to say about books I've read (and by the way, I'm so hopelessly behind tracking my reading that I've given up trying to catch up) and movies I've seen (three of 'em! in a theater!). But I'm not here to talk about that now.

No, what brought me back was the stupid Geico commercial where the customer explains that his father was CARJACKED AT KNIFEPOINT and Joan freaking Rivers makes jokes about her plastic surgery. And then the poor man graciously COMPLIMENTS GEICO ON THEIR SENSITIVITY.

I'm sure some ad guy just cracked himself up thinking he was so fucking clever and edgy. But guess what, bozo: when you cross the line into making fun of people who have had a horrific experience and make them thank you for it, that's not edgy, THAT'S JUST FUCKING WRONG.

Sheesh.

Edited 8/2 because I'm still pissed off.

Patriot Hearts

Patriot Hearts, by Barbara Hambly

I've read damn near everything Barbara Hambly's ever written, and while there were a few of her books I didn't like so much, I never thought she could write anything so BORING. This story of the first four First Ladies (counting Thomas Jefferson's slave mistress, Sally Hemings) is a rambling, episodic collection of flashbacks -- and often, flashbacks within flashbacks -- loosely tied together by an unnecessary frame device. None of the heroines emerges as a particularly interesting character, and indeed the book had the effect of making me less sympathetic with some of them (Martha Washington tsking that Pennsylvania's anti-slavery laws complicate her housekeeping arrangements, Abigail Adams fuming that an Irish immigrant shouldn't have political opinions because he has no stake in the country). There's no driving, overarching story here; and while I don't doubt that a peek behind the scenes into the domestic side of the great events of early American history could make a fascinating novel, this isn't it.

8 Unanswered Questions About The Tenderness of Wolves

It took me two tries to get into this historical mystery about a murder in the snowy Canadian wilderness in the 1860s. Once I did, I enjoyed it, but it's almost breathtaking in its loose-endedness, leaving plots unresolved and characters scattered across the landscape. So herewith, the list of things I still want to know:

1. Whatever became of Amy Seton?
2. With Moody dead, how are the Knoxes going to learn about Eve Seton/Elizabeth Bird?
3. Why and how did Mrs. Ross leave the asylum with Mr. Ross?
4. Who was Half Man and what was his relationship with Stewart?
5. Why did Mr. Ross start to turn away from Mrs. Ross, and what is she going to do about it?
6. What's Jacob going to do when he learns that Moody was killed while he wasn't around to protect him?
7. What's going to become of Francis, Line and her children, Susannah, Maria, and Mr. Knox?
8. So what is that mysterious bone tablet anyway?

I Defy the AFI

It's no use getting too bent out of shape about the lists published by the AFI. Tastes differ; also, they're an institution that depends at least partly on donations and they're not above pandering to certain films because they were popular or made a lot of money. But their broadcast last night of the 10 Top 10 was very badly done (each segment way too short, then wasting time on recaps; dubious experts), and I have to take issue with some of their more egregious choices:

• Titanic on the list of epics? ONE OF THE WORST MOVIES EVER MADE, PEOPLE.
• Moonstruck and Sleepless in Seattle in romantic comedies? These horrible, horrible films are better than Bringing Up Baby or My Man Godfrey or even Victor/Victoria? Don't make me laugh (they sure couldn't).
• The Usual Suspects? Good movie, but a better mystery than The Thin Man or The Big Sleep or Notorious? I don't think so.
• Both versions of Scarface on the gangster list? That's just lazy.

And whose idea was it to trot out Kirk Douglas? I'm sure whoever did it kidded themselves they were doing something very noble, but I found it just sad and exploitative.

True Dreck

I used to have a razor-sharp memory for everything I had read or watched, but as time goes on I find myself losing my grasp on the details. So, as it now often happens, I remembered that I really hated the movie True Lies, but not why. Thus, having nothing in particular better to be doing last night, I watched it again.

And then I remembered. Because this is the movie where THE HERO (Arnold Schwarzenegger) thinks that it's a fine idea not only to abuse his position as a Government agent to spy on his wife (Jamie Lee Curtis) when he thinks she's having an affair, but also to kidnap her, throw her into a cell, interrogate her, and threaten her with torture and exposure. And who also thinks it's fun to torture and humiliate the man she's involved with. And who thinks it's sexy to then force her to pretend to be whore and make her dance naked for what she thinks is a stranger.

And not only does she not think he's a sick bastard, she LIKES IT. And then proceeds to torture and humiliate the other guy herself a little more at the end.

With good guys like this . . . .

As a side note, the whole conjunction of Arab terrorists/planes/tall buildings takes on a whole new resonance in the post 9/11 world.

You know, I've always kind of despised Tom Arnold. The fact that he's pretty much the best thing in this movie is deeply depressing.