Eeny-Meeny by M.J. Arlidge

Let me get the synopsis over quickly.  In the end, it sucked.  The author gets points for edginess and points for an audacious psychological plotline.  As a first novel, he over-extends his welcome, blows his wad on a first attempt by running out of steam, and then forcing the last half of the story into illogical and unbelievable situations.

The conversation with MJ [at the end] bears ignoring.

The Discussion Questions are easily dismissed: (1) Biblically, murder is wrong, no two ways about it; (2) Helen is classically flawed – should have died in the end; (3) Gender is not a factor [ERA] in career suitability; (4) Freedom of the press is the law of the land; (5) a contrived choice about Mark; (6) a contrived Point-In-Time analysis; (7) Text never gets into “the divide” between public and private; (8) It’s a Bell curve on criticism, 50-50 self-others; (9) meaningless to analyze an anthropomorphic fictional character (10) Not a real twist. We never knew of a sister at the beginning!  (11) It’s meaningless to analyze an anthromorphic fictional character; (12) meaningless to analyze an anthromorphic fictional character.

Southampton is a small city of 250,000 – half the size of Santa Rosa.  It’s unbelievable that a murderer could get away with the same MO for so long in a small town.  It’s never explained how the sister continued to get so much personal information about Helen and the investigation.  Whittaker was the mole, but he should have known far less than the sister found out; Helen wasn’t close to him and the top dog is often kept out of the loop.

Initially I thought this was edgy writing and thought it was nice for a change to get away from the conservative Bostonian critics’ circle.  I soon realized it was merely salacious garbage thrown in for the movie scriptwriters to play with.  Charlie is beautiful so we can see her stripped naked at the tail end, this was not a story about women getting ahead in the world.  Helen so we can watch her stunt-double get whipped in the X-rated version, not exactly a reprise role for Helen Mirren.

The instances of eeny-meeny were way too numerous.  The author must have tired of so many as well and he shortened their period of captivity as the story went on.  The Donner Party went months: these guys caved within days, the last pair – trained police officers.  Pi lasted all the way across the Pacific Ocean.  Why did no pair decide to draw straws on day one or two?  Why did Charlie not shoot off the rat’s head?

The U.K.’s Scotland Yard or Special Branch would have been called in almost immediately – no one would have left things go on that long.  In any reputable police organization, they would sack Helen straightaway for taking things into her own hands.

No Good Deed by Allison Brennan

The question is, “Why is this book a Sonoma County Library Selection of the Month?”. It clearly is a terrible selection for a sophisticated and learned group of readers like ours at the local Guerneville library.

In street parlance, “This book sucks!”

There are two stylistic reasons for my denigration of this book and its author. But, before I get into those, let me clarify a minor effrontery to our readership group.

Periodically Lucy, the alter ego of the author let’s go with a salvo of thoughts that she has (or she thinks the readership should have), killing any suspense in the plot line progression. The author over-clarifies what is happening.

My minor set of problems with this book is clarity of purpose – what is this book about? It has excessively many issues: drugs, cartels, money, scams, FBI, DEA, politicians, perverts, marines. … .. The writing’s Point Of View passes from one to another across more than a dozen people. Was this a draft, tossing the spaghetti on the wall to see what stuck? It has some of the makings of a good guy - bad guy story, but everyone has so many flaws, I can’t get behind any of them. Maybe Mary, the kid in the bus in the opening, who hugged Isaac Harris; she was transparent.

My major problem with the book is the plethora of characters introduced. And they are only introduced. 44 of the 85 characters introduced in the first third (12 of 38 chapters) of the book only appear in their introductory chapter. This appears to be a consistent pattern. Interestingly, 6-7 characters appear consistently in over half the chapters, as one might expect in a normal novel. I am suspicious that this trend will continue throughout the book. She’s introducing 5-6 characters a chapter consistently, without let-up. It appears to me as stylistic, possibly cultural, almost as if necessary to identify, in detail, every child, aunt and/or uncle connected to the main characters, no matter how inconsequential.

It crosses my mind that the author owes friends, family, and neighbor’s mentions in their books in order to maintain their good standing as an author, or a friend. The 44 characters with a single line in a single chapter place an undue burden of the readership. Do these characters matter? Will they come back in later? Is there a clue here that I am missing? The rate of character introduction is so consistent and predictable that we will have over two hundred characters by book’s end; a hundred of them passing fancies.

Restoring Sanctuary b Sandra L Bloom

For me, this was the most informative book I’ve read in years, just the opposite of the library’s September book club choice of “Station Eleven”.  I learned so much from this one book – it reminded me of, “An Unnecessary Woman”, in that this book will cause me to read half a dozen others.  When you’re an old dog, it’s a pleasure to find that you can still learn a new trick.  This book taught me a lot of new tricks.  Just me, mind you; these “Sanctuary” people have been around for decades. I guess it’s the whole ACEs focus that has shined the light on this area of primary and secondary trauma; specifically care-giver secondary trauma.

I self-identify as a “community organizer”.  I found this Sanctuary strategy/philosophy useful for any organization.  It’s written for people in Human Services organizations, but I found I could easily substitute the words “Grand Jury” for “Human Services” organization.  It’s probably good stuff even for the Friends of the Library.

The compelling message is subtle and nuanced: on the surface it seems like platitudes that most organizations think they accept, and follow, but when you understand the seven value-statements that must be adhered to, it represents a dramatic cultural change in the organization, which will take time and training and learning to adopt.

The Platitudes:

“Ever new developmental experience means learning something new and giving up something old.”

“Members need to feel that they are part of something bigger than themselves.”

”We must learn to listen to other people, integrate ideas and concepts, negotiate and compromise, and learn to recognize that there is no single absolute truth in a situation, but only the shared process of seeking the truth.”

“All members need to feel that their opinions matter and that their participation in decision making, monitoring and evaluating progress is important and useful.”

 

The Seven Commitments:

Commitment to Growth and Change

As organizations we must find ways to manage the anxiety associated with change while allowing, encouraging, and propelling change.

Commitment to Democracy

The leveling of hierarchy is a critical component to creating and sustaining an environment that allows an organization to share common goals and methods for reaching those goals.

Commitment to Nonviolence

Organizations must be physically, psychologically, socially, and morally safe; requiring a dedication to creating nonviolent environments.

Commitment to Emotional Intelligence

Establish the critical goal of constantly working together to make that which is unconscious conscious and to manage emotions that threaten to overwhelm our capacity to think while integrating emotional information into our decision making. 

Commitment to Social Learning

Reduce the odds of making mistakes by drawing on the knowledge, experience, and wisdom of a diverse group of other people.

Commitment to Open Communication

Everyone must learn how to promote dialog over discussion, and find shared meaning, to achieve complex reasoning & problem solving.

Commitment to Social Responsibility

Organizations should further the common good in the interest of both individual and collective justice.

 

Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel

For me, this was the worst book I’ve read in years.  And I don’t mind reading bad writing: it can be a positive experience critiquing them.

However, the pace was so slow, that when I got about 100 pages in, when the story was doing a time-shift, I got an interesting book from the library’s new-shelf called, “The Passenger” by Lisa Lutz, also 300 pages.  I started at noon and finished just after 8:00 pm.  It had a riveting plot with deep characters, action and surprises, and I learned something.

All those things were missing from “Eleven”.  Fast-paced plot(?) – there seemed to be a dozen plots, held together not by a web of steel, but little meandering rivulets of tenuous water.  Deep characters(?) – I would pass on a free glass of Grande Dame Veuve Clicquot, rather than sit with any of them; they’re not just boring, but despicable.  Then again, we’ve never been allowed beyond their surface veneer.

It certainly wasn’t “compelling”, as Ann Patchett promised.  I didn’t find it “lyrical” as did the Seattle Times.  There was nothing “tender and lovely” about the book at all in my opinion.

Then plot again – plot needs ups and downs, successes and failures, maybe even an end-goal.  My “Lutz” book had murders and love stories, suspense and secrets, with sprinklings of mayhem and reckoning.

Sometimes these sorts of tales are written because of a life’s cause like Global Warming, or big pharma, or the Military-Industrial Complex.  I found none of that sort of passion here: no message.

The writing is thin and yet cluttered.  3-4 time-frames is two too many for this author.  And who cares anyway?  There was no development of a thread; not a person, nor a cause.  There was just minimal scene painting.  I disliked each and every character.

I was not surprised to get to page 200 [the airplanes], and find that the writing style was the same, and on purpose – more characters, more points of view.  I guess in the spirit of readership stamina, the target was nothing less that the gold medal.

Again, my pace was ten pages a session, and by the time I had read 200 pages, I had found another interesting book.  I had passed on an Anne Rice book and the person said, “Oh, I love Anne Rice.”  I replied, “This is not a werewolf book.”  The rejoinder was, ”I love her other stuff”.  So, I did some research and found “Belinda,” of which I’d never heard.  Wow, first class writing: Anne Rice at her best.  This had “lyricism”, poetic descriptions of her native New Orleans, juxtapositioned with the Haight in San Francisco.  It had “tender and lovely” moments, as when Jeremy and Alex share their more intimate encounters.  It was a lot of things, and I wanted to read the under aged sex [Lolita] bits, before I passed it on.

These 400 pages took only a few days: why not – good writer, great plotline, narrow scope, and lots of ups and downs, focused – that was Belinda.

Back to “Eleven”; was there any meaning to all of this?  Now we had the interrogator/journalist, were these 30’s/90’s icons, for or against the state?  “Who’s on first. No what’s on second”, Marx Brothers type dialog.

I lost where I was, never sure what was being said – Fin de Siècle.

A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki

A Year of Meats (1998) had the same time blend, past and present.  It had the same composure of Space, as well, Japan and the USA.  There’s nothing new under the sun.

 

She was there in All Over Creation (2004), too.  Is she writing the same story, over and over, with new characters to keep things spicy?  Nothing wrong with that, many of my favorite authors do just that. 

 

 

But Ruth is not a master writer, not much of a professional one either, three books in 25 years.  No, she’s no Robert Parker, who ground out fifty variations of the same book in a similar 25 years.  His Spenser was an alter-ego.  He wrote himself as an almost super-hero, with an African-American side-kick.  No ego with Ruth Ozeki, she simply blatantly writes about herself because it’s easier and she wants to communicate her thoughts on life, the world, and her metaphysical ponderings.  The book is a canvas for her with which to paint her story.

 

I’ve read each of Ruth’s three books now.  There’s a pattern here.  She’s always well-researched, always entertaining, and always writes about herself.  She’s not a typical writer.  Well, she’s not an author.  She simply uses the written word to tell us about the seemingly many interests in her life.

 

The alternating chapters didn’t work well for her.  It does for some authors, but didn’t work for Ruth.  It seemed as though it might have been a good device in the beginning, but then she sort of painted herself in the corner and couldn’t get out without metaphysical time-space jumps which got almost Science-Fictiony.

Lab Girl by Hope Jahren

This is the story that asks the question, “Can this girl, from a little mining town in the west, find happiness as the wife a wealthy and titled Englishman, Lord Henry Winthrop?”

Wrong story.  This story tells the tale of a little girl from Lake Woebegon, who moves away from the land of Norwegian bachelor farmers, to seek fame and fortune as a scientist in a Berkeley biology laboratory. 

This is a brilliantly inspirational book for any budding, young scientist.  In a quietly unassuming way, Hope interweaves her memoir (how she got there), with what being a scientist really is really all about, and this, interspersed with those personal perspectives, she tells us the story of earth-based plant life on this planet. 

The tri-theme is an accepted approach these days for authors.  It’s done in order to be considered by the broadest of readership markets.  In Hope’s case, and she’s done a great job of this, she’s blended the memoir category by every fifth chapter or so, including an early childhood remembrance of her mother or father.  She’s captured the novel segment, by mixing in her philosophical musings on what it takes to be a scientist [extreme devotion and boringly hard work], along with her predictably non-sex life, almost monastic life-style.  But getting back to inspirational, she paints this monastic picture akin to some sort of Nun’s biography, devoted to a passionate cause, a greater cause, and one, in the end, which supersedes thoughts of a big kitchen, lots of rug rats, the PTA and a bridge club.

I’ve been focused this past year, on books that I can strongly recommend for Sonoma County teens.  These have generally been for younger teens.  This is a book I recommend for middle to older teens.  The author, Hope, wrote it to inspire girls, but everything she says is equally relevant to boys, some of whom likewise feel alone, different, and more thoughtful than the others.  This is for any teen who is interested in learning.  It’s for those who recognize that they are passionate about a subject.

Doesn’t matter what the subject is, the subject will change over time.  If the passion to learn is burning, it will survive the wanting and getting more education.  This could lead possibly to a career in science, or the arts, or who knows, politics.

Das LavendelZimmer by Nina george

I was hooked once the author’s protagonist recommended, “The Elegance of the Hedgehog”.  This took place ten pages into the story, after the book seller is introduced to us.  Not a normal bookseller at all.  He has converted a river barge into an “Apothocary Library” on the River Seine, in the middle of Paris.  His homeopathic apothecary has the cures for modern life’s travails

A cast of loveable characters is quickly added to the ship, which hasn’t moved away from the dock in twenty years.  That fact introduced as a hint that the reader would soon be joining the crew in a long journey of literary exploration. 

 

We got hints early on that while the bookstore proprietor was possessed of the unique ability at “transperception”, this did not apply to his own problems, which seemed to revolve around a woman.

 

I need say no more.

It’s a little schmaltzy, but that goes without saying for any romantic comedy.  Just like a stage play from the 1920’s, by the end, after many zany adventures, all the characters pair up, and live happily ever after.