Anne's Cradle: the Life and Works of Hanako Muraoka

 by Eri Muraoka

This book is about the Japanese translator of the Anne of Green Gables and other L.M. Montgomery books (16 of 21).

It is a fascinating story about an amazing woman.

Hanoka was one of the children of a poor tea merchant.  All the other children were sent into service of some kind but Hanoka's father, who had become a Christian, decided to send her to a girl's school run by Christian missionaries.  She was sent there at 10 years of age and lived in a dorm at the school.   Most of the students were of wealthy parents but somehow she got in on a scholarship.  Most of the missionaries were Canadian.

She was an eager student and especially liked to devour the English language books in the library.  She shrived in the school and while she longed to be a translator she started out by being a school teacher. At quite an advanced age for a young woman, she met and married her husband whose family ran a publishing company.  This was of course right up her alley.  However, an earthquake destroyed the printing business and the other brother who had been co-managing with it also died.  Hanako and her husband struggled to start up another publishing company.  In addition to earning money for her own family Hanoka also tried to support her family as well so money was tight.

She was committed to publishing books for children. She translated a lot of english language books such as Twain, Dickens and Buck.  She also became active in the Japanese suffragette movement.

When world war started the teachers at the school had to leave the country.  One of the teachers gave Hanako a well-worn copy of Anne of Green Gables before she left.  Hanako and her husband's printing business was destroyed, by a bomb this time.  While the war raged on Hanako would take the copy of Anne of Green Gables and her translation notes with her every time she went to a shelter.  She knew that if she was caught with this book by the "enemy" she would face imprisonment or even death but she kept on.

After the war she tried to get the book published and finally in 1952 she was successful.  It was an instant success, exceeding the expectations of Hanako and the publisher.  She went on to translate more of Montgomery's books.  She never made it to PEI.  Eventually she was part of the group to convince the Americans who were "governing" Japan after the war that women should have the right to vote and they did get the right.

Hanako's house had a huge library, later in life she opened her private library to the neighbourhood children and eventually donated the collection to some institution.

An fascinating women who had an amazing life.  Like Anne she persevered through many difficulties, death of her son, loss of businesses, the war, etc.

In the Footsteps of the Group of Seven

 by Jim and Sue Waddington     

This book is a history of the Group of Seven with photos of the locations they painted with the paintings of the locations.

It was very interesting to see how they "interpreted" what they saw when they painted.

I hope to keep that in mind when I paint.

My Brilliant Friend

 by Elena Ferrante

This is the story of a young girl growing up in post war Italy near Naples.  As the book opens she gets a call from the son of her best friend who tells her his mother has disappeared.  All her clothing etc. are gone.  The woman isn't surprised by this development and tells him not to contact her again as she has no idea where his mother has gone.

The book is the first of a series of books which I assume will ultimately explain where the woman's friend, Lina, has gone.

The book follows the life of the girls as they become best friends.  Lina is a very intelligent but also very spunky, even aggressive girl who doesn't take guff from anyone.  The main character is enthralled with her best friend.  She relies on her friendship, thinks about her all the time, even when Lina is cruel to her.  There is a lot of conflict and violence within families and between young men trying to assert their manhood,  One man drove a widow crazy when he wooed her, when his wife forces them to leave the neighbourhood, the woan really loses it.

The book does and excellent job of portraying life, tragedies, scandals and gossip in the small town.  It shows the girls as they get interested in boys and vice versa.  Lina always seems to have to the need to show she is smartest, even when she is forced to leave school to work in her family shoe repair shop.

When she learns that the main character is taking Latin  , Lin a borrows books from the local library learns latin on her own.

Lina and her brother plan to develop a company making shoes, but don't tell their father.  Everyone, adults and especially young men seem enthralled with Lina.  One wealthy young man asks to marry her.  She says no but her parents welcome his attention.  They also accept his investment in their shoe company.  Lina finally accepts a proposal from a boy whose family own a grocery store.

While all this is happening the main character continues to go to school, but she starts to wonder what it will get her.  She is also hurt that her friend keeps getting all the attention, she feels ugly by comparison.

The book ends up being a little like a soap opera but it did a great job of portraying life in Italy, the coming of age of the girls, the family dynamics, the gap between the wealthy and the poor, the neighbourhood conflicts.

The book ends with Lina's wedding.  She is shocked to see her first suitor come to her reception wearing the first pair of shoes she and her brother made.  Did her husband sell them to this man?  We imagine Lina won't react well to this.

The story is now on Netflix.  I think I may continue to watch the series on Netflix rather than read three more books.

 

The Eighth Detective

 by Alex Pavesi

This is one of the most original mystery books I have ever read.  I really enjoyed it.

The story starts with a woman who is supposedly an Editor for a small mystery book publisher who wants to meet the author of a mystery book called the White Murders that was published 20 years before.  She says her company wants to publish the book.

The author is reclusive, living on a Greek Island.  He was a math prof who wrote a book about the mathematical elements of mystery stories. He asks the woman to read each of the stories aloud to him.  She does so.  One chapter will be the story, the next chapter will be their discussion of elements of the story.  I have to say each of the stories is quite unique.  It starts off with one victim and one murderer, a victim and several murderers, a story where the detective is actually the murderer... etc

The woman wants to know if the author named the book after a famous murder of a woman named White, which occurred around the time that the book was self-published.  The author denies any connection.

The lady points out some inconsistencies in the stories.  The author replies that he put these in to tease his readers.  As the stories go along the woman seems to be getting suspicious.  In the end we find out the woman is not really an Editor, she has come to see the author because she believes he was her father.  She became suspicious of the man she was speaking to and starts revising parts of the stories or the endings.  When he doesn't confront her about this she challenges him that he is not really the author.  The man then admits that he was the author's lover.  The author had been wearing the man's jacket when he was killed when the edge of a cliff collapsed under him.  The village assumed the author's lover had died which was fine with the lover as he took on the persona and continued to live of the pension of the author/mathematician.

It then comes out that the mathematician did not write the stories.  The murder victim, Miss White, had come to the prof asking his feedback on her stories.  He murdered her and claimed the stories were his own.

This was an intriguing book, both the mystery stories themselves and the way the story developed.  I look forward to reading other books by this author.

Sufferance

 by Thomas King

About two million years ago, man appeared. He has become the dominant species on the earth. All other living things, animal and plant, live by his sufferance. He is the custodian of life on earth, and in the solar system. It's a big responsibility.”

— George Wald

Quotes from the flyleaves of the book:

"To the memory of what we have lost and what we continue to destroy"

"Then who do we shoot?".  1940 film adaptation of Steinbeck's book Grapes of Wrath.

Wow, this is a very different book than his detective books and his last book Indians on vacation.  It is going to stay with me a long time. It is called a satire, and I would agree with that but it is also subversive.  The story is also timely with the recent discover of the graves of hundreds of children on the properties of former residential schools.  The story is also very complex.

The story takes place in an Ontario town adjacent to an Indian reservation.  The main character, Jeremiah Camp is trying to hide from the world in a residential school (irony??).  He has been given the school by his former employer (how would one go about buying a residential school??).  He has no tv nor Internet and likes it that way.  He spends his time going to the river and digging up large flat stones to replace the wooden crosses in the school graveyard with headstones on which he carves the names of the children.

Camp has returned to this town but he really doesn't know it.  His mother died when he was young and after that he spent years in foster homes away from the reserve.  The only thing he has of his mother's is a battered lunchbox with a few photos in it.  He thinks he knows which person is his mother but doesn't know who other people are.

Camp does not speak, by choice.  People on the reserve and in the town speak to him.  The town has quite a cast of quirky characters. He has a regular routine, quinoa for breakfast, then he goes into town to by a brownie which he takes to a cafe which is only open to him and a few other people.  There he has a cappuccino and is read the news of the day by the cafe owner.

The people on the reservation are living in government supplied trailers which are plagued with black mould.  At one point officials come out with spray cans they say will eliminate the mould.  One man sprays the officials car and it takes the paint off the car.....  The indigenous residents have another problem.  The mayor of the town has cut off water and electricity to the reserve. He is trying to force them off the land.  He wants to build a new town on their land.

Camp's seclusion is disturbed by the arrival of three men, employees of the daughter of his former employer (who is now dead).  They refer to him as the Forecaster and tell him to come with them for a meeting.  The head man is named Flood. He is reluctant but feels he has no choice.  He doesn't want to have anything to do with his old life.

He meets his employer's daughter who tells him about a list of twelve names he had compiled in the past.  Several of the people on the list have died, including her father.  She wants him to figure out the connection between these deaths.  He doesn't want to do it and goes back home.

His seclusion is further disrupted when an aboriginal woman, now a lawyer, returns to the reserve with her young daughter.  She has no place to live and Flood has set the woman and her daughter up with furnished rooms in the residential school and installed internet and satellite tv.  The little girl likes flood and he likes her but he resents his solitude being disrupted.

Later Flood also arranges for the local homeless people, who are being chased from their camping spots to be housed in the residential school.  Now Camp is really upset.  He goes to stay in a local hotel at the "company's" expense, to an abandoned building formerly used by the homeless and finally to the mouldy trailer of a relative who is also now recuperating from pneumonia at the school.  Flood even finds him there.

Flood keeps getting hauled back to meetings with the dead bosses daughter and eventually determines that all the names were associated with one Foundation.  It turns out all the people associated with the foundation were wealthy people who were trying to achieve immortality.  They were thinking this would be good for society, but the question has to be asked for whom?  Only the super rich??

In the end Flood finds out that that his boss's daughter has been wiping out the 12 super rich because she doesn't like what they are trying to do.  She tries to get Flood to help her identify other rich people who should be removed.  He declines to assist.

While the book is proceeding the band office trailer has been burned down.  People originally blame the mayor but it turns out to be a mentally handicapped native boy who poured gasoline on a hot generator while trying to fill the tank.  That is what caused the fire.

The boss's daughter hires the lawyer woman to handle a project to re development the buildings on the reservation.  The company also pays her fees to get herself reinstated as a lawyer.  There are also plans to turn the abandoned building into low cost housing, by the company.  The woman tells Flood that now that she has a real job she and her daughter will find their own place to live.  The mayor is under investigation for misuse of funds (taking bribes on business contracts).

The resident cat at the school had gotten into Camp's mother's lunchbox.  When Camp's relatives see the pictures they tell him that the woman he had thought was his mother is not his mother.  They don't see her in any of the pictures and don't know who the other people in the pictures are.  His one connection to his mother evaporates.

As the book ends Camp is continuing to work on the grave markers but isn't sure if he will stay or go when his job is done.

The book is very topical as I mentioned at the beginning, the historical abuse and current neglect of native reserves is vividly portrayed.  The huge gap between the rich and poor and the rights, abuse, ego of the rich is front and centre.  Taking action against the rich is quite a step.  It was really interesting how the main character never spoke but people spoke to him and seemed to know what he was thinking or what he wanted.  We never did find out why he decided to quit speaking and quit his job.