by Cathy MarieBuchanan
This fiction story tells the story of three daughters and two young men during the 1870's in Paris. The girls and their mother are constantly hounded by their landlord for the rent payment. The mother, a washerwoman, deals with her life by swilling absinthe. The oldest daughter Antoinette takes ballet lessons at The Opera and hopes for a job in the chorus but she is rejected for the role, she isn't good enough. She then grooms her sisters as dancers. She is very loving and attentive to her sisters but her attention is being torn from them by a young man who promises he wants to marry her and save money for a home. He has sex with her but never seems to save money, rather throws it around. She is shocked one day when a friend of his hits her and he does not defend her, where do his, and her. loyalties lie?
Meanwhile the middle sister Marie does succeed in making it into the dancers and she is noticed by Degas who hires her to be his model. She is embarrassed about posing in the nude but feels desparate for the extra money. She runs hersel ragged to make money, working at a bakery in the early morning, taking dancing lessons later in the day and then modelling for Degas. One of Degas acquaintances also takes an interest in her and invites her to model for him. She goes to him but he uses her nudity for sexual gratification not for art.
Then, Antoinette's boyfriend is accused of a vicious murder along with another young man and is sentenced to the guillotine. This is later converted to transport to New Caledonia. Antoinette decides that she will go with him and starts to save money, but she finds she isn't saving enough so she decides to become a prostitute in a brothel to make more money. She is convinced that her boyfriend is innocent despite protestations fom her sister and her best friend (also a prosititute). She ends up going to prison herself for stealing money from one of her clients.
Then her boyfriend is accused of another murder. Antoinette tells her sister Marie that he is innocent, that she marked on a calendar the days she was with him and that she was with him on the day of the murder. She asks her sister to take the caldendar to the boyfriend's lawyer, but the sister burns the cslendar. Then she feels guilty and depressed when the men are convicted and she falls into a depression and gets fired from her job.
While all this is happening Marie had been performing a small role in a Zola play which seems to imply that the poor are destined to stay poor, and the reaction to Degas sculpture of Marie is not the praise she expected, but rather comments that her face and posture doom her to poverty. She is devastated, she had already bought in to Zola's message and when she sees it applied to her she is angry and broken.
When Antoinette's friend, the prostitute, arrives at prison wearing a watch that was stolen from the murdered woman, and the friend tells Antoinette that her boyfriend gave the friend the watch, Antoinette realizes that her boyfriend is indeed rotten. She reconciles herself with her sister. Eventually Marie marries the baker's son, who has long been her admirer, her younger sister becomes the accomplished dancer she might have become and the life of the girls becomes more comfortable.
This story really brought the times and the lives of the girls into life. It was a great read. The author interspersed the story with newspaper headlines about the boyfriend's trial and Degas art exhibitions.
It was a great read.
Sunday, 10 March 2013
Wednesday, 6 March 2013
Watching the Dark
by Peter Robinson
This is Robinson's latest books. I have read several in his series about DCI Banks. It was a typical Robinson book, but in this one the crimes involved crime beyond England.
In the story a police officer is killed while recuperating at a police rehab facility. The man's wife had died recently and he was having neck pain. No one seems to know why he would be murdered, it looks like a professional hit, a crossbow. Banks finds some compromising photos of the man in his room.
As they are investigating an inspector from the Professional Standards arrives to investigate if the dead man was a crooked or compromised cop -- none of the police are happy to haver her there. Annie Lennox, Bank's colleague is just returning to work after recovering from an attack where she saved Bank's daughter,
Things get very complicated.. does the death of the police officer have anything to do with the disappearance of a young British girl in Estonia six years before? An Estonian reporter is found dead at an abandoned farm in England, a man who was a became friens with the cop while he was investigating the girl's disappearance. The reporter had been undercover trying to investigate illegal migrants and loan sharking of migrants. Banks is convinced there must be some connection to the murdered girl and he convinces his boss to let him go to Estonia to investigate while Annie and his other colleague dig for information back home.
The loan shark is murdered, his employee spills the beans about what he knows. One of the migrant workers is found and identifies the potential murderer. Banks finds a former cop in Estonia who tells him how the disappearance was covered up and her body is located thanks to a letter from a woman who saw the crime committed and ran away rather than telling the police. The man behind all the murders is found shot in a Russian river-- he has become a liability to his colleagues/bosses.
It was as okay story, a typical Robinson book, but I think I like the stories when they are a bit less convoluted.
This is Robinson's latest books. I have read several in his series about DCI Banks. It was a typical Robinson book, but in this one the crimes involved crime beyond England.
In the story a police officer is killed while recuperating at a police rehab facility. The man's wife had died recently and he was having neck pain. No one seems to know why he would be murdered, it looks like a professional hit, a crossbow. Banks finds some compromising photos of the man in his room.
As they are investigating an inspector from the Professional Standards arrives to investigate if the dead man was a crooked or compromised cop -- none of the police are happy to haver her there. Annie Lennox, Bank's colleague is just returning to work after recovering from an attack where she saved Bank's daughter,
Things get very complicated.. does the death of the police officer have anything to do with the disappearance of a young British girl in Estonia six years before? An Estonian reporter is found dead at an abandoned farm in England, a man who was a became friens with the cop while he was investigating the girl's disappearance. The reporter had been undercover trying to investigate illegal migrants and loan sharking of migrants. Banks is convinced there must be some connection to the murdered girl and he convinces his boss to let him go to Estonia to investigate while Annie and his other colleague dig for information back home.
The loan shark is murdered, his employee spills the beans about what he knows. One of the migrant workers is found and identifies the potential murderer. Banks finds a former cop in Estonia who tells him how the disappearance was covered up and her body is located thanks to a letter from a woman who saw the crime committed and ran away rather than telling the police. The man behind all the murders is found shot in a Russian river-- he has become a liability to his colleagues/bosses.
It was as okay story, a typical Robinson book, but I think I like the stories when they are a bit less convoluted.
Sunday, 3 March 2013
Above All Things
by Tanis Rideout
It is strange, I don't recall what prompted me to put this book on hold at the library. I don't remember hearing anything about it... perhaps I noticed it in Chapters and just don't recall it.
This is the fictionalized story of the life of George Mallory, who died trying to reach the summit of Mount Everest. The book is told in two parts, one is George's story of the final attempt, and alongside that we get the story and memories of his wife who is sad that he has left her and her children again because of his obsession with that mountain.
The author has done a lot of research including reading the papers and even the letters exchanged between George and Ruth. She has done a wonderful job of telling this story. She does a wonderful job of portraying their lives and relationship. She really gets us into the minds of the two main characters -- especially the maniacal zeal of Mallory to be the one to reach the summit first. Was he too blinded by his desire to make the right decisions at the end? Did the cold affect his ability to think clearly? While we know that the outcome is going to be a bad one, the story leading up to the tragedy is spellbinding. The author has some experience with climbing so she is able to provide great detail as to what the climbers would have faced.
The book is another story that makes you ask why people walk away from a family they love to chase their dreams, face incredible risks. Of course, if some people weren't willing to do this we wouldn't have the discoveries that have been made over the years. But, while it could be said that discovering a new land might be good for the explorer's nation (not usually for the "discovered"), what is gained by someone climbing the highest mountain first? It is certainly a personal accomplishment, but at what cost.... and look at all the lives that have been lost on Everest from other climbers, all the garbage on the mountain.... is it worth it?
It is strange, I don't recall what prompted me to put this book on hold at the library. I don't remember hearing anything about it... perhaps I noticed it in Chapters and just don't recall it.
This is the fictionalized story of the life of George Mallory, who died trying to reach the summit of Mount Everest. The book is told in two parts, one is George's story of the final attempt, and alongside that we get the story and memories of his wife who is sad that he has left her and her children again because of his obsession with that mountain.
The author has done a lot of research including reading the papers and even the letters exchanged between George and Ruth. She has done a wonderful job of telling this story. She does a wonderful job of portraying their lives and relationship. She really gets us into the minds of the two main characters -- especially the maniacal zeal of Mallory to be the one to reach the summit first. Was he too blinded by his desire to make the right decisions at the end? Did the cold affect his ability to think clearly? While we know that the outcome is going to be a bad one, the story leading up to the tragedy is spellbinding. The author has some experience with climbing so she is able to provide great detail as to what the climbers would have faced.
The book is another story that makes you ask why people walk away from a family they love to chase their dreams, face incredible risks. Of course, if some people weren't willing to do this we wouldn't have the discoveries that have been made over the years. But, while it could be said that discovering a new land might be good for the explorer's nation (not usually for the "discovered"), what is gained by someone climbing the highest mountain first? It is certainly a personal accomplishment, but at what cost.... and look at all the lives that have been lost on Everest from other climbers, all the garbage on the mountain.... is it worth it?
Saturday, 23 February 2013
Behind the Beautiful Forevers
by Katheriine Boo
This nonfiction book tells of the lives of people living in the Annawadi slum in Mumbai, The stories are based on people the author met when doing research about the slum.
The title refers to a billboard that is adjacent to the slum which offers wealthy Indians a "Beautiful forever" home.... This promise is in stark contrast to the filth and harshness of the lives of the residents of the slums.
This was a very difficult book to read. I know of the poverty and the slums in India, but this author has brought it to life in devastating detail. She tells of the lives of several families, all of whom are trying to survive by harvesting and/or stealing garbage and selling it to recyclers to make money. This job is risky, as there is competition for the garbage and it can be dangerous, even deadly to try to steal material from the airport and other building adjacent to the slums. There is violence, illness, and death. Girls fret about pending arranged marriages... some people can't take it anymore and commit suicide.
People compete with each other, are jealous of each other when some seem to have more wealth than they do. Some cheat each other. Public officials, including police insist on cuts of the profits or bribes when they arrest people. Homeless people get injired and people walk on buy, others are murdered but the police don't bother to investigate.
In one family, a Muslim family that seems to be modestly more succesful than others, the father and son are arrested for driving their neighbour to self-imolation. This is untrue but the man and his son are beaten by police and spend several months in jail. After years they are eventually exonerated but not until theiir business and reputations are in ruins. The book talks about government and business corruption that is rampant
Despite the harshness and seeming hopelessness of their plight, many people do seem to think that a better life might be possible. Some people cheat and steal from others to try to advance. But despite all the tragedy and sadness, some people do worry about and care about each other.
"In the age of globalization -- an ad hoc, temp-job, fiercely competitive age - hope is not a fiction. Extreme poverty is being alleviated gradually, unevenly, nonetheless significantly. But as capital rushes around the planet and the idea of permanent work becaomes anachronistic, the unpredictability of daily life has ba way of grinding down individual promise. Ideally, the government eases some fo the instability. Too often, weak government itensifies it and proves better at nourishing corruption than human capital".
"It is easy, from a safe distancem to overlook the fact that in undercities governed by corruption, where exhausted people vieon scant terrain for very little, it is blisteringly hard to be good. The astonishment is that some people are good, and that many try to be - all those invisible individuals who every day find themselves faces with the dilemma....If the house is crooked and crumbling and the land on which it sits uneven, is it possible to make anything lie straight?
This book was heartbreaking but it will remain in my thoughts for a long time!
This nonfiction book tells of the lives of people living in the Annawadi slum in Mumbai, The stories are based on people the author met when doing research about the slum.
The title refers to a billboard that is adjacent to the slum which offers wealthy Indians a "Beautiful forever" home.... This promise is in stark contrast to the filth and harshness of the lives of the residents of the slums.
This was a very difficult book to read. I know of the poverty and the slums in India, but this author has brought it to life in devastating detail. She tells of the lives of several families, all of whom are trying to survive by harvesting and/or stealing garbage and selling it to recyclers to make money. This job is risky, as there is competition for the garbage and it can be dangerous, even deadly to try to steal material from the airport and other building adjacent to the slums. There is violence, illness, and death. Girls fret about pending arranged marriages... some people can't take it anymore and commit suicide.
People compete with each other, are jealous of each other when some seem to have more wealth than they do. Some cheat each other. Public officials, including police insist on cuts of the profits or bribes when they arrest people. Homeless people get injired and people walk on buy, others are murdered but the police don't bother to investigate.
In one family, a Muslim family that seems to be modestly more succesful than others, the father and son are arrested for driving their neighbour to self-imolation. This is untrue but the man and his son are beaten by police and spend several months in jail. After years they are eventually exonerated but not until theiir business and reputations are in ruins. The book talks about government and business corruption that is rampant
Despite the harshness and seeming hopelessness of their plight, many people do seem to think that a better life might be possible. Some people cheat and steal from others to try to advance. But despite all the tragedy and sadness, some people do worry about and care about each other.
"In the age of globalization -- an ad hoc, temp-job, fiercely competitive age - hope is not a fiction. Extreme poverty is being alleviated gradually, unevenly, nonetheless significantly. But as capital rushes around the planet and the idea of permanent work becaomes anachronistic, the unpredictability of daily life has ba way of grinding down individual promise. Ideally, the government eases some fo the instability. Too often, weak government itensifies it and proves better at nourishing corruption than human capital".
"It is easy, from a safe distancem to overlook the fact that in undercities governed by corruption, where exhausted people vieon scant terrain for very little, it is blisteringly hard to be good. The astonishment is that some people are good, and that many try to be - all those invisible individuals who every day find themselves faces with the dilemma....If the house is crooked and crumbling and the land on which it sits uneven, is it possible to make anything lie straight?
This book was heartbreaking but it will remain in my thoughts for a long time!
Friday, 15 February 2013
Gallow's View
by Peter Robinson
This is the first book in the series about DCI Banks. I have read a few of the later books in the series and enjoyed them. However, I think that if this was the first book I had read in the series I wouldn't have bothered to read any more.
The story introduces us to Banks who has left London for rural England and is faced with three troubling cases: a Peeping Tom who eventually goes from just peeping to accosting his wife, some thefts that involve damage to the properties and one victim who is raped and the murder of an elderly woman.
Feminist complaints about police inaction on the peeping Tom result in a female psychologist being brought in as an expert to help police develop a profile of the peeper. Banks finds himself strongly attracted to the beautiful woman but resists temptation.
The main reason I didn't like the book was the nature of the young thugs committing the robbery and rape. They had no conscience and got a thrill from the crimes more than from the money they made from the thefts. Criminals may be like this but I found their behaviour very disgusting. I think I like mysteries that are more cereberal and less violent.
Will I read anymore Robinson books, maybe, but I will never read this one again.
This is the first book in the series about DCI Banks. I have read a few of the later books in the series and enjoyed them. However, I think that if this was the first book I had read in the series I wouldn't have bothered to read any more.
The story introduces us to Banks who has left London for rural England and is faced with three troubling cases: a Peeping Tom who eventually goes from just peeping to accosting his wife, some thefts that involve damage to the properties and one victim who is raped and the murder of an elderly woman.
Feminist complaints about police inaction on the peeping Tom result in a female psychologist being brought in as an expert to help police develop a profile of the peeper. Banks finds himself strongly attracted to the beautiful woman but resists temptation.
The main reason I didn't like the book was the nature of the young thugs committing the robbery and rape. They had no conscience and got a thrill from the crimes more than from the money they made from the thefts. Criminals may be like this but I found their behaviour very disgusting. I think I like mysteries that are more cereberal and less violent.
Will I read anymore Robinson books, maybe, but I will never read this one again.
Monday, 11 February 2013
The Devotion of Suspect X
by Keigo Higashino
In this mystery a Japanese woman and her daughter murder her abusive ex-husband who has once again tracked her down and wants to patch up their relationship. She doesn't want to have anything to do with him and her daughter hits him on the head and he then attacks her and starts to strangle her. The mother then chokes him with an electical code.
They are shocked by what they have done but are even more shocked when their neighbour, a math teacher, offers to help them by disposing of the body and giviing them advice on how to construct an alibi.
It turns out that the man has a crush on the woman and had heard the disturbance.
The police come to interview the woman and ask the neighbour if he has any knowledge of how the husband might have been killed. All parties deny any knowledge.
One of the police detectives has a friend, a physics prof, whom he uses as an adviser on occasion. The physicist tells the police officer that the math teacher is really a math genius and he is surprised to find that the man is only a school teacher. He goes to visit the math teacher, who was a colleague in university.
The math teacher is distraught when he finds out the woman is dating another man. He tries to frighten the man off.
The prof then starts his own investigations into the murder and comes to suspect that his math friend is somewhow involved, but he doesn't want to believe it. It is a battle of wits between the two. When the math teacher realizes that the physics prof suspects the truth, he confesses to the murder. To justify his own confession he had indeed killed someone, as well as disposing of the woman's husband.
This was an unusual mystery. It was an okay story but I think I prefer stories where there is a bit more character development. This one basically told the tale with little character analysis.
In this mystery a Japanese woman and her daughter murder her abusive ex-husband who has once again tracked her down and wants to patch up their relationship. She doesn't want to have anything to do with him and her daughter hits him on the head and he then attacks her and starts to strangle her. The mother then chokes him with an electical code.
They are shocked by what they have done but are even more shocked when their neighbour, a math teacher, offers to help them by disposing of the body and giviing them advice on how to construct an alibi.
It turns out that the man has a crush on the woman and had heard the disturbance.
The police come to interview the woman and ask the neighbour if he has any knowledge of how the husband might have been killed. All parties deny any knowledge.
One of the police detectives has a friend, a physics prof, whom he uses as an adviser on occasion. The physicist tells the police officer that the math teacher is really a math genius and he is surprised to find that the man is only a school teacher. He goes to visit the math teacher, who was a colleague in university.
The math teacher is distraught when he finds out the woman is dating another man. He tries to frighten the man off.
The prof then starts his own investigations into the murder and comes to suspect that his math friend is somewhow involved, but he doesn't want to believe it. It is a battle of wits between the two. When the math teacher realizes that the physics prof suspects the truth, he confesses to the murder. To justify his own confession he had indeed killed someone, as well as disposing of the woman's husband.
This was an unusual mystery. It was an okay story but I think I prefer stories where there is a bit more character development. This one basically told the tale with little character analysis.
Thursday, 7 February 2013
The Chaperone
by Laura Moriarty
This novel is about a woman whose life is changed when she agrees to be the chaperone for a willful fifteen year old girl, Louie Brooks.
Louise has been accepted into the Denishawn dance school in New York for a dance course. She hopes to turn the class into a career with the company,
Cora Carlisle doesn't really think about what she could be getting into being the chaperone for this headstrong girl. She wants to go to New York for her own reasons. We find out that Cora is in an unhappy marriage. She has two twin sons and what appeared to be a loving husband. However, once she had the twins she was told another pregnancy could be fatal for her. Her caring husband agrees to sleep in a separate room. She later finds out that her husband is gay and that she has only been a convenience for him -- allowing him to have a respetable life while carrying on a clandestine affair with his gay lover. If his lifestyle and activites were known he would be ruined, put in jail or even worse.
Cora, an orphan who was adopted by a loving couple, wants to go to New York to find out about her birth parents. Louise's Mom, who doesn't seem to be a very effective parent, is only too glad to be rid of her daughter.
She finds that Louise is very feisty, even wild. One night Louisse sneaks off with a young man she has met and gets drunk. After Cora berates her for her bad behaviour and what consequences would be Louise reveals that she is not a virgin, she was "deflourerd" when she was nine and as a teen had an affair with the loccal Sunday School Teacher
While Louise is at dance class Cora has gone to the orphange to get information but has been turned down-- they don't divulge parental information to their orphans. Louise is befriended by a handyman who works at the orphanage and he lets her sneak intothe files where she finds an address of a woman who had written the orphanage asking about her welfare. Louse writes the woman and later meets her briefly. The woman is her mother and while she is glad Cora has had a good life she doesn't want to have anything more to do with her. Louise is sad and bitter at the women's reaction and at the fact that she has a half brother and sister she will never meet.
Cora has a romantic encounter with the handyman which the nun's somehow find out about. They toss him and his daughter out. . She is sad at the fact she has cost him her job and decides to invite him and his daughter to come live with her and her husband back in Kansas, She pretends that the man is her brother and his daughter her niece. Her husband isn't fooled but has to give in to her ruse an he has his own dirtly little secret. The man and his daughter are welcomed into the community and Cora and the man continue thier love affair even after her husband dies.
As the years go by news of Louise Brooks, who got kicked out of the dance company, but who has become famous as a movie star, is watched with interest by Cora and the other people in Kansas who knew her when... They also learn about her scandalous behaviour, divorces, decline of her popularily and eventual poverty -- they seem to gloat when she returns home to live with her parents. However, Cora feels sorry for her and goes to her to tell her she feels she can rebound. Louise leaves for New York but later they hear that she is just a rude drunk. Howver many years later/ Cora learns that Louise is famous again and being praised for the memoir she has written and she is glad that she has again made a comeback.
This was a very well written story. The author did a great job of portraying the lives and personalities of the characters, especially the women, and the attitudes of the times. She does a great job of portraying the disappointments in marriage faced by Cora and Louise's mother. Cora is faced with new things and has to deal with them, accept changes, change her opinions and ultimately take a risk for happiness. This was an intriguing part of the story.
This novel is about a woman whose life is changed when she agrees to be the chaperone for a willful fifteen year old girl, Louie Brooks.
Louise has been accepted into the Denishawn dance school in New York for a dance course. She hopes to turn the class into a career with the company,
Cora Carlisle doesn't really think about what she could be getting into being the chaperone for this headstrong girl. She wants to go to New York for her own reasons. We find out that Cora is in an unhappy marriage. She has two twin sons and what appeared to be a loving husband. However, once she had the twins she was told another pregnancy could be fatal for her. Her caring husband agrees to sleep in a separate room. She later finds out that her husband is gay and that she has only been a convenience for him -- allowing him to have a respetable life while carrying on a clandestine affair with his gay lover. If his lifestyle and activites were known he would be ruined, put in jail or even worse.
Cora, an orphan who was adopted by a loving couple, wants to go to New York to find out about her birth parents. Louise's Mom, who doesn't seem to be a very effective parent, is only too glad to be rid of her daughter.
She finds that Louise is very feisty, even wild. One night Louisse sneaks off with a young man she has met and gets drunk. After Cora berates her for her bad behaviour and what consequences would be Louise reveals that she is not a virgin, she was "deflourerd" when she was nine and as a teen had an affair with the loccal Sunday School Teacher
While Louise is at dance class Cora has gone to the orphange to get information but has been turned down-- they don't divulge parental information to their orphans. Louise is befriended by a handyman who works at the orphanage and he lets her sneak intothe files where she finds an address of a woman who had written the orphanage asking about her welfare. Louse writes the woman and later meets her briefly. The woman is her mother and while she is glad Cora has had a good life she doesn't want to have anything more to do with her. Louise is sad and bitter at the women's reaction and at the fact that she has a half brother and sister she will never meet.
Cora has a romantic encounter with the handyman which the nun's somehow find out about. They toss him and his daughter out. . She is sad at the fact she has cost him her job and decides to invite him and his daughter to come live with her and her husband back in Kansas, She pretends that the man is her brother and his daughter her niece. Her husband isn't fooled but has to give in to her ruse an he has his own dirtly little secret. The man and his daughter are welcomed into the community and Cora and the man continue thier love affair even after her husband dies.
As the years go by news of Louise Brooks, who got kicked out of the dance company, but who has become famous as a movie star, is watched with interest by Cora and the other people in Kansas who knew her when... They also learn about her scandalous behaviour, divorces, decline of her popularily and eventual poverty -- they seem to gloat when she returns home to live with her parents. However, Cora feels sorry for her and goes to her to tell her she feels she can rebound. Louise leaves for New York but later they hear that she is just a rude drunk. Howver many years later/ Cora learns that Louise is famous again and being praised for the memoir she has written and she is glad that she has again made a comeback.
This was a very well written story. The author did a great job of portraying the lives and personalities of the characters, especially the women, and the attitudes of the times. She does a great job of portraying the disappointments in marriage faced by Cora and Louise's mother. Cora is faced with new things and has to deal with them, accept changes, change her opinions and ultimately take a risk for happiness. This was an intriguing part of the story.
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