The House of Doors

 by Tan Twan Eng

This story is set in Penang Malaysia in the early 1920's primarily.

The main character is a British woman, Lesley Hamlyn, who is the mother of two sons and married to a lawyer.  She really likes their home in Penang. However, she and her husband do not really have a loving relationship.

The author Somerset Maugham comes to stay with them for a few weeks, along with his male lover.  He is escaping from his wife in England.  He is devastated to learn that he made some bad financial investments and is now in serious financial trouble.  He realizes he has to write some books to make some money.  He is afraid his lover will leave him when he learns about his financial situation.

The Hamlyn's are introduced to a Chinese revoluntionary, Sun Yat Sen.  Lesley is impressed by him and tries to help him by promoting him in Penang and helping him translate some of his pamphlets into the local language for the local Chinese population.

Lesley is devastated when her brother, who is a newspaper Editor in Penang, tells her that her husband is having and affair.  He thinks she will divorce her husband.  However, after thinking things over Lesley decides divorce would be devastating for her and her sons financially and socially so she decides to stay in the marriage.  Eventually she finds out that the person her husband is having an affair with is a male chinese  This is more of a shock than the initial news of his adultery.

When she is working on translating Sun Yat Sen's pamphlets she is working in a house in the chinese section of the city.  There she meets another Chinese man.  He tells her about Chinese history and takes her to a house he inherited from his mother.  The house is full of carved/decorated doors hanging from the ceiling.  Apparently it is a chinese tradition to decorate the entrance doors to houses.  They eventually start having and affair.  Lesley is so happy and doesn't feel guilty at all.

Eventually she confides about her love affair to Maugham, he assumes her lover is Sun Yat Sen.  Lesley is worried that Maugham will put her story into one of his published stories but then realizes it is too late to worry about that.  She feels good at being able to tell someone about it.

While all this is going on Lesley's best friend, a married woman,  is arrested for murder of a man who was her lover.  The woman and tried to break off the relationship but one night the man comes to her house when her husband is not home and she shoots him. She does not admit she was having an  affair, rather says the man invaded her house and tried to rape her.  Lesley speaks in her defense at the trial but does not divulge that the woman was having and affair.  The public think the woman will be acquitted as she is British but the jury finds her guilty and she is sentenced to be hanged.  The woman's husband has been supporting her all along and they are appealing the sentence.  However, the woman gets tired of the delay and asks for a pardon from the Sultan, this does not acquit her but she escapes the death sentence.  She is forced to leave the country and returns to England alone.

Maugham does write a stories about his time in Penang, these stories upset many of the locals because they know he is writing about them.  Fortuanatley for Lesley he does not write about her.  One of the main stories he writes is about Lesley's friend the murderess.

Eventually Sun Yat Sen's many attempts to overthrow the Chinese dynasty succeeds and Lesley's lover decides he has to go to China to join the fight.  She is devastated that he is leaving her and they never see each other again.

From the beginning of the story Lesley's husband, a veteran of WWI has been talking about moving to South Africa for his health.  Lesley says she will not go with him but after a number of years her husband decides to move and she goes with him.  They live out their life together in South Africa.  Neither ever mentions their affairs.

The book was interesting for the description of the times, and the locale but after reading I was thinking, so what's the point of it all?  It certainly portrayed the disparity between the rich and the poor (Asians) in Malaysia and the Chinese history was interesting but wonder what purpose all the unhappy people and affairs.  People stay in unhappy marriages just for the economic convenience/necessity. Plus the doors, what is about that? the importance of acknowledging and preserving history?  The book also hinted about the impact foreign "invaders"can have on a country and culture and the disparity between the Brit expats and the people who end up serving them.

akeThe Librarianist

 by Patrick deWitt

I have read other books by  this author including French Exit and Sisters Brothers and thought they were okay.  I really enjoyed this book, maybe because it is about a Librarian, but I found it a nice gentle story.

Bob Comet is  retired Librarian.  After he retired he seems to have been basically a recluse.  One day he is out and encounters an old lady who seems disoriented.  He finds a sign around her neck indicating where she lives and he takes her back to her care home.  While there he meets the manager of the facility and agrees to come and talk to the residents about books. He does that a few times but it doesn't go well -- they aren't really interested in book talks so he starts coming back just to visit with the residents.

As the story progresses we find out that Bob had two really good friends in his early adult hood, a male friend and his wife.  Initially he tries to avoid having his wife and friend meet but eventually they do.  They three of them do things together.  Bob is devastated when soon after his wife leaves him for his friend.  He never develops any other relationships after that just does his job at the library.  About a year after his wife leaves him, Bob learns that his friend has been killed by a car.  He feels there is some justice in that.  He imagines his wife will come back to him, but she never does and he never tries to find her.

The book then goes on, in a strange diversion, not sure of the purpose or value of it.  When he is a young boy Bob is living with his mother. One day his mother leaves him overnight with some friends so she can have an evening with a male friend.  Bob is upset by her "abandoning" him and jumps on a bus.

On the bus he is befriended by two women entertainers who take him under their wing and take him with them as an unofficial, unpaid assistant.  After a week or so the local sheriff recognizes him and arranges for him to get home.  There is no mention in the book about reception he gets when he gets home.

Eventually Bob's health  fails and he ends up moving into the care home.

It was a gentle story, I enjoyed it.

The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches

 by Sangu Mandanna

Mika Moon is one of a few witches in Britain.  She was "raised" by another witch who for the most part left her care to a series of Nannies.  As soon as Mike showed some unusual behaviour the nannies memories were erased and the nanny was sent packing, to be replaced by another one.

No Mika is an adult.  She doesn't feel safe because her mentor witch, Primrose, tells her she must not let anyone know she is a witch.  Primrose is the leader of a coven of witches who gather every few months to socialize.  Primrose believes witches must remain lone and isolated for their safety but this has made for a very lonely life for Mika who keeps moving often.

To let out her frustration Mika has a web page on the Internet where she pretends to be a witch, it has some appeal.  One day Mika receives an email from a man, who is convinced that she is a real witch.  He wants her to come and mentor three young witches that are in his care.  Mika is a bit concerned and worried at first, but decides to go and check it out.  She finds a beautiful house, with three adults who are looking after three young witches.  They want her to mentor the young witches so they know how to utilize and control their power, especially as their sponsors lawyer is coming soon to check on the property as he has not been able to contact the owner of the property for some time.

The adults and two of the young witches welcome her, but a third young witch doesn't and ends up doing a spell that puts Mika in bed for days.

Mika likes the girls and the other residents.  This is the first time she feels part of a family and accepted for who she is.  One of the adults, a young man, is at first suspiciuos of her but eventually they do admit they are attracted to each other.

A crisis occurs when Mika is away from the property, the lawyer has arrived early and the young witches decide to unbury and try to animate the woman who was owner of the property.  She had died and the adults buried her on the property because they didn't know what to do.  The lawyer is freaked ou out and threatening to go to the police.  The adults have locked him in a building

Mika doesn't know how to erase his memory or go back in time.  She reluctantly contacts Primrose for help.  They are all shocked when Primrose arrives.  She looks exactly like the dead woman, because she is the dead woman's sister.  Primrose wipes the lawyers memory, convinces him that she is Lillian and dismisses him.

Mika is delighted that Primrose agrees to her staying on to be a mentor for the young witches.

It was a cute story in time for Halloween.

The Spare Man

 by Mary Robinette Kowal

This book was recommended by my niece Caley.  The author is supposed to be a reknowned sci-fi writer. I was very disappointed in the book, it was very slow going.

The story is about a tech billionaire/guru and her husband he go on a flight to mars for their honeymoon. The husband has retired from his private investigator job.  The woman is physically in rough shape after an explosion in a lab.  She is wired with a bunch of pumps that help her control her pain.  She also has a little terrier therapy dog.

Shortly after the trip starts the couple witness a murder on the spaceship.  The husband seems someone  he can't identify run away from the scene.  The husband is assumed by the security on the ship to have done the murder and is  put under arrest.  They then spend the rest of the book trying to prove his innocence by solving the crime.  This is hard to do as their technology is turned off.  The woman is only allowed very limited access to her pit bull lawyer back on earth.  The woman eventually uses her name to try to some progress on the case and also threats of lawsuits from her lawyer.

I just felt the book dragged on way to long, no idea what the therapy dog really did for her, and don't understand the role of her infirmities to the plot.

Not very enjoyable, but I am generally not an sf fan.

 

Before the Coffee Gets Cold

 by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

Serendipity --

I recently saw the quote by Viktor Frankl

"When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves".

This is a very powerful sentiment for me right now with what I am going through.  I saw positive comments about this book and decided to pick up a copy of a whim and I am so glad I did.

The story is set in Tokyo in a little basement cafe where it is rumoured people can go back in time.  The story starts with a young woman whose boyfriend broke up with her at the cafe, telling her he is going to the US to work.  She is devastated as she thought he was going to propose.  She is so startled she doesn't say anything and he leaves.

She goes back to the restaurant and says she wants to go back in time to tell her boyfriend she doesn't want him to go.  The hosts of the cafe tell her she can go back but nothing she does will change the present, she can only go back for the time it takes for a cup of coffee to cool off, if she doesn't return on time she will become a ghost (there is one lady ghost in the cafe).  She goes back to the time her boyfriend broke off with her.  She does tell him that she doesn't want him to go and as she returns to the present she hears him say he will be back in three years.

The next customer is the wife of a cafe customer who has rapidly developing Alzheimers.  Her husband has left a letter for her at the cafe but she hasn't wanted to read it.  She wants to go back in time to when her husband can still remember her.  They meet and she confirms to him that she knows about his diagnosis.  He seems relieved that she knows about it.  The letter he gave her tells her she doesn't have to feel obliged to stay with him.  However, this meetings cements her commitment to care for him whatever happens (she is a nurse).

The third story is about a young woman who runs a restaurant near the cafe. She is estranged from her family. Her sister had kept coming to Tokyo to try to convince her to come home and help run the family in.  The woman hides from her sister because she feels either her sister is jealous of her or that her sister doesn't want to run the inn and wants her to have the responsibility.  On the last time the sister comes to visit she is killed in a car accident.  The young woman is devastated, she feels reponsible for her sister's death as do her parents.  She goes back in time to the sister's last visit and the sister tells her that her dream was to have the two of them run the inn together.  The restuarant owner promises her sister she will go back and run the inn in her sister's memory.

The last story is about the wife of the owner of the cafe,  she dies in childbirth because of a heart condition,  Years after the woman died a young woman comes into the restaurant and goes back in time to meet her.  Later the woman asks to go into the future and she meets the young woman, realizing she is her daughter.  The woman had been worried that her daughter would be angry at her for not being around to raise her but the young woman thanks her for giving her her life.

While nothing changes about the sad things in these stories, all the characters seem to find a new perspective going forward.  

I think this book is amazing, at least for me right now!

The Secret Life of Sunflowers

 by Marta Molnar and Dana Morton

This book was getting a lot of positive comments recently.  It is about the wife of Theo Van Gogh (Van Gogh's sister-in-law fought to get Van Gogh's art into the public attention after Vincent and Theo's deaths.  It was an interesting story but not as engaging as some of the comments I read implied it would be.  The death of the Van Gogh's occur early in the book, there is very little detail about Van Gogh's art development or his life.

Bandit Queens

 by Parini Shroff

This book was on the best seller list, I didn't really know anything about it.  It certainly was not anything I expected.  The book takes place in India.  The main character is part of a group of women who get loans to create home crafts.  She is feared in the village because people believe she murdered her husband.  One of the women in her group, whose husband beats her and steals the money she makes to buy booze, comes to the woman and asks for help killing her husband.  The woman is shocked and doesn't want to have any part in this but the woman keeps nagging her so eventually she does help the woman accomplish the task by suggesting how to make a poison.

However, this turns out badly for her beause the woman whose husband was murdered comes to her and says now that her husband is dead she needs money to support her family and she insists the woman give her money or she will go to the police.  The widow says she will deny all knowledge of the murder.

Then another woman comes to her asking for help to murder a man.  She reluctantly agrees to assist with a distraction so the woman can get some poison in a garden.  But in the end the woman ends up murdering the man herself beause he tries to rape her.

One day, the main character's husband shows up claiming he is blind.  He steals her money but tries to endear himself to her.  Eventually she figures out he is faking blindness.  She tries to get him to leave with no success.

While this has all been occuring the woman had met a man who was a bootlegger who was mixing gasoline in with his alcohol, testing concoctions on stray dogs.  She steals one of his dogs and threatens to report him.

At the end of the book the bootlegger shows up at her house.  Her husband had agreed to let the bootlegger beat up his wife in payment for debts he owes the bootlegger.  In the rucus some of her female friends arrive at the house, her husband is shot in the leg by the bootlegger and the woman convinces him that if he leaves her alone she will not report him.

The woman someone gets her husband to leave and at the end delivers divorce papers to him at his parent's house where he is sponging off them.  It is very difficult for women to get a divorce even if spouses are abusive, the woman had to have a local council that would believer her.

This was a very strange book, but an interesting read.