MarysLibrary

Mary's Library is 11 years old today!

           

What fun it's been these last 10 years and more having a platform to say what I like about books and anything else that comes to mind. Blogging has kept me in touch with other bloggers like dovegrey reader and Random Jottings. And it has made me a better reader, knowing I needed to have something intelligent to say about the books I was dashing through and perhaps ought to have been lingering over.

Back in 2006 I was reading Barchester Towers (again), The Gentleman in Trollope, and Tea with Jane Austen. Today I'm reading The Claverings (again), Pendennis, and Clarissa.

       

Amy Snow and the Great Secret

When her only friend dies, Amy Snow finds herself, at 17, evicted from the only home she has ever known. alone and forced to play a treasure hunt game her friend has used to make it impossible for anyone but Amy to learn her secrets. As she moves from rural Dorset to London and experiences the social life of Twickenham and Bath, our eponymous heroine learns much about herself and others. The author makes no serious attempt to use 1840s language or manners (the characters call one another by their first names on meeting, a woman takes her bonnet off in public) and the story has 21st century sensibilities (better to be living in a loving shopkeeper's family than in a cold but wealthy and aristocratic house.) But a fine plot and a couple of really excellent characters.   

Tracy Rees, Amy Snow (2015) 555 pages

Fiction: treasure hunts, 19th century. Rated 3.5/5

The Story of Autism

This history of autism and the people who brought it to public attention - they were mostly savvy parents of children "on the spectrum" as it is now called - is a combination of heartbreaking and hopeful. There have been lots of missteps along the way, particularly the current tendency for people with the condition to angrily condemn those who are looking for a cause and a cure.

John Donvan and Caren Zucker, In a Different Key: The Story of Autism (2016) 670 pages

Nonfiction: Medicine, Autism. Rated 5/5

Civilization and the Void

"I have the feeling that we've seen the dismantling of civilisation, brick by brick, and now we're looking at the void. We thought that we were liberating people from oppressive cultural circumstances, but we were, in fact, taking something away from them. We were killing off civility and concern. We were undermining all those little ties of loyalty and consideration and affection that are necessary for human flourishing. We thought that tradition was bad, that it created hidebound societies, that it held people down. But, in fact, what tradition was doing all along was affirming community and the sense that we are members one of another. Do we really love and respect one another more in the absence of tradition, and manners and all the rest? Or have we merely converted one another into moral stranger?"

    -- Alexander McCall Smith, Espresso Tales

Horses and Larkin and poetry

One of the blogs I follow regularly is called Anecdotal Evidence. It's written by an erudite former journalist who wanders entertainingly around his world and his books and has much to teach me. Today he talks about a young woman on horseback who goes by his house occasionally and that leads him to Philip Larkin's poetry. Check out the blog.

Charlie Chan (which would be an even better TV series than Hawai'i Five-0)

A few years back we were making plans to visit our God-daughter who lived in Hawaii. So to get in the mood we began watching Hawaii Five-O, the original with Jack Lord, which was first on TV in 1968 and lasted until 1980. Then we though what the heck let's look at Hawai'i Five-0, the undoubtedly inadequate reboot from 2010. And we fell in love. With Danny Williams, played by James Caan's son, Scott Caan, and with Chin Ho Kelly, played by Daniel Dae Kim, and with the rest of the crowd from Kono to Danny's daughter, Grace. 

In the original we were particularly fond of a certain phone booth which showed up all over the Islands wherever it was needed. And an ambulance that was repainted from week to week to represent various hospitals. And the Byodo-In Temple, scene of the crisis of some of the best stories and was like the phone booth and the ambulance almost a character in the show. But I think our favorite was Wo Fat, an arch-villain, named for a Honolulu restaurant. I didn't think anybody could possibly embody Wo Fat the way Khigh Dhiegh did. Well, Mark Dacascos has beaten the odds and is even better than Dhiegh. The character himself remains as elusive and enigmatic as the original.

Much as we love these TV programs I would really like to see the Charlie Chan stories brought to life. Masi Oka, who plays Dr Max Bergmann, would make a splendid Charlie Chan. The first of the books by Earl Derr Biggers was The House Without a Key (which was also named after a Honolulu restaurant) and it is what we now call cinematic - a very visual story. Here's my review of the book from 2011. 

1925 Hawaii was an idyllic sort of place, a place where a straight-laced New England Puritan could lose himself in the heady scent of night blooms and the sunset gilding of the sea. And that’s just what happens to John Quincy Winterslip, a Boston bond dealer who is sent by the family to fetch home his aunt, who left months ago for a visit and hasn’t come home.

His ship arrives in the evening and because of bureaucratic red tape (yes, even in Hawaii Territory in 1925) the ship has to sit outside the reef overnight and land in the morning. When he does go ashore, John Quincy discovers his wealthy uncle Dan, a controversial figure in Honolulu whose fortune is thought to have been acquired through nefarious means, has been murdered during the night. The only clue is a watch with a phosphorescent dial on which the number two is faded.

The police arrive, and among them is Charlie Chan, the finest detective on the island. As he investigates, Charlie finds some additional clues, including an ornate dagger, a jeweled brooch, the stub from an unusual brand of cigarette, and more. It turns out there were quite a few visitors the night Dan was killed, and with John Quincy’s help the police turn up numerous motives for wanting Dan dead.

This is Hawaii and so there are lots of Hawaiian words, a visit to a luau, swimming and surfboarding, leis and muumuus, and the light blinking on Diamond Head. Hawaii being the original multicultural Eden, there are not just Hawaiians and mainland Anglos, but also Japanese and Chinese, Spanish and Portuguese, English and Irish. And because this is Eden, Dan’s house on Waikiki is a house without a key.

This mystery is very dated and filled with atmosphere, Charlie Chan is a minor character but an important one, and the complicated plot comes to a satisfactory ending. The bad guys go to jail, the good guys come into some money, and the guy gets the girl. You'll have to read the book to find out which girl.

Happy New Year 2017!

 

"There are years that ask questions and years that answer."

 

            -- Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God