Lessons by Ian McEwan

Sunday, Mar. 10, 2024--San Antonio

Lessons is one of several books I have read by Ian McEwan.  It was named a best book of the year by The New Yorker and Vogue.  I agree that it is a good book, but it is not, as far as I am concerned, the best book by the author.  I consider his novel Atonement to be one of the best I have ever read, and I have read a few more of his books that are better.  Lessons, however did grab my attention and keep it most of the time.  It's the story of one man who has lived approximately throughout the time of my own life--from the mid-1940s to today.  Set mostly in England, he is aware, like me, of his good fortune in life related to timing--avoiding having to fight in wars, seeing changes that he considers to be improvements in life for society in general (such as the fall of the Berlin wall and the related movement toward democracy in former communist countries), the improvements in quality of life in general, etc.  However, as a child he is molested by his piano teacher and he cannot get it off his mind.  Although he manages to stay away from her for 3 years, he cannot get over the physical sensations of her touch, and, at age 14, he shows up at her home and they become lovers.  This relationship changes the trajectory of his life.  The teacher is assertive in trying to maintain the relationship and to control him.  He loves the pleasure of sex which they have every day and often more than once a day.  Eventually, however, her control threatens his chance for high education and he becomes aware that it is not good for him.   But it is too late to hope for a higher education; he must run away from both her and education completely to escape her grip on him.  That experience affects him in terms of sexual relationships and financial standing for much of the rest of his life.  After a number of failed relationship that end because the women get tired of him expecting daily sex, he and a woman fall in love and get married.  She, however, eventually runs away leaving him with their 1-year-old child.  She cuts all contact and blames him for smothering her life by expecting daily sex and not having a good job which meant that she had to work to make money for them when what she really wanted to do was to be a writer.  And she eventually does become a very famous author.  He is a good man who has given up his chance of being a professional pianist to get away from his first lover and now sacrifices his hope to be a poet to raise his son.  But every person has their own version of what has happened--him, the piano teacher, the wife who became a famous artist, his parents about their lives, the writer's parents about their lives, etc., and each believes their own "truth" and hides secrets.  Over time in one's life, one eventually is presented with alternative perspectives on what was happening at any given time.  And not all things keep getting better in life over time--in one's personal life or life in general. It's a complex book, and at times there were details presented in too much detail--more than was required.  But McEwan is a very good writer in terms of getting the reader emotionally involved in the stories he tells.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

The Garnett Girls by Georgina Moore

 Saturday, Mar. 2, 2024--San Antonio

The Garnett Girls by Georgina Moore was a BBC Top Book of the Year in 2023.  It is the story of a family living on the Isle of Wight in southern England.  The mother Margo is a "force of nature" type of person.  She ran away from home at age 16 with Richard, a poet in his 20s.  Life was exciting, but the pressures of keeping up with it led to Richard's alcoholism becoming unmanageable.  So after 10 years of marriage, he left when their 3rd daughter was only about 4 years of age.  His leaving sent Margo into months of depression during which she drank and stayed in her room.  The oldest daughter, only 8 or 9 years old, had to learn to cook and to accept the responsibility for taking care of her two sisters (with some help from Margo's sister living nearby and a housekeeper).  Most of the book takes place much later in time when the two oldest girls are in their 30s and the youngest is in her late 20s.  It's a time when Margo still tries to arrange and control their lives and the girls are rebelling in different ways and for different reasons.  Margo has never allowed any discussion of Richard since he left the family and the youngest, who cannot remember any of the time he was with them, is increasingly interested in knowing her dad and understanding what happened.  It's an interesting story.  I gave it 4 stars out of 5.

Roman Stories by Jhumpa Lahiri

Saturday, Feb. 24, 2024--San Antonio

Roman Stories is the latest collection of short stories by Jhumpa Lahiri, a writer whose works I have always enjoyed.  I've read almost everything she has written.  Unlike other of her publications which are usually originally written in English, these stories were originally written in Italian and were translated into English (some by her, but most by an American translator).  The stories are intimate and interesting.  It is easy to picture the settings and to imagine oneself in place of the characters.  Although I didn't want to quit a story once I started it, I did, however, find myself delaying at times before starting a new one.  They just didn't "grab" me the way the ones in her previous short story collections have.  But it is a good collection and I would recommend it to readers.  I have the publication 4 stars out of 5.

The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen and A Nobleman's Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel by KJ Charles

Friday, Nov. 16, 2024--San Antonio

The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen and A Nobleman's Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel are the titles of a two-book series of novels by KJ Charles.  Let in the early 1800s in the marshlands of Kent in England, they are gothic gay romance stories between the Doomsday smuggling clan and two local nobles--a baronet and an earl. Reading them was a nice escape from the previous novels I recently read where I found the protagonists to be despicable characters.  They are not great fiction, but they are good stories.  Each took only 2 days to read.   I gave each of the books a rating of 4 stars out of 5 (with an emphasis on the pleasure from reading them rather than the quality of the literature).  

The Slowworm's Song by Andrew Miller

Sunday, Feb. 11, 2024--San Antonio

The Slowworm's Song by Andrew Miller was better than I expected. The author is Irish, and the story is about a Quaker of Northern Irish descent living in England.  He has never been a devout Quaker, and his life when he was young was in a bit of a shambles due to not having a good job and also having a bit of a drinking problem, so he joined the army which sent him to Belfast during the time of the Troubles.  He never married, but he met a woman and fell in love and got her pregnant before going into the army.  They never lived together, and the daughter has mostly been estranged from him, although they have made contact in recent years.  She calls him Stephen rather than Dad.  He is now about 70.  His whole life has continued to be troubled by an event that took place in Belfast, and he is writing his life story in a missive to his daughter.  The book is what he is writing to her, so it slowly reveals his life and gives a plausible explanation of why it has been a very poor one at times.  In my mind, his life has been much like that of many of the Americans who came back from Vietnam--troubled by what they experienced and by the fact that no one at home wanted to even know what they had experienced.  He's obviously a good person from what he writes to the daughter.  And the way he expresses things is sometimes humorous.  Example said about a funeral director in the town:  "I don't know if funeral directors receive any training in first aid.  It wouldn't seem like a priority for them."  The book was listed as a top book of the year in 2022 by The Wall Street Journal and The New Yorker.  I gave it 4 1/2 stars out of 5.

Day by Michael Cunningham

 Thursday, Feb. 8, 2024--San Antonio

Day by Michael Cunningham was named a best book of 2023 by NPR.  It centers around an extended family in Brooklyn.  Dan and Isabel are the parents of Nathan (10) and Violet (5).  They own an apartment that has an upstairs loft apartment which they rent to Isabel's brother Robbie.  Nearby lives Garth (Dan's brother), Chess (a lesbian) and their co-parented infant son Odin.  The adults are all in their 30s and are not satisfied with their lives.  Isabel has a very good job, but it is with a magazine which means there is a real possibility of the job disappearing; budget cuts and layoffs are already occurring.  Dan wanted to be a musician, but didn't make a success of it and finally offered to be a stay-at-home dad taking care of the children, doing the housework, and cooking the meals.  Robbie was accepted to three medical schools, but passed on those to remain in NYC as an elementary school history teacher; he is beginning to burn out in his job, plus, as a gay man, he has been unsuccessful at establishing a long-term relationship.  Garth is an unsuccessful artist and an undependable co-parent which Chess resents.  In addition, he wants them to be like a family while Chess would prefer that he not be in their life at all; all along, she just wanted him as a sperm donor.  The book covers 3 days (all Apr. 5) in 3 successive years--2019, 2020, and 2021--just before the pandemic hit, at the height of the fear and the restrictions of the pandemic, and as life started to return to more normal.  There's no real plot.  We get slices of life among these people that allow us to learn who they are, what they are like, what problems they have, etc.  Robbie is the most likable.  His family group has greatly depended on him being the glue that keeps things okay among them, but he has been asked to move out because the daughter and son need to have separate rooms due to their ages now.  His relationship with them seems to be the key to keeping the "family" stable and is about all he has that is important in his life. Everything seems to be threatened by his impending move.  There are complications, tragedies, stresses, etc., as the story progresses from year-to-year.  By the end, I felt that I knew these people well, and I "suffered" as I became aware of what had happened/was happening.  There were times when the dialogue didn't seem to fit for the vocabulary and maturity of a 5-8 year-old girl which bothered me.  Mostly for that reason, I gave the book only 4 stars out of 5 instead of more.

The Lookback Window by Kyle Dillon Hertz

Saturday, Feb. 4, 2024--San Antonio

I did not enjoy reading The Lookback Window by Kyle Dillon Hertz.  I doubt that anyone could say they did.  The protagonist's story is a dreary subject--an adult dealing with emotional problems caused by having having been trafficked as a young teenager to men who had abusive sex with him.  Much of the book is related to him taking increasingly dangerous drugs and having meaningless sex as a result.  Even at the end of the book when he seems to have finally settled down in life after reporting his abuse during a "lookback window" extending the time for filing court cases for child trafficking and abuse, he continues to use drugs as if it is normal part of adult life.  I guess the book is rather well written, but I never developed any empathy for the protagonist.  Maybe the point was that he had been damaged so much that he could not mature further.  It just made it a book that I couldn't appreciate reading.  I gave it 2 stars out of 5.