"Enchantress of Florence" by Salman Rushdie

My first foray into things Rushdie, and I came away excessively diverted. This is an Arabian Nights-type tale, with magic, enchanted emperors, and an exotic locale.

We have an Italian nobleman, Il Machio (who, I figured out embarrassingly late, is Niccolo Machiavelli), who travels to the Mughal Empire (in present-day India and Pakistan) and claims he is the Emperor's uncle. There turns out to be some possible justification for this improbable claim, and Il Machio enjoys favor in the court for a time. The eponymous Enchantress has the power to put entire cities in her thrall, which she does the capital, for most of the book; she can also come back from the dead.

A good part of this book's energy flows from this tension: men have temporal power over women in this world, but women have emotional power over men. For all its fabulous subject matter, this book is firmly planted in the ground of real human nature. The Emperor is given considerable intuitive powers, and is an enlightened ruler for the age, but eventually Il Machio's stars dim, and all his good fortune must turn.

I enjoyed this book thoroughly - I didn't know what to expect from Rushdie. What I got was highly imaginative and picked me up and carried me away. Recommended.

Read more »

"The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet" by David Mitchell

In which world will we find ourselves on opening David Mitchell’s next book? In which universe? In “The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet” Mr. Mitchell transports us in classic style to late medieval Japan, to that nation’s one portal to the outside world. And he takes us, his joyous, eagerly-led readers, on a captivating journey yet again.

Our eponymous clerk, Jacob de Zoet, sails from The Netherlands in 1799 to Nagasaki, or more exactly to Dejima, the one precinct where Dutch traders are allowed in Edo-era Japan. He seeks his fortune, like every other Dutch seaman, and wants to return home and marry. However good his intentions, he finds corruption, oppression, xenophobia, and violence. He remains untouched by it – or rather, he keeps himself blameless no matter what the consequences. The blamelessness endures, but events originating in the clash of cultures, the greed of everyone around him, and British ambitions in the region, soon combine to make Dejima not a trading post with its promise of enriching de Zoet, but a prison that threatens to kill him.

Tribulations include forbidden love, ritual butchery of innocents, and subtle, deadly court intrigues. Throughout it all, “The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet” glitters with terrific, vivid, timeless effects. The two worlds – of Japan and Holland, of Eastern mysticism and Protestant orthodoxy, of trading aggressiveness and de jure xenophobia – our upstanding, put-upon clerk witnesses all. A fine invention is Jacob de Zoet – someone to be admired, remembered, and loved. And Mr. Mitchell earns our admiration here, too, for his full, nuanced, and yet epic story.

Mr. Mitchell masters so many ideas and details in this mighty work: intimate personal portraiture, the forbidden, torturing nature of cross-culture love, the brutal prejudices on all sides at the dawn of the 19th Century, and most of all, the strict, formalized manners and morality of late medieval Japan. All these receive the author’s deft, convincing hand, and all results in a sweeping adventure, memorable, engaging, glorious. David Mitchell reminds us once again of why we read, and especially why we impatiently await his efforts.

Read more »

"Olive Kitteridge" by Elizabeth Strout

"Olive Kitteridge" consists of a series of short pieces written about the personal and internal lives of folks in a town on the coast of Maine. These glimpses show us so clearly, in language unerring and deceptively simple, folk that aspire against all hope for love, fulfillment, even survival. Sometimes the piece illuminates an episode from Olive's life, sometimes Olive plays only a cameo in this or that person's current crisis.

And the crises abound in this collection. Lives and marriages and families tread the razor's edge, hoping for the day when that blade can become something a little more stable, a little less threatening. Mostly, though, we get a character's forced accommodation; he or she must give up the grand hope or design for the lesser but more realistic outcome. Disappointment, even desperation, inevitably follow, and Olive is no exception. People struggle with inner demons here, some more severe than others. Olive's own demons put her at odds with others, often for no overt reason. Olive has little patience for anything or anyone, especially after her affable husband Henry becomes ill. Her son, from whom she feels estranged, and with reason, invites her at length to New York to meet his second wife - he didn't tell her he'd married again - and after Olive loses her composure and her patience, he confronts her calmly with the fact of how difficult she is. To Olive, it's an outrage, and she feels cast adrift again.

Olive Kitteridge the character is one exceptionally fine fictive creation. We come to know her, loudmouthed and irascible, through a series of encounters, and we know how she will react in any situation. This very slowly and very subtly changes over the course of the stories, and in this under-the-surface mutability Strout performs her ineffable and exraordinary trick: Olive the obdurate, Olive the obstreperous, begins to discover, very, very late in life, what it might mean to acknowledge her own and someone else's need.

Ms Strout takes us along at a careful pace, but doesn't spare the emotions. These oblique peeks into these tortured internal lives and dialogues capture us and capture our sympathy. And Ms Strout has certainly captured an avid fan.

Read more »

"The Information Officer" by Mark Mills

Mark Mills continues to bless us with thrilling mystery tales, where impromptu (non-professional) detectives depend on their wits and gumption to crack cases and catch the heavy. "The Information Officer" has an added fillip: it takes place against a backdrop of wartime espionage, complete with a Nazi spy on Malta during World War II.

In this entry, our accidental hero is Maj. Max Chadwick of the British Army. The Brits and the islanders are under constant bombardment from the Luftwaffe, as the German war machine is intent on clearing the strategic island of the enemy. But island girls start turning up dead, and it's apparent that it's not from the bombing sorties. The base's chief medical officer alerts Max, and supplies a clue as to the murderer's identity. This story is entwined with Chadwick's romantic adventures and misadventures, and it all follows the hectic, straining pace of wartime siege.

Mr. Mills is three-for-three. His other two books,"Amagansett" and "The Savage Garden" both delivered superbly on early promise, and this is no exception. The intimate scenes steam up the windows a little more in this one, and as I say, the Nazi spy angle is central to this story, and adds a weightier, sinister shade to the proceedings. Also new in this novel are the chapters that deal with the killer's background and thinking process. These are handled reasonably well. All in all, this is superior work, and all honors to our consistently excellent Mr. Mills.

Read more »

"The Egyptologist" by Arthur Phillips

In "The Egyptologist" Arthur Phillips gives us a murder mystery that features an Australian con man named Caldwell, who poses as Trilipush, another character who is a foppish Brit who "read the Pharoahs" at Oxford, and a dim Aussie detective who'd like to sell his idea of this story to Hollywood. All this is set in the exciting backdrop of Egypt in the '20s, while the world is agog with the King Tut discoveries.

Principal among Caldwell/Trilipush's ambitions is the hand of Margaret Finneran, daughter of mobster money, but he believes he has to find a real Egyptian treasure to make himself worthy. His belief in this treasure is the driving energy behind the narrative. Too bad the belief is based on poor information, incomplete evidence, and outright falsehoods. In the end our protaganist's belief becomes maniacal: he comes to equate himself with his apocryphal Egyptian king, and kills himself. He leaves in his wake, confusion, uncertainty, murder, blackmail, and a dead gangster.

Phillips is very generous with his readers. We learn in plenty of time of Caldwell/Trilipush's delusion; there is wonderful dialogue - witty, and spot-on with the vernacular of the times. We have a complete understanding of story when the two men die at the end - the dream of discovery, the mystery of the Egyptian king who never existed, and the mayhem our would-be social climber causes.

This book has a wondeful cast of characters, an exciting climax, and takes us on a trip to a far-away land and time. I recommend it - take and enjoy.

Read more »