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By Sean Clark, on June 14th, 2011 [This unique novel is a C4 Great Read. Find it and other C4 favorites on our Great Reads shelf at Powell's.]
Author: Umberto Eco , translated from the Italian by Geoffrey Brock
2005, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Filed Under: Literary, Historical.
Get a copy at Powell’s.
| C4 Ratings...out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
9 |
| Entertainment..... |
8 |
| Depth..... |
10 |
| Visuals... |
9 |
When I reviewed Emma Donoghue’s Room, I noted that its most standout feature was the narrator who had to create his own context for the world around him, as he lacked the social upbringing most of us take for granted. I wish I had read The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana before then, as Eco does something quite similar, and he’s much more successful at it.
Rather than a boy who grew up in a rape-cave, MFQL is about an old man who has lost his episodic memory due to a stroke. Giambattista Bodoni (who goes by Yambo) awakes in a Milanese hospital lacking not only his memories but his entire sense of self. His associative abilities have been crippled. He knows what a toothbrush and paste are, but not what it feels like. He does not remember his name, or know who his wife and friends are. An extremely well-read dealer of antique books, Yambo retains all his knowledge of what he’s read. But he’s lost all attachments to them. I know, I know, amnesia stories are about clichéd as they come, but Eco is a brilliant writer, and he pulls it off as if it is the freshest of ideas. …
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By Sean Clark, on June 10th, 2011 Author: Thornton Wilder
 1927, Albert & Charles Boni
Filed Under: Literary, Historical
Get a copy at Powell’s
| C4 Ratings...out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
8 |
| Entertainment..... |
6 |
| Depth..... |
8 |
I received this book as a gibing gift after losing a game of Trivial Pursuit on a Thornton Wilder question. For most of us, The Bridge of San Luis Rey (winner of the 1928 Pulitzer Prize for literature) is one of those books that we either read for an assignment at some point during our schooling, or never even saw blip on the radar. For me it was the latter. But I’m glad I finally had the chance to read it, because it’s a good little novel. …
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By Eric Markowsky, on May 25th, 2011  Author: Jim Shepard
2011, Knopf
Filed Under: Short Stories, Historical, Horror, Literary.
Get a copy at Powell’s.
| C4 Ratings...out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
8 |
| Entertainment..... |
8 |
| Depth..... |
7 |
You Think That’s Bad offers 11 stories inspired by a diverse array of subjects, from flood control and avalanche research to World War II and the Japanese film industry. Each one is thoroughly researched, tightly written, and full of compelling, hopeless characters. As a collection, though, You Think That’s Bad strikes the same emotional chord a little too often to make the whole something greater than its best parts.
One story is about a Black World operative who can’t talk to his wife. One is about a Dutch hydraulics engineer who can’t talk to his wife. There’s a particle physicist who can’t talk to his wife; there’s a Japanese special effects designer who can’t talk to his wife; there’s a Polish mountaineer who does a better job talking to his wife, but not nearly good enough to save either of them from himself. It’s tragic watching these obsessed men ruin their lives one after the other, but some things start to feel repetitive. …
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By Sean Clark, on May 19th, 2011 Author: Scott Westerfeld
2010, Simon Pulse
Filed Under: Young Adult, Historical, Sci-Fi, Fantasy
Get a copy at Powell’s.
| C4 Ratings...out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
6 |
| Entertainment..... |
8 |
| Depth..... |
6 |
| Illustrations... |
8 |
My biggest gripe with Westerfeld’s Leviathan was that it was too much a set-up for a trilogy and not as satisfying a standalone story as the lead entry in a series ought to be. Seeing as Behemoth is the second entry of said planned trilogy, that problem is no longer as glaring. Still, this too acts as a build up for a larger conflict, but rather than leaving us at the precipice, it–as a good middle segment should–aligns the plot’s working pieces then sets things in motions for a hefty conflict in book three. All that aside, this novel features all the aspects that made the first book intriguing, as well as an arguably tighter story arc.
Behemoth picks up with Deryn, the girl posing as a male in order to be British midshipman, and Alek, the Hapsburg prince on the lam, aboard the great flying whale dirigible following the escape at the end of Leviathan. They head for Istanbul, where the majority of the story unfolds.
(I gave a breakdown of the basic conceits of the series in my review of Leviathan, so if you haven’t read it go check out that first–but in brief, this is a steampunk retelling of World War One, where the machinist “Clanker” Eastern Europeans are in conflict with the “Darwinist” Western Europeans’ army, which is built around giant creatures created by manipulating evolution into complex living vehicles and biological weapons. So by whale dirigible, I mean it’s literally a huge, floating, armored whale.)  …
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By Sean Clark, on May 12th, 2011 Author: Michael David Lukas
2011, Harper
Filed Under: Historical, Fantasy.
Get a copy at Powell’s.
| C4 Ratings...out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
6 |
| Entertainment..... |
7 |
| Depth..... |
5 |
The Oracle of Stamboul is a competent and at times engrossing bit of historical fiction, but it’s also a case of magical realism that wants the magic to matter more than it ultimately does. For the majority of the book, the fantastical elements are not present; sadly, when they do crop up, they aren’t crucial to anything. That’s a shame, because Lukas spins a good yarn, balancing characters, plot, and tension nicely.
Almost right away, Oracle reveals itself as a somewhat picaresque late-19th century adventure story set in a particularly volatile part of the world. Eleonora Cohen is the precocious daughter of a Jewish carpet seller. When her father, Yakob, travels from their home near the Black Sea to the great city Stamboul (Istanbul) in order to sell off some textile stock, Eleonora stows away. Turns out to be a good idea, as their home town is sacked not long after the departure.
…
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By Sean Clark, on April 21st, 2011 Author: James Bradley
2008, Picador Australia
Filed Under: Historical, Literary.
Get a copy at Powell’s.
| C4 Ratings...out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
7 |
| Entertainment..... |
7 |
| Depth..... |
5 |
A resurrectionist does not bring the dead to life. There are no literal resurrections in this book (and it’s questionable whether there are any figurative ones). No one cares much for the dead or attempts to restore them. Instead, they pull them from the ground and cut them up in front of an audience.
In 19th century London, anatomists were both doctors and entertainers to the intelligentsia. A gentleman surgeon could build esteem and a reputation, as well as his fortune, through exhibitions of successful autopsies and dissection lectures. But, despite the high mortality rate of the day, human corpses weren’t always easy to come by: laws forbade the dissection of any body not put to death for crime. So doctors turned to resurrectionists, men who would deliver bodies procured by untold means for coin, no questions asked.
…
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By Sean Clark, on April 14th, 2011 Author: Robert Weintraub
2011, Little, Brown and Company
Filed Under: Nonfiction, Historical.
Get a copy at Powell’s.
| C4 Ratings...out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
6 |
| Entertainment..... |
8 |
| Depth..... |
7 |
Here’s a good reading choice for the start of the baseball season (although I can’t help think that I’m partially to blame for the Red Sox’s abysmal stumbling out the gate by reading a book about the Yankees’ first world series win. Oh well, at least we took 2 out of 3 in the NY series.). Ostensibly about the creation of Yankee Stadium, this is a book about a changing of the guard in baseball, when small ball National League play fell second-fiddle to the power-hitting American League. Weintraub writes like a Yanks fan, but I can’t begrudge him that, since the team is the star of his show. This is a fun and accessible book that takes a look at a just a few years in the long history of baseball. …
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By Eric Markowsky, on April 13th, 2011 Author: Téa Obreht
Random House, 2011
Filed Under: Literary, Historical, Fantasy.
Get a copy at Powell’s.
| C4 Ratings...out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
8 |
| Entertainment..... |
8 |
| Depth..... |
7 |
With all the hype about the New Yorker’s 20 under 40, it’s nice to read a debut novel by one of their young authors that lives up to the marketing. The Tiger’s Wife is a captivating combination of history and fable. In her own life and in her grandfather’s stories, the narrator confronts questions of belief in the face of desire for understanding, for relief, and for release. Rather than resolving the world of the novel into one ruled by magic beyond human comprehension, the book’s fairytale elements only accentuate the challenges inherent in faith and doubt.
Natalia is on her way to a medical mission at an orphanage across the border when she receives news of the strange circumstances surrounding her grandfather’s death. Having lied to his wife about going to meet Natalia on her mission, he dies from an illness he’d long concealed, alone in the small town of Zdrevkov near the coast. Figuring out why he chose to slip away from his family to die among strangers drives his granddaughter out to the coast and into his past, into one story she knows and one she will learn. …
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By Mike Beeman, on January 19th, 2011 Author: Karen Joy Fowler
Small Beer Press, 2010
Filed Under: Short Stories, Literary, Historical, Horror
| C4 Ratings.....out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
7 |
| Entertainment..... |
8 |
| Depth..... |
8 |
Readers familiar with Karen Joy Fowler most likely know her through her best selling novels, The Jane Austen Book Club, Wit’s End, and Sister Noon. But Fowler began her career as a writer of wildly imaginative short stories. Her newest collection is sure to add to this. What I Didn’t See is one of her strongest yet.
For some authors, a short story collections is like a science lab. The stories in this collection, published over a span of nearly two decades, show Fowler experimenting with many different styles and forms distinct from her novels. But no matter the genre or subject, the author retains what makes her full-length books so successful: an attention to detail, an ear for language, and compassion for her characters. For those who have found Fowler through her novels, these stories offer a chance to encounter an imaginative storyteller as she moves from subject to subject. …
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By Sean Clark, on January 17th, 2011 Author: Roberto Bolaño, translated from the Spanish by Chris Andrews
2007, New Directions (English language)
Filed Under: Literary, Historical
| C4 Ratings.....out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
10 |
| Entertainment..... |
6 |
| Depth..... |
7 |
Despite all the great things I’ve heard about Bolaño, I’d never read anything by him. The Savage Detectives has long been on my to-read list. After reading Amulet, I wish more that I had read The Savage Detectives; these novels share characters and events, so not only do I now realize what great writing I’ve been missing out on, at times I felt I was perhaps lacking a lot of context.
Still, Amulet paints a stunning picture of a time and place; the revolutionary South America described is rendered vividly. The plot is whole and cogent. I never felt lost or like I was picking up where something left off. I’ve done very little investigating into this book’s relationship with Bolaño’s most popular work (I didn’t want to spoil things for myself) but I suspect this is more akin to a side story, something existing in the same circle of characters but unrelated in consequence. …
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