Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham

 

It has been quite a few years since I read this novel, but I thought it was absolutely terrific and I remember it vividly. The story opens when the main character Philip is a lonely young boy with a club foot being raised by his aunt and uncle. As soon as he is old enough to get away, he moves to Germany and then France where he decides to become a visual artist. That part was extremely interesting to me, as it seemed that, although art and education and customs of every kind have changed so much in the last hundred years, the inner work and the shame of “becoming an artist” have not changed in any way. It seemed very fresh and relevant. There is a “Least Likely To” type of girl who falls in love with Philip and dies by suicide.

 

Phillip decides that he doesn’t have what it takes to be an artist either, so he returns to London to study medicine. There he meets a server at a restaurant who is incredibly toxic. He falls in love with her and is completely under her sway, supporting her when she gets pregnant by another man. He seriously needs to get himself to a meeting of Codependents Anonymous! I won’t spoil the whole story but let me just give you a couple of key words: “sex work” and “syphilis.” But you will be happy to know that Philip eventually finds happiness and even love.

 

“The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot

 

This poem is perfect, and I don’t even know what I could possibly say about it. The back of the copy of The Wasteland and Other Poems that I have says “Few readers need any introduction to the work of the most influential poet of the twentieth century.” So there you go. I remember when I was a kid I liked the way the poem is so interior (as in, the interior of someone’s head), and how it was about someone who was getting old, and I just liked how it sounds. My mom used to recite and read this poem to us and I can still clearly hear in my mind just the way she would intone

 

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question. . .                              
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit.

  In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

 

and then later:

 

  I grow old . . . I grow old . . .                                              
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

  Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

  I do not think they will sing to me.

 

She explained to me that when you’ve had certain kinds of dental work you don’t dare to eat a peach.

 

T.S. Eliot is an example of someone who was a horrible bigot but who managed to keep it out of his poetry (as far as I’m aware.) I wish Baroness Orczy and some others could be more like that. I’m psyched for more modernist poetry to come!

 

 

Grass on the Wayside by Natsume Soseki

 

I really enjoyed reading this. It was almost as great as Soseki’s 1914 book Kokoro. It’s about a middle-aged curmudgeon who doesn’t know how to get along with anyone, especially his wife and his family. This curmudgeon had been adopted into another family as a child, which was apparently a common Japanese custom of the period, but later the adoption was reversed and he returned to his original family. Now his onetime adoptive father has resurfaced, unsuccessful and unsavory and grasping for money, and our curmudgeon isn’t sure what the right thing to do is. According to the introduction, the story is autobiographical and the main character is supposed to be a very close match to Soseki. But I don’t understand how that can be—how could anyone who has social skills as poor as the main character have the insight to present the situation the way the author does? If the author were really as blinkered as the main character, there’s no way he could have written this book.

 

I’m looking forward Soseki’s next book in 1915. But oh no! It’s his last one!

 

A Bride of the Plains by Baroness Orczy

 

As you may know, I’m a big Baroness Orczy fan. This year I have to give her credit for something very special: although basically the entire world is embroiled in war, she is the ONLY author to address this. She was the ONLY one to write about war, and in Hungary in the Carpathian basin, more or less where all the trouble began. (Okay, I guess there’s also Mariano Azuela writing about the Mexican revolution. But still, props to the Baroness!) I know the production schedule for publishing a novel is pretty long, but a lot of these Edwardians wrote two books a year, and I do think some of them could have at least acknowledged in some way, even thematically, that there’s a world war going on, a pretty big deal! (PS. Are they still Edwardians? What am I supposed to call them now? Baroness Orczy ain’t no modernist!)

 

Anyway, no one seems to set their novels in the present day, and in fact Baroness Orczy is no exception; A Bride of the Plains is set in what seemed to me like a non-specific time in the past. But the book’s opening takes a pretty clear anti-war tone. It’s almost the day when young men in this little burg are conscripted into the army, a sad day for all:

 

On this hideous day all the finest lads in the village are taken away to be made into soldiers by the abominable Government? Three years! Why, the lad is a mere child when he goes—one-and-twenty on his last birthday, bless him! still wanting a mother’s care of his stomach, and a father’s heavy stick across his back from time to time to keep him from too much love-making.

 

Three years ! When he comes back he is a man and has notions of his own. Three years! What are the chances he comes back at all? Bosnia! Where in the world is that? My God, how they hate it! They must go through with it, though they hate it all-every moment.

 

By the way, I realize that there is probably a glut of war books coming down the pipe, and in a few years I’ll be very nostalgiac for the kind of books I read this year.

 

Anyway! This is the story of a girl, Elsa, who tries to be true to Andor, the boy she loves who’s been sent off to war. But when it seems that he’s been killed, she knuckles under to her mother’s pressure to marry the bad-tempered richest man in town. But on the eve of her wedding,

Andor returns!

(spoiler show)

 

The downfall of this book is the same problem that Orczy always has: anti-Semitism. Usually it’s just a few throwaway descriptions, but here the villains are an Evil Jew and Evil Jewess. Kind of ruined the book. That’s the whole thing about bigoted people; they just can’t let it go. If you hate Jews so much, Emma Orczy, why don’t you just stop writing about them? But no, she can’t help herself! Maddening. I will say that there’s a lot of suspense and action in this book, if you can get past the bad taste in your mouth.

 

The Underdogs (Los de Abajo) by Mariano Azuela

 

This interesting novel about the Mexican Revolution is cynical toward everyone concerned. The main characters are peasants who become rebels. There are a lot of funny bits. The most depressing part is how the women are treated like garbage by everyone. You get the impression that the people of Mexico will get the shaft, no matter who wins. This is the first Mexican novel I have encountered in this project and I hope I will find more.

 

Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

 

I like Herland even more than 1911’s Moving The Mountain, and almost as much as “The Yellow Wallpaper,” which I think is one of the finest short stories. Although Gilman is famous for being a feminist, I don’t think she gets as much credit as she deserves for being a speculative fiction writer.

 

Three male explorers hear of a country that consists only of women, so they decide to check it out, and with great trouble make their way in. Jeff is a tender soul who glorifies motherhood and believes in being a perfect gentleman to women. Terry is a handsome man about town, kind of rapey and full of himself, and he thinks women should be pretty and serve him. The narrator, Vandyck Jennings, is sort of in-between these two and in general presents a “rational” point of view.

 

They are amazed to discover a beautiful utopia populated only by women, with wildly different customs from their own. In this country they don’t have poverty, they raise their children communally, they wear comfy clothes, etc. Long ago, a volcanic eruption and slave uprising led to a group of women who were cut off from the rest of the world. A few of them were miraculously able to reproduce as the result of sort of an exalted mental state, and this ability was passed down through the generations. There are so many novels about all-female societies where this happens—Ammonite by Nicola Griffith and Jane Fletcher’s Celaeno series spring to mind—but Herland must be the first.

 

The women the three explorers meet are all strong, intelligent, athletic, good teachers, and able to get things done. They confound the explorers’ expectations at every turn because they have no idea how to “behave like women.” Gilman takes the gender binary away and everyone becomes a person; however, she certainly has a rosy view of how nice an all-female society, or any society, could be.

 

The three explorers each fall in love and insist on marrying their sweethearts, which the women agree to in order to humor them, although marriage is a meaningless concept to them. All this time there has been no romantic love in the country because, well, when the men are gone, it’s just impossible! But they haven’t been missing it.

 

Terry and his wife Alima don’t get along. He attempts to rape her, but she kicks him in the balls and summons help from her friend in the room next door. Terry is put on trial, and the local Over Mother sentences him to be sent back to the outside world, with his word as a gentleman not to tell anyone about their country. At first Terry is obstinate.

 

“The first thing I’ll do is to get an expedition fixed up to force an entrance into Ma-Land!”

“Then,” they said quite calmly, “he must remain an absolute prisoner always.”

“Anesthesia would be kinder,” urged Moadine.

“And safer,” added Zava.

“He will promise, I think,” said Ellador [Jennings’ wife.]

And he did.

 

(This part reminded me of Houston, Houston, Do You Read? by James Tiptree, Jr.)

 

So Terry leaves, with Jennings and Ellador to escort him. Next year is the sequel! From Gilman’s Wikipedia page I learned a lot of things that I didn’t know about her, including the fact that she married her first cousin, and that when she was diagnosed with incurable breast cancer she “chose chloroform over cancer” (her words.)

 

The Scarecrow of Oz by L. Frank Baum

 

I love all the Oz books! This is the one in which a little girl named Trot and her sailor pal Cap’n Bill come to Oz. They meet a lot of lovable characters like the Bumpy Man and Button Bright, and they help the Scarecrow solve a problem with the monarchy of Jinxland.

Considering that Fletcher's last book came out maybe 6 years ago, I was a little worried that she'd stopped writing. Then I spotted this on Goodreads. I tried not to get too excited, though, because the book wasn't listed on Bold Strokes Books' website...but now it is! Although, as usual, I'm wincing at what BSB has decided to charge for it. Why oh why is $9.99 your favorite price, BSB?

It's been a surprising book. A wonderful construction of a world and an enthralling reading.

Unfortunately there isn't much to say about it without touching a major spoiler the one which has to do with the origin of human life on this planet and the only female gender prospect of evolution.
Indeed just stating that this book is a sci-fi genre one and not a fantasy one, is a big spoiler.
This surprise is the key to read all the book with totally different eyes, and it makes this story so original.
, for there is a wonderful twist of the plot.

I really liked the characters, the adventure cut, the fantastic creatures, and the plot.
I'm not giving five stars because I feel the romance between Lynn and Kim is lacking depth. They both are nice, but there's a bit of superficiality, as they don't really get to know each other well, and they don't talk enough.

Just a quick consideration: a society without men is described as very very similar to our one. Just a bit of male pride, maybe, but it would be interesting to see more differences, a different balance, or unbalance, I don't know.

Warning: this book contains some torture. Although I didn't consider the physical aspects to be very graphic, the emotional aspects are awful, and the book ends without giving readers a chance to see how well the character manages to recover.

Although most of Fletcher's Celaeno series could be read in any order, I would advise newbies not to start with Shadow of the Knife, even though it's chronologically the first book (it takes place 14 years before Rangers at Roadsend). While the overall story would probably make sense, I think this is the only book in the series that doesn't explain why there are no men on Celaeno, and how reproduction works there.

This was my last unread Celaeno book. I was both looking forward to it and dreading it, because, once I finished it, that would be it – I haven't been able to find any signs that Fletcher is still writing, much less that she plans to write more in this series. Okay, so the world-building has serious problems, the pacing often isn't very good, and the books tend to end too suddenly. I know all of that, and yet something about this series really works well for me. Rangers at Roadsend and The Walls of Westernfort were my favorites, and I was hoping Shadow of the Knife would be as good or better.

Shadow of the Knife stars Ellen Mittal, a rookie in the Roadsend Militia. Farmers in the area have had hundreds of sheep stolen from them, and the Militia hasn't managed to find a single one. Ellen, increasingly frustrated with the uselessness of the Militia's efforts, talks to a Ranger friend of hers and ends up becoming involved in a deeper investigation into the thefts, which may have something to do with a gang in Eastford led by a woman known as the Mad Butcher. Ellen's life is further complicated by Hal, a new farmer in Roadsend who is either genuinely interested in her or somehow involved in the sheep thefts.

I'll start by saying that I think this might be the best-written Celaeno book. There were still some issues with the pacing, but thankfully they were due more to Fletcher's choice of protagonist than to world-building infodumping. Ellen's status as a rookie meant that she missed out on a lot of the action and strategic planning in the first half of the book, which in turn made me feel like I was missing out on the most exciting parts of the story. Things got better later on, after Ellen was promoted and given more freedom to investigate on her own. It made me wish Fletcher had chosen to write her as an older and more experienced member of the Militia.

Of course, if Fletcher had done that she would have also had to rework a few of her other choices. Not that I would have minded. Ellen seemed painfully young compared to Hal, and their romance rubbed me the wrong way right from the start. I couldn't quite get a handle on Hal, who seemed like she should have had her pick of potential lovers and yet for some reason was drawn to easily flustered Ellen. I ignored my misgivings, however, because I figured that this would be a fantasy with romantic aspects, like the other Celaeno books. Ellen would doubt Hal's intentions and suspect her of being involved in the thefts, Hal would prove her trustworthiness, and together they'd foil the villains and find love.

Sometimes when things go the way you expect them to, it's boring. It can be nice when a story shakes things up a bit. It can also be horrible. My review is going to include some spoilers from here on out, because I can't figure out how to write about this without revealing too much.

Basically, Hal is revealed to be one of the villains. I have to hand it to Fletcher, once she chose this route she went all the way. Hal wasn't just a thief who unwittingly got involved with a bunch of murderers – she stole, she lied, she was one of the ones who slit Rangers' throats, and she stood by as her cousin, the Mad Butcher, beat her elderly aunt and gave her brain damage. She did nothing to stop the Butcher from torturing Ellen, and she made it clear that, no matter what the Butcher had done or would do in the future, she was going to stand by her, because family sticks together.

Ellen's emotional reaction was awful and gut-wrenching. She felt used and betrayed, but part of her still loved Hal and wanted to believe that not everything between them had been a lie. After she was tortured, Hal came to her and healed her up a bit, and then they had sex (on page, with Ellen's remaining cuts and bruises described as “areas of heightened sensitivity”). I was horrified and, afterward, so was Ellen. At some point, her disgust and self-loathing morphed into a realization that she still loved Hal and didn't want to see her die. Although Ellen forgave Hal, I couldn't.

I suppose you could call the ending tragic. Hal was more than likely killed, although Ellen chose not to find out for certain, so that she could pretend Hal was still out there somewhere. This was one of those times when I would dearly have loved an “X years later” epilogue. I needed some kind of reassurance that Ellen eventually recovered from her emotional wounds and found happiness. Unfortunately, the book ended soon after Ellen's escape and Hal's probable death and, as far as I can tell, neither Ellen nor Hal were ever mentioned again in the series.

(spoiler show)

Of all the Celaeno books, this one is hands down the darkest and most depressing. After four books worth of SFF with romantic aspects, I don't think it was out of line to expect that this one would give me something similar. I'm incredibly sad and upset that my last unread Celaeno book turned out to be such an enormous betrayal of expectations.

 

Rating Note:

 

How am I supposed to rate something like this? On the one hand, part of me regrets reading this book, and I doubt I'll ever want to reread it. Just putting my thoughts in order so that I could write this review was draining enough. On the other hand, I really do think Fletcher's writing has gotten better, and Ellen's confused emotions during and after her captivity felt believable. Horrible, but believable.

 

I'm so deeply disappointed in this book that part of me thinks it deserves a half-star rating. Another part of me thinks I should rate it a bit higher than I am, because it packed such a serious emotional punch, even if those emotions were not the ones I wanted or expected. I settled on 1.5-stars. I feel like I might as well have thrown a dart at the entire 3-stars-and-less range.

 

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

Well. I've finished this, and I am now very angry. So very angry. All of Fletcher's other books that I've read have been sci-fi (or, more accurately, sci-fi that feels more like fantasy) with romantic aspects. This...was not that.

 

I don't know how spoilery my review is going to be, but I need to rant right now, and it will contain spoilers. So here goes.

 

 

Fletcher tried really hard to redeem Hal. Hal was nice to Ellen, she set her free, she didn't tell her the lies she was supposed to tell her, etc. I don't care. I don't consider her to be redeemable. Ellen may have forgiven her, but I couldn't bring myself to do the same. She gave an old woman, a relative of hers, brain damage. Yes, it was on accident, but it was while she was trying to hurt her on purpose. She murdered someone in cold blood. She stood by and watched as Ellen was tortured. And I don't care if the Butcher was her cousin - the Butcher was a monster, Hal knew it, and Hal's decision to stand by her was in no way a good thing.

 

Hal and Ellen's sex scene (scenes? I can't remember, I'm trying to blank it all out) while Ellen was being held captive made my gorge rise. It was painful to watch Ellen going from "I still want her, and hate myself for wanting her" to "I know she did awful things, but I love her and don't want her to die." It was more the Butcher than Hal holding Ellen captive, but I wonder, could this be called Stockholm syndrome?

 

And the bit where the partially healed wounds from Ellen's recent torture were just "sensitive areas" during sex? OMG.

 

The ending felt like an attempt to heighten the "tragic romance" feel, which just made me angrier. According to one review I read, another one of Fletcher's books refers to the events in this one and gives the full conclusion. Although I've read all the other books in the series, I can't for the life of me remember any other mentions of the characters in this book, so I'm going to need to do some searching. Hopefully one of them tells me that Hal was killed and Ellen eventually came to terms with her death and found love and happiness elsewhere.

(spoiler show)