** This is a republishing of a blog post I originally wrote for my old Blogger book blog (I still have a number of posts stored over there that I haven't moved over here yet.. it's quite the process!) in January of 2012.

The Alhambra in Granada, Spain

A reader could find many commonalities between Washington Irving and his characters. Named after Revolutionary War hero and President #1 George Washington, (whom Irving actually met), Irving craved action and adventure from an early age. If he wasn't reading about the journeys of others, he was crafting his own in his mind's eye. Irving, like many of his characters, also had his share of darkness and grief.

above:caricature of Irving by David Levine

Here's a sad but true real-life literary story for you - Washington Irving was close friends with writer Sir Walter Scott as well as Jewish philanthropist and advocate Rebecca Gratz (Scott, with Irving's recommendation, went on to use Gratz as his inspiration for the character Rebecca in his novel Ivanhoe). Rebecca was besties with Matilda Hoffman, who later became Irving's fiancee. In 1809, Hoffman passed away from consumption (tuberculosis) at the young age of 17, leaving Irving understandably devastated. Sadly, Irving lost his father the very next year. Deciding to "get away from it all", Irving traveled to Europe to focus on work. During that time, he did make attempts at relationships (at different times, not simultaneously ;-) with writers Emily Foster and Mary Shelley (who wrote that cute little Frankenstein book you might have read. Neither courtship worked out, it's believed that he never really recovered from the loss of Matilda. Irving remained a bachelor his entire life.

young Washington Irving

Matilda Hoffman

Rebecca Gratz

Originally written in 1832, The Alhambra is Washington Irving's account of his tour/three month stay as a resident of the Moorish palace commonly known as The Alhambra. At the time of his stay, the palace was very much run down, essentially abandoned save for a couple of local caretakers. The publication of Irving's book brought renewed interest not only to the palace but the surrounding areas in Spain. Today, the palace is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world. In addition to his descriptions of the palace and its legends, Irving, along with his friend, Prince Alexis Dolgorouki, Russian Minister to the Court of Persia, also tours surrounding communities to get a feel for the area that to this day is so steeped in mystery and lore.

Prince Alexis

Monsieur Perdu calls himself a literary apothecary. From his floating bookstore in a barge on the Seine, he prescribes novels for the hardships of life. Using his intuitive feel for the exact book a reader needs, Perdu mends broken hearts and souls. The only person he can't seem to heal through literature is himself; he's still haunted by heartbreak after his great love disappeared. She left him with only a letter, which he has never opened. After Perdu is finally tempted to read the letter, he hauls anchor and departs on a mission to the south of France, hoping to make peace with his loss and discover the end of the story. Joined by a bestselling but blocked author and a lovelorn Italian chef, Perdu travels along the country’s rivers, dispensing his wisdom and his books, showing that the literary world can take the human soul on a journey to heal itself.

Amazon.com

Translated from German by Simon Pare, The Little Paris Bookshop was another title on my highly anticipated releases of 2015. I mean, what bookworm isn't going to be curious about a story written around a man who doles out book titles as medicine, calling his bookshop The Literary Apothecary? No brainer, right?! Having now read the book, I personally feel the synopsis is a little misleading, at least in part. 

From his boat on the Seine, Jean Perdu runs his floating bookshop where he listens to the life troubles of booklovers and suggests titles that would pertain to their particular situations. Jean's trouble is, he can't seem to heal from his own personal heartache, a woman who suddenly and mysteriously walked away from their relationship 20 years earlier, leaving only a sealed letter. For these 20 years, Jean has never opened the letter, assuming it would just be your garden variety "Dear John" type explanation that would only make the break sting more. Jean befriends a woman in his apartment building, who convinces him to finally find out what his old flame had to say for herself. When he does finally read the letter, Jean is shocked at what it says. So much so that he soon decides to take his boat and go on an impromptu boat trip chasing after old ghosts. Shortly after departure, he even writes in a letter to a friend, explaining his sudden need to up and leave all, "I'm off to tame my ghosts."

Now, the synopsis does mention Jean deciding to take this boat trip, and how he is joined by his friends, writer Max and chef Salvatore -- also hoping to find healing answers on the trip --- Salvatore wanting to heal his own love woes, Max wanting to feel inspired to write again. My issue is, given the title of the book, just how much the story focuses on the boat trip, rather than the books. Now, I can get into a good boat trip story when it's done well... the trouble here is even as a boat trip tale, it was only mildly interesting most of the time. 

The reader hangs out while the guys float down the river indulging in guy talk, dancing tango in the clubs, getting kicked out of clubs, getting stoned on the boat deck.... but what about the books?! A title or bookish reference is sprinkled here and there but largely the books are just referenced when they are used to pay for this river trip when all other funds run short. Yet, right on the front jacket flap we find this book described as "a love letter to books, meant for anyone who believes in the power of stories to shape people's lives." There is one book (a fictional title) mentioned in the story that is described as being like life to Jean but I didn't feel like I, as the reader, got a solid idea as to why. He just mentions some passages that he found moving, but you don't get a strong sense of why this book seems to be everything to him. 

I also struggled to understand Jean's fixation on his old flame, Manon. I found it to be more of a unhealthy and selfish (on Manon's part) situation. Manon is written as having this bohemian, gypsy-type spirit, speaking in poetics -- "you and I, we're like the stars" kind of stuff, without really saying much of anything. When she does talk of the love between herself and Jean, it's always about what he does for her, and what she must have from him. I just wasn't feeling her, the relationship being too conditional for my liking. But man, Jean would not let that girl go. 

So yeah, unfortunately one of my highly anticipated reads turned out to be just so-so for me. Not terrible, just not all that memorable. It started out well, there were some nice bookish bits at the start that had me hopeful, such as this little nugget:

"Books aren't eggs, you know. Simply because a book has aged a bit doesn't mean it's gone bad. What is wrong with old? Age isn't a disease. We all grow old, even books. But are you, is anyone, worth less, or less important, because they've been around for longer?" ~Jean Perdu

But as a whole, it ended up falling a little flat for me. I will say that the most interesting character for me was Samy, a woman the guys fish out of the river one night, who ends up being very important to two of them later on. I did really enjoy the way she was written. But she doesn't make an appearance until near the last bit of the novel. 

FTC Disclaimer: BloggingForBooks.com and Crown Publishers, a branch of Penguin Random House, kindly provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. The opinions above are entirely my own.

A prime number is a lonely thing. It can only be divided by itself or by one, and it never truly fits with another. Alice and Mattia are both "primes"-misfits haunted by early tragedies. When the two meet as teenagers, they recognize in each other a kindred, damaged spirit. Years later, a chance encounter reunites them and forces a lifetime of concealed emotion to the surface. But can two prime numbers ever find a way to be together? A brilliantly conceived and elegantly written debut novel, The Solitude of Prime Numbers is a stunning meditation on loneliness, love, and what it means to be human.

Amazon.com

This was another one of my picks for the #AntiBullyReads Readathon this week, and I gotta say, I'm kinda bummed that this book doesn't seem to be more well known in the United States, but maybe I can help remedy that :-) Elsewhere in the world, this book has been translated into 39 languages and in 2008 won its Italian author, Paolo Giordano, Italy's most prestigious literary award, the Premio Strega. 

This story follows the lives of Alice Della Rocca and Mattia Balossino, introducing them as children in 1985, closing the story in their adulthood in 2007. Early on in their lives, both suffer traumatic experiences that affect and form them for the rest of their lives. Young Alice is pushed by her father to pursue an athletic career in skiing, but she can't find a way to get him to see that she has no inclination or natural talent for the sport, and all he can see is future Olympics. Her inexperience leads her into a skiing accident which ends up leaving her permanently crippled, though the weaker leg gets somewhat easier to hide as she gets older. What she doesn't hide is her emotional pain from the disconnect she and her parents can't seem to overcome. Her mother seems to be terminally ill with something, her father always focused on either work or his wife. Alice seems to be constantly pressed with this home atmosphere of "You could be better". At school, Alice yearns for the acceptance of popular girl / school bully Viola Bai, who requires a "test of loyalty" from all who want to be in her circle. The test she offers Alice proves to be permanently emotionally scarring to Alice. So between the teasing and looks at school about her leg and the loneliness she continues to feel at home, Alice develops anorexia... something else that follows her well into adulthood.

Then there's Mattia's story. Mattia is one half of a set of twins. While Mattia quickly proves to be highly intelligent and gifted in math and sciences, his sister Michela is severely mentally handicapped, not even able to form full sentences even by grade-school age. Mattia and Michela stick close together, but part of Mattia resents how much attention Michela requires from everyone. At times he feels "held back" by her condition, socially stifled by being associated with her. When an opportunity comes up for Mattia to attend a classmate's party, both Mattia and Michela are invited but while walking to the classmate's house, Mattia makes the spur decision to leave Michela in a nearby park while he attends the party, instructing her to stay put on a bench until he comes back. Mattia loses track of time at the party and when he comes back Michela is nowhere to be found. A search party is quickly put together, but Michela is never found. It's assumed that she fell into the nearby river and her body drifted off, never to be discovered. Mattia carries the guilt of his sister's disappearance for the rest of his life, causing him to become a "cutter" (compulsively making cuts in his skin whenever the pain gets overwhelming). As Mattia grows into his teen years, his parents seem to find him increasingly weird and creepy ... the way he is super smart but never wants to talk and seems to have no friends. So, like Alice, even his home life is isolating.

He kept nodding as he reviewed Mattia's work, trying in vain to suppress a jolt of envy for this boy who seemed so unfit for existence but was doubtless gifted in this subject, something he himself had never really felt. 

 

>> description of Mattia's college thesis being reviewed by a mathematics professor

Alice and Mattia end up at the same school, both finding themselves being taunted, bullied, and / or whispered about for their traumas. Alice is instantly intrigued by Mattia, but Viola deems him a "psychopath". Alice and Mattia develop a friendship through their shared ostracism, though many aspects of the friendship prove difficult for both. They struggle to easily speak to each other and at times Alice's brusque way of speaking to Mattia comes off as borderline bullying, but there seems to be an unspoken deep bond. There lies the natural understanding, free of judgement, between them that makes the friendship so true and necessary. Whatever is said (or not said that needs to be..), they have a way of being each other's anchor in a world where no one else seems to understand them. At least until graduation day hits and life takes its natural course, which sometimes means people have to part. Mattia is offered a spot at a university in Spain and when he goes to tell Alice, she lashes out at him, saying horrible, hurtful things. We always hurt the ones we love the most, eh? Well, Mattia swallows the hurt, burying himself in work. The argument causes a silence between him and Alice for years, but then the moment she calls for him, like the true friend he comes running. 

For Alice and Mattia, the high school years were an open wound that had seemed so deep it could never heal. They had passed through them without breathing, he rejecting the world and she feeling rejected by it, and eventually they had noticed that it didn't make all that much difference. They had formed a defective and asymetrical friendship, made up of long absences and much silence, a clean and empty space where both could come back to breathe when the walls of their school became too close for them to ignore the feeling of suffocation. 

 

But over time, the wound of adolescence gradually healed. The edges of skin met in imperceptible but continuous movements...Finally, a new layer of skin, smooth and elastic, had replaced the missing one. The scar slowly turned from red to white, and ended up merging with all the others. 

It's during these later adult years that a moment comes up which forces Alice to face her past demons. What she decides to do ... I didn't 100% agree with. I was with her through a lot of it, but that last little decision I felt went too far. Karma doesn't need to be that big a bitch. Sometimes you just gotta be the better person and let it go. 

Along with Alice and Mattia, there's also the side stories of Denis and Soledad. Denis is perhaps the one other friend Mattia has through most of his school days, but their friendship is strained as well because Denis is in love with Mattia, Mattia is aware of it but doesn't want to encourage Denis. The story then sheds light on Denis' struggles with becoming comfortable in his homosexuality, eventually getting to a place where he and Mattia can honestly be just friends. Soledad is the housekeeper in Alice's home as well as Alice's unofficial nanny-figure. Alice is sometimes seen bullying Soledad into giving her what she wants, even if it might cost Soledad her job. Soledad also has a backstory of a husband who walked out on her, but to hide / avoid the shame of it all, she creates a story which makes her a grieving widow for a beloved husband, allowing her to have social respectability rather than shaming. 

While this story doesn't solely focus on easily identifiable bullies, I liked how it brought to light all the subtle ways people, children and adults alike, can be bullied, and how it can affect them for the rest of their lives. It doesn't always have to be physical. In fact, I'd say emotional abuse tends to last a hell of a lot longer than the temporary pain of being physically slammed into or up against something. This novel also addresses the crime of parents who never really get to know their children as individuals, embracing their uniqueness or allowing them to just be who they are suppose to be, instead forcing agendas and the unlived dreams of the parents onto them. It's just tragic.

His father quickly disappeared into the kitchen, as if looking for an excuse to get away. Mattia thought that was all that was left, that parental affection resolves itself into small solicitudes, the concerns his parents listed on the telephone every Wednesday: food, heat and cold, tiredness, sometimes money. Everything else lay as if submerged at unreachable depths, in a mass of subjects never addressed, excuses to be made and received and memories to be corrected, which would remain unchanged. 

 

He walked down the corridor to his bedroom. He was sure he would find everything as he had left it, as if that space was immune to the erosion of time, as if all the years of his absence constituted only a parenthesis in that place. He felt an alienating sense of disappointment when he saw that everything was different, like the ceasing to exist. The walls that had once been pale blue had been covered with cream-colored wallpaper, which made the room look brighter. Where his bed had been was the sofa that had been in the sitting room for years. His desk was still at the window, but on it there was no longer anything of his, just a pile of newspapers and a sewing machine. There were no photographs, of him or Michela.

 

He stood in the doorway as if he needed permission to enter. His father came over with a glass of water and seemed to read his thoughts. 

"Your mother wanted to learn to sew," he said, as if by way of justification. "But she soon got fed up with it."

 

*Mattia returning home after college

 

So yeah, American readers, let's get this one some more notice over here! It's so beautifully written, it'll be on my suggestions list from now on! 

Daughter Of Venice by Donna Jo Napoli -- this one had some real life inspiration too. Napoli says the character of Donata was inspired by the real life story of Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia, a female scholar, musician and artist who in 1678 became the very first woman ever to earn a university degree, hers being a doctoral degree in Philosophy from the University of Padua, Italy. 

Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia

In Daughter of Venice, Donata's older sister is pretty much the shoe-in for being the one to be married off with the big ol' dowry, so Donata and her twin sister anxiously await to see what fates their father has in store for them. Since Donata and her sister Laura are twins, it gives the girls an alternative to a convent, sort of -- one may be chosen to stay in the family home and be the "maiden aunt" / free-of-charge nanny to any of her brother's future children. But only one. Everyone else, off to the convent with ye... unless they were so bold to run off and become courtesans. But from what I've read, that life wasn't as glamorous as it sounded either. Donata just knows the convent isn't for her. She loves learning but feels like she's missing out on most of the world out there because her father is reluctant to give his daughters educations past what they need to function within their gender roles. Donata begs and eventually gains her father's permission to attend the tutoring sessions of her brothers during the afternoons, while in the mornings she sneaks off into town dressed as a fisherman boy.

Her first unchaperoned excursion ends up in her being harassed by street bullies, where in her escape she runs into the Jewish Ghetto. There she meets a young man by the name of Noe who cleans her up. She asks for a hat to disguise herself more so she can get back to her house without another fight (Noe doesn't realize she's a girl) so he gives her what he has on hand, a yarmulke and a pair of shoes, which when she says she'd like to repay him, he tells her he has a job for her but it'll take a month to pay off the debt (at first read, I thought Good Lord! What lousy job does he have in mind?! but it makes sense later when he explains). So we then see Donata (who finds herself taking a job in the Jewish Ghetto, and finds that she is a girl impersonating a boy impersonating a girl in this whole clusterfuddle she gets into to pay off a debt without her parents knowing). Weird, for some reason writing that just made me think of the movie Can't Buy Me Love (the original one with Patrick Dempsey and the girl no one can remember). Donata spends the month learning about how the non-nobles live and finds herself falling for Noe ... what else would you expect from a teenage girl isolated from the rest of the world who meets her first college age boy? :-)

While this book wasn't uber riveting, it was a fun and interesting read with a ton of history for one to take in, and presented in a lively way! Lots of story elements to have fun with here... teenager fighting parents she finds slightly overbearing, secret disguises, first loves, battling bullies, finding new friends in the most unexpected places... should be a good bit of fun for YA readers or just fans of YA novels ... sorry, no zombies :-(