Lose Ends

“Novels gave you a completely false idea about life, they told lies and implied there were endings when in reality there were no ending, everything just went on and on and on.” Truth.

13.13 Case Histories

It feels lately like every time I tidy up one lose end at least ten more unravel, and this month the ends are out of control!  I can’t even focus my mind on reading a book, which kind of made Case Histories perfect. 

At the center of the plot is Jackson Brodie, a PI and father who is hired by various people to solve their various mysteries.  But it is much more complicated than that because all the stories over lap and intertwine is both insignificant and significant ways.  But really each story is about family, and how they look like one thing from the outside but are on the inside very different, much like the mysteries being investigated.  I have seen Atkinson’s name a lot in the book press lately and I can see why people read her books.  She is a true storyteller, but I am not sure she is a great mystery writer.  The cases are all solved off screen leaving very little for the reader to play with and so I felt less invested in the outcomes.  There are also point of view and time shifts that I found a bit jarring, but overall Brodie is a character that I would like to spend more time with since he seems to be the only one with more lose ends to tie up than me.

**Let's be honest, this is a terrible post - but I swear to you I cannot get my mind to focus.  I am leaving tomorrow for a ten day trip overseas and I haven't packed, and when we come back we need to deal with possibly moving to one place, or definitely moving to another when, truth be told, all I want to do is stay still.

False Advertising

“Maybe nobody ever saw themselves completely objectively.  Every self-image needs a flattering mirror or two.” Truth.

12.13 The Devil in Silver

This book is classified as literary horror.  Wrong. I suppose it is Literary because there are words, but there is no horror involved; suspense maybe but no horror.  Instead it is a social commentary on the woes of the mental health system.  In a lot of ways it felt like I was reading a fictionalized version of someone’s college thesis. Are there too many drugs being handed out like candy? Yes. Are there doctors who hands are tied by hospital boards who only care about making money? Yes. Are these huge issues that need to be fixed? Absolutely.  Does this book show us all of this? Yes.  Does it offer any answers? No.  And so I am left wondering what the point was.

Spoilers ahead!

The only answer suggested here is to run away, not to mention the fact that the over riding assumption is that all the patients in the hospital has been put there wrongfully.  So everyone is over drugged and everyone wants out.  One character does manage to escape and while it makes for a bit of a heart-warming moment for the story, I have to wonder what she will do now? She has no money, no job skills, and no network of support.  How can anyone manage that way? At the end of the book the remaining characters prove themselves to be literal savages and yet I am supposed to think that they are the good guys?  And our main characters, I never understood him in the first place.  So many of his actions, after being brought to this hospital under such odd circumstances, made no sense.  Why didn’t he call someone?  Why didn’t he ask the doctors or nurses for help?  Why didn’t he ask any of the visitors to help him?  And why, when he spoke to his family, did he act like he was calling from home?  How could he expect anyone to help him when no one knew anything about his situation?

Again, I have no idea what the point was, and if I hadn’t been reading the book for a group I never would have finished it.

Safe Travels

“Just dreaming it is nice… Even if it doesn’t happen. Just dreaming it is nice.” Truth.

11.13 Ask The Passengers

Whenever I am in an airport I can’t help but wonder where all those people are going.  Are the going towards something or leaving something behind?  Is it the end of their journey or the beginning?  And somehow it always feels both happy and sad to me.  In Ask the Passengers, Astrid looks up to those planes and sends her love to the travelers.  She sends it to them because she feels like she doesn’t have anyone else to give it to, so instead of not giving it at all she gives her love to strangers – isn’t that wonderful?  Isn’t it powerful?  Asking teenagers to not give up on it but to give it anyway.  Thank you AS King.  In a brilliant twist, King also shows those passengers receive Astrid’s love, right when they need it, and isn’t that the truth too.  Aren’t there moments when we all just need something from someone, anything: a smile, a hello, just a bit of positive energy, something to help us through.  In the story, Astrid is discovering something about herself and as she puts it out there she is desperate for those around her to give her some love back; some raise to the occasion and some disappoint in heartbreaking ways, but the important thing is that she keeps trying.

I keep wondering why I haven’t heard more about King’s work.  This is her fourth book; I have read one other and can’t wait to get my mitts on the rest. She is really great at writing stream of consciousness in a way that rings very true.  I keep wanting to compare her to John Green as their books share a compulsively readability trait, but while many complain that Green’s characters act older than they appear (a la Dawson’s Creek) King’s characters act more true to the reality (a la Friday Night Lights) and I would imagine that fact sends some parents through the roof – these kids cuss, have sex, and think their parents are idiots.  Let’s be real, that is real. I have to think that is what has kept these books off my radar, and that is a real shame because while her characters do those things that parents hate they are also to the core good.   They support their friends, search for who they real are independent of what other people want them to be, and they don’t give up on those idiot parents even though they have every reason to.  As a parent, I hope my son will do this for me and I thank King for showing him how.

The Rumor Mill

“I suppose villainy, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.” Truth.

10.13 The Daughter of Time

Last month, archeologists found the skeleton of Richard III in a carpark in Leicester.  My first thought was why the hell are we spending money digging up carparks, and my second thought was The Daughter of Time.  Or simply put:  The Truth.

There were many rumors about King Richard addressed in Daughter of Time, and the discovery of his body has put a few to rest and confirmed another:

Withered arm – No evidence

Hunchback – Evidence of severe scoliosis, so not a hunch per say but he certainly would have appeared hunched over.

Born with full set of teeth – No evidence

His kingdom for a horse – Lots of carpark jokes

But one rumor remains.  Was he a murderer of boys?

The portrait Grant looks at in the book.

The facial reconstruction of his skull.

Daughter of Time sets out to answer that question; trying to consider the facts of history as opposed to the facts claimed by historians and other educated men of the time.  The book has a clear opinion that I won’t spoil here, but what I really noticed is how much we love a mystery that cannot be solved.  We go back again and again even though a solution can never be truly discovered. Why do we still wonder about Richard and the boys in the Tower when so many other rulers have been overtly awful?  Why are we still trying to unmask Jack the Ripper when so many horrible murderers, with many more victims, are found out and imprisoned? Where is Jimmy Hoffa and why do we care?  I don’t think it is because we actually want to know the answer, I think it is because we love to gossip and spread rumors, the more sordid the better.  Be damned the truth.

War – Huh - Good God Y’all

“Nothing made you feel so useless as another person’s grief.” Truth.

9.13 Days of Blood and Starlight

This is the second in the Daughter of Smoke and Bone Trilogy and it shows that war truly is good for absolutely noting.  It also shows that the second book in a trilogy can be totally engaging and advance a plot in a totally meaningful way.

In the first book the war between the Chimera and the Seraphim is set up.  We see the history and build up and understand that it will be an all or nothing war – one side will cease to exist.  In Days, we see it actually happen.  And we see it keep happening because the killing never stops, even if you destroy one side another side appears.  This is a harsh book and I kind of loved it for that.  It doesn’t gloss over the hard stuff, or the grey area.  There are characters that we care for on both sides; we are shown that each side is justified and awful at the same time. 

Karou is still torn between sides no longer because of love but because of her constant questioning about what it right, and, because she is from the human world, she knows how much worse it could be.  They could have guns.  And as this story ends and we wait for the next to be written, both warring leaders now know what Karou knows and they are heading for the human world where we make gods of some and monsters of others, and arm them both in unimaginable ways.

I hate guns.  So much.