books? oh yeah!

my reading has slacked off a bit, and my blogging even more so.

sorry! i read a couple of books back in February that i did not blog about:

10. Blindspot By a Lady in Disguise and a Gentleman in Exile by Jane Kemensky and Jill Lepore

Okay, wacky premise (WHAT IF?!): It’s Colonial Boston, Mr. Stewart Jameson has just arrived from Scotland (he’s left because he owes these guys money) and he’s a portrait painter and he needs an apprentice. Ms. Fanny Easton grew up in a wealthy family, was going to marry her painting tutor (plus she was already pregnant (by the painter tutor) but she finds him having sex with her slave girl so she calls off the wedding. Her father, the town’s Supreme Judge or whatever, sends the painter and slave girl away and when it comes time for Fanny to give birth he takes the baby and tells Fanny her child was stillborn. Fanny knows her dad is lying and runs away to make a life of her own. She ends up in the cotton mill or some kind of fabric factory. For years. Then she sees Jameson’s apprentice notice in the paper. So she dresses up like a boy (her hair is cut to the scalp for bugs and whatnot), changes her name to Francis Weston, and gets the apprentice job. Hilarity ensues.

There’s a lot going on in this book. Almost too much. Clever in parts, the way they talk; there’s loads of wordplay, bawdy wordplay at that. LOTS of bawdy wordplay, actually. It’s… I hate to have to say it but it’s overkill. There is a fine line between how many times something is funny and clever and then it becomes over used and boring. These two authors take it to the limit and beyond.

Not to say that the authors don’t know what they are talking about, you can tell they are really keen on American history. They know their stuff. It was just overkill on the sex jokes. And I like sex jokes!

Plot… there was too much going on. There’s the semi-gay/bisexual thing going on with Jameson and Weston. There’s the politics of the time (whigs v. tories). There’s a whole anti-slavery plot going on as well. And of course, a murder mystery. This? IS TOO MUCH. Which is a shame because by the end, you don’t really care what’s going to happen. There’s so much going on you lose interest. Sad but true.

The part I did like about it is that Fanny learns that even as a woman she’s not really “free”. She’s not a slave, of course, but she gets to go about as a man and learns the freedoms of being a white man, and so she’s conflicted (i don’t like that word, is there a better one?) about going back to being a woman. She wants to paint and be her own person, not necessarily marry some guy and run a household. So, points for Fanny’s conflict.

9. Nemesis by Jo Nesbø

More Swedish crime fiction. It’s a longish book, but stay with it. This book has more twists and turns than any I’ve ever read. The only problem is that it seems a bit far-fetched. This is book 6 in a series (i think) but I’m not sure that all six books have been translated into English.

Now remember, it’s a translation, so it might not read as smooth as you’re used to, but I thought it was all right really. The only thing I could not get used to was all the names of towns and such, they’re Swedish and I’m not really sure how to pronounce all the vowel sounds. Also, the main character… his name is Harry. Which is fine. But his last name? is Hole. Here in the U.S. Harry Hole would be an awful name! And every time the book had his whole name (heh, hole name) I would snicker. I’m guessing that Hole doesn’t mean hole in Sweden and that perhaps it’s pronounced hol-uh?

In this book a murder is pinned on none other than detective Harry Hole, and he has to figure it out before his police friends can arrest him. You know how it goes.

8. The Learners by Chip Kidd

You know how I’m ALWAYS charmed by clever? This book is no exception. GREAT BOOK. The main character, Happy, is a graphic artist in the 1950s, fresh out of college. He goes to work at a small ad agency somewhere in New England (I can’t remember, wait it was Connecticut.) And he’s living the life.

Then he designs an add for Dr. Milgram who is looking for people for an experiment. One of his only friends ends up killing herself. Happy finds out that before she committed suicide she had taken part in Dr. Milgram’s experiment. Eventually Happy volunteers for the experiment to see what it’s all about.

Clever plot. Very clever writing. Fantastic book.

Tags: books, Scandinavian crime fiction