Book Review: Benediction by Kent Haruf

I remember that I first read Kent Haruf when I was a bookseller at Lemuria and he had published Plainsong, a book that would go on to be a finalist for the National Book Award. I was so taken with his honest observations, the simple beauty of his language, and his ability to bring great dignity to characters who lead quiet lives. I loved Plainsong so much that I went back to read his previous two books, both of which are set in the same small high plains town of Holt, Colorado. (This is not a series of books, mind you. They just happen to take place in one small town.)

Thus when I heard that Haruf had a new book coming out this year, I was fairly chomping at the bit to get at it. Like his previous novels, Benediction takes Holt for its setting, and also like them, it's a slow and steady build. "Dad" Lewis is the main character, and he learns on the first page that he has cancer and that he's not long for this world. Dad is an older gentleman, hardworking and well-respected locally--if not a scion of the town, then certainly part of its backbone. He's honest and dependable, and while he has certainly been a good husband to his wife of many decades, he's less sure of the kind of father he was to his children, particularly his son. Dad's bedside recollections form much of the book, as he revisits past events that have marked him--most haunt him, but occasionally we are privy to quiet moments of joy, too.

In the meantime, other characters drift in, such as Dad's neighbor woman whose young granddaughter has come to live with her, or the new preacher in town who is in a constant struggle with his wife and son, or an elderly friend whose middle-aged daughter has moved in with her, and even Dad's two children, now adults themselves. Benediction is definitely a slow and deliberate read, but by the time you get to the hundred page mark (or so), you're so fully entrenched with the lives of these people that it's sometimes startling to realize that these are not people you know; they are not your neighbors.  But their stories seem so utterly familiar, so like your neighbors and your coworkers and the once-removed friends-of-friends.

I really do feel that Haruf has his finger on the pulse of small-town Americana: the hard work, the dreams, the aspirations, and the inevitable realization that your life is not what you thought it would become. He reveals with clinical but gentle precision the foibles of these small town folks, and he is pure genius at finding beauty in the quotidian and revealing the quiet dignity of humanity.

I am not a Christian, but I am deeply moved when, on those rare occasions, I see the true message of Christianity brought to light.  Not from those storefront Christians who are more interested in being seen in church than actually following the teachings of Christ, and certainly not from those people who sport those God-awful (pun intended) plastic bracelets proclaiming WWJD as if to indicate their membership in an elite club. In a chapter a little more than halfway through Benediction, the new preacher in town tries something new with his congregation.  Instead of kowtowing to the local sentiment regarding the war in Iraq and the 9-11 tragedy, he wants his congregation to ask themselves: really, what would Jesus do?  The preacher starts with the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes, and how maybe Jesus was only speaking metaphorically:

Because we all "know the satisfaction of hate. We know the sweet joy of revenge. How good it feels to get even. Oh, that was a nice idea Jesus had. That was a pretty notion, but you can't love people who do evil. It's neither sensible nor practical. It's not wise to the world to love people who do such terrible wrong...

But I want to say to you here on this hot July morning in Holt, what if Jesus wasn't kidding? What if he really did mean what he said two thousand years ago? What if he was thoroughly wise to the world and knew firsthand the cruelty and wickedness and evil and hate?...

And what if we tried it? What if we said to our enemies: we are the most powerful nation on earth. We can destroy you. We can kill your children. We can make ruins of your cities and villages and when we're finished you won't even know how to look for the places where they used to be...We can do all of these things to you. And more. 

But what if we say, Listen: Instead of any of these, we are going to give willingly and generously to you. We are going to spend the great American national treasure and the goodwill and the human lives that we would have spent on destruction, and instead we are going to turn them all toward creation. We'll mend your roads, expand your schools, modernize your wells and water supplies, save your ancient artifacts and art and culture...In fact, we are going to love you. And again we say, no matter what has gone before, no matter what you've done: We are going to love you... (pp 140-141)"

Unfortunately the congregation interrupts the preacher before he's finished and they raise their voices in protest in hatred, most of them walking out, shaking their heads with righteous indignation.  Because apparently that's not what their version of Jesus would do. I was crying when I read those passages and I'm tearing up again now as I transcribe them, because it's that kind of shit that moves me rather deeply. No, I'm not a Christian, but then again, neither are most Christians I know.

I I got a little off topic there, but seriously: just read Benediction. If you value quiet books of real substance over plot-driven novels with murders and/or love triangles (and I'm not saying these books don't have their rightful place on the same shelf--about one quarter of my book reviews fall under those headings), then you should read Kent Haruf.

NB: I read an advance reading copy of this book, provided at my own request by one of my terrific sales reps. Knopf will publish it in the US in late February 2013. 

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Part Deux: Readalong!

Again, I am not at all sure why I had dismissed this book in my memory as so "eh."  Sure, there's a LOT of setting up for the series, but I raced through the book this time almost as quickly as I raced through the audio on my first experience with the story. It makes me full of feels. I didn't have quite as many dogeared pages in the second half as the first half--again, probably because I was feverishly turning the pages to get to the end. Here's what I noted:

Chapter Ten, p. 164: Harry gets his broom. As long as we (and by "we" I mean "JK Rowling") are talking about the lack of Slytherin's fairness, let's address something.  First years aren't allowed to have brooms. Unless you're a Gryffindor named Harry Potter. And since Harry didn't buy it for himself and since he doesn't have a proxy guardian in the wizarding world, somebody would have needed Harry's permission to use his money to buy his broom. Which means that a professor, either Dumbledore or McGonagall, bought Harry's broom for them. As in either the headmaster or the deputy headmistress/head of house. How is that *not* blatant favoritism? Cf: This moment with CoS when Draco gets on the team and his father buys the team new brooms and everybody gets ALL up in arms about it. The school showing favoritism to one boy over all others and flouting the rules to do it vs. a parent buying equipment for his son's entire team.

Moving on.

Chapter Ten, p. 178. McGonagall only takes five points away from Hermione for trying to go after a troll. Cf: later, catching the golden trio out of bed past curfew, she takes away 50 points each. WTF? I mean, I get that Gryffindor had to be in last place for the House Cup for JK to play her final card, but for realz? I don't think so.

Chapter Eleven, p. 183. Harry decides that it's Professor Snape who's after the stone and for the first time (but not the last) in the series, it's Hermione who is the Voice of Reason: "I know he's not very nice but he wouldn't try and steal something Dumbledore was keeping safe." That's right, Harry and Ron.  Not Nice doesn't equal Evil. Don't they know that he is the very model of the anti-hero archetype?  Everybody sing along!  (Edited to add: btw, that's a whole song filk done to the tune of "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General" from The Pirates of Penzance. Why aren't you people commenting on its brilliance? It is g-d funny. Pure comic genius.)

God, don't I wish there were a gif of that? I guess this will do:

Chapter Eleven, p. 186. Okay, quidditch is awesome.  But having Lee Jordan commentate on this match is about as fair and balanced as Fox News is when discussing Obama. Enough with the blatant anti-Slytherin bias, people JKR! Later, on p. 188, McGonagall finally gets angry enough to do something about it.  She's supposed to be the fair one and it took her long enough.

Moving on.

Chapter Twelve, p. 194: This just makes me happy.  Little do the Weasley twins know that in going after Quirrell, they're actually pelting Voldie with snowballs.  Well done, boys.

Chapter Twelve, p. 201. I just love this description of the invisibility cloak: "It was strange to the touch, like water woven into the material." I'm not sure that could be bettered. And let's pause for a second to acknowledge how difficult it must have been to give this back to Harry. After all, he had two out of the three deathly hallows in his position. He must have known that it would only be a matter of time before getting the third. Just goes to show how far the man has grown.

Chapter Twelve, p. 209. Oh, I think I cried here when Harry's seeing his family in the Mirror of Erised for the first time: "He had a powerful kind of ache inside him, half joy half terrible sadness."

Chapter Twelve, p. 214. Dumbledore wants socks for Christmas but people insist on giving him books.  Oddly enough, I want books for Christmas but people insist on giving me socks.

Chapter 16, p. 271. Here we have foreshadowing of the end of HBP. Hermione and Ron insist on helping Harry go after Snape in order to protect the stone, Harry acts surprised about their being willing to go with him. I freely admit that I choked up at this point, too.

Chapter 16, p. 283. Ahh, the great chess match.  I'm sure this will figure heavily in today's readalong.  This is Ron at his best and it's the Ron that we see less and less of as the story goes on.  It shows bravery, strategy, and knowing the importance of the endgame, both literally and figuratively.  This is the Ron who might be worthy of Hermione one day.  It makes me sad that this Ron rarely makes appearances in later books. Something I'd like to mention, that I don't think I've ever seen anybody note before, is that takes another kind of bravery for Harry and Hermione to move on after Ron falls. It goes against almost every instinct they have to remain on the board and play the game to the end, and then move on again to the next obstacle before being able to go back and fetch help.

Chapter 16, pp. 285-287. God, where to even start?  That's our girl, cool and calm, solving the logic problem. She's smart, loyal, brave, and cunning in almost equal measure, truly embodying all four Houses. And then JKR gives her one of the worst, anti-feminist lines in the entire series: "Books! And Cleverness! There are more important things -- friendship, and bravery." Um, yeah, Hermione. You've just brilliantly demonstrated your own friendship and bravery ALONG WITH your bookish cleverness.  What the problem here, girlfriend?

Chapter 17, pp. 288-297. OMG, it's Quirrell!  Yes, I admit I totally bought into the whole "Snape-is-Evil" the first time around. I was as surprised as Harry was when it turned out to be poor, stuttering Professor Quirrell. And it was *totally* brilliant for Dumbledore to enchant the Mirror here to thwart Voldie.

Chapter 17, pp. 298-300.  Harry's conversation with Dumbledore, in which Dumbledore conveniently forgets to tell Harry that Snape never would have been in danger in the first place if it weren't for James & his friends. Dumbledore has just told Harry that he might not answer his questions, but he wouldn't lie to Harry, but I think he just did: "I believe he worked so hard this year to protect you because he felt that would make him and your father even."

But later, p. 304, when Hagrid gives Harry the photo album?  Again, I have all the feels. "Harry couldn't speak, but Hagrid understood."

But, oh, this is the worse part. Page 305. The hall is decorated with Slytherin colors because they've won the House Cup (aside: why does Hufflepuff have so few points?  That doesn't make sense. I get that they're in third place, but that seems extreme.) If Dumbledore didn't want to foment the Gryffindor/Slytherin rivalry, AND if he wanted to keep what happened with the stone somewhat secret, he shouldn't have whipped the rug out from under the Slytherins.  That's just sick, you bastard. He could have easily given Gryffindor those points the day before.

Moving On.

Okay, I love this part: the first time Neville gets his moment of glory. Because actually I think it's harder to stand up to your friends than to stand up to your enemies, and Neville actually deserved more than 10 points. I mean, come on--look at that planking! I adore Neville.

God, I loved this book.  There are many things I took issue with (obvs), but I loved it.  I love this world, I love these characters.

If you want to read more bloggers' thoughts about these books, please check out Alice's blog at Reading Rambo, because it was her brilliance that brought us all together.

Book Review: Home is a Roof Over a Pig: An American Family's Journey in China by Aminta Arrington

Huzzah, huzzah!  The first exhortation is because I finally finished this book.  The second one is because it's the first book review I've managed to post in 2013, which has actually been a fairly difficult year so far.  I started this book months ago and it took me this long to finish it not because it wasn't interesting or because I started it and put it down again, but because I was reading it in the smallest room in the house.  Every day. Sometimes twice a day.  I needn't go into more detail than that.

I find that most memoirs fall into one of two categories: a good story told by a mediocre writer, or a mediocre story told by a good writer, and Aminta Arrington's book falls into the former category.  Home is a Roof Over a Pig is her family's story of adopting a baby girl, whom they name Grace Amelie, from China and then moving there with their three small children in an attempt to give Grace a connection to her birth country. They also want their other two children to grow up with a wider world view than the typical American child's, as well as to give Grace's siblings a chance to know Grace's homeland and create a way for all of the children to share both American and Chinese identities.

Arrington's narrative style is mostly a conversational one and it serves her story well enough, though it does verge into the land of repetition on a regular basis.  It's when she tries to be more "writerly," for lack of a better word, that the writing really sticks out, but not in a good way. The chapters are more episodic rather than a linear narrative, and occasionally she jumps forward or backward in her timelines. That's okay, though, because her story is so interesting and unusual that I'd forgive the writing great deal more.

Aminta's husband Chris decides to retire from the military, giving them both a chance to re-invent their lives.  They can choose anywhere in the world to start over, and as Chris is facile with many languages and Aminta has always been interested in international relations, they know that the US is not where they want to be.  When Chris's older sons from a previous relationship move beyond their teens and their daughter Katherine is a baby, they decide to adopt a sister for her from China. During the adoption process, Aminta unexpectedly gets pregnant again with their son, Andrew, and soon the couple have three children under the age of three.

Now that Grace is a part of their family, deciding they should pick China as the place to raise their children is the easy part. The hard part is finding job placement for two adults with three small children, but in time a regional university in Shandong province called Taishan Medical College find teaching spots for Chris and Aminta, together with a tiny two-bedroom apartment in family housing. Though there are many frustrating moments when they doubt their decision to move to rural China, overall the family adapts fairly well to their new country, with the children adjusting in varying degrees and at varying speeds.  Soon they become entrenched in their neighborhood and in their teaching and church communities.

The title of the book comes from the Chinese character for "home," which Aminta learns is esentially the pictogram for 'roof' combined with the word for "pig," and that pig-farming was one of the earliest non-nomadic occupations for the ancient Chinese.  Thus, if you had a roof over a pig, you stayed put there and it was your home.  Learning tidbits about language like this is what made the book so fascinating for me. Like most Americans, I am not fluent in any language beyond my own, despite my own interest in language, dabbling in French, Spanish, and even Latin during high school and college, and taking an introductory course to linguistics in graduate school.  I may have no facility with it, but language has always interested me; learning a bit about a language whose characters are conceptual meanings rather than based on letters that combine into phonemes to create words was endlessly fascinating.

Beyond the language lessons, I especially enjoyed Arrington's stories about the young people taking her English classes--the cultural divides that become smaller and smaller as the book goes on, such as politics or the importance of family and maintaining cultural traditions, but also those that grow even wider, such as feminism, their respective views on Tibet, and the importance of independent thinking. Learning to understand (and respect) a worldview that is radically different from your own may be difficult, but both teacher and student know that it's essential to try, even, or perhaps especially, if you do not agree with it.

I'd recommend this book for people who are casually interested in China, international adoption, travel memoirs, memoirs about parenting or teaching, or simple readers looking for an unusual perspective.

NB: This book was published in hardcover in July 2012 by Overlook Press and I read an advance reading copy of it provided by my sales rep.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: READALONG!

Oh, where to start?  Alice at Reading Rambo is the readalong hostess-with-the-mostest. It is where the fun lives. All of it.  She had the brilliant idea of having us all read Harry Potter together and so here we are, discussing the first half of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. It has been a long time since I've done a close reading of the first book, so I've got dog-ears out the wazoo in my new book, purchased for the express purpose of this here readalong.  I think this was the only volume I didn't own in English, though I've got Spanish language editions of the first three and various English-language editions for all of the others, usually multiple ones.

So I'm just going to go in page order from all of my little dogears.  Some of these are praises, some of these are WTFs, some of them are merely comments. But I will just say this: revisiting the first half of this book, which was my least favorite of the series and the ones I've read fewest times, was really fun.  None of the tedium that I remembered from my first reading, which just goes to show how deeply I love these characters.

With apologies to those of you who've not read these books yet, because ahead there be spoilers.

Chapter 1, p. 3. I don't know where Little Whinging is, but it's at least two hours from London (cf p. 90, where it takes them 2.5 hours to get to King's Cross from #4 Privet Drive), so Grunnings cannot be in London.  And the wizarding population is much less than 1% of Great Britain, so WHERE ARE ALL THE WIZARDING FOLK COMING FROM whom Vernon encounters on his way to work?  This is inconsistent with the wizarding world, yet Rowling starts us off that way.  WTF?

pp. 13, 17. This is one of the rare chapters with a strict 3rd person omniscient POV--that is, lacking the subsequent Harry filter that colors everything else that the reader encounters in the books. Dumbledore is wrong for the first time in the series when he claims that Harry will be "famous for something he won't even remember." And then makes one of the biggest gambles/mistakes of his life leaving Harry with those Dursleys.  I mean come on--leaving Harry with the Dursleys, for starters, whose treatment of Harry qualifies as child abuse, and then just leaving him on the doorstep with a letter, not even waiting around to see they get him.  Harry is just over a year old at this point--he could have waken up and crawled out of that basket. Or the milkman could have wandered by and stolen him.  What kind of idiot would leave him there like that?

Chapter 2, p. 22. Mrs. Figg's house smells of cabbage.  cf: with the smell of the tent at World Cup in Goblet of Fire. I spent a lot of time in book four trying to draw a link between Mrs. Figg and the tent owner, and even more at the end of that book when Dumbledore tells the Weasleys to gather up the members of the Order and ARABELLA FIGG is one of them. OMG.

p. 27. The snake somehow knows that Harry is a Parselmouth even before Harry speaks.  What's up with that?  I can't decide if that's an inconsistency or not. But I love this scene.

Then Hagrid shows up and tells Harry something very important:

Chapter 4, p. 57. Hagrid talks about Voldemort with an insight I don't usually associate with that character.  Is this an original thought or is he parroting Dumbledore?  Either way, it struck me, not least because I love the word codswallop: "Some say he died. Codswallop in my opinion. Dunno if he had enough human left in him to die."

Also, it hurts my heart a little that when Hagrid looks at him "with warmth and respect blazing in his eyes," and Harry feels like there's been a horrible mistake.  That poor, poor boy.

p. 59  There's no way that Hagrid, who was never great shakes at magic anyway, would have been able to turn Dudley into a pig with only a Year 3 education, a full two years before sitting for his OWLs.  True, he couldn't succeed, but I doubt even Hermione as a third year would have attempted a human transfiguration. Textual inconsistency.

Chapter 5, p. 70. In what may be the greatest mystery and/or inaccuracy in the book, Harry feels no reaction when he meets Professor Quirrell.  No turban is mentioned here despite lengthy exposition about it later in the book, though it must have been present to cover up his, erm, living accessory. And since the vault at Gringott's is broken in that same day or the next, the living accessory MUST be present.  So why no reaction?  If it's only to be a red herring later in the book, that's a pretty poor reason.

p. 75. I never paid attention before, but why doesn't the wizarding world use a base-ten system for their  currency? 1: 17: 29. Sounds like Rowling wanted to use prime numbers for her galleon: sickle: knut system, but from a numerical point of view it just doesn't make any sense at all.

p. 80 And here we have our first example of blatant anti-Slytherin bias: Hagrid telling Harry that there wasn't a witch or a wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin.  Hagrid conveniently forgets that one of the Golden Gryffindor Marauders themselves was a Death Eater and betrayed Harry's parents. It's interesting, because it's quite clear over the course of the series that Hagrid has a good deal of respect for Professor Snape, so it's a tiny bit surprising to me that he tars all Slytherins with the same brush.

Not that dancing Snape cares what Hagrid thinks...

p. 81. WTF? Hagrid, lover of all animals, especially the yucky, ugly, creepy, or dangerous ones, doesn't like cats? Because they make him sneeze?  This is so laughably out of character for him that I have to wonder what Rowling was thinking.  She could have just had Hagrid buy Harry an owl with no further explanation.

p. 84 cf Harry "feeling foolish" waving his wand at Ollivander's with Professor Snape's intro to potions with the promise of no foolish wand waving. Also, measuring between Harry's nostrils to fit him for a wand? Priceless.

Chapter 7, p. 118. The second instance of blatant anti-Slytherin bias" the sorting hat, which I remind you belonged to Godric Gryffindor. Gryffindors = brave, daring, chivalrous. Hufflepuff = hardworking, just, loyal. Ravenclaw = wise, full of wit and learning. Slytherin = Macchiavellian?!? WTF? Just sayin'.

p. 123. I love Dumbledore. A few words, indeed.

But on to one of the best parts of the book:

Chapter 8, pp. 136-137. Despite student rumors to the contrary, I have never really thought that Professor Snape wanted to teach anything but potions.  Listen to the poetry and passion that intro: "subtle science and exact art of potion making" "I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimming fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses." You don't even need Alan Rickman reading these lines to make them swoon-worthy.  No, I don't believe Snap wanted DADA over Potions.

Of course that doesn't keep him from being an asshole.

Chapter 9, p. 148. Since when are Pansy Parkinson and Parvati Patil on a first name basis?  Is this a slip on Rowling's part, or does this hint that both are old wizarding families who knew each other well pre-Hogwarts?  I am surprised that that line hasn't spawned more fanfiction.

p. 160. Here is the first in a long line when Hermione saves Harry's and Ron's asses, this time with a quick Alohomora. Of course she leads them into trouble for the first time, too.  I love this scene.

p. 162 Immediately afterward, Hermione is the only one observant enough to look past Fluffy to see what he's standing on and deduce that he must be guarding something.  Clever girl.

So for fun I went and took the Pirate Monkeys Harry Potter Meyers-Briggs test again.  When I was in high school I tested ENTP, which turns out to be Sirius Black.  But when I took it just now I was INTJ, which is Severus Snape.  Take it.  Let me know what your profile is, 'k?

NB: My very first GIFs I found here and here. They are most decidedly not my work. 

Harry Potter Readalong: Post the First

I'm a day late (and more than a few dollars short) for the Harry Potter Readalong introductory post. Alice over at Reading Rambo is sponsoring it and it's going to be the readalong against which all future ones will be measured and found lacking.  If you don't already know her blog, please check it out, posthaste. Anyhoo, we're going to be reading the entire series and blogging about it every Friday for the next several ones.

So...Harry Potter.  When Harry Potter and the Sorceror's-not-Philosopher's-because-American-audiences-won't-read-a-book-about-philosophy Stone was published in the US, I was the average age of the readalongers currently participating. Which makes me comparatively ancient to the rest of y'all, but I also think it gave my first reading of the series a different slant because I was not a child when first encountering it.  I was a bookseller, so I knew about the books as they were published, but the first two times I tried to read HPSS, I couldn't get past the first few chapters. Didn't care for the story or the writing or the characters.  'Tevs. (I cared so little that I couldn't even be bothered to use the duosyllabic "whatevs.")  But basically that means that I never made it past Privet Drive, so of course I didn't like it. Nobody told me to keep reading until the bizarrely dressed giant showed up.  So that's my advice for the two people doing the readalong who've not already read HP: keep reading until the bizarrely dressed giant shows up.

Over time, though, enough people whose reading taste I respected kept urging me to give it another try, so I bought the audio version and listened to it in my car. As a captive audience, I was still tempted to turn off the first tape (ha! it wasn't even on CD), but Jim Dale's narration held my attention where the prose did not. When I arrived home at the end of the book, right when Harry finds his way to the Stone and finds the "wrong" professor there, I sat in the driveway for a moment to finish it, but then decided to turn around immediately to drive to the closest bookstore to purchase Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. 

Books I-IV had been published at the time I started reading HPSS, so I had a breathless and manic few days reading them all. It was at that time that I discovered the joys of Harry Potter fanfiction, and I read it pretty intensely to fill in the lonely time before Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was released. I loved the series so much, and my then-fiancee loved me so much that he pre-ordered a copy from Scholastic to be Fed-Exed to me on Saturday, June 21, 2003 to the island of Antigua.  We got married there, you see, and I came very close to changing our wedding plans when I learned that the release date of the HPOP coincided with our wedding. You don't want to know what it costs to overnight a book from the US to a small island in the West Indies for a Saturday delivery.

I've since read books 3-7 probably in the neighborhood of 10-15 times each, and I've listened to all of the books on audio multiple times, too.  I know these books.  They are familiar to me in a way that sometimes my own family is not. Whenever I am currently reading or listening to the books, the stories haunt my dreams and my waking moments. I recognized the vanishing cabinet and I knew who R. A. B. was before I turned the page. I never doubted Severus Snape since the end of book one, when I realized what little fools that Harry and I both were. Believe me when I say that I have all the feels.

I've seen the film franchise, and I think they're just fine. Not amazing. Not awful.  Just fine. I think that books (and films) I and II are the weakest in the series and that's why I've read (and watched) them far fewer times than the other books.

I've read so much fanfiction that I've begun to conflate canon with fanon, and I'm okay with that.  Rowling has created a world so engrossing that I want to keep living in it, but I take serious issue with many things that she does over the course of the series (most of them having to do with her portrayal of 25% of the wizarding population), so in many cases I actually prefer the fanon to the canon.

I am a self-identified SlytherClaw who was sorted into Slytherin at Pottermore, but I probably admire the house of Hufflepuff more than any other. I am a staunch defender of Severus Snape;  I have little love for the Marauders, with the exception of grown Lupin in books 3-6; I think Minerva McGonagall and Luna Lovegood are extraordinary creations;  I love Hermione, as I think she is one of the most interesting and fully drawn characters in the series, but I'm amazed that most people tend to gloss over her ruthlessness--of all of the characters, I think she fairly equally embodies traits of all four houses; I think Bellatrix Lestrange and Dolores Umbridge are the true villains of the series, moreso than Voldemort; I find myself drawn to the twins for the humor and creativity,yet repelled by their bullying. I think Neville is hug-worthy and Ginny is a Mary Sue.

I reckon that's probably enough to be going on with, at least for now.

Les Miserables: Do you hear the people sing?

Enroljas and Marius

I got a little behind with my end-of year posts in 2012 because of some health issues in my family.  On Christmas Eve Eve (or Dec 23), my husband had to go to Mass General hospital in Boston because he woke up that morning in terrible back pain, unable to move the fingers on his left hand. Yikes!  I went with him, and despite the many tests, includinh two MRIs, nothing was conclusive so they discharged us around 5:30 am on Christmas Eve. On Boxing Day (or Dec 26) my mom had to have surgery to have a cancerous growth removed, and while she was in the hospital she had a minor heart attack. Double yikes!

Now I am writing from Wisconsin, where I am ensconced in my mother's condo, taking care of both of them. Though admittedly my husband is doing pretty well, despite lacking motor control over the fingers on his left hand, and my mom is doing better than I expected.  We're taking it easy, which means there's lots of time for napping and reading, but in my true family fashion, we're also able to make time for drinking and games. My brother, sister-in-law, and nephews are all ill, and one nephew has just been laid off, but we feel as if we still have plenty to celebrate, what with my mom's recovery and my husband's good spirits.

Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean/24601

Yesterday we went to go see the film Les Miserables, based on the musical of the same name, which is based on the book of the same name, written by Victor Hugo (and thus legitimizes my blogpost as bookish). While I've long loved the musical numbers from Les Mis, this book ranks among the best I've ever read.  It's really got it all: history, philosophy, politics, humanity, romance, action, intrigue. And despite that century's tendency to overwrite everything, it winnows down to a timeless storyline.

When earlier in 2012 I heard that (1) Les Mis was being made as a movie-musical, and (2) that Hugh Jackman had been cast as Jean Valjean, I immediately started counting down the days until its end-of-year release.  Believe you me, I was looking forward to this film more than any other film adaptation of the year, including Lincoln, The Hobbit, Life of Pi, and Breaking Dawn II. (Hah!  Just kidding about that last one!) So when my mom, her partner, my sister, and my husband settled into our seats, popcorn at the ready, we were all aflutter with excitement as the lights went down.

Russell Crowe as Javert

I was fully expecting to love this film beyond all others, but I ended up merely liking it a good deal.  My main interest in the film, Hugh Jackman, I felt was the weakest link among the main characters. While his acting was just fine, his singing voice sounded strained for most of the big numbers.  Russell Crowe as Inspector Javert, whom I expected to be tolerable at best, turned out to be the biggest highlight of the film for me. It's true that he relied on recitative moreso than the other main characters, and that his voice isn't as large as those men who played the role on stage, but I felt he really shone.

Amanda Seyfried as Cosette

Anne Hathaway was as terrific as I expected her to be and made me wish that Fantine had a larger role.  I have actively disliked Amanda Seyfried in the past, but I have to admit that her singing role in the uber-light Mamma Mia did nothing to prepare me for how lovely and purely altitudinous her soprano was. Much has already been made of Samantha Barks and Eddie Redmayne as Eponine and Marius, respectively, and I have nothing new to add to that discussion, but the other standout performance from my point of view was new-to-me Aaron Tveit as Enjolras.

No doubt this will be a film that I will purchase once it's available on DVD, if for nothing else than to see the behind-the-scenes features of the making of the movie.  I liked it very much. But love it?  I'm sorry to say that I did not.

NB: That does not, however, mean that the lyrics from the various songs are live-streaming through my head at any given moment of the day now. I like to sing and have no compunction about belting out random bits of words from time to time, so I may well startle someone in the midst of their grocery shopping with "the blood of the martyrs will water the meadows of France!"  Or with mockery exclaim, "I am the law and the law is not mocked!"

Year in Review: Top Ten Books of 2012

image found here

It's always difficult to winnow down the herd of wonderful books to come up with only ten of them.  This year I read 138 books (thank you, GoodReads, for helping me keep track!), not including the various novel-length pieces of Harry Potter fanfiction.  (Last year I counted the HP fanfics and reached over 150 book-length pieces read.) Here's how my stats break down this year. Numbers may add up to more than 138 because any given title may qualify for more than one category. 

Fiction:127

NonFiction: 11

Audio: 15

YA: 33

Female writers: 84

Male Writers: 54

e-books: 2

Usually I list the books in no particular order, but this year I've got a tie for favorite book read this year. Sort of.  One was technically the best book I read last year, but since it wasn't published until 2012, I opted in 2011 to include it on this year's list.  Little did I know that another book in 2012 would come along to blow me away.

1. Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller and The Dog Stars by Peter Heller share my top slot this year.  Both are extraordinary.  The former taught me that no story is too old and dry that it can't be brought to life by a master storyteller, while the latter taught me that post-apocalyptic fiction can also be beautiful and humorous. Both reading experiences were utter revelations.

The rest of them, largely in reverse-chronological order, are:

2. Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan. I thought I'd written a review for this one but apparently I'm mistaken. One of the biggest surprises, not just of my own reading, but apparently on all of the interwebs.  It's a fun romp through the history of printing with quasi-mystical elements. Plus who can resist a dust jacket that glows in the dark? I'm not anti-ereader, but I am pro-book, and that's as cool as reason as I can think of to buy the physical book for this title.

3. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce.  Whimsical and quirky and full of British humour, then wham! it knocks you upside the head with real emotional force.

4. & 5. The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde and The Fault in Our Stars are the best two YA books I read this year.  This is a little surprising to me since I don't always have one YA book that earns a spot on my Top Ten list, much less two. The former is brilliantly funny and tightly written and, dare I say, better than his adult novels (the Thursday Next series included). The latter is brilliantly funny while being simultaneously sad, so it's a good thing that laughter through tears is my favorite emotion. Anything that allows me to reference Steel Magnolias has to be a good thing, eh?

6. Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain. My early review for this book predicted that it would make the awards circuit, and it was shortlisted for the National Book Award but lost to Louise Erdrich's book.  How can a book with a chapter named "Dry Humping for the Lord" not win, I ask you? Never mind that I have a readerly crush on him OR that we are clearly long-lost and somewhat-distant cousins.  This writer is a fierce mind in a gentle soul, which makes for a formidable combination. If you've not heard of him yet, you will soon.

7. The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman. Stolen baby or rescued child?  So much depends on perspective in this emotionally gripping novel. I am not sure why, but my review of this book was second only to my review of Lauren Oliver's Requiem (with spoilers) in terms of popularity for my 2012 book reviews, with 1386 hits at this time of writing.

8. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.  This one surprises me a bit, as I didn't love the book as I read it, but I've revisited it several times in my mind since then, and though my own life doesn't begin to match the privilege of narrator Carraway its opening line continues to be as good a piece of advice as I've read this year: "Whenever you feel like criticizing any one...just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had."

9. & 10. Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand and Behind the Beautiful Forevers tie for my favorite pieces of non-fiction read this year. Again, it is unusual for both to earn a rightful place on my Top Ten list instead of an honorable mention, since fiction typically comprises my year-end best-ofs. Oddly enough, I have no review on my blog of Unbroken, but it's one of the best works of narrative non-fiction that I have ever read.

There are some other titles I'd like to list here, either because they were so good or so bad:

Funniest novel: Tie between These Things Happen and Where'd You Go, Bernadette.  Both were excellent, and the humor served to enhance, rather than hide, the darker aspects of the stories.

 

Four Honorable Mentions:   Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell for being an outstanding YA relationship book that is mature beyond its years;  Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson for being so fun, inventive, and timely (incidentally it made the NYTBR Top Ten list for SciFi/Fantasy this year). The Dinner by Herman Koch for standing me  (and my expectations) on my head; and A Wedding in Haiti by Julia Alvarez for taking me on a fantastic and evocative ride.

  

Biggest Disappointments: Love is a Canoe by Ben Schrank, which was so bad I was moved to review it; and  The Pigeon Pie Mystery by Julia Stuart, which was so disappointing that I couldn't bring myself to review it.

   

Biggest Surprises: Me Before You by Jojo Moyes for being a full-on romantic (albeit heartbreaking) novel; and Bringing Up Bebe by Pamela Druckerman for surprising this non-parent with how many feelings and opinions she has on parenting--particularly the bad parenting on display in the US on an almost daily basis.

What about you?  What was your favorite book read in 2012?  The biggest disappointment? The most surprising?