Author Archives: Delia

She cups her tea in both hands, fingers wrapping around the cup and meeting on the other side.

I’ve read this in a review on Vishy’s blog and I felt instantly moved. I can’t quite explain why, but perhaps it was the feeling of intimacy and loneliness that the image conveyed, and ever since then I’ve wanted to read this book. A few months later, and here I am, the book read, my thoughts ready.

Glaciers is a novel about a young woman, Isabel, who spends her days working in a library and her free time collecting vintage postcards and photographs, and shopping for vintage dresses. Told in short chapters, her story alternates between past and present, a movement which creates a constant shift in the narrative, quite like a wave. One moment we see what the city of Portland looks like in the morning when she makes her way to work, and the next we are taken back in time to her childhood spent in Alaska – a trip on a ferry and seeing an iceberg break from a glacier. Between the swirl of leaves in the crisp air and the coldness of the dying glaciers, the author reveals details about Isabel’s world – her longing for faraway places – Amsterdam is one of them – the stories she imagines about people whose names she finds on the back of postcards, her love for books – she works in the preservation and conservation department at the library, where she spends her days taking care of damaged books, the wounded.

The solitude of printed words, the quiet companionship of her cat, and the short conversations she has with Spoke, her co-worker whom she secretly has a crush on, make for a nice routine. Spoke has been to Afghanistan as a soldier, is well-liked at work, and he is quiet, just like Isabel. The attraction between them is palpable but repressed, their conversations apparently mundane. It may have gone on like this for a while, but when Spoke has to leave, Isabel suddenly realizes time is running short. Soon, he will be a memory, a moment in time, just like the postcards she collects. Her fondness for things that belonged to other people and damaged books can be a reason why she is attracted to Spoke in the first place. They are both quiet, enjoy their routine, and are marked by a past they can’t seem to shake.

I started the book and read a few pages, then put it away for a few days until this past weekend. Then I picked it up again and read it in one sitting. At just under 180 pages, the book is nicely paced and the writing easy to read. Its melancholy tone and beautiful writing convey a sense of fragility that is both compelling and profoundly marked by sadness. It’s almost as if we know something dramatic is going to happen while at the same time we can’t hope but wish that Isabel finds the happiness she deserves. There is, however, a ray of light at the end of this tunnel of melancholy in the final pages, when the story comes full circle and brings about the hope of a new start. Tell us a story about longing, her friend Michael asks her at a party, and Isabel finds herself talking about her dreams and in doing so, breaks free of the past she has long been a captive of.

I loved this book for its ability to shift between sadness and hope, between a melancholy past and the possibility of a better future. It wasn’t love at first sight, but it suddenly hit me while reading about the child Isabel (whom her father calls Belly) going on a trip to a Salvation Army Thrift Store with her father.

“There are treasures everywhere”, her father says, and Belly is still too young to understand the meaning of the word “treasure”.

“Belly, he said,…, it’s a treasure if you love it. It doesn’t matter how much it costs, or whether anyone else wants it. If you love it, you will treasure it, does that make sense?”

Literary references, such as Giovanni’s Room (1956) by James Baldwin brought back to mind John Irving’s In One Person, where this book is also mentioned, and I was wondering why it came up here as well, then I got the answer when the writer introduces Isabel’s best friend, Leo, who is gay, and has a penchant for writing his name on books he borrows from the library. Other literary references include Our Lady of the Flowers (1943) by French author Jean Genet, Apartment in Athens (1945) by American writer Glenway Wescott, and The Good Soldier (1915) by English novelist Ford Madox Ford.

In one chapter called “Architecture”, Isabel describes a visit to her aunt and uncle’s house. As I read the first few lines where the nine-year-old Isabel talks about the smell of a particular incense, nag champa, I had to smile, because I got a box of it a couple of weeks ago as a gift from someone who visited India, and now I could smell it and know exactly what the author was talking about. This is yet another little detail that helped me make a connection with the book.
Even though this is not a diary, it felt like one to me. Perhaps it’s the smallness of the book, the way the pages don’t align when it’s closed, and the intimate tone of the story. For some reason, while reading it I had a sudden urge to start drawing in it, the way one might draw in a diary, around the words. But I didn’t, because to write in books feels to me like some sort of abomination, an intrusion on someone else’s work.

Some of my favorite passages:

Like other great creatures before them, the glaciers were dying, and their death, so distant and unimaginable, was a spectacle not to be missed. The ferry slowed where a massive glacier met the ocean; a long, low cracking announced the rupture of ice from glacier; then came the slow lunge of the ice into the sea. This is calving – when part of a glacier breaks free and becomes an iceberg – a kind of birth. The calving sent waves, rocking the ferry. Hands gripped railings and feet separated on gridded steel. There were shouts of appreciation and fear, but nothing like grief, not even ordinary sadness.

*

It’s never the wedding dresses, you know. We keep those, too, but only because they’re so blooming expensive. No. I’ve seen enough old ladies’ closets to know what we really hold on to. Not the till-death-do-us-part dresses. It’s those first lovely dresses: the slow dance dresses, the good-night-kiss dresses. It’s those first pangs we hold on to.

My rating: 4/5 stars

*Read in January 2014

A fantastical adventure complete with magic, love, kittens and lots of delicious things to eat, The Night Circus seemed like a promising story. Not only is the setting a perfect playground for any possibilities, but the characters are mysterious and the magic is real, even if the action is a bit on the slow side.

Two old rival magicians make a pact. They will each train a student in the magic arts with the ultimate goal of pitting them against one another in a competition to the death. Apparently this was done before so each of them know exactly what they are doing. Or so they think. Prospero the Enchanter, or Hector Bowen by his real name, and Alexander, the mysterious man in the grey suit, each choose a student. Prospero chooses his daughter, Celia, whom he calls Miranda (a nod to Shakespeare), and Alexander picks an orphan boy whom he decides to train as a magician.
The setting is a magical circus designed specifically for this purpose, Le Cirque des Reves (The Circus of Dreams) complete with acrobats, tents in black and white, wonderful snacks and a clock that is nothing short of extraordinary. The circus comes and goes without warning, but its followers, called reveurs, seem to know exactly where it’s going. The two opponent magicians, Marco and Celia, trained from childhood and now all grown up, find themselves thrust into a challenge none of them want to complete, especially since love gets in the way and they can’t accept the fact that in order for one of them to win, the other has to die, and the circus is nothing more than the arena of their challenge.

I really liked the idea the book is based on – two rivals, a competition, complications, magic, but in spite of all that something felt a bit odd. The competing magicians are perfect, they have no flaws (beautiful, young, etc.), their impossible love (the Romeo and Juliet kind) too predictable and unreal (he was actually with somebody else for quite a while), and the ending too happily-ever-after.
There are no true villains, unless one considers Alexander a villain – he is cold, detached and uninterested in his apprentice beyond pushing him to read or occasionally taking him out to see magic plays or visit museums, or Prospero – for selfishly putting his ambitions first and teaching Celia how to heal herself by repeatedly slicing open her fingers. There are no consequences to their acts, and the two lovers do not fight back.

What I liked was the description of magic – the wishing tree with its candles symbolizing wishes, the ice garden, the ability of the magicians to change their looks and their clothes, and the description of delicious food which made me google “chocolate mice”. I enjoyed this book but felt it came short of its promise of an exciting adventure and a fight to the death. It’s entertaining, easy to read, and the writing is delicate like a sugar confection, but I wish there was more to it than that.

My rating: 3/5 (based on the Goodreads system).

*Read in January 2014

2013 was a good year for books. Not as great as the previous couple of years but still okay. Out of the thirty books I’ve read, these are the ones I enjoyed the most.

Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories, Volume II by Arthur Conan Doyle
Although I’m not a great fan of detective stories, I love Conan Doyle’s most famous character and his trusted sidekick. The fact that the action is set during the Victorian period also contributed a lot to making me like this book. Hopefully I’ll get to read volume I this year. And everything else Sherlock Holmes.

Dracula by Bram Stoker
I have wanted to read this book for a long time and when I did it was amazing. Gothic horror novel, three impossible words to resist. It is very likely that I will read it again.

Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman
As short stories go, this one is a treasure of a book. I particularly liked Other People because the end was perfection and unexpected. All I can say is that it starts with a demon and it’s not a happy story. Also the poem The Day the Saucers Came, which is not about saucers but something else entirely, left me in a melancholy state. There are also notes about how Gaiman got the idea for each story. I’ve always liked those.

Give Me Your Heart: Tales of Mystery and Suspense by Joyce Carol Oates
My first Joyce Carol Oates book, and it was a pleasure to read. Love gone wrong, suspicions, murder, all blend together in these tales that shine a light into the darkest corners of the human heart. I will definitely read more books by this author, perhaps The Accursed although it’s a huge book and I’m not particularly fond of huge books. Unless they’re written by Stephen King.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
This is a book that melted my heart. Gaiman’s story of a childhood revisited is nothing short of wonderful – there’s magic, a great friend, and a black kitten. I loved that kitten.

In One Person by John Irving
It took me a while to get used to Irving’s slow pace – this book taught me patience and given its subject, the journey of a man who tries to come to terms with his sexuality, it was an interesting read. I also liked A Widow for One Year, maybe a little bit better. I think A Prayer for Owen Meany should be next on my list.

The Observations by Jane Harris
A Victorian adventure imbued with humour, wit, and secrets, Bessy’s tale is nothing short of entertaining, while her distinctive voice gives the book a truly Victorian feel. One of the most enjoyable books I’ve read this year.

The Road Home by Rose Tremain
The story of Lev, an East European trying to find a better life in London grabbed me from the first page. It brought back memories, and it’s one of the things I loved this book for. A bitter-sweet tale about fighting for your dreams. Inspirational.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
The best book I have read last year. The kind that breaks your heart but you love it anyway. The kind that makes you want to start re-reading again because you just can’t accept the fact that it’s over. It combines a heart breaking story with incredible story-telling and superb writing. And stories within stories. And the narrator is Death, how amazing is that?
Zusak’s tale of an orphan girl trying to survive during World War II is not just a story of survival but one of love, and an ode to books everywhere. If you liked Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 you’re going to love this. I stopped many times and just stared at the words and marked the pages which had the most beautiful paragraphs. And I put those beautiful words together. I call it “The Book Thief Poem”.

What amazing books did you read in 2013?

The Road Home – Rose Tremain

While I was reading the Acknowledgements page of The Observations I came upon a familiar name – Rose Tremain. It didn’t take long to see I had a book by this author, so I decided this was going to be my next read.

This is the story of Lev, a man from Eastern Europe who is on his way to London to find a better life and send money back home to his village. If one would only change the names, this would be the classic immigrant story. The promise of a better life and the reminder that his 5 year old daughter and elderly mother are dependent on him manage to shake Lev from the depression he’d fallen into after the death of his wife, Marina, and with hope in his heart and vodka bottles in his traveling bag, he sets out for London.

On the bus that takes him to London, Lev meets Lydia, a former English teacher who is on her way to the same city hoping to find work as a translator. Throughout the book, their paths will come together at intervals, as both of them struggle to find their place in a new city teeming with immigrants.

It is a roller-coaster of events, the good mixed with the bad, and it feels a lot like a test. Will Lev be able to drag himself from the past and the memory of his dead wife, to the fast changing present or is he doomed to a never-ending circle of fleeting happiness and hard disappointment? The slightly dark story runs over undercurrents of humor, as Lev’s friend from home is mentioned, and heart-wrenching moments from a past life are played in the mind of a man who feeds on dreams. And it is one of these dreams that will ultimately turn Lev’s life around and force him to face the present and take advantage of the changing times.
The best way to describe this book: heart-warming.

Here’s the first chapter, free, have a look.

Blood Meridian – Cormac McCarthy

I came upon this book after reading an online list of “the ten horrifying novels that will scare you to death” or something of that sort, and I thought okay, let’s see what the author of The Road and No Country for Old Men is up to.

The story loosely follows the adventures of “the kid”, a teenager who runs away from home and ends up in a group of outlaws traveling the American Wild West in the mid and late 1800’s. It is probably the most violent book I have read, not only because it depicts amazing acts of cruelty towards people and animals (to the point when I began to cringe every time a horse or a dog came up in the story), but also because the characters seem like a band of devils in disguise sent on earth to punish others and they take pleasure in doing it. Scalping, rape, murder, mutilation, and the list goes on. By the middle of the book I considered abandoning the story because just the thought of going on made me depressed. Ultimately I decided to stick with it for a few reasons: because the writing is strikingly beautiful, in spite of the long winding sentences and an almost stubborn absence of commas; there are no quotation marks to make the dialogue stand out and this lends another strange beauty to the book and doesn’t hinder its narrative in any way, and the “redeeming” little scenes that I paused at like a thirsty traveler at a well of water in the desert.

The best way to describe this book: highly disturbing, but if you want to see how violence and beautiful writing work together, give it a try.

Here’s one of those redeeming little scenes:

“The kid rose and looked about at this desolate scene and then he saw alone and upright in a small niche in the rocks and old woman kneeling in a faded rebozo with her eyes cast down. He made his way among the corpses and stood before her. She was very old and her face was gray and leathery and sand had collected in the folds of her clothing. She did not look up.
….
He spoke to her in a low voice. He told her that he was an American and that he was a long way from the country of his birth and that he had no family and that he had traveled much and seen many things and had been at war and endured hardships. He told her that he would convey her to a safe place, some party of her countrypeople who would welcome her and that she should join them for he could not leave her in this place or she would surely die.
He knelt on one knee, resting the rifle before him like a staff. Abuelita, he said, No puedes escucharme?
He reached into the little cove and touched her arm. She moved slightly, her whole body, light and rigid. She weighed nothing. She was just a dried shell and she had been dead in that place for years.”

Blackbirds – Chuck Wendig

One of the blogs I visit is Chuck Wendig’s terribleminds.com and on one of such visits I discovered that his book, Blackbirds, was free for download until the end of this month (you can follow the link to download it). I finished reading it today and can say that it has been an exciting adventure.

Miriam Black is in her twenties, a drifter, and she has a special gift: by simply touching another person (skin-on-skin) she can see when and how that person dies. The scene is played in her mind with vivid accuracy, and up until she meets Louis, a gentle-giant of a trucker, she thinks there is nothing she can do to change fate. The story goes back and forth in time, leaving behind little cliffhangers – glimpses into Miriam’s past, and is nothing short of a crazy ride in a roller-coaster, packed with tough-girl dialogue, plenty of profanity and lots of punches. Think Jack Reacher in female form with a foul mouth. They would actually make an interesting couple.

The best way to describe this book: fast, violent and entertaining.

Many thanks to Chuck for making this available for free online. It’s one of those very few times I managed to read a book on a screen without any glitches. It went by quite fast.

*Read in December, 2013

I bought The Observations at a library sale. The book also bears the stamp of a second hand bookstore that I haven’t been to in a very long time – perhaps a year – and it looks like a well read copy. It is also a first novel.
The name of the author did not jump up at me at first, but when I looked it up on goodreads.com, I saw that she had written another novel whose name was quite familiar, “Gillespie and I”, a novel I had seen at the bookstore, picked up but didn’t buy. Now I will have to.
What attracted me to The Observations was the cover – very Victorian, and as I am a great fan of the genre, I decided to buy the book and read it as soon as possible.

The story is told from the perspective of Bessy Buckley, a girl with a dubious past, who is on her way to finding a job and starting anew. The place is Scotland and the year 1863. She finds employment at Castle Haivers which is not a castle at all but a fancy name for an estate that could have used a bit more care and a few more servants. Her new masters, Arabella and James Reid, are an odd couple – she is very observant, talkative, and locks herself up in her room to write. He is tight with money, selfish, and a no-nonsense aristocrat. As the story evolves, however, other character traits emerge and manage to change the perspective on these two people.

Bessy settles in her new life and has a few mishaps at first. It becomes apparent to her mistress that she was never a housekeeper nor a farm hand, and as she decides to find out more about the new maid, so does Bessy tries to find out more about her mistress. There’s a lot of humor in the book, mostly coming from Bessy’s doings as she snoops around while at the same time taking a liking to her new employer and trying her best to please her. She goes so far as to put up with Arabella’s strange requests of sitting up and down repeatedly and to let herself having her measurements taken, such as having her head measured, as well as the distance between her facial features. And when her mistress is occupied elsewhere she manages to read the book Arabella keeps under lock and key.

There is mystery throughout the book, and it becomes apparent to Bessy, as she begins to know her mistress, that something is amiss in the Reid household. Burned pages of a journal belonging to a former maid, an old trunk that belonged to Nora – another one of the former maids of Castle Haivers, and the odd request that she write down her own thoughts for her mistress to read, lead Bessy to believe that there is a secret Arabella is trying to keep under wraps. This she is not able to do for a very long time, as Bessy begins to put facts together and in the end arrives at the horrible truth.

Bessy’s natural humor shines throughout the book. She is a kind-hearted girl but she also lies, steals her mistress’ key and concocts a most devious plan that will have a powerful effect on Arabella. In spite of this I couldn’t help but sympathize with her, especially as the story goes back and forth in time and the reader is given glimpses into the young girl’s life before she became a maid.
Bessy’s voice is very distinct and her use of the vernacular gives the book a unique language that is both engaging and many times quite funny. Her daily adventures on the farm include trying to milk a cow (and failing), cleaning a carpet with a piece of wet newspaper and learning how to use punctuation under the patient instructions of her mistress.

What I liked most about the book was its engaging pace that never faltered and the constant discovery of yet another little detail that made the mystery that more baffling. It also has all the elements that I love in a story: the isolated house, strange noises in the attic, a tragic past, a villain, and more than a bit of humor thrown in for balance. If you’re a fan of historical novels, you’re going to enjoy this fun ride through the Victorian era.

Some paragraphs I liked:

She leaned in and says quietly, ‘Look at the spaces between the words.’
It was a clue. Well, I looked hard at her ‘Dear Father’. There was a space between the two words right enough. Then I looked at my ‘got up’. There was a space there too. But the two spaces seemed much the same to me and one space plus another space is just a bigger space no matter how long you look at it.

*

Most of all she seemed to like the part about my mother and her good works which for dear sake was the bit I had invented! on account of I had forgot to remember what I was thinking about whilst I was working so I just made up the first thing that came into my head.
‘This part about your mother,’ says missus. ‘Write more like this.’
‘I’ll do that marm’, I says, thinking well for dear sake if she can’t tell the difference that’s easy enough, I’ll just make things up all the time.

*

I had a quick skelly about the place but could find nothing and was on the verge of heading back down when I seen somebody coming towards me up the stairs. Crumbs and Christopher it scared the behicky out me.

*

The master was sat in the wing armchair opposite my Arabella. He flicked his eyes at me as I came in then glanced away again almost immediately. For dear sake he was a daddy longleg so he was! So tall and lean he barely fit the length of him in the chair. You would have put him older than missus but no more than 45 and just a shade off handsome on account of his phiz being on the lengthy side and he was not exactly going bald but lets just say his forehead was high.

*Read in December 2013