|
|
I saw this on Vasilly’s blog the other day and decided today was the day to participate!
1. I was the first reader in my kindergarten classes, so I got to read to everyone quite frequently. I think I liked this, considering I continued reading to the years under me as I got older, but I don’t remember.
2. In second grade, I tried to read Little Women, but I found it too difficult. For some reason my second grade teacher thought I’d completed it and bragged about it to all the other kids. I tried to tell her I hadn’t actually finished it but eventually I got too embarrassed to say anything! I think my parents might even think I read it, so this might be news to them. I did read it in third grade and many times thereafter.
3. I discovered adult fantasy in high school when a friend of mine recommended The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan. Thank you, Tom, thank you, Robert Jordan; I fell in love with that series and only fell out of love when The Crossroads of Twilight came out and nothing happened in the entire book. (I later realized that almost all of my favorite YA books were either fantasy or historical fiction, something I should have thought about when I was looking for stuff to read.)
4. In fourth grade I read over 100 books in the school year. My teacher, however, stopped counting at 100 because the chart only fit that many. My mom was not too pleased that the teacher continued to reward other kids for their reading when she wasn’t even recording mine.
5. If I like the first book in a series, I will probably try to acquire all of them before I read another one. I like to bomb through series books one after another. I have actually tried not to do that in the past year or so because I realized I didn’t want to be left hanging for years and would rather wait a little longer between volumes. (George R.R. Martin, I’m looking at you for this one – understand but hating the wait!) I still buy them all though.
6. I have always been frustrated that no one in my family reads as quickly as I do/is willing to devote that much time to reading, nor do they really like the same kind of books. I always want to share what I read with everyone I know, but it’s hard when no one is interested.
7. This brings me to my last point, which is that I have a horrible but strange memory. It’s horrible because I can barely ever remember what I read a month ago, let alone a year ago. This is why I started reviewing as well as #6. Keith sometimes reads the fantasy chunksters that I like, but he’s so busy that by the time he finishes the book, I’ve forgotten anything beyond the basic outline of the book. I blame this partly on the fact that I’m a natural re-reader and haven’t been able to indulge my tendencies since my TBR pile got out of control. As a kid I never had to retain what I read because I knew I’d just read it over in a couple of months if I liked it. I didn’t get new books too often and when I did, they were YA books so I could read several in a day if I felt like it. My imposing TBR mountain range has made this very difficult. My memory is strange because I can remember every book I own and I never buy duplicates. I couldn’t recite them, but if I see a book in a store I will know whether I own it or have read it even if I remember nothing about what actually happened in the book.
Feel free to play along!
 Please welcome Eleanor Bluestein, the author of Tea and Other Ayama Na Tales, which I reviewed yesterday. Today she’s here to talk about why she chose to write short stories rather than a novel. Please give Eleanor a warm welcome and don’t forget to check out the giveaway at the bottom of this post!
Meghan suggested I discuss why I chose the short story format rather than the novel for this book. I’ve been asked that before, and I realize now that I’ve given only a partial answer.
I started this book after traveling to Bangkok to attend my nephew’s wedding. On that trip, my husband and I toured Thailand and then flew to Cambodia. I hadn’t considered writing fiction set in South East Asia—I was working on a novel at the time—and didn’t even take notes. Writing a novel requires keeping many threads aligned, but soon after returning home, my father became ill, and as the person responsible for his care, I needed and wanted to spend time with him. My attention became scattered and I kept dropping one or another of the novel’s threads, so I decided to try writing short stories instead. My recent travels had been vivid, and when I started the first story, I found myself setting it in South East Asia. This is the answer I’d given to the question and it is accurate as far as it goes.
It’s clear to me now that something else was also at work. Fiction is an invention, and there is some sleight of hand involved in drawing readers into a world the author devises and into characters’ lives and holding them there. Of the ten stories in Tea and Other Ayama Na Tales, only one is written from the point of view of an American. The rest are narrated by South East Asians. I would not have thought I could create a world a reader would believe in with such an exotic setting or write from a South East Asian point of view for an entire novel. I would have believed that world and those characters too different from the one I knew, culturally and historically, for the work to feel true. But I was willing to risk that I could pull it off for a short story. I don’t mean that this was conscious—it wasn’t. But it seems obvious, looking back, that I could commit to baby steps, not the entire marathon. One at a time, though, the stories piled up, and finally, I’d run the whole course.
Could I have done this book as a novel? Perhaps. I’m not sure, but I don’t think I ever would have tried. The processing of the travel, the imaginative leap into a world and culture so different from my own, probably would never have occurred. Among the many opportunities my father made possible for me, this, it turns out, was another one.
Thank you, Meghan, for the opportunity to share these thoughts with your readers.
***
Thank you for that great post, Eleanor!
And now, the giveaway! I have one copy of Tea and Other Ayama Na Tales to give away to a resident of the US or Canada. To enter:
- Leave a comment on this post telling me either why you’d like to read this book, commenting about Eleanor’s guest post, or recommending me another short story collection, since I liked this one! That is your first entry.
- For another entry, leave a comment on yesterday’s review post after you’ve entered here first. If you already commented, please mention it in your comment here, that still counts.
- For a third or fourth entry, tweet or blog (or both!) about this contest. Make sure to come back with the link in a separate comment so I can count you again.
The contest will end on Wednesday, May 13th. I’ll announce the winner on May 14th. Good luck!
This is a moving collection of short stories centered around a fictional Asian country, Ayama Na. Ayama Na has its poor and its rich, its beauty contests, its factories, and its tourists, all of which provide a basis for these enchanting stories. The country is recovering from both an internal coup and a long and devastating drought, providing an emotional and political backdrop for a series of stories which serve to get us acquainted with not only the country but the people it harbors.
As many others have said, getting to know the country of Ayama Na was perhaps the best part of this book. It links all these stories together in a way that would not be possible if they were set in a less colorful, distinctive country, or even one with which we were better acquainted. Ayama Na is fictional, but it doesn’t feel that way. Rather, it feels alive and peeks out through each and every story.
Of course, the stories themselves are well worth reading. I normally worry with short stories. Will I get attached to the characters only to have them taken away? Or will I feel absolutely nothing because the story is just too short for me to care? Luckily, neither of these things happened with this book. Each story is very different but is a fully encapsulated burst of character. In one, “Skin Deep”, a beautiful girl from a very poor family wins the Miss Lake Sporee beauty pageant, moving on to vie for the title of Miss Ayama Na. For her talent, she learns to throw her voice and becomes a ventriloquist. Song and her dummy have a fascinating relationship, and in the end it is through the dummy, Lulu, that important truths about their country are exposed, rather than smiling lies which normally make up such events.
In another story, “The Cut the Crap Machine”, two of the country’s only remaining playwrights together attempt to compose a play. They both have emerged from the crisis with completely different views on life and to say that they struggle to work together is an understatement. All hope, however, is not lost, and bitterness doesn’t last forever.
My favorite, though, is the last story. “Tea”. Pania’s father announces to her that she is going to a dinner to meet a potential future husband. Pania has embraced the western world and is infuriated, convinced that she has a right to choice. She immediately asks her brother Kol to do something. They meet for tea, but Kol does and says nothing; they don’t even have tea. Pania is outraged still further and only with time does she learn exactly what she is meant to learn.
There are so many stunning contrasts in this book. By using a fictional country, Eleanor Bluestein has been able to show the immense divides between rich and poor, between western and eastern culture, between the farm and the factory. It feels like a behind-the-scenes look that the tourists don’t go see, like in the story “The Blanks”, when the tour guide finally takes an exasperating American couple to an impoverished village so they can see the reality of Ayama Nan lives.
Honestly, this is a wonderful collection. Writing about it has convinced me even more of its beauty. If Asia interests you, if short stories interest you, if anything in this review has captured your interest at all, you should read this book. Do come back tomorrow – you might have a chance to get one step closer.
Buy Tea and Other Ayama Na Tales on Amazon.
For more reviews on this blog tour, check out these great blogs!
The Bluestocking Society
Bookstack
Nerd’s Eye View
Lotus Reads
8Asians
1979 Semi-finalist…
Ramya’s Bookshelf
Feminist Review
Trish’s Reading Nook
Savvy Verse and Wit
 Sally Bliss’s father jumped off a bridge before she was born and, even though he survived, he still left her mother forever. To get to that point, however, is a long, twisted road, starting with Sally’s grandmother, who was also named Sally, and a motorcycle ride with her cousin Daniel Werner. That day leads to consequences Sally regrets as she flees her family and her baby, finding solace with strangers in a small town not far from her home. Sally spends much of her young life running away until another unexpected consequence brings joy to her life and a determination to do better. This multi-generational saga follows the family’s story and brings together several strands to end in a heartwarming conclusion.
This book starts off very slowly. At first I was confused between the two Sallys. I couldn’t figure out how they connected until I went back and read the book jacket. I never do that, but when you have two characters with the same name, it becomes necessary. Moreover, Sally’s life doesn’t start out very auspiciously and she spends quite a lot of time feeling guilty and hearing voices that tell her she is a slut and she can’t escape what she did. She’s tempted to act very badly where she ends up next and I just despaired for where she was going.
Around the time when her daughter is born, this book picks up quite a bit. Penelope and Sally together liven the story up and make it much more interesting and conflicting. More things happen and the arc of the story starts to come together in a highly coincidental but strangely believable way. In other words, it gets good, and in the end, I really enjoyed it. I never quite liked Sally Werner, as she was too haunted by the ghosts of her past. Perhaps deservedly so since she did abandon a baby to the family who didn’t know how to raise her properly, but she goes on to do some peculiar things. I really, really liked Penelope, though. She is perhaps the least fleshed out of the three, only given her own adult voice in a single letter, but I was drawn to her. I suspect that it’s because she really seems to have lost the most due to the folly of her mother. Not always Sally’s fault, but Penelope is a victim of circumstance who does not let those circumstances take away what matters to her. I admire that, and that’s why I liked her the best.
Finally, the book ends on a wonderful, positive note. I loved how over the course of three generations, the family went from less than nothing to such a scene. It wrapped up beautifully.
All in all, a book worth reading. Stick through the first hundred pages and I suspect you will see what I mean.
Buy Follow Me: A Novel on Amazon.
Check out some of the other blogs on this blog tour!
http://peekingbetweenthepages.blogspot.com/
http://www.writeforareader.blogspot.com/
http://bermudaonion.wordpress.com/
http://abookbloggersdiary.blogspot.com/
http://thereviewfromhere.wordpress.com/
http://bookopolis.blogspot.com/
http://www.caribousmom.com/
http://www.frommipov.blogspot.com/
http://luanne-abookwormsworld.blogspot.com/
http://redladysreadingroom-redlady.blogspot.com/
http://mindingspot.blogspot.com/
http://thetometraveller.blogspot.com/
http://dreyslibrary.blogspot.com/
http://hiddenplace.wordpress.com/
http://stephaniesbooks.blogspot.com/
http://www.acircleofbooks.blogspot.com/
http://bananas4books.blogspot.com/
http://www.bookthoughtsbylisa.blogspot.com
http://martasmeanderings.blogspot.com/
http://grumpydan.blogspot.com/
http://cafeofdreams.blogspot.com/
http://worducopia.blogspot.com/
http://cindysloveofbooks.blogspot.com/
http://2kidsandtiredbooks.blogspot.com/
http://www.myspace.com/darbyscloset
http://www.myfriendamysblog.com/
http://www.skrishnasbooks.com/
 I loved reading the posts about the Read-A-Thon. What a great idea. I may have to copy you. My TBR pile has migrated from my desk to the floor. Then I had to split it into two stacks (because it kept falling over). It’s out of control. Mostly because I can’t read while I’m writing. Then when I’m on break, I just can’t get caught up. Add that my day job is at a library where I see all the new books, and I may have to buy another bookshelf. Let’s see. Will one fit in the hall?
Well, I’m supposed to be talking about my new book What Would Jane Austen Do? Here’s the blurb: Modern heroine Eleanor Pottinger goes back in time to the Regency where she prevents a duel, helps catch a spy, meets Jane Austen in person, and falls in love with hunky rake Lord Shermont.
Since I’m used to writing in a character’s POV rather than my own, I’m a bit out of my comfort zone. But I’m willing to give it a shot.
I really like reading time travel books so when I starting writing I gravitated toward that sort of paranormal. The heroine can be modern and therefore easy to relate to. There’s a built in opportunity for humor as she struggles to cope with the differences in society. And I can still have the fab hero and can picture him on a horse or ballroom floor without the convoluted plot machinations that it would take to get a modern man in both such places within one book.
All that wonderfulness comes with a price. There are special considerations that writers of other genres don’t have to tackle.
- The device that facilitates the time travel – It should be never be too complicated, and should have the ring of truth, even though we all know it’s impossible. Basically readers are willing to suspend their disbelief and will follow your story just about anywhere unless you cause them to stop. If your device is too complicated, they’ll refuse to invest the interest/time needed to figure it out. The closer you get to simple, the better. (ie The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) Do we buy that the children go through the back of an armoire into an alternate reality? Every time.
- The time traveler should not believe what’s happened to him/her too easily – Perversely, if your hero or heroine accepts the obvious right away, we don’t believe it. (After all we know it’s impossible, right?) But if they take too long to believe what’s happened, then they seem… well, not the sharpest quill on the writing desk. (Isn’t it obvious from the surroundings, etc.?)
- The ending – Time travel endings are the most difficult to write because we must not only make the reader believe the heroine and heroine belong together, we have to figure out a way for them to actually be together. Are they both going to stay back in time or both come forward? The reader has suspended their disbelief for the length of the book. The wrong ending not only disappoints readers, in the case of time travels, it seem to really piss them off.
I sincerely hope I did all of the above right in What Would Jane Austen Do? I’m sure you’ll let me know if I didn’t.
***
You definitely did! Thank you, Laurie, for a great guest post! You’re very welcome to join our next Read-a-Thon, we’d very much love to have you, and it’s a great way to start going through that pile!
Laurie Brown teaches writing classes at the college level, has presented seminars at conferences all over the country, and has three published romance novels. She has been a Golden Heart finalist twice and has received the Service Award from the Chicago-North Chapter of RWA. She resides in Illinois.
Buy What Would Jane Austen Do? on Amazon, and don’t forget to come back on Friday for my review!
 Since I’m buried in work (and writing this post well in advance), I thought that rather than post about what I don’t have time to read today, I’d post a question! I’ve noticed lately that Keith and I prefer different book covers. He almost always prefers the British cover and I almost always prefer the American cover. Obviously, this isn’t always the case, but the trend is quite marked. It’s had me wondering whether it’s a result of years of one style resulting in a aesthetic preference or whether it’s just coincidence. So, since they released both covers for the absolutely fabulous Michelle Moran‘s next book, Cleopatra’s Daughter, (which I saw on Historical Tapestry, many thanks to those lovely ladies, and about which I am very excited), I thought I’d see which one you prefer.
I find both covers appealing, but one sticks out to me as more so. Which appeals more to you?
 It all starts when Sara Kendell finds a little pouch full of odd small items in the stockroom of her antiques shop. Sara, the quirky daughter of a wealthy family, has no interest in her inheritance and instead lives with her uncle Jamie and a various crew of outcasts in large, mystical Tamson house. Kieran Foy arrives in Ottawa having lost tabs on his mentor in the Way, Tom, only to discover the police are after him thanks to this very connection. When Sara and Kieran meet, they are thrown into a new world, into a conflict they don’t fully understand, but they must learn quickly as their friends are in danger.
Before this, I’d only read one book by Charles de Lint, The Onion Girl, which I enjoyed a lot. I knew this one wasn’t set in the same universe but was reputed to be very good and since I was in the mood for fantasy, I thought it might be a perfect fit. It wasn’t perfect, but it was pretty good and I liked it.
This book is fairly long, so I was glad it didn’t take much time to get going. This seems like another varient of the urban fantasy genre, but it is indeed more magical than the current offerings, particularly when two of the main characters are sent back in time. The magic system was interesting and seemed to be based from a combination of Native American and Welsh myth, at least in the book’s world. I managed to read more than half of it on a very stressful set of flights, so the fact that it managed to keep my attention during all that is a definite stroke in its favor.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about the characters, though. The two main ones, Kieran and Sara, fall in love with minor characters over the course of the book, but I felt both affairs were too sudden to be believable. I know their lives were under threat and people feel more strongly during those times, but I had a hard time buying it. I’m not sure why I didn’t care about any of them, I just know that I didn’t and it lessened the book for me.
In the end, I liked it but I didn’t love it, so I’m not sure if I would recommend it. I’ll probably still read the sequel, Spiritwalk, which was a free e-book on tor.com, but I think for now I will stick with reading more Newford stories.
Buy Moonheart on Amazon.
 Book description via Amazon :
“Welcome to a world of reckless sensuality and glittering sophistication . . . of dangerously handsome gentlemen and young ladies longing to gain a title . . . of games played for high stakes, including—on occasion—a lady’s virtue.
A marquess’s sheltered only daughter, Lady Roberta St. Giles falls in love with a man she glimpses across a crowded ballroom: a duke, a game player of consummate skill, a notorious rakehell who shows no interest in marriage—until he lays eyes on Roberta.
Yet the Earl of Gryffyn knows too well that the price required to gain a coronet is often too high. Damon Reeve, the earl, is determined to protect the exquisite Roberta from chasing after the wrong destiny.
Can Damon entice her into a high-stakes game of his own, even if his heart is likely to be lost in the venture?”
This is an unusual romance in that there are a few different storylines going on at the same time. The book starts with a description of a cartoon featuring Roberta and her ridiculous father, who is a bad poet and always in love with former actresses and prostitutes. Roberta knows that if she’s going to get hitched, she has to get to London on her own and escape her father’s influence. So she calls upon a distant relative she never knew she had, Gemma, the Duchess of Beaumont, and decides that she loves and will marry the Duke of Villiers.
I will admit that this had me rolling my eyes. I didn’t realize that Roberta and the duke were not the main couple in this book and I hate love-at-first-sight romances. I just don’t think it happens and besides that, it robs us of character development and the falling-in-love scenes. I was happy when I figured out that Damon was the real object of Roberta’s affections, which is obvious even though it takes her far too long to discover for herself.
The real problem with this book was its focus. Gemma takes up entirely too much attention. Her chess games with the Duke of Villiers and her husband, the Duke of Beaumont, are virtually unnecessary to this book’s plot as a romance and even if it wasn’t a romance, I wouldn’t have found it particularly interesting. The idea of a chess game played in bed is honestly not that exciting, even with the assumed second meaning. I realize that this is part of a series and that this subplot between Gemma and the dukes will carry on, but I’m not sure I like that. Gemma is also in some ways a more interesting character than her distant cousin Roberta, who is silly and can’t figure herself out in a way that seriously irritated me, so this really splits the book between too many characters and in the end makes it feel very disjointed.
Honestly, I didn’t really like this. I’m disappointed because I recall loving one of James’s books ages ago. I just didn’t like any of the characters. For the most part, they’re all too depraved for me, and worse, the ones that aren’t are just silly and not given enough screen time. I’ve got book number 2, which features one of the less depraved characters, so I’ll give it a try, but this is not a series to start with. Plus, the cover is horrendous and I’m glad I borrowed it from the library.
Interesting footnote: Eloisa James teaches Shakespearean literature at Fordham. Who knew?
 My husband is not an avid reader, and he used to get very frustrated in college when teachers would insist discussing symbolism in a literary work when there didn’t seem to him to be any. He felt that writers often just wrote the story for the story’s sake and other people read symbolism into it.
It does seem like modern fiction just “tells the story” without much symbolism. Is symbolism an older literary device, like excessive description, that is not used much any more? Do you think there was as much symbolism as English teachers seemed to think? What are some examples of symbolism from your reading?
When I was in college, everyone asked me this question. Symbolism is alive and well in modern literary fiction and the authors aren’t subtle about it either. I got symbolism out of Stephen King in high school and my teacher complimented me on seeing stuff that no one else saw. I used It and Carrie and all I remember is that it had something to do with circles. The Remains of the Day is practically dripping with symbolism, right down to the title of the book. The great thing about studying literature is that you can find things that the author didn’t intend that imbues the work with meaning for you and for other people. It can have a wider meaning that the author never saw, or maybe one they intended only specific people to see. It’s a little like how everyone’s experience of a book is different. The author puts the book out, but everyone comes to it with different life experiences and interprets it in ways relevant to themselves. Obviously, we’re going to pick it apart in ways the author didn’t intend.
Let’s take an example of this. I’m sure the author of Firefly Lane didn’t intend for me to develop a burning hatred towards it because one of the characters got cancer and it hit a little too close to home for me (yes, other things bugged me about it, but I was very unhappy with the author’s plot development). On the other hand, she probably did intend for women who are older than me to relate to Tully and Kate as they grew up over the decades, and from the reviews, they did. Women who could relate tended to love the book. The author just wanted to tell a story, but how we feel about it is always going to be our own experience. Similarly, the way we interpret literature in an academic sense is always going to be more than the author intended, unless it’s one of those ultra-literary books that you practically need a class in to dig out all of the meaning.
Or we could go with Twilight. There are all sorts of alarming messages screaming out from the relationships in that book, but women still love Edward. Did Stephenie Meyer intend for us to interpret the relationship between Bella and Edward as harmful and abusive? Probably not, especially given how often she describes Edward as “perfect”.
See my point? The author’s intentions don’t carry as much weight as you might think. As a result, I’m not sure we can say that because the author didn’t intend it, an interpretation isn’t valid. In fact, I outright don’t think we can. I love to know what an author intended and I think it’s very important, but I still feel the way I feel.
In fact, I know a few authors out there who read this blog, so if you’re reading, what do you think?
What about readers? Am I wrong, is the author all-important and my opinion falls to the wayside once I know theirs? Or is every interpretation (with supporting evidence of course) valid?
 Infanta Isabella of Castile and Leon is that priceless jewel in a failing country, a skilled leader, but when she is young, no one has a chance to find out. She is exiled from court by her impotent half-brother the king, nearly married off to a much older, unappealing man, and even thrust in a dungeon to prevent her from gaining visibility. Only when Isabella is officially named heir to the throne does she begin to take power for herself, starting with her choice of husband. Ferdinand, heir to Aragon and king of Sicily, is not only handsome but her path towards the unification of Spain. Together, Ferdinand and Isabella pursue this course, bringing Spain to the forefront of power in Europe in one short reign.
I’m going to start off by saying that since this is a reissue of an older historical novel, the history is outdated. Knowing that, I managed to not get annoyed when an envoy from Richard, duke of Gloucester (with a withered arm, no less!) appeared offering his hand in marriage to Isabella, suggesting that he would be king someday. At the time Richard would also have been a teenager and hardly convinced of his place in the English royal succession, much less in a position to negotiate his own marriages. Sorry, I nitpick. To contrast with a positive example, I was just thrilled when Schoonover mentioned that fifteenth-century people knew the world was round.
The novel also reflects certain 1950s values which I found alternately charming and strange in a historical novel. Isabella is clearly a mighty monarch. She is clever and at times ruthless. She also, however, has a strange predilection for weeping and acknowledging that her husband needs to do manly things away from her occasionally, like lead armies, and she arranges little tasks behind his back so that he’ll feel useful, like a man should. I felt almost as though Isabella had to be a housewife AND a queen to satisfy everyone’s ideal. Ferdinand is constantly upset when she does something without him or has power that he does not share. Maybe I’m reading too much into that – after all, how many kings really want their queens to be more powerful than them? – but it stuck out a little to me.
All that said, this novel had a wonderful sort of charm that I wouldn’t discount at all. It feels old-fashioned, but in a lovely sit in an armchair and get absorbed in an enthralling story feel. Everything has a slightly magical, ethereal edge to it. This is a land long ago past and there is a tinge of nostalgia throughout the entire book that is eminently compelling. Despite Isabella’s fluctuation between dominant and submissive, I really liked her and particularly her friend, Beatriz. I liked this book. It reminded me of the books I used to read when I was a kid, before I particularly cared who was who in the historical world. It’s like a visit to my grandma’s house. Everything there is familiar and comfortable but has a bit of an aged feel to it. There is no computer, no DVD player, but a set of wedding china and pictures from when my parents were younger than I am now. That is how this book feels.
In that sense, I would probably recommend it! It was clearly fairly popular in its day, and while it does feel aged, it still has a lovely story to tell. Maybe all the dots don’t add up anymore, but they still make a picture worth looking at.
Buy Queen’s Cross on Amazon.
|
|
Recent Comments