I have only two books yet to read to meet the 2014 Century of Books goal – one for 1933 and one for 1983 – so it looks like (fates allowing) I will be finishing it under my personal deadline of December 31st – for a bit there I had my doubts! Then it’ll be back to reading-at-random, and I have a rather nice must-find/must-read list developing. Loads of memoirs and biographies, and of course a goodly smattering of mid-20th Century middlebrow fiction, as well as some promising 19th Century things.
Without further ado, here’s another assortment of opinions and summations on Century books needing reviews to qualify them for the project. Abandoning all attempts at themed presentation, and in no particular order, just as they come off the pile. The scanner is on for cover pictures, and here we go.
The Motive on Record by Dell Shannon ~ 1982. This edition: William Morrow & Co., 1982. Hardcover. 189 pages.
My rating: 7/10
A fairly standard police procedural by the prolific Elizabeth Linington, who penned something like 40 murder investigation novels featuring Lieutenant Luis Mendoza of the Los Angeles Police Department. She started with these in 1960; The Motive on Record is (I believe) number 33 or thereabouts. (She also wrote numerous murder/suspense novels under her own name, as well as under a second pseudonym, Lesley Egan.)
The books follow a sequential, chronological pattern, though it seems to me as though time perhaps works a bit differently in Shannon’s fictional world, for though 22 years of “real time” have passed between Mendoza’s first appearance and this book, he seems to have aged hardly at all, and his wee children whom I remember from much earlier books are still very young. If I really cared I would investigate further as to whether this tale was supposed to be set in the 1980s when it was published, or if it is meant to be set back in the 1960s. It reads like a book from an earlier era than the 80s, though some of the slang the author uses seems to place it later. For example, much offhand talk about “f*gs” in reference to homosexual men. Curious and repellant from a 2014 standard, I found, much as I like this writer in a general way.
Anyway, Mendoza and his fellow LAPD investigators tackle an ambitious number of suspicious deaths and other criminal activities. A murderous child rapist stalks a peaceful neighbourhood, an elderly woman and two children are found slumped dead in a church pew, an elderly fortune teller catches a knife to the chest, a missing drug dealer shows up on (not in) an elevator, a quiet postal worker turns up naked and dead behind a warehouse though his half-empty letter basket has been neatly returned to the mail hub, Vietnamese immigrants fall fatally afoul of their neighbours due to different dietary customs, and a clever pair of robbers successfully scoop several theatres’ door receipts on their busiest nights. And more.
All of the problems are eventually solved; just another few weeks down at the station…
Mendoza’s “quirks” include a customized Ferrari which he drives to work, and a quartet of Siamese cats, as well as a palatial dwelling outside of the city, complete with a small flock of grass-controlling sheep (the Five Graces) and ponies for the children.
Nasty murders aside, this is a mild sort of thing for the genre. Probably most appealing to those who’ve started out at the beginning of the sequence; much of the narrative assumes a prior acquaintance with the main characters.
The Silk Vendetta by Victoria Holt ~ 1987. This edition: Doubleday, 1987. Hardcover. 345 pages.
My rating: 5.5/10
An utterly stereotypical gothic romance concerning a young woman with mysterious antecedents living in a stately English home.
Beautiful Lenore lives with her grandmother in a separate suite of rooms in Silk House, home base of the wealthy silk manufacturer-merchant family, the Sallongers. Grandmother designs dresses, while Lenore shares a schoolroom and meals with the Sallonger daughters, though the servants sneer at her relentlessly, and the family matriarch obviously despises her. She’s definitely not viewed as an equal to the “young ladies”, but neither is she a servant. What’s it all about, I’m sure we’re meant to wonder. No points for figuring out that “someone” was begotten on the wrong side of the blankets, as it were. Or is she really legitimate? A fortune may ride on the answer…
Both Sallonger sons are attracted to beautiful Lenore, with very different motives towards her. The obligatory near-rape scene pays homage to the gothic novel tradition, as does the doomed marriage Lenore undertakes, before finding herself a safe haven enclosed by muscular manly arms.
I’m rather ashamed to say I read this with no qualms at all; it’s utter crap but also acceptably diverting, for those times when one doesn’t want to have one’s intellect or emotions ruffled. The writing is quite decent for this sort of thing, though the plot is completely standard issue. To be read on auto-pilot, while sipping a soothing cup of tea after a tiresome day. If all else fails, you can claim you’re reading it ironically, or perhaps just doing “research” for your book blog…
The honest verdict? Not particularly recommended. There’s better out there. (But in a pinch it would suffice.)
Love by Elizabeth von Arnim ~ 1925. This edition: Virago, 1988. Softcover. ISBN: 0-86068-941-7. 408 pages.
My rating: 9.75/10
One of von Arnim’s “serious” novels, and one which deserves a much more detailed discussion. I suspect I’ll be returning to it in future.
Middle-aged widow Catherine attracts the besotted notice of much-younger Christopher. He proposes marriage, to the dismay of everyone in their joint circles, and Catherine eventually accepts.
The question at the heart of the novel why is it completely acceptable for a very young woman to be married to a much older man (vis-à-vis Catherine’s own 19-year-old daughter’s recent marriage to a 49-year-old clergyman) and so socially dire for the opposite to be true.
Catherine’s second marriage soon encounters rocky ground, and, as she desperately tries to keep up a youthful appearance both for her husband’s and her own sake, much deep discussion on the nature of “Love” itself ensues. A favourite topic of von Arnim’s, and as seriously treated here as it was frivolously mauled about in The Enchanted April.
The ending is one of the best I’ve yet read by this particular writer; she doesn’t let us down as she sometimes does with her romantically tidy conclusions, but gives us something to consider most thoughtfully.
Jalna by Mazo de la Roche ~ 1927. This edition: Macmillan, 1977. Hardcover. ISBN: 333-02528-8. 290 pages.
My rating: 5.5/10
This dramatically romantic novel by a young Canadian writer won a literary prize of $10,000 upon its publication nearly a century ago: an astonishing amount for the time, equivalent to something like $132,000 in today’s currency. (I looked that bit up using a handy-dandy inflation-indexed currency converter I found online.)
Spurred on by her success, Mazo de la Roche went on to write another fifteen Ontario-set installments in the Whiteoaks family saga, creating something of a literary cottage industry of sequential books, assorted editions and collections, and theatrical, radio and filmed productions for the next fifty years.
I was well aware of this novel and its reputation as an iconic bit of literary Canadiana, but I hadn’t actually read it until this year.
My verdict: I’m not stacking up the other 15 on my night table for essential reading, though I might possibly poke my nose into another one if the mood feels right. I do have a number of them stashed away, found at a library book sale some years ago. I gave them to my mother, and she returned them with not much comment, which should have been a bit of a tip-off.
No hurry on the others, though. Jalna was not particularly compelling. In fact, only okayish is as far as I’m willing to commit myself on this one.
The plot in a nutshell: Wealthy matriarch Adeline Whiteoak is approaching her 100th birthday, and her various offspring and descendants circle round her angling for her slightly senile blessing.
One grandson unpopularily marries a local girl, by-blow of the man who once unsuccessfully courted one of Adeline’s daughters, while another brings home an American bluestocking. Both brides soon come to think that perhaps they have chosen the wrong brothers. The eldest of Adeline’s grandsons, broodingly charismatic, ceaselessly womanizing and still-single Renny, catches the eye of the American wife, while her spouse in turn dallies with his brother’s bride. Much chewing of the scenery ensues, helped along by the unmarried members of the family, Adeline’s two elderly sons and her much-past-her-prime passive-aggressive daughter.
Absolute soap opera. Think a low-rent Gone With the Wind, sans Civil War and southern drawls and a horribly likeable heroine, but with similar over-the-top romantic heart-throbbings and dirty little secrets. (Perhaps not really the best comparison, but it was what popped into my mind. It’s not really like GWTW at all. Perhaps Mazo de la Roche does stand alone.)
And there’s an elderly parrot, and a cheeky young boy, to provide much-needed levity, though not enough to ultimately save this overwrought thing from itself.
Leaves & Pages 