Gilead by Marilynne Robinson ****

I've read Marilynne Robinson's other book, Housekeeping, when it was on the Diane Rehm book club back a few years ago. I really didn't get that book, so I can say that this one is a great improvement over that.
Gilead is good, but very very slow. It takes most of the book to get to the meat of it, & by then you're almost too frustrated to care. The story is about a man in his 70's who's going to die soon--he has a heart condition. It's the 1950's in Iowa, he's a preacher (though I never really figured out of what religion), & he has a young son that he never thought he would have. The whole book is a journal that the man is writing for his son, so he'll have some idea what his father was like when he's grown. It's a very nice book, well written. I'm just not used to the extremely slow pace, I think. One of the characters, Jack Boughton, is memorable in that he's flawed. Everyone else seems to be so very well behaved, though we really don't get to know about John Ames' wife. Jack's character was the best part of the book for me. I, like most of us, like my story heroes flawed. And Jack is flawed. But of course, tries his damnedest.
If you can handle the slow pace, I highly recommend this one.

Rape: a Love Story by Joyce Carol Oates ****

What a great title, eh? This is an extremely short (154 pages) extremely fast read & I thoroughly enjoyed it. It tells the story of a woman who gets gang raped in a park while walking home on the night of the 4th of July. Her 12 year old daughter is with her, & much of the book is told thru her words. That moment changes their lives forever & sets in motion a series of events that are told in short chapters. The incident happens in 1996, & one of the cops that responds to the call is a Desert Storm veteran. It's amazing how this violent attack attaches these lives to each other, never to be separate again.
I read this book because Dog heard on NPR a listing of 4 American authors that deserve to win the Nobel prize for literature, but probably won't. Other than Joyce Carol Oates, there was John Updike, Philip Roth, & Cormac McCarthy. I've read Philip Roth recently (The Plot Against America), but had never read the others.
The story on NPR was right--none of them won. It was French author Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio. I'd like to read some of his work in the future. But for right now, Joyce Carol Oates wins on Suelle's Soapbox!

Dark Matter by Philip Kerr ****

I guess you could call this a mystery book for scientists. Sir Isaac Newton is the main character, & as I've heard it described elsewhere, he plays the Sherlock Holmes to his assistant Christopher Ellis's Watson. Written from Ellis's point of view (he was a real guy too!) the story is very well done & shows much of the inner workings of Newton's mind.
Newton has been put forth as the most intelligent human ever, since all later physics is based upon the firm foundation that Newton built. The main mystery of the book is the solving of a seemingly unsolvable code. The code has been found on the bodies of several dead guys discovered murdered in the Tower of London. And since the Mint was housed in the Tower, & since Newton was head of the Mint, he set out to figure out what was going on. There's a lot of great action to break up the intellectual stuff & some romance with Ellis thrown in for good measure.
I'm glad the book is written in Ellis's voice, since otherwise we'd be reading a bunch of scientific mumbo jumbo with a little bit of plot thrown in. As Ellis himself finds out when he tries to read some of Newton's much-lauded publications, he can't get through them awake. But that doesn't stop him from respecting & admiring the amazing brain that was Newton.
Good stuff!

Jo's Boys by Louisa May Alcott **

As shown by the stars listed above, this just wasn't very good. If you like to read a lot of lectures given to young people how to live their lives, you might like it though. Basically that's all this book is, a series of lectures delivered by Jo to the poor kids she's had the "pleasure" of raising. If I have to hear one more time about the evils of drinking, gambling, & cursing, I'll puke.
When reading this book 2 things become painfully obvious: 1) Ms. Alcott's publisher really wanted her to write this book to wrap things up with this series, even though Louisa didn't really have anything more she wanted to write about these characters, & 2) Louisa May Alcott never married or had kids of her own. It's so damn easy to sit there & think how you'd do it better when you've never had to do it yourself, & that's pretty much what she does in this book. You can just see her poor nieces & nephews cringing as she gets up on her soapbox yet again on how young people should be raised & trained & so forth.
I think this should be a lesson to all of us: don't write about something you have absolutely no idea about. It's either going to come across as very unreal, or very lame. This unfortunate book came across as both.
One last note: the big reason I read this book was to find out what happened to all the kids when they grew up. It was really depressing, since the "good" kids ended happily married with lucrative jobs while the "bad" kids all died or had miserable lives. And of course Dick & Billy from the previous book are conveniently disposed of. "Poor little Dick was dead, so was Billy; & no one could mourn for them, since life would never be happy, afflicted as they were in mind & body."
Louisa May, I think they died from reading this book.
Allow me to give them both better roles in this lovely tome:
Perfect little Daisy fell in love with Dick, & vise versa. Since even obedient Nat wasn't good enough for her mother Meg, Daisy & Dick ran off together in the dark of night, got married & moved out west. Starting from the ground up they established a berry farm in one of those lovely fertile areas of California & became very successful. Dick's last name was Smucker.
Billy left Plumfield (the prison Mrs. Jo ran with her weird German husband) after being treated so poorly. He ran off to Boston & got a job as a janitor at Harvard. He worked nights cleaning the chalkboards in the lecture halls, but occasionally solved one of the incredibly difficult math problems left on the boards. No one ever figured out it was him, & he was happy to be left alone. He never married, but had a nice little apartment & took care of himself & was a valuable member of the community.
Since we've left Nat without a denouement since Daisy ran off with Dick, we'll say Nat stayed in Europe & became a violinist with the London Symphony Orchestra. He came out of the closet when he met Oscar Wilde & lived a flamboyant & enjoyable life amid the London artsy set. Every Christmas he wrote to Plumfield, telling them that he was goddamn grateful they'd helped him out when he was younger, & that he'd drink a toast to them with hard liqueur while he was playing roulette in Monte Carlo on New Year's Eve.

I think that should pretty much set the old gal to rolling in her grave, don't you?

Little Men by Louisa May Alcott ***

There are some good points to this book, but it's so outdated it's hard to like it as much as "Little Women". Of course I've fixated on the fact that 2 of the boys that Jo & her husband take in have disabilities--Dick is a hunchback & Billy's brain has been fried by his father making him study too much--& Alcott's treatment of them is pretty lame (pun intended). She says how their poor, pitiful little lives aren't worth much. I'm reading the third part of this trilogy right now, I'd love to make some radical changes to it though! Poor Louisa May would roll in her grave!

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott ****

I don't think I need to tell everybody what this book is about unless you've been living under a rock for the past 100 years.
What I will do is say that it still is a great book. It's amazing to me how easy it is to read. Also, I hadn't read the book in a long time & had only seen the movies about it in between. Reading the book helped me clear up in my mind a lot of the relationships that evolve during the time period described, mostly the Jo/Laurie aspect. Reading this book at my age now I have a much better understanding of those little intricacies of relationships, & I also appreciate that Amy isn't just a spoiled brat of a girl who always gets her way. She's a much better character when you actually read the book!
The only complaint I have about it is it is a little nicey-nicey, even for the 1800's. But I have to remind myself that Louisa May was from New England, & if there's anywhere in the country that's traditionally prudish it has to be there. I'm sure the "sordid" stories that Jo was writing for money would make me hoot out loud at their innocence, but in that time & place I'm sure there were quite a few folks who couldn't take that kind of excitement!
Overall, a highly recommended book for girls (& guys) of all ages.

The Persian Boy by Mary Renault ****

I was really surprised by this book. It is the fictional memoirs of the eunuch that was one of Alexander the Great's closest companions & servants. Basically, it chronicles Alexander's movements across Asia Minor as he expanded his empire. But more importantly, it gives us a wonderful idea of who Alexander might have been. Mary Renault used many historical & first hand accounts to write this wonderful book, & by doing so she paints a picture of a person that was larger than life.

When you look at a map of the territory conquered by Alexander it can truly blow your mind. Add to that the fact that he never lost a battle-never-& you realize why he was worshiped as a god after his death.

Mary Renault is also the author of another book I highly recommend & have written about on this blog before: The King Must Die. She had a great talent & an obvious fascination & knowledge base of ancient Greece.

The only thing that may offend or upset some readers is her descriptions of homosexuality. I think it is amazing & so very accurate how she describes the relationships between the men in her books, & it also makes you realize that homosexuality is such a part of being human also. I'd venture to guess it's been around almost as long as human heterosexuality. It's interesting also how our current ways of thinking have colored how we view that kind of lifestyle.

I highly recommend this book!