Kay's Bookshelf

From the very moment the book opens (the last day of Egypt as a free country), the characters have fallen a bit flat for me. We get a glimpse of Marc Antony, whom I have rather despised (his last words were about wine? really? I understand he loved wine and horses but this was a bit too much for me), and of Cleopatra (who had too few pages to make any impression on me; she was just there, and then she died, and that was that). Fast-forward eleven months, and there is our first chance to get to know the three children of Cleopatra and Antony’s. We learn that Selene is very talented when it comes to drawing, and Alexander knows a lot about horses. Other than that, they (or at least Alexander) seem to have gotten over their pain at seeing their parents dead and have been transformed into slaves pretty well. The depth of feeling seemed to me lacking all throughout the book, and it probably was one of the reasons I did not enjoy it that much.

Sadly, the fact that I did not resonate with the character affected my relationship with the whole story, because there is very little plot to speak of. Sure, there’s the Red Eagle mystery, but I kept thinking of it more as a tangent to the story, something that didn’t actually affect any of the characters, so I wasn’t particularly drawn into that either. What did give a bit of flavor to the book was the actual historical part: what Octavian did and when, his decisions and the way they affected others, plus the descriptions of Rome in that day and age. It can be said, in a broad sense, that Octavian was the one that made the book worth reading for me (otherwise there were only shopping trips or some other form of entertaining; oh, and Selene’s pining for someone she could never have).

One of my disappointments in the book was the fact that it mostly narrates Selene’s childhood (ages 11-15), a time far less interesting than her adulthood probably was. Even the author mentions, in the afterword, that Selene and her husband had “one of the greatest love stories ever to come out of imperial Rome, and for twenty years they reigned side by side in an extraordinary partnership”; I for one would have loved to know more about that, rather than a few years in the life of a more or less ordinary child.

Speaking of which, sometimes I felt the connection with Cleopatra a bit forced. That was most likely because Selene had no particularity to mark her as Cleopatra’s daughter. She could have been any other child lucky enough to belong to a patrician family. Or so it seemed to me (while she does prefer Egypt to Rome whenever she has the chance, these moments occupied way too little space to actually matter).

It can be argued that at least Selene remained attached to the land of her forefathers. To my surprise that wasn’t the case with her brother, Alexander, who adopted the Roman way in all the aspects of his life. He enjoyed betting on horse races and going to the Circus with his Roman friends, very rarely thinking about his previous life with his mother and father. This may be only an impression of mine, since we only see Alexander through Selene’s life, but I have often wondered how could he adapt so completely to his new way of life (sure, history tells us that Juba did the same, but he was “adopted” by the Romans when he was 4 or 6, not 11 as Alexander was).

I did not yet decide what I think about the fate the author has chosen for little Ptolemy, Selene and Alexander’s brother. There is very little known about him, however there are some historians that state all the three children were at the Triumph, and all three of them were then taken into custody by Octavia. As such, I was a bit surprised to see Ptolemy not being there. I also was surprised to see Antony criticised for sending away Octavia’s daughters with her previous husband, a move clearly intended for the reader to find Rome even more outrageous; however history (or at least some historians) tells us that the two Claudia Marcellas have lived with their mother and Marc Antony for a while, so they were not simply turned away when Octavia remarried.

Thoughts on the ending: I loved the last few pages the most in the entire book. Of course I knew how it was going to end (history tells us who Selene married), and yet there was a surprise twist near the end that I have vastly enjoyed.

What I liked most: The number of real-life characters mentioned in the novel. There are so many people I learned about and I am happy and grateful because of that. (for starters, secondary cast Wiki pages: Juba, Marcellus, Julia, Livia, Tiberius, Vipsania)

What I liked least: Why is the book named Cleopatra’s Daughter yet all throughout the book the name is spelled Kleopatra? There is a mention in the book that the name is spelt thus in Greek — and yet, why should we care about the Greek spelling, since the Cleopatra everyone’s known for all their life is spelt with a C? Or, if it mattered that much to the author, shouldn’t the name have been spelt with a K on the cover too?

Recommend it to? Anyone interested in a historical fiction novel set in ancient Rome. As usual, I seem to be the only one not liking this book so I do recommend it despite my own opinion about it.

See also
Michelle Moran’s website
Michelle Moran’s blog
Places in Rome where Selene has been
Q and A with the author about the book

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Popularity: 5% [?]

Expect this to be a review filled with quotes because I don’t think my own words alone could give a good enough idea of what the book is actually like :)

There are many characters in this book (as there are many people in a squadron). Some of them appear more often, some of them rather rarely. The one who appears the most is the one I have considered the main character and, coincidentally, is my favorite one. Yossarian is, at first, described by one of his friends as having “an unreasonable belief that everybody around him was crazy, a homicidal impulse to machine-gun strangers, retrospective falsification, an unfounded suspicion that people hated him and were conspiring to kill him“. At first the reader sees him as somewhat ridiculous, and doesn’t know what to make of him. The same can be said about the book, filled at first with all sorts of absurd episodes, seeming strange but not necessarily to be taken seriously. Even the timeline is messed up, the events being presented in what looks like random order.

And yet, as the pages are turned, more and more facets of Yossarian (and of the story itself) come to light. The reader gets to see that, far from being the paranoid and irrational creature presented in the first pages, Yossarian is actually “an intelligent person of great moral character“. He is indeed afraid of dying (aren’t we all?), but most of all he doesn’t want to waste his life uselessly. The same happens to the book. Even the timeline fixes itself, and, as events progress, more and more important issues are being revealed. In a war people die. Some profit off it. Some sacrifice the lives of others for their personal glory. The naive ones get killed. All these are obvious in a way even before reading, but they are made more poignant by the events in the book. The author doesn’t emit judgments, he just narrates the facts, and it’s these facts that are the striking part.

Now consider all this wrapped in a thick layer of sheer absurdity. Yossarian’s superiors keep raising the number of missions a pilot has to fly before being sent home (they do this so often that there are pilots, like Hungry Joe, who completed the “tour of duty” several times, because the number of necessary missions changed before anyone who completed the previous number had time to receive his papers and go home). The efficacy of a bomb run is not measured by the number of targets hit, or whether they were hit at all, but by how nice a pattern they offer when thrown. One of the characters is considered dead after the plane he officially was on exploded, despite the said character being right among the people who observed the accident. The mess hall officer is involved in some shady business involving supplies, a business that occasioned his being offered an important position in almost every city in the world (he is the mayor of Malta, the Caliph of Baghdad, the Imam of Damascus, the Sheik of Araby, the Vice-Shah of Oran, and many more), and also enabled him to fight on both sides of the war.

In this context, the idea of the Catch-22 feels right at home. These days, a “Catch-22″ is the name one gives to a no-win situation, due to circular and self-contradicting logic. Which is the exact meaning the term had in the book, as, whenever there was a certain type of situation, someone was bound to invoke the said catch. Even if the actual wording varies now and then (“‘Catch-22,’ [...] ’says you’ve always got to do what your commanding officer tells you to.’“, “The men don’t have to sign Piltchard and Wren’s loyalty oath if they don’t want to. But we need you to starve them to death if they don’t.“, “Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can’t stop them from doing.“), the feeling of illogicality and contradiction is the same. Interestingly enough no one has ever seen the Catch-22 in writing (Yossarian thinks it doesn’t even exist), but everyone obeys it because the Catch-22 itself states that no one wanting to apply it has to show it to the one it’s being applied on.

A few more quotes that I liked:
The first appearance of the infamous catch:

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

One of the absurd moments that flourish throughout the book:

‘Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?’

The question upset them, because Snowden had been killed over Avignon when Dobbs went crazy in mid-air and seized the controls away from Huple.

The corporal played it dumb. ‘What?’ he asked.

[...]

‘Où sont les Neigedens d’antan?‘ Yossarian said to make it easier for him.

‘Parlez en anglais, for Christ’s sake,’ said the corporal. ‘Je ne parle pas français.‘

An idea I found cool because I myself have never thought of it:

To Yossarian, the idea of pennants as prizes was absurd. No money went with them, no class privileges. Like Olympic medals and tennis trophies, all they signified was that the owner had done something of no benefit to anyone more capably than everyone else.

And a description of one of the characters, Major Major Major Major:

He was polite to his elders, who disliked him. Whatever his elders told him to do, he did. They told him to look before he leaped, and he always looked before he leaped. They told him never to put off until the next day what he could do the day before, and he never did. He was told to honor his father and his mother, and he honored his father and his mother. He was told that he should not kill, and he did not kill, until he got into the Army. Then he was told to kill, and he killed. He turned the other cheek on every occasion and always did unto others exactly as he would have had others do unto him. When he gave to charity, his left hand never knew what his right hand was doing. He never once took the name of the Lord his God in vain, committed adultery or coveted his neighbor’s ass. In fact, he loved his neighbor and never even bore false witness against him. Major Major’s elders disliked him because he was such a flagrant nonconformist.

Thoughts on the ending: I am not sure how I feel about the ending. I mean, I definitely like it a lot, I just cannot decide whether it was simply perfect or just good. The book ends with show spoiler

What I liked most: The sheer absurdity of some of the situations, especially near the beginning. To mention a random one, Chief White Halfoat, an Indian, told the story of his tribe, who was chased from place to place because every time they set up camp anywhere, that place was brimming with oil. In Chief’s own words:

We were human divining rods. Our whole family had a natural affinity for petroleum deposits, and soon every oil company in the world had technicians chasing us around. We were always on the move. [...] Soon whole drilling crews were following us around with all their equipment just to get the jump on each other. Companies began to merge just so they could cut down on the number of people they had to assign to us. But the crowd in back of us kept growing. We never got a good night’s sleep. When we stopped, they stopped. When we moved, they moved, chuckwagons, bulldozers, derricks, generators. We were a walking business boom, and we began to receive invitations from some of the best hotels just for the amount of business we would drag into town with us. Some of those invitations were mighty generous, but we couldn’t accept any because we were Indians and all the best hotels that were inviting us wouldn’t accept Indians as guests.

Or, another random one, Doc Daneeka’s indignation at his word being doubted when he has declared himself unfit for war (note that ha was a perfectly healthy man):

They had to send a guy from the draft board around to look me over. I was Four-F. I had examined myself pretty thoroughly and discovered that I was unfit for military service. You’d think my word would be enough, wouldn’t you, since I was a doctor in good standing with my county medical society and with my local Better Business Bureau. But no, it wasn’t, and they sent this guy around just to make sure I really did have one leg amputated at the hip and was helplessly bedridden with incurable rheumatoid arthritis. Yossarian, we live in an age of distrust and deteriorating spiritual values. It’s a terrible thing,’ Doc Daneeka protested in a voice quavering with strong emotion. ‘It’s a terrible thing when even the word of a licensed physician is suspected by the country he loves.’

Or another random one (last one, I promise):

As a member of the Action Board, Lieutenant Scheisskopf was one of the judges who would weigh the merits of the case against Clevinger as presented by the prosecutor. Lieutenant Scheisskopf was also the prosecutor. Clevinger had an officer defending him. The officer defending him was Lieutenant Scheisskopf.

What I liked least: I cannot say anything remotely bad about this book. I was a bit worried at first, when the characters were introduced and there seemed to be so many of them, enough to lose track of, but with time I got to know everyone so I was able to tell everyone apart.

Recommend it to? You know, this is one of the most controverted books out there. I was amazed to notice there are plenty of people who started on it but put it down after a while (lots more than with other books). On Goodreads for example the book has at the moment over 1300 one-star ratings (presumably all of them from people who couldn’t finish it). However there are also 18402 five-star ratings (yup, more than 10 times the bad ones), making one think there must be something to this book after all :)

Subjectively, I for one have liked the book very much. I got a bit lost in characters at first but I persevered and I am immensely glad I did so. This makes me, of course, to want to recommend the book to everyone around me. And I do. With the caveat that, well, some people find the first hundred pages a bit hard to get through.

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Popularity: 14% [?]

Attilius, the main character of the book, is a guy after my own taste. A dedicated engineer, like his father and his father before him, the only thing he cares about is water, because that is what he knows about and that’s what he understands. I suspect that the author has modernized him a bit (for example Attilius doesn’t believe in gods and is unimpressed by philosophers; for some reason I think of people at that time as either devoted to the gods, or captivated by certain philosophical ideas — a guy denying them both seems to be a bit hard to believe but that may be just me). However I cannot help liking the guy’s pragmatic nature, his sheer love for his work and the fact that he always tries to make the right choice, no matter how difficult that may be.

Unfortunately the most important female character in the book was, albeit very promising, largely neglected. Corelia is a courageous girl with the heart in the right place, and I liked reading about her; however she didn’t get nearly enough space for me to actually grow attached to her (a thing I have thought to be a pity since, as I have already said, she started out oh so promising). On the other hand the antagonist, Corelia’s father, is just as well written as Attilius is, the author offering a fascinating glimpse into the mind of a former slave and a nouveau riche.

For some reason I expected to like this book a lot, and yet at first I was surprised to discover that the writing style has failed to pull me in. I think that is mostly because the world building is at times sparse, with few details other than the absolutely necessary ones. Luckily, I have grown used to it after the first hundred pages or so and started enjoying it a bit more, although I kept feeling the lack of details now and then. Perhaps I should say the lack of details and things happening, as another feeling of mine was that things were happening a bit too slow (but this may be my fault not the book’s because my expectations may be biased after reading, say, an overly alert book like The Eye of the World).

However, reading this book has been an interesting experience for me since I already knew the radical way it was going to end. To my surprise this has somewhat decreased my enjoyment of the book because at times I couldn’t get enough interest to care about what happens next. As much as I liked Attilius, I couldn’t root for anyone’s cause because I knew they were all going to die in a day or so, and everything else seemed petty compared to that. I was of course curious whether anyone will escape and how, but this only made the part before the eruption even less attractive as it kept me from reaching the interesting part.

I would lie though if I said there wasn’t something I liked even in the few days before the eruption, and that is the way the author has chosen to make the signs of the said eruption available (as they must have been back then) to our heros. Starting with the smell of sulphur everywhere, to the ashes on the top of the Vesuvius and to the tremors of the earth that Pliny the Elder enjoyed studying. I liked reading about these because there were things I have not considered before, and yet they also saddened me because of the way they failed to convey to people the message of what was to come.

I’m very impressed with the technological advancements of the Roman Empire at that time. The aqueducts, with their spigots and pressure-controlling water towers, are things that I wouldn’t have expected to see in use 2000-years ago. I mean, sure I knew that the Roman had public baths, and were using water pipes and so on, but somehow the magnitude of the things has failed to impress me until this book (and I am very grateful to it for driving the point home). In Pliny the Elder’s own words:

“When we consider the abundant supplies of water in public buildings, baths, pools, open channels, private houses, gardens and country estates, and when we think of the distances traversed by the water before it arrives, the raising of arches, the tunnelling of mountains and the building of level routes across deep valleys, then we shall readily admit that there has never been anything more remarkable than our aqueducts in the whole world.”

Another passage I found interesting was that of the prophecy commissioned from a Sybil by one of the characters. “‘She saw a town – our town – many years from now. A thousand years distant, maybe more.’ He let his voice fall to a whisper. ‘She saw a city famed throughout the world. Our temples, our amphitheatre, our streets – thronging with people of every tongue.’“. The prophecy was interpreted as a golden future for Pompeii, a sign that the city was indestructible, and the character who commissioned it refused to leave the city at the very height of danger because he deeply believed that his interpretation of the Sybil’s prophecy was correct. The reader, unlike the said character, knows nevertheless the real meaning: a reference to Pompeii of today, a city that spent about 1700 years buried in pumice and that is indeed filled with millions of tourists, “people of every tongue”. I thought this was a nice touch of the author’s, an “ah-ha” moment that drew the reader (or at least me) in a bit more.

Thoughts on the ending: Understandably enough it wasn’t a very surprising ending since history already told us what happened with Pompeii. I loved the last sentence though :)

What I liked most: The fact that I got to learn a lot of new things about that time. Aqua Augusta and Piscina Mirabilis, for one, Pliny the Elder and the way he died, for other, and many more. The author has “done his homework” regarding that day and age and it shows.

Also, there is a particular scene in the first day of the eruption when Pliny’s ship is heading towards Rectina’s villa (speaking of which, my heart broke seeing such a valuable library destroyed) when the pumice starts falling from above and “the water was covered in a carpet of stone.“. I loved the novelty of such an image.

What I liked least: I would have liked to see Corelia explored more as a character. As it is she is merely a plot device to motivate Attilius to do things, when she could have been an interesting woman in her own right.

Recommend it to? Anyone who likes historical fiction, especially when set in the Roman Empire; everyone interested in a version of what might have happened at Pompeii in that fateful day two thousand years ago. It has a pretty good rating on Amazon and Goodreads so if you think it might be your cup of tea do not hesitate to give it a try :)

See also
Current day Pompeii via Google Street View

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Popularity: 10% [?]

I am somewhat of a fan of Kinsey Millhone’s. I really like her no-nonsense persona (I am more of a scaredy mouse type, and it was probably natural for me to be attracted to a type so much different than my own) and her courage in getting involved with all sort of people in all sort of situations. As usual, in this book we get to find out some more details about her, a few more bits of the puzzle that she is. Some of them amusing (such as the discovery that she’s, in her own words, “a bad-ass private eye who swoons in the same room with a needle“), some of them rather touching (more of her feelings regarding the loss of her parents at a tender age).

As for the other characters, we don’t get to know any of them that well, due to their paths crossing Kinsey only when needed, and that for a very short while. However, Kinsey is very observant and a good judge of character, so we do get to know at least some parts of what makes some of them tick. Taking for example Bailey’s mother, Oribelle, a former beauty but now ravaged by diabetes, heroically trying not to complain and yet complaining all day; Bailey’s father, the type used to ordering people around, now trying to get to grips with the fact that he has little more to live and his strength is seeping day by day; the reverend of the Baptist church, acting like a pious person when in fact he isn’t precisely that behind closed doors; and many more. Bailey himself is an interesting character, albeit somewhat mysterious (and very good at fending for himself when needed); overall, the reader ends up rooting for him (a good thing too, as it was kinda obvious he didn’t do it because… well, that’s how it is in this kind of books :P ).

There’s not much I can say about the plot, since the Alphabet books are more or less all similar in that department: Kinsey is on the case, Kinsey starts asking questions, Kinsey is getting closer to solving the case, Kinsey is (usually) threatened by the criminal, Kinsey (sometimes) gets hurt in the altercation, the case is nevertheless solved, the end. The charm is nevertheless in the details, and these, of course, are not to be disclosed so as not to spoil the story.

One of the things I find amusing with the books in these series is that, while the things in the first one happened in about the same year (1982 I think) the book was published, the distance between reality and fiction slowly increases. For example this one was released in 1985 but the things in it happen in 1983. That is of course easily explained by the fact that in real life the author releases about one book per year, whereas in Kinsey’s timeline only a few months pass between cases. I am however looking forward to the more recent books (with an even larger margin), to see whether cellphones or the Internet (or other such novelties) are going to make an impromptu appearance. :)

Speaking of the series, so far I enjoyed all the books, and I am impressed by the fact that so far the author never repeated herself (in terms of characters and their actions). However I did notice a pattern throughout: whenever Kinsey has to investigate something that happened years before, whoever did the deed (that cannot be pinned on him/her, else it would have been so all those years ago) gets nervous and starts killing more people. This I think is in order to satisfy the reader’s sense of justice: as the guilty part cannot be convicted, for various reasons, of the old deed, there are these new deeds so the said guilty part will be convicted nevertheless.

A favorite quote:

I thought about my papa. I was five when he left me . . . five when he went away. [...] When had it dawned on me that he was gone for good? When had it dawned on Ann that Royce was never going to come through? And what of Jean Timberlake? None of us had survived the wounds our fathers inflicted all those years ago. Did he love us? How would we ever know? He was gone and he’d never again be what he was to us in all his haunting perfection. If love is what injures us, how can we heal?

Thoughts on the ending: This was one of those books where everyone comes under suspicion at one time or another, making it impossible (at least for me) to guess who the killer was. To my delight chagrin, the one person who did it was the one person I didn’t suspect at all. Yay! :)

What I liked most: The idea of having it all happen in such a small (eighteen blocks) town. For some reason it made it all seem both more intimate and also more creepy (since everyone knows everyone it means that everyone has talked to and smiled at the killer plenty of times). The part regarding the “Family Crisis Squad” was also quite fun to imagine :)

On the kitchen counter, I could see a tuna casserole with crushed potato chips on top, a ground beef and noodle bake, and two Jell-O molds (one cherry with fruit cocktail, one lime with grated carrots), which Ann asked me to refrigerate. It had only been an hour and a half since [event]. I didn’t think gelatin set up that fast, but these Christian ladies probably knew tricks with ice cubes that would render salads and desserts in record time for just such occasions. I pictured a section in the ladies’ auxiliary church cookbook for Sudden Death Quick Snacks . . . using ingredients one could keep on the pantry shelf in the event of tragedy

What I liked least: I loved the book up until one of the last paragraphs, where there was something I didn’t quite understand. The real criminal was (of course) apprehended, but no proofs were found regarding Jean’s murder. So the police couldn’t actually prove that the said criminal was the one who killed Jean, yet Bailey was set free — why? How come, since no one has proven him not guilty of the said murder?

Recommend it to? Everyone who loves mysteries :)

This book is a sequel to:
A Is For Alibi
B Is For Burglar
C Is For Corpse
D Is For Deadbeat
E Is For Evidence

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Popularity: 10% [?]

The novel is, for lack of a better word, dark. There are a lot of moments of violence, as the author intended to present the lives of the black slaves back then with the utmost sincerity, without masking anything. Dana herself is being taken by surprise at how violent those times were, and how much real violence differed from the imagined one, or the one on TV. The usual punishment of the time was a savage whipping, degrading and inflicting a lot of pain to the punished one. Dana herself, although a visitor from another time and the main character of the book, is not spared any suffering. While this book has been a less heartbreaking read for me than Uncle Tom’s Cabin (ages ago), it wasn’t an easy one either, and I repeatedly wondered at the

For me (as a white person) it was a bit sad to notice there are no actually good white people all throughout the book, other than Dana’s husband, who comes from a different time than the rest. I am not sure how I feel about this. First of all, it is obvious that all the white people of the 19th century that we get to meet in the book have had a certain kind of upbringing, one that insisted that slaves are nothing more than animals. It is also obvious that a person acting by that time’s standards cannot be considered good by the standards of today. And yet I was a bit sorry to see whites presented in such a cookie cutter manner, unlike the black people who had actual personalities, ranging from the always unpredictable Alice to the subdued Sarah who was always aware what the “masters” can do and as such she was always wary of them.

Although to be completely honest no character is as complex in the whole book as Rufus is. My feelings towards him were just as everyone else’ around him, just as Dana’s: I cared for him, as he had some good moments, but there were also moments when I was horrified by what he could do (to Dana or other people). You know, this alone would be a reason for me to consider Ms. Butler a great writer: the fact that she has created such a conflicting yet very believable character. In a way, Rufus reminded me of Bruno, the German boy in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, because, although older, he was just as oblivious about people’s feelings as nine year old Bruno was. Yet he also had a sort of innocence (or should I call it overconfidence), firmly believing that his choices in matters are the only possible choices (not out of being evil but because that’s the way he was taught), making me care about him even though I didn’t much agree with the way he acted.

I think that this book was, at least partially, the result of the author’s imagining herself in such a strange situation. After all, she was bound to have an interest in slavery, given that she herself has had first hand contact with the mindset of the 1950s (Ms. Butler about the way her mother was treated at work: “I used to see her going in back doors, being talked about while she was standing right there and basically being treated like a non-person, something beneath notice.“). It is obvious that the inspiration for Dana was Ms. Butler’s own life: they both come from a devout Baptist family, Dana also tries to become a writer, taking as many writing classes as possible, they are both from Pasadena, and their ages were similar too (Ms. Butler was 29 in 1976). For some reasons I am always a bit fonder of characters that seem inspired from their author rather than not.

An interesting quote, Dana’s thoughts about Kevin’s (possible) life in the 18th century:

A place like this would endanger him in a way I didn’t want to talk to him about. If he was stranded here for years, some part of this place would rub off on him. No large part, I knew. But if he survived here, it would be because he managed to tolerate the life here. He wouldn’t have to take part in it, but he would have to keep quiet about it. Free speech and press hadn’t done too well in the ante bellum South. Kevin wouldn’t do too well either. The place, the time would either kill him outright or mark him somehow. I didn’t like either possibility.

Thoughts on the ending: Due to the prologue I knew right from the start approximatively how the book will end (it is obvious from the first sentence actually). While I wasn’t surprised when I reached the actual ending, I was happy to discover there is a part of a chapter where Dana and Kevin try to find out the whereabouts of the black people at the Weylin’s farm after Dana left for good. I’m always a fan of these types of endings (when “what happened to them next” is revealed) and of course I liked this one too :)

As a tiny aside, the book is for some reason classified by many as Science Fiction. I really don’t see how that’s the case as no science is ever mentioned, and I think it belongs way better in the Fantasy genre (because of the time travel, of course).

What I liked most: The differences in perception between Dana, the black female, and Kevin, the white male. It is obvious that they both filter whatever they go through according to their knowledge and previous experience, but also according to some very basic elements such as race. Dana feels a lot more powerfully the plights of everyone around her in the 18th century, going so far as becoming a part of them, identifying herself with that group of black people she ended up among, despite the fact that they didn’t have that many things in common other than the skin color. Kevin tends to be more the observer kind, watching the events around him unfold with a detached eye, and it is only natural it should be so because, among other things, he is never in that close contact with the black people as Dana is, he is never “one of them” but “one of the others”. I found these considerations interesting, all the more so because I am not sure I would have thought of them on my own, had the author not had pointed them out.

What I liked least: Once again I am back to the first sentence. I hated hated hated the fact that Dana lost her arm like that — she was so courageous and tried to help everyone around her and to see such a thing happening to her was quite sad. My copy of the book had a commentary on this event, among other things, and whoever wrote it saw this as a strike of genius because it has lots of symbolic meanings (among other things Ruth Salvaggio seems to have said about it that the lost arm is the emblem of Dana’s disfigured heritage). While I do get (parts of) the symbolism the critics are talking about, I still can’t help feeling very sad for Dana’s irreparable loss.

Recommend it to? Anyone. I read this book in just one day, that’s how fascinated I was with it. Be warned though that there are some violent scenes inside.


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The book is developed on two planes: the particular, dealing with Newland and May’s personal life, and the general, expounding on the high society’s mores of the time. While the former was interesting, I was captivated by the latter. I was amazed to discover a world completely opposed to my image of New York, a world ruled by rigid moral codes and manners, a closed circle where only a precious few have access. While I have read about this kind of people here in Europe (I think almost every country had such circles of “blue bloods” that lived the same way as those in the book), I would never have imagined it was the same in America too (I don’t have a particular reason why not, I just couldn’t imagine it).

For this reason the parts of the book that interested me the most were Newland’s musings on society. I loved to see the way he was struggling to reconcile his upbringing and the old fashioned thoughts of the people around him with his sentiments that things should be different, that (as an example) women should be as free as men, and that things aren’t necessarily to be done the way everyone else does them. Newland is at times ahead of his time (and I was fascinated by him each time that happened, as I believe it’s not easy for one to challenge the convictions one grew up with), and at times just as prejudiced as his peers (“It was easier, and less dastardly on the whole, for a wife to play [the part of faithful spouse] toward her husband. A woman’s standard of truthfulness was tacitly held to be lower: she was the subject creature, and versed in the arts of the enslaved.“).

At first sight the very opposite of him is May, the beautiful and serene woman that is well on her way to turning into a perfect copy of her mother. Newland sees her as incapable of growth and quite unable of thinking on her own (“As she sat thus, the lamplight full on her clear brow, he said to himself with a secret dismay that he would always know the thoughts behind it, that never, in all the years to come, would she surprise him by an unexpected mood, by a new idea, a weakness, a cruelty or an emotion.“). Yet the author does at times offer the reader clues that, although she doesn’t show it much, May is capable of more depth that her husbands credits her with; however she is too trapped in the conventions of the age, that require for a woman to be a good housekeeper more than anything and just leave the thinking to the husband.

Speaking of the age, I had fun noticing the few mentions of technological advancements some people at the time expected with wonder to see in the future, and I regarded them as nice touches of the author’s (the book was released in 1920). For example Countess Olenska (if I remember correctly) is very excited at one point about the idea of a telephone perhaps being able to “transport” voices from street to street, or maybe, wondrously, even from town to town. Also, at another point someone mentions “visionaries who likewise predicted the building of ships that would cross the Atlantic in five days, the invention of a flying machine, lighting by electricity, telephonic communication without wires, and other Arabian Night marvels“. Almost all of these came true by the time the book was written (for example the first successful crossing of the Atlantic by plane was done in 1919, by Alcock and Brown). For some reason I loved these small details; I know it can be said that the mentions of then non-existent technology make the book seem a bit dated, but I prefer to think of the characters as imagining the future with wide-eyed innocence (unlike the jaded people of today), adding yet another dimension to the title (the age of innocence = the age of long ago, when people were still untainted by technology).

And speaking of the title, I have spent quite a bit of time trying to figure what the title was meant to refer to. First of all, naming the book “The Age of …” was clearly a nice touch, since the book is, more than anything else, a picture of a certain time and age. How about the “Innocence” part though? That I have had a bit more trouble to place because, while the people were highly judgemental and so everyone tried, on the outside, not to break any moral code, very few of them actually are what might be called innocent in the long run. And then I thought that “The age of innocence” is actually an ironic name for what would have better been called “the age of keeping up appearances”, and then it all made sense.

Thoughts on the ending: The last chapter takes place 26 years after the previous one. While it deals with the changes in Newland’s life too (nothing that I’ll mention here so as not to spoil the book), the author doesn’t miss the opportunity to show the reader the changes in the society. A lot of progress has been done, and young people of the day are feeling a lot more free than the ones before them did: codes of conduct are more relaxed and people are less judgemental, the city starting to sound at last like the New York I was expected to see all along. The age of innocence has ended; the age of freedom and opportunities has arrived (and I am thankful to the author for mentioning this part, expanding thus the little bit of knowledge about old New York that I have gathered while reading the book).

A quote I liked, regarding that (out of Newland’s musings comparing the old with the new):

“The difference is that these young people take it for granted that they’re going to get whatever they want, and that we almost always took it for granted that we shouldn’t. Only, I wonder – the thing one’s so certain of in advance: can it ever make one’s heart beat as wildly?”

What I liked most: All the insight it offered regarding the way the things were in New York back then. I feel so naive now but there were a lot of things I have found surprising while reading :)

What I liked least: Nothing. Well, I did get a bit confused at times because of the names, as some people’s first names were others’ last names (there is Newland Archer and the Newland family, for example; there is an Emerson Sillerton and a Sillerton Jackson; and so on), but this was more of a source of amusement than anything else, without detracting a whit from my enjoyment of the book.

Recommend it to? I, for one, have loved it and I glad to have read it, so naturally enough I recommend it to everyone :)

I read this book for The Classics Circuit – yay! Interested in more Wharton reviews? Click here for the full schedule of the tour.

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As the author puts it in the prologue, the book is an exercise in describing “the incessant, merciless battle between the spirit and the flesh.“. It tells the story of the life of Christ, from this very point of view: the feelings the human part of Christ might have felt at one time or another. Mr. K’s Christ is not the serene person we might have in mind when we think of Him of the gospels; he has moments of peace, but he also has moments when he is angry, afraid or feels lust. Overall, this Christ is so utterly, so incredibly human that one can only resonate with his plight. Sure, it can be said that this whole process is demeaning to the godly part of Christ, he being considered the one without sin (and he says it himself in the Bible that even thinking of sinning with a woman is just as sinful as the deed itself). However I tend to be in the opposite camp: after all, we are taught that Christ was just as much human as he was God, which makes it very plausible that he had all the basic human feelings too.

To think that the book opens with Jesus being a cross-maker! A cross-maker, working on the Sabbath, in an effort to defy God so much that He’ll leave him alone, and working up more and more anger seeing how useless his battle was (““Yes, yes,” he murmured, “you understand perfectly. Yes, on purpose; I do it on purpose. I want you to detest me, to go and find someone else; I want to be rid of you! [...] and I shall make crosses all my life, so that the Messiahs you choose can be crucified!“). But God still, ceaselessly, calls to him, and despite his not feeling up to the task (“I can’t! I’m illiterate, an idler, afraid of everything. I love good food, wine, laughter. I want to marry, to have children. … Leave me alone!“) Jesus has to give in in the end, especially as his whole being was thirsting for God despite the unjust way he thought himself treated.

And so it begins. Judging by the apostles mentioned, Mr. K has used the Gospel of John as main source (the only one where Nathanael was one of the followers). Which isn’t to say that Bible is followed to the letter. It’s actually interesting to notice how the author has handpicked a few elements in the Bible and distorted them a bit, to serve as a basis for the legends about to be born not as the legends themselves. For example the visit of the three magi has not actually happened, it all was a dream Mary had one time. Mary’s husband has become paralysed on the very day of their wedding, a way to explain how Mary remained a virgin until Jesus was born. Jesus walking on water and inviting Peter to join him is also a dream that only hints at its possibly being true. At the other end of the spectrum we have Jesus who is literally slapped and he literally turns the other cheek (a thing that I don’t remember actually happening in the Bible, I only remember this being advised).

There are of course some moments that have been kept faithful to their Bible telling though. The one with the stoning of Magdalene is almost one of those — I say almost because. unlike in the Bible, in this book this is the very scene where the cross-maker becomes the Son of God in the eyes of the people. The author has nevertheless preserved the very essence of the moment, the “Let him among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone!” part, and the way everything is narrated makes this one of my favorite scenes in the book.

The author has done a great job depicting the general atmosphere of the time, that of urgent expectancy: most people (Judas among them) feel that the Messiah should arrive any day now, and they are constantly looking for Him and taking what they think is steps to clear His path (alas, one of these steps was planning the murdering of Jesus himself but oh well, at least they had good intentions). Here or there though there are also a handful of people (Old Zebedee for one) content with their earthly lot and thinking all the talk of Messiahs nonsense (“[...] it seems that wherever you go and wherever you stop, you find a cross. The dungeons are overflowing with Messiahs. Ooo, enough’s enough! We’ve been getting along just fine without Messiahs; they’re nothing but a nuisance.“). It should be perhaps noted that the Messiah was seen by many as an overturner of the current way of life, someone who will help the Jewish people shake of the Roman yoke (a thing that very much explains why mostly poor people dreamed about His coming while the well-off didn’t much care). I was actually very much disappointed later on, during the book, to discover how few of Jesus’ followers went with him out of conviction and how many of them did so hoping that they are on the road to riches, honors and greatness (“Impressiveness, rank, clothes of silk, golden rings, abundant food and to feel the world under the Jewish heel: that was the kingdom of heaven.“).

An unexpected portion of the book deals with the fact that Jesus and Mary Magdalene knew each other as children, and they were actually in love. But God did not let Jesus marry her, and it’s for this very reason that Magdalene has turned to selling her body (“In order to forget one man, in order to save myself, I’ve surrendered my body to all men!“). It’s not only her though, as Judas and even Barabbas were previous acquaintances of Christ when a carpenter too. Speaking of which, it was very interesting to observe many of the apostles-to-be before the event that was to forever change their lives: John was a very religious young boy, Peter was a fisherman, his brother Andrew has lived in the desert for a while, Judas was a blacksmith and so on) — people with day to day lives, a “detail” I haven’t given much thought before.

Someone I had trouble liking was Mary, although I did partially understand her. She is a simple woman and wants nothing more from life than what she considers her due: her only son to take a wife and give her grandchildren. Granted, Mary’s life has been a hard one, what with her husband being unable to move or speak for many years now, and her only son considered crazy by some (herself included). And yet I cannot help finding her reactions exaggerated (although I admit that perhaps they weren’t so at the time): she scratches her cheeks, beats her head against stones and once she even wants to curse her own beloved son. A very contrasting image to the one we have of Mary in the Bible, where she is aware of Jesus’ role on earth and accepts it, despite its leading to her own heartbreak.

What I liked most: What I took to be the sermon on the mountain. First of all that is one of my favourite parts of the Bible. Because of it I paid particular attention to the moment in the book and it didn’t disappoint. At that moment Jesus was not yet a full fledged Messiah, “a gawky bird he was, struggling to twitter for the first time“, and yet his whole being was struggling to get God’s message across. A message of love, a message that was rather badly received by the people around him (who expected something different), and Jesus’ authenticity was doubted by some. I very much like these parts, where people have issues with what Jesus has to say, because they sound very real to me — I mean, if someone came and told you to believe something completely opposed to your innermost thoughts, would you jump and take it for granted, or would you have to struggle with the new ideas for a while?

A quote to better illustrate the idea:

Andrew was infuriated. He extricated himself from his brother’s grasp and went and stood before Jesus.

“I’ve just come from the river Jordan in Judea,” he shouted. “There a prophet proclaims: ‘Men are chaff and I am the fire. I have come to burn up and purify the earth, to burn up and purify the soul so that the Messiah may come forth!’ And you. son of the Carpenter, you preach love! Why don’t you take a look around you? Everywhere: liars, murderers, robbers! All are dishonest—rich and poor, oppressed and oppressors, Scribes and Pharisees—all! all! I too am a liar, I too am dishonest, and so is my brother Peter over there, and so is Zebedee with his fat paunch: he hears “love” and thinks of his boats and men and how to steal as much as he can from the wine press.”

Other details I liked: the relationship between Jesus and Judas (my favorite ever, show spoiler

Does God’s will change, then, Rabbi? asked John, surprised.
No, John, beloved. But man’s heart widens and is able to contain more of God’s will.

What I liked least: The part where Jesus was in the desert. I was expecting it to be somehow “muddled” since I thought he’d be half hallucinating after spending all that time without food or water, but I didn’t expected it to be that long. I even ended up skipping some lines now and then. Darn.

Recommend it to? Anyone up to a story of the life of Christ a bit different than what we were taught. It’s not an easy read (the writing is beautiful at times but heavy at others) however the ideas explored might be worth the time.


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