Category: Book Review

Posted on

Book Review: The Witch Elm by Tana French

The Witch Elm by Tana French

I had heel surgery this past summer and took advantage of the recovery time to devour some books. This one was not a quick read, not that it was overly long or complicated, rather it was a good one to take my time with. I learned a lot of Irish vernacular and idioms but luckily for me, I watch a fair amount of British TV, so I was primed.

The characters were well developed—meaning flawed—and I genuinely enjoyed spending time with them, warts and all. I also enjoyed the gradual unfolding of their true natures. One character, Toby’s girlfriend, was a little underdeveloped, but all-in-all, that’s a mild gripe.

At its core, this story centers on how we find out who we are as our adult years play out. It’s also about our relationships with others as much as with ourselves, as those relationships ebb and flow over time. I connected personally with the idea that we get some of our opinions about ourselves from those around us—especially when we are either younger, or vulnerable in some other way. In the case of this story, Toby is recovering from an attack and his memory is in question. His self-doubt resonated with me. My less-than-ideal teen years were brimming with self-doubt, as the adults around me scapegoated me with seeming ease. Authority figures have the power to project, and manipulate, and convince, as the police detectives in The Witch Elm do to Toby.

Notably, and frustratingly, the Irish justice system is similar to the American one in that ‘affluenza’ exists there, too. I was disappointed to learn that. That’s not the only similarity, but I can’t say much more without dropping a spoiler.

The only thing I struggled with was picturing the house and garden at the “ancestral estate.” At first I thought it was some grand acreage, but I had to scale it down in my mind as it becomes obvious that this family is likely middle- to upper-middle class. Heck, there’s a row of apartment buildings at the property’s backside. It would help, I’m sure if I could visit Ireland, get the lay of the land. Sigh… someday…

All in all, The Witch Elm was a decent mystery. I would recommend.

Posted on

Review: Violin by Anne Rice

I devoured Rice’s work in the 90s, I love gothic horror as much as the next gal. I picked this up at a yard sale, never having heard of it and looked through the reviews online. Holy cow, are they polarized. Anyway, I dug in.

Here’s the short version of my impression: it’s a slow-burn portrait of profound sorrow. The prose is luscious and poetic—Rice, distilled. A widow in her early-fifties is haunted by the specter of a virtuoso from another era and his ethereal music as she manages her grief. She herself had played the violin, but not so well.

Sorrow is a permeating theme.

She listened with glistening tears, oh, yes, the requisite tears, the eternal tears, let tears be as frequent in this narrative finally as any common everyday word. let the ink turn to tears. Let the paper be soft with them.

FYI, where she says, “this narrative,” she (the narrator, the MC) is referring to the scene, not the book itself. The entire first four-fifths of Violin is exposition. The ‘action’ starts when you’re pretty much almost done with the book. I’m not saying that’s a good or bad thing, just an interesting note.

Bold of her to write about music, and from a specific instrument, but I suppose if any writer could find the right words, she could.

It was a lustrous song I couldn’t name, perhaps his own, dipping into the dissonance that marks even the early music of our own century, a twist, a throb, a thundering protest of nature and of death. She cried. She lay her head against green velvet, a stylish creature, as if painted on stained glass in her frivolous gown, her pointed shoes, her soft ringlets of red hair.

This is classic Rice; storylines and vignettes across the ages, and sumptuous gothic settings, of course.

MILD SPOILER AHEAD

I expected a crescendo of horror in the finale, but none came. I would describe the wrap-up as her version of a ‘happy ending.’ This interpretation reveals something about myself. I’ve read a number of books—even memoirs—where the author has tacked on a tidy, feel-good wrap-up to what was otherwise a dramatic or downright dark narrative. I always notice it, and I’m usually disappointed by it. I’ve even done it, so I understand the reasoning, but I’m no less irked when it’s from my own pen. To me, life is mostly banality at best, and at worst a fair amount of misery, with maybe a handful bright spots. Where the hell are these gratifying conclusions coming from? The suffering doesn’t just… cease.

This book isn’t for everyone, it isn’t even for every Anne Rice reader. I’ll confess something to you right here and now; I’m one of those readers who doesn’t always finish a book. I’ve probably only made it through about one in every five or six books I’ve started. Violin is one that I should have wandered away from, but somehow I made the journey. I’m glad I did.