Oy veh! What a busy week! Those of you with school-age children (I have three) know that this time of year is almost as bad as December, what with recitals, field trips, and all those end of year events, not to mention the figuring out of what’s going to keep ‘em occupied all summer long. As a result, I didn’t pay much attention to Bookworm this week. I didn’t write my Weekly Geeks post (it would have been a rant against the medical model of childbirth, but I’ve done that already anyway and furthermore I haven’t read a single book on the subject), I haven’t responded to recent comments, and my RSS reader is full of unread posts. I do hope to catch up this week, but there’s still a few more end of year events coming up so we’ll see what happens.

Ugh, what could be more boring than reading someone else’s excuses for blog neglect. I apologize. And I did get some good reading done this week. Here are the details.

Ordinary Families, by E. Arnot Robinson

The young woman. I read about this at Harriet Devine’s Blog and was intrigued by her review. The book was hard to find; I ended up waiting for several weeks for a copy via interlibrary loan. And it was well worth the wait. This novel was exquisite! It’s a coming of age story, set in post-War England — I’m not good on the geography here, but she lives on a coast and does a lot of sailing. What did I like about this book? The narrator, Lalage, is charming and very smart. It’s impossible not to sympathize with her struggle to separate herself from her loving but overwhelming family. There are laugh out loud funny bits, but lots of the book is very poignant. Plus, there is a suspense factor. I knew from reading Harriet’s review that she falls in love with an older man, but that doesn’t happen until somewhat late in the book. Wondering which of several possible older men it would turn out to be gave an added dimension to the book that I’m sure the author didn’t intend. :) Final analysis: two thumbs up. I highly recommend it, if you can find a copy.

An Absolute Gentleman, by R.M. Kinder

The serial killer. Now this was a weird one. I heard about it from J. Kaye, who said it was the best book she read last year. It’s a novel about a serial killer, told in the first person by the killer, but it’s not meant to be a suspense or horror story. It’s a serious novel by a serious writer and we are supposed to have some sympathy for the killer. We are given bits of his background, and as you might suspect, his childhood was not normal. We are also given pathetic details about his present life; for example, he is unable to address women by name and he is afraid of the dark. But he is also a fairly well functioning adult. He is, of all things, a published novelist and a professor of creative writing.

The book is well-crafted. The author chooses her words carefully (for example, switching from active to passive tense as the narrator describes his crimes: “she was hit”) and the setting, the department politics, the supporting cast, are all interesting and vivid. And she achieves her goal: you do indeed come away with some sympathy and understanding for the killer. Also, very much to the author’s credit, she doesn’t sensationalize the story. It’s not gory, and in fact the tone of the thing is very low-key and matter-of-fact.

What I found weird about this novel was that, well, it’s a novel. In my opinion, a wacko insane crazy serial killer is not a fit subject for a psychological novel. It’s a fine topic for nonfiction, if you have a strong stomach (cf. my post about Whoever Fights Monsters: My Twenty Years Hunting Serial Killers for the FBI), and I suppose it’s a fine topic for genre fiction, too. But when I read a serious novel I want to be able to take something away from it. I want some kind of generalization or truth that I can apply to myself or to the world. And the way this book is presented, there really isn’t any. Oh, I suppose you could say the lesson is watch out, even a creative writing prof could turn out to be evil, but that’s not the kind of “truth” I’m looking for. I am thinking that if the first person narrator had been not the killer himself but rather one of his colleagues, perhaps the woman he has an affair with, the story could be a meaty discussion about the nature of good & evil, or what’s wrong with our society that we produce such people, or whatever. But when we only get the killer’s perspective, and the killer is a made-up character, there’s not much you can really take away from the story. (Does this make any sense at all?)

I also feel that if you are going to write a novel about a wacko insane crazy serial killer you have to have some authority for doing so. I would happily read a novel written by the FBI guy, or perhaps a psychiatrist, but a layperson shouldn’t write this novel. And it turns out R.M. Kinder isn’t exactly a layperson. There is an interesting afterword that gives not nearly enough detail about the author’s relationship with a man who turned out to be a serial killer. Can I just say? That afterword should have been a foreword! My reading of the novel would have been substantially different had I known.

Heidi, by Johanna Spyri

The little girl. I loved this book when I was a kid and I thought it might be a nice change from the serial killer. Oh my goodness — what a piece of sentimental pious moral crap. Did I just say I wanted my books to give me a lesson? Ha ha!

There are a couple of good things in the book. First, of course, the setting. That may be what attracted me to the book when I was a kid, since it takes place in Switzerland, where my father lived for most of his childhood. That connection still gives an added dimension to the book for me. And second, Peter the goatherd, who is the only character in the book that actually feels like a real person. He is well-meaning and kind, but also lazy, possibly dyslexic, and given to fits of jealousy. Unfortunately, he learns his little moral lesson at the end of the book, too, and they all live happily ever after. Oh well.

* * *

Happy reading to you all, and have a great Sunday. It’s a fabulous gorgeous day here and I don’t plan on reading much today. We’ll be spending the day with friends: playing D&D with the kids, going for ice cream, and cooking on the grill. Yes, we will eat ice cream first and then have dinner. :)