The Full Cupboard of Life
(The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #5) by Alexander McCall Smith
Read: 6/13/08-6/30/08
LibraryThing tags: Mystery, Africa, Sonderbook (click here for Sondy's review)
As Sondy pointed out in her review, Mma Ramotswe really only has one case in this book. It's full of ramblings on the fabric of life, philosophy, whether an engaged couple will ever marry (I'm being vague to avoid spoilers for those who haven't read the series at all), how much Mma Potokwane will be able to push Mr J.L.B. Matekoni around, and the cheating ways of First Class Motors. It hardly even counts as mystery, but I tagged it that way anyway. Habit, I guess. I do like these books. I can put them down, since there isn't exactly pressing suspense. But they remain delightful and charming, like tea (which is "always the solution" -- see, you would like these, Andrea).
“‘When you have finished working on a car, wash your hands before you touch other things. What is so hard about that?’
‘I always do that,’ said the apprentice. ‘It is not fair to talk to me like that, Mma. I am a very clean mechanic.’
‘Then is it you?’ asked Mma Ramotswe, turning to the younger apprentice.
‘I am very clean too, Mma,’ he said. ‘I am always washing my hands. Always. Always.’
‘Then it must be me,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘I must be the one with greasy hands. It must be me or Mma Makutsi. Maybe we get greasy from opening letters.’
The older apprentice appeared to think about this for a moment. ‘Maybe,’ he said.
‘There’s very little point in trying to talk to them,’ Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had observed when Mma Ramotswe subsequently told him of this conversation. ‘There is something missing in their brains. Sometimes I think it is a large part, as big as a carburettor maybe.’”
“‘What will happen when they are working somewhere else—somewhere where there is no longer a kind person like you to watch over them?’
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni shrugged. ‘They will ruin cars left, right, and centre,’ he said. ‘That is what will happen to them. There will be great sadness among the cars of Botswana.’”
“‘It is the same with every job, I suppose. Look at hairdressing. You braid one head of hair and then another head of unbraided hair comes along. And so it goes on. You cannot finish your work.’ She paused. ‘Even you, Mma. Look at you. You deal with one case and then somebody knocks at the door and there is another case. Your work is never finished.’
They were both silent for a moment, thinking of the endless nature of work. It was true, thought Mma Ramotswe, but it was not something to worry too much about. If it were not true, one might have real cause to be concerned.”
“‘I have never hit a tree in my life,’ retorted Mma Ramotswe. ‘But I have known many men who have hit trees, Rra. Some of those men are late now.’
‘It may not have been their fault,’ muttered Mr Bobologo.
‘Yes,’ said Mma Ramotswe evenly. ‘It could have been the fault of the trees. That is always possible.’”
Crown and Jewel (Bracken #2) by Jeri Massi
Read: 5/9/06
I was delighted to find that there were sequels to a treasured childhood favorite of mine, The Bridge by Jeri Massi, which I've reviewed before. This is the second in the trilogy. Apparently they were put out by Bob Jones University Press, which explains why they're pretty much unknown except to homeschoolers. As I recall though, they aren't overtly Christian, just moral. I think she wrote some other really good books I read as a child, too... I should find those and read them again.
The publisher’s note says Jeri Massi wrote the trilogy imitating the genre of “wise woman” stories, “popular for combining high adventure with good moral lessons for children.” This is the sort of statement that seems almost intended to make me lose my appetite for reading! Moral lessons are good and all, but often people who write stories for the purpose of imparting moral lessons aren’t very good writers, and the stories are sappy. Jeri Massi, however, is a better storyteller than that. I love these books, in spite of themselves! Yes, they do tend towards the more allegorical side of the scale, but they are good allegory, like Tales of the Kingdom (and less allegorical than that).
As Tolkien said in his Letters, “Allegory and Story converge, meeting somewhere in Truth. So that the only perfectly consistent allegory is a real life; and the only fully intelligible story is an allegory. And one finds, even in imperfect human ‘literature’, that the better and more consistent an allegory is the more easily can it be read ‘just as a story’; and the better and more closely woven a story is the more easily can those so minded find allegory in it.”
And as for telling a story to teach children better morals, fortunately Jeri Massi seems to understand that children need to be taught things a little more deep than just “obey your parents” and “share your toys.” A fantasy setting always helps with this sort of thing. It’s very conducive to modeling noble and beautiful living, to showing things how they Are.
So what is this sequel actually about? Uh... I don't know! Didn't you see that I read it two years ago?! =) Most of the above I originally wrote down about the third one, soon after reading it. It applied, and was needful for posting about this one first. Nah, I do know some things, though. Crown and Jewel is about Princess Rosewyn, daughter of Rosalynn, who was the main character in The Bridge. She's more of a tomboy than her mother, and she has her own adventures saving the kingdom of Bracken with the wise woman. Yep. There you go.
“Now she understood why her mother always spoke of her with such reverence, as of a great queen. Still, it was hard to feel comfortable or safe with her, yet. Rosewyn realized that her mother’s word was not enough to build love in her own heart. That was up to the woman herself.”
The “wise woman” archetype is often analogous to God in allegory... since this is story as well, she's mortal and everything, but her relationships with others often say things about God and His with His children.
“‘We go now into great darkness,’ the woman said. ‘But there is light at the end. Have no fear.’”
"DA" being deviantart, of course. Since the last time (back in March) I pointed out on here that I'd updated my gallery, I've uploaded quite a lot. First I've got some miscellaneous pictures, mostly dealing with nature but some with people (including some kids at my church -- so cute!), then some beach shots, and then it soon transitions to a trip John and I made. After a few of those I put up my airplane shots (coming back from the trip). Those are good. Then several of Lucy, and back to miscellanea.
The airplane shots include this one:
While it wasn't my favorite of all of them, at least not in print form (I prefer "Look to the Light", a few photos later in my gallery), it seems to be everyone else's favorite! It made it up to 100 favorites (other people marking it as a favorite, allowing them to collect it on their own "favorites" page for later viewing, and influencing what will show up when you search for popular images) pretty quickly, and is now at 120. I knew it was a good sign when, almost immediately after uploading it, it passed my previous high, which I think was 6 on a picture. Yeah. And then it just kept going. It was exciting. I was excited. If you check my journal entries on DA, you'll see what I mean.
I also loooove my favorites. You should check them out. Especially by browsing through the collections on the side. I'm not finished tweaking the collections, but they're still organized better than just browsing through the favorites. Those are in the order that I added them. Sub-optimal. Oh, and I know that it's much easier to browse through tons of images by looking at the thumbnails and then clicking on a few that catch the eye (I do it all the time myself); but I highly encourage clicking on one, clicking again for full view, and then proceeding with the "forward" link, which will show you the next image in full view. There are some amazing images that one simply cannot see are amazing as a thumbnail.
Well, I think that's all for the DA lovin'... for now. Cheers. =)
Guilty Pleasures (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #1) by Laurell K. Hamilton
Read: 4/22/08-4/27/08
LibraryThing tags: Vampires, Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Necromancy, Suspense
Scanning through some of her books a bit at work, they pretty much looked like trashy romance. I'm afraid I picked up this book because one day, I thought I was in the mood for that. I know. I'm sorry. Fortunately, I was pleasantly surprised by a good book without even any sex scenes. There are some undertones, but no sex scenes. I hear the books get worse later in the series. For now though, I like this world. It has good touches.
Everyone knows about vampires (and assorted creepie-crawlies), the secret's out. Not only that, but in the U.S. they're legal. Killing a vampire without an execution order is considered murder. Work of the liberals. Equal rights for everyone, and all that. Crosses won't work against vampires unless you believe in them; there's a line somewhere (either in a different book in the series or I didn't note down the page number for quoting purposes) about how "nothing's more pitiful than the sight of an atheist waving a cross at a vampire" (probably not exact wording since, well, see above). And the vampires have their own church, based on the promise, easily verifiable, that they offer eternal life.
Although the main character and her sense of humor seem to be very typical of urban fantasy from the little I've read (see Sunshine by Robin McKinley), I like her anyway. It's a good sort of character. In fact, she frequently reminds me of Liz. She acts very much like Liz would, I think, except that Liz would have killed Jean-Claude long ago.
The edition I read (first hardcover) had an afterword by the author. It added a couple amusing insights. Such as, "I did not love Jean-Claude in this book. There were tons of sexy romantic vampires out there. I had no intention of contributing to what I saw as a problem. I mean, they are walking corpses, what the hell is so sexy about that? I just didn't get it. It would take me two more books before I began to understand that I couldn't kill Jean-Claude off, that losing him would hurt both Anita and me. In Guilty Pleasures I was still betting good money, loudly, to anyone who asked, that Jean-Claude was not a romantic lead." Can you say denial? It was very obvious. Too bad, though, since I agree that it's a problem. She also says, "Guilty Pleasures is a hard-boiled detective mystery. It is also a dark fantasy, or a horror novel, because it has vampires, zombies, ghouls, were-wolves, and a few other shapeshifters, I think." I agree, except with the first part. When you say, "detective mystery," I think of things like Agatha Christie novels. Then I think of Guilty Pleasures, and of this scene in Fruits Basket where Tohru "figures out" which animal Kagura is after seeing her change into it. Anita is like that. There's very little to figure out when the villain tries to kill you to your face. Suspense, thriller, yes. Mystery... well, of a kind. Not the Agatha Christie kind, or even the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency kind.
I realized something else sometime around when I read this novel. Vampires, with our current storytelling methods, may come the closest to being a current active mythology for us. Werewolves and all that too, and fantasy in general to some extent, but especially vampires. At least, in certain respects. I'm not saying that there's any kind of widespread belief in them, but there is a sort of cultural agreed upon backstory that each individual storyteller draws upon, changing specific things and retelling to suit their needs. Even in fantasy (the elves, etc. kind) there's more commonly a greater sense of having a responsibility to create one's own world entire, of having to explain who elves are even if you do use them and keep them unchanged. There's not an agreed upon world that each new writer takes from. Not like with vampires. It's a little disturbing. Why do we do it? Why are we drawn to the dark? It's certainly interesting though, seeing similarities in these books even with the Twilight series, when Stephenie Meyer said she made a point of not reading other vampire stories, fearing too much similarity or difference.
Anyway, that's all I've got. Here are some of the fun quotes, to give you that sense of the tone and style, and just because I love quotes, as you all know.
“Everybody underrates bruises. They hurt. They would hurt a lot more after I slept on them. There is nothing like waking up the morning after a good beating. It’s like a hangover that covers your entire body.”
No quote makes me think of Liz more than this one, for whatever reason.
“One dim light bulb gleamed over the threadbare carpeting. In places the off-green walls were patched with white plaster, but it was clean. The smell of pine-scented Lysol was thick and almost nauseating in the small, dark hallway. You could probably have eaten off the carpeting if you had wanted to, but you would have gotten fuzzies in your mouth. No amount of Lysol would get rid of carpet fuzzies.”
This one especially endeared Anita to me.
“I would have to spend the afternoon shopping. I hate to shop. I consider it one of life’s necessary evils, like brussels sprouts and high-heeled shoes. Of course, it beat the heck out of having my life threatened by vampires. But wait; we could go shopping now and be threatened by vampires in the evening. A perfect way to spend a Saturday night.”
On the Church of Eternal Life, the vampire church:
“‘Pretty,’ Ronnie said. She nodded in the building’s direction.
I shrugged. ‘If you say so. Frankly, I never get used to the generic effect.’
‘Generic effect?’ she asked.
‘The stained glass is all abstract color. No scenes of Christ, no saints, no holy symbols. Clean and pure as a wedding gown fresh out of plastic.’
She got out of the car, sunglasses sliding into place. She stared at the church, arms crossed over her stomach. ‘It looks like they just unwrapped it and haven’t put the trimmings on yet.’”
