Erin Reads – Page 13 – Notes on Books & Life

Thoughts on “City of Light” by Lauren Belfer

City of Light by Lauren Belfer has been patiently awaiting me for several years now. I was in the mood for a longer book, and it certainly fit the bill.

About the Book:

1901. Buffalo, New York. Louisa Barrett is headmistress of the prestigious Macauley School for girls and godmother to Grace Sinclair, adopted daughter of Louisa’s now deceased best friend. Grace’s father, Tom, is head of the power station being constructed on the shores of the river feeding Niagara Falls. Buffalo is a thriving hub of commerce as it prepares to host the ambitious Pan-American Exposition.

Perceived as a spinster, the unmarried Louisa is allowed into corners of business and society usually kept for men. She holds regular salons at her home and meets with prestigious and wealthy members of the school’s board at their all-male club. But as Louisa navigates the upper echelons of Buffalo society, she must also conceal a secret from her past — one that would ruin her were it to be exposed. When hidden conflicts begin to escalate, Louisa finds herself caught in the middle of an unexpected storm.

My Thoughts:

I picked up a copy of City of Light because of something Ann Kingman said on Books on the Nightstand, the podcast she co-hosts with Michael Kindness. She mentioned that in City of Light, Buffalo is more than a setting, almost becoming a character in and of itself. Intrigued, I added City of Light to my collection when I happened upon it at a used book sale.

Ann was certainly right about Buffalo’s larger-than-usual role in the novel. Its essence pervades everything, bits of it seeping into every scene and event. Physical, political, societal, environmental, and more — it’s all there. I don’t believe I’ve ever encountered a book with such an all-encompassing setting. I found it interesting to read about Buffalo as it once was, at the height of its glory.

Belfer made a valiant effort to address a broad spectrum of the problems and debates facing Buffalo just over a hundred years ago. There’s the Pan-American Exposition and the financial issues it caused. There’s the race issues being faced by African Americans as they struggled for rights. There’s the plight of immigrants and unions, the state of orphanages, the political machinations of presidents, and several flavors of women’s issues. And of course, there is the battle for Niagara being waged from multiple angles. Belfer just keeps drawing in groups and their causes and problems. There are so many current affairs issues stuffed in around the story that at times the book gets a little sidetracked as Louisa stops the story to fill the reader in. It’s interesting to learn about them, but all the threads make the story feel sort of tangled and bloated at times, like the author just keeps opening up more cans of worms. Or like she has so many plates spinning at once that you’re just waiting for the whole act to fall apart.

Because of the aforementioned issue, the story dragged for the first two thirds or so of the book. In a novel of over 500 pages, that is not an insignificant chunk. There were occasional flashes of something resembling a mystery or a revelation, but then Louisa would be off on a side trip telling us another anecdote that furthered one of the many issues listed above. Rather than being dramatic, it came off more as informative but kind of unfocused. Then, in the last third, the pace increased dramatically, almost so that it felt like a different book. And the ending…well, it came out of nowhere and didn’t seem to fit at all.

I did like Louisa. I respected her and could sympathize with her as she tried to maintain her precarious place in society. Her voice was intelligent and probing. I just wanted her to get on with the story! The other characters were not so clearly articulated and seemed more to represent the issues they stood for rather than to be three-dimensional people. Symbols of their causes rather than human beings. It made them hard to care about or relate to.

The Verdict: Mediocre

With some heavy editing and a tighter focus, I think City of Light could have been a slimmer novel and a more satisfying read. I feel like I learned a lot about Buffalo at the turn of last century (and I do like learning about history through fiction), but I’m not sure it was worth the time I sunk into reading the novel. I wouldn’t tell you not to read City of Light if it piqued your interest, but you probably won’t find me recommending it on my own.

Your Turn!

What books have you read that bit off more than they could chew?

The 2014 TBR Pile Challenge: I’m In!

I know. I said no challenges for a while. I made it a condition of my return to book blogging. I did so because challenges tend to pull me away from my own reading. I get caught up in stats. I pick up books I wouldn’t otherwise bother with. My own books languish as I stress myself out trying to read all the books I said I’d read.

But then I came across the 2014 TBR Pile Challenge, which is being hosted for a fifth year by Adam of Roof Beam Reader. I’m not sure how I missed it in years past. The challenge? Read 12 books that have been on your shelves or TBR list for more than a year in 2014. Ooh.

I thought I’d just see which books I’d read if I were to do the challenge. You know, just out of curiosity. And I got so excited at the prospect of finally reading these books that I decided to join. You can say “I told you so” should I end up complaining later!

The Challenge (and My Picks)

The challenge requires you to choose the 12 books you’ll read in advance, plus two alternates in case a couple of your original choices turn out to belong in the DNF (“did not finish”) pile. What’s on my list, you ask? Here it is, alphabetical by author:

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
Ramayana (William Buck version)
The Cunning Man by Robertson Davies
The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham
Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien (read, never reviewed)

And my alternates:

Walden by Henry David Thoreau
The Once and Future King by T.H. White

I’ll review these books just like I always do, and once the reviews are up I’ll link them back here. I’m so excited to finally get to these books!

I’d love to know…

What would be (or is, if you’re doing the challenge too) on your list? Where should I start??

Thoughts on “The Invisible Bridge” by Julie Orringer (Audiobook)

I’ve had The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer since it came out in 2010. I decided it was finally time for me to read it!

About the Book:

We first meet Andras and Tibor Lévi in 1937. They are brothers, rooming together in Budapest while their younger brother Mátyás lives at home and reluctantly helps their parents with the family farm. They are also Jewish.

Tibor longs to attend medical school but has no way to pay for it; he has been working in a shoe shop to earn the money, painstakingly saving as much as he can. Andras, who dreams of becoming an architect, has just received a scholarship to study at the École Spéciale in Paris.

From this opening, the story traces the course of World War II. It primarily follows Andras, though plenty of others dip in and out of the narrative. Through it all, the characters struggle to hold onto one another and to find some semblance of normality in the face of the unimaginable.

My Thoughts:

When I read a novel about a well-known historical period or event, I often wonder what it would be like to read such a book with no knowledge of what came after. You can’t un-know the facts. It happened a particular way, it had a certain outcome, so no matter what happens to the characters you come to love, you know the general direction the story will most likely take. (Either that, or it turns out the author has written an anomaly story that you’re reluctant to believe: a highly lucky and improbable outcome, or a happy ending where none should exist.)

I really enjoy learning about history through fiction. Just a few months ago I became aware of the Lebensborn homes — an aspect of World War II I’d never even heard of previously — in My Enemy’s Cradle by Sara Young. Through The Invisible Bridge, I appreciated getting a look at the Hungarian side of the war. I don’t think I’ve ever read a novel with the same focus before. It makes me want to dig up the history of Hungary in World War II and learn more.

What I liked best about The Invisible Bridge is the range it covered. It’s not a short read, clocking in at over 700 pages (or 22 discs on audio, which is the format I opted for). It traces the Lévi brothers from happy days full of promise through the aftermath of the war. The author manages to make it feel like all that time is really passing — and I don’t mean that in a bad way. Rather than zooming in on a particular aspect of the war, Orringer manages to tell the family’s present story, plus the pasts of several characters, plus the politics and world news in which the story is embedded. It’s one of the broadest fictional accounts of World War II I’ve read.

I liked Orringer’s characters well enough, yet somehow they never quite came alive for me. I remember their names now, a month after I finished the book, but the details of their personalities, their likes and dislikes, their quirks and habits, have faded. It’s the history that remains in my mind more than the people through which I learned it. That’s not something I noticed while I was listening but rather became aware of after the fact. It’s not necessarily a flaw, of course, if the main aim is to tell the story and not craft exquisite characters.

The story itself was certainly interesting. There were the historical and war-related parts, of course. On top of that were the stories of the three brothers and their families. And there were a few stories about fringe characters that looped in and out of the main narrative as well. I was quite impressed that Orringer managed to keep everything straight and clear. Not once did I feel lost in all the stories and unfamiliar names.

I’ve had the print version of The Invisible Bridge on my shelf for years, but I opted for the audio in the end. I’m glad I did. There are a lot of foreign names and places and terms in the novel, and I tend to find it frustrating not to know how they’re pronounced. Listening to the book instead of reading it was a good workaround. The reader, Arthur Morey, was fine. Not stellar, but I have no complaints!

The Verdict: Enjoyable

If you like many-layered historical fiction or good World War II stories, I would recommend The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer. It’s long, but it doesn’t feel unnecessarily so. I definitely enjoyed it!

Your Turn!

What works of fiction have taught you something about history?

Thoughts on “Sidewalk Dancing: A Novel in Stories” by Letitia Moffitt

I received a copy of Sidewalk Dancing: A Novel in Stories by Letitia Moffitt for review from Atticus Books.

About the Book:

A dime-a-dozen diner. A nameless couple. A language barrier. So begins Sidewalk Dancing.

Throughout the pages that follow, the story of Miranda McGee and her parents, George and Grace, unfolds. They are a disjointed family, none of the parts quite seeming to fit with the others. Her father is a restless dreamer lacking the practicality to see his schemes through. Her hardworking Chinese-born mother has never grasped the English language well enough to express herself without frustration. Caught between them, Miranda struggles to make sense of her place in the world.

My Thoughts:

I’m not sure what I was expecting when I opened Sidewalk Dancing for the first time. The subtitle, “a novel in stories,” made me think of Tracks by Eric D. Goodman (another great Atticus title). And the two are similar, in that the structure enhances the story. But they’re quite different, too.

Sidewalk Dancing is comprised of a string of vaguely chronological vignettes from the lives of the McGee family. Some focus on a single character, others on several. Some are told in first person, others in third, and one — successfully, I was pleased to discover — in second.

The short story structure gives the novel a slightly disjointed flavor. That’s fitting, since Miranda herself seems to fit nowhere: not with her parents, not away from them. It’s like the novel’s format is a manifestation of Miranda’s inner state. You’re never sure how much time passes between stories. There are snapshots of Miranda’s parents before she was born, of her as a girl, of her life after she’s grown up and moved away. There are allusions to trips taken and people met in passing that appear nowhere else in the book. Throughout it all are threads of Grace’s wordless frustration, George’s well-intentioned impracticality, and Miranda’s restless rootlessness. In that sense, it’s clear Sidewalk Dancing is truly a collection of short stories. Yet they are just close enough to a cohesive story that it works.

I was rather entranced by Moffitt’s gentle writing. Reading her prose is like slipping into warm bathwater: easy, comforting, delightful, relaxing. She expresses amazing depth with only a few words. She wanders around the private landscapes of her characters just enough to bring them vividly to life but not so much that her reader gets lost. In a gesture, a sigh, a turn of phrase, she spins the fabric of their relationships. Nothing flashy. No pyrotechnics. But impressive, once you realize what’s going on.

It’s interesting…I didn’t especially like any of the characters in Sidewalk Dancing. At least, not in the sense that I’d want to sit down and have coffee with any of them. But they were complicated enough to hold my interest and make me care. They felt alive somehow, like they’re out there in the world, like I could cross paths with them at any moment. They felt…normal, I guess. Not like characters so much as people.

My favorite story was the last one. It took me a minute to figure out what was going on, which only added to my delight when I did. It reminded me a little of The Last Five Years, a two-person musical by Jason Robert Brown in which one half of a couple lives the relationship forwards while the other lives it backwards. There’s beauty in rewinding, in stepping into the past once you’ve seen the future. And nostalgia, and poignancy. And hope, maybe, that things will work out after all. I was left with all of those feelings as I closed the slender volume that is Sidewalk Dancing.

I really do love Atticus Books. They find the neatest authors. In fact, their title The Bee-Loud Glade by Steve Himmer is one of my favorite books. If you’re looking for something a little off the beaten path, check out their collection. I’m always curious to see what they’ve lined up next.

The Verdict: Enjoyable

Actually, when I finished the book, I’d have placed it at Enjoyable. It’s one of those books that gets better with a little distance, though, settling into your mind and echoing there after you’ve moved on. As I wrap up this review, I’d say it’s slowly edging its way up toward Excellent. For lack of half stars, though, I’ll stay with the initial reaction.

Sunday Salon: Monthly Musings for November 2013

Toward the end of Erin Reads’s former incarnation, I was playing around with monthly wrap-ups. They were rather stats-focused, tallying books read, picking favorites, that kind of thing. I wanted to reinstate monthly wrap-ups, but in a way more in line with how I want to blog this time around. So I tweaked things a bit, and here’s the starting point for this experiment: Monthly Musings. We’ll see how it goes!

Reading

I’ve been trying to spend more time reading recently. Sometimes it gets edged out, as though sitting down with a book were not a worthwhile activity. At the same time, as the review requests start coming in again, I’m struggling not to feel like I have to read all the time. I’m shooting for the sweet spot of as much as I want to, and not more. Ah, balance.

I’ve also been focusing on my own books as much as possible. I started reading from my own shelves a year and a half ago, and I’m really enjoying freeing up shelf space and actually getting to the books I’ve had lying around forever. I mean…I bought them because I wanted to read them, right?!

It’s been a good reading month and a half. I read (and enjoyed!) The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde at long last, and I reread The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart. Most recently, I finished Sidewalk Dancing: A Novel in Stories by Letitia Moffitt. My thoughts on that little gem are forthcoming.

There’s another book that’s been hanging out in the background throughout. I started City of Light by Lauren Belfer at the beginning of October and have been slowly chipping away at it ever since. It’s a chunkster, and despite the fact that there seems to be an actual intriguing mystery buried under all its meanderings, I cannot get my claws deeply enough into the story to want to pick up my reading pace. That’s not to say it’s bad. It’s just not a fast read at all. I’ve been reading other, quicker books along side it: the three mentioned above, and most recently Understudies by Ravi Mangla.

Listening

It’s been a slower listening month for me. After I finished the mediocre Helen of Troy by Margaret George in mid-October, I had trouble picking books I really wanted to hear. I listened to two books by Brené Brown at the beginning of the month (Daring Greatly and The Gifts of Imperfection). Then I wandered off into podcast world for awhile. Toward the end of the month, I finally made it through 22 discs of The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer, which I’m still processing. Review to come.

I’m between audiobooks at the moment. I want to listen to books I have on my shelves, in keeping with my TBR focus. Nothing’s grabbing me, though. I think I’ll be spending a long while browsing my library’s e-audiobook offerings in the very near future. I feel a little bereft without a book on my iPod!

Writing

I’ve been deliberately taking a relaxed pace to my blogging. This post is only the seventh since I revived Erin Reads six weeks ago. So far, so good. Aside from the reviews linked above, I shared my “hey! I’m back!” post and my reasons for incorporating a rating system into my reviews (a decision I’m quite liking so far).

Miscellany

Can I just say how lovely it’s been catching up with all of you over the past few weeks? I’ve missed talking to bookish people. My poor TBR list is already suffering under the increased load, but that’s totally fine. It’s been such a joy to reconnect with this amazing community. I hope you’re having a wonderful holiday season, whatever you celebrate!

What about you?

That was my October/November. How was yours?