The Rice Mother

The Rice Mother by Rani Manica drew my attention because it is written by a Malaysian woman and the story is set in Malaysia. This alone is a rare treat and not something we often get to read.

The novel tracks 4 generations of a Tamil family from Ceylon living in Malaysia, starting with Lakshmi, the indomitable rice mother herself. She is married off under false pretenses at only 14 to a much older man and sent to live with him in Malaysia. Although he is simple and poor, he is kind to her her whole life and she doesn't realize until much too late that she actually loved him.

It is the story of her fierce love for her 6 children and the horrible times suffered during the Japanese occupation of WWII when she trys to protect her daughters from Japanese soldiers. The novel  then follows the lives of 2 more generations, ending with Lakshmi's great-grandaughter Nisha.

It is an ambitious and sprawling saga, huge in its scope and I think overreaching. There were too many new characters introduced in the second half of the novel and the thread was lost on some of the characters I came to care about in the beginning. Manica tried to tie this all up at the end, but I dont think she succeeded completely. The other problem I have with this novel is that it's just a bit too grim. As I was reading, a line from a Jack Johnson song kept running through my mind: "Where have all the good people gone?" Truly, can everybody be so messed up and depraved?

Still, there was much I loved about this book, not least of which was to be drawn so completely into the setting and taken away to another land, complete with sights and smells and tastes. A good debut and an author to be watched.

Old Border Road

For a first novel, Old Border Road by Susan Froderberg is quite brilliant. It is set during a long drought in the Arizona desert and there are two main characters here, Katherine, (referred to only as Girl or Darling or Daughter) and the landscape itself.

Katherine marries Son when she is only 17 and they live together in the old adobe house with his parents on Old Border Road. She soon finds she is spending most of her time with her father in law-Rose's Daddy-as Son is off drinking and womanizing most nights. The novel is Katherine's own coming of age story, within the confines of this new life she finds herself in. The lanscape and the weather are central to the story and the climax comes with the huge storm that finally ends the drought, just as Katherine is discovering what it is she truly wants.

The language Froderberg uses is lyrical, poetic and even at times Biblical. We are drawn so deeply into the setting that I felt as if I had red dust under my fingernails and I could almost feel the heat. There were times however when I felt almost tired reading this book. It is reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy, but not quite there yet. Still, a masterful and original first novel, well worth reading.

Of Love and Evil

I am a big fan of Anne Rice, especially the Vampire Chronicles, so I was looking forward to the latest from her. Of Love and Evil is the second novel in her Seraphim Series (somehow I missed the first one.)  This slim little novel  is what I would call Anne Rice-lite.

This is the story of Toby, a hired assasin who has changed his ways, and with the help of the angel Malchiah he is given the chance to do good deeds and redeem himself. He moves back and forth through time (Angel TIme) to do this, so we still have some rich imagery and historical settings which Rice fans have come to love and expect.

I don't mind that she has veered towards more Christian themes in recent years, but there was just not much to this novel. It was over almost as fast as it began, and that is just not what one has come to expect from Anne Rice. I was longing for much more depth and many more layers to the story, so I was a bit disappointed. I'm still an Anne Rice fan though, just hoping her next offering will be a bit meatier.

My Name is Memory

I really liked the first half of the novel My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares. I love the premise of retaining one's memory from life to life as you are reincarnated in a different body each time. It reminded me of  'Interview with a Vampire,' or 'Highlander.' Even though those characters are immortal, Daniel, the main character in this novel shares many characteristics with them. Such as learning  many languages through the centuries, playing many instruments, stockpiling wealth, knowing science, history, medicine, sailing etc., all because he's done these things many times over.

I also liked the format of the novel, taking us back in time to Daniel's earlier lives, then bringing us up to date in the present, until the two meet. He is looking for his lost love Sophia, who also continues to reincarnate, but has no memory of her previous selves, or of Daniel. He has finally found her again in the present, after centuries of searching for her, and her name now is Lucy.

As I got about half way in, I kept thinking that this would make a great movie, and in fact I think Brashares wrote it with just that intention (It's meant to be a movie in 2012.) Therefore, she had to introduce an evil villain - Daniel's brother Joaquim, and set up an epic battle that even death wouldn't end. This is where I got a little bored, and by the end I was pretty disappointed, as it became more of a silly movie script than what could have been a really good book. It's also obvioulsy set up to be a sequel, so at the end we're left hanging, with so many loose ends not tied up. This is an extremely unsatisfying way to end a book-especially when you've come to care about the characters, and you're left with no idea what happens to any of them.

I think the movie will be a huge hit-maybe even a trilogy, and she's obvioulsy found a way to make money off of this, but this does not make it a good novel, unfortunately. That being said-will I read the next one when it comes out?-sure-or maybe I'll just see the movie.

Freedom

My bookclub finally got me to read Freedom by Jonathon Franzen, and that is what I've been slogging through for the past week. I never would haven chosen to read this book on my own, despite all the hype. Almost 600 pages later I feel that I wasted a good many hours of my life reading it. Tedious is the word that keeps coming to mind.

Is this the great American novel? I really really hope not. I found it to be so cynical and depressing and preachy. There wasn't a character in the book that I cared about. Franzen has a skill for manuvering through some difficult emotional times in peoples lives and bringing them to life on the page, but really, there is not a single likable person in all these pages.

I didn't really see the point of it all. My advice -save yourself some time and read three really good 200 page novels instead -you're really not missing a thing here.

The Book of Tomorrow

The Book of Tomorrow is Cecilia Ahern's new novel. She is a very prolific writer. After the less than wonderful novel The Gift, this book is a welcome change. Just enough magic and interesting charcters to keep me up late at night turning the pages to see what was going to happen next.

Young, rich and spoiled Tamara Goodwin has to leave her home after her father dies, to go live with her bereaved mother and her mother's relatives in a small country town far from the Dublin city life she has known. Here, she meets many interesting charcters including a bee-keeping nun, and a cute mobile library driver. The real mystery starts to unfold when she finds a blank diary that seems to write itself.

There is much going on here that Tamara can't quite figure out and Ahern keeps us in suspense as we try to unravel the mystery along with Tamara. The setting is wonderful-mostly in the ruins of an old castle, and so is the writing. I enjoyed this book a lot, and it made me remember why I keep picking up new Cecilia Ahern novels when I see them.

But Not For Long

But Not For Long by Michelle Wildgen is about a smaill group of people living in a co-op in Madison, Wisconson, and what happens to them over the course of three days during a blackout.

This seemed more like a short story than a novel to me. Introducing several characters, showing us a small slice of their lives, and ending after a particularly traumatic incident happens, leaving us all hanging on and wanting to know more, or perhaps care more deeply.

The characters were somewhat compelling and Wildgen is a promising writer, but this book is very forgettable to me and I still haven't even figured out what the title is referring to.