Book 6: In the Shadow of the Banyan

In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner

 

I've been looking forward to reading this novel for a while, even if other books kept getting in the way.  I would like to visit Cambodia one day, mostly to visit Angkor Wat, and a friend of mine lives there.  As a result I was very interested to read about this darker period of Cambodian history which I had only a vague inkling of.

 

Ratner is a descendant of one of the Cambodian kings so this novel is very much drawn on her actual experiences when the Revolutionary soldiers took over Cambodia.  However since she was five when they took over in 1975, she chose to fictionalize her experience which would allow her to streamline her story and simplify the large family she had.  Overall, I think the real life story is fascinating, and there are certainly parts of the novel that were riveting, but in the end, I think I was hoping for more from this.

 

Raami, the novel's seven year old narrator, has lived a life of privilege, surrounded by beauty with her mother, poet-prince father and younger sister.  Up to this point, her largest struggle has been childhood polio which left her with a limp and a weak leg.  When the Khmer Rouge take over, her family is forced to evacuate the capital, and relocate.  Her father gives himself up to protect his family, since he is the most recognizable of the family.  Raami, her sister and her mother are separated from the rest of the family and moved in with an older couple in the country, though they are fortunate with this, as Pok and Mae are a couple that desperately wanted children, and are more than happy to treat this broken family as their own.

 

While I hadn't read about Khmer Rouge or the Democratic Kampuchea before, many of the themes were familiar from stories of other Communist revolutions, especially Maoist China.  The difference is that this uprising seemed to run on an extreme scale and a condensed time line, so that within only a short four year period, there appeared to be several different purges that are similar to ones that occurred over a longer period in China.  However, the fact that the Revolutionaries wanted to change farming practices to be more productive without listening to the farmers' advice is reminiscent of the policies leading to the Great Famine in China.   The way more radical members of the party turn on others who were more idealistic and fair rather than cut throat and opportunistic also rings familiar.  It is sad to see history repeat itself in different locations.  Estimates believe that between one and three million people died in this four year regime, equaling about a quarter to a third of the population.

 

The background of the story is heartbreaking, and some of the scenes and experiences of Raami are as well, especially regarding her family.  By the end, she basically retreats into herself to survive.  Yet despite this, I don't feel like this novel or story affected me the way it could have, and I think it may be the writing style.  There are lots of references to poetry given the father's history, but that alone could have certainly enhanced a stark and devastating story.  Instead, there was just something about the novel that felt more cerebral and kept me at a distance rather than truly making me care as much as I should have about the characters.  Perhaps there was too much detail, too much description of some things over others.  I'm not entirely sure, because the scenes that work really work.  Unfortunately, I haven't read any other books, fiction or nonfiction, about Cambodia so I can't compare, but as far as books about oppressive regimes there are better ones out there.  This one isn't completely without merit, but it wouldn't be among the first I'd recommend.

Book 5: Thirteen

Thirteen (Women of the Otherworld, Book 13) by Kelley Armstrong

 

This is the concluding novel of the Women of the Otherworld series, and wraps up the Savannah Levine trilogy that started with Waking the Witch.  Overall, I think it was a very fitting ending, though I don't think Savannah is really one of my favorite narrators.  That honor would be reserved for Elena, Eve and Jaime.  Still, it makes sense that the novel would end with Savannah as she is the middle between the next generation of women and the ones that made up the majority of the series.

 

The world of this series was so large and developed that were was no way Armstrong could have truly wrapped up everything, and she doesn't.  While the main case of this trilogy is concluded, and the characters all face the threat of supernatural exposure, there is so much more left open, basically treating this as yet another novel in the series, with slighlty larger stakes, and a grown up and adult Savannah at the end who has finally realized it is time to move on and become her own person, no longer quite so reliant on others or so self-indulgent.

 

There are still plenty of questions about the future, including Lucas and the Cabal, and just life in general.  I'm sure Armstrong needed a break from the series after ten years, and this works.  It basically shows that all the characters are going to keep fighting the good fight.  While Savannah is the main narrator of this, each previous narrator gets a chapter from her perspective thrown in, which is nice.  I also enjoyed how one previously dead character's fate ends up being different from what had been thought, and would love to see where that ended up!  In fact, I would definitely enjoy it if Armstrong ever returned to this world, maybe fast forwarded ten or fifteen years when the twins are adults.  While not every novel in the series is great, the majority of them are rather entertaining, and I can definitely recommend the series as a whole.  I gave up on Sookie Stackhouse over halfway through, but this one has kept my interest the entire time.

Book 4: Spell Bound

Spell Bound (Women of the Otherworld, Book 12) by Kelley Armstrong

 

Spell Bound takes off immediately where Waking the Witch left off, with Savannah's powers gone.  After regretting how the last case ended, she had made a wish that she would gladly give up her spells if only she could fix some of the problems her investigation caused.  As it turns out, someone took her up on her offer.  Having already finished the concluding trilogy of the series, I will say that this one does kind of fill like a middle book.  Waking the Witch introduces Savannah as a narrator and begins some of the plot lines that will run through the rest of the series, while Thirteen wraps them all up.  Spell Bound, in comparison, definitely feels like it's getting things into place.  Since it is Armstrong, it is a very action packed getting things into place, but the central mystery/story isn't that memorable compared to the other two of the trilogy.

 

Basically, it turns out there is a group of supernaturals that want to expose themselves to humans, and possibly even rule over them.  This impending war has lots of people taking sides - most of the knowledegeable supernaturals, such as the Cabals and the Council know that it is not worth the risks, but some supernaturals that aren't as involved and are more on the outskirts are tired of hiding.  Even the afterworld is seeing chaos, and demons are taking sides - Savannah's demon grandfather and Adam's demon father are on opposite sides of the dispute.  While this supernatural exposure threat is looming, Savannah doesn't have her powers and she has discovered that the witch hunters are not a fairy tale after all, having become the target of one during her last case.  Much of the novel involves these three threads, and how Savannah faces the fact that she has relied overly much on her powers without doing the proper work.  Given the threat, basically all the other characters from previous novels are called in and appear at one point or another, including Savannah's brother Bryce who ends up being a key part of this novel.  Even Eve and Kristof Nast show up through communications with Jaime Vegas.

 

Overall, I think it was a fun ride like most of Armstrong's novels but I also think this one wouldn't have stood as well on its own, without me having the follow up novel on hand.  In general when I read a series, I try to make myself review one before I read the next but since Armstrong switches up the narrators, I haven't followed that rule as closely with her novels.  There was much less danger of the lines blurring as far as what occured in which book given that they all had distinct stories and different main characters.  This is definitely not the case with these last three because they all have the same narrator, there is so much going on, and the last three novels take place over the course of a week or so.

Book 3: Waking the Witch

Waking the Witch (Women of the Otherworld, Book 11) by Kelley Armstrong

 

After being introduced as a 12 year old girl in the second novel of the series, Savannah Levine narrates the 11th book in the series as a 21 year old.  For the most part, this novel falls very much in line with the rest of the series, though there is more focus on Savannah growing up, and less on romantic entanglements.  Savannah is an odd character in ways - she has always been presented as spunky, saracastic, very independent and yet when it came time to leave and go to college, she chose to remain in Portland and work as a receptionist at Lucas and Paige's investigation agency.  Still, she is tired of being the assistant, and with Paige and Lucas on vacation, and Adam out of town, she jumps at the chance to take the lead on a nearby case.

 

Jesse, another supernatural PI, brings her in on the case.  Two women were killed, execution style in the fall, and now six months later, another woman has been found.  There are clues that this may have involved something supernatural or a ritual of some sort.  Savannah quickly discovers the two main suspects of the case but she can't quite see the supernatural angle if it involves them.  She also develops a bit of a connection with the 8 year old daughter of one of the first two murder victims.  A lot of the things in the case just don't quite add up, and two more people end up dead.  As it turns out, there is more going on than Savannah realizes when she picks up the case.  I had my suspicions of a certain character early on, but Armstrong adds in a few twists I wasn't expecting at all.

 

This novel is a bit different from the rest of the series because while it certainly begins and closes the novel's central mystery, it leaves more unfinished threads than previously novels.  Additionally, it is the first one to end on a cliff hanger.  While they have all had somewhat open endings, implying that certain things would happen as a result of the novel's actions, only Savannah's novel ends with some of the plot lines still in the middle or beginning.  I had already been previously warned that the last three novels are a trilogy compared to the rest of the series, so fortunately, I had the next two novels ready to dive into.

Book 2: Bellman and Black

Bellman and Black by Diane Setterfield

I'm pretty sure that my reaction upon completing a book isn't supposed to be "so what was the point/ what the fuck did I just read?"  I don't think every book needs to have a deeper message (which this one kind of did, but it was a bit cliche, hence the "what's the point") or even a super exciting plot as long as I feel entertained.  Unfortunately, the novel ran out of steam for me about halfway through, which is really unfortunate because I loved The Thirteenth Tale by the same author.

Even this novel had several things going for it but in the end they didn't come together for me.  Though it was set in the Victorian Age, it felt like a fairy tale, especially in the beginning, and I actually quite liked that.  I liked the hints at a larger picture, since it begins with tracing everything back to the time William killed a rook.  When later in life his friends and family start to die, it is hard not to ask if there is something more behind it all, some meaning.  The writing is beautiful, and the story develops a great atmosphere but halfway through I began to think that the atmosphere was in and of itself the point, and wasn't actually building towards anything.

Goodreads has the title listed as Bellman and Black: A Ghost Story, and while one could argue that the main character is haunted, especially towards the last half of the novel as he occasionally will think he is forgetting something vital and finds his sleep disturbed by vague remembrances, it is not at all a traditional ghost story or anything like that - basically it's misleading to think of it that way.

After the novel introduces William Bellman, the ten year old who kills the rook, it flashes forward to him as a restless and charming seventeen year old.  Though he is the grandson of the mill owner, his father angered his family, and William has certainly not been accepted into it.  However, his uncle Paul has an interest in the boy, and gives him a job at the mill.  From here, the novel chronicles William's hard work and success at the mill as he comes up with innovations, and earns his uncle's respect.  At first the novel gives one the idea that William could easily have been a drifter but with this one opportunity, he becomes a steadfast and stable businessman whom fortune favors.  As time passes, friends and family die, but it is only when the flu sweeps through the village and threatens his family that William questions whether he has earned his good luck.

This is the turning point of the novel as William believes he made a deal, and from here on he tries to remember the terms of that deal as he develops a whole new empire, the store Bellman and Black, named after a man he has seen at all the funerals he has attended, and the man he may have made a deal with.  It is this part of the novel that sets it firmly in the Victorian Era as Setterfield explores the the funeral and mourning traditions of that time period.  Mourning was huge in the Victorian Age, and Queen Victoria herself certainly took part in the extensive (and excessive) rituals developed at that time.  Unfortunately as interesting as the details of the novel were - and I loved the descriptions and all the minor details about the store -, it is at this point that the book lost its footing.  While I was curious if there was something more to Black when he was a funeral guest in Bellman's life, after their interaction in the cemetery, the novel seems to stumble along without its plot.  I stopped caring about William because he stopped caring, becoming so lost in his work that he no longer had the charming personality of the previous parts of the novel.  I know this is part of the message of the novel but I can't say I really cared much more for any of the other characters at this point.

The novel has the occasional few pages between chapters about rooks, and those were poetically written, adding to the potential of the novel and the possible mystery that ended up getting lost.  In fact, those passages and the writing in general were one of the main reasons I debated between whether or not this would rate a 3 or a 2 on Goodreads, but I ended up going towards the 2 because despite the fact that I really liked the last page and other parts of the novel, it didn't work for me as a whole.  Given my love of The Thirteenth Tale, that was very disappointing.

Book 1: Hitler's Furies

Hitler's Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields by Wendy Lower

 

The idea behind this book was to explore the role of women in Nazi Germany, and how they participated or collaborated with the regime, only to be mostly ignored in the post war time years, while instead the myth of the German martyr women, victims of rape and air attacks on the home front took hold. While I liked the book and thought Lower made an interesting argument, it felt all too brief, more like this is the beginning of an area of study.  For example, she does not focus on the female camp guards who have already been documented, but instead chooses to look specifically at the women that had were in the know, and some cases had the power and authority to effect things and how they handled themselves.  She looks at the secretaries that signed and typed the orders, the nurses that adminstered the euthanasia, the wives that supported their husbands.

 

Her argument is that more women participated in the killing than previously thought, and most certainly more people knew more about what was going on.  While many of them may not have been in a position to stop things, they could certainly decide how to react, and whether to visit the ghettoes of East Europe or profit from seized and stolen goods.  In fact some women who were outside the system even chose to take actions that would never have been expected of them, such as wives killing Jews alongside their husbands.

 

The biggest problem is that while her stories are compelling, she focuses on such a small group of women.  It certainly makes sense that there were more like them but she still does not entirely have the statistics she needs to prove her argument rather than simply make a case.  There are so many points that are touched on briefly in this book that I wish would have been elaborated on further.  For example, she begins to talk about the teachers sent to the East and how they collaborated and helped a system that allowed the Nazis to kill parents and take children that looked "racially promising."  She touches on the nurses, and how they felt they were doing the humane thing by relieving the suffering of the disabled.  She talks about how the women were raised and came of age in an authoritative community and with Hitler's rise to power.  She also briefly discusses some aspects of society that were particularly interesting from a gender studies perspective: while the Nazis worshipped mothers and talked about how they were the most important people in the Reich (after all, how else would one breed more little Aryans), women also had unprecedented professional opportunities as a result of the regime.  The same regime that encouraged women to return to traditional, conservative values also gave them power.

 

Additionally, when women were actually were charged with crimes, they could use tears and say that it was their husbands' influence to protect themselves for significant punishment.  I think there is certainly more to be explored within this area, but unfortunately this book wasn't as comprehensive as I would have liked, focusing on a rather narrow number of women.  Still, it joins other books that show just how extensive collaboration was, and how much everyone needed to do their assigned parts to make the system work.  Additionally, like Children of the Flames, it demonstrates just how much people got away with and how few were actually held accountable for the mass murders of anyone considered undesirable and attempted genocide of a people.