Book 44: The Apprentice

The Apprentice by Tess Gerritsen

 

This is the second novel of what becomes the Rizzoli/Isles series.  The book introduces medical examiner Maura Isles, and is told almost entirely from the perspective of Rizzoli (in the first of the series, she was more of a supporting cast member).  The last novel ended with the apprehension of "The Surgeon," the serial killer that gave the book its title.  Imprisoned in a high security facility, the novel still contains scenes in italics as seen from his perspective.

 

While investigating a case, Rizzoli receives a call from a detective outside the Boston district, because the detective on the case feels there are similarities to Warren Hoyt.  Since Hoyt is in prison, it is not him, of course, but there are a few things about the scene that remind Rizzoli of him: the home invasion, the slit throat, the folded night clothes.  There are big differences, though; this killer is going after couples, killing the husbands and abducting the wives before disposing of their bodies at a later time.

 

An FBI agent joins the case unrequested, and he is obviously hiding something from the Boston PD since he knows things about the case before Rizzoli and her team do.  In the midst of this investigation, Hoyt breaks out of prison. adding to the stress level and intensity of the investigation, especially once it becomes clear that Rizzoli may have had a point in noting the similarities between the two killers.

 

Rizzoli isn't the most likable heroine but I liked reading about the investigation, and was eager to see the big picture and how the FBI fit into the case.  The love story was the weakest part of the novel, but somehow people always end up coupled off in these things.  My biggest complaint was the ending which seemed rushed and had a bit of a deus ex machina feel to it - I guess I would have just preferred more actual detectiving than there was at the end to discover the killers.  Still, it was free and I wasn't in the mood for something super-reflective so this was a good read for that.  I can't say I really like Rizzoli at this point, but the novels are keeping me entertained.

Book 43: Stones from the River

Stones from the River by Ursula Hegi

 

I'm not sure why I never read this book before.  Originally, it may have been the fact that it was on Oprah's Book Club or perhaps I felt like I needed a break from World War II literature when my mom read it, I don't know.  When I looked at it later, the comparison to Gunther Grass's The Tin Drum probably would have turned me off: I hated that book.  I didn't like the protagonist at all, and thought he was oddly lecherous and devious.  However, having read this book, I believe that comparison has more to do with the fact that both of the protagonists are dwarves in small towns in Germany rather than other similarities.  Yes, both use a degree of magic realism (more so in Grass's case), but Trudi comes off as a real, normal person who happens to be a dwarf, someone who I wouldn't mind talking to, while the protagonist in The Tin Drum does not.

 

The novel spans from World War I era through the beginning of the post World War II period.  It takes place in a small German town near Dusseldorf, and is the story of Trudi Montag.  Conceived after her father returns home early from the war due to an injury, she is born in 1915 and her mother has a breakdown after her birth.  Trudi realizes early on that she is different, and as she grows up she comes to realize the power of secrets and relishes discovering others.  As a result, she becomes the town gossip, which is made easier by the fact that her father runs the town's pay library so there are always people coming in and out of the family business who are looking for new stories in the form of Trudi's gossip and novels.  While Trudi has a hard time making friends at school due to her difference, she is also an integral part of the town.  She may not always be well liked due to her sharp tongue, but her father is a very respected member of the community, and the women of the town are drawn to him after his wife's death, though their passions always remain chaste and unrequited.  Trudi can be a very hard person as she withdraws and distances herself from friends before they can leave her, and she does a few things that are petty.

 

As the Nazis come into power, all the various characters of the town begin to splinter within the community.  People that have been neighbors for ages and well-respected members of the town are now shunned because of their differences.  Many of the Jews are some of Trudi's closer friends and she sees the effects first hand.  Due to her own difference and inability to fit into the Aryan ideal, she is not drawn into Hitler's rhetoric like so many others, and she and her father end up sheltering Jews.  While there are a few that speak up, most of these are silenced early on - in some cases, one prison visit is enough, in other cases they disappear never to come back again.  Though the novel uses Trudi as its main protagonist and its eyes, it is really about a small community and the Nazi regime.  Some of Hitler's followers were opportunist while others truly believed in him.  Of course, most would claim after the war to have never agreed with Hitler and to have not known what was going on when only a few could really claim to have resisted.  As horrible as the Holocaust is, it is easy to forget the small parts: the fact that in most cases it wasn't Germans attacking Jews they had never met: they went after neighbors, people that they had known for ages, whom they had sold or bought groceries from, doctors they had visited for aches etc.

 

In order to really reinforce this, it helps that Hegi begins her novel in 1915, thus truly showing the fabric of the town to the reader and how it gradually changed with the Nazis.  Even the end of the war doesn't fix things: no one wants to talk about what has happened, and the people want to move on, but the silence and secrets are obvious.  These aren't the only secrets the town tries to bury as the town also weaves lies and people in and out of its history throughout the novel, but Trudi remembers and digs for the truths at all times, cherishing her gossip and her stories.  The only stories she does not share are ones about herself, letting people make their own conclusions about her based on her outward appearance.  I quite liked this novel, and the rich tapestry that Hegi created in this town.  I admit that at one or two points, I thought about how many stories about Nazi Germany tend to be about the "good" Germans, the ones that helped the Jews - on occasion, it seems like if there had been as many good Germans as are described in these novels, many more Jews should have survived, but Hegi does a good job of balancing the community, showing the people that were ambivalent, purposely blind, and fanatic compared to those what were actively attempting to make a difference.  One character I thought was interesting felt like she had been a collaborator by helping to make the prisoners more tolerable.  As she believed later, she had helped the Nazis by handing over calm and docile prisoners, and blamed herself - even those with good intentions could simply become cogs in the machine of genocide.

Book 42: Regeneration

Regeneration by Pat Barker

 

When I took "British Lit 1798 to Present," my professor made the argument that World War I had a much greater impact on Britain and the British cultural imagination than World War II.  In comparison, for Americans it was World War II that really made an impact and helped defined the ways they saw themselves.  It certainly makes sense: almost a million young British men died in the four year conflict, which would have a huge effect on a generation, with about twice that many wounded (2.13% of the population according to Wikipedia).  The Americans entered the war rather late.  The US was much more involved in World War II comparatively, and when you go to an American book store's military history section, the Civil War and World War II take up the majority of it.  It's an easy war to glamorize from an American perspective: there were clear good and bad sides, and the Americans helped achieve the victory, while then attempting to be gracious winners who helped rebuild the countries they had been at war with.  Growing up in Germany, World War II and the Holocaust obviously overshadowed World War I, so the statement that World War I would have a greater impact was an interesting idea to me.  However, World War I was the first war with casualties on such a huge scale, and certainly caused many of the things that led to WWII.  It triggered a great deal of change and disillusionment, and it is still unimaginable how the war could have gone on so long with such dramatic tolls.  I love the World War I poets, and the German novel All Quiet on the Western Front, and have definitely become more interested in the period over the years.

 

Regeneration is the first novel in Barker's WWI trilogy which centers around historical figures and fictional characters as its main protagonists.  The novel isn't about the front lines of the war or the battles but its effects.  The novel begins with Siegfried Sassoon's declaration against the continuation of the war.  It appears that he is already a famous figure at this point in history (now of course he is known as one of the war poets), so rather than court martial him, the authorities declare him shell shocked and send him to Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh where he comes under the care of Dr. Rivers.  Originally, I expected Sassoon to be the main character, but I believe that title goes to Dr. Rivers (another historical figure), while Sassoon and Billy Prior (fictional character) are the two main supporting cast members with a few other extras to illustrate war experiences.  The hospital Craiglockhart is for officers suffering from shell shock and other mental disorders as a result of the war.

 

Barker uses her characters to show some of the reactions that patients had: there are a few that suffer from "mutism" and are unable to speak.  Burns is unable to eat because during an attack he was thrown headfirst into the stomach of a decomposing body.  Another officer, a doctor, can no longer handle the sight of blood but still plans to return to medicine.  The men in the novel are conflicted: they don't want to be in the war, but they don't want to leave their men behind and want to return.  Sassoon especially feels guilt for leaving his men behind.  Prior has a problem with anyone not involved in the war (they don't understand, they are continuing with their lives as normal), and even Rivers feels guilty that he was too old to be in the military.  Rivers has read Freud's theories, and believes in many of Freud's ideas and practices such as dream analysis, and using talk therapy.  Fortunately, he isn't that big on the sexual part, but he does believe that they are suppressing memories, and even uses hypnosis on a patient as a last result.  As the novel progresses, Rivers must deal more and more with the inherent irony in his position: he is trying to help his patients and get them well to send them back into danger when really by remaining ill, they are possibly helping themselves more.   Sassoon isn't ill but Rivers still has to get him to decide that he would be better off returning to his troops.

 

The language in the novel felt very sparse - it's been a very long time since I've read Hemingway but that's always the first thing I think of when I think of certain writing styles, even if that might not be completely accurate.  The officers are generally sent to the hospital for about 12 weeks prior to seeing a board so the novel covers a time span of about 3 months.  While the reader witnesses a few sessions that Rivers has with his patients, their healing process isn't always explained.  Some of them simply get better without completely confronting their problems (Rivers for example isn't satisfied with one patient's recovery in particular) while others end up discharged from the military or on assignments outside the war zone.  The end of the novel contrasts Rivers's treatment methods with another doctor's, who is very brutal by comparison, especially to modern sensibility.

 

Even in today's military we still often talk about the stigma associated with seeing behavioral health professionals and ways to combat this stigma given current suicide rates.  While the stigma has definitely decreased in the last few years (there are of course always people that think that Soldiers seeking this type of help are malingering, but Soldiers are suspected of malingering for visiting regular doctors about physical ailments as well when these appointments appear to be at a too convenient time), it is interesting to see the World War I perspective when these types of problems were only beginning to receive recognition.  I confused a few of the patients a few times, remembering them more based on their neuroses than their names since the novel definitely focused on the main characters and didn't develop some of the minor characters much beyond a collection of symptoms - I feel like these men in particular were more symbols than anything.  Barker also included a few comments on women's positions at the time by including women workers, including one who has an abortion.  Overall, it was an interesting look at soldiers' psyches as a response to the war, and I thought Barker did a good job of showing the internal conflict many of these men faced as well as demonstrating that it was the overall accumulation of war sights that caused the breakdown rather than one huge event (two men actually comment on the fact that their breakdowns happened after incidents that weren't even the worst they'd seen).  While I liked the novel while I was reading it, I don't think it made a huge impact on me - many of the things Barker describes feel like they are now self-evident or common sense, but it was still nice to see a war novel written from outside the trenches that really doesn't try to glamorize things.  I plan on reading the rest of the series but having read the book a bit less than a week ago, the characters are already starting to blend together for me, and naturally given the subject, there aren't huge plot developments in the novel but small stories of men attempting to slowly heal from the stresses of war.

Book 41: The Surgeon

The Surgeon by Tess Gerritsen

 

I heard about this author when I saw that TNT was making a show based on the series that started with this novel.  I don't watch procedurals all too often, but I like the occasional Law and Order: SVU, and figured I might as well check out if this series was any different (I also think I saw a book that was later in the series that sounded like it had an interesting premise for a killer, but I obviously couldn't start in the middle).  Having said that, it was an entirely enjoyable book given the genre it represents.  I wouldn't call it ground-breaking in any way but it had a few nice ideas.

 

I was actually surprised by one thing about the novel: given that the rest of the series is the Rizzoli/Isles series, I was expecting one or both of them to be the main character in this novel.  In fact, the novel is told from three perspectives (well, four when you include the pages in italics in the killer's voice), and Rizzoli is the one that receives the least attention.  She wasn't even that likable, and while she had some good insights in the novel, she also made a huge mistake and didn't want to own up to it.  The main characters are Thomas Moore, one of the other detectives on the case who is part of it because he investigated a murder with the same profile a year before, and Catherine Cordell, a surgeon and victim of a serial killer two years before.  Cordell had escaped and shot her assailant, but even though the man that attacked her is dead, these current crimes are incredibly similar, and the new killer begins to focus on her.

 

The novel begins with a scene from the killer's perspective as he plots a murder, and then starts with a detective over a year later when a second body is discovered killed in the same manner: in both cases, the killer broke into the victims' apartments, incapacitated them with choloroform, tied them to their beds and immobilized them before cutting their uterii from their bodies while they were alive and conscious only to finally slit their throats.  It ties to a case in Savannah that was closed two years before although in that particular case, the women had been raped prior to the other violence.  Rizzoli and Moore are two of five detectives on the case, and they slowly find connections between the victims with some assistance from Cordell, who it soon becomes obvious is a target herself.

 

Since one of the main characters was a surgeon and worked at a hospital, there were a few scenes that read like a scene from E.R.  I have to say medical talk like that is much more fun to watch than to read, but other than that, it was a good enough novel for what it was.  It's entirely forgettable, although I liked the side trip to Savannah (I live/am going to live there).  I don't think I'd really necessarily spend money on more from the series but considering that the MWR's book room is half full of these types of novels, I wouldn't be surprised if I could find the rest of the series there - this series would work pretty well on the stair master.

Book 40: About a Boy

About a Boy by Nick Hornby

 

My 1SG has a theory on relationships.  She believes that there is no one person that will be 100% perfect for someone else, and that the most anyone can hope for is to meet someone that meets 80% of one's expectations.  However, she also believes that people are attraced to the new and always looking for the new, and that usually whoever this new person is will meet the 20% that the first person cannot.  As a result, I obviously had to share this quote with her:

 

In the end, the thing that swung it for him in his affair with Angie was that he was not Someone Else.  That meant in this case he wasn't Simon, her ex, who had problems with drink and work, and who, with a cavalier disregard for cliche, turned out to be screwing his secretary.  Will found it easy not to be Simon; he had a positive flair for not being Simon, he was briliant at it.  It seemed unfair, in fact, that something he found so effortless should bring him any kind of reward at all but it did: he was loved for not being Simon more than he had ever been loved simply for being himself.  (24)

 

This is actually only the second Hornby novel I've read, which is honestly a bit surprising since one of my friends loves him (especially High Fidelity) and Hornby is rather popular with the Pajiba crowd.  I decided to make this one the second because I haven't seen the movie, and kind of want to since I like Rachel Weisz (I'm only, what, ten years behind the rest of the world?)

 

Hornby tells the story from the perspective of Marcus, a 12 year old boy who is both old for his age and naive, and Will, a 36 year old man-child to say it in simple terms.  Marcus is the child of divorce, and he and his mother Fiona have recently moved to London.  His mother struggles with depression, and Marcus understands that things aren't quite normal.  He also doesn't fit in at school because his mom is a feminist, vegetarian hippie who is opposed to most new popular culture and has raised her son on Joni Mitchell in the time of Nirvana and Snoop Dogg.  Being the new kid, he gets picked on quite a bit.

 

Meanwhile, Will's friends are growing distant from him as they become more mature and have children.  Will doesn't want children, but when he realizes during a chance meeting with Angie that he has a chance with beautiful women that would normally never give him the time of day simply because they are single mothers, he feels like he has hit a gold mine.  Unfortunately, he doesn't know any other single mothers, so after Angie breaks up with him, he pretends to be a single father to join a group for single parents.  Suzie, one of the mothers in the group, is friends with Fiona, and Marcus and Will meet during a single parents' outing.  Suzie had invited Marcus to give Fiona a break but when they drop him off at the apartment, they find Fiona unconscious on the couch after a failed suicide attempt.

 

Marcus finds himself drawn to Will, and begins to spend time with him.  While Will is not a father figure, he understands high school, bullies and pop culture, and both of them learn things about themselves and the world through their interactions with each other.  Will becomes involved in the messiness of human relationships since Marcus pulls him into his world, and Will finds himself interacting with Marcus's parents as well.  Marcus begins to make relationships in high school as he learns about modern culture, and how to fit in.  At first Will doesn't understand these people, and he also says he would never want to kill himself because he doesn't care that much about anything.  Fiona in comparison cares about everything so much that it is obvious that she would be disappointed and overwhelmed by life.

 

I actually quite enjoyed the novel.  I wasn't sure how I'd feel about Will, a man that has no job due to family money, but he develops depths as the novel progresses.  I quite enjoyed Marcus, and his realizations about life.  This novel was set in '93/'94, so I enjoyed the throwback to the grunge era, and Hornby created flawed but likable characters.  It was a light read without being fluff, so I'm glad I finally got around to this.

Book 39: Half Broke Horses

Half Broke Horses: A True Life Novel by Jeannette Walls

 

I read the author's memoir, The Glass Castle, several years ago and quite liked it.  Now, I barely the details of the book, though it was about Walls's upbringing and childhood with her less than stable parents.  Her parents were erratic which led to both fun exciting adventures as well as poverty.  In this book, Walls takes the family stories about her grandmother, Lily Casey Smith, and weaves them into a "true life novel."

 

Walls uses the stories that she and her mother remember about her grandmother to create this woman's life story.  Since it is based on family myth, Walls doesn't title the story as a biography.  The book reads very much like an oral history - it is told in Lily's voice in chronological order, but as a reader I could easily imagine that all the chapters were individual stories told at varying times to her daughter who then helped her own daughter place them in order.

 

In many ways, Lily feels like a portrayal of the quintessential (and possibly even stereotypical) frontier woman.  She grew up in Texas and New Mexico; it was a tough life but her family had a roof (except when the tornados or flash floods took them away) and food.  Still, there wasn't enough money to send her to school for more than a semester due to her father's schemes, though he made sure to home school his children with his strong views.  Her mother tries to be a genteel lady in a tough environment, leaving Lily her fair share of responsibility early on.  However, this clearly helps her since she is very strong-willed and independent as a result, leaving for Arizona to teach at fifteen (there was a teacher shortage due to the First World War) despite her lack of degree.  Upon the return of the soldiers from the homefront, Lily finds herself out of a job and enroute to Chicago for better opportunities.  While she attends night school and receives her high school diploma in Chicago, for the most part, it seems like an interlude in her life that kept her off track.  She develops a close friendship with a factory worker who dies in an accident, and marries a man that turns out to already have a wife and family.  Eventually, she returns west to take a teacher certification course, and finds her place back in the more rough and tumble life in Arizona.

 

While at first things go well in her new position, she soon finds further hardship before marrying and settling down with Jim Smith, which eventually leads to her running a cattle ranch.  Lily definitely thinks of herself in the right in most things, and is portrayed as someone with strong beliefs that occasionally get her in trouble (or fired).  No matter what difficulties she faces, she simply bucks up and continues to her new venture.  This portrayal as well as the various occupations she faces make her seem both ordinary and extraordinary.  On the one hand, her strength and determination are admirable and seem even more commendable for a woman in that time but based on other depictions (both fictional and non-fictional) of women in the West, it seems like her work ethic and adventures are far from unique.  While she generally feels like she did the best she could and is unapologetic for any mistakes she may have made (she doesn't reflect on too many), Walls also portrays the parts of her grandmother that a modern day audience would easily frown upon such as her use of corporal punishment as a teacher.

 

While I remember little of the details of The Glass Castle, it does cast clarity on the lives her descendants lived.  With such a strict and demanding mother, it is easy to see why Rosemary would choose a more hippie-like and unsettled life style in rebellion.  Despite this, since much of the information for this book came from Rosemary, it is clear that Rosemary and Jeannette admired Lily, a strong feminist woman, even if she didn't want to be her or agree with her.

Book 38: Neither Here Nor There

Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe by Bill Bryson

 

I quite enjoyed Bryson's book A Short History of Everything.  Not only did he show a great curiousity for the world around him, but he displayed a sense of humor as well as compassion.  He discussed many scientists, their discoveries and quirks, and showed a certain amount of respect for their accomplishments, even when the individual in question was not a good person.  He would poke fun at arguments, but it all was mostly focused on sharing what he learned about the planet's creation and past.

 

While I have since browsed for other books by Bryson, I have never really read much in the genre of travel writing, and it just didn't seem that reading about the Appalachian Mountains would really be my cup of tea.  I was therefore pleasantly surprised when my friend sent me this book, focusing on his travels in Europe.  I lived in Germany for eight years a child, and another three after graduating college, and have also been to a few of the places he visited.  I figured it would be a perfect way to reminisce about places I've been and see what other places in Europe I should go.

 

Unfortunately, this book was nowhere nearly as well-written as A Short History of Everything.  I don't feel like I learned too much about the places visited (I thought maybe he'd share random knowledge like in A Short History of Everything, but there wasn't very much) - for the most part, it felt like he simply reiterated stereotypes.  I guess in some cases stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason but I expected better from Bryson.  Also, having never read a travel book before, I wasn't sure what to expect - was it supposed to be a tour of the city, was it supposed to be about random mishaps the author encounters, a bit of both?  Mostly, it seemed like Bryson walked around, ate, and pretty much didn't seem to enjoy himself very much.  He seemed very negative about many things, and Copenhagen was the first place he described that he seemed too truly enjoy, enough to make me want to visit.  He also loved Rome (who doesn't?) but hated Florence (which was one of my favorite trips).  He became more positive towards the last half of the trip but he had lost me by that point.

 

In ways, I feel bad for disliking this book and his negativity.  Having traveled myself, I'm sure I have shared a few of his thoughts on occasion.  I thought Paris had a few too many tourists, and agree that the Mona Lisa really is barely worth seeing because you can't get closer than 10 feet to it, there's a huge crowd around (all of whom are trying to get a picture of themselves with the painting) and it's kind of small.  I'm sure I have also regretted certain modernizations when looking at gorgeous old architecture.  And I think I would have been fine with some complaints if they had also been accompanied by more genuine enthusiasm.  I may not have enjoyed the Louvre as much as I would have expected, but I loved the Cluny (the medieval museum, it goes by a different name now).  Don't even get me started on Florence (of course, I would be less favorable of Venice, so I definitely understand that not all cities appeal to everyone, but it just felt like this was all negative).  I guess I just figured if you are going to write books about traveling it should be because you love it and the places, and reading the stories should inspire readers to follow in your foot steps.  I didn't want to follow in his foot steps; some of his problems seemed to be due to lack of planning and preparation.  Then again, it's admirable that he could just travel Europe day to day, and see where things took him.  I'm going to be in the British Isles for the month of July, and I already have all my hotels booked, theater tickets, and the only thing that will be on the fly are the train tickets to get me from one city to another.

 

And that's another reason, I find it hard to judge Bryson completely (well, I totally am, but why I feel bad about it) - this book was published in the early '90s.  How did people travel and plan trips before the internet?  I mean, I know we took family vacations, and my mom called hotels and reserved them ahead of time, while my dad would then map everything out with giant folding maps, but where did she get the phone numbers?  The back of travel guides?  I have no clue.  Also, visiting the cities I loved twenty years ago may have been a completely different experience - I don't know how much money cities have invested in restoration since this book was written.