Book 46: The Sinner

The Sinner by Tess Gerritsen

 

The third Rizzoli/Isles novel begins with a prologue set in India with a man trying to document a crime scene for the Octagon corporation.  While there he stumbles upon a woman without a face before the prologue ends, and the novel shifts to a crime scene at a monastery in Boston where two women have been found bludgeoned.  One of them has barely survived, but is unconscious, while the young twenty year old nun (the only novice to join in fifteen years) is dead.  Due to the prologue, the reader has a bit more knowledge than Detective Jane Rizzoli and Medical Examiner Maura Isles, and is left to wonder from early on how exactly the India vignette is going to tie into the case.  It is a secluded cloister, which means that the nuns live a life of reflection and prayer with no contact to the outside.  Despite this, the medical exam reveals that the young nun had just recently given birth to a child.  Immediate suspects of course include the unknown father, and as the only man with access to the nuns, their priest, Daniel Brophy is an early suspect.

 

Maura finds herself attracted to the priest, who more than willingly gives up a DNA sample to the police.  However, her ex-husband also arrives in town, trying to rekindle old flames.  Rizzoli and Isles spend some commiserating about men since things have fizzled between FBI agent Gabriel Dean and Rizzoli, and Rizzoli is now pregnant.  However, Dean shows up to investigate a seemingly unrelated case of a murder victim whose limbs have been removed, though the woman is soon suspected to be from India.

 

This novel veers from the format set in the other two novels since this one isn't about a serial killer, and goes more of the conspiracy theory route.  There are no coincedences in this world, and everything ends up tying together.  Rizzoli's pregnancy softens her up a bit, and I think it was also helpful to have more of the novel be from Maura's perspective.  I didn't think the sex scenes were very well written, and it seems like Rizzoli and Isles are both focused on their status as single women.  I understand that everyone has those moments, but for two such accomplished women, I wish there wasn't quite as much self-doubt due to those types of things.  Overall, there were a few red herrings, and the novel was entertaining, though it wasn't quite as tense as the first two in the series.

Book 45: An Artist of the Floating World

An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro

 

While I have enjoyed all of Ishiguro's novels that I've read thus far, none have come close recreating the same magic for me as Never Let Me Go.  Of course, I haven't read some of his more acclaimed works, such as The Remains of the Day, and have only read a few of his earlier novels since first reading Never Let Me Go. 

 

Set three years after the end of World War II, the novel is narrated by the retired artist Masuji Ono and broken down into four parts covering different periods of time, beginning with October 1948, April and November 1949, and June 1950.  The novel is not very linear at all, and the narrator goes on many tangents.  He will at one point be discussing a conversation he had during a visit with his daughter which will then remind him of his times as an art student for his master.  In this way, the novel slowly reveals Ono's life story, though there are no real surprises: the reader already knows the outcomes of his actions at the beginning of the novel.

 

As the novel begins, Ono's youngest daughter is in the middle of marriage negotiations, and things are tense since she is fast approaching old maid status and negotiations the previous year had turned unexpectedly bad.  His other dauther is already married (she married before the war), and has a young son, Ichiro, who doesn't see much of his grandfather.  Ono is not a very likable narrator, especially in the beginning: the way he portrays things, it seems like he is being stubbornly obtuse about things.  He and his daughters don't appear to truly talk about what concerns them, and talk around things instead (his wife and son died in the war).  He also keeps trying to bond with his grandson but obviously has no clue how to interact with children.  They only time they seem to have anything to say to each other is when Ono makes promises that aren't in his power to make, or when they are making fun of the women of the family.  He doesn't understand or approve of the changes in Japanese culture or the new American influence.

 

As Ono portrays it, it seems obvious that his daughters believe that his past with the Japanese empire are one of the reasons that the marriage negotiations went wrong, though Ono says that it was because his family had a higher status than the suitor's and appears to be in denial.  He throws in many anecdotes of Japanese men committing suicide as an apology for what the older generation led the country into, as well as memories of conversations about the war with his son-in-law who has become very bitter and critical.  Most of the novel, it appears as if Ono doesn't quite agree that it is fair to blame the war and its repercussions on his generation.  He often justifies himself and his peers by talking about how they wanted what was best for the country and their intentions were pure.  However, eventually he attempts to visit old colleagues to ask them to speak in his favor in case the family whose son may marry his daughter hire a detective or make inquiries.

 

Ono chose to become an artist despite his father's wishes that he be a businessman.  He reminisces back to his times as an apprentice in a firm and then with a master who focuses on the fleeting beauty of the floating world, the world of geishas and pleasure.  He also talks about his own students and how admired he was, coming across as pompous.  He had decided to leave behind the art of beauty to focus on political art and propaganda in support of the empire.  At first it seems like he is shirking any responsibility or blame, especially based on his portrayal of his daughters but later in the novel, I wondered.  When his daughters contradict him later, is it because he misremembers, or do they not want to remember bad things because things are going well at the time?  How important was Ono really?  How culpable was he?  The way he writes I'm not sure if he was making himself seem more or less responsible for whatever happened during the war.  At first I definitely would have said he was trying to avoid blame, but at the end I wasn't sure anymore, and thought maybe he felt more guilt than he wanted to admit, or wanted to feel more important than he was.

 

While I really didn't like Ono in the beginning, I felt bad for him by the end despite some of the bad things he did.  He has outlived his world, he can't relate to his family, and he doesn't even seem quite sure of his importance in his former world anymore.  While the war only intensifies these issues, I'm sure many old people can relate to this.  Ishiguro is very good at creating characters with regrets, lonely souls who spend their time living in the past.  At the end, Ono says he has been painting again, so maybe he has finally taken his old master's words about fleeting beauty to heart.  Still, I don't see much hope for Ono's happy ending: his time has passed and I don't think he will ever quite find his place in this new world.

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.