Book Review: The Tuesday Club Murders, by Agatha Christie

After finishing the intensity that was Unaccustomed Earth, I needed something a little frothier, and who better to provide froth than Miss Marple. What's more, I finally got a library card and went over to the nearest branch -- which, it turns out, is quite petite. This was the only Agatha Christie book there that I hadn't read. After completing it, I figured out why I'd been avoiding it.

On the whole, this isn't a bad book. It's fun, engaging, and requires minimal attention to complete. As mentioned above, it's also a Miss Marple story, so if you're a fan of Miss Marple as a character (I am) it's great to see her in action again. The Tuesday Club Murders isn't so much a full-length story as a collection of short stories. On two separate occasions, a group of friends (each group including Miss Marple) gathers together to visit, and in the course of the visit decides to tell each other a murder mystery from their own experience. That is to say, they aren't telling stories about murders that they committed but rather stories about mysterious events during which they were present and also during which someone died. Later on, they found out that the death was more than an accident. Each person in the group must present the story in the form of a mystery and leave it to the listeners to see if they can solve it.

It's a fairly clever premise, but unfortunately the mysteries themselves are all a bit obvious. I figured most of them out for myself, and I count myself as a fairly stupid mystery reader -- I never figure it out. So if I can figure these out, they're pretty transparent. I'll give Christie some credit. She has to assemble twelve separate mysteries that all feel quite unique. With that much, I have no problem. I just wish she didn't have the characters seems so stumped by the obvious in order to give Miss Marple a fighting chance.

I've always believed that Christie was, all in all, an exceptional story teller but poor writer. Some of her books succeed better than others in terms of writing style. This one doesn't. My biggest complaint is that most of the mysteries are presented in dialogue (since a character is telling the story to the other characters), and dialogue like this tends to be tricky. Nine times out of ten, you have to make a character say something that he probably wouldn't say. For instance, the elderly clergyman Dr Pender makes the following comment in describing the dramatis personae within his story:

There was also a young Dr. Symonds and there was Miss Diana Ashley. I knew something about the last named. Her picture was very often in the Society papers and she was one of the notorious beauties of the Season. Her appearance was indeed very striking. She was dark and tall, with a beautiful skin of an even tint of pale cream, and her half-closed eyes set slantways in her head gave her a curiously piquant oriental appearance. She had, too, a wonderful speaking voice, deep-toned and bell-like.

May I just point out that no man talks like this. If he did (and particularly if he were a clergyman), we'd be concerned. If I were among those present listening to this description, I'd be sure to move my chair several feet away and preferably closer to a door. An external door.

Additionally, this would be pretty bad writing if it weren't dialogue. As dialogue, it's absurd. But given the nature of the genre, Christie's weak writing skills make it difficult for her to surpass its limitations.

It's not a total loss, of course. It has some cute moments, and a couple of the mysteries are borderline clever. If you're a fan of Agatha Christie and the Miss Marple stories, I'd recommend giving this one at least a quick pass-through. If you're on the fence, I don't really recommend it as there are far better Christie stories to track down.

Year of publication: 1933
Number of pages: 256

Book Review: Unaccustomed Earth, by Jhumpa Lahiri

This was a recommendation from my mom. Around New Year's, I saw my parents at my grandma's house (hi, grandma!), and while I was there my mom plopped a pile of books into my lap. "You'll love these! My book club read them, and I think you'll really enjoy them!"

Several of the books that she foisted upon me are still sitting on the floor and will probably remain unread (sorry, mom!). This one, however, intrigued me. India fascinates me, and I don't mean that in the way that a Westerner puts on the "intrigued" glasses and says (in a tone of condescension): "how interesting to read about a new culture." It really does fascinate me. There is a history here that surpasses my immediate appreciation and a culture so rich that American culture seems laughable in comparison. And, whether we like it or not, the people of India are now a part of American life. Case in point: I just experienced a problem with Amazon. I contacted the company yesterday and today, and in both cases the corporate response came from India. (If you need to ask how I know, you haven't spent enough time dealing with customer service from a large corporation.) In another instance, my husband contacted HP customer service about 18 months ago to deal with a printer issue. The customer service representative was in India. (I knew this, because in the course of dealing with the printer problem my husband struck up a chat with the rep. I was sitting on the other side of the room when I heard him asking about the elephants that walk down the streets in her town. I'm not a genius, but I'm pretty sure this doesn't happen too often in the US.)

All of this to say, Unaccustomed Earth is essentially about the culture clash of East and West. Most of the characters in the book experience Westerners intimately (through significant friendships) or forge romantic relationships with them. What's fairly refreshing is that there's no immediate "moral" to these stories. Lahiri doesn't conclude that Indians should avoid falling in love with or marrying non-Indians in the US. She also doesn't conclude that it's a really good idea. And here comes the thrust of my review...

This book is beautifully written. It's a collection of short stories about various characters, and in each one Lahiri's exquisite writing skills draw you in. But each one ends in such a way as to be ambiguous or even verging on depressing. One or two of these, and I was intrigued and appreciative. An entire book? I was in need of Prozac. Perhaps that's a sign of how skilled Lahiri is as a writer. She pulls you into the plots that she weaves in each story. She shapes each character and his experience so effectively that it's difficult not to get emotionally involved. I read most of this book in one sitting. I couldn't put it down. And then I needed something to make me happy -- because, goodness knows, Unaccustomed Earth didn't.

Yet there it was. This perfectly written book of short stories with these fascinating characters. And at first I loved the fact that the stories didn't have happy endings. All things considered, the happy ending is kind of cheap. It forces to a conclusion something that might or might not realistic. As readers, we love happy endings, of course, because the happy endings can create the very fantasy we're not sure exists in the reality of our lives. At the same time, an unhappy ending -- while honest and realistic -- can also be difficult. There is no fantasy; there is no sense that "maybe I can experience what this person experienced." Life just, more or less, sucks. There's a lot of that in this book. It's great at first, because it's different. But, as I mentioned above, I got tired of it by the end. I just wanted it to be over. I was so sick of unhappiness, of the permanent chasm between East and West, even of people dying. Please, I though, just let one have a "fairy tale ending." It didn't.

Read at your own risk. Know in advance that the writing is exceptional. Writing a short story is a unique skill, and a good many writers fail at it. Lahiri succeeds. But there's a cost. The stories are so well written that it's difficult to find the distance from them as a reader. I knew each one of these characters by the end of the stories. I experienced their frustration, even pain, alongside them. And I wanted things to be better. If you're looking for better, pass this one by. If you're looking for interesting, effective, and insightful, give this one a try. Just give yourself plenty of time to read it.

Year of publication: 2009
Number of pages: 352

Book Review: In Siberia, by Colin Thubron

Whew. What a read. Thubron takes you along with him on his travels of Siberia, and it's one of the most fascinating books on location that I've ever come across. Beautifully written, each moment exquisitely captured, In Siberia is also fairly sad. It's the kind of sad you almost expect -- this massive land of ice and snow, peopled with a range of ethnic groups, with its large, industrial cities that were carved out of the landscape during the Soviet era and its horrifying labor camps that snuffed the light out of millions (perhaps tens of millions). It's difficult to read it at times, because you can see all of this coming with each turn of the page, and yet it's impossible to put down. At the same time, I don't think it could have been any longer, but this is the kind of book that is exactly the right length. Thubron sets out to talk about his experiences; he focuses and narrows everything to craft his story; and then he concludes.

Thubron is a masterful writer. The book would be worth reading for the writing style alone. I've found that with many books I can read at a fairly brisk pace: I move through the words and ideas rapidly, not pondering every single one because it's not necessary for me to do so. I get it all with a quick sweep of my eyes. It's not so much skimming as just...gliding. I couldn't do that with this book. Missing words tripped me up, and I found myself having to go back and read paragraphs (or pages) several times. For instance, here is part of the chapter on Lake Baikal:

I climbed a bluff high above the lake, to an old place of Evenk sacrifice. Beneath me Lake Baikal became an ocean. Its headlands multiplied to the south, fainter and fainter, while all around me the whole northern curve of its water spread kingfisher-blue, edged by a phantasmal range of mountains, sometimes a mile high. All colour, from here, had refined to this drenching blue -- even the blue-tinged white of clouds -- as if blue must be the colour to which all others purified in time.

It is the peculiar clarity of Baikal which elicits this. As the transparent and slightly alkaline water deepens, other colours are filtered from its light spectrum, until only blue, the least absorbent, remains. Lying over the fault-line of two tectonic plates, whose separation is gradually dropping its floor lower, the waters plunge to a depth of over one mile: by far the deepest lake on earth. Its statistics stupefy. It harbours nearly one fifth of all the fresh water on the planet: equal to the five Great Lakes of America combined, or to the Baltic Sea. If Baikal were emptied and all the world's rivers diverted to its basin, they would not fill it within a year.

This is exceptional writing, and it's like this throughout the book. I can only think to compare it to eating a chewy candy, like taffy. You can't chew fast: instead, you chew slowly and deliberately, savoring everything about it because you really have no other choice.

Thubron also demonstrates a useful amount of discretion in putting the stories together. This isn't a travel book in the sense of being pure description of locations. Yes, he offers beautifully written descriptions of each place that he visits, but he also gives the reader a glimpse of the people. A very personal glimpse, in fact. He meets people, talks to them, tries to understand them. He reaches out to hear their stories, to make sense of the person who lives in Siberia. This person isn't one person at all, it turns out, and Thubron manages to provide an impressive diversity in describing the inhabitants. How easy to lump them all together as "people in that cold place." And yet how inaccurate that proves to be.

I mentioned the sadness before, but it's worth touching on again. This book isn't full of happy, if I'm allowed to say it that way. It verges on depressing. Thubron visited Siberia in the years after the fall of the Soviet government, and it's clear that things are looking somewhat worse for many people, instead of better. They aren't necessarily sorry to see the oppression of the Soviet decades disappear, but they would really like jobs. And paychecks. And enough food to feed their families. And the chance to save money without inflation turning it into nothing. (One woman tells Thubron that her mother spent years saving 6000 roubles on which to retire. At the time, the 6000 roubles would have been enough to buy a nice car, and then she would have her pension to help her out. Now, those 6000 roubles will only buy her two loaves of bread, and there's no guarantee of a pension.) What most people emanate isn't even unhappiness but rather resignation. There's nothing they can do about it. They might as well just keep going and hope for the best as the political problems sort themselves out. And on the bad days, there's vodka. It sounds like a stereotype, but it appears to have some truth to it.

In spite of the unhappiness, though, there's a surprising amount of optimism from people. So, the government might stink. So, there's not enough money. We're alive; we have good health; we have our children; we have our heritage. And we keep moving forward, keep smiling. The people in Siberia are proud of their past. In so many of the towns and cities Thubron visited, he found a small museum, often maintained at the sheer determination of one person, in which was detailed as much of the past and as many as the artifacts as could be provided. With all of the various ethnic groups across the region, this means that Thubron made a number of museum stops, but in each one there was something fascinating to learn (for him, as well as the reader). What is more, the people are unexpectedly friendly. One night Thubron stops at a small station house in a tiny town that is struggling with fuel shortages. The station master knows that Thubron needs a lift, so he gladly gets on the phone to ask his friends if they have any gas in their cars. It takes a while, but he finally finds someone who does and gladly takes him to his next stop. On another occasion, Thubron runs across a group of mafia who offer to drive him around town. They show him the sights, provide a little editorial about life there, and then drop him off at a place to sleep for the night -- after paying his bill. It's a "Russian gift" to a visiting Englishman. No expectations placed on him in return.

I read this book over the course of two weeks, and I enjoyed taking my time with it. I also read with a computer close by, because I found myself wanting to jump up at the end of a chapter and start searching. These places were all so unfamiliar to me, and here they came alive on the page: Krasnoyarsk, Khabarovsk, Irkutsk, Novosibirsk, Butugychag. These names rolled off my tongue (at least in my mind), and I needed to know more: Evgenia Ginzburg, Maria Volkonskaya, Princess Trubetskaya, Sakharov, Shelikhov, Kolchak, and so forth. I spent two weeks learning about a place that had previously just been a big chunk of land on the map. Almost nothing about Russia in general, and Siberia in particular, is familiar to Americans like myself. It's just this huge, distant part of the world with a tongue-twister language and a forbidding climate. Thubron doesn't necessarily make it familiar to Western readers. But I think he successfully makes them want to know and appreciate a little more.

Year of publication: 1999
Number of pages: 285

Book Review: The Productive Writer, by Sage Cohen

I bought this on a whim -- one of those "featured books" shelves at Barnes and Noble. I had been looking for a writing reference guide for a while, and until I came across this one I had been pretty universally disappointed. Most of them are suffer from excess cheer or overwhelming seriousness. Or they turn writing into a philosophical experience that verges on the absurd.

Cohen's book does none of these things. As a writer, she offers a strong balance of encouragement and practicality that stems, no doubt, from her own varied resume. Sage Cohen has dual writing roles: one as a marketing writer and the other as a poet. As a result, she can see writing from the angle of something that people must do, as well as the angle of something that people do to pay the bills. Let's be realistic, she basically says. The whole image of the "starving artist" is pretty ridiculous.

I like this approach. I also like that offers some truly useful tips. The best point that she makes is one that has occurred to me time and time again: there are writers who get published and whose writing is equivalent to mine, if not worse. But they're getting published, because they're sending out their work. Additionally, I've always struggled with the fear of writing and the problem of being something of a perfectionist. How can I try to publish until I'm confident that my work is perfect? I can't. So, Cohen points out that the goal should be professional instead of perfect. I don't know about you, but this takes a huge weight off my shoulders. This doesn't remove the obligation that I have to make sure my writing is as good as possible, but it does remove the burden of perfectionism that I'll never achieve.

Some of the information in here was less useful to me. Cohen talks about writers needing to be out there with their work -- in their communities, teaching workshops, posting on Facebook, and Tweeting. (I loathe the fact that this is now a verb, by the way.) This kind of thing isn't as necessary for me, and I suspect part of its value applies to writers who work by contract and need an influx of clients. Since that isn't the type of writing I plan to do at this point, I'm in no hurry to establish a Facebook account. And with any luck, hell will freeze over before I set up a Twitter account. That being said, she makes great points for those pursuing certain types of writing.

The book is fairly short, but it packs in a great deal of excellent information. And Cohen's style of refreshingly accessible. Her own writing is professional but without being stuffy, and she gets writers motivated to pick up their pens or hit the computer. She reminds readers that writing should be viewed as a job and that there's no reason not to set up a schedule and go for it. (She is, however, practical enough to point out that there's nothing wrong with doing something else for a while if the words don't arrive on schedule.) The chapters are brief but complete, and everything feels very concise and to the point. I like writing that wastes no words and gets to that point. Which is why I should wrap up this review pretty quickly:

Great book.
Worth the time.

Year of publication: 2010
Number of pages: 204