The Sweetest Dream: A Novel Review

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The Sweetest Dream: A Novel ReviewDoris Lessings's 24th novel, "The Sweetest Dream" concerns itself with people from whom we never seem to find escape, even if we want to...family members.
This is a book that many people may not like. It's fairly long, not divided into chapters and, for the most part, lacks a plot. Rather than plot, Lessing chooses to concentrate of the needs of family members instead...immediate family members and extended family members. This is a book filled with "issues" and each character seems to have his or her opinion on each and every one of them. If the book seems too long, consider this: the pages are filled with so much dialogue during the discussion of these "issues" that they (the pages) simply fly by. It really doesn't take long to read "The Sweetest Dream."
I wouldn't say that this book is "about" anyone in particular, although its heart and soul is Frances Lennox a British actress and writer, who, at a very young age, made the mistake of marrying Johnny, a devout communist. Although she attempted to correct that mistake, she seems to only become mired even more deeply in Johnny's troubled life and times.
Frances and her two teenaged boys are at home much of the time while Johnny cavorts in various parts of the world. He only seems to light long enough to deposit yet another person on Frances' doorstep for her to take care of. (The latest being Johnny's current wife.) Frances finally finds a little peace and solace in the home of Johnny's widowed mother, Julia. This is a house filled with misfits: Frances' and Johnny's sons' friends and Sylvia, the troubled, anorxic daughter of Johnny's current wife. Although Frances dreams of the theatre, the need for cash seems to trap her in the world of journalism instead. Meantime, she's become the "family" caretaker and caregiver, much to Julia's distress.
Why doesn't Frances tell the selfish and self-centered Johnny when to quit? After all, his own mother thinks he's a cad, a brute, a loser. Frances, though, just keeps on lavishing love while her dreams of the theatre and a real man by her side seem to be slipping away. To find out whether they really do or not, you'll have to read the book.
While "The Sweetest Dream" is a very well-written novel with a premise that seems to have all the requirements, as I read, I realized that something was missing from the narrative. It is passion, fire. The characters seem almost defeated from the start. While believable, they are somewhat flat. I think Lessing needed to delve more deeply into their hearts and souls. It is only in the book's final development that Lessing really lets us care. And no, it isn't too late.
In the final analysis, however, "The Sweetest Dream," though a little flat, is still a wonderful book and one any fan of Doris Lessing absolutely should not miss.The Sweetest Dream: A Novel Overview

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A Star Called Henry (The Last Roundup) Review

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A Star Called Henry (The Last Roundup) ReviewA Star Called Henry is probably far more accurate in its portrayal of Ireland in the last years of British rule than many would realise. The activities of the members of Michael Collins' "Squad" were much like those performed by Henry Smart, who was, in the novel, on the periphery of possibly the most effective counter-intellegence agency in the world. Roddy Doyle's excellent novel captures the period as well as anything I have hitherto read on the subject. He captures the feeling of Dubliners towards the Easter Rising, before and after the executions, and the attitude of those beyond the Pale (English-controlled region around Dublin, where the phrase comes from) to the "jackeens". Henry's delay in leaving Ireland was, I believe, not as surprising as some seem to think. Henry had great loyalty towards Michael Collins, similar to his feelings towards James Connolly, a debt of honour, if you will, that kept him from abandoning him while that was unresolved. After his betrayal and the death of Collins, he was free to leave the country. These attributes are visible in the character of Henry Smart, and are a major influence on his actions. His various loyalties are strong and are probably the driving force of his life.
Before A Star Called Henry, I wasn't much a fan of Roddy Doyle the author, preferring the film versions of the Barrytown Trilogy, but I await with anticipation the remaining books in his latest Trilogy.A Star Called Henry (The Last Roundup) Overview

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Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural (Modern Library) Review

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Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural (Modern Library) ReviewI've read all the stories in this book at least 3 times. Most of the times I skip around, but twice I've read straight through -- the stories are so consistently good, and, though wide ranging, complement each other so well.These are NOT horror stories. Horror (to me, at least) implies not only more explicit violence, but also an attitude that reality is, at core, physically and morally chaotic. "Dark Descent" is a horror anthology -- "Great Tales" is for the most part (although "The Great God Pan" and H.P. Lovecraft's 2 stories provide some exception) more old-fashioned "ghost stories," and what mystery genre critics would categorize as "English cozy": pleasant characters, warm surroundings introduced all the better to scare you with later on. The evil is seen through a hole in the curtain, so to speak, and never engulfs.The first group of stories ("Tale of Terror") are not exactly supernatural, but extremely suspenseful, with wonderful denouements. Poe's "The Facts in the Strange Case of M. Valdemar" is wonderfully horrible - a dying man is hypnotised to keep him alive (it turns out to be a mistake, of course). "Suspicion" by Dorothy Sayers is NOT a murder mystery, but a perfectly built-up tale of suspense. I've read it a dozen times and the pace of the story still catches me. "Home for Christmas," in which a nice doctor kills his bossy wife before leaving on vacation, would make a great Hitchcock movie. "Moonlight Sonata" is the short but shocking story of a man who stays overnight at a friend's house and awakens to an unpleasant visitor (not a ghost, but worse). Despite the emphasis on surprise endings, all of these stories have such great style and atmosphere that they are often, if anything, better the 2nd or 3rd time around.The second group, "Tales of the Supernatural," have all the qualities mentioned above but are more wide ranging in terms of imaginativeness. My Man M.R. James fits right in here, of course, and 2 of his best tales - "Oh, Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad" and "Casting the Runes" - are featured. Also Guy de Maupassant ("Was It a Dream?", in which a young lover spends the night mourning the death of his mistress in a cemetery, is fabulous). Also Rudyard Kipling; E.F. Benson; Algernon Blackwood ("Ancient Sorceries" features a mild-mannered Englishman oddly drawn to a small French village with a history of witchcraft); and such great titles as "The Screaming Skull" and "The Haunters and the Haunted or The House and the Brain" which, despite the campy names, will leave you far from laughing. There are stories in this section, also, that would better be categorized as fantasy ("The Celestial Omnibus" and "Adam and Eve and Pinch-me"). I liked them a lot even though I don't usually read fantasy. The majority are SCARY, though, and all are well-written by any standard (Henry James gives us "Sir Edmund Orme" and Ernest Hemingway tells of "The Killers").If you like a more modern style, more explicit sex and violence, less atmosphere and more cut-to-the-chase, this book probably isn't for you. But if you like good, old-fashioned, solid, subtle, clever writing, with lots of atmosphere as well as great plotting (and you like to be scared), then this is a must-have.Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural (Modern Library) OverviewWhen this longtime Modern Library favorite--filled with fifty-two stories of heart-stopping suspense--was first published in 1944, one of its biggest fans was critic Edmund Wilson, who in The New Yorker applauded what he termed a sudden revival of the appetite for tales of horror. Represented in the anthology are such distinguished spell weavers as Edgar Allen Poe ("The Black Cat"), Wilkie Collins ("A Terribly Strange Bed"), Henry James ("Sir Edmund Orme"), Guy de Maupassant ("Was It a Dream?"), O. Henry ("The Furnished Room"), Rudyard Kipling ("They"), and H.G. Wells ("Pollock and the Porroh Man"). Included as well are such modern masters as Algernon Blackwood ("Ancient Sorceries"), Walter de la Mare ("Out of the Deep"), E.M. Forster ("The Celestial Omnibus"), Isak Dinesen ("The Sailor-Boys Tale"), H.P. Lovecraft ("The Dunwich Horror"), Dorothy L. Sayers ("Suspicion"), and Ernest Hemingway ("The Killers"). "There is not a story in this collection that does not have the breath of life, achieve the full suspension of disbelief that is so particularly important in [this] type of fiction," wrote the Saturday Review. With an introduction and notes by Phyllis Cerf Wagner and Herbert Wise.

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The Country Girls Trilogy and Epilogue Review

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The Country Girls Trilogy and Epilogue ReviewI bought this book preparatory to a month in Ireland, as a mental/political exercise (aware of former banning). I couldn't put it down, and got three hours or less sleep for three nights in a row. I foisted it on my mom with warnings not to begin it on a weeknight, she got hooked on a Tuesday and went downhill too. We talked for days about how tightly written it was, how clean, spare, descriptive, full of foreshadowing, and painful to any woman who knows what it is to be centally disappointed by a man. Yet the book never whines, it never pushes itself sobbing on your shoulder. It sits in dignity with sadness.
Very quietly and methodically tragic, in the Irish way that says you do not whine about tragedy, you do not make fuss of it, you just simply pray a bit and go on. What makes the book so very valuable and unusual is that it applies the Irish knack for storytelling and forthright 'un-tragic' tragedy to women's lives and women's stories. It is both an Irish book full of water and woodsmoke, and a women's book in all its painful honesty and revelatory grace.
Please read.The Country Girls Trilogy and Epilogue OverviewThe Country Girls Trilogy and Epilogue is an absolutely engaging saga that is, thematically, about opposites - opposite dispositions and opposite views of life, the survivor versus the ungovernable romantic. It charts unflinchingly the pattern of life, for women, from the high spirits of youth to the chill of middle age, from hope to despair. It is both painful and hilarious.

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The Country Girls Review

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The Country Girls ReviewCaithleen Brady and Bridget(Baba)Brennan are friends in a poor rural area in Ireland. Written in the first person by Caithleen we see through her eyes a poignant portrayal of friendship, family, first love and disappointment. Edna O'Brien writes in what could only be described as a haunting manner. A gentle coming of age story which follows the girls through the death of Caithleen's mother, the shiftlessness of her father, a scholarship to a convent and their expulsion. The gentleness of Caithleen is a foil to the bright sharpness of Baba, who manages to mislead Caithleen against her better judgement; though she is her friend and anything they do they do together. There are numerous wonderful unique characters: the endearing Hickey, Baba's parents, Joanna the German boarding house proprietess and the enigmatic Mr Gentleman (though that is not his real name - he has a difficult French name so the neighbours changed it to Mr Gentleman). "The Girl With The Green Eyes" continues the adventures of Caithleen and Baba and is as good as "The Country Girls"The Country Girls OverviewMeet Kate and Baba, two young Irish country girls who have spent their childhood together. As they leave the safety of their convent school in search of life and love in the big city, they struggle to maintain their somewhat tumultuous relationship. Kate, dreamy and romantic, yearns for true love, while Baba just wants to experience the life of a single girl. Although they set out to conquer the world together, as their lives take unexpected turns, Kate and Baba must ultimately learn to find their own way."It's a difficult trip, this coming of age . . . O'Brien tells it with love and outrage, compassion and contempt." (Los Angeles Times Book Review)"A treasure . . . powerful . . . intelligent . . . ironic." (The New York Times Book Review)

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William Trevor: The Collected Stories Review

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William Trevor: The Collected Stories ReviewNot all stars are created equal. By awarding 5 stars to this book, the implication must be that they are stars of the purest gold. I have read some "5-star" novels and short story collections before, but little, in my experience, compares with this: the combination of an extraordinarily beautiful prose style, the seemingly effortless creation of literally hundreds if not thousands of alternately sympathetic and detestable (but always vividly memorable) characters, a profound insight into the psychology of the human mind to rival (and pretty easily surpass) that of any other writer alive, a recreation of atmosphere so real it clings, and a brilliant inventiveness when it comes to creating great story lines (and, often, superbly twisty [but never illogical] endings) places this collection among the very greatest of its kind. One measure of how deeply impressed I was with this book is that now, more than half a year since I finished it, I can look back through the table of contents and still remember not merely every story with tremendous vividness, but often where I was at the time I read it.
Stated broadly, Trevor's stories seem to fall into two distinct types, English and Irish. The former tend to be (as do many of the earlier stories) sharp and edgy, whereas the latter tend to be quiet and pastoral. Although it is the Irish stories that appear to garner the greatest praise from the critics, I prefer the greater cynicism (often bordering on, but never quite reaching, downright misanthropy) of the English stories.
Having to choose my favorites from among this potent collection is akin to separating gold coins that are 100% pure from those that are 99.975% pure (soft though they would be!), but three continue to haunt me just a little more than the others. "The Death of Peggy Meehan," one of the Irish stories, and one of the collection's shortest, tells the tale of a young lad who is taken to his first movie during a summer vacation, and how the fantasies he draws after seeing that movie color (for better or worse) the rest of his life. "In at the Birth," is, unusually for Trevor, a creepy ghost story that Rod Serling would have marveled over. In it, an elderly woman takes a baby-sitting job for a peculiar couple who turn out to be (and this is hardly among the most riveting revelations provided) childless. But rather than leave me frightened, it left me pondering the meaning of life, age, and human relationships. Finally, "The Hotel of the Idle Moon," is what I described to a friend as "the greatest short story ever written." Its title is especially evocative and, in its context, has a host (no pun intended!) of powerful resonances. The "set up" is baldly cliche: on a dark and stormy night a middle-aged couple stop in front of an estate, pretending that their car has broken down. Foul play, one can be sure, is bound to ensue. And so it does. But the play is much fouler and more upsetting than anything anyone can imagine (trust me, until you read this story you cannot imagine what happens). It is one of Trevor's gifts that such a story can't be adequately explained. It has to be read, felt, lived. Suffice it to say that by the end we realize that we have read nothing less than a parable of (very) contemporary times (I don't know when it was written) that manages, in a trice, to both limn and condemn humankind since the beginning of history.
High marks also to "The Table," which reads like a hilarious comedy of errors until the last line suddenly blackens everything that came before it with perfect (and perfectly uncanny) inevitability, "The Forty-Seventh Saturday," as poignant a story of loneliness as I know, and "O Fat White Woman" (the title may be funny; the story is anything but), which spins a tale of the tragedy that follows passive resistance. (And when is the last time you read a story that dealt with that? Why does it seem that Trevor is our only contemporary writer who consistently confronts such common yet seemingly taboo foibles?). As is usual with Trevor, the tragedy occurs on many planes and is of an inestimable magnitude.
Oh, heck, let me not forget "Nice Day at School," an incredibly sensitive and piercing drama, and the superb and highly regarded "In Isfahan," in which a married, middle-aged English man meets a married, youngish English woman on tour in Iran. They try to get close, but their chequered pasts prevent them. What we don't realize until the end, however, is that one of their pasts isn't real. Or is it? And what purpose does fantasy play in encroaching human relationships? Can it be used to repel as well as to lure? Or is it there to comfort? And, if so, comfort whom? Particularly rich stuff.
Amidst a sea of great short story collections, this one by William Trevor will always have its place at the top. There's a word for books like this, and that word is "perfect." May it never go out of print.William Trevor: The Collected Stories OverviewWilliam Trevor is one of the renowned figures in contemporary literature, described as 'the greatest living writer of short stories in the English language' by the "New Yorker" and acclaimed for his haunting and profound insights into the human heart. Here is the ultimate collection of his short fiction, with dozens of tales spanning his career and ranging from the moving to the macabre, the humorous to the haunting. From the penetrating "Memories of Youghal" to the bittersweet "Bodily Secrets" and the elegiac "Two More Gallants", here are masterpieces of insight, depth, drama and humanity, acutely rendered by a modern master.

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