Black Orchids - Nero Wolfe

(vox)

Black Orchids (Nero Wolfe Mysteries)

Rex Stout

Book #7. Black Orchids (A Nero Wolfe mystery) by Rex Stout

I finished reading this book last night. Two novellas in one, for a total of 190 pages. It was an easy and enjoyable read. If I had 50 Nero Wolfe mysteries with me, no doubt I'd achieve my "50 in 365" goal within weeks.

I learned a new word: chitlins:

the intestines of a pig that have been prepared as food. They are a type of offal.

The pictures on the wiki don't look particularly appetizing to me, but apparently it was the secret ingredient to the perfect corned beef hash.

The Subtle Knife

(vox)

Subtle Knife -Lib -OS (His Dark Materials)

Philip Pullman

Last night, I finished The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman. My reaction upon reading was, how on earth could I have forgotten the third book (The Amber Spyglass) back home? Argh. I can see it on the shelf in my mind, just waiting for me to pick it up. If I'm nice enough, maybe Papa Miao will send it to me.

It was sad, so sad I cried at least three times at the end of the book. Papa Miao tells me that the third book is even sadder...

The Memoirs of Sir Rudolph Bing

(Originally published on Vox)

I'm a little behind in cataloging my books for the 50-in-365 group. Since my previous entry (book 1/50), I’ve finished four books, and am very close to the end of a fifth. Don’t be too impressed, though. Two of them were audiobooks (11 and 19 hours long, respectively), one of them I began in December, and one of them wasn’t even 150 pages long. Maybe I'll be able to reach my 50 book goal after all, despite school. Well, it certainly won't be “50 classics in 365 days" - more like, "50 books of uneven quality and length in 365 days".

I want to leave a little trail of all my books read this year, otherwise I’m afraid their impact on me will be too ephemeral. I enjoy the process of reading, but the idea of reading as pure escapism makes me uncomfortable. If I’m going to spend so much time reading, as I have done all my life, I should take something long-lasting from each book, or at least exercise my atrophying brain muscles and come up with a rationale for liking (or not liking) a book. I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep this up, especially since I’ve finished nearly five books this year, but I’ve only done one (now two) “reading reflections”. Back in Chinese school, one of our frequent essay formats was called a “reading reflection”, or more literally, “reaction upon reading”. The essays had to be better organized than my ramblings now…

Without further ado… Book 2/50.

Book #2. 5000 Nights at the Opera: The memoirs of Sir Rudolph Bing. Published in 1972 by Popular Library/Doubleday & Company. (360 pages; finished 6 January 2008 <--- I guess I'm two weeks behind...)

5000 Nights at the Opera

Book 2/50 was 5000 Nights at the Opera, the memoirs of Sir Rudolph Bing (1902 - 1997), the general manager of the Metropolitan Opera from 1950 to 1972. I don't usually read memoirs, but Papa Miao, who is very knowledgeable about opera and its history, had been encouraging me to read this book for some time. It turned out to be an interesting window into the world of opera and the politics of opera, things I know little about. It was also a fascinating study of the difficulties facing political refugees from the Nazi regime in Germany. Rudolph Bing was a Social Democrat and his politics were quite contrary to the Nazis’, so he moved to Great Britain in 1934. There, he helped organize the Glyndebourne and Edinburgh opera festivals. After the war, he assumed the position of general manager at the Met, and presided over two decades of significant changes, such as the Met’s move to its current location in the Lincoln Center.

The writing has a very conversational flow, as if Bing is recalling events and following their tangents while leaning comfortably back in his leather chair, occasionally pausing for his secretary to catch up with the dictation. His style is witty, direct, and it certainly conveys the stubbornness of personality that Bing was noted for. There were many clever lines in the book, but unfortunately I didn’t note them (sometimes I put little tabs in pages, but since the book isn’t mine, I decided not too). Leafing back through the pages, here are a few quotes that I found clever or interesting:

In the Dolomite Alps… “Once, as a very young boy… I met Gustav Mahler thrashing through the woods, singing, looking almost demented; and I fled” (15).

“During my last years in Vienna, I fell in love – as did everyone else in the city – with a dancer of the Ellen Tels Ballet; her name was Nina Schelemskaya-Schelesnaya. But I was more fortunate than all the others, for when I left Vienna… Nina promised to follow… She did, and presently we shortened her name appreciably, to Nina Bing” (23). Apparently they had a happy marriage until Nina’s death in 1983. Bing later suffered from Alzheimer’s and lost all recollection of her.

“A thousand aspects of life are involved in theater management. There is no artistic decision that is not at the same time an economic one, no financial decision that does not have bearing on artistic standards – and every decision involves human elements” (35). This quote is almost identical to something the great anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski said about the Kula ritual in the Trobriand Islands. I don’t have any of my anthropology books with me any more so I can’t refer to it…

And, to illustrate Bing’s forthright and witty style (in writing as well as opera management):

“Roberta Peters, very tired, had a bad night in Barber of Seville, and the press flayed us. I suppose I did not make things any better by saying to a reporter that Miss Peters had had a bad night but the Paris Opéra had had a bad century” (257).

“Once, I remember, I made a weary answer to one of these tirades, and Gray [a union representative] snapped, ‘Are you trying to show your contempt for the way I conduct a bargaining session?’ All I could say was, ‘On the contrary, Mr. Gray, I am trying very hard to conceal it’” (272).

The Bone Garden by Tess Gerritsen

(Originally posted on Vox)

I decided to join the 50 books in 365 days group as an added incentive to read more literature, and perhaps some non-grad school related non-fiction (and as an incentive to record my reflections, however coarse, on the books I read). I doubt if I'll write such long, rambling reflections on all of the books I read. Since I've started listening to audiobooks while exercising, my book count may be higher than usual. Last year it was about 35, but this year I'll have a three week summer vacation instead of a three month summer vacation. That will surely make a (sad) difference.

Book #1. The Bone Garden, by Tess Gerritsen. Published in 2007 by Ballantine Books. (finished Wednesday, 3 January 2008).

The Bone Garden: A Novel

Tess Gerritsen

I got this as an audiobook to listen to while exercising. It served that purpose well, but I can't say that I recommend it as a good read. The other reviews I read (before downloading the audiobook) warned that this wasn't one of Tess Gerritsen's best, but having never read any of her other works, I have no idea what her "best" is. I decided to risk it.

Perhaps my judgment of this book is colored by the fact that I found the narrator's Bostonian accents almost insufferably annoying. As insufferably annoying as the "bad" characters who possessed these accents, characters so one-dimensionally bad (greedy, licentious, murderous, etc) that I wanted to slam the book shut and have done with them the instant I met them.

There are some redeeming qualities to the book, but its plotting is not among them. The Bone Garden consists of two notably unbalanced plots - one set in the present day and one set in 1830. The 1830 plot receives the bulk of attention, and whenever the present day plot disrupts the narrative, one can't help but regard it as a less than effective plot device. Removing it might have given the author the space to tighten the main plot into a suspenseful murder story and romance. But it's easy for me to criticize, since I've never written a book myself... I haven't written something critical about someone else's writing since I completed my master's in anthropophagy. I guess old habits die hard.

So, what is the substance of The Bone Garden? A dissatisfied divorcee buys a rundown old house and, during her attempts to hoe the garden, discovers a long-buried skeleton. Hence the title. The forensic anthropologists tell her it is from the early 19th century. It belongs a young woman who was probably murdered, judging by the dents in her skull. The divorcee thereupon conveniently discovers a trove of 19th century letters that conveniently give her a window into the circumstances of the murder. Yet it really is not so convenient, since these present day episodes do little to further the 19th century plot. As I mentioned earlier, the narrative is weighted heavily to the 1830 side, occasionally surfacing to the present day for the divorcee to discover another letter or news article of dubious significance.

The strength of the book lies, perhaps, in the descriptions of early 19th century maternity wards - for the 1830 storyline revolves around the disputed paternity of the baby of an Irish immigrant girl who died after childbirth. Certainly, the author knows her medical history, and in any case, I'm not in any position to judge her research. Another related theme is the resurrectionists, those medical students and other desperate characters who dug up fresh corpses to sell to medical colleges or to use for their own dissections, in a time when anatomists had only the bodies of executed criminals to dissect. Yet even in this area, some of the description seems gratuitous - it provides the reader with an image of something interesting, yet not something that is integral to the plot.

Maybe this review is uncharitable. I think the concept behind the book had potential, but it needed more polishing. Anyway, it's a good book to jog to or to wash dishes to. And wrapped in a fleece blankie with one or two kitties on your lap, you may even enjoy it.