When I went grocery shopping this morning, I saw several young fathers with their kids (age 3-6) in tow. They all were in the entrance area of the grocery store. The fathers carried grocery bags and talked while their kids were running around between them. Totally cute.
Currently Playing
Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice
Because I forgot the first time I mentioned this game, here are two videos.
Trailer:
The US opening:
Info: TBR Challenge 2009
Theme for the month: horror
In my TBR pile since: January 2007
Genre: thriller
Published: Headline Review, 2007 (2006)
Availability: still available
Monthly theme?: No, except if you want to count how bad a lot of the characters in this novel are…
Why I bought this novel: I thought the blurb and the play with history it promised interesting.
Manhattan, 1909.
On the morning after Sigmund Freud arrives in New York on his first – and only – visit to the United States, a stunning debutante is found bound and strangled in her penthouse apartment, high above Broadway. The following night, another beautiful heiress, Nora Acton, is discovered tied to a chandelier in her parents’ home, viciously wounded and unable to speak or to recall her ordeal. Soon Freud and his American disciple, Stratham Younger, are enlisted to help Miss Acton recover her memory, and to piece together the killer’s identity. It is a riddle that will test their skills to the limit, and lead them on a thrilling journey – into the darkest places of the city, and of the human mind.
I’m not much into mysteries/crime novels/thrillers. I think it’s because I’m more drawn to internal conflict than external conflict and – rightly or wrongly – I see mysteries as being mostly about external conflict. But now and then I read a blurb and think “this might work for me.” That’s how I ended up with The Interpretation of Murder. I also liked the fact that it plays with history, that some of the story’s characters are based on people who really lived.
The Interpretation of Murder is narrated by two narrators. First, there is the first person narrator Stratham Younger. He’s a physician and a Freudian although he has his problems with the Oedipus complex. He teaches at Clark university and meets Freud as a representative of Clark university. Younger is rather young, in awe of Freud, had (still has) problems with his recently deceased father, and is looking for the solution to Shakespeare’s Hamlet, in particular Hamlet’s soliloquy that begins “To be or not to be…”. The second narrator is an omniscient narrator. This narrator lets the reader be part of the murder investigation, led by coroner Hugel and Detective Littlemore, and all kinds of other sub-plots.
In the beginning, I thought the many characters offered a kaleidoscopic view on the events. It was like a big puzzle and with each character you would get a new piece of it. There were twist and turns and they certainly made the novel seem fast-paced.
But soon, this started to get too much. There were more and more characters, the plots multiplied, and the twists and turns turned more fanciful. There was the main plot, trying to solve the murder. This was linked to Younger who tried to recover Nora’s memory. Then there was the plot to discredit Freud and his theory, Jung, who accompanied Freud, acted strange and stranger, and red herrings appeared left and right. All this was served with Younger’s thoughts on Freud’s Oedipus complex and Hamlet’s “To be” soliloquy and passages about New York’s buildings and society. What started as a story that tried to find a murderer with different means, police investigation and psychoanalysis, very soon turned into a story that relied mostly on action (I actually could picture some of its scene in a movie).
Freud’s psychoanalytic theories were more a gimmick than a real means to solve the murder. Psychoanalysis helped explain what motivated the murderer but that was nearly all the role it played. What’s more, Freud was a mere gimmick. His involvement in the case was practically nil, he as good as disappeared for long passages in the later part of the novel (when the action starts) and if this story wanted to give an answer to why Freud so strongly disliked America, I’m not really sure what it is.
In general, the characters were rather one-dimensional and the constant shift of focus, and focusing on some characters only late in the story, didn’t help to make me care or draw me in. Sadly, the mystery couldn’t make up for my lack of investment. The longer the story progressed, the more convoluted it all became, leading up to a resolution that, after all was said and done and characters were arrested, took two characters talking about it at length to convey what really had happened.
I liked the passages about New York. The research done there clearly shows. And although they sometimes sounded a bit textbook-like, I actually liked the psychoanalytical passages, Younger’s take on the Oedipus complex, and Younger’s thoughts about Hamlet. The novel is somewhat a page turner with all that is happening but overall, I think this story tried to do too much at the same time.
The things I liked should be the extra bonus in a story. In The Interpretation of Murder, they actually were the only things I thought (at least somewhat) interesting. The foundation, the story’s elements, were not developed enough to come together. Too many sub-plots, too many characters, too many shifts of focus, they all made the mystery even more convoluted than it already was on its own. Nobody and nothing is what he/she/it seems at first in this story (if you’re wondering, here’s the connection to Younger’s thoughts about Hamlet) just as Freud is not really part of this story, despite what the blurb leads one to believe.
Verdict: The longer I think about this novel, the worse my opinion gets. 3/5 for now, going for 2,5/5.
I actually have nothing to say. I’m quite busy at the moment so I don’t have much time for reading and so I have nothing to post.
I started to read my book for Keishon’s challenge and I wanted to post a quote from it, the first paragraph or two, but I would need to post the title and author as well, and then where would be the surprise? Because:
it’s actually not a romance!
And no fantasy or science fiction novel, either.
I ordered Meljean Brook’s Demon Forged over a week ago. A few days ago I discovered that the online bookshop no longer lists it as available. This happens from time to time and it’s rather grrr. It means I won’t get the book sometimes but an email instead, informing me that they aren’t able to get the book. Duh! I can just hope that this time is not one of them. I want to read that novel!
I also tried my luck with Sarah Mayberry’s All Over You and Hot for Him again. I didn’t get them the first time I ordered them but they are still listed as available and although it doesn’t necessarily mean that they still are, especially because they are categories, it doesn’t hurt to try, I guess.
I still have coupons left (all valid until some time in November). I actually need to look, I think I have at least three, maybe even four. And I have two gift certificates.
Books, here I come!
Juliana Garnett – “The Scotsman”
GENRE: Romance / Medieval
PUBLISHED: Bantam, 1998
WHY THIS NOVEL: Juliana Garnett was recommended by a friend.
This is my second novel by Juliana Garnett and if her books were not oop (some are available as ebooks), I would try to get my hands on as many as possible. Both novels I’ve read so far by her drew me in with their sense for the time and history. The stories seem “real,” there is no sugar coating. Times were often harsh and required hard decisions, and therefore the characters’ plight seemed more moving and gripping even though the characters are part of a rather familiar plot for a medieval romance. The Scotsman was a joy to read.
Lady Catherine Wroth knows what her role in life is: make a favorable marriage for her father, the earl of Warfield. She knows she’s nothing more than cattle in this and that she has no choice in regard to that or other the important decisions in her life. Catherine must abide by what others decide for her no matter what her own wishes are. So when she is taken captive by a Scottish barbarian, to be exchanged for this barbarian’s younger brother who is her father’s hostage, it at first seems like she exchanged one prison for another – “a pawn in a game between two powerful men” (134).
Catherine spends the first few weeks in Scotland captive in a room. She’s allowed to read but other than her hostile attendant and an occasional visit from Alex, she has no diversion. Most of the time she’s alone. Alone with her thoughts and the realization how utterly worthless she is to her father who lets the ultimatum pass to exchange her for Alex’s brother even though Alex threatened with the loss of her virginity. And Catherine is alone with her growing attraction to the enemy and the realization that the enemy is human, too. And it is in this situation that she finally dares to – and has the freedom to – make a choice about her life on her own.
Alexander Fraser is caught between to evils: to lose his brother or to lose the woman he cherishes more than anything in his life. He is
He knows that there is no future for him and Catherine with that kind of situation.
Too great is the hostility between Scots and English. Early on, there’s a scene with some Scots leaving the hall because Catherine is allowed to eat with them. It escalates after Warfield leads a brutal attack on the village near to Alex’s castle while Alex is away. Many Scots die that day.
This is months after Alex offered to exchange hostages and Warfield has yet of officially acknowledge it. The only one who tries to negotiate and get Catherine back is her brother Nicholas whom Catherine loves dearly. Nicholas is the only one (before Alex) who ever showed her affection. He even gets into trouble with their father because of their father’s relentlessness about the exchange of hostages.
The Scotsman takes place in the months leading up to the Battle of Bannockburn. The Scottish Borderlands were in turmoil, villages often attacked by both sides and burned, like Warfield did to the village near Alex’s castle and like Alex did to the villages near Warfield’s place. The times were harsh and the decisions one made had often dire consequences. Alex can’t promise Catherine that all will end well in such times and so he doesn’t say so. But he also can’t promise her that he would spare her brother should they meed one day on the battlefield. Times are uncertain and aren’t sugercoated and because of that, The Scotsman is the first book in a long time I wondered about how the HEA will be achieved.
Here’s a lengthy quote that showcases some of the things I love about Garnett’s way to write:
[Alex just demanded that Catherine swears to obey him and do as he told her to do if something happens]
[word in bold originally in italic]
No tossing curls or stamping of dainty feet in sight, no thought that she could help and by God she would. Instead, Catherine makes her point and gets her way in a manner I find much more appealing. I love that they use “sir” and “lady” when they talk to each other in public. They are both aware of appearances and their station. And I love that they are able to resolve a small misunderstanding by talking about it.
Verdict: I really, really liked it. (4,5/5)
from → 4,5/5, Comment: Books