Agatha Christie

"Agatha Christie's Short Stories" by Agatha Christie

This is a book of short stories featuring Miss Marple that I would title "The Tuesday Night Club". I bought this book at Home Plus for very little and it contains six stories. Unfortunately, this slim book is half English and half Korean; but when in Korea you take what you can get. Still, I enjoyed reading this book, some of the stories were ones I had read before and some were new to me. None of the stories were only partial but the entire ones which is a joy for I love reading Christie.

There is a reason, to my mind, that Christie wears so well after so many years. It is because she wrote uncommonly well. She wears well. The prose is crisp and clean and easily understood. The descriptions are clear and concise. Many of the older mystery writers tend to be wordy when read today but not Christie. Her books and short stories are virtual time capsules that today's reader can view the world that Christie was writing about without any difficulty. It is more than describing the people and the British times, it was the atmosphere and a period of time that no longer exists.

Everyone at the Tuesday Night Club assumes that the little old lady sitting in with them would not know about the things and events the rest of them were talking about let along come up with the solutions to the mysteries they were discussing; but Miss Marple does time after time. Even her own nephew does not think much about his dotty old aunt. Those who tell the stories all find out that Miss Marple is one great criminologist. There is no sleigh of hand by the author. The mysteries are solved and the reader can see how the crime was done and Miss Marple illustrates how easily the events in the world is very much like the events in a small British village.

Diana Wynne Jones

"Howl's Moving Castle " by Diana Wynne Jones Greenwillow: 1986

This is a wonderful book for young adults that I picked up at Home Plus. I had no idea, again, that it was for young adults. Oh, good books are sometimes wasted on the young because I found this book to be a terrific read. The main character, Sophia, is convinced she is destined for failure because she is the eldest of three daughters. Her mother died when she was young and then her father after marrying again dies too. Her step-mother is not what one would expect in these stories and tries to find a way of providing for both her own daughter and her step-daughters after it was found out that the father had not left very much money to provide for all of them.

Sophia and her family lived in the town of Market Chipping which was in Ingary which is not where the rest of us live. They have a king and a prince. There is magic everywhere. There is the Witch of the Waste who for some reason walks into the hat shop where Sophia works and upon seeing her turns her into an old lady.

Everyone in the book are having adventures including Sophia and of course there is Howl who has the moving castle and his ever-moving castle and mysterious blue fire-demon in his fireplace. There is one mystery layered upon another and the author skillfully solves them all in very satisfactory ways. As with real victims, Sophia has to find out her own part in the making herself into an old lady by the witch before she can break the spell.

There is a movie that was made from this book, but I have not been able to find it. It was premiered in Korea which would explain why the book was in a book store in Daejeon. The author of this delightful book creates a wonderful and complex plot of living and breathing characters and resolves all of the questions such a plot raises in a very satisfying way. If I get a chance to read more of this author, I will certainly do so no matter what the age group the particular book is intended for.

e.l. konigsburg

"The View from Saturday" by e.l. konigsburg Atheneum: 1996

I have written before that I read young adult books and in Korea I read any books in English I can get my hands on. I honestly did not know this book was a young adult book. It had a picture of four cups of tea on it and thought it was a murder mystery. All of the books in the Home Plus Book Store are tightly sealed with plastic and thumbing through a book before buying is not possible.

What I did encounter was a warm and wonderful book about a teacher returning to teaching after being paralyzed in an automobile accident and four of her sixth-grade students who had banded together calling themselves "The Souls."

I love the way the book was written. It was a series of short stories that were inter-connected by the fact that each story was about each of the member of the Souls and of course the teacher. On the back cover, the writer stated she had written some of the stories earlier and just edited them so that they were about the same group of students in one classroom.

One of the threads was a academic bowl and how the Souls became the unlikely state championship winners. Everyone learns something important and there is enough of a plot to keep the reader going until the end. The book may be for the younger reader, but I learned a lot about life and had a good time reading it. I picked it up and never put it down.

W. Somerset Maugham

Maugham, W. Somerset "The Moon and Sixpence" Penguin: 1919

This is another book that I had read many years ago and just re-read recently because it was in the English library of the university where I teach. I must have been a teenager when I read it the first time and a senior citizen now. I will admit that I did not understand this book the first time that I read it. This is a story of a man who walks out of a normal middle class and successful life in England to pursue painting. Supposedly, it is based on the life of Paul Gauguin.

As a teenager, I did not feel the draw of artistic expression and why anyone would suddenly just give everything up just to run a paint brush over a canvas. Now, I understand more although I rather doubt if this is the story of Gauguin as he did not do the things that are outlined in the novel for he was active in painting before he decided to pursue painting full time.

I was more conservative in my younger years. Making enough to pay the bills, raise the kids and keep a roof over my head seemed a very high calling. If I caused children to be born, I could not leave them and take up something else. Even now, I have trouble understanding that point of view. It is true the painter was a genius but why couldn't a painter paint on the weekends and on his days off? After all, he had a wife to do the the domestic chores. He could build a studio. What is the big deal of Paris?

However, now that I am older I can see someone doing this after they raise the kids and retire and many people do. I think this is well worth reading but Maugham had his own artistic vision and I don't think it was resolved at the time he wrote this book. Maugham did the same thing and gave up medicine for the theater and writing.

Some writers and critics have never made up their minds about Maugham. I have always thought he was a great writer and don't believe the complaints that he did not write original stories. I love his short stories and I usually don't like this form of fiction. I loved "Of Human Bondage" and "Razor's Edge".

For me now, I think of this book as the least successful of his novels. There were too many issues that Maugham left unfinished in this book. Yes, he had the artist family posturing their Christian values. He had done that successfully in other works especially in the short story, "Rain". I don't think he ever explained why the artistic vision hit the artist the way it did in the book and why he suddenly reversed his life the way he did.

Even the least of Maugham books are worth re-reading and certainly this one was even if it was to learn how much I have changed over the years. I could see someone having the obsession of creating art. I am not sure I would understand living a life of discomfort after living such a life of comfort. I understood Gauguin's life but not Charles Strickland. What has changed in me is that I admire the strength of some people's sense of artistic vision. I envy someone who can give all to something because he or she loves it.

Maugham kept two sets of books all of his life and it was implied that Strickland gave up his life of ease because he could not stand to live that way any longer. Maugham lived his life as a closeted homosexual and was blackmailed by his nephew so he would keep his mouth shut. In this regard, I could see how Strickland's unwillingness to accept the life as prescribed by society would have been attractive to Maugham and at the same time repugnant. That is simply one reader's viewpoint to cover the lack of information in the novel. Usually, Maugham gives enough to create a living breathing story full of credible characters. I think he almost does that here.

"The Moon and Sixpence" is a novel that is worth reading if the reader is curious about what constitutes the artist and what is involved in being honest with oneself. The one thing that the protagonist of this novel seems to admire in Strickland is his total disregard of what society and anyone else in society thinks of him. To be able to toss that aside would be to give one a degree of freedom rarely enjoyed by many people. I did not envy that in anyone as a teenager, but I know now how wonderful such a freedom can be.

"Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief": The movie

"Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief": The movie. Normally, I don't review movies on this blog, but I got the chance to see this movie. It does not resemble the book at all. It is true the book was a bit light and resembled Harry Potter's books, but the film does not resemble the book by Rick Riordan at all. In fact if I was the author, I would never do business with the company that did this film ever. It was one lame movie. They should have stuck to the book.

No film can completely follow a book or even a short story although there has been some notable exceptions such as "Sophie's Choice" which won the screen writer an Oscar. The only thing this film did was kept the names of the characters although I did like the actors that played the three heroes, his mother, Gabe and Charon. It wasn't their fault that they were given a lousy script. I doubt if there will be any more Percy Jackson movies unless someone hires a better script writer.

Rick Riordan and Edith Hamilton

Riordan, Rick "Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief" Puffin: 2005

Hamilton, Edith "Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes" Grand Central: 1942

I have mentioned that I read books that I can get in Korea. This book was bought at Home Plus for more than it would have cost in the United States, but I was planning on reading it last year but never got around to it. I often read books for young adults, and this one look interesting.

As luck would have it, I also found Edith Hamilton's book at the same time and read it again. I took Greek Mythology in college and this was the required text. It was fun re-reading it as the Riordan novel is heavily steeped in Greek mythology and I needed a refresher course.

In the Riordan novel, a youngster who finds himself in trouble because of unexplained magical powers all of the time. There are many similarities to the Harry Potter series. Percy finds that he has extra powers because his father is a Greek god. Things heat up considerably and he is in danger and his mother make a dash with him to a camp just for the half-blood kids of Greek gods. Just as Percy is almost at the camp, his mother is zapped in a golden light while his smelly step-father stays home and plays poker with his friends.

Even for half-bloods, Percy is special. He finds out later that his father is Poseidon. He has his enemies even among his fellow campers. Soon he has to go on a quest to save the world from an all out war between the gods because someone has stolen Zeus' lightening bolt and they think it is his father or even Percy. Two other people offer to help him. One of them is Athena's daughter.

The novel is full of references and experiences with the different Greek gods. The head of the camp is Dionysus, a favorite of mine who is being forced by Zeus to abstain from wine. I don't agree how the different gods are portrayed but they are for the most part accurate or at least according to Hamilton. I don't believe the idea that Zeus would forbid Dionysus to drink wine and found Riodan's attempts to ridicule Dionysus a bit too much.

Again, I thought the novel was a bit thin but it did keep my interest and I stayed with it without any difficulty. As stated, Harry Potter did come to mind on more than a few occasions, but I love the Harry Potter books and found them far more fulfilling and delightful. I doubt if I would stay with this series as long as the Harry Potter series.

As for Hamilton's book, I found her book to be as delightful as it was the first time I read it. The binding and paper is much cheaper now than it was when I first read the book. Still, the book is the same and that is what counts. I had gotten mixed up on several of the Greek heroes and gods and got that straightened out. For instance, I got Jason of the Golden Fleece and Perseus scrambled. Also, I did not know that the Medusa was pregnant by Poseidon when she was killed by Perseus and that is why Pegasus, another favorite, was born. I am not sure why Poseidon is associated with horses but he is. That is in both books but not the reason why. I found a very attractive picture of him in the surf with horses outlined in the waves that I have included. I could have fallen for that Poseidon if he walked onto the beach where I was myself.

Rainer Maria Rilke

"The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge" by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Michael Hulse
Penguin: 2009

This is the only novel by the poet, Rainer Maria Rilke and summing this book up is no easy task. I waited a few days to give me some perspective. It did not happen. It was a surprise. I knew that Rilke had issues of loneliness and fears of death. That shows in these notebooks because this novel is just that, a series of notebooks by Malte Laurids Brigge, a stand-in for the author. Yet, this book is so much more.

I did not have to "plow" through this book as I expected to. In it, are story after story of what had happened to the author during his life. It is full of ghosts, people drawn from the author's life along with the fears he was feeling when he wrote this book. He was in Paris and a large city, inhospitable to the young man and yet full of what he wanted to know and experience.

So many of us have felt this in our lives when we arrive in a strange city, away from our home and our family members and young without the maturity of seeing the reality that existed on the pavements, in the small apartments and the oddity of people that we are seeing for the first time as it really is and not filtered through our fears. Rilke was full of fear and knew that the only way he could deal with these fears was to examine them through his own writings.

Many things filled him with fear and dread including illness, being treated by an uncaring health professional and being around people with life-threatening disease and problems. He would listen to his unseen neighbor who was a medical student, follow people with gross physical problems and watch the buildings with their ugly facades. He would remember the stories of his youth and the odd and strange ghost episodes that he saw with his father.

Everything is narrated by exceptional prose that showed Brigge trying to make sense of his life. It is exceptionally well written and a joy to read out loud which is what I did from time to time. There is so much in this novel that it can only be read and re-read again and again. Unfortunately, it is a book from the English library of the university. I can only get books that happen to fall into my hands. I will have to return it.

If a reader comes across this book, I really recommend a slow and easy reading in order to savor its wonderful words, its style and the way it is put together. Then after the first reading, I would read it again because this book like Rilke's poems bears reading over and over again for the hidden and deeper layers that will come to the surface. I don't think there is a way of exhausting the deeper meanings and stories of this book.