Book Review – Beautiful Ruins: A Novel, by Jess Walter – LOVED (*****)

Beautiful Ruins takes place in Italy, Hollywood, Seattle and Idaho, and alternates between 1960, 1990′s/early 2000′s and current day, with a little story of WWII thrown in the middle. Oh, and a story about a failed caravan out west that ended in cannibalism in the early 1900′s. Whew! I think that covers it!

One of the main characters of the book is Pasquale, the son of innkeepers in a tiny (really tiny) seaside village near Cinque Terre, Italy.   We meet Pasquale when he is in his early 20′s, and is taking over the inn after his father died.  It is the 1960′s, and the movie Cleopatra is filming in Rome, but Pasquale is still shocked when an American actress ends up in his inn (called The Hotel Adequate View).  The other main character of the book, an unknown actress named Dee Moray, has gotten sick and is sent away from the set to recuperate.

Beautiful Ruins alternates between the present day, when an 80-year old Pasquale comes to Hollywood to try to find Dee, and 1960, when Pasquale and Dee were still young but plenty troubled.  Mixed in with their stories are the stories of an alcoholic American writer who stays at the Hotel Adequate View once a year, Dee’s son Pat who is a failing musician with addicitions, and a Hollywood producer and his assistant.

At times laugh-out-loud funny (when it doesn’t occur to Pasquale that a cliffside tennis court might not be the best idea), and soberingly sad (when some of the characters have accidents or die), Beautiful Ruins is a pleasure to read – great for an easy spring / summer novel to pass the time.

Book Review – Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald, by Therese Anne Fowler – LOVED (*****)

I loved Z just as I loved The Aviator’s Wife, The Paris Wife, and Loving Frank!  I group these all in sort of the same genre – tortured wives of artists.  I don’t know though if it’s just because Z is the most recent one I have read, but I get the feeling that Z is my most favorite so far.  I love the character of Zelda, and love even more that she is based on a real person.  Zelda first met F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1918 in her hometown of Montgomery, Alabama when she was only 17.  Scott was a lieutenant at a base outside of town waiting to be shipped out to WWII.

Once Scott finally convinced Zelda to marry him, their whirlwind/ tornado of a life began.  It started first in NYC when Scott was feeling the euphoria from selling his first book, This Side of Paradise, and the fame that came with the success of that book.  The Fitzgeralds were essentially the first stars that had a “paparazzi” following – people read newspapers because they wanted to know what Scott and Zelda had been up to.  And what they had been up to undoubtedly involved loads of drinking and partying (even in Prohibition-era NY).  The Fitzgeralds then tried out Great Neck, NY – similar to the Hamptons – to try to get some work done, and just ended up bringing the parties with them.  They then tried out Paris when all the great artists of that day were descending on Paris, interspersing their time there with stays in the French Riviera.

While in Paris, the most destructive friendship that F. Scott could make was with Ernest Hemingway.  Z paints Scott as almost obsessed with Ernest, always trying to gain his approval, even though at the time, Scott was the more successful and published of the two.

There is drinking, partying, and more drinking, and worries about writing and spending and worries about money.  Who knew that Zelda was actually a painter, a writer, and a ballerina?! You will know once you read this book, I highly recommend it!

Book Review – The Painted Girls: A Novel, by Cathy Marie Buchanan – LOVED (*****)

The Painted Girls did a great job of literally painting 1878 Paris for me.  The main characters are Antonette and Marie van Goethem – sisters whose father had recently died and whose mother worked as a laundress but squandered all her money on absinthe leaving them no money for rent or food.  The two girls were left to scrounge for their living and avoid getting thrown out of their apartment and also to take care of their youngest sister.  Antoinette took on the responsibility of taking care of the two younger girls… until she met her boyfriend, Emile.

Marie, who was always the smart, uglier sister, ended up being accepted as a ballerina (little rat) at the Paris Opera and soon found herself posing for Edgar Degas in order to earn a few extra pennies for her family.  Because Marie wanted to be successful, she put everything she had into her ballet, and Antoinette helped her when she could, making sure she got some meat at meals when possible.  While posing at Degas’ studio, Marie met a wealthy patron who soon had her posing naked for him while he allegedly painted her.  The stress of earning money and uncomfortably earning additional money from her patron soon got to Marie who began to sip her mother’s absinthe.

The Painted Girls does a wonderful job of depicting Paris and the lives of the poor ballerina rats aspiring to be stage stars, and presents an engrossing story for both Antoinette and Marie.  It also made me look up a few of Degas’ ballerina paintings to think of the stories behind those stick-thin young girls.

Book Review – The Good Soldier, by Ford Madox Ford – Blah! (**)

This is just a short review of The Good Soldier so that I will not forget what the story was about – and what a weird story it was! I was reading another book about writers in the early 20th century when it mentioned Ford Madox Ford, and I decided to give The Good Solider (published in 1915) a quick try.  The story takes place in Germany just before the start of WWI and is narrated by John, who married Florence and discovered that she had a bad heart.  John and Florence (who are Americans) sail for Europe and end up in Germany at a type of health spa.  There they meet Leonora and Edward Ashburnham (the “Good Soldier”) and their young charge Nancy Ruff.  There is plenty of romantic intrigue mixed with the sensibilities of the early 20th century and stuffy British lords who kept private information private. 

John narrates and he says that he is trying to tell this story as if he were sitting at a fireside, trying to tell it to the reader, with memory lapses, jumping back and forth, and various points of view.  It is a bit disjointed for my taste (and when I looked it up on Wikipedia, it says he became famous for this literary technique of telling a story via flashbacks in non-chronological order!).  Even though John essentially gets duped, I found myself not liking him instead of feeling sorry for him (and I’m not sure whether or not this was the author’s intention).  The book is included in many lists of 100 Best Novels, and it is hard for me to understand why!

Book Review – Me Before You: A Novel, by Jojo Moyes – LOVED (*****)

This book is amazing!! I read the entire thing over one single weekend and then when I was done reading it I was sad that I couldn’t continue reading it!  

Me Before You is the story of Louisa Clark, a girl in her mid-twenties, who still lives with her parents in a small town in England, has a boyfriend of 7 years, and works in a cafe near to the castle that is the tourist attraction for the town.  Louisa (Lou) loses her job when the cafe owner decides to go back to Australia, and ultimately (as a last resort) takes a job as a caretaker for a quadriplegic. 

This is where Will Traynor enters the picture.  Will had been – before the accident that left him without use of arms and legs - a fast-moving, handsome wealthy successful young man.  After two years in a wheelchair living in a handicap-accessible annex in his parent’s Georgian style mansion, he had become sour, moody, and depressed.  While Will already had a medical assistant working with him, his mother wanted to hire someone who would be with him during the normal hours of the day – someone with a personality that might be able to cheer him up.

The relationship between Will and Lou becomes the focus of the story, and seeing Lou turn into a more educated, imaginative and inquisitive woman is worth the read.  We also get to see Will being happy at times, with smiles and jokes and kind gestures.  Me Before You was a wonderful book – romantic, sad, happy and funny.  I highly recommend it!

Book Review – Frances and Bernard, by Carlene Bauer – Just OK (***)

Frances and Bernard is a cute little book entirely written by letters.  The letters are mainly between Frances, a woman writer of fiction in her late 20′s / early 30′s, and Bernard, a poet of approximately the same age.  The two met briefly at a writer’s colony in the late 1950′s and began a correspondence as she lived in Philadelphia and then NYC, and he lived in Boston.   

While the letters started out interestingly enough since they were written by two authors; at times the letters got a little drawn out, mainly because Frances and Bernard liked to talk about God and the meaning of God in their lives.  Through those letter, Frances and Bernard first developed a friendship, and then a complicated relationship.  Bernard moved to NYC and it soon became clear that he had some mental issues and ultimately had to spend some time in various mental institutions.

There were additional letters between Frances and her friend Claire, and between Bernard and his best friend Ted that added a bit of color.  There were also some additional letters between Bernard and Frances to their editor John, and sometimes between Ted and Frances.  I liked the idea of the book, and most of the time I enjoyed reading the letters.  I did find myself hoping that, as I turned the page to a new chapter, I might see some real conversation between twop people.  Even though there were plenty of conversations written down in the letters, I still felt like there was something missing.

Thoughts on the 1920′s

I’ve been excited for the book Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald to be released in late March 2013, so I decided to re-read The Great Gatsby.

I loved the descriptions of Gatsby and the parties that he threw at his mansion, and the various characters that made appearances throughout the book.  Obviously I loved Daisy Buchanan and the distinct manner in which she spoke and commented on certain things.  I loved the way Nick Carraway was the narrator and his even-keeled way of looking at people and events.  I had completely forgotten what was actually quite a surprise ending, so it was a good surprise for me while re-reading it.  Once again, yet another book makes me want to have lived in the 1920′s!  This book, along with The Chaperone, Rules of Civility and In Sunlight and in Shadow showcase the best parts of conversations back in those days – when people used to be witty!