My Nerdy Friend

The Island of Doctor Moreau, by H.G. Wells

This is a weird and creepy book that most people have probably heard of, but probably not read. The story is straightforward enough (spoilers….): A man gets shipwrecked and ends up on an Island run by guy-with-a-god-complex and titled character Dr. Moreau, who conducts grotesque experiments on animals in order to turn them into humans, more or less. Less, not more, actually. Dr. M controls his custom-designed menagerie by installing himself as a kind of overlord, drawing on Christian religious metaphors to secure his position. As one might expect from such a solidly laid plan, things eventually go awry. The animal-human hybrids start to revert to their natural animal states of hunting and eating each other and, as a matter or course, catastrophe unfolds. Our shipwrecked narrator manages to escape on a raft and, after being rescued and returned to his homeland, lives the rest of his life haunted and forever changed by the events to which he was witness.

The most disturbing part of this story for me was the way in which the narrator seems less troubled by the cries of a tortured puma since a puma is a “dumb” animal than he is when he realized the creature is partly human.

Yet had I known such pain was in the next room, and had it been dumb, I believe – I have thought since – I could have stood it well enough. It is when suffering finds a voice and sets our nerves quivering that this pity comes troubling us.

Of course, the book was written in 1896 and so this is a sign of the times, but such a startling lack of empathy towards the suffering of animals is still galling to me. Annnnd now you know why I’m not a hunter, and why, on my walk this morning, I rescued a Woolly Bear caterpillar by moving him off the walking path and onto the grass.

The second disturbing aspect of the book was the easy-go-lucky way the actual humans were about killing, and in fact luring creatures into behaviours that would then justify execution.

And that their sins may grow, I said, let them live in their folly until their time is ripe. Let them not know that I am the Master.

WTF??? I really want to like this book, because it’s H.G. Wells, after all. It is absolutely far ahead of its time in terms of providing commentary on eugenics, religion, and animal experimentation. I expect it will provide for some interesting discussion at book club. And an excellent pick for this year’s creepy Halloween theme.

Rating: Buy it, and keep it with your H.G.Wells collection. But be warned there are definitely some difficult bits.

PS I can’t believe there is a movie …

The Girls, Emma Cline

There was a hearty debate about this book in my BBCE book club. Oddly enough, one of the topics at issue was when it becomes disingenuous to claim that a book is based entirely on fictional characters where inspiration has obviously come from actual events. In this case, there is little doubt that Cline’s book is a fictionalized “re-imagining” of the events of the Charles Manson cult and murders of the late 1960’s, but it could reasonably also be considered a direct parallel of those events, right down to the Brian-Wilson-rockstar character who feeds the cult leader’s psychopathic need for self-aggrandizement.

But perhaps the fiction (and therefore the fictional claim) is due to the fact that Cline’s book centers around a character, Evie, who doesn’t exist at all in the Manson world but instead is the reader’s window into the allure of the cult (to Evie it’s just “the ranch”.) Evie is “everygirl”, a disenchanted teenager who feels invisible to her parents and disconnected from her friends. At her most vulnerable, she meets Suzanne, who introduces her to the Ranch and from there she meets the cult leaders who prey on her desperate need for connection and acceptance.

What I loved most about this book was how the author captured the essence of Evie’s disconnectedness, and how much it brought back memories of my youth. I am absolutely one of those people who felt that I was not quite tuned in to the things that were going on around me. Friends would disengage from me without my noticing any early signs, or would suddenly go from talking about cartoons to talking about boys or bra sizes, even though it probably wasn’t “sudden”. The best analogy I can give is that I felt like I was living in a slightly different phase (for all you Trek fans), or that I had gone to sleep and woken up in a slightly future time (Rip Van Winkle fans). Essentially I was always just a little bit outside of whatever was happening in my life. I think this is why I don’t remember very many events from those days – because I never truly connected with them. The Girls brought all this back to me with alarming clarity.

However, I am still trying to understand that final ingredient that sends Evie into the clutches of the cult with such devotion that she is seemingly willing to participate in the cold-blooded murder of innocent people, including a child. Evie had this ingredient, and I don’t believe I did, but our stories seem quite similar so what is the difference? I suspect self-esteem is one factor. But is that enough to make us susceptible to the machinations of a sociopathic cult leader, or is there more? I hope there’s more to it, and that it doesn’t all just come down to being lucky enough not to encounter our own Suzanne.

Rating: Borrow it. Or just cut to the chase and read Helter Skelter.

The Travelers, Chris Pavone

An entertaining “summer read” pseudo-spy-novel. A veteran news reporting becomes entangled in the world of espionage, being directed on missions by his ‘handler’ until eventually you have no idea who to trust. There are some weak and eye-rolling plot devices that the writer uses to advance the story, but it’s still a fun read overall.

Rating: Borrow it. Probably best to avoid judging it on a Robert Ludlum scale.

Persons Unknown, Susie Steiner

Manon, our difficult-to-like, sexually ambivalent detective is back, but this time she is pregnant and has an adopted son. She has also reconnected with her estranged sister and will manage to drift her way into an semi-healthy relationship with a man.

Meanwhile, however, she ends up embroiled in a murder that is a little too chock-full of coincidences that involve her sister, her sister’s ex-husband, and her adopted son. Her involvement in this hard-to-believe situation gets her kicked off the case, and paves the way for an all-too-real situation where her misogynist sergeant begins to mentor and groom a less-qualified younger male cop to step into her shoes (and one presumes to eventually pass her in the line of succession).

I am enjoying the growth of the characters in this series, and I look foward to Part III…

Rating: Borrow it.

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, by Greg McKeown

Here’s the thing. I am very VERY far behind in the book blog. Therefore, in the spirit of essentialism, I’m just going to write a few very VERY short ones.

Essentialism is basically a lesson in deciding what is important enough to you that you want to do that thing really well, and saying no to everything else. The key, I believe, is saying no honestly and transparently. No lying, no word games, no passive aggressive crap. Just plain “I’m sorry, I just can’t take that on right now”. I love that, because I hate wordsmithing.

I did not expect the book to have as powerful an impact on me, however I have noticed myself clearly saying no to things that I once might have done anyway (for fear of the repercussions of saying no), or said I would try to do while knowing I’d never be able to. Now I am developing a comfortable repertoire of “no” expressions.

• I think I will pass this time, but rain check?
• I actually have another commitment at that time, can we reschedule?
• I wish I could do that but I just can’t fit it in right now. Perhaps another time?

You get the idea. So powerful!!

Rating: Buy it. You’ll never re-read it (that is anti-essentialist), but you will want to lend it to friends.

Missing, Presumed; Susie Steiner

For every damsel-in-distress-falls-for-handsome-detective-white-knight-hero mystery (that I admittedly love) there is a better, grander, unpredictable and more complex mystery novel that needs to be read. Susie Steiner’s novel Missing, Presumed is one of those (and her second novel – covered in a separate review – is another).

The lead character, Manon, is smart, abrasive,  flawed and extremely difficult to like. And yet I like her! She doesn’t conform to obvious female stereotypes, and yet is bound by them. She unapologetically sleeps with people she dates, not as a means to exert power, but as a way to get rid of them more easily.  She competes with a younger, male coworker for the attentions of her misogynist veteran boss. She has an estranged sister as a result of some unresolved grudge from long past. I suspect many people would have difficulty liking her, but I would challenge those people to honestly ask themselves if their feelings would be different if she were a man. Or, more specifically, if she were a ruggedly handsome man. It’s my experience (and therefore not at all applicable to anyone else) that ruggedly handsome flawed men are seen as characters that can be “saved” by the right women, but nondescript flawed women are simply seen as tiresome at best, and bitches at worst. Just my experience. Feel free to disagree, and let’s discuss.

What I liked most about the story itself is that, while there were many little surprises and unexpected turns, there wasn’t one big twist that could easily be spoiled simply by knowing that there was a twist. The ending did have a bit of  a “let’s wrap this up” feel, but for a first novel to introduce a diverse set of interesting characters, I really enjoyed it.

Rating: Borrow it. Save your money, because this is going to turn into a multi-book series.

Fakes, Frauds, and Flimflammery: Even More of the World’s Most Outrageous Scams, by Andreas Schroeder

Some history on Andreas Schroder that I picked up from Google: Since 1991, Andreas Schroeder has been a regular on the very popular national CBC-Radio show “Basic Black” with Arthur Black. Each month, Schroeder recounts, with wry understatement, yet another outrageous scam or particularly notable rip-off, leaving his listeners speechless with disbelief, amusement, and even grudging admiration.

Fakes, Frauds, and Flimflammery is his third collection of these stories, building on the popularity of his two previous books. It’s an interesting and decent enough book but not really that thrilling, or maybe just not my thing. There were a couple of stories that stood out as particularly entertaining.

The Picasso forger Elmyr de Hory becomes so infamous that people start to forge his own forgeries! He becomes so prolific over a “career” spanning several decades that it’s not only possible, but entirely likely, that his forgeries of Picasso, Matisse, Van Gogh, and Braques hang in museums around the world, nobody being aware that they are not actually authentic. To me, this brings up an interesting question. If nobody can tell if something is a forgery, does it really matter? Are we going to museums to see grand works of art, or are we going because of who painted them? This is tricky question for me because on the one hand I have gone to museums specifically to see works painted by Leonardo Da Vinci and I would be exceedingly disappointed to discover they were forgeries. On the other hand, I have zero interest in the debate over “who was William Shakespeare” because I don’t really care. I love his plays, and we know they were written by someone going by the name of Shakespeare, but I don’t care if they were actually written by the specific person we’ve come to understand was him. I guess other than trying to identify a descendant, I’m not sure it really matters. Maybe this is a topic for an old-style “salon” discussion.

In another story, an ingenious and peculiar bomber going by the name of Dagobert Duck (German for Scrooge McDuck) held hostage one of Germany’s largest department stores for years. The is recent enough that I feel I should remember news about it, but unfortunately I don’t. However, the story is still intriguing for his ingenuity, understanding of police process and precise planning for all contingencies. In fact, the police failed on 30 separate attempts to capture Dagobert at various money-drop locations he proposed, but he always managed to elude them (although he also failed to pick up the money as well … hard to day who was more ridiculous). This is definitely worth your time to visit a Wikipedia page about it, or read about it here.

Rating: Maybe borrow it, if this type of thing interests you.

The Outsiders, S. E. Hinton

One of the most surprising things about this book is not that it was written by a woman, but that she was a teenager at the time she wrote it. It has such amazing insight into the lives of two groups (not quite gangs) of boys from opposite sides of the tracks. The Socs (short for Socials, and pronounced similarly) from the richer part of town and the Greasers from the poorer side. The bulk of the story takes place after an unfortunate sequence of events leaves one Soc dead and two Greasers on the run from police. Ultimately, members from each group break from the bounds of their class by performing acts of personal courage, and their reasons for doing so form the moral basis of the book.

After reading this book, my book club watched the original 80’s movie, which was chock-full of the heart-throbs of the day; Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, Matt Dillon, Emilio Estevez. The movie made we want to rewatch Breakfast Club, Ghost and St. Elmo’s Fire again. Ah, the 80’s. Good times!

Not much else to say about this book other than if you’ve never read it you should do so right now. Due to alleged “controversial themes” of gang violence and underage drinking/smoking, the book has been banned in some places, which is all the more reason to read it. I am intensely opposed to the banning of books. My home town was Peterborough, Ontario, and a short distance a way was a town called Lakefield where Margaret Laurence lived for many years. One of my towns greatest shames, IMO, was when a group of parents (some of whom were friends of my parents) tried to get The Diviners banned in the high school libraries for being “obscene” and “blasphemous”. (Blasphemous!!!??? WTF?? Blasphemous shouldn’t even be a thing.) Some of these parents hadn’t even read the book, as is often the case with book-banning vigilantes. And the author lived just down the road! We should have been celebrating her proximity to us, not embarrassing ourselves. I was glad to leave that town…

Rating: Buy it. You should have this one in your permanent collection, next to The Diviners and Catcher in the Rye.

The Perfect Stranger, Megan Miranda

Why does it seem that in every story about a single woman embroiled in a mystery, especially if there is an element of personal danger, there is a handsome, unattached police officer with whom she hooks up? It’s just so … predictable. But despite that (or because of it?) I always find myself liking it. Maybe this is just my thing. Some people have their vampires and werewolves, some have their creepy manipulative sex adicts and I have my handsome working-the-case detectives. It would actually be a lot more convenient for me if these were actually classified as a type. “Detective Romances” of “Mystery Affairs”. When I have my own used book store it’s going to have this as a section. Right next to the Science Fiction & Fantasy shelves.

Anyway …. this particular version of the Detective Romance had one added bonus in that the author doesn’t spend any time describing the female lead, as most of them do, as “tall” and “blond” and “thin” and “green-eyed”. Certain details come out as a matter of course, forming part of the basis of the mystery, but there are thankfully no lengthy paragraphs extolling her beauty. This makes her much more relatable because she could be anyone. The story itself has quite a few unexpected surprises without resorting to one giant twist, making it hard to “spoil”. I found it an enjoyable summer read and in fact, I finished it on a flight to Ireland for my summer vacation. If mysteries are also your perfect summer read, then this is a good choice. People will wawnt to compare it to Girl On The Train or Gone Girl, but really the only things in common are that there is a mystery to solve and that the lead character is a woman who appears to be involved in some way. I suspect it would also probably make a good movie (which, by the way, is not necessarily the highest compliment for a book…).

Rating: Borrow it.

PS If you are one of my friends waiting to borrow this book, PM me and I’ll get it to you.