CANDIDE

This 1759 novel by Voltaire is either a satire (on what? life? war?) or a comedy, I’m not really sure. The one thing I know is that the main characters (Candide, Cunegonde, the old woman, Pangloss and a few others) face one catastrophe after another and bounce right back. They are forever thinking that whatever happened must be for the best. Can anyone face as many tragedies as Candide and his friends face and be that optimistic? Wait, I’m having an “aha” moment...that must be the parody. Can you (Candide) get evicted out of a snug castle for kissing someone you love (Cunegonde), get captured by army recruiters from Bulgaria, try to escape and get sentenced to 36 floggings by 2,000 men or have your brains blown out by 12 musket balls...and still think that what happened was for the best? Wait, another “aha” moment...it’s a comedy. It must be because whatever happens to Candide doesn’t seem to affect his enthusiasm for life. What was 1759 prose like? Well, Voltaire's prose was very stark, leaving nothing to the imagination. After the King of the Bulgars stopped the flogging at 4,000 strokes, “A skillful surgeon cured the flagellated Candide in three weeks...his sores were now skinned over, and he was able to march, when the King of the Bulgarians gave battle to the King of the Abares.”

That prose wasn’t very stark, was it? Well how about when Candide decides to leave the battle. “Candide decided to go and reason somewhere else upon causes and effects. After passing over heaps of dead or dying men, the first place he came to was a neighbouring village in the Abarian territories which had been burnt to the ground by the Bulgarians...here lay a number of old men covered with wounds, who beheld their wives dying with their throats cut...the ground about them was covered with brains, arms and legs of dead men.” I didn’t even tell you what happened to the town’s virgins for fear of having my review rejected by Amazon! Anyway, this kind of descriptive (?) writing continues throughout the entire novel. Anyhow, Candide escapes to Holland, where he runs into his old tutor, Pangloss (from the castle), who is now suffering from syphilis. Pangloss tells Candide that the Baron and Baroness were all killed along with Candide’s love, Cunegonde, when the Bulgarians attacked Candide’s former castle. “And as for the castle they have not left one stone upon another. They have destroyed all the ducks and the sheep, the barns and the trees; we have had our revenge, for the Abares have done the very same thing in a neighbouring barony, which belonged to a Bulgarian lord.” This novel is so cruel, yet funny.

A anabaptist, named James, cures Pangloss (of course) and they (Candide, Pangloss and the anabaptist) sail for Lisbon, Portugal. Can another calamity happen? Yes, that’s what this novel is about. A tempest hits the ship, the anabaptist drowns, Candide, Pangloss and a nasty sailor make it to shore. As soon as their feet hit the ground, a massive earthquake happens! Woe is me. It destroys three/fourths of the Lisbon. Pangloss is hanged! That’s it, I can’t reveal anymore...there are numerous misfortunes ahead for our survivors (who are they?), and you haven’t met the ‘old woman’ yet. Is Cunegonde really dead? Is anybody really dead? Yes, many characters have been quartered or gutted or hanged...or were they? Voltaire was a known satirical polemicist, thus all the hostility in this novel. The Candide version that I read was from the Barnes & Noble classic series and was illustrated with many of the drawings by French artist Jean-Michel Moreau Le Jeune, who had his drawings inserted in later versions of Voltaire’s classic. The drawings were protested by the author to no avail. There are other artist who have illustrated this novel over the years, so I’m not positive these drawings were from Le Jeune. All in all, this was an enjoyable novel, although a little far-fetched. Get a copy of this classic and get ready to cry or laugh...your choice.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: Most of the characters in this novel employ the idea that whatever happens is for the best. Although one of the characters, Signor Pococurante, who is a super rich Venetian, can’t find pleasure in anything. Pretty girls become boring; Raphael’s art does not delight him; the opera has contrived scenes; Homer always has Gods interfering with his works; Virgil is disagreeable; Milton (Paradise Lost) writes tedious commentary, and his eighty volumes of the  memoirs of the Academy of Science are filled with empty systems. This book was very funny to me, but I'm not sure the author meant it to be.  

The Silmarillion

This is a guest review from Deron O:

The Silmarillion is J.R.R Tolkien’s mythopoeic masterwork in five parts that begins with the creation of the universe and concludes with downfall of Sauron. The tales told are epic, spanning thousands of years. One typically comes to this book by way of their love for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. For those with a fanatical love, I highly recommend The Silmarillion as it provides a framework for understanding the events that take place in those other works and thereby enriches one’s experience upon rereading them.

It goes without saying that it is not as accessible to readers as Tolkien’s earlier published books. I’ve unsuccessfully tried reading The Silmarillion at least twice, and rather than review a book that has been reviewed extensively by others, I’d rather explain how I finally read The Silmarillion successfully, hoping my experience will help you

The sheer number of names and genealogical exposition frequently introduced on each page is daunting. Because they are based on Tolkien’s invented languages, the names are unfamiliar and their pronunciation guesswork, making them hard to remember. Specific people and places often have multiple names in the same or different languages that may change over time. Additionally, many characters have similar names, especially if they are familial. All this makes following Tolkien’s tale difficult. (These are similar challenges I’ve encountered when reading Russian literature, like Dostoyevsky.)

Immediately look up names that you’ve forgotten rather than vainly hoping the context will eventually become clear. You can quickly lose track of who is who in the story. While there is a name index in the back of the book, I found the sentence or two devoted to a name was insufficient and many times required cross-referencing to other names. Though this may seem obvious, use the internet rather than the book index as the descriptions are more in depth and you can quickly follow links to additional information.

The prose of The Silmarillion is difficult and somewhat archaic. For example, The Hobbit begins simply, “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”, while The Silmarillion begins, “There was Eru, The One, who in Arda is called Illúvatar; and he made first the Ainur, the Holy Ones, that were the offspring of his thought, and they were with him before aught else was made.” Have your eyes glazed over already?

Take time with this book. Savor it. Tolkien delivers a lot of information in each sentence. Reread those you don’t understand. If you don’t, as with forgotten names, you’ll lose track of the story and become discouraged from reading further. Despite your best efforts, the amount of information may still overwhelm you. For that, an indispensable internet resource that I recommend is Professor Corey Olsen’s Silmarillion Seminar. Each lecture discusses a chapter, cementing the plot and themes in your head. You’ll also learn how to pronounce the names (they often sound beautiful) and how Tolkien developed his mythology. These lectures singularly convinced me that I could read and even enjoy a book that I once took as unapproachable.

I sometimes jokingly think that one doesn’t read The Silmarillion, one studies it. Reading it, really reading it, takes an effort, but an effort well rewarded in itself and because it will enhance your love many times over for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment:

My father's copy of The Hobbit was the first book I ever read. I can't remember what caused me to read the book. Did my father recommend it to me or was I spurred on to read it after seeing the Rankin/Bass animated classic of The Hobbit? I have the worst memory. I'm fairly sure that I've made up most of my life in my mind.

THE SPY

Paulo Coelho has written a fine epistolary (a novel based on written or typed letters) historical novel about the execution of accused WWI spy Mata Hari. The novel is propelled by Mata Hari writing a letter to her lawyer, Mr. Clunet, explaining her life and how it came down to this death sentence. At the novel’s end, Mr. Clunet writes a letter back to her on the eve of her execution (she never gets this letter). I thought Mr. Coelho’s slant was probably correct...that she wasn’t a spy, but a victim of knowing too many political higher-ups in France and Germany. The novel, based on a true story, is written in my favorite genre...narrative nonfiction (so coined by one of my most-liked authors, Erik Larson). Did Paulo Coelho write a worthy novel? Yes, but not as good as his famed novel, The Alchemist (see my review of 2/9/2015). Mata Hari’s own braggadocious personality got her in front of a French firing squad more than anything else. As a exotic dancer in the early 1900s (usually stripping nude by the dance’s end), she met many important people who wanted to be her lover. She thought these VIPs would come to her defense...wrong. When somebody is in big trouble, the best defense for a guilty party is denial. The fact that many French soldiers were being killed daily by the Germans didn’t make the court feel very sympathetic.

Mata Hari, nee Margaretha Zelle, was born in Holland on 8/7/1876. She was sent to school to become a teacher after her mother became ill and her father went bankrupt. She was raped by the school’s principal when she was sixteen. “He called me into his office, locked the door, then placed his hand between my legs and began to masturbate...he pushed aside some papers on his desk, laid me on my stomach, and penetrated me all in one go, as if he were scared that someone might enter the room and see us.” Sometime later, she saw an ad from a Captain Rudolf MacLeod stationed in Indonesia. He was seeking a bride. This was her chance to get out of Holland. She married MacLeod and later regretted it. He accused her of being a whore since she wasn’t a virgin (because of the rape she never told anyone about). She had one daughter and one son, who was later murdered by his nanny. “Then one day, everything changed.” Captain MacLeod and Margaretha were invited to a local dance performance to honor an island ruler. Looking sensual, Margaretha was the hit of the party. Her husband was jealous and very drunk. A Dutch officer, Andreas, falls for Margaretha. His wife is so distraught that she commits suicide by putting a bullet in her heart. The next day the MacLeods took the first ship to Rotterdam, Holland. Did observing the exotic Javanese dancers give her an idea for a future profession?

"One day, I took a train to The Hague and went to the French consulate without anyone knowing...he attempted to seduce me...I got my one-way ticket to Paris...he asked what I could do.” She replied, “I’m a classical dancer to oriental music.” Once in Paris, she changes her name to Mata Hari and meets a Monsieur Guimet, who gives her a chance to perform in his private museum. She does her seductive dance of seven veils and receives a standing ovation. Okay, I just whet your appetite with a review of the first fifty-nine pages. The rest of the novel deals with her dancing career and how it got her into the supposed spy business. Was she a spy? I did a little research on Mata Hari (besides this novel) and couldn’t come up with any revelation that she was a spy for any country, no less France, Germany or Russia. You will have to read the rest of Paulo Coelho’s historical novel to find out why the French put her in front of a firing-squad. This is the type of novel that not only entertains the reader, but also improves his/her expertise of history. Although not the author’s best, I highly recommend reading this piece of history.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: I acquired this novel during Barnes & Noble’s Christmas sale of novels “signed” by the author...a very nice bonus.

In the author’s epilogue, I would like to impart to you the last two paragraphs of his novel:

Mata Hari’s body was buried in a shallow grave, which has never been located. According to habits of that time, her head was cut off and handed over to government representatives. For years it was kept in the Anatomy Museum on Rue des Saints-Peres in Paris, until, on an unknown date, it disappeared from the institution. Museum officials only noticed it was missing in the year 2000, although it is believed that Mata Hari’s head was stolen well before then.

In 1947, prosecutor Andre Mornet, by then publicly indicted as one of the lawyers who founded proceedings to revoke the “hasty naturalizations” of Jews in 1940, and largely responsible for the death sentence of the woman he claimed was “the modern-day Salome, whose sole objective is to deliver the heads of our soldiers to the Germans,” confided to journalist and writer Paul Guimard that the entire proceedings were based on deductions, extrapolations, and assumptions, concluding with: “Between us, the evidence we had was so poor that it wouldn’t have been fit to punish a cat.”

According to the New Testament, Salome (mentioned the the above paragraph) was the daughter of Herod II and Herodias. She is infamous for demanding and receiving the head of John the Baptist.

The brave Mata Hari faces the French firing-squad wearing her heavy silk kimono in which she slept in, black stockings, high-heeled shoes, a floor-length fur coat and a felt hat tied under her chin with a silk ribbon.

 

MOTHER NILE, a novel

The author and his editorial manager sent me a copy of his novel to review:

Warren Adler, the author of The War of the Roses (later a hit movie starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner), is the best descriptive writer that I’ve read in a long time. I could feel the heat of Cairo. I could smell the stench of Cairo’s slums. I could visualize the populated cemetery known as The City of the Dead. “He moved through disparate groups of people. Goats, sheep, and dogs crouched near the walls, husbanding thin slivers of shade. Occasionally, he would glance inside a mausoleum where humans and animals crouched in the darkness. Once, a woman appeared with a battered pot of murky liquid, throwing its contents on the dusty road.” How about the author’s description of one of the novel’s shady characters: “Salah was a tall, fierce-looking man with a face of crinkled tar paper from which crafty eyes darted covetously under the ragged rim of his red-checked kaffiyeh.” What was it like on a train? “In the air swirled odors of sweat, feces, urine, ripe fruit, and, unmistakably, hashish. Cooped chickens cackled and fluttered their wings.” Can this man write or what? What about the traffic in Cairo? “What greeted him was an unprecedented assault on his senses. Engulfed in a soup-like smog overheated by the mid-July sun was a hodgepodge of vehicular traffic moving like a river of molasses...scrawny donkeys pulling flatbed carts competed for space with ramshackle buses choked with people, trucks belching dark exhaust...young dark boys in filthy pajamas pushing huge nondescript burdens, cigarettes dangling from their lips.” At any moment, I was expecting Sydney Greenstreet (from the 1942 movie, Casablanca) to appear wearing a fez.

Okay, so you gather that I loved the author’s descriptive prose. What about the story? The story was two-fold, one part telling the story of Farrah Kelly when she lived in Egypt as a belly dancer, and the other part tells the story of Si Kelly (Farrah’s American son) as tries to find his half sister in Egypt. The reader will meet two main villains (there are others); one is King Farouk Of Egypt and the other is Zakki, the King’s pimp, chauffeur, lackey, and somewhat partner in the King’s illegal activities. Since this novel is historical fiction, some of the characters are real but most are not. The story is of Osiris (Si) Sean Kelly, a American born son of an Irish dad and an Egyptian mother. Farrah Kelly (43) is dying of cancer. Si is summoned from Cornell to sit with his mom. Before she dies, Farrah tells Si that he has a half sister in Egypt.”You have a sister, Osiris.” “A sister?” Then it came to him. “Isis?” She nodded…”I left her in Cairo, the City of the Dead. In the tomb of the family Al-Hakim. Come to my sanctuary.” “I don’t understand,” he cried…”There was no other choice. He would have killed my Isis, my baby. So I left her with the woman in the tomb of Al-Hakim family in the City of the Dead. ‘Come to my sanctuary’. Above the entrance. It is written.” As Farrah dies, she yells, “Zakki.” Si’s dad gives him the gold coin on a chain that his mother wore all her life. Si sells the coin for three thousand dollars and buys a round trip ticket to Egypt. Si doesn’t know it yet, but his half sister, Isis, is a princess since her father is King Farouk, now in exile in Rome, Italy. She is being stalked by the vengeful Zakki. The story is now off and running as Si heads to Egypt to learn his mother’s past and find his half sister.

The story now switches to Teenage Farrah’s life in Egypt before she comes to America. And the good news is that we are only on page forty seven of a three hundred and seventy two page novel. This was one of those novels that you wished was a thousand pages long. We find Farrah belly dancing in a Cairo nightclub. In the audience is a very fat King Farouk, alone at his table, eating tray after tray of pastries. After her dance, the King orders his lackey, Zakki, to bring her back to his table. Zakki goes to her dressing room and tries to have sex with Farrah unsuccessfully. It’s obvious to Farrah that Zakki hates the King. She goes to the King’s table and is taken on a whirlwind date from a yacht on the Nile to a casino and finally into the King’s bedroom. This goes on for a long period of time. Zakki, still trying to get into Farrah’s pants, tells her, “He (the King) is content instead with his own greed, his collections, his pleasures, pastries and pussy.” He is not afraid of the plots against him from the army. Farrah becomes pregnant. What happens after that is up to you to read. After this section is over, Si arrives in Cairo to start the search for Isis. What does Si think of Cairo? While laying “in a pool of sweat on a bumpy bed” in his hotel room, “From the streets rose the perpetual din. Auto horns tooted like irrepressible bratty children vying for attention. Noxious fumes seeped into the room, adding a choking pall to the overheated air. Too many people, he thought, glimpsing an image of a slithering mass of humanity locked in a snake pit. Why had his mother left Isis in this cesspool? Twenty-seven years was a nodule on a pimple of the ass of time in this weird shithouse of a country.” Historical note: Cairo was built for one million people, but housed eight million.

The writing by Warren Adler was so good that I let his quoted lines tell most of my review. Did I stumble upon a new way to review a book? Let the author review the book in his own words. Another thing that doesn’t happen very often with me... is no criticism of the author or novel! What occurs after Farrah becomes pregnant in Egypt and what transpires during Si’s quest for his sister is exhilarating and gripping to the nth degree. Did I like this novel? Does the pope wear a funny hat? Kudos to everyone responsible for this novel.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: I was honored to have a review request from an author of his ilk. In his ‘about the author’ page, “Adler has also optioned and sold film rights for a number of his works, including Random Hearts (starring Harrison Ford and Kristin Scott Thomas) and The Sunset Gang (produced by Linda Lavin for PBS’s American Playhouse series starring Jerry Stiller, Uta Hagen, Harold Gould and Doris Roberts).

I was contacted by the author and his editor after they read my review of Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile (see my review of 4/7/2012). They said, “We had the opportunity to read more about you and learned that you enjoy reading historical fiction. The reviews on your blog are so detailed and articulate! :)” Wow, what can I say?      

The Tannenbaum Tailors and the Secret Snowball

The author sent my thirteen year old grandson, Kai, an autographed copy of his novel to review:

The Tannenbaum Tailors and the Secret Snowball was a very nice way to start the holidays. The novel begins with Commander Brendan Holly and his team navigating their Icicle (a common elf air-transport) through the wintry sky. A violent wind shakes the Icicle, but the team brings it back under control as they fly into their assigned home. This whole operation was just a practice simulation created using virtual reality. But virtual reality wouldn’t be able to train them for what they were going to experience this Christmas.

At the Home Tree, which is a giant Christmas tree in the North Pole, a fire starts due to a faulty bulb. Commander Brendan rushes to the fire with Captain Emery. Soon the smoke renders Emery unconscious while they were trying to fix one of the water hoses. After being hospitalized, Captain Emery decides to give Commander Brendan the title of captain while he is recovering at the hospital. But then there is another fire! Most people realize that it’s too big of a coincidence not to be connected to the first fire.

Brendan’s dad, Lt. Holly, an officer at the Home Tree, gets on the case with Brendan. At the light bulb warehouse, Lt. Holly gives Brendan a pair of goggles that can detect a blue spark that the Spiritless leave behind. The Spiritless are a group of elves that once worked for Santa but have decided that humans don’t deserve Christmas. The officers find out that the desk clerk is one of the Spiritless. But what is the Spiritless’s goal? Can Brendan stop them?

JB Michaels wrote an excellent Christmas story and I’m glad that he wrote a sequel (which I will review at a later date). The plot in the novel moves kind of quickly, which caused the novel to be shorter than it could have been, but it kept my attention...very nicely. The second novel will be the extra length that I was looking for. I definitely liked this novel and would recommend it to YA readers 12-18 years old.
 
RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: Just to clarify the four star rating, Kai thought the novel was way too short and it is the only reason for the deduction of one star. It’s something that I’ve used in the past unbeknown to Kai. His thoughts show me that he is analyzing a novel properly.

THE LAST ENGLISH VILLAGE

The author sent me a copy of his novel to review:

I don’t know what having a fellowship at The British Operational Research Society has to do with this novel, but James Ignizio made me feel like I was watching (actually reading) a dry English sitcom. The story was mostly told during a 1997 English road trip by a semi-boring English chap and a dying American but had its roots in a 1943 incident during WWII. I think the author did a good job keeping me awake in a story that was somewhat boring by tweaking my interest in the charm of common English life (if that makes any sense). A lot of sentences were spent on the English breakfast consisting of tea, fried tomatoes, watery scrambled eggs, a ghastly orange juice and a black pudding that turned out to be “congealed pig’s blood wrapped in a length of pig’s intestine.” Also highlighted were the many village pubs serving warm pints of local beer. Doesn’t the food sound great? I didn’t think that two elderly men, one a English birdwatcher (on a secret quest to find the five American survivors of a mysterious WWII B-17 crash) and the other, a dying American, who was trying to find a church depicted in a painting for the sake of burying his wife’s ashes (while driving around the English countryside in a almost 50 year old car), would hold my attention...but it did. Good work by the author.

In 1943, a German bomber parachute a mine over a small village in England. The mine seems to be heading for the church, which was filled with local townspeople listening to Christmas songs from the church choir. Outside the church, two Rolls Royces are parked listening to the concert. Could one of the occupants of the cars be Winston Churchill? If so, what’s he doing there? Meanwhile, a boy (Tommy Hawke in bed with a fever) observes a American B-17 crash outside his yard. He sees five survivors walk from the plane. A tall man with his head bandaged seems to drop something, but can’t find it, and his mates hustle him away from the plane. The boy falls asleep and when he wakes the next day, he tells his mom what he saw. She says, “Tommy, you must have been delirious. An aeroplane certainly did crash into the pasture, as you can plainly see. But it was a German craft, and no one survived...Tommy could hardly believe his ears.” What was she hiding from him and why? When Tommy tried to raise an objection, his mom said, “Tommy, listen carefully to me. You did not see any men climb out of that wreckage. Everyone on board died in the crash.” I thought that this was an excellent opening chapter and set the hook for the rest of the novel.

The novel now switches to 1997. Vince Collesano arrives in England with his wife’s ashes in a urn. Her final request to him was to bury her ashes in the cemetery of a charming church that her mother painted many years ago. Vince is met at the airport by his deceased wife’s cousin, Albert “Bertie” Ambrose, an eccentric semi-recluse birdwatcher. Vince never liked Bertie, but he needs his help in finding the church in the painting. Vince tells Bertie, “...just moments before she passed away she pointed to the painting. Her last words to me were that I bury her there. I only wish she would have been able to tell me just where in the whole of England that little church might be located.” Bertie said, “Don’t you worry, Vince, we’ll find it.” On page 29, the two gentleman head off in Bertie’s 1949 Morris Minor in quest of finding the church in the painting. Is that really Bertie’s quest? I know this novel seems boring, yet the author, James Ignizio, is able to combine the 1943 WWII bomber crash and the 1997 quest to find a church (in a painting) into a rather pleasing tale. Kudos to the author of ten books and The Last English Village, his first novel. I highly recommend this British sitcom clone.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: My favorite British sitcom was a twelve episode comedy in the late 1970s called Fawlty Towers starring John Cleese as Basil and Connie Booth as Basil’s wife, Sybil. They ran a seaside hotel in the fictional town of Torquay. The comical episodes were accompanied by hotel helpers, Polly (the chambermaid) and Manuel (the Spanish waiter). They were sooo funny!

The only British remake sitcom I watched was The Office. Before Steve Carell played Michael Scott, the general manager of a paper company, Ricky Gervais was playing David Brent in a similar role in England.

Of course, my favorite British comedy show was Monty Python’s Flying Circus (1969-1974) starring Terry Jones, John Cleese, Michael Palin, Graham Chapman, Eric Idle, and Terry Gilliam. The show was hilarious!

THE ORDER OF ST. MICHAEL

The author sent me an autographed copy of his novel to review:

J.B. Michaels, author of The Tannenbaum Tailors series, writes his first YA novel. He introduces the reader to Bud Hutchins, a combination teenage inventor and sleuth, who goes from Chicago to Salem, MA to farther cities in an attempt to recover his stolen tech. What is his tech? Bud has invented a teleport system that allows him disappear and reappear in different destinations, similar to Star Trek’s system, except Bud’s method for teleportation involves a wristband and destination markers. One assumes that this is the first adventure for the new boy wonder. This is not your usual mystery since it involves witches, zombies, a wolfman and much more. I thought the story was fast moving, but sometimes too rushed. Was the story interesting? Yes, but very predictable with very simplistic prose. Was it written that way on purpose? I think so since this is the author’s first stab at a YA novel. Since there were some mild swear words used in the text, I would say the author’s target age group is between twelve and eighteen.

The story opens with Bud, our protagonist, finding a “bloodied corpse” in a New England forest. The body is a male dressed in a gray robe and hood (a monk?) and has been drained of all his blood. Suddenly, Bud sees a hooded figure running from the scene of the murder...he pursues. He tackles the runaway and finds that it’s a female. She turns out to be teenaged Maeve (will she be Bud’s helper in future novels?). She says to Bud, “That was my uncle back there! I just called the cops. Who are you? There is no way the cops could have made it here this fast.” They hear police sirens in the background at the same time they are unexpectedly surrounded by six witches. Bud immediately teleports home, grabs a blue canister and teleports back to the forest. He pulls the pin to a smoke bomb, temporarily blinding the witches, while he and Maeve make a run for freedom. At this point, we meet Officer Hanks of the Salem police department. “Get your hands up! A deep, gravelly, male voice sounded from behind Bud.” Will Officer Hanks believe Bud? Will the witches return and attack the police station? The story is now off and running to the exciting conclusion.

I liked the fact that J.B Michaels wrote this novel utilizing only three main characters. Cormac McCarthy would be proud (the less main characters used, the better). My only real complaint (besides some rushed and short chapters) is the simplistic prose employed, since I feel the age group for this novel is betwixt twelve and eighteen...maybe the author targeted a lower age group. Anyway, I did enjoy this novel and recommend it to the older YA age groups.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: Because of Bud’s invention talent, this novel reminded me of the only YA novels that I read as a youngster. What series is that? It’s Victor Appleton’s early 1900s series starring Tom Swift. I remember Tom’s adventures in novels, such as, Tom Swift and his Motor-Cycle, Tom Swift and his Airship, and Tom Swift and his motorboat. I wish I still had those original novels...they must be worth a small fortune. Many literary pundits say that Tom Swift was portrayed as a genius and modeled after inventors Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and Glenn Curtiss, the aviation pioneer (see the Curtiss Jenny Biplane stamp of 1918).  

Jesus and Magdalene

The author sent me a copy of his novel to review:

I’m not sure what Joao Cerqueira was satirizing...religion, environmentalists, other bleeding-heart liberals, or all of the above. Does he believe in these factions, or is his novel just a comedy, because it was fairly funny. The return of Jesus to earth was certainly uneventful. He seemed to be more like a mild mannered Clark Kent than Superman. Is Magdalene the nosy (always in trouble) Lois Lane? It seemed that way. Does she get her comeuppance? Can anybody except Al Gore care about all of these afflictions? The novel follows the exploits of Jesus and Magdalene through the genetically modified crops of corn in St. Martin (I’m assuming the country), the deforestation of land for the sake of a resort, and the racial bloodshed between blacks, whites, and gypsies. The author covers a lot of maladies. Does he do a good job? I’m thinking that he does, but I’m still not sure where his head is. Is that a mark of a good writer? Maybe, maybe not. I read his previous novel, The Tragedy of Fidel Castro (see my review of 1/19/2014) with a similar consternation. Is Mr. Cerqueira a Latino version of China Mieville, or an original? School is still out on that subject. But all things considered, It was a reasonably good novel, although different.  

“Jesus returned to Earth by walking down the middle of the road, without anyone noticing his reappearance.” Jesus noticed that, “The people were taller, fatter, hastier, and they no longer wore tunics or sandals…” Thus Jesus returns to modern life in St. Martin. Jesus meets Magdalene at a stall selling books and magazines pertaining to ecology. Magdalene has a twelve member environmental group called Green are the fields. She seems to be in charge of the group but is somewhat challenged by Judas. She sees Jesus as an activist and wants him to join her crew. She tells Jesus about Farmer Joe’s field of genetically modified corn and how her crew tried to destroy it but were chased off the farm. Judas wanted to burn it but was temporarily stopped by Magdalene. She tells Jesus why she is against genetically modified organisms, “Genetically modified organisms are a good example of the threat hanging over mankind. Instead of ending famine by improving traditional farming methods and eliminating protectionism of western farmers, they unleash mutations in pests and make them resistant to pesticides, triggering the collapse of world agriculture.” So the reader now gets a sense of what’s in her head. (I'm on page 23).

The rest of the novel deals with the further exploits of Magdalene’s crew and Jesus. They get involved in world worries such as deforestation, child labor, capitalistic greed, animal rights, and race riots. One wonders what makes Magdalene tick. A good hint is that her favorite novel is Sir Thomas More’s Utopia (see my review of 10/26/2015) and she tries to live her life out of what she learned from More's novel (written in 1516). Does her life end in a similar fashion as Sir Thomas More’s? As I mentioned in the first paragraph, I’m not sure what was in the author’s head when he wrote this novel. Is it a comedy? Is it a tragedy? Is the author for or against all these Al Gore type gaffes. I guess I’m too lazy to read up on Joao Cerqueira’s thoughts. Anyway, I did like this novel better than his previous one, so I do recommend reading his satirical effort.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: Sometimes I wonder where a writer gets his ideas. Both of the novels that I have read of Joao Cerqueira’s are a tad strange. China Mieville created a new genre that he calls weird fiction. Is there a new genre for Cerqueira’s writings? Even Stephen King is now credited with the genre of supernatural fiction along with his standard horror genre. Can one of these authors write the next great American novel? I don’t think so, because the great American novel they would have to surpass is Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (see my review of 12/17/2012).

the WITCH of lime street, seance, seduction, and HOUDINI in the spirit world

I wonder how long it took the author, David Jaher, to come up with that book title. Anyway, I do like historical fiction and this was a true event. Shortly after WWI, with the loss of tens of millions from the war and the Spanish (flu) plague, the age of Spiritualism commenced. Why people suddenly had the urge to speak to the dead seems strange to me, but a necromancer (or medium) could make some pretty good money fooling the public. Notwithstanding, some upper echelon people, such as, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (yes, he of the Sherlock Holmes novels), and Sir Oliver Lodge (a leading British physicist) became vocal supporters of Spiritualism in England. Both Doyle and Lodge lost sons and had a desire to speak to them after their deaths. Doyle asked, “What is the outcome of death?” and spoke of the New Revelation. Sir Lodge, President of The British Society for Psychical Research, claimed to speak to his deceased son, Raymond, through seances with a medium as did Sir Doyle with his deceased son via a former nanny turned medium. In January of 1920, Sir Oliver Lodge arrived in NYC to lecture his Ether of Space theory. The rage in the USA was the Ouija board game and even Thomas Edison was working on a way to communicate with the dead. At the same time Albert Einstein considered the possibility of contacting the dead before dropping the idea.

During Sir Oliver Lodge’s lecture in Boston, he said, “We all have etheric bodies, he explained, which psychics see as bands of variegated light. When a soldier was cut down, he abandoned his physical body-like a shriveled cocoon-for his perfect and permanent form.” After his lecture, he met Dr. Le Roi Crandon and his wife, Mina.The Globe reported, “Sir Oliver Lodge has put the whole question of spiritism and survival after death in a somewhat new light- a light that appeals to many intellectual people.” Dr. Crandon thought that Lodge’s theory was intriguing, but eccentric. Dr. Crandon’s wife, Mina, finds out that she has the talent to communicate with the dead (primarily with her dead brother, Walter) via her seances in the Beacon Hill area of Boston. “Mrs. Crandon’s forte was the motion of objects without apparent cause. Whether Walter (her brother) was in a violent mood or delivering one of his soothing poems, the Victrola (a old record player) piped his favorite songs.” In 1922, Sir Arthur Doyle arrived in NYC to preach his thoughts on spiritualism and spirit photography. Scientific American Magazine’s publisher, Orson Munn, and his editor, James Bird, became interested in all this talk about psychic research. Sir Arthur Doyle challenged the magazine “to conduct an investigation of psychic phenomena.” Munn’s magazine offered two $2,500 prizes for any medium that can prove physical phenomena or spirit photography. “It was ghost they were after.”

Meanwhile the reader is schooled on the life of Ehrich Weiss, the son of a Rabbi from Hungary. Ehrich will later change his name to Harry Houdini. After the Rabbi died, Harry attended seances in an attempt to contact his father. “The disappointing results, not to mention Houdini’s encounters with spooks on the flimflam circuit, were convincing him that there was no such thing as genuine mediumistic power.” Harry and his brother, Dash, then started work as magicians. Harry marries eighteen year old Bess Rahner (a German/Brooklyn girl), who becomes Harry’s show partner, but the show goes badly, and Harry hires on to Dr. Hill’s Traveling Medicine Show (the lowest rung in entertainment). The owner of the largest chain of vaudeville theaters, Martin Beck, sees talent in Harry and offers to take him on. Houdini becomes known as ‘The Handcuff King’ escaping virtually any kind of restraint. The rest is history. Houdini will spend a lot of time exposing mediums as frauds, so when he was offered a position as one of the five judges in Mr. Munn’s magazine contest...he jumps at the chance to expose more fakes. Many mediums take a crack at the prize money and fail to convince the five judges that they are really contacting the dead. By the way, all of this happens very early in the book (the book is 435 pages). The guts of the story is when the judges run into the convincing seances of the above mentioned Mina Crandon (now known as Margery). “Margery’s challenge was to prove that her brother lived after death.” Houdini needed to prove her a fraud. Let the battle begin!

Although sprinkled with some boring and repetitive seance chapters (from 1924-1926), the book was very informative. I had no idea this was going on after WWI, did you? The book culminates with the deaths of all the main characters, including the great Harry Houdini. Now don’t tell me that I should have a spoiler alert...I think that we all know that these people are no longer living. I believe the author did all he could do to make this book as accurate as possible. I do recommend this book, if anything else, at least to increase the knowledge in your noggin.  

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: I think that it's fascinating to reproduce the original ad for Munn’s $5,000 challenge:

                                                  ANNOUNCING

                                $5000 FOR PSYCHIC PHENOMENA

As a CONTRIBUTION toward psychic research, the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN pledges the sum of $5000 to be awarded for conclusive psychic manifestations.

On the basis of existing data we are unable to reach a definite conclusion as to the validity of psychic claims. In the effort to clear up this confusion, and to present our readers with first-hand and authenticated information regarding this most baffling of all studies, we are making this offer.

The SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN will pay $2500 to the first person who produces a psychic photograph under its test conditions and to the full satisfaction of the eminent men who will act as judges.

The SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN will pay $2500 to the first person who produces a visible psychic manifestation of other character, under these conditions and to the full satisfaction of these judges. Purely mental phenomena like telepathy, or purely auditory ones like rappings, will not be eligible for this award. The contest does not revolve about the psychological or religious aspects of the phenomena, but has to do only with genuineness and objective reality.

This is merely a preliminary announcement. The names of the judges, the conditions applying to the seances, the period for which this offer will remain open, etc., will appear in our January issue.

SPARX incarnation: order of the undying (vol. 2)

The author sent an autographed copy of his novel to my thirteen year old grandson, Kai, to review:

Order of the undying brings a satisfying close to the Sparx incarnation series. It continues right where I left off (see my review of 10/22/2016). After wandering the caves, tensions between Nud and his friend, Kabor, were rising. Eventually, it leads to Kabor taking Nud’s Sparx stone. This was very unlucky because when Kabor tries to climb up a hole that may lead to the surface, the hole caves in burying Kabor and Nud’s stone. Although Nud finds his stone, he can’t find Kabor in the rubble.

Heavyhearted, Nud is forced to leave the pile for his own survival. However, his spirits are soon lifted when he discovers something that he would not have believed existed had he not seen it. What he discovered was a creature that resembled a white whale, but with horns that fan out. The white whale has immense knowledge and after studying Nud’s story helps him to figure out how to control the Sparx stone. As they part, the white whale gives him directions to Dromeron Odoon (a underground city). From this point on, Nud’s adventure will begin to shift away from escaping the cave to exposing Harrow’s evil secret.

Generally, it was a good series, but I would have liked more elaboration on what happens after Nud dies from old age. Throughout the novel the author, K.B. Sprague, does a good job except for a somewhat inconclusive ending. I would recommend this novel to YA readers 11-14 years old.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars

Comment: It’s good to have my grandson, Kai, reviewing the YA book requests that I get (I turn down most of them), since I’m a tad tired of them. My main interest is in the classic and historical fiction genres.