Rural Routes, Blog Version

What I’ve Read Since Last Time

 “The Crescent Onion” – by Val Pattee

Retired Major-General Val Pattee says in his note to readers that he wanted “his plots and characters to be believable, grounded in real world events and people, with actions that paralleled the daily news”.

Pattee says that the daily intelligence that crossed his desk in the course of his work with NATO that sowed the seeds for his thriller novels. “The stories are fiction, but the action is grounded in real events and some of the characters come close to real people.”

Disclosure: Val Pattee is an extended family member. That said, I thought that “The Crescent Onion’ compared favourably with others I have read in the genre. And knowing that Val brought his career knowledge to the novel added to my reading experience.

“The Wonder” – by Emma Donoghue

A young girl in 1850s Ireland appears to thrive without eating. A miracle? Or a hoax?

“The Wonder” was inspired by almost fifty cases of so-called Fasting Girls between the sixteenth and the twentieth centuries.

This was a quick read, which I felt lacked the depth of Donoghue’s “Room”. Although a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller, “The Wonder” seemed lightweight to me. The book’s characters were not fully fleshed out. They were like line drawings when with a few more brush strokes they could have been portraits. With the weightiness of the subject matter, they should have struggled in the mucky bog; instead they seemed to step lightly over its surface.

That said, I could almost smell the peat fires burning as I sped through the book’s 291 pages. I looked around me for any sight of the wee folk. And the role of the Roman Catholic church in the everyday lives of impoverished and sometimes starving Irish people was deftly woven throughout the narrative.

I enjoyed “The Wonder” for its evocative atmosphere and for the ease of the read. I did think it could have been something more.

“Nuala A Fable” – by Kimmy Beach

When a giant child puppet comes to life, life changes for those who serve her. No one’s life is more changed than that of Teacher-Servant whose mind must suddenly find space for Nuala’s youthful thoughts and emotions.

“I am yours and you are mine,” he tells her.

But Nuala’s expanding knowledge threatens Teacher-Servant with results that are disturbing and yet all-too human. A giant-size word game becomes a catalyst for change.

At 147 pages, the novella is dense and nuanced. Sometimes it reads like poetry, which is not surprising since Beach is a well-known and respected Alberta poet.

Here is where poetry and plot come together. Because at one level poetry is a word game, a juxtaposition of letters on a game board defined by meaning and creative thought. This is a book that delights with its creativity and confounds with its meaning.

“Nuala” is Beach’s sixth book.

What I’m Reading Now:

“Natchez Burning” – by Greg Iles

Going from “Nuala” to Natchez is rather like crossing the street from an art gallery to a Costco. Totally different environments.

I have read Greg Iles before, sometimes with pleasure, other times with a sense of déjà vu. Haven’t I been here before?

My husband recommended “Natchez Burning” after he read it last fall.

“Have you read it yet?” he asked me last week.

“No, but it’s next on my list,” I said.

“Natchez Burning” brings the return of Penn Cage, lawyer/author/mayor and his family as they come face to face with the sins and secrets of the past – a past that includes racial inequality, the Ku Klux Klan, assassinations that rock the nation, corruption and swampy creeks filled with alligators.

Iles is a good story teller, no doubt about it.

Next up:

“A Climate of Fear” by Fred Vargas (translated from the French by Sian Reynolds)

Fred Vargas is one of my favourite mystery writers and I am looking forward to this, the eighth of her Commissaire Adamsberg novels to be translated into English.

“White Settler Reserve: New Iceland and the Colonization of the Canadian West” – by Ryan Eyford

I admit to a bias here. I purchased this book because three branches of my family made the trip from Iceland to North America, fleeing from volcanic eruptions and starvation. It shall be a scholarly read, I think; a full thirty per cent of the book’s pages are devoted to footnotes, bibliography and index.

Writerly Pursuits

I learned recently that “The Waiting Place” was reviewed by members of a book club in High River, AB.

Sometimes I wonder who, if anyone, is reading my book. It is fun to learn that several women in a town more than a 1,000 miles away did just that.

What’s more, they apparently enjoyed it. 🙂

Award Winning Writers

My husband and I plan to attend the Manitoba Book Awards event in Winnipeg April 22.

I look forward to visiting with writers that I don’t often get a chance to see.

I also think there will be wine.

And finally:

A potted plant for Easter, complete with a promise for more green things to come.