An Acceptable Time, by Madeleine L’Engle (published 1989) is sometimes counted as the fifth book in the series about the Murry-O’Keefe family. Apparently there are more books about the O’Keefes and their adventures as a separate series, so I’m sure there are references to those that I missed. Or rather, I could tell there was elaboration on those adventures elsewhere that I just haven’t read, but this story was ok as a standalone (I think anyway—I don’t know otherwise as I haven’t read them!).
Polly O’Keefe, daughter of Meg, is staying with her Murry grandparents (who get names! Alex and Kate) after…something happened? I think a close family friend and mentor to Polly died, but it isn’t super clear to me.
Anyway, Polly stumbles back in time 3,000 years, but only for a moment, and meets two druids who tell her that the time gate is open. Then she spends many pages of the book mostly in her own time with her grandparents worried about what’s happening and forbidding her from going on adventures. While I’m sure it’s more realistic that the adults would be concerned that she might get trapped 3,000 years in the past, especially as they are just her temporary guardians, I see who most kid-goes-on-crazy-adventure books just have the kid go off without any input from the guardians: it’s boring to read all the objections, and it stops the story in its tracks.
Polly also has a friend, Zachary, who drags her back into time for the longer actual adventure part, and while I was grateful that he really kickstarted things, he gives a bad name to Zacharies everywhere.
He’s selfish, gaslights Polly, takes no responsibility for his actions, and in the end is treated far more kindly by the characters than he deserves (though that’s part of the point, but still…). He’s supposed to be charming, but I don’t see a lot of evidence of that—the “charm” seems to be confined to compliments to Polly, politeness to adults, and a bit of emotional manipulation. Clearly, I was not a fan.
The bits about people from the present and past crossing to each other’s time were interesting, and the characters from the past were good, but while it was interesting to imagine what culture might have been like 3,000 years ago, we don’t get enough time there to go much beyond stereotypes, and spent too much time in the lead-up. An ok book, but not one I think I’ll feel the need to revisit.
This was the last book I finished in 2020, though I ended the year 2/3 of the way through some Susanna Clarke short stories, so I ended on a better note than this.
Many Waters, by Madeleine L’Engle, was published in 1986 and is the fourth book in a series about the exceedingly strange adventures of the Murry children.
Somehow, though I read and loved the first three books in the series growing up, I missed reading book four, so I thought it was time to rectify that mistake.
This story follows twins Sandy and Dennys (which I think is just an alternate spelling of “Dennis”? I have never been 100% sure). They are the most “normal” presenting of the brilliant Murry children, and did not go on the adventures that their siblings Meg and Charles Wallace went on in the first three books.
Sandy and Dennys, arriving home one winter afternoon, don’t see the sign on the door of their parents’ lab/ garage that says “experiment in progress” and are flung back in time—all the way back to the time of Biblical Noah.
It’s an interesting look at what things might have been like in a strange time in a strange story. I have lots of questions about unicorns and mammoths now, but also, it’s weird to include unicorns and mammoths in a pre-flood culture—did they just go extinct? I have mixed feelings about the success of the story which, while interesting, seemed very far removed from any story set on Earth.
I kind of wish Sandy & Dennys had traveled to a different planet instead of being flung back in Earth history, because thinking that this was supposed to just be primitive Earth brought up so many more questions than otherwise.
In general, I think the first three stories in this set are stronger, though that could also be that I experienced those stories as a child. There’s no nostalgia for this story for me, and that might be a contributing factor.
Well, one things I’ve noticed about this year is that I’ve found it more difficult to read books and keep my focus. So I only have two completed books to report for November….
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, by V. E. Schwab (2020)
Like Belle in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, Adeline LaRue wants much more than her provincial life in a 17th c. French village. She’s an artist and a dreamer, and doesn’t want to marry a widower and raise his children. So she makes a deal with the god of darkness to live as long as she wants. He can have her soul when she’s finished with it.
As with all deals, the devil (so to speak) is in the details, and Addie is cursed to be forgotten by everyone. As soon as she is out of sight, everyone forgets her. She can make no mark upon the world, no writing, drawing, nothing to make people remember her.
But Addie is determined to live, to explore the world, and to leave a mark in some way. If people cannot remember her, perhaps she can inspire them.
After 300 years, Addie meets someone who does remember her! But why? And how long will it last?
The premise is interesting and the story goes back and forth in time, chronicling Addie’s 300 years of life. I was less interested in the story of the boy who remembers Addie, but this was still a fun story. It’s got more about Addie’s inner life and the loneliness of living (and she has a lot of one-night stands) than it does on details of magic and gods, more contemplative than adventure tale, so keep that in mind.
★ ★ ★ ★
My Cousin Rachel, by Daphne du Maurier (1951)
This was for my 50 Classics list, so I’m giving it its own review post here.
It’s not really fall without one slightly creepy book, is it? Du Maurier is probably best known for her book Rebecca, but My Cousin Rachel is another story with a young, somewhat naive narrator who is overshadowed by a mysterious woman.
Philip Ashley has grown up under the tutelage of his cousin Ambrose, a bachelor, on the Ashley estate in Cornwall, England. When Ambrose goes abroad for his health, Philip runs things at home and is surprised to read in letters that Ambrose has married a woman named Rachel. Ambrose soon becomes ill and then paranoid that Rachel and her Italian financial advisor, Rainaldi, are poisoning him. Eventually, Abrose dies in Italy.
Philip is convinced that Rachel is a murderess, but his godfather thinks it a symptom of a hereditary brain tumor.
Rachel comes to visit…and Philip is smitten. Being 24 and never even having a crush on a girl, he doesn’t realize his unhealthy infatuation for a long time, though it’s obvious to his friends.
Since the book is written exclusively from Philip’s perspective, we are often left a little in doubt of others’ motivations and are left with his interpretations of events. Is Rachel a gold-digging widow come to get money out of a young, impressionable heir? Is she a murderer? Is she an impulsive pretty woman with uncertain (read: not English Protestant) morals? How does she really feel about…anything?
Part of what’s interesting about this story is that with the limited perspective, a lot is open to interpretation. I would love to read this with a group and hear multiple perspectives and theories about what really happened. Philip has his own views of what happened, but do they reflect reality?
An atmosphere of melancholy pervades this book, mostly the journal entries of our narrator, Piranesi. He lives mostly alone in the World–or at least, in a large sprawling House of stone with statues and strange tides.
He visits twice a week with the Other, a man who comes to question Piranesi about the House and a secret knowledge which he’s sure they can discover if they keep looking for it (and by “they,” he means Piranesi).
It quickly becomes clear that Piranesi is an unreliable narrator (or maybe just a narrator with an extremely limited view) and that something is strange about the House with its innumerable halls, exquisite statues, and silence.
It’s hard to say much about the plot as the story takes some turns that the reader discovers with Piranesi.
Clarke has said that she was inspired by C.S. Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew, and I can certainly draw connections between that book and this (there are a couple of direct references to the Narnia series, though they in no way detract from the story).
While Clarke’s first novel Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is large and sprawling, a nineteenth century work written in the twenty-first century, this is a tighter, more contained world, like a little spiral seashell (it’s under 300 pages). Clarke’s writing still has that sense of loneliness, her characters have an undertone of melancholy, and while Piranesi may evoke pity, he never gives in to despair. There’s always a glimmer of hope.
This was a lovely meditation on loneliness, belonging, home, and safety.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban, by J.K. Rowling (1999)
After I listened to the first book in the Harry Potter series I thought it would be fun to continue…so I skipped to the third book. It’s not that I don’t like the second book, it’s just that 2020 has been tough and this is my reading life and I think Rowling’s writing took a big step up in book 3.
So. Harry and his friends are back at school, but this year’s threat comes from a convict, Sirius Black, who escaped from the wizard prison of–you guessed it–Azkaban. He might be trying to hunt down Harry, so everyone is a little on edge.
There’s a new professor, Remus Lupin, who bonds with Harry, which is a bright spot compared with the potions master, Snape, who is a terrible teacher as well as a garbage person. Lupin actually cares about his students and encourages them to learn. He pays special attention to some of the overlooked and bullied students (Neville), which I appreciated.
I know there are reasons Rowling wrote Snape as being so horrible, and part of it might be that as a kid things can feel more intense than they can feel to an adult, but there were definitely ways to write a character like Snape without making him quite so unforgivably terrible. He’s abusive, prejudiced, and while he personally may be good at potions, he has no idea how to teach anyone else and there is no excuse for him behaving as he does to children! And now I’m angry at Dumbledore for allowing him to teach at his school.
Anyway, pedagogical difficulties aside, I enjoyed this entry into the series. It’s got new characters and the world expands in new and interesting ways.
I listened to the audio book narrated by Stephen Fry, and he does a great job (note: the American audio version is read by Jim Dale, who probably also does a good job, but I’m sad Scholastic thought they needed to make a separate “translated” version for American).
It was nice to read some books lighter in tone during a year that is decidedly not light in tone.
★ ★ ★ ★
The Magician’s Nephew, by C. S. Lewis (1955)
Continuing the “read lighter books” theme, I went back to the source of Susanna Clarke’s inspiration. I read this one a chapter or two right before bed, which was a great call.
Digory Kirke and Polly Plummer and neighbors who stumble into the study of Digory’s Uncle Andrew and become experiments for his magical theories (Uncle Andrew’s theories, not Digory’s).
They discover a place that is a portal to many different worlds and explore two of them in the pages of the book. In the first, Charn, they accidentally wake a witch and in the second they arrive to see the creation of Narnia.
This is such a hopeful book. It’s about magic and uncertainty, mistakes, forgiveness, and new beginnings. There are warnings about the dangers (or at least, unpredictability) of magic and also a warning to those who think they are above the rules.
I also love that Aslan doesn’t just clap his paws together to solve all the problems. When Digory comes to ask for help for his dying mother, Aslan responds this way: “‘My son, my son,’ said Aslan. ‘I know. Grief is great. Only you and I in this land know that yet. Let us be good to one another.'” He weeps with Digory and is present with him, and then he sends him on a quest to protect Narnia from the witch Digory introduced into the new land.
He does return to Digory’s problem later. But he doesn’t rush to solve it immediately, nor does he downplay or say that his mother’s suffering is “for the best.” This beautiful theme of presence stood out to me in this reading, and I appreciated Lewis’s handling of it.
Austin Fey 