Readit 2011: OZNZauthors

April's Readit2011 reading challenge theme was Australian and New Zealand authors.

Leviathan & Behemoth by Scott Westerfield are steam punk/alternative history novels written for teens.  His fast paced stories have mechanical walking battleships, genetically engineered living airships, a runaway prince, and a girl masquerading as a boy (and out doing them all), action, adventure, friendship and morality.  Keith Thomson’s wonderful illustrations add the readers understanding of the technologies found in Westerfield’s world, and to early 20^th century “feel” of the book.  Highly recommended.

Melina Marchetta’s depiction of Sydney’s inner west in Looking for Alibrandi, Saving  Francesca and The Pipers Son is so realistic that I actually had a discussion with a colleague about whether or not her characters had taken the quickest and most obvious route driving from one scene to another!  Apart from a strong sense of place, Marchetta creates believable characters.  I made a mistake in reading  the related  books in reverse order, (The Pipers Son then Saving Francesca), but they read well as stand alone novels.

Time and place were wonderfully evoked in Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet.  Though I’ve read and loved his more recent novels, I’d not read Cloudstreet, perhaps because I was sure that it could not possibly live up to its reputation.   I was not disappointed, and understand why this novel appears so often on “Australia’s favorites” lists.

Hugo Vickers & the Duchess of Windsor

“No publishers...” Hugo Vickers records “were especially excited by the prospect of a new biography..” of the Duchess of Windsor, unless the biographer ”could come up with a new angle” (pg 229).  The angles, or “elements on which I now seek to impose order” (pg 11) that Vickers adopts in writing Behind Closed Doors: The Tragic Untold Story of the Duchess of Windsor are two fold: Firstly, “the ongoing fate of the Duchess of Windsor” (pg 11) after the Duke’s death, and secondly “a personal quest” of one who “has mulled over the events of the Abdication and sought the truth behind it” (pg 10-11).

The book is divided into two parts: “The Death, and “The Life”.  The second section, “The Life” is a fairly straightforward retelling of the events of the Duchess of Windsor’s life .  It is the first section of the book, “The Death” that is most interesting.  Beginning in 1972 with the Duke’s death, and ending with an account of the auction of some of the Windsor’s remaining household items in 1998, it is as much the story of Vickers’ fascination with the royalty, as that of the decline and death of the Duchess of Windsor.

Recounting his involvement, and quoting from his own diaries, Vickers creates a sense of intimacy and immediacy for his readers.  Working for Burkes Peerage, Vickers visits the offices of the Windsor’s staff. On one occasion, “while I was there the internal telephone on the desk rang.  It was the Duchess, and so the closest I ever got to her was to hear her voice on the telephone” (Pg 84). (There is no suggestion that Vickers answered the phone himself, but that he was present when the Duchess’s secretary took her call.)

 An association with St George’s Chapel enables Vickers to be present in the organ loft at the funeral of Marina, Duchess of Kent, which “greatly irritated the then Dean, Chapter Clerk and Virger” (pg 8).  From this position, he watches the Duke of Windsor leave at the end of the service, and observes sadly “It was his last ever visit to England and I never saw him in person again” (pg 8).

When unable to be present in person at an event, Vickers maintains the immediacy by providing the reader with information on his own whereabouts.  When the Queen visits the Duchess of Windsor in Paris, a day after Vickers too had been to France, he observes “I was back at my ... family home...in time to see the TV news bulletins of the Duchess of Windsor...coming out of the house with the Queen, Prince Philip and Prince Charles” (pg 15).

Vickers maintains an interest in the Duchess of Windsor during the years she spent after the Duke’s death, secluded and unwell. He recounts watching her home from the street outside on two occasions during her lifetime , and visiting with a friend after her death in 1986.  With much crinkling of banknotes, they were able to tour the drawing room and dining room downstairs, and the Dukes bedroom and bathroom, and the Duchess’s bedroom (but not her bathroom) upstairs.  Finally, when some of the Windsor’s  surviving household items are auctioned in New York in 1998, Vickers shares “a Lot containing towels and bathmats with a friend, paying rather over the odds for then” (pg 236).

Vickers writes with sympathy for the Duchess of Windsor, suggesting that she did not encourage the abdication, and suffered its consequences with dignity.   Her decline into painful and vulnerable ill health is documented, as are the actions of her French lawyer, Suzanne Blum, who Vickers believes ruthlessly exploited  the Duchess's vulnerability.  The readers real enjoyment of this book with come from Vickers descriptions of his own interactions with his subject, however.

Readit 2011 SpecFic

The Readit2011 theme for March was Specfic – Speculative fiction encompassing fantasy and paranormal romance.

I've never read Orson Scott Card's books, but his most recent novel, The Lost Gate,   was highly recommended by a borrower in my library.   Card is best known for his science fiction, but here he writes fantasy.   Danny, who has grown up as the only unmagical member of a magical family, finds that he actually has the most prized and dangerous talent of all, he is a Gatemage. Centuries ago, the gates between this world and the world of Westil were closed by a rogue Gatemage, and all knowledge of this magic forbidden.  Danny must flee his family and develop his magic without being detected.  I found the writing quite uneven, at times it flowed, and reading was effortless, other sections were quite clumsy, and I was tempted to put the book down without finishing – but persevered, because I rarely give up on a book.

I tried some of Nalini Singh's paranormal romance Psy-changling series last month, and decided to give her urban fantasy Angel series a go this month.  Elena Deveraux is a vampire hunter in a world where angels rule and vampires are their indentured servants. In both books (Archagels Kiss & Angels Blood) she's involved in solving grisley murders.  The sex and violence are graphic - this is definitley not a vampire book to recommend to teens.

Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate steampunk series was highly recommended by several speakers at a State Library event. In a version of Victorian London, where Vampires and Werewolves are respected, well dressed members of aristocratic society, Alexia Tarabotti labours under a great many social tribulations:  she's a statuesque, half Italian bluestocking born without a soul. These books are great fun, and quite addictive. Having bought and read the first three in the series (Soulless, Changeless & Blameless) I'm now eagerly awaiting the publication of the fourth.

I'm not usually attracted to fantasy epics, but I was inspired to try Way of Shadows after listening to Brent Weeks speak..  The story opens in the dangerous slums of a faction ridden city, where a young boy attempts to improve his life by apprenticing himself to an assassin.  The setting and large cast of characters are believable, and the story moves quickly, with lots of well written action scenes. Having read the first book, I hunted out the second and third (Shadows Edge, Beyond the Shadows), and wouldn't hesitate to recommend these books to a reader looking for fast paced fantasy, who doesn’t mind violence and a body count in the thousands.   One complaint, however, is that while the editions I read have maps, there is no list of character.  If authors insist on inventing a the plethora of characters with strange name, the least they could do is provide the poor struggling reader with a descriptive list.