Master & Commander by Patrick O'Brian

Well, this certainly took me a long while to get finished. I've mentioned before the fact that I was up to my eyes in essays, but still, this was a bit of a slog. Taking out the panic factor, I'll try explaining below.

This is usually the part where I outline the book's plot, in a spoiler-free way. I can't really do that here. Not because Master & Commander has a lot of twists and turns like Invisible Monster. Rather, I can't explain the plot because it doesn't really have one. The best I could do would probably be to say that it's a record of the first few cruises that Captain Jack Aubrey and his surgeon Stephen Maturin experience together. Otherwise, there really is no over-arching plot thread: instead, it feels more like a set of short stories involving the same characters strung together in chronological order. That leaves me in a strange position. Part of me really wants to take away something more over-arching and lasting, so the plot structure irks me as a result. Another part of me then steps in and says that I'm being silly: it's truer to life and it's not as if it's badly written, so what am I complaining about? The result of this conflict is that, basically, Master & Commander's plot leaves me completely cold. But that by itself wouldn't bother me, so long as the characters were good.
Which is where another problem comes in. The characters feel a bit flat. Of course, Aubrey and Maturin feel nicely fleshed out and identifiable, if occasionally blindingly stupid in Aubrey's case. But then that's to be expected: if you can't flesh out your main characters, you've automatically killed your novel's appeal. My problem was that there's only one other character that I can think of who was really given any actual character. To me, it felt like there were a ton of names being thrown about, only a few of which I could actually identify. Even if I did manage to identify them, they had maybe one trait that differentiated him from any other person onboard the ship, so identification wasn't really all that helpful. It just feels really frustrating, because I know that O'Brian can do good characterisation, as evidenced in his main characters; it just feels like he couldn't be bothered to extend that to the rest of the crew.
My other main gripe is a technical one, and is probably very easy to overcome if you aren't trying to finish a degree at the same time like I was. The book is quite fond of naval terms and the only help given by the book itself was a little guide at the front naming the different sails. The sails were not the things usually talked about in complex terms. Everything else was, just not the sails. I suppose that that's why Maturin was included, as he is a surgeon unfamiliar with naval terms and procedures when the book starts. The problem with that is that presumably Maturin has visual help, which the reader doesn't, so there's an automatic disadvantage. What really doesn't help is that Maturin stops asking questions about halfway through, so if you're still struggling with the terminology, you're just sort of left to wallow.

I kind of feel bad about giving Master & Commander such a negative review, because it is not a badly written book. It never becomes boring as such, it's just that I can't find it in myself to praise a book that was such a hard slog for me. I suppose that those already interested in naval history might enjoy it and appreciate it more than me, but I would give it a miss if you aren't prepared for the long haul. I would say watch the movie version instead, but it's nothing like this so it's not really that good a substitute. That and my natural dislike of Russell Crowe has kicked in. 3/5

Next review: The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo

Signing off,
Nisa.

Wow. Pink.

As you can see, I changed the blog's look a little bit. I was personally finding the old look was getting a bit boring, so I changed it. I'm eager to know what you guys think. I was aiming for more of a red look, but this is nice as it doesn't go too overboard. If anyone has any tips for working with the templates more, then please let me know. Also, let me know if this is more/less easy to read in the new colours; if it's less, then I'm sure I can figure something out as an alternative.

Signing off,
Nisa.

An update.

Hey guys. It's been a while, huh? This is just an update letting you know that the review of Master and Commander is going to be a while in coming, for several reasons that I will now spell out for you:

1. This is the period before I hand in my dissertations, as well as a few other essays, so I am a tad busy. 
2. Any time not spent writing is being spent at work experience. 
3. After all the writing is done, it's prep for exams. 
4. When I was being picked up to go back home with the parents, I accidentally forgot to pack Master and Commander, so even if I did have the time, I don't actually have it here with me. 
5. Master and Commander is kind of a slow read anyway. I'm struggling with the terminology. 

I'm really sorry for the delay, as I can't see any new content being uploaded until the end of April at the very earliest (and even that's a stretch). I was thinking of jazzing up my layout though, so you have that to look forward to instead? 

Afterwards, I'll probably have more time for reading though, so the updates should come faster at the very least. 

Signing off, 

Nisa. 

Windfall by Penny Vincenzi

Wow, I've neglected this blog for a while now, haven't I? February has been a weird month for me, and the weirdness will probably continue until I get my dissertations in and my schedule evens out a bit. As it is, my schedule has meant that my reading of Windfall was rather sporadic, shall we say. In any case, I've finally got it done and I get to revisit my poor neglected blog.

Windfall is actually pretty complex plot-wise. The plot is triggered when Cassia, the wife of a village doctor, finds out that she has inherited half a million pounds from her godmother. Up until this point, Cassia hasn't really enjoyed her life, feeling that her duty to her husband and children has been preventing her from following the medical career that has prepared herself for for most of her life; now with the money, she finds that she can ease herself back into the workplace, a move that fills her husband, Edward, with resentment. The money also brings her back into close contact with her godmother's family and friends, several of whom also become centrally involved in the very convoluted plot. All of this is also reflected in the historical setting, which details the short reign of King Edward VIII and his controversial relationship with divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson.
This book is essentially a soap opera set in interwar Britain. The amount of plot threads and melodrama that packed into over 600 pages is quite extraordinary, now that I think about it. I only realised just how much like a soap opera it was when I was talking to my fiancé about it: failed/failing marriages everywhere you look, dark secrets, disastrous misunderstandings and much more. To be honest, I generally find soap operas to be laughable at best, so I was surprised at how I was still somehow invested in what was some of the most over-the-top plotting that I've seen in a long time. That I was invested at all considering how lukewarm I felt about it at the start is something of an achievement too; in the beginning, the reader is focused pretty much entirely on Cassia and her marriage to Edward, and they are by far the weakest characters of the entire book. With Cassia, she managed to be both a Mary Sue (a character idealised by the author regardless of actual merit or character) and completely uninteresting: usually Mary Sues are hilarious because of their over-the-top characterisation and poor construction; in Cassia's case she was just boring, but somehow treated by other characters as if she were this extraordinary force of personality. Combine that with a background in which EVERY SINGLE ADULT involved in her childhood was feminist to one degree or another; I'm sorry, I know that she was meant to appeal to a modern audience, but I cannot believe that in the day and age that it was set in that she would have had so many people telling her "Hell yeah, you can be a doctor if you work hard enough!" You just about get that as it is today, let alone in the 1910s. As for Edward, never have I seen such an insufferable, bitter and insecure little man in fiction as him; I read about him and pretty much instantly pegged him as a "Nice Guy", so when Cassia starts feeling guilty about their failing marriage my first thought was "Ditch him. Now." I assume that I was meant to think, "Oh no, poor Cassia, she doesn't want to hurt him, but he's just not right for her." I couldn't, simply because it was so obvious that he was forcing her to stay in the role of home-maker, a role that she does not naturally lean towards or enjoy particularly, because he was scared that she might go into medicine and potentially *gasp* be better at it at it than him. It was pathetic and really unattractive to read about.
On the other hand, the side characters are actually pretty interesting. My favourite was probably Cecily, a high-class woman married to Cassia's godmother's brother, Benedict; her attempts to make her marriage work when it's clear that her husband's straying interest is making it fall apart is truly heartbreaking, but at the same time it is easy to see where she is only contributing to its failure despite her intentions. Another character who was very interesting was Edwina, who decides to start working as a means to delay an inevitable confession to the husband that she sometimes gets along with but has never truly loved; she was more spiky and abrasive, with a very self-centred world view, but was nonetheless fascinating to watch if not terribly sympathetic at times. These two are by no means the only wonderful characters in this book: hell, you could include almost the entire cast in this category, which only makes it all the more frustrating that the author chose Cassia as her main lead.

Overall, Windfall was entertaining, but very flawed. I would recommend this to people who don't mind reading something that reads like a soap opera but are still in for the long haul. I might read it again someday, but I can't imagine it would be with any real urgency. 3.5/5

Next review: Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian

Signing off,
Nisa.

Nothing Less Than a Man by Miguel de Unamuno

This was a difficult one to get my hands on in English. This was the last university text that I had to find and read, and the fact that the book it came in didn't appear to be in print over in the UK only made it that much harder. Hence why I have an old, battered copy of Three Exemplary Novels that I had to get shipped from the US. So after all that, was Nothing Less Than a Man worth the time and effort?

Nothing Less Than a Man starts with a young woman named Julia, who is renowned for miles around for her beauty. Her father is experiencing financial troubles and sees her beauty as a means of clearing that debt; aware that her father means to sell her, Julia starts having relationships with the men who attempt to court her, in order to find a man who loves her enough to elope with her. Eventually she attracts the attention of Alejandro Gomez, a mysterious self-made man who has just moved into the area. In return for paying off her father's debts, he asks for a meeting with Julia, who is so taken with him that she immediately accepts his proposal of marriage. Thus, things are happy for a time, this happiness only marred by Julia's uncertainty about Alejandro: does he truly love her or did he just want a trophy wife?
This didn't end the way that I thought it would. After certain hints, Alejandro starts to take on these ruthless, Bluebeard-style qualities, based on the little of his life that the reader can gather, but he doesn't really seem to realise the potential of such qualities. It's weird. I'm happy that I wasn't able to predict how the plot would end, but at the same time it's left me in a strange position of being unable to describe just what it was that I read. On reflection, I guess that overall I liked the portrayal of the marital relations of someone who is desperate for proof of their spouse's love, potentially at the cost of her marriage or sanity.

This is another quick read that I would be happy to recommend, should you come across a copy of Three Exemplary Novels. I'd certainly be willing to read other works of Unamuno's, if anyone has read anything of his that they would recommend. 3.5/5

Next review: Windfall by Penny Vincenzi

Signing off,
Nisa.

Frankenstein: Prodigal Son by Dean Koontz

When I decided to re-read Frankenstein to tie in with my university course, I remembered that I had bought the re-interpretation of it by Dean Koontz, largely on a whim; I figured that it might be useful, so I took it with me as a potential read. And, stuck waiting for my last university text to arrive in the post, I was stuck for something quick to read in the meantime. Hence why I have two Frankenstein related posts within a few days of each other. The obvious question is how does this version stack up against the original. 

Prodigal Son has several plot-lines. First you have the Creature, here named Deucalion, who travels to New Orleans after an old friend of his reveals that his creator, who has renamed himself Victor Helios, is still alive after 200 years. Second you have a murder mystery plot, in which Detectives Carson O'Connor and Michael Maddison try to track down a serial killer who is removing body parts from his victims. Third you have Victor Helios as he does all kinds of creepy things in the name of creating a utopia, as well as the reactions from the fourth version of his wife-creature. And finally, you have Randal Six, a creature created by Victor who was deliberately designed to have a severe form of autism, a condition that he believes he can remedy by meeting another severely autistic teenager, Arnie O'Connor. 

For the most part, these plot-lines are woven together with skill, and for the most part they do meet a temporary form of resolution by the end, but considering that this is the first part of a 5-book series, I'm not too worried about the loose plot threads. In terms of the review, I think it would be an idea to look at each in turn, as they tend to deal with one or two major characters each. 

So, Deucalion. I like him about as much as I liked the Creature in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. I like the fact that he is at once very human and sympathetic, but at the same time holding back a lot of murderous rage that had gotten the better of him in the past, events covered in the original. I also liked the history that Koontz creates for him in the interim between the events of Frankenstein and those of Prodigal Son, primarily the idea of him being part of a carnival freak show; something about that makes a really sick kind of sense and makes for interesting acquaintances. There is one major problem though: it almost felt like he was a cameo in his own story. He's introduced at the start, then doesn't really turn up again until Carson and Michael get in over their heads, making him feel a bit like a deus ex machina. I really hope that this is addressed in later books, but at the moment it's something that left me disappointed. 

The murder mystery plot is very well handled. At first the solution appears simple to the reader, but then there are certain revelations about the murders that complicate what the reader thinks he knows. The outcome makes sense and the ultimate show-down is well-paced if a little disappointing because of the aforementioned Deucalion-deus-ex-machina bit. The characters of Carson and Michael are well-written, if very familiar, characters. Carson is the serious, driven one with family to avenge and protect, while Michael is the wise-cracking sidekick who carries a torch for his partner; pretty standard stuff, so much so that I ended up hearing the main characters from Castle in my head when they spoke. Regardless, their chemistry was fun, despite the predictable nature of it. 

Now to the other re-interpreted character, Victor. Oh my lord, has Victor changed almost completely in this. The version of Victor that Prodigal Son uses is undoubtedly a villain, as opposed to the original's more misguided nature. There are good things and bad things about this monumental change. I'll start with the good. On the plus side, it does bring an additional horror element to the book, as Victor is by far the creepiest thing in it; after 200 years, he has become a sadistic monster obsessed with achieving perfection, whether it be at the dinner table or in his lab trying to create the perfect race with which to infiltrate, eliminate and replace humanity with. He has plenty of moments that are somewhat reminiscent of Hannibal Lecter, which is fun. Unfortunately, one thing that this version of Victor is not is subtle in any way shape or form. Firstly, Koontz seems to feel that he needs to include things to show just how evil he is; there are three main things that come to mind. One, he needs to beat the crap out of his wife in order to get aroused, which is why she is the only creature he makes that is designed with the capability of shame. Two, he is an atheist so aggressive that he considers decommissioning the current model of his wife because she appears to enjoy the poetry of Emily Dickenson. Three, he eats live baby rats; at that point in the book, I couldn't help but feel that Victor had crossed the line from creepy complete monster to cartoon villain. To be honest, I can see why Victor is irredeemably evil here, as it creates a long-term villain for the good guys to fight. The one thing that did irritate me about Victor was that he actually mentions Frankenstein in his internal monologue, because apparently this is supposed to be our version of the universe, and he insults Mary Shelley's characterisation; I know that this is a villain's point of view, but it rubbed me up the wrong way a little as it seemed a bit disrespectful towards the source material. Perhaps I'm looking into it too much, but oh well. The only other character of note from Victor's storyline is Erika, the creature made to be Victor's wife. She was sweet and likeable, but ultimately it felt like she was just there to show how evil Victor was through his treatment of her. 

Finally there's Randal Six. He's an autistic creature who Victor is experimenting on to figure out how to cure autism. He's confined to his room not by locks, but by the intense agoraphobia brought on by all the information that he is bombarded with by the world outside; his only means of calming himself down is by filling in crossword puzzles. I found these chapters to be very uncomfortable, simply because of the severity of his symptoms. It's odd, but part of me can't help but feel that Randal's mindset is probably the most alien out of all the various viewpoint characters that are showcased; while Victor is creepy and undeniably evil, I can understand why he thinks the way he does. I can understand Deucalion's mindset despite his widely different experiences. The best I can do for Randal's character is pity him, because I honestly have no concept of a mindset that non-neurotypical and I don't think I ever will. It leaves me confused as to what to think of Randal at the end of the book as he is both pitiable and a very real threat. It feels strange that Koontz should have Victor, a villain as subtle as a brick to the face, juxtaposed with a character as ambiguous as Randal Six. Much as I would like to see how this character develops further though, I must admit that as a work by itself, Randal's chapters in Prodigal Son feel by far the most superfluous. I hope he gets more plot significance later on though. 

So, there's the end of my very long review. So what did I think overall? It was okay. Nowhere near as good as Shelley's original, but it's definitely a good popcorn book. Victor's characterisation is changed so much that it almost becomes an exercise in cartoon villainy, but otherwise it works well with the source material. 3.5/5 

Next review: Nothing Less Than a Man by Miguel de Unamuno 

Signing off, 

Nisa. 

Gaslight by Patrick Hamilton

This is a play that I had never even heard of until it was set as part of my course on the Gothic; apparently there's also a film version of it that I had never heard of either. But, after reading the premise, I was intrigued about where it would head. So, after a very quick read-through, what did I think?

Gaslight starts in a dark and dingy Victorian house, where we meet married couple Jack and Bella Manningham. Tension is running high between them, due to a series of objects going missing around the house, only to turn up hidden in strange places; Bella is assigned the blame for this, but because she doesn't remember doing anything of the sort she believes that she has inherited her mother's madness. It is only when she is visited by a former police detective while her husband is out that Bella is given reason to suspect that he might not be the man she thought he was.
For me, the plot would have been more suspenseful if the blurb hadn't summed up the entirety of the play. As a plot though, it's well executed, if a tad predictable at times. Rough, the police detective, tends to lay the hints on rather thick. Although I will give the play credit for the fantastic final monologue that Bella gets, which is most satisfying considering the stuff she goes through in this.

Overall, a quick read and what I would imagine to be a thoroughly enjoyable play to watch. It's certainly made me interested in watching the film version with Ingrid Bergman. 4/5

Next review: Frankenstein: Prodigal Son by Dean Koontz

Signing off,
Nisa.