Where Hawkeye Finally Rests

The Prairie by James Fenimore Cooper
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I pretty much hated most of the book. But it finally got better at the end. (Probably more of a 2 star read. 1.5 even. But I'm sentimental.)

I had decided I would read all of the Leatherstocking Tales, and I found a little to enjoy in all of them, though I grew less and less interested as I worked through the series. They all have the same flaws--IMO--but they generally have a decent story to tell. The story is buried beneath a lot of nonsense, but there it is.

The main problem is JFC's horrible prose. When he's at his best, it's wordy. When he's at his worst, which is about 90% of the time, he's absurdly wordy beyond all reason, but also off-topic, rambling, and sermonizing, and it's especially his dialogue that offends. It is constantly so far removed from any human communication that it's more annoying and frustrating than reading should ever be. He has a naturalist in this story who is so absent-minded and argumentative, with such overblown language, that his dialogue went beyond humor to farce. (I won't quote any of his ridiculous professor-sounding speeches filled with Latin, but they are so bad and go on so long...) A bee-hunter is a character here, and he's an okay addition, but he constantly makes speeches with bee-inspired metaphors. Almost every speech has a bee in it somewhere. (Reminded me of the worst of Dickens.) And there are many others like this. Hawkeye--just called the Trapper in this novel--is the same here as everywhere, answering every question with a long soliloquy on the ways of the world and the gifts of the white man or red man and the natural ways of women or wild creatures or whatever. He gives two paragraph answers to yes/no questions, all without answering the question. And sometimes the narrator calls him prolix, as if we were meant to believe it's Hawkeye's problem and not the author's.

When he gets around to it, Cooper can tell a decent adventure story. That's why I kept reading; I convinced myself I'd learn to appreciate his books. That has only been true to a small degree. This time, he waits until about halfway through the book to start in on the actual plot. It's about then we discover a woman has been abducted and is hidden in a wagon headed across the prairie, all of this occurring in the days before settlers lived there. A family of outlaw rednecks are the villains in this part of the novel; later it's the Sioux. But even when we have Hawkeye in the story, helping the various white travelers, translating with the natives, he seldom does much of interest. He's more Jean Luc Picard here than James Kirk. He uses diplomacy to save his lives and others when they're captured various times, and it's okay, but not very adventurous. He's still pretty robust for a hero now in his 80s, but his part of the story mostly focuses on old-timer wisdom. The only real action he's responsible for is when the natives have trapped them with a wildfire, and he fights back with a fire of his own.

The very end leads us first to his goodbyes with all the settlers heading back to the settlements, followed by a last visit from one of those friends (months later, but only a page later in the book) where Nathaniel Bumppo/Pathfinder/Deerslayer/Hawkeye/Le Longue Carabine/Trapper finally dies. That part is actually very affecting, with language a little less overwritten, filled with a deep sense of melancholy. Those five pages are very good. It almost makes it worth reading the rest.

I'm glad I read these. I'm glad I'm done. You might like them, but they're a lot of work.

I don't think the juice is worth the squeeze, but you're welcome to check.

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Where the Allegory Gets Tedious Quick

The Romance of the Rose by Guillaume de Lorris
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Wow, this is drag. I almost never give a 1, but this one asked for it. IMO.

It was a self-imposed homework assignment. If it were a novel, I would have DNF'ed it about 50 pages in. The only things I've finished with almost as little interest were Tristram Shandy and Gargantua and Pantagruel. I did like one thing about this--I enjoyed the pencil notations in the margins made by some earnest student. (I imagined a young, serious-minded Chinese-American English major, for some reason, reading this for her degree. The tiny perfect handwriting put me in that mind. It could have been anybody, though.)

The first 60 pages, written by the original poet, are passable. Silly, but okay. The rest, added by another author, just get ridiculous. This silly conceit, of a dreamer imagining a perfect rose he loves and wants to possess, where every character is an allegorical quality like Fair Welcome or Jealousy or whatever, is a slightly amusing look at the difficulties of love. But it is at least mostly on topic. The rest of the work is all over the place. It talks about government and the abuses of corrupt judges; it talks about religion and hypocrites; it retells myths and legends; discusses philosophy and optics; and on and on. The author's point is opaque. In places, the dreamer (the narrator) is relating what a character said, who is at times quoting someone else, and figuring out if the author agrees or disagrees with the claims is about impossible. (Which even the editors of the book I read it from said.) But they give huge speeches that are basically sermons--even called sermons a time or two--and they are so far off topic from anything happening in this dream story that it's just nuts.

I thought something would emerge that interested me. I was wrong. If you like pointless digressions and wild bird-walks away from anything resembling a rational point, this--like Tristram Shandy, probably, and lots of Dickens--is gonna be your jam. (I'll send you my copy.) : ) If you prefer a point, well, here's my point: there is no FOMO to worry about. You are definitely not missing out. Read a better book.

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Where They Give the People What They Want

The great Galeoto; a drama in three acts and a prologue by José Echegaray
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I thought I was liking this play, but it took a turn. It's well written enough--Spanish plays have ridiculously long speeches that I don't love--but the ending was very annoying. It was making a point, which took it from entertainment to sermon, and it wasn't a pleasure to read. And I pretty much only read for pleasure, so...

[I agreed with the sermon, though. Gossip is stupid, it's stupid to care about gossip, it's hurtful for everyone, and judging people when you don't know the truth is serious BS. I agree with all that.]

Also, it has a pointless prologue. No reason for it to be there, IMO.

Ernesto (I forget, is he about 20?) his lived for some time with a friend of his father's because his father, before his death, did the friend (Don Julian) a service. He's respectful toward Don Julian and grateful and lives happily with him and his young wife. He's very considerate of her and enjoys her company, but there is no secret affair. Nevertheless, neighbors claim that there is. Don Julian's brother tells him the neighbors all talk, and after that he starts to believe it. Ernesto moves out, hears gossip in a bar, and challenges the guy to a duel. His sorta-dad finds out, fights the duel in his place, believing Ernesto really was having an affair with his wife. And his wife, meanwhile, is asking Ernesto not to go through with the duel because it will look like she's guilty. When she's found in his home, it confirms everyone's wrong impression.

Don Julian won't believe her, and [spoiler, sorry] dies not believing her. His brother wouldn't let Teodora enter the room to try to set him straight before he died, and after he was gone insisted she and Ernesto both leave. She faints and Ernesto takes her up, saying society forced them together and it's society's fault that their lies became the truth at the end.

Interesting. Not terribly fun. I kinda thought they would work it out. It felt a little like Othello, where the jealous husband could have been happy if he had just believed his virtuous wife. Society was Iago, pouring poison in his ear.

Tragedies are not my jam. I liked some of this, and it is mildly thought-provoking, but I won't seek out more examples of it. I offer a slight recommendation for those curious about it. Not a demanding read in translation.

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Where Hadrian Goes AWOL

Empire of Silence by Christopher Ruocchio
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

There are aspects of this book that are amazing. The author is a fantastic writer of prose. There is some great world-building. And I really wonder what will happen going forward in this unique star-traveling future.

But the story is so very slow. Frustratingly slow. And the author gives our main character almost no wins to tide us over. Just screw-ups and failures and the wrong thing said at the wrong time, over and over. It tries your patience. We get way too much of his life before anything relating to the plot happens. It feels like 17th century picaresque for most of its length instead of a modern novel.

Since I started this book, I have also started and finished about 30 other books. It took me months to read this, a 20-page chunk at a time, maybe every second or third day, more often only one chunk a week. It was too much work with too little reward.

I know some people read for prose. I'm not one of those people. But the story is, ultimately, a good one; it's just postponed and stretched out and wandered away from again and again, put on the back burner. I almost DNF'ed a dozen times. But I wanted to know what was gonna happen. In the last 40 or 50 pages, it feels like we're back on track to find out.

So--prose is a 5. Setting and world-building is a 4 or 5. Characters and character development, probably near a four. And pacing--about a 1. IMO, of course.

I won't start the second book for awhile. Maybe when I do I'll love it. Right now I'm gonna celebrate a win, because it took a lot to cross the finish line.

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Where Mitch Gets His Start

American Assassin by Vince Flynn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

These are entertaining books, and I liked it, but less than others in the series. There's a straightforward reason--this one has the training story. That's my least favorite part of any series, whether it's SF, thriller, fantasy, or whatever. It's slow and boring, and most time doesn't directly connect with the actual plot. That is the case here.

This wasn't the first book, but it's the first story, and it's worth telling, so it's reasonable. The series was doing well, and they decided to go back and show how Mitch Rapp got a start and became the dangerous agent that he is in all the other books. But watching a younger version of him go through all that training is a bummer. The second drawback of that decision is that he becomes a low-level newbie without any pull. Much of the attraction of the character in the other books is that he is already highly effective, extremely capable, and imbued with more agency than almost any character that isn't meant to be a villain. That's the fun. Here, he is held back for 90% of the book, hardly more than a bystander. It gets really fun at the very end when he is finally allowed to be Mitch Rapp.

It's still better than most thrillers, IMO. I'd still recommend it. But if you start with this one, you might be thinking that it's typical, when it isn't, at least not in my limited experience.

[I'm glad for the half and quarter points. I didn't like it quite as much as some 4 star reads, but it wasn't three, you know?]

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Where Ben And Lady Jennifer Get Their Courage Up

Always Remember: Ben's Story by Mary Balogh
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There aren't very many surprises in the book, but it does everything you want it too, just the same.

You know going in that illegitimate son/brother Ben is going to find some way to end up with the high-born but disabled Lady Jennifer. He doesn't fit in anywhere because of his origins; she doesn't fit well because the marriage market was cruel; but they're both great people who deserve to ignore the rules.

What I love about Mary Balogh books is the way she weaves in subplots and interesting conflicts. For Lady Jenny, there is a subplot regarding everyone who helps take care of her, especially her aunt, who is patient and giving but would kinda like to remarry, but she won't do anything to abandon her niece. And for Ben, there's the issue often brought up but never resolved about who his mother was, who her family was, and when a half-brother finds him and reaches out to him by letter, he's not sure if he wants to try to meet a whole family who may not want to actually know him. There's also his own family's feelings about who he is to them and how he should live his life, and he has a young daughter to think about. She really wants a mother, and he's prepared to choose someone he doesn't love if there is no other option.

So the romance progresses in fits and starts, with both cautious about being anything more than friendly, but his kindness changes her feelings, and her lovableness makes him start to have the courage to break society's rules. Both of their families see what is happening and urge them to be careful, but they win them over as much as they win each other over. As usual, the author has the main characters growing and changing individually as much as she has them growing together, and I find that very satisfying. And entertaining, of course.

The first half moves a little slowly (still pretty good), but it picks up the rest of the way, and the second half especially is great. IMO.

Recommended.

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Where Su Lin Gets Sidelined

The Paper Bark Tree Mystery by Ovidia Yu
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I liked some things about this book. I liked the main character, Su Lin, who is a mix of capable and vulnerable, who is quite kind but sort of okay with her mafioso-type family, who is well-behaved as well as fairly daring. I like the setting, which is Singapore during the years between the two world wars. I know very little about modern Singapore and nothing at all about it historically, so everything here was an education. And I support the rhetorical goals found in the themes of anti-colonialism and anti-empire, with Singapore trapped under British rule, like India, and in danger of Japanese expansion in the years to come. All good.

As a mystery, it's a snooze. What a drag. Nothing happens. The action is slow and not terribly entertaining, with most of the real action taking place offscreen. And Su Lin is not an effective investigator. She might as well have been a leaf on the wind describing what she saw for all she impacted the story (until the very last scene). I understand that in that time, given her demographics, she has little real agency--but what agency she does have she barely uses to solve this mystery. I blame the author for not giving her more interesting things to do, better clues to find, more secrets to pierce by her own efforts and her own logic. You expect a mystery novel to have a POV character who tries to solve the mystery, and yeah, she does some of that, but her sleuthing is so slight and produces so little new information she might not have bothered. Most of what she knows is stuff other people just tell her. The last 30 pages are pretty good, and there's some genuine action there, but that barely makes up for almost 300 pages of slow motion. IMO. I almost DNF'ed many times.

People generally love the novel, which I don't understand, but that's cool. I liked it some, as I explain above, but not enough to read another. We clearly are looking for different things when we read mysteries. Maybe this is meant to lean literary. Anyway, not my thing. YMMV

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