A Dark Mystery in a Dark Time

Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a very entertaining book and series. I've been reading it all out of order--you find what you find at used book stores--but that doesn't affect it much. The stories all work on their own.

This is the first, and yet it feels like there was another book before this where the characters were born. (Seems like there was more than just back-story behind this, as if there's a missing first book in the series didn't catch on. I don't know. Doesn't really matter.) In any case, the main character and her friends--she's a doctor from Salerno, working with a Jewish doctor and a Muslim man--set out for England to solve a long series of murders that are being blamed on the Jewish population of Cambridge.

This is the 1100's. None of them are well-received in England, but especially not a woman trying to practice medicine. Not done. So they have to pretend that Adelia is an assistant to the men, although she is the one with all the crucial skills to solve such cases.

The mystery here is compelling and horrifying, not to mention scary and disturbing and horrible, and the plotting is strong. Also, the world it's placed in, the world of 12th Century England under the much-maligned King Henry II (who is a great character here), is vividly recreated. (I just realized there's a map in the front that I really could have been using all along. Sheesh.) Good mystery, good history, good characters--there's a lot to like. And while I like the main character and appreciate what she brings to the story, I find her hard to really like. I'm not sure why. She just always seems a contrarian who makes it hard for anyone to talk to her. If there's any sweetness in Adelia, it isn't clear on the page. I can't figure out quite what the author is going for with her, but it may be a cultural difference between us that makes it hard for me to connect.

But I like the book and I'm cheering for the main character, even if I'd never want to chat with her in real life. If you want someone to catch your murderer, though, she's a good choice.

Recommended.

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Where Dan Models True Scholarship

The Bible Says So: What We Get Right (and Wrong) About Scripture’s Most Controversial Issues by Daniel McClellan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is such a great book. Highly recommended. And not just for people interested in the Bible or the history of religion--but definitely for those guys, as well.

Dan is one of the best things to happen to the world during COVID. He has a wide web presence, but I know him from TikTok, and he's amazing over there. Everything he brings to this wide discussion on social media is present in this book, which is why I love it.

First of all, the topics here--whether god lies in the Bible, whether he had a wife in the Bible, what the Bible "says" about abortion or rape or Satan, and so on--are interesting to many of us. Even non-religious people are affected by the beliefs people hold on these topics, by the arguments they make about them, by the policies they support or oppose based on these beliefs. And for someone raised in a religious tradition, discovering that many things I thought were so were not so, actually--well, that's like finding a secret room in your attic or something. Surprising. Exciting. Strange. And Dan nails these topics, presenting amazing evidence from a wide variety of sources to support his positions.

But when you get down to it, the central theme of his writing is always "Data over Dogma," and that controls everything he puts out. It's not just "prove your point with better examples than the other guy;" it's more like "amend your belief to correspond to what is demonstrated by scholarship, whether or not it matches what you were raised to believe." Combined with that, he shows great restraint in his rhetoric, very rarely employing sarcasm or negativity even when *ahem* we all feel like he could. That is because, I think, he deeply believes in the worth of persons--even people he absolutely disagrees with. And in all his videos and writing, at every step, he demonstrates the way we might move forward in our divided culture if we agreed to interact in a more elevated, careful way. Showing respect to people he disagrees with is a powerful example. Standing with the disenfranchised and marginalized instead of the entrenched powers when the data is ambiguous is another. Taking care in his language to avoid offense is another. Dan doesn't want the conversation derailed by unkindness or anger. People come after him, but he doesn't take the bait emotionally.

Instead, he writes a great book.

There are surprising, fun things in this book. There is a ton of amazing research (from many people) and the best modern scholarship, all centered on exciting questions that I wanted answers to. All of that makes it worth reading, without doubt. The content is fantastic. But the example he sets here (and in regular life) is probably the bigger reason to look at this book. This is how academics should work. This is how we should talk to each other. This is how we incorporate new information into our lives, even if it contradicts things we always believed.

Highly recommended.

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Where Jane Stares Down Byron

Jane and the Madness of Lord Byron by Stephanie Barron
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I still agree with 15-years-ago me--this is a very good book. 5 stars.

In this one, Jane and her recently-widowed brother are visiting Brighton for a little cheering up time, and on the way they rescue a young woman who is tied up in a coach, being taking north. Turns out, she's being abducted by Lord Byron. (This is fiction, though anything was possible with Byron.) When she's restored to her family, we learn that her dad's a jerk, blaming the poor kid for the actions of a pretty bad guy. This and that happens (visits and dances, that kind of thing), then the young woman is killed, drowned, and her body is discovered in Byron's bed.

You know that's gotta mean Byron didn't do it--but he really feels like the kind of guy who would. Various friends impose on Jane to help clear his name, despite her feelings about the guy. As always, Jane will search for the truth, whatever direction that takes her. Lots of bad guys to choose from here, including the Prince Regent and several people around him. Very salacious.

Caro Lamb is an important character in this one, the young woman who loved Byron to distraction, and she's wild, but super interesting. In fact, this whole novel is a bit wilder, a bit darker, a bit seamier, than earlier ones, even though all of them have had danger and bad guys and way more discussion of sex or sex crimes than you would ever find in Jane Austen's own novels. We are 200 years on, of course, so I think it's good. Realer. Rougher. Jane is undaunted, though even she is a little put off by Caro Lamb's "frankness" about bedroom topics.

Great plotting, great writing, wonderful characters. (I've still got a huge crush on our heroine. However, I fear she would call the literary version of me respectable and immediately forget me. Alas.) These novels are all fun to read, and this is one of my favorites.

Recommended. :)

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Where Achilles Loses It

The Iliad Translated by Samuel Butler by Homer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

(As always, I'm ranking this work of literature by how much I enjoyed reading it, how much fun it was, how interesting I found it. I am not gauging it's worth--I don't know how to do that. Not gonna try.)

My review of the Iliad: I liked it some. It's okay.

I don't remember if I've read it all the way through before, though I've definitely read big chunks at different times. I got this new hardcover version of an old (1898) translation as a gift, and though I may still read one of the new translations sometime, I decided to start here.

I thought it was not too bad--speaking both of the original work and the English translation. My least favorite part of the translation was that he used the names of the Roman gods instead of Greek--Jove, not Zeus; Minerva, not Athena; Juno, not Hera; and so on. Apollo was still Apollo.

I kinda forgot how narrow the story was. This takes us from Achilles deciding not to fight anymore to Hector's funeral (sorry! Spoilers!). The origins of the war and the first 9 years are skipped over; the end of the war isn't reached. What we do have is a lot of fighting and arguing, and naming of men as they die and which gruesome way it comes to them.

The parts I found most interesting were the places where they talked about the allies that came from this region or that city, on both sides of the war, and when they referred to towns and cities taken by the Achaeans before reaching Troy and the events of those campaigns. (The woman Briseis was was taken as a prize of war in one of those earlier fights, as were many slaves and treasures.) To be honest, it's this background stuff and the everyday life of the region I'm most interested in, like how much they knew about other lands, how much they traded with neighbors, what languages were spoken nearby, how the societies were set up, things like that, and in the midst of this war story we get some clues.

As far as storytelling and modern expectations, where we look for tension and a conflict that the main character tries to work through, where they succeed or fail on their merits, the Iliad is disappointing. This is largely due to the years separating them from us, and part of the issue is that they have different literary expectations. For example, it's clear that a lot of the background would be well-known to ancient listeners long before they heard any of the Iliad. Many of the characters that we barely get to know or know only by name could be heroes in other stories that Homer's audiences already loved, like Spiderman showing up in an Avengers movie. We don't have their background knowledge, so any pleasure we should have taken from that name-dropping goes whoosh over my head. And back then they might have been cool with all of the Olympian meddling going on, but I hated that. The gods move people around, deciding who wins today and who wins tomorrow, who lives and dies, so that striving makes no difference. Intention, bravery, effort all become pointless as far as storytelling goes if the gods are deciding everything. In a way, the story that matters is just what falls in the cracks between the interventions of the gods.

Priam begging Achilles to return his son's body to him is the most human and entertaining (IMO) part of the story. Even this was preordained, but at least their conversation is in their own words, and it's very dramatic and sad. That scene was probably the most similar to modern literature you could find in the whole epic, and it was the one that worked best for me.

I found things to entertain me in this, and some parts of it are straight up engaging on their own. Lots of it is less fun, tbh, but anybody picking up an ancient piece of literature expects that.

My recommendation? If you think you might want to read this, look for one of the new translations. You may enjoy it.

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Where the Haunting Takes a Turn

Good Spirits by B.K. Borison
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was pretty good. 3.5 feels closer to how I experienced it. Mostly fun enough and clever enough to read a little each day, though I didn't connect with it emotionally as much as other readers did.

It's a brisk read with some likable characters, and I was especially curious about the mystery of it--how could this Ghost of Christmas Past character be so drawn to and connected to this modern woman? What was in his past or hers that made this haunting go down a path so different from the ghost in the Dickens version? They have some kind of fate thing going on, and their trips first to her past and then to his seem to be teasing something big, something cool, and I was very curious.

There is an answer of sorts, but it was a little underbaked. How the afterlife/haunting-for-a-purpose thing works is not really sorted out. It's mostly skipped over, taking us to the ending. We got the resolution I wanted--this is a romance, after all, and a happily-ever-after is required--but I would have liked there to be a little better explanation for why it worked. Why did this couple get a chance that (seemingly) no other couple have ever enjoyed?

It's quite a sexy book, and I can see that being a plus for some readers, maybe even the main draw, and probably a deal-breaker for others; for me it was--fine. It was fine. Not remarkably different from the fantasies and science fiction novels and historical mysteries that are my usual fare. A touch more explicit, though, if I'm honest. I'm curious what level of spiciness more experienced readers of romance would consider this...

Overall--a pleasant enough read with agreeable characters and nice resolution.

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Where Everyone Deserves a Do-Over

Chronicles of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This wasn't quite what I thought it was, but I still enjoyed it.

I thought this was the third book in the series about Anne of Green Gables, and it may have been the third published, but it's not quite in the regular order. Anne barely figures here, showing up briefly in a a couple places, and these are short stories, not a novel. They take place in and around and near where the previous novels happened, but they're all new characters.

Most of them concern older people who've missed their chance at love and maybe they'll get one more shot at it. A couple deal with adopted kids, people taking in a child (rather like Anne) who changes their lives. All of the stories are about families, about people who are lonely, about people who push others away, and about making new families that bring us joy or peace or happiness. Like the first novels, these stories are a mix of regret and despair and sadness on one hand and the possibility of joy and hope and happiness on the other.

What surprises me most about the stories is that they could, any or all of them, become cloying, too saccharine, and maybe some have leveled that claim, and while I find them decidedly sweet, they are not over-sweet. They're touching, but they keep the people real. Complex characters--flawed, normal people who are sometimes grumpy, foolish, intimidated, proud, or rude--are reaching for a little happiness, and it doesn't feel (to me) like it's unreasonable or unbelievable. Melodramatic, maybe, yes. But real for all of that.

So I still liked it. I would rather see Anne in the stories, because she is the incredible creation of the author that is so easy to cheer for and follow around, almost a patron saint of seeing the beauty in the world, but these quick stories are still very much in the same vein.

Four stars. Recommended.

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Where Admetus Lucks Out

Alcestis by Euripides
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have spent very little time studying Greek tragedy. It's been probably 45 years since I had a class that required it--and that was the last time I read any. I know about as much about Greek tragedy as your average--well, maybe a step up from that--nerdy college freshman. But my self-assigned reading includes plays, and I'm running out of Shakespeare/Marlowe/Jonson/Dryden/Moliere plays that I can find (cheaply). So I decided to take a shot at Euripides on my own.

Also, Guy Gavriel Kay, one of my two or three favorite writers, has sometimes made a case for still reading Greek literature. So I'm partly motivated by shame.

Anyway, this was good.

The end

Well, to expand, I found it pretty enjoyable to read, even the weird strophe/antistrophe stuff that used to give me fits. I just pretend it's a musical and imagine somebody singing those lines, and it all makes sense. The play is not too long; there aren't so many characters that it's hard to keep track of them; the plot is pretty tight (they really believed in that); and [spoilers!] there's a fricking happy ending. What? That's perfect for me. I hate "So everybody died sad" stories with a white-hot heat--and this ain't that.

I kinda hated the MMC Admetus. Apollo liked him and worked him a deal with the Fates where he could get someone else to die in his place. Everyone said no except his sweet wife--and he said cool, you die for me. So when she dies at the start of the play, he's not mad at himself. He's mad at his parents, who he thinks should have sacrificed their lives for him. Nobody else seems to be blaming him, though Admetus finally realizes how he looks.

"Look at the cheap coward," he says, "alive and well,/ who ran away from death--/so small he got his wife to die instead./ Do you call that a man?/ He execrates his parents but could not die himself."

Yeah, dude, it's horrible. It's really, really bad. And the idea of dying for someone, or letting someone die for you, is explored in the play in a way I found pretty useful. There are so many takes on it by the end that I'm not sure what a member of the audience back in those times would have thought. Yes, Admetus is a great man, but his wife was the best of women. Maybe she was awesome for doing what she did; maybe he was awful for letting her. (My opinion.) It's not like he's developing the cure for cancer and just needed a little more time. He just wanted to keep living.

He lucks out when Hercules comes to visit then saves the day by mugging Death and rescuing Alcestis. Sure, it's an unlikely, Deus ex machina-adjacent device--but the whole story is based on impossible mythological nonsense, so... I'm good with it. I like a happy ending.

I find myself encouraged to go on reading old Greek plays that are still new to me. There's a bunch, so no problem there.

4 stars.

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