Wondrous Words Wednesday

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly bookish meme, sponsored by Kathy at Bermuda Onion, where you can share new words that you've discovered in your reading.

I'm a first-time participant in this meme, but I thought I'd play along this week because I am learning a plethora of new words with my current read (plethora--now there's a good word! One of my favorites). Here's what I'm reading:

Jessie Burton's novel The Miniaturist, set in late 17th century Amsterdam is CHOCK-FULL of words completely new to me . . . because they are Dutch terms from that time period. Here's a sample of my favorites so far:

Herenbrood--literally a "gentlemen-bread" that wealthy folk ate, made of wheat flour. Common people ate a cheaper bread made of rye.

Pattens--cloglike shoes with a wooden sole and leather strap. Worn indoors and outside, to protect softer leather shoes from dirt.

Donderbus--literally "thunder-pipe;" referring to an early form of shotgun.

Kandeel--a spiced drink made with wine, sometimes thickened with ground almonds, wheat starch, dried fruit, honey, sugar, and egg yolks (hmmm . . . does that sound tasty, or not? I'm not sure I'd want to try it!)

I love it when authors of historical fiction include some words from the time period; this can really help the reader feel present in the setting.

Have you discovered any new words in your reading this week?

Tuesday Intros -- The Miniaturist

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea hosts a weekly meme in which book lovers share the opening paragraph (sometimes two) of a book they've started to read or are thinking about reading soon. As readers, we often make our decision to continue with a book based on the opening lines.

So here is the book I have just started reading . . .

Here is the opening paragraph of Jessie Burton's The Miniaturist, a novel set in 17th century Amsterdam:

The funeral is supposed to be a quiet affair, for the deceased had no friends. But words are water in Amsterdam, they flood your ears and set the rot, and the church's east corner is crowded. She watches the scene unfold from the safety of the choir stall, as guildsmen and their wives approach the gaping grave like ants toward the honey. Soon, they are joined by VOC [NOTE: Dutch East India Company] clerks and ships' captains, regentesses, pastry makers--and him, still wearing that broad-brimmed hat. She tries to pity him. Pity, unlike hate, can be boxed and put away.

What do you think? Are you interested, and would you keep reading?

It's Monday . . . What Are You Reading?

Good morning . . . and Happy Labor Day! I'm posting on Book Journey's weekly meme about the books we are reading and what is ahead for us. Wow, is it really the end of summer? Yikes, the calendar does not lie. It's a terrible cliche to say "it went by really fast," but . . . . It went by really fast!

We just spent a few days in Niagara Falls for a little end-of-summer fun. Kind of corny, but the falls themselves are a magnificent sight to see, and the offspring loved the whole thing. Tomorrow is the start of the new school year in our house.

Last week on the blog, I posted reviews of these two novels:

My review of Helen Oyeyemi's Boy, Snow, Bird is here. I expected to love it, but unfortunately, the novel fell short of my expectations. The Undertaking by Audrey Magee, which was a finalist for the 2014 Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction, is a bleak but powerful book about two ordinary Germans during World War II. You can read my review here.

Here's what I have been reading:

Laird Hunt's Neverhome: A Novel is the story of a woman who disguises herself as a man to fight in the Union Army during the Civil War. I'm not finished yet, but so far, it's been a great read. Neverhome will be published Sept 9, and I'll post a review soon.

Up next for me . . .

Jessie Burton's The Miniaturist, set in 17th century Amsterdam, has generated a lot of buzz all summer. Isn't that a gorgeous cover? I try not to be overly influenced by cover art in my reading selections, because . . . well, duh, don't judge a book by its cover! But the art on this one can't fail to entice readers of literary historical fiction. I'm hooked before I've even started!

Hope everyone has a lovely Labor Day to end the summer! What's on your reading agenda for fall?

Review of The Undertaking by Audrey Magee

The Undertaking by Audrey Magee
Publisher: Grove Press
Publication Date: September 2, 2014 (US release)
Length: 304 pages
Source: Grove Press via NetGalley

Audrey Magee’s novel The Undertaking, a finalist for the Bailey’s Women's Prize for Fiction, tells the story of two Germans during World War II, a man and a woman who marry for convenience and seek to survive the war in any way that they can. It’s a bleak and brutal book with a profoundly moving conclusion.

The Story: Peter and Katharina marry by proxy in 1941; they have never met and they select one another’s profiles through a marriage bureau. Peter, a private in the German Army, seeks the relief of honeymoon leave from the Eastern Front in Russia. Katharina, a young woman living with her parents in Berlin, marries in order to receive a pension in the event of her husband’s death. Peter’s father calls their marriage nothing more than a “Nazi breeding stunt.”

Peter arrives at Katharina’s apartment directly from the Eastern Front, filthy and covered with lice. Her parents are disappointed in Peter, a lowly schoolteacher before the war. Katharina’s father is a Nazi true believer and encourages Peter to assist the party in order to improve his prospects after the war. Soon Peter, like Katharina’s father, is helping remove Jewish families from their homes in the dead of night.

Unexpectedly, and after a few false starts, Katharina and Peter fall in love during their brief honeymoon. The novel follows the newlyweds’ parallel experiences, as Katharina curries favor with Nazi party bigwigs and Peter marches towards the inevitable horrors of the Battle of Stalingrad. Both Peter and Katharina will make painful, impossible choices as they seek to survive.

What I Thought: This is a powerful book. Once I had become involved with the story, I didn’t want to stop reading. The ending of The Undertaking is one of the most riveting and deeply affecting scenes in fiction I have read in a long time.

Magee brings a new perspective to World War II fiction by telling the stories of two ordinary Germans. Peter and Katharina never question Germany’s victory or the morality of the Nazi party’s actions. Magee has spoken about wanting to highlight the horror in the mundane. There is horror, indeed, in these characters' everyday actions, as Katharina wears the fine clothes of Jews sent to concentration camps and Peter and the other soldiers shoot Russian villagers for their food.

Magee, a journalist, brings into sharp focus the Eastern Front, Russian prisoner-of-war camps, and the barbaric treatment of German women by Russian soldiers at the end of the war. These are not easy or comfortable scenes to read, to be sure, but, as with the Holocaust, these terrible events need to be remembered.

One quibble -- I will say that, although I felt deeply enmeshed in the story, I struggled with the unadorned dialogue in The Undertaking. Magee’s prose throughout the novel is spare and economical, which works well for the most part. But the dialogue, for me, felt oddly stilted and unrealistic. I know that some critics have found this use of dialogue to be innovative, and perhaps it is . . . but I felt it had the effect of removing me from the story and the characters.

I would rate The Undertaking a 4 out of 5 stars, and recommend it to readers of historical fiction or literary fiction. Audrey Magee is certainly deserving of the praise and recognition received for her debut novel; I hope she will write more fiction in the future.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher, Grove Press, through NetGalley. The opinions expressed here, as always, are my own.

Review of Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi

Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi
Publisher: Riverhead
Publication Date: March 6, 2014
Length: 308 pages
Source: My own copy

The Story: Helen Oyeyemi’s most recent novel, Boy, Snow, Bird, begins with the strange childhood of a young, motherless girl with the odd name of Boy. Growing up in the Lower East Side in the 1940s, Boy lives with her abusive father, a rat catcher. In 1953, fearing for her life, Boy finds the strength to run away, and creates a new life in a small town in Massachusetts. A childhood friend pursues her and wishes to marry her, but Boy seems incapable of accepting and returning real love.

Boy marries a widower, although she knows she does not truly love him, and becomes the stepmother to his beautiful and sweet daughter, Snow. In time, Boy gives birth to a daughter of her own, whom she names Bird. The birth of Bird, however, reveals a secret that will cause serious repercussions in the lives of Boy and her family.

My Thoughts: Boy, Snow, Bird is a novel that I expected to love. It’s a re-telling (of a sort) of the fairy tale of Snow White, and I usually enjoy novels that incorporate myth and fairy tales. The themes of race, segregation, and identity are just the kind of themes that I often relish in literary fiction. Helen Oyeyemi is a young novelist whose work has been widely praised by critics, and I had been looking forward to reading one of her books.

But while I appreciated parts of the novel, Boy, Snow, Bird mostly left me cold.

The novel started out well; I was interested in Boy’s disturbing childhood and her escape from her father. But once Boy embarked upon her new life in Massachusetts, the narrative began to lose its power for me. I never felt a strong connection with Boy or any of the other characters. Boy, of course, is supposed to be damaged emotionally and thus distant in her relations with other people, but Oyeyemi doesn’t find a way to let readers into her heart. The other characters seem just as distant and often, completely indistinct.

In Part 2 of the novel, the point of view switches to that of Boy’s daughter Bird, which I found a difficult transition. A long section of letters between Bird and her half-sister Snow was dry and unsatisfying. Oyeyemi returns to Boy’s perspective in Part 3, which includes a rather shocking plot turn. This plot turn seemed out of left field and more than a little unlikely, but at least it added some spark into the narrative. But just as I felt my interest peaked—and finally some sense of connection with Boy—the novel abruptly ends.

I do think Oyeyemi is a talented writer and storyteller; maybe her best work is still ahead of her. Boy, Snow, Bird strikes me as a novel with an intriguing premise that needed more crafting to reach its potential.

Others may have a better experience with Boy, Snow, Bird than I did; perhaps it just wasn’t the novel for me.

It's Monday . . . What Are You Reading?

Good morning! I am back from a family trip, and posting again on this weekly bookish meme hosted by Sheila of Book Journey. I hope everyone had a terrific late summer week in reading last week.

I really have to confess that I didn't get a lot of reading done last week! Our trip was to Maine, and we were busy exploring and hiking most of the week. I thought we'd have more poolside relaxation time--which would have given me reading time--but instead we were constantly on the go. As a consolation, I got to see great views like this:

One bookish place I visited in Maine was so, so cute-- I have to add a picture of this as well. This is Pushcart Press & Bookstore in Sedgwick, Maine, which calls itself "the world's smallest bookstore." It has an eclectic mix of new and used fiction and non-fiction, and it operates on the honor system most of the time; you leave your cash in a cookie tin!

I did manage to finish reading this book....

Helen Oyeyemi's latest novel, Boy, Snow, Bird, was not a big winner for me. I will write a review in the next few days and try to express why. But at least reading it allowed me to complete my Summer TBR list.

I have started reading this book:

Audrey Magee's The Undertaking was a finalist for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction earlier this year, and it will be released in the U.S. on September 2.

Have a great week in reading!

It's Monday . . . What Are You Reading?

Greetings, fellow Book Lovers! The weekly "It's Monday" meme is hosted by Sheila of Book Journey. I'm going to be taking some time off from the blog while on a family vacation. In fact, I scheduled this post to run today while I'm away, so hopefully we are off having a fun and relaxing time while you read this. When you go on vacation, do you get a lot of reading done? For me, it depends on the kind of vacation . . . sometimes I'm able to read a great deal, but other times we're so busy doing activities with the kids that the main reading time I get is during travel time. I will bring plenty of books along, but I'm not sure how much time I'll actually have to read on this trip.

Last week on the blog, I posted reviews of these books :

We Are Not Ourselves by Matthew Thomas is a debut novel generating lots of buzz. It's an intense saga about a New York family facing a colossal struggle; it will be published on August 19th. My review is here.

Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands, the latest novel from Chris Bohjalian, is the moving story of a teenage girl who runs away in the wake of a nuclear meltdown near her home in Northeast Vermont. You can read my review here.

Jon Enfield's The New Men is about an Italian immigrant working for the Ford Motor Company in early part of the twentieth century. My review is here. I was a tour host for the first time on the virtual book tour for The New Men, and it was quite enjoyable to read all the other reviews as the tour moved along from blog to blog. You can check out the official TLC Book Tour site for the tour here.

Here is what I'm reading right now:

Ha--what a funny set of books to be reading all at once! On the surface of it, these three novels appear to have nothing in common. I did not expect to discover any connections among them, but interestingly, they all address, to some extent, the lies we tell ourselves and others and the meaning of truth. Hmm, I wonder if I'll find any other connections . . . .

I will be back to blogging sometime next week when we get back into town. Hope everyone has another great summer reading week!